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, 2 May 2025

- One of the many reasons that it is very good that Pierre Poilievre was defeated on Monday is that it stops him from cancelling the Housing Accelerator Fund, which offers municipalities money on the condition that they loosen their zoning laws to allow fourplexes in areas near major transit lines. Predictably, there is some opposition from suburban councillors, but the city really needs the money, and now that the best argument against it - that Poilievre was going to win the election and cancel it before applicants get the money - has disappeared, the zoning changes - and resulting funding - have a good chance of going through.

- The Ottawa-area riding of Carleton, which just turfed Pierre Poilievre, had the highest voter turnout in the province and one of the highest in the country at over 81% (the national average was just under 69%). One wonders if the fact that many of those people commute to downtown Ottawa and thus had a front row seat for the clownvoy whose leaders Poilievre cozied up to had something to do with it.

- A funnel cloud was spotted over the hamlet of Kleefeld in Hanover, Manitoba on Wednesday. My general impression of Hanover suggests that it will be interpreted locally as some kind of divine warning telling them to crack down on all those sinners, or else.

- The CBS show 60 Minutes has long been noted for having much more editorial independence than is usual for American TV current affairs programming. Recently, though, this has been coming into question thanks to a pending lawsuit against the show by Donald Trump over an interview the show ran with Kamala Harris, and to a pending sale of CBS' parent company Paramount that requires Trump's approval. Last week the show's executive producer resigned because he felt that the show's independence was at risk; this past Sunday the show's host lambasted the company's executives on air. I suspect he knew he didn't have much to lose by that point anyway.

- The Trump regime's deportation of people suspected of being illegal residents without due process is too much even for Joe Rogan, who called the policy "dangerous" and "an overcorrection".