News roundup, 5 Nov 2024

- The polls in today's election remain extremely close. The margin of error is big enough that either candidate could win a healthy majority of electoral votes. Notably, Harris needs to win the popular vote by 2.1 points in order to have a realistic chance of actually winning the Electoral College - and she'd need to beat Trump by 4.5 points in order to have a landslide. One of the things to worry about is that if Harris' margin of victory is narrow enough that a single state could make the difference, Trump's pawns in the Supreme Court could decide to award the election to him.

- Besides the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times, numerous other American newspapers have declared that they will not be endorsing any candidate. More interestingly, there seems to have been a precipitous drop in endorsements since 2016. Admittedly, there were signs of a downward trend before then (and in and of itself it might not even a bad thing), but it's really taken off since Trump first rose to the presidency. Now some of this might come down to newspaper owners preferring to avoid paying taxes, and so papers that might previously have endorsed the Republican candidate might just avoid an endorsement since endorsing Trump looks so darned bad. But it's noteworthy that among papers that have stopped endorsing candidates, a disproportionate number of them were papers based in states that Trump won and which had endorsed Clinton in that election. It sure looks like the papers are downright scared of Trump... or rather of his supporters. Which makes sense given that Trump recently said at a rally that he wouldn't mind if a few journalists got shot...

- Murray Sinclair, groundbreaking judge and senator, has died at the age of 73. A member of Peguis First Nation, he became Manitoba's first indigenous judge (and the second in Canada) in 1988, presiding over the Aboriginal Justice Inquiry in 1988 and later the Truth and Reconciliation commission before being appointed to the Senate in 2016.

- The newly elected BC legislature now faces the task of selecting a speaker. This is a tricky matter, as the speaker does not vote on bills except to break a tie, and they are constrained by convention on how to vote on such matters (essentially, they vote to preserve the status quo, so on first and second readings they vote yes to preserve debate, while on the third reading they vote no unless it is a confidence matter, in which case they vote yes). And if an NDP MLA is chosen as speaker, the NDP will have a minority government in all but name; they'll need the support of the Greens (or the Cons) to pass anything beyond a budget. Meanwhile the Cons are fulminating over an apparent error that resulted in a box containing 861 ballots not being counted on election night. It should be noted that this occurred in the constituency of Prince George-Mackenzie, a riding that the Cons won by over 5,000 votes. A smaller, yet potentially more consequential error occurred in Surrey-Guildford, in which 14 votes were initially overlooked in a constituency that the NDP held by only 27 votes. Of course the Cons will continue to scream malfeasance regardless of what any future inquiries reveal, because that's what they do.

- There's been another violent carjacking in Winnipeg, in which the driver was hit by his own vehicle after being bear-sprayed. The vehicle was later recovered but the suspect remains at large.

- Manitoba's Independent Investigation Unit, which is supposed to investigate potential criminal activity by police officers, has recommended no criminal charges for a Winnipeg cop who failed an alcohol screening after being uncooperative with RCMP officers who pulled him over near Rennie. I guess most of the members of the IIU still have to drive to work and thus are vulnerable to police harassment...

- A man who ran his truck into a march for residential school survivors after making racist threats towards the marchers has avoided jail, instead receiving a 9-month conditional sentence and a 12-month driving prohibition.

- I can't say I've ever seen a Hallmark movie (some of which are made right here in Winnipeg, incidentally). Those whose judgment I trust generally seem to think that they constitute a high crime against the cinematic arts. Others might disagree, but I think even those people could agree that overtly ageist casting policies are worthy of disapproval.

News roundup, 28 Oct 2024

- Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko has warned Russia that any attempt to annex his country would lead to war. Belarus has until now been seen as a pretty reliable ally for Russia, but there are suspicions that the annexation of the country is part of Putin's long-term plans. Others scoff at this; some in this Reddit thread think this is just a show for the West, or else Lukashenko trying to keep a door to the West open in case Russia's ambitions in Ukraine are thwarted.

- Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, speaking as the warmup act for a Donald Trump rally in Georgia, gave a rather graphic metaphor for what he hopes a second Trump presidency would mean for America:

“If you allow your hormone-addled 15-year-old daughter to slam the door and give you the finger, you’re going to get more of it,” Carlson said. “There has to be a point at which Dad comes home.” At this point the crowd erupted into raucous cheers.

“Dad comes home and he’s pissed,” Carlson continues. “He’s not vengeful, he loves his children. Disobedient as they may be, he loves them … And when Dad gets home, you know what he says? You’ve been a bad girl. You’ve been a bad little girl and you’re getting a vigorous spanking right now. And no, it’s not going to hurt me more than it hurts you. No, it’s not. I’m not going to lie. It’s going to hurt you a lot more than it hurts me. And you earned this. You’re getting a vigorous spanking because you’ve been a bad girl, and it has to be this way.”

Clearly this struck a chord with the crowd. Later, when Trump came on stage, they screamed “Daddy’s home” and “Daddy Don”. Sigmund Freud almost rose from his grave.

It's becoming more and more apparent that close to half of the American population is, to put it kindly, not of sound mind.

- The Washington Post has announced that they will not endorse any candidate for president this year, for the first time since 1988. Reportedly the editorial page editor, David Shipley, had approved an endorsement of Harris, but it was shot down by "management" (presumably meaning Jeff Bezos). The move sparked resignations from the board; the same thing also happened at the Los Angeles Times. This has led to speculation that management is scared of what Trump might do to them if he does win the presidency - or at least insufficiently scared of what he might do to other people.

- New Flyer Industries is significantly expanding their production of electric transit buses. This will enable some buses to be completely assembled at the Winnipeg plant; until now only the shells of the buses have been manufactured here, while the mechanicals have been added at a plant in Alabama. One hopes that some of these buses can be put to use on our own streets...

- A final seat count for BC's election last week is still pending as some 22,000 absentee ballots await counting.

- The robotics industry is now producing farm equipment that can harvest crops autonomously. This will help deal with the shortage of farm labour; it will probably also hasten the depopulation (and resulting decline in political influence) of rural areas.

- Chris Alexander, who served as Minister of Citizenship and Immigration under Stephen Harper, has accused Postmedia reporter David Pugliese of having been a Russian asset since the 1980s. The allegation was made during Alexander's testimony before the House of Commons standing committee on public safety and national security on Thursday.

- A private member's bill introduced to the Ontario legislature by Liberal MPP Karen McCrimmon aimed to facilitate the conversion of vacant office space into housing. Unfortunately the government has shot the bill down; whether this is just the knee-jerk reaction of a government that doesn't want anything done that they can't take credit for, or whether they have a deeper opposition to the idea, is not clear. I could see Doug Ford not relishing an expansion of housing in the inner city, though, as such housing tends to be occupied by people less inclined to vote for his party. Not to mention, a disproportionate amount of Ford's base comes from people who work jobs that can't be done remotely, and some of those people are downright resentful of people who are able to do so.