News roundup, 27 April 2026

- Trump was rushed out of the White House Correspondents' Dinner on Saturday after a shooting incident. He escaped unscathed; a suspect is in custody and has been identified as a part time teacher and game developer. Investigators believe he was targeting administration officials but haven't said if Trump himself was among those he was after.

- Municipal leaders in Manitoba want provincial legislation amended to allow municipalities to ban disruptive people from public meetings. This follows an attempt to do so by the Rural Municipality of Alexander that was nixed by the courts.

- Alexandre Boulerice, the only NDP MP from Quebec, reportedly plans to step down and run provincially for the leftwing Quebec Solidaire party (there is no provincial wing of the NDP in Quebec). This will leave the NDP with only 5 MPs.

- The Kinew government in Manitoba plans to follow Australia's lead in banning social media for youth. The proposed legislation also covers things not covered by Australia's law, most notably AI chatbots. Interestingly, many young people asked by the CBC about this draw a distinction between the two, being in favour of restricting chatbots but not social media. No timeline for a ban has been announced so far.

- The Carney government has released a fiscal update indicating a deficit of $25.5 billion for the period from April 2025 and February 2026. This is considerably lower than the forecast from November, which projected a deficit of $78.3 billion for that time period. Poilievre, of course, is never satisfied on such matters and is calling for the cancellation of the high speed rail plan as well as the gun buyback program and a hard cap of $31 billion for deficits.

- A French teenager has been arrested in Singapore after posting footage on Instagram of himself licking a straw from a vending machine and putting it back in the dispenser. He has been charged with mischief and being a "public nuisance"; he could face up to two years in prison and thousands of dollars of fines if convicted. That does seem a bit excessive, but these sort of social media-fueled pranks are definitely a plague.

News roundup, 30 March 2026

- Avi Lewis has won a convincing victory in the NDP leadership race, receiving 56% of the vote on the first ballot. Heather McPherson came a distant second, at 29%. This does not sit well with provincial leaders in Alberta and Saskatchewan. He will need to find an opportunity to run for a seat in the House of Commons; one is expected in Beaches-East York as Liberal incumbent Nathaniel Erskine-Smith is expected to jump to the provincial level, and the NDP has held this riding in the past. Of course if McPherson wanted to be really spiteful she could resign herself, and put Lewis in the position of having to defend the Green New Deal while running in an Alberta riding.

- Toronto plans to create city-owned nonprofit grocery stores, following the lead of New York's mayor Zohran Mamdani who has similar plans. The idea is to locate the stores in underserved areas and undercut the major chains. There is no timeline for this, however, and city staff warn that it will not be cheap.

- The Carney government has just passed legislation that makes people ineligible for refugee status if their application comes more than a year after their first entry to Canada. The law is retroactive to 2025, meaning that some claimants' applications will be cancelled.

- The International Congress of Mathematicians, the largest conference in the field, is scheduled to be held in Philadelphia this summer, the first time in over 40 years that it will be held in the US. Many prominent mathematicians are threatening to boycott the event if it isn't moved to a more civilized country.

- Michael Ma, the Conservative-turned-Liberal MP for Markham-Unionville, has been accused of casting doubt on the use of China's Uighur population as forced labour. Following a backlash, he has clarified his statement.

-Winnipeg city council is moving ahead with plans to build a bike lane on Wellington Crescent, where a cyclist was killed in 2024. Unfortunately they are also scrapping plans for a temporary lane in the interim; one Redditor on this thread speculates that the permanent lane is going to be put on the boulevard so as to avoid removing or narrowing any traffic lanes, which couldn't be done with temporary lanes. They think council may fear that if they temporarily remove a traffic lane, the narrower street will become normalized and there will be more opposition to, say, removing trees to build the lane on the boulevard. On a positive note they also plan to reduce the speed limit to 40 km/h on that stretch of Wellington, but compliance would be better if the street were made narrower.

- Scott Fielding, who served as finance minister under Brian Pallister and Heather Stefanson (and previously as city councillor for the suburban St. James-Brooklands ward) has been arrested on charges of sexually assaulting a coworker at KPMG, the consulting firm where he went to work after resigning from the legislature.

