News roundup, 14 April 2026

- Mark Carney's Liberals have swept three byelections held yesterday, giving them a slight majority of 174 seats in the 338 member House of Commons.

- There are already predictions being made about how the defeat of Viktor Orbán will impact the global right. Certainly it's a sign that Trumpism isn't popular on the international scene, but before we get our hopes up too much, it's worth noting that the incoming prime minister,  Péter Magyar, is right of centre himself and was a member of Orbán's Fidesz party until 2024.

- German chancellor Friedrich Merz is the most unpopular head of government across 24 democracies. Only 19% of Germans approve of his performance, while 76% disapprove; Emmanuel Macron had a lower approval rating (18%) but also a lower disapproval rating (74%). The margin of error for the survey isn't given, though, so it's questionable how meaningful the ranking is for those two. Meanwhile Donald Trump's approval rating is still 38% in spite of everything, and his disapproval rating is only 57%. Leaders of Spain, Italy, and Argentina also fall into that mid-range; the most popular leaders among the countries surveyed were Indian PM Narendra Modi (70%), South Korean president Jae-myung (63%) and Czech PM Andrej Babiš (55%). From that it's probably safe to say that there's no correlation in either direction between how popular a leader is and how good they are.

- Electric vehicles are getting cheaper; even in the US they're increasingly competitive with conventional cars. Combine that with the impact of Trump's war on fuel prices and Americans just might find themselves dragged into the EV era, no matter how emasculating it might be to not hear that V8 roar when you press the accelerator.

- Two people have been arrested after allegedly opening fire on the home of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. This comes only two days after someone else tried torching the place. Nobody was injured in either incident. Meanwhile a survey of  2,400 "knowledge workers" found that 29% of those surveyed admitted to taking actions to sabotage their companies' rollout of AI. Of course the way AI gets introduced is often pretty haphazard; some of the accounts given in this related Reddit thread are pretty telling:

"The majority of AI rollouts that I've seen have been 'Please guys, find any problem that we can solve with AI. Anything, please. Just do something, the executives don't have any ideas either but we need AI.' and then they blame the workers when there's not any useful use case."

"My wife's company had that. Find a way to build it into your workflow. Then suddenly someone changed they mind and they're requiring you NOT to use it. I think someone just found out how shit it can be. So now, weeks after being aggressively pushed to use AI whenever possible, it's now pause all AI use." 

I think in a lot of cases companies have been sold on the idea that investors want you introducing AI as soon as possible and that your stock value depends on this, so executives push people to find some use, any use, for the technology so that they can include metrics about how much they're using it in their annual reports. Certainly that's what the AI companies themselves would have you believe. And I guess day traders don't hold onto the stock long enough to see the technology fail to deliver anyway.

News roundup, 3 March 2026

- Along with Mark Carney, several other leaders of countries with close ties to the US are being very circumspect about what they're saying about the attack on Iran. Leaders of the UK, France, and Germany, while quick to point out that they weren't involved in the strikes, seem very reluctant to condemn them either. French president Emmnauel Macron had initially, on Saturday, called for an end to military escalation in the region, calling it "dangerous to all" but he'd evidently changed his tune by the time the joint statement with Germany and the UK came out. In contrast, Spain's prime minister, Pedro Sanchez, has not held back, calling for "immediate de-escalation and full respect for international law", while Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that he was "deeply troubled" by the attack (while also condemning Iran's counterstrikes on countries not directly involved in the attack). Meanwhile, the Strait of Hormuz has been closed by Iran; what that will do to gas prices remains to be seen, but from a more cynical (or, as Sir Humphrey Appleby would say, "realistic") point of view, I can see Mark Carney being privately happy, since an Alberta that's flush with oil money as a result might be less fractious than the province is currently. In the US, the Democrats are divided on the matter - while Bernie Sanders condemned what he called "an illegal, premeditated and unconstitutional war", and other such as Tim Kaine and Chris Van Hollen have also been critical, other such as Henry Cuellar and Tom Suozzi have been supportive (presumably because of Israel's involvement, though they aren't putting it in those terms of course). In other related news, Kuwait seem to have inadvertently shot down three American fighters in the confusion.

