EU to be led by an anti-EU Viktor Orban

Europe is now in the weird position of being led by someone who doesn't appear to believe in the grand European experiment at all. As of tomorrow, July 1st, Hungary's Viktor Orban takes over the European presidency for half a year.

There's not much Europe can do about it. The post rotates among member countries, and this next six months happens to be Hungary's turn. Orban has been a thorn in the side of the European Union for years now, seemingly taking every opportunity to block, water down or delay key EU decisions, such as on Russia and the war in Ukraine, China, and any efforts to defend or extend democracy. 

Orban is a hard right-wing populist and demagogue, most of whose policies and beliefs are in direct contravention to those of mainstream Europe. He seems to relish his reputation as a spoiler and frustrater of EU policy, right down to his deliberately Trump-esque motto for the presidency position "Make Europe Great Again".

Luckily, the post of EU President does not actually carry with it that much power, and the bloc deliberately pushed through several of the more important votes while Belgium was still at the helm. So, as one commentator puts it, "Hungary cannot do potentially much harm". 

It will be interesting to see, though, to what extent Hungary under Orban will keep up its anti-EU rhetoric, even while technically leading it.

UPDATE

And now there are reports of Orban planning a trip to see Vladimir Putin, something that EU top diplomats say he has no mandate to do. Orban is the only head of government to have maintained close ties with Russia, even throughout the Ukraine war.

What's with those "strange" Black names?

If you've ever wondered about all those unusual Black names - often referred to as "strange" or "weird", and often the butt of off-colour jokes by the less politically correct white comedians - I don't think you need to be afraid to ask. Most Black people will happily oblige with an answer.

Black sports personalities, actors and entertainers, and just regular folks from suburbia, glory in names like Tayshaun, Raynell, Chaunte, RaMell, Jamal, Latasha, Rau'shee, D'Andre, Latonya, DeMar, Trevell, LaKiesha, Sha'Carri, Tayvon, Shaday, Kareem, Michandra, JohnTae, D'Quell, Lakasia, Tavondra, DeShaun, Dremiel, Shanequa. Comprised of apparently random blended syllables, often with random capitalization and random punctuation, they are nevertheless distinctively Black.

And that is (part of) the point. Such invented - and inventive - names have a double purpose: they are asserting individuality, but they are also deliberately - and assertively - identifying themselves as Black.

While the current trend can be said to have begun with the Black Power movement of the 1960s and 70s (and the later Afrocentrism cultural movement of the 1980s and 90s), the history of distinctively Black names goes much further back. Back in the late 1800s and early 1900s, names like Booker and Perlie were almost exclusively used by Black people, and many Biblical names like Elijah, Isaac, Moses and Abraham were as likely as not to be associated with Black people. Names designating empowerment, like Prince, King, Caesar and Freeman, were also very popular. 

In fact, the trend of distinctively Black naming became much more pronounced during the antebellum slavery period, and that is no coincidence. (At the same time, White people started deliberately avoiding these names.) This was partly a reaction to a time when White overlords would deliberately change the names of Black slaves to more standard names like Ruth, Mary, James and Joseph. The chosen names were not actually African, just ... different and individualistic.

So, don't think of these names as strange or weird, think of them as creative, affirmatory and assertive.

UPDATE

Incidentally, the report that has been circulating of a US judge railing against the "ridiculous names" Black women are giving their kids these days is in fact spurious. 

It was a spoof or satire, in deliberately poor taste "to make you think", according to the outfit in question ("The Peoples [sic] News").

The rise of the "boss economy"

Canada is registering an extraordinary business statistic: management is the fastest-growing occupation in the country, with more than half a million new manager jobs being created since just 2021. This represents a 33% increase over a period when non-management jobs grew by just 8%. Managers now account for 10.2% of all workers, up from 8.5% just a few short years ago.

Now, it's not quite as black-and-white as that appears, and there are some complicating explanatory factors. For example: many employers are doubling up young managers as a large cohort of baby boomers continue to retire, so that they can be mentored by the retiring managers; companies are dispensing management titles more easily as means of staff retention in a period of historic low unemployment; and the title itself is being diluted ("title inflation"), largely as a sop to Gen Z workers who feel starved of recognition. 

In the tech sector.in particular, many new jobs, especially remote ones, may carry the title "manager", even if they don't involve the oversight of subordinates.

But the trend is real, and can be seen in many different sectors, from professional, scientific and technical services (up 59.4% between 2019 and 2023) to wholesale trade (up 49.8%) to manufacturing (up 41.5%) and, to a lesser extent, finance (up 27.1%). This outsized growth is even more marked in the private sector than the public. The USA has experienced a similar management surge, although less dramatic than in Canada (up from 5.5% to 6.9%).

