News roundup, 16 Jan 2025

- Premiers of all Canadian provinces and territories, with the glaring exception of Alberta's Danielle Smith, have pledged to stand together on the tariff threat from the incoming Trump administration. Smith is unwilling to accept any measures that have even the slightest impact on Alberta's oil and gas exports.

- Transcona MLA and Minister of Education Nello Altomare has died at the age of 61, apparently as a result of complications from chemotherapy after being treated for Hodgkin's lymphoma.

- Chrystia Freeland is expected to announce her candidacy for the Liberal leadership this week. Meanwhile two MPs - Chandra Arya and Jaime Battiste - as well as former MP Frank Baylis have already announced that they're in the running - not that anyone's noticed.

- The City of Winnipeg will need to implement zoning changes in order to qualify for federal money for the much-needed upgrade of the North End sewage treatment plant. Specifically, the city will need to allow four units per lot; this does not sit well with some of the more NIMBY-friendly councillors, though.

- Manitoba's new homelessness strategy is getting good reviews from many, though not all, organizations that are dedicated to the issue. Detractors include University of Winnipeg professor Shauna MacKinnon, who has concerns about the fact that established residents in Manitoba Housing may be moved on, possibly into more precarious housing situations, in order to make way for people with more immediate needs; this could be problematic given the low vacancy rate in the city.

- Ontario premier Doug Ford is musing about calling an early election, ostensibly in order to secure a mandate to take action to address Donald Trump's tariff threats. Many question the need for an election in order to take action; more likely, Ford sees bad economic times coming due to the tariffs and wants to ensure he's reelected before that happens.

- While fires ravage the Los Angeles area, the Bay Area city of Pacifica has a different climate-related problem - increased erosion from tides due to sea level rise threatens to destroy the coastline and the houses built there. The situation is sufficiently dire that there is talk of "managed retreat", i.e. moving residents and public infrastructure away from the coast, but not surprisingly this is a highly divisive topic - so much so that police have had to be called to council meetings to keep the peace. Nor is the problem limited to that city, state, or country - on the other side of the planet, the community of Port Waikato in New Zealand is facing similar concerns. The very term "managed retreat" is becoming politically toxic in some places, and there are attempts to rebrand it as "resilient relocation" in the hope of sounding less defeatist - even if defeatism is the only rational response in many such situations.

- RFK Jr. has been slow to admit how much money he's made promoting anti-vaccine disinformation. The antivax nonprofit he founded, Children’s Health Defense, earned him $1.2 million, considerably more than he had previously stated.

- The California Air Resources Board was hoping to phase out diesel trucks and impose strict emission restrictions on locomotives, and had applied to the EPA for permission to do so. Unfortunately approval didn't come in time, and they're now withdrawing the request in the face of the incoming Trump administration (which would doubtless veto the move).

- Israel and Hamas have signed a ceasefire agreement; the agreement has yet to be approved by Israel's cabinet though. Netanyahu seems to be getting cold feet about the deal, presumably realizing that he needs to stay at war to stay in office and out of prison. Meanwhile, the bombs keep dropping as usual.

- The former mayor of Woodstock, Ontario, Trevor Birtch, has been convicted on two of three sexual assault charges he was facing. Prosecution errors led to a mistrial on a separate, unrelated sexual assault charge; an impaired driving charge against him is scheduled to be heard next month.

News roundup, 12 Dec 2024

- As expected, the new draft budget for the City of Winnipeg includes a 5.95% property tax increase. The budget includes money for 36 more police officers and 15 community safety officers, but none for the Community Connections facility in the Millennium Library lobby; it also initiates a pilot study to defer residential snow clearing until a 15 cm snowfall instead of the current 10. Even with the tax increase the city will still have some of the lowest property taxes in the country, but that may be a hard sell with a lot of residents. There seems to be little alternative, though.

- Cycling activists in Toronto have launched a court challenge against the Ford government's anti-bike lane legislation, citing the rights to life and security of the person in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Not sure what the chances of success are, but one thing they have in their favour - the fact that the government saw the need to specifically exclude lawsuits for deaths or injuries resulting from the law does suggest that it is not a good thing for the aforementioned rights.