- A judge in North Dakota has upheld a $345 million judgment against Greenpeace following a lawsuit by pipeline company Energy Transfer over the organization's actions in fighting the Dakota Access Pipeline. On paper, the judgment affects not only Greenpeace USA but also Greenpeace International, which is based in Europe; one hopes the latter organization can get sheltered from the verdict by the EU, but it looks like Greenpeace USA is finished.

- Peter Thiel's company, Palantir, went to great efforts to try to sell their services to the Swiss government over several years, but Switzerland rejected their advances for multiple reasons, including legal matters concerning data sovereignty as well as straight up national security concerns, a reasonable concern when you're being courted by a company with close ties to the US government. When the Swiss online publication Republik investigated the matter and asked Palantir for comment, the company sent them what Republik’s managing director called "very lengthy" counterstatements for each of a series of articles, which she says "do not fairly address or rebut the reporting". Nonetheless, Palantir is taking the magazine to court under Switzerland's "right to reply" legislation, calling the reporting "misleading", but notably they are not suing for defamation, which you'd expect they would be if the reporting actually were misleading. Perhaps Thiel has never heard of the Streisand Effect.

- Far-right independent MLA Tara Armstrong introduced a bill in the BC legislature to repeal the province's Human Rights Code. The bill was defeated, but the entire BC Conservative caucus voted in favour. Armstrong, who represents the constituency of Kelowna-Lake Country-Coldstream, was originally elected as a Conservative but left that party along with a colleague to form the OneBC party. She then left that party a few months later to sit as an independent; evidently she doesn't play well with others, but the Cons are all too happy to have her drop bills that they can claim need to be debated, serving as a sort of Vladimir Zhirinovsky or Avigdor Lieberman to Rustad's Putin or Netanyahu. More info about her can be found here.

- Ivermectin, the antihelminthic drug that was touted (with zero evidence) as a treatment for COVID-19, is now being used as an alternative cancer therapy, again with no evidence that it works. It's almost as if the drug has become a sort of totem or sacrament for deplorables.

News roundup, 24 Feb 2026

- Most folks associated with the Republicans will vehemently deny any Nazi sympathies. Maybe some of them are even telling the truth and are just extremely ignorant, but it's getting harder and harder to give them the benefit of the doubt. The Trump regime seems to be very clearly copying Nazi aesthetics and phrasing, for instance. It's getting to the point where thoughtful, reasonable conservatives like the author of this article - of whom there seem to be fewer and fewer these days - are leaving the Republican Party in disgust.

- The Conservatives have introduced several proposed amendments to the Carney government's budget implementation bill, which would impose limits on the government's proposed power to exempt corporations from some regulations. Perhaps the only thing more surprising than the Conservatives proposing something half-decent is the fact that the Liberals have accepted the amendments. Maybe politics in this country isn't quite as far gone as it is in the US.

- The would-be assassin who was killed by security at the Mar-a-Lago compound appears to have come from a family of Trump supporters in North Carolina, but left behind a bunch of writings expressing rage over the Epstein files. 

- The Macron government issued a summons to US ambassador Charlie Kushner (father of Jared) following comments regarding the killing of far-right activist Quentin Deranque in Lyon. Kushner, however, refused to attend and has had his access to French officials blocked in response.

- An 11 year old boy in Perry County, Pennsylvania apparently was displeased when his parents took away his Nintendo Switch. Police believe he was so displeased, in fact, that he shot his father to death. Interestingly, in Pennsylvania minors charged with murder are tried as an adult by default, though the case can be moved to juvenile court under some circumstances. In Canada he couldn't even be charged criminally, though one would hope other measures would be taken.

News roundup, 17 Feb 2025

- The US Federal Trade Commission chair Andrew Ferguson is accusing Apple News of "suppressing" rightwing news outlets, including the New York Post, the Daily Mail, Fox News, Breitbart, and Gateway Pundit. Ferguson claims that Apple may be violating part of its terms of service agreement with its customers, though he did not specify any specific provisions that the company might be violating.

- A French far-right activist who was providing "security" for protesters against a speech by leftwing MEP Rima Hassan in Lyon was beaten to death after getting separated from his fellow fascists. A manslaughter investigation has been opened; President Emmanuel Macron has appealed for calm.