This could, of course, have profound implications for Canada's productivity crisis,  which I have commented on elsewhere.

Maybe I can get behind the Edmonton Oilers this time

I'm not a big Edmonton Oilers fan, or a fan of anything from Alberta, really. But I have been captivated by the hockey team's spirited comeback in the Stanley Cup finals this year. And, truth be told, I'm even less of a fan of the Florida Panthers, who have beaten the Maple Leafs too many times for comfort.

So, when the Oilers (embarrassing name!) started their comeback against Florida from 0-3 to 1-3 to 2-3 to, finally, 3-3 last night, it's hard not to get a bit excited. After all, the only other team to come back from 0-3  to win the Stanley Cup finals was our very own Toronto Maple Leafs, who managed this feat against the Detroit Red Wings back in 1942. Indeed, only one other team has come back from 0-3 to 3-3, only to lose the final, and that was Detroit in 1945, who ultimately lost to - guess who? - Toronto in Game 7. So, history is potentially being written here.

And I used to think that there is no point in supporting a team like Edmonton just because they are a "Canadian team". Because, like the Maple Leafs and most other teams, they are comprised of players from all over the world - aren't they? - and so not really any more "Canadian" than any other team.

But it turns out that this particular Oilers team has the highest make up of Canadians of any Cup finalists over the last 20 or so years, from star forward Connor McDavid down. There are 20 natives on the team, and 16 of them could well take the ice at some point in Tuesday's Game 7. So, if we can't get behind THIS "Canadian team", I don't know when we'll ever be able to. 

Canadian hockey teams used to completely dominate the Stanley Cup in past decades, as a quick perusal of past winners shows, but the Cup is more likely to end up in the deserts of Nevada or the swamps of Florida in recent years. The last time a Canadian team hoisted the Cup was Montreal in 1993. So, can this be first time in over 30 years the Cup comes back "home", as well as a fairy tale comeback story? Well, just maybe.

UPDATE

Well, it wasn't to be. The unlikely dream has ground to a halt as Florida beat Edmonton 2-1 in a gritty, hard-fought Game 7.

Pathways Alliance's response to the new greenwashing provisions says it all

You may have seen their advertising: earnest commitments from a consortium of six major oil sands developers to the effect that they are hard at work making Canada's environment cleaner and more sustainable. In particular, the Pathways Alliance assure us that they are well on the way to a net-zero future, through advanced carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects among others.

In fact, CCS is largely a failed technology and shows little or no prospect of success in the foreseeable future, while in the meantime proving a dangerous distraction from the more immediate problem of reducing our carbon footprint.

So, it's not a huge surprise to see that the Pathways Alliance has suddenly removed all content from its website and social media feeds in anticipation of the federal bill C-59 which, among other things, contains a truth-in-advertising amendment to the Competition Act that would require corporations to provide evidence to support their environmental claims. 

Otherwise known as the "anti-greenwashing provision", this is considered a major win by the environmental movement, even though it is in essence quite modest and not specifically aimed at the fossil fuel industry. 

Greenwashing is rampant these days, and studies show that up to 50% of companies' and governments' environmental claims have no supporting evidence and weak or non-existent verification. Worse, 57% of Canadian consumers no longer trust firms' green claims, making the work of honest firms that much harder.

The Pathways Alliance's public statement says that the amendment "will create significant uncertainty for Canadian companies that want to communicate publicly about the work they are doing to improve their environmental performance". What they actually mean is, "crap, we've been rumbled!" 

Rather than creating "significant uncertainty", the amendment does quite the opposite. It really just requires companies to tell the truth, and to be able to back up their claims with evidence. Seems reasonable, right?

Record numbers dying at annual hajj as Middle East climate worsens

Religion leads people to do amd say some very silly things. Thus has it always been. It is almost the exact antithesis of common sense.

What would lead thousands - no, millions - of people to spend many hours out in the sun in record-breaking temperatures, surrounded by so many other people it is almost impossible to move, let alone seek shade when necessary? Oh, yes, religion.

Muslims are very strongly encouraged by their imams to make the hajj pilgrimage to the holy site of Mecca in Saudi Arabia. Poor people sell all their worldly goods and even abandon their families to make the trip. Every year, many die, mainly due to crowd crushes and stampedes, but also because of the heat. It's kind of a crazy thing.

This year the hajj coincides with 52°C temperatures (although the temperatures are almost always dangerously high), and an estimated 550 people have died (so far), mainly Egyptians, Indonesians and Jordanians, and almost all from heat-related causes. Other tallies put the death toll at 577 (so far). Over 2,000 have been treated for heat stress.