- Doug Ford has responded to Trump's proposed tariffs by threatening to stop supplying electricity to the US. Whether he has the nerve to actually follow through on this threat is another question, though.

- A poll has found that just over a third of Canadians think the response of governments to COVID-19 was excessive. This happens to be in the same ballpark as the baseline level of support for the Conservatives, which shouldn't be surprising.

- FBI director Christopher Wray will be stepping down at the end of Biden's term in January, despite having more than two years left in his own appointment. Trump has expressed the intention to appoint former national security aide Kash Patel; RFK Jr., though, thinks his daughter-in-law Amaryllis Fox Kennedy would be a better choice. Trump is apparently open to the idea.

- One of the more disconcerting things about the climate crisis is that as it proceeds, it causes inflation, not least because it impacts food production and thus increases prices. And because measures to contain and mitigate climate change are expensive, inflation dampens the political will to proceed with such measures, even as they're needed more than ever; instead the sheeple are driven to vote for rightwing populists who tell them what they want to hear. This has the potential to create what some call a "doom loop" where climate change and far-right politics feed on each other.

- Teachers at the London District Catholic School Board have apparently been ordered not to teach certain books by black authors because they contain the N-word. Among them is The Book of Negroes, by Canadian writer Lawrence Hill, who had this to say about the matter. A teacher who spoke to Hill about the matter was subsequently reprimanded.

- A Houston judge has rejected an attempt by The Onion to buy Alex Jones' media empire. Judge Christopher Lopez cited what he considered a "lack of transparency" in the process, as well as an alleged failure to maximize value towards Jones' creditors. It's worth noting that bankruptcy courts are federal courts, and that Lopez was appointed to the court in 2019, so it's just possible that he's not as impartial as judges are theoretically supposed to be.

- Researchers at MIT have found that people are more likely to eat vegan food if it isn't labeled as vegan. I guess some of them are worried that if they eat it they might become annoying or something.

- Tokyo University's website for graduate student applications apparently had a hidden keyword, not visible by looking at the page normally, that made reference to the Tiananmen Square massacre, thus preventing the page from being displayed in mainland China and preventing Chinese students from applying. The university says that they have since removed the offending word.

- The College of Registered Nurses of Manitoba has suspended the license of a man who was found not criminally responsible for killing his parents and attacking a former coworker. Seems like a reasonable decision to me...

News roundup, 26 Nov 2024

- Donald Trump says that he will impose a 25% tariff on Canadian and Mexican goods at the first opportunity, unless the flow of drugs and migrants across the borders is controlled. Whether this is his actual intention, or whether it's just a negotiating tactic, remains to be seen.

- South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham is warning US allies that any cooperation with the International Criminal Court on the indictment of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his cronies will lead to sanctions; even more unhinged is the response of Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton, who suggested that the US could invade the Netherlands if Netanyahu is brought to The Hague for trial. Of course in order to actually do that the Americans would likely need the cooperation of other NATO allies, which seems unlikely. There are rather a lot of countries that could potentially arrest Netanyahu; we'll have to see if they get the chance (and if they do, whether they cave to American pressure).

- Denver mayor Mike Johnston suggested that his city would not comply if the incoming Trump administration were to attempt a mass deportation, and drew comparisons to Tiananmen Square in terms of the resistance the federal government could expect from such a move. Subsequently, however, he has backed away from this stance; I think we can unfortunately expect a lot of similar reversals in the near future from Democratic politicians who initially make bold statements against Trump but then are cowed into retracting them.

- Elon Musk has admitted that X (the former Twitter) is deprioritizing tweets that contain links, making it harder to effectively share news stories on the platform.

- Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has admitted that his organization Children's Health Defense (CHD) helped to promote and fund the film Plandemic, a widely circulated pseudo-documentary that alleged that COVID-19 was engineered by da gummint and dem big city libtard ay-leets in order to... well I'm not sure what exactly, because I can't be bothered to watch such a piece of garbage. Oh, and he's really big on raw milk too... just as we're finding out that avian influenza (H5N1) can turn up in raw milk. Now I'm not saying he's trying to engineer a new pandemic (I don't think he is) but he could very well end up being partly to blame for one.