- Two Latvian fans who waved a Greenland flag during the warmups for the US-Denmark hockey game at the Olympics were told to stop after organizers feared that it could provoke violence from American fans.

- Longtime American civil rights leader Jesse Jackson has died at the age of 84. 

- The Winnipeg city councillor behind the proposed anti-protest bylaw has withdrawn his support for the move following a public outcry. Coun. Evan Duncan also says that a bill before Parliament covers much of what the bylaw was intended to address anyway.

- Winnipeg's police headquarters suffered substantial water damage after a valve was opened in a standpipe on an upper floor of the building. Two people have been arrested on mischief charges.

News roundup, 7 Oct 2025

- South Korea's Ministry of National Defense is giving medals to 11 soldiers who refused unlawful orders when President Yoon Suk Yeol attempted to declare martial law last year. This has not been without controversy; some soldiers and online commenters fear that rewarding disobedience and encouraging soldiers to think for themselves will erode military discipline and even harm national security. I'd wager that most of those complaints come from Yoon's rightwing supporters. 

-  The control tower at the airport in the Los Angeles suburb of Burbank was unstaffed Monday evening, after all the controllers scheduled for that shift called in sick. Of course, when controllers are being expected to work despite not getting paid due to the government shutdown, stuff like this is bound to happen. ATC operations for the airport were being handled out of San Diego.

- The home of South Carolina judge Diane Goodstein was destroyed by fire on Saturday; she was not home at the time of the fire but her husband, son, and one other relative were seriously injured. While arson has not been confirmed as the cause of the fire, Goodstein had received death threats in recent weeks after ruling against the federal Department of Justice last month. The DOJ had requested detailed personal information of over three million registered voters, ostensibly to prevent voter fraud; Goodstein had ruled that this violated privacy rights.

- California governor Gavin Newsom has signed into law a bill that allows drivers in ridesharing companies like Uber and Lyft to unionize. To placate the companies he also signed a measure that significantly cuts their insurance requirements.

- Newly appointed French prime minister Sébastien Lecornu, a member of President Emmanuel Macron's centrist Renaissance party, has resigned mere hours after being appointed, after concluding that he would be unable to win the confidence of the country's parliament. Left leaning parliamentarians are calling for Macron to appoint one of their number as prime minister; National Rally leader Marine Le Pen is calling for snap parliamentary elections and for Macron's resignation. Jean-Luc Mélenchon's far-left La France Insoumise party is making the same demand as Le Pen.

- The Trump regime has cancelled nearly $8 billion in clean energy projects. This in itself is par for the course; one thing that stands out though is that all of the states affected voted for Kamala Harris in the 2024 election. Presumably the regime is aware that the projects are creating badly needed jobs in red states, and they're leery of angering those states until they've tightened their grip on power. It's reminiscent of mid-20th century Quebec premier Maurice Duplessis, who paved roads right up to the boundaries of constituencies that voted for his party while leaving them unpaved in places that voted for the opposition.

- An executive order from Trump earlier this year has targeted 100 million acres of forest for logging. This order was followed by a memo from agriculture secretary Brooke Rollins that specifically identifies the Wayne National Forest, Ohio's only national forest, as a site for lumber production. Over 80% of the forest has deemed suitable for logging, which could mean the end of the forest as we know it.

- A 17 year old boy has been charged with two counts of first degree murder after allegedly running over two teenage girls in New Jersey, one of whom he had been accused of stalking. Not mentioned in the CBS article are allegations that the accused, Vincent Battiloro, was a Charlie Kirk fan and may have been partially motivated by that victim's mocking of Kirk. I guess the folks at CBS don't want to open that can of worms.

News roundup, 24 July 2025

- All remaining personnel in Leaf Rapids, Manitoba, including firefighters, have withdrawn from the community as a wildfire entered the industrial area of the town. 

- Sales of American alcohol in Canada are down 66% nationwide; for wine, imports are down a whopping 94%. Given that most provinces aren't stocking the stuff at all, though, one has to wonder why it's not down more; perhaps the deplorables in Alberta and Saskatchewan are buying a lot to show their allegiance to the orange monster.

