News roundup, 8 July 2026

- A new bill before the US Congress would direct the US Trade Representative to investigate the bans on American alcohol by most Canadian provinces. In the modern American tradition of contrived backronyms, the bill is called the Combating Attacks on our National Alcoholic Drinks by Allies (CANADA) Act. It was introduced by Claudia Tenney, who represents a large part of rural and small-town New York State and who is a rabid Trump supporter. Curiously, the bill makes no mention of the annexation threats and tariffs that led to the bans in the first place.

- Markus Chambers has become the latest Winnipeg city councillor to announce that he will not be running again this fall. Chambers, who represents the suburban St. Norbert-Seine River ward, says that he wants to spend more time with his family, which is fair enough. However, the sheer number of veteran councillors who are quitting is significant - Janice Lukes, John Orlikow, and Brian Mayes are also not running again. One thing all those councillors have in common is that they represent suburban (or largely suburban) wards; I wouldn't be surprised if they know darn well that continuing to insist on car-centric design and exclusively single-family neighbourhoods is financially unviable (you just don't have enough taxpayers per kilometre of street, water main, etc to properly maintain the infrastructure) but for these councillors to acknowledge this in front of their constituents would be politically unviable.

- Mark Carney has appointed Conservative MP Richard Martel to the Senate. This creates a vacancy in the riding of Chicoutimi-Le Fjord, which Martel narrowly won in the last election.

- The leader of a rightwing fringe party, the Freedom Party of BC, has been charged with vandalizing a Pride crosswalk in Surrey. Amrit Birring, 58, was arrested along with a 67 year old man and charged with mischief over $5,000.

- Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has resigned his seat and announced that he will run for reelection in the resulting byelection. Some may remember when Canadian Liberal MP Sheila Copps did that in 1996; she had promised in the previous election campaign to resign if the GST wasn't abolished, but then ran again, winning without difficulty. In Farage's case, his critics believe this is a way of distracting the public from an investigation into his finances; all the other parties, from the Greens and Labour on the left, to the Liberal Dems in the centre, to the Conservatives and Restore Britain on the right are refusing to contest the seat and give him the attention he seems to crave. He won't be acclaimed, though; comedian Jon Harvey, aka Count Binface, has said that he will contest the seat.

News roundup, 7 June 2026

- Another severe storm hit southwestern Manitoba on Sunday night. No tornadoes have been confirmed, but strong winds and hail caused substantial damage to property and cut power to about 6,000 customers. Floodwaters also came dangerously close to breaching dikes in the community of St. Lazare.

- The mayor of St. Andrews, Manitoba is suing her own municipality to recover legal fees incurred during her ultimately successful fight to regain powers that the RM's council had stripped from her. The episode began within a year of her election in 2018, after she clashed with five council members over a wastewater treatment project.

- Several centrist Democrats (who, it should be noted, are only "centrist" in the American context; they'd be considered moderate rightwingers in most countries) are running scared at the success of left-leaning candidates in several recent Democratic primaries. In an open letter called "The Promise to America" they explicitly declare themselves "capitalist, not socialist" and talk about "extremes on right and left". Well, they're  half right there, I suppose, in that the present day right really is extreme. But to imply that people like recent primary winners are just as extreme as the MAGA crowd one has to be either disingenuous or delusional.

- Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell has been in hospital since mid-June and very little information about his condition has been made public, at least at an official level. However, NBC has apparently gotten hold of a recording of EMS communications indicating that CPR was performed on a person at an address associated with McConnell on the day that the senator was hospitalized. The lack of information from his office since then has led some to speculate that he's being kept on life support to avoid forcing a special election (i.e. byelection); Kentucky law requires one if a vacancy occurs more than 3 months before the next election. Since McConnell's seat is one of those up for grabs in November, this would mean he'd have to be kept alive till August in order to avoid the kind of awkwardness that might result if, say, recently primaried representative Thomas Massie were to run for the seat. Speculative for sure, but not implausible.

- Far right fundamentalist Christian nationalist pastors/podcasters Wesley Todd and Joel Webbon called for churches that display Pride flags to be seized by the state and transferred to more pliant churches and their pastors defrocked and prosecuted. What's perhaps more interesting is that they warned allies who are running for political office to refrain from saying things like that out loud, because the voters aren't ready for such overtly totalitarian messaging. Webbon has said some other "interesting" things, such as telling parents that they're failing in their duty if they don't warn their kids to stay away from black people and that women shouldn't be allowed to vote.