- Meta (parent company of Facebook and Instagram) and Alphabet (parent company of Google and YouTube) have been hit with a $6 million judgment by a court in California that found that the companies deliberately designed their products to be addictive. The plaintiff had become hooked on YouTube at the age of 6 and Instagram at 9. The companies are expected to appeal, of course. This comes just after Meta was hit with $375 million in damages by a New Mexico jury for misleading its users about the safety of its products and facilitating child exploitation. There are hopes that this is the start of a major reckoning for the tech industry, but you can be sure that the Trump regime will do its darnedest to protect them.

- The autonomous vehicle company Waymo has been aggressively lobbying the BC government to try to convince them to allow autonomous vehicles on the province's roads. The government is standing firm, so far at least.

News roundup, 9 Feb 2026

- A bill before the New York state legislature would impose a moratorium on new data centres in the state for three years, making the state the largest to impose such restrictions. The moratorium will hopefully give them the chance to look seriously at what kind of effect those data centres have on things like grid stability. 

- This year's Ag Days, an annual agricultural trade show in Brandon, could turn out to be Plague Days, as it was an exposure site for measles. Anyone who attended the event or visited hotels, restaurants, or shops in the city that weekend is being asked to monitor for symptoms. That means much of the city's population could be at risk.

- A Manitoba Court of King's Bench judge has certified a class action lawsuit against Revera, the former owner of the Maples Personal Care Home, as well as against the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority, regarding a COVID-19 outbreak at the facility that killed 56 people.

- Elon Musk is calling Spanish prime minister Pedro Sanchez a "tyrant" after his government introduced strict regulations on social media, which not only follow Australia's lead by prohibiting those under 16 from using it but which can hold executives criminally liable for illegal content published on their platforms.

- King Cobras are turning up in parts of India where they don't occur naturally. Researchers believe the snakes may be catching rides on trains.

- The woman who was abducted in Pimicikimak Cree Nation on Thursday has been rescued, having sustained only minor injuries. The suspect was also captured alive and is in custody. I have to say, I wasn't expecting a happy ending to this story.

News roundup, 10 Dec 2025

- An Alberta judge has ruled against the provincial government on the independence referendum question, only a day after the government introduced a bill that, if passed, would have shut down the case. Court of King's Bench Justice Colin Feasby condemned the bill, saying that "Legislating to preemptively end this court proceeding disrespects the administration of justice".

- An earthquake struck Kluane National Park near the Yukon-Alaska border. The magnitude was measured at 7.0, but was a lot less severe in Whitehorse, where residents reported significant shaking but no injuries or major damage. 

- Donald Trump has hinted at abandoning Ukraine to its fate, something many have expected ever since he retook the Oval Office. He also claimed that Europe is "weak" and "destroying itself" through immigration. A policy document released by the regime also confirms what we all suspect - that the US is actively supporting far right parties in order to "cultivate resistance".

- A structure intended to prevent the escape of radioactivity from the Chernobyl nuclear plant was damaged in a Russian drone attack according to a report from the International Atomic Energy Agency. The agency says that while the structure is repairable it currently is not fulfilling its primary safety function.

- Australia's ban on social media for those under 16 has been enacted. Polls indicate that about 2/3 of the electorate supports the move, but there are teething problems as expected, and enforceability remains to be seen.

News roundup, 23 June 2025

- The US hit three Iranian nuclear facilities on Sunday; they claim that this is "not about regime change" but merely to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. This sounds kind of odd given that Trump tore up an agreement during his first term that actually seemed to be working in that regard, but I guess we're not supposed to talk about that. They claim that Iran's nuclear weapons capacity has been "totally obliterated"; one hopes that this is a pretext to not get involved any further, but that might be too much to hope for. Iran and Israel continue to bombard each other in any case. 

- Israeli tanks fired into a crowd of people lining up for food aid in Gaza last Tuesday, killing 59 people. The IDF says it "regrets any harm to uninvolved individuals". Wording is key, of course, because people who were harmed by the attack are "involved" by definition. So really they have no regrets whatsoever I guess.

- The US Senate's parliamentarian, an official advisor who is responsible for interpreting the upper house's rules, has ruled that the Trump regime's plans to eliminate two federal agencies (the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Office of Financial Research) cannot be included in the "one big, beautiful bill". This ruling can be ignored if a 60-vote supermajority votes to do so, or if the chair of the Senate really wants to ignore it (or is sufficiently afraid of Trump's brownshirts to do so regardless of their own preferences). Interestingly, though, this isn't the only problem the bill has encountered in the Senate - three hardline fiscal conservatives are threatening to vote against it because it doesn't go far enough for their liking.

