News roundup, 29 July 2026

- BC Conservative Party leader Kerry-Lynne Findlay has directed the party's MLAs to stop using the term "First Nations". The terms "indigenous" and "aboriginal" are still considered OK, along with the antiquated and widely deprecated term "Indian". I suspect that part of the motivation is to avoid giving any legitimacy to the idea of them as sovereign nations, but even so she could have avoided suggesting "Indian" as an alternative. I suspect the latter is motivated as much by desire to appeal to the more openly racist voters as anything. Some folks in this Reddit thread suggest another factor - Findlay herself ended up declaring bankruptcy following a legal fight with Musqueam First Nation in 2001 and may carry some residual animus (not that the bankruptcy stopped her from serving as Minister of National Revenue in the Harper government). What's especially worrisome is the fact that Premier David Eby is tanking in the polls, and when average voters get into a "throw the bums out" mood, they stop caring about who they're voting in (if indeed they ever did).

- The Ford government is considering withdrawing support for the Alto high speed rail project in revenge for the federal government's rejection of the expansion of Billy Bishop Airport. This is pure spite, of course; if you're actually concerned about making it easier to get around the country, trying to stop high speed rail isn't going to make things better.

- At least 13 people are dead and numerous others missing after an earthquake struck the Japanese city of Kumamoto.

- Atlanta activist Samuel Tunick, upon returning from overseas, was pulled aside by Customs and Border Protection last year and ordered to provide access to the data on his smartphone. The phone was running GrapheneOS, which allows you to set up a "duress code" that wipes the contents of the phone when entered; he allegedly gave this code to CBP officers when they demanded access. Following this they let him go, but he was subsequently charged with a felony for destruction of evidence. Tunick had been involved in protests against the construction of a police training facility called "Cop City" by critics, and suspects that this was a fishing operation.

- Around 350,000 Haitians and 6,000 Syrians who had been given "temporary protected status" in the US due to the conditions in their homelands have had their status cancelled. Their chances of admission to Canada are minimal due to changes to the Safe Third Country agreement. The changes are definitely unfortunate, but were probably inevitable in this political climate; it's unrealistic to expect the federal government to simply accept an influx of people comparable to a medium-sized city, no matter how deserving they are of refuge. This is something that's only going to become more common in the coming years as climate change displaces vast numbers of people.

- A volunteer with the animal rescue organization K9 Advocacy Manitoba was killed by dogs earlier this month in Sandy Bay First Nation. She had apparently visited a home to pick up some puppies, but the owner wasn't home and their own dogs, described as "protective and aggressive", attacked and killed her.

News roundup, 26 May 2026

- A poll of Albertans conducted by Angus Reid has found that the majority of respondents would vote no to Danielle Smith's revised referendum - but by a narrower margin than a straight up yes or no on separation. Respondents were also critical of Smith's handling of the affair. The thing is, all of this needs to be taken with substantial quantities of salt, given the "shy Tory factor". In particular I think the kind of person who would vote to secede from Canada would also be reluctant to answer pollsters at all for fear of getting on some kind of "gummint list". For his part, Mark Carney has called the referendum plan a "dangerous bluff" and is drawing parallels to Brexit; it's worth noting that polls in the UK failed to predict the outcome of that referendum.

- Uber drivers in Victoria have successfully unionized. More than 1,000 drivers in the city voted to approve a contract negotiated by the United Food and Commercial Workers local 1518. Notably, this wouldn't have been possible without changes in provincial legislation that classifies rideshare drivers as employees rather than independent contractors, limiting their ability to do this in other provinces.

- Russia is warning foreign nationals, including diplomats, to leave Kiev as they threaten a fresh waves of "systematic strikes" against the city. Strikes on the capital have been pretty much incessant, but this new warning suggests that they plan to escalate. Most recently they tested out one of their new hypersonic missiles over the weekend as part of a heavy wave of attacks that killed four people and injured over 100. Meanwhile the US is claiming self-defense in their latest wave of attacks on Iran.

