Alberta demands more say on judicial appointments

Danielle Smith is on the warpath again. Yawn.

This time she is demanding - demanding, I say - that the province of Alberta have more say over the appointment of judges. She also wants a relaxation of the requirement for bilingualism in the higher echelons of the legal profession because, well, Albertans don't do bilingualism.

It's like she and her administration stay up at night thinking up new ways to nettle the federal government, the prettier the issue the better. It seems that her voting constituency, which contains a fair few Alberta separatists, expect it of her. But, man, is the rest of the country fed up with it!

So, this is a woman who has often complained about the juduciary not doing what she wants, indeed having the temerity to have different political opinions and worldviews to her. This is a woman who has openly stated that she would like to be able to politically vet judges, America-style (and look how well that system is going...) Alberta judges felt compelled to make a public complaint after that, calling on Smith to respect the independence of the judicial appointment system.

And she expects Ottawa to hand over more control? She's even gone full Trump, threatening to withold Alberta's funding of.the judicial system is she doesn't get what she wants. She may just as well have said she will impose tariffs if she doesn't get her way.

Federal Justice Minister Sean Fraser has, quite rightly, dismissed Smith's "demands" out of hand, saying, "I'm planning to maintain the process that we have in place, that has independence, that has rigour, that has led to stellar candidates being appointed, including as recently in Alberta". A little mor tongue in cheek, Fraser says, "We welcome the feedback from representatives of the Alberta government ... it's been very helpful".

Is Mark Carney in the Epstein Files?

Well, here's a question I never thought to ask: is Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney mentioned in the Epstein files? It's not an unreasonable question - the files are a virtual who's who of men of influence, although not all of the mentions are necessarily incriminating.

The CBC has done the hard work for me. It turns out that Carney is mentioned quite a few times - particularly during the time of his tenure as Governor of the Bank of England - basically because he was an important figure in the financial world. The mentions are mainly references to events or articles that happen to involve Carney. However, none of the documents show any direct communications between Carney and Epstein, and certainly nothing salacious is even hinted at. 

Yes, there are fake photos circulating on the internet showing Carney on Epstein's private island - of course there are! - but they are just that, proven AI fakes. There are one or two real photos of Carney at an event in 2013 with Epstein's side-kick and convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell - apparently his wife's sister went to school with Maxwell, and Maxwell was ubiquitous in the British social scene of the time - but Carney never had any dealings with her.

So, not a big surprise. Carney seems way too straight and buttoned up to be involved in any of Epstein's or Maxwell's schemes. Worth checking, though.

Dropping Canada's EV mandate illustrates the failings of our auto sector

The way I see it, Canada's decision to drop its electric vehicle (EV) mandate, widely expected to be announced in the next day or two, in favour of a new, less aggressive system of fuel efficiency standards and credits, represents a failure on the part of the Canadian auto industry - at the production, wholesale and retail levels - as well as, to some extent, the Canadian public.

It's not that the Trudeau-era policy is inherently a bad one, as Pierre Polievre and the CEOs of multiple automotive companies would have us think. Mark Carney would have supported it wholeheartedly at one time, just as he was a very vocal apologist of carbon taxes at one time. But Carney is pragmatic to a fault, and not fond of grand gestures and statements of principle (in the way that Trudeau was fond of them, to a fault).

But our automotive industry just did not put much effort into actively pursuing the policy. It just sat back and hoped it would happen of its own accord. And, while some members of the public (like me!) did the right thing - i.e. go electric - for its own sake, most others also sat back and waited for everybody else to do the right thing, which is never going to work. Then, when the Trudeau government started sending mixed messages on its environmental commitments, and when EV rebates were withdrawn, the driving public just threw up its hands and said, "well, what can we do?"

Carney, once a staunch environmentalist, has gradually dismantled (or at least scaled back) most of the progressive environmental initiatives of the previous administration. Scrapping the EV mandate is just another such, although one welcomed by the lazy domestic auto sector. Relying on tailpipe standards would be a return to the pre-EV mandate, pre-carbon tax status quo, which, you might remember, was not particularly effective in reducing our carbon emissions. There is talk of bringing back some EV rebates, but we must wait to see what that entails, just as we need to wait to see how stringent the tailpipe emission regulations will be. (We don't have a progressive US model to follow this time.)