- Donald Trump called FIFA president Gianni Infantino after Team USA striker Folarin Balogun was given a red card during the match against Bosnia-Herzgovina; subsequently, FIFA then reversed the suspension in time for the Americans' match against Belgium. It wasn't enough to stop Belgium from giving them a 4-1 thrashing and eliminating them from the World Cup, though.

News roundup, 4 June 2026

- Far-right extremists rioted in Southampton, England on Tuesday over the death of a young man last year. The family of the victim, Henry Nowak, had asked for his death not to be politicized, but given the circumstances (he'd been stabbed to death by a Sikh man, and police initially suspected that he had instigated the fight) Nigel Farage couldn't pass up the opportunity to do so. Farage claimed that there was "two tier policing" in the UK, and that the killing was a result of "mass immigration" (despite the fact that the killer was born and raised in the country). Foreign agitators, including Elon Musk, have been quick to add fuel to the fire, and Farage's brownshirts responded as you'd expect. Farage seems unapologetic about the matter, but then his kind don't believe in backing down.

- The continued closure of the Strait of Hormuz as a result of the US/Israel attack on Iran has so far not led to quite as dramatic a spike in oil prices as some had feared, as countries around the world have relied on oil reserves. This is set to change, though, as these reserves are rapidly depleting with no sign of an end of the war. Prices of over $150 per barrel are expected in the coming weeks. Airlines are downplaying the situation; Air Canada and Lufthansa have both made statements to the effect that there is absolutely no risk of a shortage that could strand passengers. Of course they have to say that or people might be reluctant to buy flights to faraway destinations.

- The US House of Representatives has passed a resolution to end the Iran war.  Four Republicans voted with the Democrats on the resolution. The vote had been scheduled to be held two weeks ago but was delayed by Republican leaders, presumably in the hope of bullying their party's dissidents into opposing the resolution. Of course it would also have to pass the Senate, and would inevitably be vetoed by the Mango Mussolini if it got that far; the Democrats presumably hope that it will give them ammunition to call the war illegal in this fall's election campaign.

- The Manitoba Progressive Conservative Party has blocked Wally Daudrich from running in the constituency of Turtle Mountain after incumbent Doyle Piwniuk announced that he will not be running in the next election. The party has not given a reason, but presumably they consider his hardcore positions to be a liability in suburban Winnipeg, where the party has to do well in order to have a chance of winning an election.

- Pride Winnipeg has caused a stir by prohibiting military personnel from marching in uniform in the upcoming Pride parade. The organization says that this was based on "community feedback", saying that the community was "hurting" due to conflicts around the world. Many LGBT* veterans are understandably less than pleased with the decision, however.

News roundup, 3 Oct 2025

- Two CRJ-900LR regional jets owned by the Delta subsidiary Endeavor Air collided at the intersection of two taxiways at New York City's LaGuardia Airport on Wednesday. Fortunately the collision occurred at low speed, but both aircraft were substantially damaged; a flight attendant on one of them suffered minor injuries. Juan Browne (blancolirio) offers his opinions here.

- California governor Gavin Newsom has signed the Transparency in Frontier Artificial Intelligence Act into law. This is a diluted version of the original bill, which Newsom vetoed last year following intense lobbying by the tech industry, but still requires tech companies to report safety protocols used and their projections of the biggest dangers that could arise from the technologies they develop. It also offers enhanced whistleblower protection for employees. Predictably, the cowboys who dominate the tech industry aren't satisfied; they've created superPACs to fight AI regulation.

- Germany plans to invest more than €2 billion in nuclear fusion research by 2029. Hopefully this will bear fruit; the world badly needs it.

- Leonardo Garcia Venegas was born in the US, but that hasn't stopped ICE from hauling him into custody twice in the last few months on suspicion of being an illegal resident. He's suing, saying his Fourth Amendment rights were violated. A reasonable court of law ought to agree; unfortunately his chances of getting a reasonable court in Trump's America are not good.

- A Benin-flagged oil tanker suspected of being part of Russia's "shadow fleet" was boarded by the French navy, and the captain and first mate were taken into custody on suspicion of espionage. The tanker, currently named the Boracay, had been blacklisted by the EU under its previous name Kiwala.