- A powwow organized with Mountain View School Division in western Manitoba created a stir after a table set up by the Sexuality Education Resource Centre, a Brandon organization, distributed materials that some parents considered sexually explicit to younger kids. One parent claims that her eight year old son was given condoms and other items by the table, and that this made him "uncomfortable". I daresay that may be a bit of projection on the part of the mum. There were also documents such as this one handed out. The school division and the SERC have apologized for the incident.

- Competition was halted at the World Surf League in New Zealand, and jet skis were dispatched to get competitors out of the water as quickly as possible, after a photographer covering the event was bitten by an unseen sea creature.

News roundup, 3 March 2026

- Along with Mark Carney, several other leaders of countries with close ties to the US are being very circumspect about what they're saying about the attack on Iran. Leaders of the UK, France, and Germany, while quick to point out that they weren't involved in the strikes, seem very reluctant to condemn them either. French president Emmnauel Macron had initially, on Saturday, called for an end to military escalation in the region, calling it "dangerous to all" but he'd evidently changed his tune by the time the joint statement with Germany and the UK came out. In contrast, Spain's prime minister, Pedro Sanchez, has not held back, calling for "immediate de-escalation and full respect for international law", while Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that he was "deeply troubled" by the attack (while also condemning Iran's counterstrikes on countries not directly involved in the attack). Meanwhile, the Strait of Hormuz has been closed by Iran; what that will do to gas prices remains to be seen, but from a more cynical (or, as Sir Humphrey Appleby would say, "realistic") point of view, I can see Mark Carney being privately happy, since an Alberta that's flush with oil money as a result might be less fractious than the province is currently. In the US, the Democrats are divided on the matter - while Bernie Sanders condemned what he called "an illegal, premeditated and unconstitutional war", and other such as Tim Kaine and Chris Van Hollen have also been critical, other such as Henry Cuellar and Tom Suozzi have been supportive (presumably because of Israel's involvement, though they aren't putting it in those terms of course). In other related news, Kuwait seem to have inadvertently shot down three American fighters in the confusion.

- A judge in North Dakota has upheld a $345 million judgment against Greenpeace following a lawsuit by pipeline company Energy Transfer over the organization's actions in fighting the Dakota Access Pipeline. On paper, the judgment affects not only Greenpeace USA but also Greenpeace International, which is based in Europe; one hopes the latter organization can get sheltered from the verdict by the EU, but it looks like Greenpeace USA is finished.

- Peter Thiel's company, Palantir, went to great efforts to try to sell their services to the Swiss government over several years, but Switzerland rejected their advances for multiple reasons, including legal matters concerning data sovereignty as well as straight up national security concerns, a reasonable concern when you're being courted by a company with close ties to the US government. When the Swiss online publication Republik investigated the matter and asked Palantir for comment, the company sent them what Republik’s managing director called "very lengthy" counterstatements for each of a series of articles, which she says "do not fairly address or rebut the reporting". Nonetheless, Palantir is taking the magazine to court under Switzerland's "right to reply" legislation, calling the reporting "misleading", but notably they are not suing for defamation, which you'd expect they would be if the reporting actually were misleading. Perhaps Thiel has never heard of the Streisand Effect.

- Far-right independent MLA Tara Armstrong introduced a bill in the BC legislature to repeal the province's Human Rights Code. The bill was defeated, but the entire BC Conservative caucus voted in favour. Armstrong, who represents the constituency of Kelowna-Lake Country-Coldstream, was originally elected as a Conservative but left that party along with a colleague to form the OneBC party. She then left that party a few months later to sit as an independent; evidently she doesn't play well with others, but the Cons are all too happy to have her drop bills that they can claim need to be debated, serving as a sort of Vladimir Zhirinovsky or Avigdor Lieberman to Rustad's Putin or Netanyahu. More info about her can be found here.