- A man was shot to death by Winnipeg police outside Unicity Shopping Centre, apparently after stabbing an officer in the throat.

- A couple in Massachusetts tried to sue the local school district after their son was penalized for the use of AI to do an assignment. The generated text apparently cited non-existent sources. Fortunately, reason and good sense seems to be prevailing.

- A church in Lucerne, Switzerland has placed an AI chatbot in a confessional booth to stand in for Jesus pending his return. They call it an "experimental art installation" and say that it "shouldn’t be considered the Sacrament of Confession", however.

News roundup, 19 Nov 2024

- Donald Trump's list of picks for his cabinet was never going to be something sane and reasonable people would like, but some of his picks have been described by critics as "political performance art", choosing some of the most hardline and extreme people as a way of "owning the libs". Choosing a possible sex offender as Attorney General? A possible Russian asset as head of intelligence? An antivax nutter as Secretary of Health? With most countries, the rest of the world could just ignore them or look on with pity, but when it's the country with the world's reserve currency (not to mention the world's largest military), it's kind of hard to ignore.

- A bill before the US House of Representatives, the so-called "Stop Terror-Financing and Tax Penalties on American Hostages Act", would empower the Secretary of the Treasury to unilaterally declare a nonprofit as a "terrorist supporting organization" and revoke its tax-exempt status. While the majority of Democrats oppose the bill, a significant minority do not; coincidentally a lot of pro-Israel groups are lobbying for its passage, so I think we all know where this is going. The fact that the Secretary of the Treasury is soon going to be an as-yet unnamed Trump appointee in a couple of months does not faze that lot in the slightest.

- Russia continues to make gains in Ukraine, but at a high cost in terms of casualties. They are now cutting back on payments to wounded soldiers. Of course, in all likelyhood all they have to do is hold out until January and Ukraine's weapon supplies will be seriously curtailed, but at least Russia may suffer enough damage to limit their conquests to one country. That's about the best one can hope for, in today's world. Meanwhile the US has authorized the transfer of long-range missiles to Ukraine, and Russia has responded by threatening a nuclear response to any "massive aerial attack". This may be a bluff but Germany doesn't want to take any chances and is unwilling to give Ukraine such weapons.

- The European Union recently brought forward a policy to address deforestation by requiring importers to prove that supply chains for their products do not cause deforestation anywhere in the world. Unfortunately their parliament is delaying the legislation and seems set to weaken it to placate said importers.

- A Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 was hit by gunfire as it prepared to take off from Dallas on a flight to Indianapolis. Nobody was hurt, and the aircraft returned safely to the terminal and was removed from service for repairs.

- A student in Michigan who was asking Gemini, the Google AI chatbot, for homework advice was suddenly hit with an admonition to "Please die". One wonders if the chatbot may have been subject to some sort of priming by the 4chan crowd. I hope that this is the case; alternative explanations are even more worrisome.

News roundup, 15 Nov 2024

- Canada Post has been shut down by a strike as 55,000 CUPW workers walked off the job this morning.

- As expected, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been selected by Donald Trump for the key cabinet position of Secretary of Health and Human Services. Critics are calling Kennedy a "clear and present danger" to public health; I don't disagree, though it's a safe bet that anyone appointed by Trump is a clear and present danger to something important.

- As with several recent elections, polls in the 2024 US election underestimated Donald Trump's support by about 3%. This was the case across all the swing states. One possible explanation, of course, is that the kind of people who vote for Trump are also the kind of people who think pollsters are part of the Deep State or similar nonsense. Based on exit polls, it is also apparent that Trump did especially well among the "late deciders". Exit polling has also revealed that white voters to represent a larger share of the vote than in recent elections. This might mean that Trump was uniquely successful in bringing out low-propensity voters, or else that nonwhite voters are becoming disillusioned and not turning out for the Democrats the way they have in the past.

- The Manitoba government has announced that the crackdown on retail theft will be made permanent by providing funding for 12 new police officers. Probably a necessary move; hopefully other equally necessary but less visible measures to address the underlying social conditions will not be forgotten, though.

