News roundup, 18 Aug 2025

- The IDF has reportedly created a "legitimization cell", tasked with trying to find whatever tenuous connections it can find between Hamas and journalists working in Gaza. That way, when they kill said journalists, they can present this "evidence" as a way of claiming self-defense.

- California, unlike most states, has an independent electoral commission to draw district boundaries. However, Governor Gavin Newsom is prepared to override the commission for seats in the House of Representatives if other states, such as Texas, go ahead with highly gerrymandered districts for their own states. Public opinion in California opposes this, and partisan redistricting has been shown to erode confidence in democracy, but it might be the best chance the Democrats have of regaining control of the House.

- The Carney government attempted to order striking Air Canada flight attendants back to work over the weekend, invoking Section 107 of the Canada Labour Code to order binding arbitration. The union, however, is defying the order, essentially calling the government's bluff. It definitely seems like a questionable order; being able to hop on a plane to fly wherever you like is not an essential service by any reasonable standards.

- Back in the 1970s, uneasiness about the safety of nuclear fission energy led Oregon's liberal legislators to introduce legislation to give the public more say over the location of power plants. Unfortunately this has now backfired; rightwing activists are using the legislation to hold up the construction of wind farms and upgrades to transmission lines.

- The Winnipeg Humane Society was kicked out of the Hanover Ag Fair because they had a display with a papier mâché pig. The display was meant to show people the kind of conditions actual pigs are typically kept in, but the fair's organizers were not amused. They have said little about the reason for kicking the WHS out other than saying that the display was not what they had expected. 

News roundup, 27 June 2025

- A 49 year old Canadian citizen has died in ICE custody in Florida. He had been a permanent resident since 1991 and was in custody pending deportation, having been convicted of drug offenses; he suffered from epilepsy and needed a medication to control his seizures, though it is not yet known if this is the reason for his death.

- Even as the IDF continues to demolish Gaza, their irregulars (the nominally civilian West Bank settlers) held a vicious pogrom in the town of Kafr Malik. When the locals responded by throwing stones at the attackers, the official wing of the army opened fire, killing three people. It's stuff like this that has led many to question whether the settlers should be considered to be civilians (and thus whether killing them counts as terrorism).

- The so-called "revenge tax" provision of the "One Big Beautiful Bill", which would have taxed US investment income for residents of countries that had annoyed Trump, has been removed by Republican senators following a recommendation from Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. Evidently the prospect of foreign investors divesting from US securities en masse didn't seem like such a good thing after some consideration.

- New York City's establishment, including the likes of hedge fund manager Daniel Loeb, are freaking out over Zohran Mamdani's victory in the Democratic primary for mayor, and are getting in line behind incumbent mayor Eric Adams, who is running as an independent. Better a crook than a lefty in their minds, I guess.

- Winnipeg's most famous intersection, Portage and Main, is reopening to pedestrian traffic after 46 years. 

- A report submitted to Winnipeg's Public Works Committee has recommended the installation of bike lanes and the lowering of the speed limit to 40 km/h on the part of Wellington Crescent where a cyclist was killed last year. The proposal is for the changes to be in place by next spring, to give time for consultations; activists think a better approach would have been to provisionally make the changes and then see what people think of the reality of it rather than the idea of it, but that would make too much sense I guess.

- Trump Mobile, the president's venture into cellphone services, has removed the phrase "made in the USA" from its website, though they still insist that the phones are "brought to life" in the US, and that there will be "American hands behind every device". A cynic might wonder if the hands in question are the users' hands; if that were the case it would probably be technically accurate (who but an American would be fool enough to buy one?)

- Chinese authorities have declined a request for information about the crash of a China Eastern Airlines Boeing 737 in 2022 that killed 132 people, citing "national security". Based on information that has already leaked out about the crash, there are suspicions that it may have been a case of pilot suicide; perhaps the authorities don't want to have to answer any hard questions about that.

News roundup, 22 April 2024

- The Manitoba government has confirmed that they will be lifting the ban on homegrown cannabis in the province. Most other provinces (except Quebec) already allow this.

- The Israel Defense Force's head of intelligence has resigned over the failure to see the October 7 attack coming. Some are asking why the shekel stops there, though; opposition leader Yair Lapid is calling for Netanyahu to resign as well. In related news, the US is reportedly preparing sanctions against a specific battalion of the IDF, following reports of human rights violations by the battalion. The Israelis are not pleased.

- The US Supreme Court will be hearing a case on whether laws against sleeping rough are enforceable if there is no adequate shelter elsewhere. Courts in Canada have ruled against such laws in similar cases, though whether the current makeup of the American court is conducive to this is another question.

- Sections of Ontario's Security from Trespass and Protecting Food Safety Act, an "ag-gag" law, have been declared unconstitutional. The affected sections are those that allow activists or journalists who take on a job at livestock facilities to be considered trespassers if they are found to have misrepresented their backgrounds in order to get the job.

- A climate activist in the UK was charged with contempt of court for standing outside a courthouse where other activists were on trial while holding a placard advising jurors of their right to acquit based on conscience. The charges have been dismissed, however.

- Populist politicians (most of whom are rightwing these days) love the phrase "common sense". Whenever I hear it, though, I am reminded of a saying (often attributed to Einstein, though as with most "Einstein" quotes it's unclear whether he actually said it) that "Common sense is nothing more than a deposit of prejudices laid down in the mind before age eighteen". Lurking behind the phrase is anti-intellectualism, atavism, and in a lot of cases, xenophobia. John Wiens has a lot to say on the subject here.

Activist says Israelis shot webmaster in flotilla raid

The Israelis claim the shootings that occurred in the raid were self-defense; however this must be some strange new use of the term "self-defense" that I've never heard before:

Athens - Israeli commandos killed a Turkish activist on a ship trying to ferry aid to Gaza last week in order to halt the transfer of video images to the internet, a Greek activist said on Sunday.

"Up to half an hour after the attack, despite the electronic warfare measures, the Mavi Marmara continued to send images to the internet thanks to an ultra-modern system run by a Turkish volunteer," Greek activist Dimitris Plionis told the Eleftherotypia newspaper.

"Then, I saw him dead, with a bullet wound in his torso," said the mechanic, one of two Greeks on board the Mavi Marmara.

"The Israelis above all wanted to shut down the transfer of images. The Turks had installed maybe a hundred cameras that continuously broadcast images. The system went silent after its administrator was assassinated," he added.

Source (h/t -=+=- at babble).