- Ivermectin, the antihelminthic drug that was touted (with zero evidence) as a treatment for COVID-19, is now being used as an alternative cancer therapy, again with no evidence that it works. It's almost as if the drug has become a sort of totem or sacrament for deplorables.

News roundup, 2 March 2026

- Israel and the US launched an extensive attack on Iran beginning on Saturday morning, killing hundreds. The US Congress has yet to vote on the matter. The country's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was among those killed in the attacks, as were at least 148 people at a school in the southern part of the country. Mark Carney says he supports at least one of the objectives of the attack, namely preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. It would have been nice of him to mention that this probably wouldn't be an issue were it not for Trump's tearing up Obama's deal with Iran during his first term, but he left that part out. Perhaps he's got an eye on the votes of the Iranian diaspora in the GTA and elsewhere, whose most visible members are very supportive of the attacks. In contrast, the NDP has condemned the attacks. Iran has responded with retaliatory strikes in Israel and the Gulf states; three US soldiers are among the dead. And British journalist Tariq Ali cites Iranian sources who allege that the Americans and Israelis are specifically targeting the homes of leftwing activists to get rid of the competition for their preferred choice for leader in the event that the current regime collapses. Meanwhile someone won over half a million dollars betting on Khameni's death on a prediction trading platform.

- The AI industry is funding at least two super PACs in the US, one that backs select Democratic candidates and one that backs select Republicans. They're running a whole bunch of ads for their preferred candidates, generally without mentioning AI at all.

- Manitoba's budget is set to be unveiled later this month. Premier Wab Kinew says that there are going to be some "big ticket" items included.

- A Thunder Bay police sergeant has been convicted of obstruction of justice and breach of trust as a result of an incident in 2020 when he entered a residence without a warrant and edited another officer's report.

- A Wisconsin man who bikejacked a Mexican immigrant, wounding him with a box cutter in the process, then posed as the victim to send letters threatening to kill Donald Trump in the hope that he would be deported (and thus presumably unable to testify against him in the bikejacking case). Fortunately, the victim was exonerated when it was shown that his English wasn't good enough for him to have written the letters. The perpetrator has now been sentenced to over 16 years in prison for the crime.

News roundup, 9 Dec 2025

- The US, Russia, and Saudi Arabia are refusing to agree on an official summary of the findings of the UN's latest Global Environment Outlook, due to the report coming down too strongly for their liking on fossil fuels and plastics.

- Canada's Department of National Defense is trying to distance itself from the US attacks on boats in the Caribbean. However, this is not as simple as it might seem because of Canada's involvement in Operation Caribbe, a longstanding joint mission with the US Coast Guard. While it is the US Air Force and not the Coast Guard that has been conducting the attacks, both are under the command of US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, which limits the amount of political cover that can be provided by this. France has already condemned the attacks, and the UK and Columbia are suspending intelligence-sharing with the US in the region; so far Canada has not followed suit.

- Former cabinet minister Steven Guilbeault doubts that it will be possible to meet Canada's emissions targets due to recent moves by the government.

- A Canadian court has ordered French cloud provider OVHcloud to turn over customer data that is stored in Europe. Problem is, under French law it is illegal for the company to hand over the data. Penalties can be up to €90,000 and six months imprisonment.

- Despite fears of gridlock, the reopening of Winnipeg's Portage and Main intersection to pedestrians has had minimal impact on traffic. 

- In recent years the majority of fraud cases in Ontario have been dropped or stayed due to a lack of resources for prosecutors. The problem has gotten considerably worse since 2020 due to backlogs in the courts related to the pandemic.

In case anyone doubted that teabaggers could be dangerous...

I think it's safe to assume that the shooter isn't a Democrat:

An outspoken Democrat congresswoman was gravely wounded after an assassin opened fire with an assault rifle at grocery store in Tuscon, Ariz., on Saturday.

At least six others were injured in a burst of gunfire in what may be the first shooting of a federal politican since former president Ronald Reagan was shot two decades ago in Washington, D.C.