- Redditor u/-Badger3- says that they received a thinly veiled threat from the Tennessee branch of the Republican Party, reminding them that voter records are public and that "Party leadership would be VERY DISAPPOINTED" if they don't turn out to vote in an upcoming special election (byelection) in the state's 7th Congressional District. Although the district includes part of Democratic-leaning Nashville, it also includes some heavily Republican rural areas, and is considered a likely Republican hold, which raises the question about why such intimidation tactics would be necessary - except to remind potential dissidents that they're being watched.

- Following the postponement of Steinbach's Pride parade due to far-right threats following the assassination of Charlie Kirk, the LGBT* community are being forced to downsize events and hire security. They are also finding that security is harder to come by; the firm they previously worked for has backed out citing "a need to protect its own staff because they aren’t armed".

- A consortium including Jared Kushner's Affinity Partners and Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund has taken over video game giant Electronic Arts. This is not the Saudis' first venture into the sector; they already own significant stakes in Nintendo and Take-Two Interactive as well as other gaming companies. Some Redditors are afraid that the new owners' socially conservative values will leak into the games, notably the Sims franchise, though it seems doubtful that existing titles will be impacted due to the difficulty of changing the code to, say, prohibit premarital sex or LGBT* content. It's possible that the products will be discontinued, though, or that future releases will be less inclusive. 

News roundup, 16 Sept 2025

- The US is threatening "serious consequences" if a review of the decision to purchase the F-35 fighter doesn't go their way. Ambassador Pete Hoekstra warns that a decision not to buy the product cold threaten the viability of NORAD, claiming that the alliance will somehow not work if the two countries use different aircraft. This comes just as the US Government Accountability Office revealed that the F-35 program is facing even more delays and cost overruns than it already was. The fact that the US controls the supply of parts and software upgrades ought to be considered by Ottawa, however; you don't want a potentially hostile foreign power being able to limit your ability to defend yourself.

- An Ottawa man has been charged with "threatening communications" against a Catholic high school in Manotick, apparently in response to a post by one of the school's teachers concerning the assassination of Charlie Kirk. Meanwhile in Toronto Dr. Ruth Marshall, a professor of religious studies and political science at the U of T, has been placed on leave after posting a rather inflammatory tweet in the wake of Kirk's death; subsequent threats made to the university in response to the tweet led to the temporary closure of a building on campus. Marshall says that the tweet was not actually about Kirk but about "atrocity denial in Gaza".

- The Chinese automaker Xpeng is now building electric cars in Europe. In Canada, meanwhile, some are predicting that Chinese vehicles will "flood" into the country, under the assumption that the Carney government will lift the prohibitive tariffs on these vehicles in the hope of regaining access to the country's huge canola market. I'm not so sure; based purely on electoral considerations, it seems improbable that the Liberals will sacrifice votes in Windsor, St. Catharines, and Oshawa (which are electoral battlegrounds) in order to satisfy Prairie farmers (who would sooner pull their own heads off than vote Liberal). The fact that the Trump regime is trying to pressure all NATO members into imposing even more stringent tariffs on China does not make such a move any easier.

- Far-right activists held an anti-immigration rally in Toronto's Christie Pits Park (site of a notorious antisemitic riot in 1933) on Saturday, but were outnumbered around 10 to 1 by counterprotesters. Someone who was there said they looked "shell-shocked", perhaps unprepared for the amount of support there is for immigration in one of the most multicultural cities on Earth.

- The Pride parade in Steinbach, Manitoba has been postponed after organizers were warned of "credible safety threats connected to far-right extremism". Details of the threats are vague but indicate that they were motivated out of revenge for the death of Charlie Kirk.

- Ontario Liberal leader Bonnie Crombie is stepping down following a leadership review vote. She had received the support of 57% of voters in the party convention, but decided that this wasn't good enough. The party now commences its third leadership race since 2018

- Toronto police have charged two people, including a 12 year old boy, after a vicious hammer attack on a homeless man who subsequently died. Several other people had been attacked as well, though not fatally. The deceased had been released from hospital but was subsequently found dead, and his death was attributed to the initial attack, so it sounds like those who made the decision to release him deserve a share of the blame.

- Four people from St. Theresa Point First Nation, Manitoba have died after a de Havilland Canada DHC-2 Beaver float plane crashed just short of its destination in Makepeace Lake. The pilot, the sole survivor, suffered serious but non-life threatening injuries.

