News roundup, 13 Aug 2023

- Disconcertingly, there's been a decline in sales of meatless burgers recently.

- Also disconcertingly, the Manitoba Tories are running on a platform of fighting the federal carbon tax. I'd like to think Manitobans know better than to be sucked into that, but my faith in the electorate is not high. We'll have to see.

- Researchers in Saskatchewan are trying to learn about potentially invasive pests before they arrive.

- Some grim before and after pics from Lahaina. The death toll now stands at 93, and concerns are being raised about how little warning residents had.

- Only two Liquor Marts in the city are open this weekend. Some might note that both locations - Crestview and St Vital Square - are in the suburbs, and in fact quite some distance from downtown.

- Netflix's algorithms appear to be able to infer things about you that you haven't figured out yourself yet.

- It seems like wherever you go, be it here or even in such a low crime society as South Korea, there seems to be an outbreak of random violence in recent years. Not sure why, but I still think the pandemic broke a lot of people.

- Belarus is being accused of trying to destabilize its neighbours.

News roundup, 12 Aug 2023

 - It's now the worst wildfire season in Canadian history, with 13.4 million hectares burned compared to the previous record of 7.6 million. And summer isn't even over yet. Meanwhile, in Hawaii the number of fatalities is now 80 and counting and the state's attorney general is investigating the response.

- Yet another potential safety concern with the Boeing 737 MAX.

- A special counsel has been appointed to look into the affairs of Hunter Biden. The impact on his father's presidency remains to be seen.

- Many workers are less than happy about the push to return to the office. This is especially true for those who found remote work to be a refuge from racism.

- Trump's legal team is trying to have one of his upcoming trials moved from DC to West Virginia on the grounds that it would be easier to find an impartial jury there. While the chances of getting a change of venue are minimal, it may be all about the optics.

- Violent threats against public officials in the US continues to rise. To the surprise of few, the far right is responsible in most cases. Not as bad as it is in Ecuador so far but hey, give it time.

- The latest rich arseholes' gladiatorial games could be held in Italy.

- Poland's rightwing government is playing the nationalist, anti-migrant, anti-German card in leadup to parliamentary elections in the fall. Whether this will convince the masses remains to be seen.

News roundup, 11 Aug 2023

 - Ohio voters have resoundingly defeated a Republican-backed ballot measure to raise the voter threshold necessary to amend the state constitution from 50%+1 to 60%. It's generally recognized that this measure was an attempt to prevent an abortion rights amendment from being introduced. Notably, the turnout was higher than expected; it's almost as if the young folks can't be counted on to stay home on election day anymore. This bodes well for the Democrats next year.

- A recent poll indicates that Americans' views on climate change are more nuanced than you'd expect based on what you hear from the political class, although Republicans gonna Republican.

- The Greenbelt scandal in Ontario proceeds apace. Whether Ford's opening up of the Greenbelt can be stopped, though, remains to be seen.

- At least 55 people are now dead following the wildfires in Maui, with pretty much all of Lahaina destroyed. Meanwhile Ottawa has the opposite problem.

- Management at Manitoba Liquor and Lotteries are getting raises, even as rank and file staff are striking for a far more modest raise. The province seems to have a bit of a double standard here. I guess we can expect more booze shortages for the time being.

- A trustee with southeast Winnipeg's Louis Riel School Division, who was suspended in June for hate-related online activity, is now being investigated for possible conflict of interest as a result of a payment from a far-right activist in a completely different city. It's almost as if her purpose in running was to represent Winkler, not her own ward.

- That's no asteroid, that's a space station!

News roundup, 10 Aug 2023

- A catastrophic wildfire has devastated the Hawaiian town of Lahaina.

- No, COVID-19 is still not over.

- Danielle Smith has sabotaged billions of dollars worth of green energy projects and the associated jobs. Even free-market types are bewildered that she would do this. Meanwhile the feds are threatening to withhold funding from energy projects that don't reduce greenhouse emissions, which of course has got the UCP's knickers in a knot. 

- On the other hand, Colorado, which has been compared to Alberta, is moving forward with emissions reduction plans, despite the annoyance of energy companies.

- Ontario's auditor general has found signs of conflict of interest in the government's plans to build in the Greenbelt. No surprise there.

- A religious nut from BC, who is trying to sue the Quebec government for cancelling his booking at a convention centre for a rally, claims that wildfires are divine retribution for allowing access to abortion.

- Apparently when you rant on social media about wanting to kill people, including the President of the United States, and then confront the FBI with firearms when they come to get you, you might get killed. Who'd have thought, eh?

- Trump fans at fundie/evangelical churches apparently don't like it when their pastors cite woke nonsense like the Sermon on the Mount. And rather than backing down when it's pointed out that the pastor is actually quoting the word of Christ, they try to argue that it no longer applies in our time. Strangely, they never seem to apply that logic to other biblical verses such as Leviticus 18:22.

- In New Zealand they're making inroads in housing affordability by reforming zoning. There's a lesson in there if Americans - and Canadians - are willing to listen.

- A lot of people don't realize that the impact of climate change will be disproportionately on the poorest. Perhaps we shouldn't be too quick to correct this misconception, though; they're probably more likely to favour action if they think it's a concern for them.

- Apparently people are more likely to try plant-based food if it doesn't have the word "vegan" on the label.

- India is making significant inroads into greenhouse gas emissions.

- Apparently pardoning murderers and sending them to the front lines of a war doesn't always teach them not to kill people.