- New modeling has concluded that even under a "moderate" emissions scenario, significant declines can be expected in the production of six staple crops - maize (corn), soybean, rice, wheat, cassava, and sorghum. The changes will not be distributed evenly (either by crop or by geography); there will be increases in some crops in some places, for instance. Most alarming though is the fact that there will be significant declines in production in areas that are major global producers. For instance, wheat production in Canada, the US, Europe, and Russia is expected to show modest declines - which will probably be addressed by reduction in exports and an increased hostility to immigration. I'm certainly not seeing any reason to doubt Gwynne Dyer's gloomy prediction that this will end with rich countries shooting migrants at their borders.

- France is considering prohibiting social media access for children under 15. They, along with Spain and Greece, are proposing an EU-wide policy, but say that they will move ahead unilaterally if there is no progress within a few months. This is a good policy if it can be enforced, but that's a big if.

News roundup, 29 Nov 2024

- Vladimir Putin is threatening to use Russia's new hypersonic Oreshnik missiles, recently demonstrated in a strike on Dnipro, to strike targets in Kyiv, potentially including political targets as well as military ones. Due to the high speed (around Mach 10 according to some reports) an explosive warhead is not even needed if the targeting is effective. A spokesperson for Volodymyr Zelenskyy is downplaying the possibilities for these weapons; I don't know if he's actually right about this or just trying to put on a brave face, though.

- Australia's parliament has now passed landmark legislation that bans those under the age of 16 from most social media. The bill was passed with the support of most of the main opposition parties, but was opposed by most of the independents and smaller parties in the Senate. Exemptions are made for apps that are primarily for messaging (such as WhatsApp), online gaming services, and educational services, and services such as YouTube that do not require a login. Awkwardly, one of the authors of the study cited as a reason for the ban is now saying that the study's findings do not justify it - but the author in question is British, and for all we know he might be trying to cover his butt in case some social media company decides to exploit the UK's libel laws (which are notorious for favouring the plaintiff) to claim damages for lost profits arising from the use of his research. As well, Elon Musk is opposed, so I'd be inclined to support the legislation based on that - except that Debra Soh is in favour, so maybe not.

- France's government is requiring all outdoor parking spaces larger than 1,500 m² to have canopies of solar panels built over them. Not only will this generate a lot of electricity, it will make it a lot less uncomfortable to get into your car after leaving it parked on a hot day (and maybe mean a few fewer infants and pets getting cooked).

- There are fears that Donald Trump's proposed new tariffs may provoke China into what some call "supply chain warfare" - cutting American companies off from needed materials and components. It's tricky, though, because China also depends on things like microchips that are sold by American companies.

- A news station in Washington, DC ran several stories about a report on the impact of gas stoves on indoor air quality - only to then scrub them from their website apparently to avoid offending their sponsor, which happened to be the local natural gas utility.

- There have been some abrupt changes in X (the former Twitter) recently, including the ability to turn off engagement numbers, leading some to think that Musk and co. are worried about the recent exodus of users to Bluesky. Interestingly, over at Meta, Mark Zuckerberg seems concerned about the fact that Bluesky is picking up the slack instead of his own company's counterpart, Threads.

- First United American Companies, a limited liability company affiliated with Alex Jones' dietary supplements business, is attempting to block the purchase of Jones' Infowars website by The Onion in favour of their own bid. Elon Musk is also trying to interfere, saying that Infowars' X accounts cannot be transferred according to X's terms of service.

- A former employee of Boston College is trying to sue the institution for religious discrimination after he was fired for refusing to be vaccinated against COVID-19. The employee, a landscaper, is a member of a fringe religious sect derived from Bogomilism, a neo-Gnostic sect that had its heyday in 10th century Bulgaria. The college is using an interesting defense - as a Catholic institution, they say that they are bound by their own religious duty following Pope Francis' 2020 decree that Catholics are obligated to protect their own and others' health.

