Ford's Ontario government addicted to speed

It's becoming clearer why the Conservative provincial government of Doug Ford is so vehemently opposed to speed cameras in Ontario's cities, particularly in Toronto.

Apparently, Ford's cabinet ministers have racked up no less than 23 automated speeding tickets over the last few years, attracting fines of over $3,300, with several caught doing over 50 kph over the speed limit. One government employee was logged doing 162 kph in a company car (this one recorded by the car's own log, not by a speed trap - the staffer in question is still working for the government).

Clearly, the Ford administration in general likes to speed, and does not seem to believe that municipal laws should apply to it. So, although pretty much all Ontario cities that use speed cameras want to keep them, arguing that they are instrumental in reducing accidents and accident severity, Mr. Ford and his buddies are sticking to the line that speed cameras are just a cash grab (he calls municipalities that use them "greedy"), and should be decommissioned forthwith. The car is still king in the halls of Queen's Park.

Marineland should be paying to relocate beleaguered belugas

The saga of the Marineland beluga whales continues, as the financially-troubled Niagara amusement park says it can no longer affords to feed the whales, and is calling on the federal government to bail it out, after years of exploiting the whales for its own profit. In fact, it says it will start to euthenize the belugas if some level of government doesn't come through with funding. Not only is this an attempt at blackmail, it is a complete abdication of responsibility.

The park, which uses whales for entertainment and has already managed to kill 19 belugas and an orca since 2019, is effectively holding the beluga as hostages. It says it has arranged for the whales to be sold to a Chinese amusement park where they would probably be kept in even worse conditions. But the government has (quite rightly) nixed such a move and refused to grant export permits, on the grounds that it would be against the Fisheries Act and Criminal Code to allow the whales to face a future of exploitation, performing tricks in captivity.

The chutzpah of Marineland beggars belief. They should sell every last asset they possess in order to relocate the belugas to somewhere they can live out what remains of their lives in some level of comfort and freedom. Various non-profits and municipalities in Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Northern Quebec have made overtures towards taking the whales, but it is Marineland that should be paying for this.

Freedom Convoy leaders given paltry sentences

Nearly three years after the so-called "Freedom Convoy" took over the streets of Ottawafor weeks on end and made a mockery of the whole concept of freedom, key organizers Tamara Lich and Chris Barber have been handed conditional sentences - a year of house arrest, followed by six months of 10pm curfew.

So, although they were found guilty of mischief (which is a more serious misdemenour than it sounds), and counselling others to disobey a court order in Barber's case, and although Crown prosecutors were calling for jail sentences of 7 and 8 years (in line with the impact the two had on the public and the financial costs they caused), they have effectively received a proverbial slap on the wrist from the judge. And, even then, they are considering appealing.

The two ne'erdowells and their supporters are probably sniggering behind their hands at such a ridiculously lenient sentence.

Why does Trump hate Portland, Oregon?

Nobody outside of the hardcore MAGA nucleus really takes Donald Trump's rants very seriously. So, when he calls the city of Portland, Oregon, a "hellhole", a "war zone", and a 'war-ravaged" city that is "burning to.the ground", most people simply yawned and rolled their eyes.

Yes, there has been a small but persistent protest group camped out outside the Portland ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) facility, protesting against Trump's use of police state paramilitary forces in his virulent anti-immigration push. And yes, there have been a few arrests over the last few months as a result. But this is happening about two miles from Portland's pretty chill and cool city centre. And Portland's "army of antifa" blasted by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem recently turned out to have been a few protesters, about a dozen journalists, and a guy in a chicken costume.

And, far from Trump's claim that Portland "looks like World War 2", the biggest of the protests amounted to about 100 people. (The Fox News footage he was referencing actually spliced in, in true Fox News fashion, some footage from a 2020 Black Lives Matter protests.) 

Even Trump-appointed judge Karin Immergut concluded that the Portland protests have been "small and uneventful" for months, and that the Trump administration's claims were "untethered to the facts". She issued a restraining order on deployment of the National Guard to the city, arguing that trump had exceeded his legal and constitutional authority.

Yes, of course there is crime in Portland, but, to put it in perspective, FBI figures show Portland sitting at No. 72 in its survey of violent crime in large American cities, well behind many others, both Republican and Democrat. Furthermore, the FBI stats show that violent crime in Portland has actually improved slightly over the last few years, and violent crime in Oregon as a whole is currently at a five-year low.

So, why would he exaggerate quite so much? Why Portland? It's probably mainly due to Portland's permissive and progressive reputation. The city is every Republican's idea of a loony-left progressive paradise. Its reputation really came to a head during the (sometimes violent) Black Lives Matter protests of 2020, during Trump's first administration, in the wake of the COVID lockdowns and the death of George Floyd. Clearly, he has never forgotten this thorn in his side from first administration and, as we all know, no-one nurses a grudge like Donald Trump. 

More broadly, it's all part of his plan to tame and subdue uppity progressive cities like Portland, Chicago, Washington, New York, etc. He is even on public record as suggesting that "we should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds" for his newly-branded Department of War. From anyone else, this might have been some very dark humour; coming from Trump, it is him thinking aloud, and escalating matters beyond the pale. 

Trump lives in his own parallel universe that he is gradually trying to superimpose over the real world. It's all we can do to resist it.

The backlash against criticism of Charlie Kirk

The dead are irreproachable, it seems, and the backlash against any form of criticism agaist MAGA martyr Charlie Kirk has already begun, even here in Canada. 

A Manitoba cabinet minister was called out by the Conservative opposition and forced to publicly apologize for calling Kirk racist, sexist and transphobic, and a "white nationalist mouthpiece". Now, that is not virulent and offensive in the way that the pretty extreme views  University of Toronto prof expressed about Kirk, which resulted in her dismissal.The Manitoba legislator, it seems to me, was just stating facts. Kirk - a noted proponent of free speech - will have had much worse than that to his face.