- Ron DeSantis, who has vowed to pardon Trump if elected President, is punishing prosecutors who aren't aggressive enough for his liking.

- Spain may lose their remaining glaciers within a decade.

- A candidate for Ecuador's presidency has been assassinated mid-campaign.

- China, despite its huge size, has only one time zone. Yes, the reason is political.

- Good news on the green energy front from Morocco.

- A huge donor to the Republican Party has been sentenced to 21 years in prison for sex trafficking of minors. Apparently it's not drag queens we have to worry about after all. As someone in a Reddit thread on the subject said, "every accusation is a confession with them."

News roundup, 9 Aug 2023

- Home invasions? Try that in a small town. Oh wait, they did, and they succeeded.

- The federal government is actually showing signs of playing hardball with laggard provinces - they may be forced to agree to federal emissions targets for the grid in order to access federal money. A step in the right direction, assuming they don't chicken out. Meanwhile Danielle Smith is doing her damnedest to crush the thriving clean energy sector in her own province, by imposing a seven month moratorium on any new projects. Because freedumb. Whether she is willing to cut off her nose to spite her face remains to be seen, but my money's on her pushing forward anyway, just like Ron DeSantis in Florida.

- On the positive side, solar power is helping to keep the power on in Europe despite huge demands on the grid due to air conditioning use. Which makes perfect sense; the hottest part of the day is usually the sunniest.

- Also positive - the Inflation Reduction Act is doing wonders for clean energy.

- Lula, for all his faults, seems to actually be taking action to protect the Amazon. It's almost as if elections actually mattered, sometimes.

- Having your air conditioning fail is annoying, and expensive, but it should not be fatal. It was for these people though. Expect this to be a more widespread problem in the future.

- Why does Alabama still have such a bad reputation for race relations? Maybe because of stuff like this.

- In 1970 Richard Nixon was doing his darnedest to prevent Salvador Allende from taking office in Chile. This should of course come as no surprise to anyone who knows what happened a few years later.

- Self-proclaimed champion of free speech Elon Musk is doing everything he can to silence a nonprofit that dares to point out the prevalence of hate speech on his platform.

- One of the biggest beneficiaries of working from home is now ordering their own workers back to the office. If I had to guess, I'd say it might be pressure from their biggest shareholders, some of which doubtless have significant exposure to the commercial real estate market.

- Weird stuff is happening to water temperatures in the Pacific, with a small area being cooled as most of the ocean is getting hotter. Consequences TBA...

- We know that a lot of the same kind of people who burn the Quran also like Putin. Some say this may not be a coincidence; at the very least, the Kremlin stands to benefit from divisions arising because of this.

Current affairs roundup, 8 Aug 2023

 

- The BC port strike has been settled. It's a different story at Manitoba Liquor and Lotteries, where the staff have gone on strike provincewide. Expect a lot of pink elephant sightings in Manitoba this summer.

- Media outlets in Canada have asked the Competition Bureau to investigate Meta's blocking of news. The effectiveness of this remains to be seen.

- The Republican governor of New Hampshire is trying to get anti-Trump Republicans to settle on a single candidate in the primaries. Whether this has any chance of succeeding or not is another question.

- Ukrainian police report having foiled a plot to kill Zelensky.

- In England, COVID-19 and flu vaccines are being limited to those over 65 or with other health risks. It seems hard to justify this; people who aren't at high risk of serious illness themselves can still give the diseases to people who are. Maybe they think this will win more approval from the "freedumb" crowd. The fact that they're actually denying much of the population the freedom to get vaccinated probably doesn't matter to their target audience.

- Another potential flashpoint for superpower conflict. Just what we need...

- Trump seems to be daring judges to lock him up. Which makes one wonder; he's not the brightest guy around, but he's smarter than he appears. Is he trying to set up a situation where his sheeple will rise up en masse against the government? And if so, could such an uprising go further than the Jan. 6 one? How far? Stay tuned.

- The Kremlin says it's "theoretically possible" to cancel the next presidential election. Now why would they bring that up?

Meta/Facebook's war on news in Canada

 

Well, Meta is now well on their way towards scrubbing news content from Canadians' Facebook feeds. It's being done incrementally; currently I can still see news posts on other people's timelines, but others are reporting that they can't see the ones on mine. Some of my friends say that it isn't limited to Canadian news sites either; apparently it's blocking links to foreign news sites, and even Wikipedia, at least for some users.

Some have pointed out that the Trudeau government's handling of the situation has been suboptimal. According to the CBC, Australia's legislation had enough flexibility to enable their country's news sites to make arrangements with Meta, while Canada's did not.

I can't help but wonder, though, if Meta has another agenda in mind as well. Several years ago it came out that the company was concerned that people weren't sharing enough "personal" content, and instead posting more of things like news. Most likely they figure that the data they get from people's personal posts and their friends' responses is more valuable as a marketing commodity than data about what kinds of news people post and read. And it's well known that they are not above conducting psychological and sociological experiments on their users. So maybe they've been waiting for a while to conduct an experiment in a nice controlled setting (e.g. limited to a country with a smallish population) on whether they get more of the stuff they want if they eliminate the competition from news posts. Doing such an experiment worldwide would be risky, because it might very well lead to a substantial drop in the number of active users, but they know darned well that Canadians will be less likely to drop Facebook if their friends and relatives in the rest of the world are still using it.

If nothing else, it's given me an incentive to reactivate this blog.