Gabrielle Giffords, 40, an Arizona congresswoman, was shot at close range in the head, according to eyewitnesses. She was greeting constituents at a grocery store. Some of her aides were reportedly among those wounded.

From the Globe. The shooter has apparently been captured alive, so we should know more soon. This is a huge escalation, but it's not really novel; Giffords has been targeted by teabaggers before:

Last March, vandals stoned the front of Ms. Giffords' Tuscon office – one of several Democrat storefronts attacked – when at least 10 members of Congress reported death threats and attacks over the contentious health care reform bill that was the centerpiece of Mr. Obama’s first two years as president.

The question is, how much longer will this go on?

Edited to add: There's a bit more information now. It seems that a total of 18 people were wounded in the shooting, several fatally, including a US federal judge as well as a nine year old child. There's some information about the suspect as well:

Giffords's assailant was last night named as a 22-year-old Afghanistan veteran Jared Lee Loughner. He was described by witnesses as a young white man who looked like a "fringe character", clean shaven with short hair and wearing dark clothing.

Sounds a lot like Timothy McVeigh actually. PTSD and inflammatory rhetoric can be a bad mix it seems...

Volcker fears for the future of America

Paul Volcker, who chaired the Fed through most of the 1980s, thinks the dollar is in trouble:

Former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, who is chairman of President Barack Obama’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board, said the U.S. dollar is in danger of losing its role as a global benchmark currency.

“The growing question is whether the exceptional role of the dollar can be maintained,” Volcker told a gathering of New York civic leaders at the University Club of New York last night.

The decline of the U.S. economy, political gridlock at home, U.S. involvement in two wars and “festering” geopolitical issues in the Middle East and Asia have undermined the ability of the U.S. to influence global events, Volcker said.

From Bloomberg (h/t Eric Janszen in this iTulip thread). Not surprisingly, Volcker takes it for granted that this will be a bad thing. But perhaps most interesting is this:

Volcker offered no prescriptive solutions as he spoke in broad terms of the country’s loss of stature.

When a guy who's supposed to be in charge of America's economic recovery admits that he has no clue what to do about it, it certainly does look like that country is in trouble.

The US is even more strapped for cash than we thought

They're so broke it's starting to cut into their ability to kill people:

The United States executed fewer people this year, in part because there is a shortage of the drug used in lethal injections and because executions are too expensive in tough economic times, a report released Tuesday said.

The Death Penalty Information Center said in its annual report that executions decreased 12 percent this year and new death sentences stayed near the lowest level since capital punishment was reinstated in 1976.

From the London Free Press. The death penalty, paradoxically, is far more costly than imprisoning someone for life. The thing is, even societies that accept the death penalty don't feel comfortable if they get it wrong, so if someone's going to be executed they have to make sure they get it wrong as little as possible. And that means a lot of appeals, making sure that the accused has proper legal representation right up to the point when the last appeal is exhausted. Indeed, in some US states a person who is sentenced to death gets an automatic appeal whether they want it or not. Needless to say, that gets expensive.

What's striking, though, is that the US is one of the few modern democracies that has stubbornly clung to the practice of capital punishment. It's almost a fine old tradition there, and they don't give up their traditions easily. So for them to loosen their hold on it now is a sign that they're really broke.

US historian has ominous predictions for the future of America

Alfred McCoy is a professor of history at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. He thinks the American empire has passed the point of no return and is now in a death spiral:

A soft landing for America 40 years from now? Don’t bet on it. The demise of the United States as the global superpower could come far more quickly than anyone imagines. If Washington is dreaming of 2040 or 2050 as the end of the American Century, a more realistic assessment of domestic and global trends suggests that in 2025, just 15 years from now, it could all be over except for the shouting.