Frankly, I'm not holding my breath.

Offshore wind farms may actually help wildlife

Detractors of wind power - the Donald Trumps of this world - and even environmentalists who would otherwise have been in favour, often claim that wind turbines, and especially offshore wind turbines, are deleterious, even downright dangerous, for wildlife and biodiversity. Opponents point to the disruption of the marine environment during construction (and decommissioning) of offshore wind turbines, the distraction of larger fish and whales due to the noise and vibration of the turbines, and the effects of electromagnetic fields around them, although the ramifications of many of these issues are still not well understood and proven.

But data from Europe over the last few years is starting to tell a different story. It turns out that European windfarms in the North Sea may actually be offering new areas of protection for marine wildlife, including some threatened species like great seals and North Sea cod. The huge underwater turbine towers can provide a home for some species, and reefs of marine life have begun to form (the construction of artificial reefs is also a possibility). They also provide protected areas where fishing vessels cannot access, thus reducing the risks of overfishing.

The jury is still out and more research and data is needed, but it is possible that the positive side effects of wind farms may outweigh the unfortunate negative ones.

That Hamas was able to return all hostages is amazing

The news that Israel had received the last of the Hamas hostages came while I was away on holiday. The body of Master Sgt Ran Gvili was retrieved from a cemetery over the Israel-imposed Yellow Line, but Hamas was able to give Israeli authorities details of how and where to find it.

And that's what I find extraordinary, not that Israel and Netanyahu (who is trying to take all the cedit for it) was able to get all 251 hostages back, but that Hamas was able to keep track of them all.

Bear in mind that almost all of the Gaza strip is a hellscape of rubble and collapsed buildings, subject, even now during the so-called ceasefire, to constant Israeli bombardment. How Hamas was able to keep the bodies, and to keep so many of them alive frankly, so that they could be returned to Israel, is nothing short of miraculous.

Billion of dollars of Canadian federal cheques remain uncashed

Here's a headscratcher: Canadians have left uncashed over $2 billion of cheques mailed out by the federal government.

$2,159,665,155 to be exact. That's a lot of money, particularly given that it was sent to some of the most needy in the country. For example, about $141 million was for the Canada Carbon Rebate, and nearly $43 million was for the Canada Child Benefit.

Only about 8.5% of total federal payments are sent out in the form of paper cheques - most are paid by direct deposit - but some agencies still issue large numbers of cheques. Government cheques never expire, and can be replaced if lost or damaged.

It does make you wonder what's going on, though. We keep being told that huge swathes of the Canadian population are struggling financially, and yet there is $2 billion of free money sloshing around out there, unclaimed, presumably sitting in a drawer or bag. Sure, many poorer people are not well financially-educated. But how hard is it to deposit a cheque into a bank?

Free solo climber completes Taipei skyscraper climb

There's no way I could have watched it live, even with a 10-second delay, but American daredevil Alex Honnold did indeed complete his "free solo" climb of the 101-storey Taipei 101 skyscraper yesterday.

This ridiculous feat, which you can see video snippets of, took him just an hour and a half, which equates to about a storey a minute. The building is a glass and metal monolith, with all sorts of overhangs and other tricky bits, and looks all but impossible to climb. Success was not necessarily assured. But there he was standing on the pinpoint pinnacle having to the crowds and not even looking tired. Crazy stuff.

Why.doesn't the daytime moon look full?

I had a sudden panic today. The moon was way up in the sky, in the middle of the day, i.e. at the same time as the sun was also way up in the sky. So, I thought, wait. there's nothing in the way of the sun shining on the moon, so why doesn't the moon appear full?

Well, of course, I'm not the only one to wonder that. And, once it is explained, the answer is obvious.

Yes, the sun is high in the sky, but it is off to one side as we look at it from earth. The sun is therefore shining on one side of the moon as we look at it, and so only part of it reflects back to us here on earth. It would only appear full to us if the sun was shining on it straight on (from our perspective).

Phew! Thank god there's a reasonable explanation.