News roundup, 4 June 2025

- The Manitoba government has announced that around 1,000 hotel rooms have been made available for evacuees from the north. Some of this is the result of the cancellation of a conference that was being held in Winnipeg for Manitoba and Saskatchewan courtroom staff. Some evacuees are still having to go further afield though; hundreds are now as far away as Niagara Falls. In other wildfire news, much of the the village of Denare Beach, Saskatchewan was destroyed on Monday. Flin Flon is still intact but faces potential threats from all directions. And the chief of Pimicikamak Cree Nation is calling for the RCMP to help round up residents who are refusing to leave.

- A lawsuit filed in a Calgary court alleges that the Red Deer Public School Division, upon hearing a report that a Czech exchange student attending one of their schools had sexually assaulted a teenage girl, got the suspect out of the country before police could investigate, and even destroyed evidence. One might hope that there would be pressure for criminal charges against school division officials for this, but the locals are no doubt too busy trying to keep the drag queens out of their city to deal with people who actually aided and abetted a sexual offender. And in this Reddit thread it is alleged that the chair of the school board is an ex-cop who describes herself as a "proud Conservative". Wonder why she's so soft on crime then?

- Alberta now has 710 cases of measles; of these, six are in the Edmonton region and 13 in Calgary. In other words, it's not that Albertans per se are backward and unenlightened, it's just that rural Albertans are backward and unenlightened. I suspect you could draw a pretty direct line to the increased political polarization in that province; a lot of people who are of a broadly conservative bent would previously have gone along with such things as vaccination because it's what you're supposed to do, but now defying any kind of measures for the common good is such a part of the conservative identity that they follow the blue shepherds all the way to the slaughterhouse.

- Elon Musk is now calling Trump's "one big, beautiful bill" an abomination due to its impact on the deficit. Some think this could motivate some Republican senators to vote against the bill, but that remains to be seen.

- An Idaho woman who was jailed for two months for her involvement in the Jan 6 putsch has apparently had a significant change of heart. She declined the presidential pardon she was offered, saying that she and her co-conspirators were guilty and that the pardons are just an attempt to push a false narrative about what happened on that day.

- The sheriff's office in Johnson County, Texas obtained data from more than 83,000 automated license plate reading cameras across the US in order to investigate whether a woman left the state to get an abortion.

- Newark Mayor Ras Baraka is suing interim U.S. Attorney for New Jersey Alina Habba for false arrest and malicious prosecution following his arrest on a trespassing charge after he attempted to accompany three Democratic members of Congress for an oversight tour of an immigration detention facility.

- A number of US states have amended their building codes to require roofs on new builds to be reflective, in order to limit heating. This did not sit well with the manufacturers of the synthetic rubber traditionally used for making some kinds of roofs - and they successfully lobbied Tennessee to repeal the new rule. 

- Actor Jonathan Joss, best known for his voice role in the animated series King of the Hill, was shot dead in an apparent anti-gay hate crime on Saturday.  

News roundup, 13 May 2025

- The so-called "Alberta Prosperity Project" has come up with a potential referendum question on secession from Canada. The organization hopes to push Danielle Smith into holding a referendum later this year; they expect to have the signatures needed to force the issue onto the ballot by the end of June. Polling indicates that 19% of Albertans would "definitely" vote to secede, while another 17% lean in that direction. Of course, there could be something analogous to the "shy Tory" phenomenon here (call it the "shy traitor" phenomenon I guess); on the other hand, many interpretations of the Clarity Act indicate that a supermajority would be required to proceed with negotiations to secede. Where it could get tricky, of course, is if a majority, but not a supermajority, of Albertans vote to leave. Myself, as I've said before, I have my suspicions that these separatist agitators are getting help from south of the border. If that's the case, the Trump regime might well decide that they need to "liberate" Alberta from the tyranny of having to pay a part of the costs of their pollution, just like Putin wants to "liberate" Donetsk and Luhansk from Ukraine. In such a case, things could get ugly real fast (with not only an invasion, but with car bombs going off in Washington and Dallas as Canadians decide not to take it lying down). One hopes that it doesn't come to that, of course, but that's up to Albertans (and Americans).

- Ras Baraka, the mayor of Newark, New Jersey (and candidate for the Democratic primary for state governor) was arrested on a trespassing charge after showing up at an ICE facility in his city. Assault charges are now being considered against three Democratic members of Congress following a scuffle that occurred following Baraka's arrest.

- Canadians increasing distaste - not to mention fear - of travelling south of the border has led the organizers of some academic conferences to hold their events in Canada instead. Of course, this could create new problems, as foreign residents of the US might be unwilling to leave the country for fear of having trouble getting back.

- The Trump regime is generally not too accepting of refugees, but they're making an exception for Afrikaners, based on widely debunked claims that mass killings and seizure of land without compensation is occurring. Trump may not know much, but he knows what his base likes.

- A large grass fire on the outskirts of Winnipeg threatened residential and commercial properties along Gunn Road, which forms part of the boundary between Winnipeg and the Rural Municipality of Springfield. Some commercial buildings were damaged, but no homes, and the fire is now considered under control. Further north, in the RM of St. Clements and Brokenhead First Nation, some homes are being evacuated due to a fire believed to have been started by a lightning strike at the Netley-Libau Marsh at the southern end of Lake Winnipeg. Another fire, also thought to have been sparked by lightning, came within 300 metres of the newly renovated Discovery Centre at Oak Hammock Marsh. The fact that marshes are actually vulnerable to fire right now says something about how dry things are.

- Former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte appears to have won the mayoral election in his home town of Davao City. This is despite the fact that he is currently in a jail cell in The Hague, awaiting trial before the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity. His son Sebastian, who is expected to be vice-mayor, will presumably have to handle his duties.