News roundup, 22 Nov 2024

- While it's too late to do anything about it now, it's an interesting academic exercise to consider whether US Attorney General Merrick Garland could have prevented the reelection of Donald Trump. Dean Obeidallah argues that Garland has utterly failed his country by failing to push aggressively enough in prosecuting Trump after the Jan 6 putsch. Many in this Reddit thread agree with Obeidallah; others think that Garland had no choice but to do his utmost to build an airtight case against the former President, due to the inevitable perception among half the country that this was a partisan hit job against their hero. But I can't help but think that maybe he should have just recognized that this would happen no matter how airtight the case and pushed ahead aggressively; on the other hand, if he did that and it ended in an acquittal, that could have won a lot of support for Trump.

- If RFK Jr. is appointed health secretary as everyone expects, we'd better hope that we don't get another pandemic during the coming years - like, say, a mutant version of H5N1 (avian influenza) that can easily spread human to human like many other flu strains. Some fear that the recent case in BC could be a sign that this is happening; on the other hand, you'd expect to have heard of more cases by now if that were true.

- Matt Gaetz has abandoned his quest to become the US Attorney General; Trump has selected prosecutor Pam Bondi for the position instead.

- The Trudeau government is suspending the GST on a number of items for a two month period; the list of affected items includes things like children's clothing and diapers but also less essential things like restaurant meals, Christmas trees, and beer. They're also sending out $250 cheques in the spring to anyone who earned less than $150,000 last year. One could be forgiven for being a bit cynical about the government's motives here.

- The truck driver involved in that fatal crash last week near Altona, Manitoba was charged with two counts of dangerous driving causing death and one of obstructing a police officer. He has now disappeared and is the subject of a Canada-wide warrant for his arrest.

- While Waterloo Region's LRT system, the Ion, has been very successful, there is one recurring problem - morons keep trying to pull U-turns in front of the trains. In the most recent case the train was actually derailed, though fortunately nobody was injured, not even the idiot driving the car. You can see video of the accident here.

- There are indications that the highly popular weight-loss drug Ozempic not only helps people to lose weight, it seems to actually change people's tastes towards more healthful foods. The fast food industry is sufficiently worried about this to be intensely studying the incidence of this; it's bad news for them if this is true, albeit good news for everybody else. On the downside, there is some evidence that more food might be wasted by users of Ozempic and similar drugs.

- A bill before Australia's parliament would ban most social media for persons under 16. An exception is made for YouTube due to the large amount of educational and other child-friendly content on the platform; some who called for the legislation approve of enabling youth to watch YouTube, but would prefer to have a limitation on young users' ability to upload material to avoid the potential for exploitation and bullying.

- Six people have died of apparent methanol poisoning after visiting Vang Vieng, Laos, a popular destination for young tourists. This is a shockingly common occurrence in much of the world, including the EU.

News roundup, 29 March 2024

- Officials have abandoned hope of finding any more survivors from the hapless construction crew that was on the Francis Scott Key bridge when it collapsed. Meanwhile the next priority is to clear the remains of the bridge so that shipping can resume. As to how long that could take, an engineering professor said "I'd be shocked if it's weeks, but I don't think it'd take a year." That's a lot of uncertainty.

- The Kinew government in Manitoba has cleaned house at Efficiency Manitoba, removing nine out of the ten board members appointed by the Tories. They have also restored the standard 1 to 1 supervisor to apprentice ratio in the trades, a move welcomed by Manitoba Building Trades as well as the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, but condemned by the Winnipeg Construction Association. In addition they're tinkering with the credits for property taxes, in order to shift a bit more of the burden onto high value properties. On the downside, though, they have joined the chorus of provincial leaders calling for an end to the carbon tax. Don't get me wrong, I kind of understand why they're doing it (the right has been very successful at making carbon pricing politically toxic) but I wish they'd have pushed for a more creative approach to the problem than simply doing away with the tax. Like if you're concerned about the cost of living, why not hit the PST, and if that costs too much in revenue, hike the carbon tax to compensate? That would keep average costs around the same but make greener products cheaper while making more polluting products more expensive, and I'd like to think the public could be sold on that idea, but maybe not. Or maybe there are administrative barriers that aren't obvious except to insiders in finance ministries, I dunno.

- School boards in Toronto, Peel, and Ottawa are suing Meta, Snapchat, and TikTok, alleging that they are harming students' mental health. I wish them luck (it's almost certainly true, after all). I have to admit that this is one of the very few issues on which I find myself in agreement with Ron DeSantis, at least in principle (the devil is always in the details with something like this, though, and DeSantis isn't someone I'd count on getting it right with something like this).