-  Time is announcing what they call a "surprising" reason for the increase in grocery prices, namely the large number of extreme weather events of late. And yes, it's pretty apparent that climate change is probably responsible for how many such events there have been recently. This does not come as a surprise, though, to anyone who's been paying the slightest bit of attention.

- Many Canadians who are trying to boycott American products are finding that grocery chains are using misleading signage on imported food displays in their stores. This is of course illegal, but I have yet to hear of one of them getting fined for it. Best to read the fine print on the labels, I guess.

- French president Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte are suing far-right podcaster Candace Owens for defamation after Owens alleged that Brigitte is trans, that the two are blood relations, and that the CIA used mind control to get the French people to vote for Emmanuel.

- Parks Canada has cancelled the permit for MAGA rocker Sean Feucht to perform at the York Redoubt National Historic Site in Nova Scotia, citing "evolving safety and security considerations" and recommendations from the police. Several municipalities, including Charlottetown, Moncton, and Quebec City have followed suit, as has the National Capital Commission in the case of a planned show in Gatineau. The York Redoubt performance has relocated to the hamlet of Shubenacadie, population 411, in East Hants; shows are also still scheduled to go on in Toronto and Ottawa if you're really keen to see him.

- Waterloo Regional Police arrested a man spotted riding a stolen bicycle on the University of Waterloo campus and found him to be in possession of something that appeared to be a grenade. Fortunately it was an inert one, intended to be used for training purposes.

News roundup, 1 April 2025

- French far-right leader Marine Le Pen has been banned from running for political office for five years after being convicted of illegally siphoning millions of euros in public funds for her own party's use. She also received a four year suspended sentence. Predictably, Le Pen as well as her fellow deplorables around the world are having a conniption, saying that the decision saying the decision is politically motivated. Admittedly, it is very convenient for Emmanuel Macron, but it's a bit of a stretch to think the whole court system is in his pocket. A recent poll indicates that a majority of French citizens think the court ruled fairly, bit it's a slimmer majority than one might like (57%).

- The Liberal candidate in Markham-Unionville, Paul Chiang, has withdrawn from the race following his unfortunate remarks about how someone ought to claim a bounty on his Tory opponent. Probably a good move, especially since the RCMP is now looking into the matter.

- The University of Winnipeg is the latest post-secondary institution to face a financial crunch, partly as a result of cuts to international student visas. Last week the university's president brought up a clause in the faculty's collective agreement that could allow for layoffs. The fact that universities across the country are facing the same problem make this a bad time for academics.

- The Sioux Valley Dakota Nation has banned provincial courts from holding sessions on its jurisdiction until a suitable facility can be built. Community leaders say that what has been done up until now, which is for the court to use the community's mature student centre for its semi-monthly hearings, is not satisfactory because the student centre does not have the security measures needed to handle some of the violent criminals the court is dealing with (such as partitions separating the accused from witnesses). This is especially unfortunate because the circuit court arrangement was designed to make the courts more accessible to the community.

- The Green Party is calling for Canada's military reserves to be expanded by 20,000 people. Not an April Fool's joke; that's just the world we live in now. The party's co-leader Jonathan Pedneault made the announcement in Whitehorse yesterday, saying in addition that he wants to create a 120,000 person civil defence corps.

- A Canadian has been detained in the Dominican Republic because his name was similar to someone whose name was on a checked bag that was full of drugs. Maybe those who aren't deterred by the climate footprint of air travel or the Dominican Republic's problematic human rights record should look at this as another reason to stay home.

News roundup, 22 Jan 2025

- Donald Trump has issued pardons for over 1,500 rioters who participated in the Jan 6 coup attempt, as well as commuting the sentences of several leaders of the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys who were imprisoned for their part in the putsch.

- European leaders are not giving up on the Paris agreement despite the US withdrawal. This is reassuring, but it should be noted that Europe is not immune to the kind of madness that has swept the US (some may recall that they had problems of that kind before). And those problems just keep threatening to come back. Austria's centre-left, centrist, and centre-right parties just failed to piece together a coalition following last September's election, meaning that the far right Freedom Party (FPÖ) will have a crack at forming government. There are fears that Germany could be at risk of a similar takeover.