News roundup, 14 Aug 2025

- RJ May, a Republican member of Congress from South Carolina, has resigned his seat after being charged with distributing child pornography. He is being held without bail pending his trial. 

- A 35 year old woman participating in Montreal's Pride parade was arrested after allegedly throwing a balloon full of a liquid that "smelled like urine" at members of a contingent from two Jewish organizations, Ga’ava and the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs. The participation of the organizations was highly controversial due to their rabidly pro-Israel stance (in fact the organization behind Pride had initially banned them from the event before being pressured into letting them participate). A member of Faction Against Genocide said in an interview that the liquid was actually nettle extract, and was intended to remind them of the smell of human corpses; that said, it does seem a bit over the top, even if the organizations are as odious as they sound.

- Speaking of Israel, temperatures of nearly 50°C were recorded in parts of the country on Wednesday. I suppose on the bright side, the Israel-Palestine conflict will be irrelevant if the land is no longer suited for habitation by Israelis. Palestinians, or anyone else.

- Air Canada is cancelling flights in anticipation of a strike by their flight attendants. I guess they prefer that to actually giving them raises that keep up with inflation.

- Police in Edmonton are looking for the driver of an SUV that apparently deliberately swerved towards a cyclist, causing significant injury to the victim. A video clip of the collision, apparently taken by a passenger, was posted to social media; evidently these people aren't the sharpest tools in the shed, but a blunt instrument can unfortunately do a lot of harm as well.

- A researcher with a butterfly conservation organization in the Netherlands has received death threats after publishing a report outlining potential impacts of pesticides on butterflies.

- A man visiting Winnipeg brought his bike along. He stopped briefly, and locked the bike to the bike rack on the back of the car. He'd only left it 20 minutes, but when he returned the entire rack had been removed from the car, bike and all.

News roundup, 7 June 2024

- The IDF used an American made bomb on a UN-run school in Nuseirat, Gaza. The school was being used as shelter by families whose homes had already been destroyed, and at least 32 people were killed, 7 of them children. Of course the IDF claims that they were targeting militants. For their part, the Americans say that the bomb was designed to be a precision weapon (thus hopefully minimizing collateral damage) but that the Israelis weren't using it in a precision manner. And the prospects for improvement are not good, since neither Netanyahu nor Hamas' leaders can settle for anything less than total victory, which in practice means no ceasefire for the foreseeable future.

- UK Labour Party leader Keir Starmer says that he will call for a Palestinian state if he becomes prime minister.

- A Tesla shareholder is accusing Elon Musk of massive insider trading by selling $7.5 billion worth of stock shortly before some poor numbers were made public.

- The Bank of Canada has lowered its key interest rate by 25 basis points to 4.75%, following a decline in inflation to 2.7%. Tom Brodbeck remarks that Poilievre's comments a couple of years ago calling the bank "financially illiterate" look pretty foolish now. Unfortunately, to Poilievre's followers they don't look foolish; they think the bank won't have succeeded unless they bring prices down to where they were before. If they were more financially literate they'd know that drops in prices are called deflation, and that it does far more economic damage than they'd like. Poilievre himself presumably knows better, but he's happy to lead the sheeple along with whatever they'll follow, so long as it wins him votes.

- A cyclist was fatally injured in a hit and run on a busy stretch of Wellington Crescent this morning. Both the cyclist and the driver were eastbound at the time. That section of Wellington is not subject to the summer bike route restrictions like the part west of Academy is, and is used as a major thoroughfare by a lot of drivers.

- Just to make sure we all know which side of the culture wars they stand on, the Colorado wing of the Republican Party has sent out a tweet calling for the burning of all Pride flags.

- The Hospitals of Regina Foundation has raised some eyebrows when they booked American comedian Rob Schneider for a fundraiser. The fact that he's an antivaxxer should have been reason enough to think twice; people who attended the event also report that he included misogynistic and transphobic jokes as part of his routine. They did cut his performance short after they realized their mistake.

- The Yuntai Mountain Waterfall, billed as China's largest, was discovered by a hiker to have been fed by a pipe. The operator of the park where the waterfall was found said that they made a "small enhancement" so that it would give tourists their value for money during the dry season when the natural flow rate would make for a less striking image.