Despite the aura of omnipotence most empires project, a look at their history should remind us that they are fragile organisms. So delicate is their ecology of power that, when things start to go truly bad, empires regularly unravel with unholy speed: just a year for Portugal, two years for the Soviet Union, eight years for France, 11 years for the Ottomans, 17 years for Great Britain, and, in all likelihood, 22 years for the United States, counting from the crucial year 2003.

Future historians are likely to identify the Bush administration’s rash invasion of Iraq in that year as the start of America's downfall. However, instead of the bloodshed that marked the end of so many past empires, with cities burning and civilians slaughtered, this 21st-century imperial collapse could come relatively quietly through the invisible tendrils of economic collapse or cyberwarfare.

But have no doubt: When Washington's global dominion finally ends, there will be painful daily reminders of what such a loss of power means for Americans in every walk of life. As a half-dozen European nations have discovered, imperial decline tends to have a remarkably demoralizing impact on a society, regularly bringing at least a generation of economic privation. As the economy cools, political temperatures rise, often sparking serious domestic unrest.

From the Huffington Post. The reasons are ones that should be familiar by now; he expects that the US dollar will eventually lose its reserve status, the country has badly overextended itself with its foreign military adventures, and its economy is gradually being hollowed out as manufacturing increasingly moves offshore. While his predictions are fairly good as they go, I'm not sure I agree with his assumption that China will simply replace the US as the world's most powerful country. The biggest issue is not mentioned in the article -- namely, climate change -- and this will harm China at least as much as the US.

China lowers US credit rating

This is interesting:

The dispute between Washington and Beijing about monetary policies and trade imbalances has spilled over into the more arcane world of debt ratings.

Citing concerns about Washington’s capacity to repay debt and the potential impact of another round of quantitative easing by the Federal Reserve, an unheralded Chinese bond rating agency has slashed its sovereign credit rating on U.S. government debt to the equivalent of single-A-plus from double-A, with a negative outlook.

The rebuke is mainly symbolic; the rating cut by Dagong Global Credit Rating Co. Ltd. will not have any impact on the market. But it is another sign of growing world anger over the U.S. decision to further loosen monetary policy and could be another indication the Chinese are becoming disenchanted with U.S. Treasury bonds.

Major mainstream rating agencies, such as Moody's Investors Service and Standard & Poor's, still give Washington their top, triple-A rating, despite also expressing concerns about soaring debt levels and record deficits.

From CTV. I have to wonder why Dagong's assessment of American debt differs so much from the other agencies. I can't help but wonder, though, if Moody's and Standard and Poor's don't have a bit of a conflict of interest here; if the US dollar collapses those companies, which are US-based, have a lot more to lose. On the other hand, China would have a lot to lose if the dollar collapses too, so it's hard to say.

More notes on the US midterms

As expected, the Republicans have gained control of the House, but not the Senate. Happily Dennis Kucinich, the House's token social democrat, has retained his seat in Ohio, and as noted last night it's also good to see the defeat of Christine O'Donnell and Ilario Pantano, not to mention Sharron Angle who failed to unseat the Democrats' Senate leader in Nevada.

In California, Proposition 19, the bold referendum question on legalizing marijuana, was defeated yesterday, which is a disappointment, but my disappointment by that vote is outweighed by my relief at the defeat of Proposition 23, which would have rolled back the state's measures to control greenhouse gas emissions.

What does all this mean? For the most part, it means of two years of sound and fury signifying nothing. Neither the Democrats nor the Republicans will be able to pass legislation without the other party's co-operation, and co-operation is one thing that will be in very short supply in this Congress.

Even North Carolina voters have their limits

Ilario Pantano, the Tea Party endorsed candidate for North Carolina's 7th Congressional district, has conceded defeat. Perhaps his mysterious acquittal on war crimes charges failed to convince voters. Christine O'Donnell, star of this entry, has been defeated in Delaware as well.

On the other hand, it looks like Rand Paul has been elected, along with some other pretty far-out individuals. It doesn't look like they'll gain control of the Senate, though.