- The judge who issued the gag order prohibiting Donald Trump from commenting publicly about witnesses, prosecutors, court staff and jurors did not include himself or his family on the list. No doubt he had to do it that way to avoid any perceived conflict of interest, but it's no surprise that Trump is taking full advantage of that omission.

- The city of Richmond, California now has only one remaining local news website, the Richmond Standard. It's owned by Chevron, which has a huge presence in the city and seems to get away with a lot of shenanigans as a result.

- Former US senator Joe Lieberman has died. Hopefully No Labels will follow.

- A Boston Dynamics robot dog used by the Massachusetts State Police was shot during a standoff.

Zuckered

UPDATE: I got my account back. Still no explanation why it was disabled, and I doubt I'll ever see any. But that's Facebook for you...

(original post follows)

Well I haven't posted here for a long time (almost twelve years actually). The reason that this blog, like so many others, has been allowed to languish should be no surprise - it's something called Facebook. I've been using it since 2007 or 2008, and it has an undeniable pull; gradually my blogging faded into the background. This should be no surprise; as many have pointed out, social media platforms like Facebook appear to be addictive by design. But in some ways it's inferior to this old-school approach; for instance, you can't put in hyperlinked text in a Facebook post like you can here. Maybe they don't want you to; perhaps the kind of engagement it produces doesn't suit their business model for whatever reason. Social media seems to work best with shallower content; it's not meant for in-depth looks at issues. In fact, a few years back it was reported that this had gotten the folks at Facebook worried:

Overall sharing has remained "strong," according to Facebook. However, people have been less willing to post updates about their lives as their lists of friends grow, the people said...

 In other words, they want you to post pictures of your cat, family, etc, and what you're doing. In-depth analysis of real-world issues isn't what they're about, and they'd rather you focused on the shallow.

I'd like to say that's the reason I'm back here after all these years, however I'd be lying. The real reason has to do with this:

Yep, yesterday morning, with no warning whatsoever, I was advised that due to some unspecified violation of Facebook's "community standards" my account was disabled. It gave me the option to "disagree", and the alleged violation would be reexamined (hopefully by people rather than algorithms, though I wouldn't count on it) and they'll decide whether I'm worthy of having my account reactivated.

I've had one warning before. I had a comment removed, and in that case they at least gave the reason of sorts. The comment contained a reference to shooting, which made sense in the context of the primary post (a news article, like most of my posts) but was deemed inappropriate. At the time I was given the option to disagree, and say why from a list of possibilities (I selected the one about the judgment not taking into account context) but the comment was not reinstated. Fine, I can live with that.

This time, though, they just decided to shut down my entire account. And while they gave me the option to "disagree" they did not allow me to say why I disagreed (not that this would have helped, since they haven't given a specific reason why I'm supposedly in violation). So I'm not sure what it would be, though I have a few ideas. Their page on the matter does give a few things; the only one that might conceivably apply to my account is intellectual property. I quite frequently post links to paywalled articles with the Winnipeg Free Press and Globe and Mail, along with excerpts from the articles. So it's possible that someone there has decided that I post too much from the articles and that this is a copyright violation. But again, no warning, no blocking of a single post, and no explanation of whether this is in fact the reason or not. Meanwhile some of my friends quite frequently post about having been sent to "Facebook jail" for a period of time (knowing them, it's probably for risque jokes), but they're just suspended for a few days or a month and then allowed back, not permabanned with no warning.

Maybe the folks at Facebook take copyright violation more seriously than that (assuming, again, that that's what it was about). I guess it's also possible that my account was hacked and something truly horrific was posted there; I did have some login issues over the last couple of days. Thing is, though, I was able to access the account when I first got up yesterday and nothing of the sort was there, but a few minutes later I got the message that my account had been disabled. So that leaves a window of only a few minutes for the offending material to have been posted; that doesn't seem likely.

Or, maybe it's just that some algorithm at Facebook is acting up and saw something that wasn't there. Who knows? With luck, maybe I'll find out, but I'm not counting on that (even if they do decide to reinstate my account).

Even if I do get my account back, I plan to start posting more here. At least that's the idea; maybe the social media leech will start sucking my drive to blog again once it's available to me. Time will tell.