- French President Emmanuel Macron is concerned at the possibility of the US withdrawing forces from Europe, perhaps to focus on China, and called for EU countries to increase their defense spending. That in itself would be fair enough; more worrisome is the fact that Macron, who is in command of the world's third largest combat-ready nuclear arsenal, is talking about possibly sending troops to Ukraine, which while easy to sympathize with would pose unacceptable escalation risks. Evidently too many people have forgotten the lessons of Cold War era war simulations like Proud Prophet, which among other things concluded that "relying on escalation as a means of conflict resolution" would likely lead to all-out nuclear war.

- Another of Trump's executive orders blocks the leasing of any federal land for wind farms, and could potentially even lead to the removal of existing ones by not renewing their leases.

- For all you can say about Joe Biden's handling of the Israel-Palestine situation, he did at least impose sanctions on far-right settler leaders in the West Bank. Yet another of Trump's executive orders has lifted those sanctions, though.

- The Manitoba RCMP has deployed a Black Hawk helicopter to the Canada-US border to monitor the smuggling of people and other commodities across the border, perhaps in an attempt to placate the US.

- A Winnipeg man has pleaded guilty to several offenses, including dangerous operation of a motor vehicle, mischief over $5,000, and assaulting a police officer following a crack- and meth-fuelled rampage with an excavator at a water treatment plant, which caused damage to 5 buildings, as well as several vehicles and pieces of heavy equipment.

News roundup, 5 Dec 2024

- The number of homicides in rural and small-town Manitoba has surged in the last year. A total of 55 have been reported so far this year in jurisdictions policed by the RCMP; by comparison there were only 30 confirmed homicides and 3 suspicious deaths in the entirety of last year.

- A location has been tentatively selected for Manitoba's first supervised consumption site (not counting bars of course). The location is on Disraeli near Henry Street; concerns are being raised by some about the proximity of Argyle Alternative High School, but the government has assured the Winnipeg School Division that they will not proceed unless the site is secure.

- Former Conservative party leadership candidate (and current Brampton mayor) Patrick Brown has been summoned to testify before a parliamentary committee regarding allegations of Indian interference in Canadian politics. This includes the accusation that volunteers on Brown's leadership campaign, including MP Michelle Rempel Garner, were pressured to withdraw their support; according to someone connected to the campaign, Rempel Garner was approached by representatives of the Indian consulate who warned that it "was not in her best interest" to continue working with Brown. Rempel Garner denies this, however.

- French Prime Minister Michel Barnier's government has been defeated, as expected, in a non-confidence vote, though they are expected to remain in a caretaker position until a new government is appointed. President Emmanuel Macron is expected to address the nation today, but finding an actual solution to the problem may be difficult as France's parliament is split into three similar-sized blocs, none of which is keen to work with the others.

- Amnesty International has joined the ranks of those who condemn Israel's actions in Gaza as genocidal, while acknowledging that the attacks on Israel that were the immediate trigger for the attacks were also atrocities.

- The CEO of UnitedHealthcare, a division of the largest health insurer in the US, was shot dead outside the hotel where he was about to speak at a conference of investors in the company. The suspect currently remains at large.

- A nun is among those arrested in Italy in a crackdown on the country's most powerful mafia network. Prosecutors allege that she served as a conduit between the gang and its incarcerated associates while serving as a volunteer at prisons. Two former politicians from parties associated with the country's rightwing government were also caught in the net.

News roundup, 4 Dec 2024

- At Justin Trudeau's meeting with Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago this past Friday, the incoming president quipped that Canada should join the US if we can't handle the 25% tariffs being slapped on imports. Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc insists that Trump was joking, but he has previously expressed interest in our water, and as anyone who's read Richard Rohmer's novel Ultimatum or seen the miniseries H₂O knows, these things should not be taken lightly.

- South Korean president Yoon Suk Yeol is facing possible impeachment following the short-lived imposition of martial law overnight. Yoon says his move was necessitated by "North Korea-sympathizing anti-state forces" and accuses the opposition of "attempting to overthrow the liberal democratic system through legislative dictatorship", but the fact that he's facing serious corruption allegations that were being investigated by the opposition is probably the real reason.