US considers intervention in Mexico

Thanks to organized crime, assassination is a major occupational hazard for local authorities in northern Mexico:

Masked armed men have shot dead the mayor of a small town in northern Mexico in the latest attack believed to be linked to drug gangs.

Prosecutors said four hooded men pulled up outside the office of Alexander Lopez Garcia in El Nranjo in the state of San Luis Potosi on Wednesday, before two of them burst in and shot him to death.

From Al Jazeera. Now this is nothing unique to Mexico, as any Columbian, Italian, or Russian will tell you. However, Mexico is much higher up on a certain country's priority list than those other places. Maybe that's why we're seeing stuff like this quote from Hillary Clinton:

Clinton also suggested that "we need to figure out what are the equivalents" for Mexico and Central America of the US Plan Colombia - in which American special forces teams train Colombian troops and US advisers are attached to Colombian military units.

Mexico has long rejected allowing US troops on its soil.

Well yeah. I'd reject the idea of foreign troops being deployed on my soil to deal with a domestic problem too... but the US can't leave well enough alone. California's proposal seems a far better way to deal with the problem, though.

How will the US midterm elections play out?

They're going to be interesting, that's for sure.

On the surface, things look very bad for the Democrats. The Guardian cites a poll showing the Republicans having the support of 51% of registered voters, compared to the Democrats at 41%. And the Democrats' base is rather demoralized, because a lot of the hopes that led to Obama's election are being dashed. Certainly this could be a good thing, but not if the troops are simply shipped over to Afghanistan... And the healthcare initiative, while perhaps a slight improvement on what there was before, has been pretty mediocre, to say the least. (We'll make you buy health insurance, but won't pay for it unless you're really poor. None of that Canuck crap for you!) And we'll have to see what gets done on the climate front; on a diplomatic level it looks rather mediocre as well (uh... we'll sign an agreement that says we think we should probably do something about this, but not actually commit to anything). But with the grip they've had on the levers of government you'd think the Democrats would have accomplished far more than they have...

The funny thing is, though, in situations like this your enemy can be your best friend. The Republicans are actually in a rather bad state right now. David Neiwert at Crooks and Liars (h/t jblaque via Twitter) has pointed out that when teabaggers contest Republican nominations, it's become common for the loser to refuse to endorse the winner. Not to mention, when teabaggers are running in swing districts, they're less likely to win over the moderates. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of polling numbers change in the US once the summer's over. Hopefully that will change in Canada, too, before the likes of Harper, Ford et. al. win any more elections.

I can't believe I'm about to defend this guy

A pastor has gotten himself arrested for protesting the mascot of the school's sports teams (the Demons, in case you were wondering). Now to me it sounds like a pretty darn silly thing to protest, but should it be illegal?

A minister who was arrested outside a Georgia high school for disorderly conduct says he was speaking out against the school's evil mascot.

Pastor Donald Crosby told CBS affiliate WMAZ he was "standing up for Jesus" when he was arrested Monday outside the Warner Robins school, and he'd do it again.

Now to be fair, there may be other aspects of the story that weren't reported. But they do report this:

"Officers found the group did not possess a picketing permit," the release says.

"On several occasions, offers asked Crosby to leave the premises. He refused to comply with officers and was arrested. The remaining people dispersed in an orderly fashion," police said.

Now I'm pretty sure that if he'd been harassing people that would have been mentioned in the story. But it seems the only thing they could get him on was the fact that he didn't have a licence to picket. You need a licence to do that in Georgia? What's next -- will you need to get a blogging licence? This goes well beyond the ravings of an overzealous backwoods preacher; it is a matter of putting a serious chill on free speech, and should not be allowed to stand. And if he gets good legal representation, it probably won't; it sounds as unconstitutional as hell.

Edited to add: There's more on the case here. Apparently it's the city of Warner Robins that requires a picketing permit, not the state. And that article also has a photo, which raises yet another question -- would they have bothered him if he were white?