- The Alberta government has purged the leadership of the Alberta Investment Management Corporation (AIMCo). Finance minister Nate Horner attempts to justify this based on efficiency, but this is disputed by others, and the fact that the corporation had been exploring the possibility of creating a fund focused on the transition to a carbon-neutral economy probably had something to do with the matter.

- The RCMP are investigating after hateful letters were sent to staff at an elementary school in Vanderhoof, BC. Authorities are keeping tight-lipped about the content of the letters, but I'd wager that it had something to do with sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) lessons in classes.

News roundup, 19 April 2024

- The situation in the Middle East doesn't seem to be improving, with reports of explosions in western Iran. Iran is warning that they will respond to an attack on their nuclear facilities with a like response, though whether they're holding back on something that could penetrate the "iron dome" is a good question. In Israel, the former head of their air defense forces has said that Iran's attack was a "declaration of war", though one can't help but thinking that attacking another country's diplomatic mission in a third country kind of seems like act of war in the first place... although Iran's response is clearly an escalation, and a dangerous one. It's also giving Netanyahu exactly what he wants, because remaining at war is his best chance of staying out of jail.

- Prominent members of the Kennedy family have publicly endorsed Joe Biden, mostly without mentioning their wayward relative Robert F. Kennedy Jr. A more interesting thing in that article, though, is this:

For its part, the Democratic National Committee has emphasized donations supporting Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s candidacy from billionaire Timothy Mellon, a major MAGA Inc donor, pushing the concept that Kennedy Jr. is a “stalking horse” for Trump.

That differs from the approach of those supporting Trump, including the Make America Great Again Inc super PAC, which has aimed to paint Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as a “leftist radical.”

The efforts by the two parties underscore concerns they both have that Kennedy could take votes away from their candidate.

Who will RFK Jr. hurt more? I guess that remains to be seen.

- They've now picked a full 12 jurors in Trump's criminal trial for the Stormy Daniels episode, though they're still looking for alternates. Opinions are divided on how strong the prosecution's case is. The thing is, the payment itself was not actually a crime; the prosecution is arguing that the falsification of business records to prevent the payment from becoming public before the 2016 election was the real crime.

- Pierre Poilievre is hinting that he just might dismantle the nascent pharmacare program upon his widely expected rise to power after the next election.

- Björn Höcke, the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) leader in the German state of Thuringia, who is already on trial for using a Nazi slogan in a campaign speech, is being investigated for having used the same slogan on another occasion as well.

- An Winnipeg inner city nonprofit, Sunshine House, has been operating a converted RV as a "mobile overdose prevention site", or MOPS since 2022. Essentially it's a safe consumption site on wheels, but they also test samples of street drugs, provide clean needles, pipes, and the like. In its first year of operation they had 26,154 visits to the vehicle, of whom 7,086 involved actual drug consumption; naloxone had to be administered 82 times, out of which 4 led to hospitalization. Nobody died. That certainly suggests that they've saved a lot of lives.

- Whereas Sunshine House's service provides pretty much everything except the actual drugs, we can't forget about Spirit Rising, the for-profit foster home operator that was discovered a couple of months ago to have, in a rather bold harm reduction initiative, been giving actual drugs to the kids. Now I kinda, sorta get the idea that at least they aren't doing meth or booze and all that, but giving 15 year olds a daily marijuana allowance still seems a bit suspect to me. Evidently the Winnipeg Police think so too.

- Ron DeSantis has signed into law a bill that allows schools to bring in chaplains, while vowing that the Satanic Temple will not be allowed to take advantage of this, as he does not consider them to be an actual religion. Given that they are recognized by the IRS as a tax-exempt church, there may be some court battles ahead.

- The New South Wales Police say that 51 of their officers were injured in the riot following the stabbing of that bishop in Sydney on Monday night. The article shies away from ascribing any motive, though one can't help but wonder if it resulted from the cops trying to take the accused away before they were finished with him. Apparently the bishop, Mari Emmanuel, belongs to a rather fringe (and far-right) splinter group of the Orthodox Christian tradition.