- French prime minister Michel Barnier, appointed by President Emmanuel Macron only 90 days ago, is facing a motion of non-confidence, after using executive powers to push a budget through without parliamentary support.

- The Auto Trader website forecasts that the number of gasoline-powered cars in the UK will fall by over 40% over the next decade.

- Several businesses in Winnipeg are no longer accepting cash, apparently to deter robberies. This has become somewhat common elsewhere as well, and has raised concerns. Some are calling for legislation to limit this, since it discriminates against people who don't have a bank account or credit card, and from a certain point of view this could be seen as discrimination on the grounds of "social condition", which is prohibited in some jurisdictions. Some cities and states in the US have adopted or are considering such legislation.

- More than six weeks after a BC man, Jim Barnes, went missing on a hunting trip, a dog believed to be his has been found alive. The dog is not tattooed or microchipped, but appeared to recognize Barnes' partner and other people that it would have been familiar with.

News roundup, 23 Sept 2024

- French President Emmanuel Macron has appointed a new government from the fragmented parliament elected in a snap election earlier this year. The new government is a coalition between his own Renaissance party and the conservative Republicans; however the two parties combined do not have a majority and they will need the support of other parties to pass legislation - possibly including Marine Le Pen's National Rally.

- The author of a recent article in the Manitoba Law Journal on the question of whether it's OK for a backbench MLA such as Mark Wasyliw to be practicing criminal law at the same time thinks there are real issues with the matter, with potentials for conflict of interest as well as the more basic question of whether it's advisable to be trying to do two fairly demanding jobs at the same time. He is, however, critical of the focus on the connection with Peter Nygard. Meanwhile NDP caucus chair Mike Moyes has stated that Wasyliw was a difficult person to deal with; that he may well have been, but I guess that doesn't resonate with the public the way the Nygard thing does. In any case, the matter does not seem to have impacted Wab Kinew's popularity; he still has the highest approval rating of any premier in the country.

- In Ontario, the Ford government is planning to override municipal powers again, this time to restrict municipalities' ability to build bike lanes. The proposed legislation is called the "Reducing Gridlock and Saving You Time Act". In actual fact, fewer bike lanes likely means more motor vehicles on the road and hence more gridlock, but the suburbanites Ford is trying to court seem incapable of understanding that. Or else they don't care because they're stuck driving anyway thanks to their questionable lifestyle choices, so they want to make sure inner city residents don't have it any better.

- Solar energy continues to surge worldwide, and some are predicting that this could finally be the tipping point that starts to cause a reduction in global carbon emissions. Some environmentalists are concerned about the impact of some solar installations, fearing that this will alter some pristine habitats, but the truth is that no habitat is likely to escape dramatic change in the next few decades, so maybe the best approach is to focus on keeping as many habitats viable as possible, rather than pristine. Meanwhile in Norway, electric cars now outnumber gas-powered ones.

- Speaking of keeping habitats viable, as opposed to pristine, researchers in the US, Mexico, and the Caribbean have had some success in breeding heat-resistant corals. Stuff like this is necessary, though it will probably also make some uncomfortable because it's pretty much an admission that wilderness, as we understand it, is essentially a thing of the past. In a similar vein, I think it would make a lot of sense to replant the burned areas of Jasper National Park, say, with broad-leaved trees that are better suited to a warmer climate (and less prone to severe wildfires), but that might be unpopular since it would greatly change the nature of the park. Like it or not, though, engineered ecosystems are going to have to be a much bigger part of our world in the future.

- A large housing and commercial project planned for the French city of Caen has been scrapped following a study that concluded that the sea level rise that's already locked in from climate change will render the site where it was planned uninhabitable in a matter of decades.

- While Kamala Harris stands a good chance of winning in the fall, the possibility that a state with enough electors to decide the outcome could end up in the Supreme Court is worrisome.

- Bruce Zuchowski, the sheriff of Portage County, Ohio, suggested that residents of his county keep lists of addresses with Democratic election signs. One resident who called the sheriff's office and left a message critical of this says that they started getting calls from blocked numbers, and when they finally answered the caller simply read out their name and address. Not particularly subtle of them, that's for sure.