The Saudi authorities caution the use of umbrellas and water, and avoiding exposure to the sun during the hottest part of the day. But, as they well know, many of the prescribed rituals involve being outdoors for hours during daytime hours. There are some air-conditioned facilities along the route, but these are not accessible by the thousands of "unofficial" pilgrims who cannot afford the often costly procedures for official hajj visas, and often skimp on food and water too. The Saudi health ministry seems to consider it a huge success that they managed to avoid any major disease outbreaks.

Do people who die at the annual hajj count as martyrs for the cause? Do they get to enjoy all those virgin? I doubt it somehow. And, anyway, did anyone ask the women whether they want to enjoy virgins? Ah, forgive my flippancy, but it does make you despair about religion in general, doesn't it?

UPDATE

The heat death numbers have now surpassed 1,000, the vast majority of them unregistered Egyptians.

UPDATE UPDATE

The final tally was at least 1,300 deaths. Really, this has to stop.

US ADVANCE bill not what America needs right now

A huge new bill just passed in the US Senate that has the American nuclear industry deliriously excited, and it has me (and others) in two minds.

The ADVANCE bill (Accelerating Deployment of Versatile Advanced Nuclear for Clean Energy - an awkward moniker, to say the least) passed in the Senate by 88-2, with 10 abstentions and just Bernie sanders and Ed Markey voting against. It is designed to reverse the American nuclear industry's decades-long decline, by slashing development fees, speeding up the licensing process, and hiring new staff for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Spokespeople for the industry are calling it "monumental", "game-changing" and "much-needed".

The main impetus for the bill is climate change and carbon reduction, but it will affect more than that. The USA has been leery of new nuclear projects since the Vogtle plant on Georgia went so far over-budget and over-time, and solar and wind power generation became so comparatively cheap. Now, the US government - no doubt at the behest of the still-powerful nuclear lobby - is looking to tilt the playing field in its favour again.

But it will almost certainly have the effect of drawing money and investment away from true renewable energy and battery technology, which is ultimately where we need to be going. Nuclear power is a low carbon option, admittedly, but it is also expensive, slow, inflexible, and comes with a whole catalogue of other unsavoury side-effects, not least the need to safely store spent fuel for centuries. It's also not even necessary. And don't get me started on small modular reactor (SMR) nuclear  plants, which people have been calling the saviour of the energy industry for decades, but which still doesn't even exist, and show no signs of ever becoming practical. Even notoriously pro-nuclear France has just scrapped its SMR plans due to soaring costs.

Joe Biden will almost certainly rubber stamp the bill when it is presented to him. But it is probably not the right direction to go. Focussing on nuclear is an unwelcome distraction from the job in hand.

UofT justifies Hebrew University associations in the name of academic freedom

If you needed further evidence that the Israel-Palestine issue is complicated - despite the black-and-white that both sides seem to be able to find in it - take just one of the demands of the University of Toronto pro-Palestine encampment.

The UofT protesters are calling on the university to boycott and cut all ties with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, in addition to disclosure and termination of the school's investments in Israel and in weapons manufacturers that enable Israel's war in Gaza. 

Hebrew University is located at Mount Scopus in East Jerusalem. East Jerusalem was annexed by Israel in the 1967 war, and is still claimed by Palestine as their capital city, despite being part of Israel's illegally occupied territory. Canada, like the UN and most other countries, "does not recognize Israel's unilateral annexation of East Jerusalem", and regards it as part of the illegal occupied territories, "stolen land" in less polite terms.

The UofT administration argues that it has had a working relationship with Hebrew University for some time (actually just since 2007), and that academic relations transcend political considerations and should be regarded as sacrosanct. The phrase that springs to my mind in this connection is "yes, but not at any cost" - such esoteric sentiments should not be used to justify abuses of human rights.

It is further argued that the university has been at Mount Scopus since 1925, long before the establishment of the state of Israel, when the area was part of British Mandate Palestine, and that it "maintains continuous private property rights in East Jerusalem, regardless of the area's sovereignty status", a highly suspect claim either legally or morally. But, anyway, it closed down there in 1948, and then re-opened again in 1967, at a time when the area was officially illegally occupied by Israel. So, bit of a red herring.

And should we care that 17% of the student population of Hebrew U are Arab? Or at least they were in 2022 - I've a suspicion that may well have changed in the past few months.

It should be noted also that Hebrew University has programs directly associated with the Israel Defence Forces (IDF), the outfit current laying waste to the remnants of Gaza. It also hosts Havatzalot, an IDF intelligence training program. The university describes this association as "purely academic", but somehow I don't think so.

So, complicated, perhaps, but not THAT complicated. As even a Jewish Faculty Network member at UofT concludes, citing academic freedom in this situation is "totally disingenuous and misleading ... how can the collaboration with such an institution be defended in the name of academic freedom?"