The backlash in America is, predictably, even worse, with a big clamp-down on any comments not complimentary to Kirk. JD Vance has actively called for people to snitch on anyone vaguely critical of the new MAGA martyr, Soviet-style. 

Ultra-popular late-night host Jimmy Kimmel was summarily dismissed by the Disney-owned ABC network (after pressure from the administration) for comments that were only slightly critical - actually more critical of the administration than of Kirk - when he said: "The MAGA Gang [is] desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them, and doing everything to score political points from it. In between the finger-pointing there was grieving." 

Nothing wrong with that, just telling it like it is. But Trump and his administration have the bit between their teeth and are making the best of this opportunity (also telling it like it is).

UPDATE

There have been many other such occurrences in the following days and weeks, but one that stands out for me is the resignation of four journalists from three Alaska newspapers after pressure from a Republican lawmaker to change the wordng of an article about Kirk.

Kudos for having the guts to put their morals before their careers, something that cannot be said of the Republican lawmaker (or the corporate owners of the three papers). I hope they land on their feet.

Is there any point in fact-checking Trump's tirades against renewable energy?

It's too depressing to go into all of the various lies about renewable energy and climate change that Donald Trump reeled off at his address to the UN General Assembly yesterday. Among other howlers, he reiterated his unfounded beliefs that renewable energy sources like wind and solar "don't work" and are "too expensive", called the Paris Agreement a "scam" and all of consensus climate science a "hoax", claimed China and Germany are pulling back from renewable energy, called the UN'S assessment of climate change impacts are "exaggerated" and "incorrect" and a "con job", that reducing carbon emissions costs jobs. His solution to all this? More "clean, beautiful coal".

Wow. It's hard to know where to start, but ABC has already fact-checked most of these ridiculous claims and outright lies, so I don't have to. As Trump strengthens his economic stranglehold over the rest of the world, he is more and more forthright in putting forward his own magical and unsubstantiated beliefs about global warming and clearly energy. 

What's still not clear to me is why. Is he really in the pocket of the American coal lobby? I find that hard to believe. Are his views all coloured by the wind turbines just offshore from his Scottish golf course? I can just about believe he is petty enough for that, but hard to think that his whole worldview has been changed by that. Is it just a "conservative" desire to return to the American dominance and global influence of the 1930s (1950s? 1890s?)? Again, it doesn't make much sense logically, but logic is nothing to do with it. People have been trying to psychoanalyze Trump for years, and remain perplexed. 

I guess all we can do is keep fact-checking Trump's nonsensical tirades. We're not going to change his mind; he only listens to himself. But there is a small chance - and I admit it's a small one - that his followers may be swayed by the truth. 

If we admit the truth to ourselves, though, perhaps a more likely outcome is that, if Trump keeps banging on about this stuff, he will persuade more and more people by sheer force of will.

Who was Charlie Kirk anyway, and is he now a MAGA martyr?

 Just so we know who we are talking about here, Charlie Kirk was a highly controversial figure with some pretty extreme right-wing views. 

• He was strongly anti-gay and -trans rights, and encouraged students to report university profs who embraced "gender ideology". 
• He was a strong supporter of gun rights and against gun control, and once publicly opined, "I think it's worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment" (pretty ironic, in retrospect). 
• He strongly opposed diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives and affirmative action, and believed the 1964 Civil Rights Act was a huge mistake and that Martin Luther King was an "awful" person. 
• Despite supporting Israel's genocide in Gaza, he was vocally anti-Jew, believed in the "replacement theory" conspiracy, and thought that all Jews were  involved in anti-white activities.
• He was anti-Muslim even more than anti-Jew, calling Islam an existential threat to America.
• He was a climate change denier, arguing that there is no scientific consensus on anthropogenic global warming, and that it is not important anyway.
• Just about the only thing Kirk was not against was free speech, although he was less supportive of free speech for leftists.

So, this is the person who Donald Trump called "Great, even Legendary". Certainly, he was not a nice guy, and it's no surprise he made a whole boatload of enemies in his short time in the glare of American media. 

Trump administration's claims of left-wing violence not a statistical fact

The Trump administration's narrative regarding the assassination of Charlie Kirk is that "it were the left what done it". Because of course it is. They wouldn't miss an opportunity to score partisan points, however demonstrably false such a claim is.

However, they take it further by claiming that most political violence is instigated by the far left, also demonstrably false. JD Vance: "It is a statistical fact that most of the lunatics in American politics today are proud members of the far-Left". Donald Trump: "most of the violence is on the left". And, even worse, abandoning all sense of truth and prespective: "We have some pretty radical groups and they got away with murder".

Setting aside the fact that most Democrats in the USA are barely left of centre, let alone far- or extreme-left, the reality is the direct opposite of what the Trumpites would have us believe. For example, a Washington Post study from a few years ago concluded that "the surge reflects a growing threat from homegrown terrorism not seen in a quarter-century, with right-wing extremist attacks and plots greatly eclipsing those from the far left, and causing more deaths". A report by the Anti-Defamation League shows that over 70% of extremist attacks are fuelled by right-wing ideologies. Even a report by the libertarian Cato Institute found that far-right wing terrorists were responsible for over half of political killings, and the left wing just 22%. A Polish university study of political violence in the US and the world likewise: "far-right extremists have been responsible for more cases of political violence than far-left extremists. As our research shows, their attacks are more violent than those by left-wing extremists". There is more, none of it supporting the claims of Trump and Vance.

But, then, as JD Vance himself accidentally (or not) admitted, he is willing "to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention". Oops.