Amazing photo of damaged cars

There is an extraordinary photo on the Internet of cars stacked on top of each other in Valencia, Spain, after the catastrophic flash floods there.

I have no idea how such a thing could happen, but I'm pretty sure it's not a doctored image. Amazing.

And, in case you were wondering, the weird m, destructive weather that hit Spain, and that dropped a year's worth of rain in just a few hours was due to a phenomenon called DANA - Depression Aislada en Niveles Altas, or isolated depression at high levels.

Why the Washington Post is "choosing" not to endorse a presidental candidate

While one multibillionaire, Elon Musk, continues to make a fool of himself appearing as a trained pet at Donald Trump's rallies, another multibillionaire, Jeff Bezos, has waded into the fray too, although he has tried his best to hide it.

The Washington Post has decided, for the first time in 30 years, not to endorse one or other of the US presidential candidates. But this wasn't an editorial decision, it was a decision handed down by the paper's new owner, one Jeff Bezos.

According to sources within the newspaper, an endorsement for Kamala Harris had been written and drafted ready, but was put on hold at the last minute and not published. Some.staffers and reporters have laid the blame squarely at Bezos' feet, and many others are disgusted at this "stab in the back", this "insult" to staff and readers.

Essentially, this was Bezos bottling out. His companies have billions of dollars worth of contracts with the federal government, and he does not want to be accused of partisanship, particularly if a certain vindictive ex-president wins the race. Trump's disgraceful behaviour has been effective once again, and he will see this as an invitation to further intimidate the US press in the future.

UPDATE

A very similar thing seems to have happened at the Los Angeles Times, as billionaire owner Patrick Soon-Shiong overruled an editorial intention to endorse Kamala Harris.

This time, though, according to the owner's activist daughter at least, the reasoning was different, and clearer. It was over Harris's continued support and arming of Israel. Probably also at the back if his mind, though, was the figure of a vindictive, avenging Trump.

Either way, this is not how things are supposed to work on a free and open country.

First Nations childcare deal creating divisions among Indigenous bands

The Assembly of First Nations has voted to reject a huge $47.8 billion childcare agreement with the Canadian federal government.

267 of the 414 chiefs represented at the meeting (64%) voted against the offer, presumably on the grounds that they think they can get more. That's a lot of money to turn down. The money is to allow First Nations to set up and run their own child welfare service.

The debate has turned quite acrimonious, setting band against band, with some chiefs vowing to cut ties with those who are refusing the deal, and going it alone. As one chief opined, "I will not gamble with $47.8 billion that could change the lives of our future generations because my ego tells me I can do better". Ouch.

And gambling is right. Any day now could see a snap election, and then it won't be the free-spending Liberals in power, but the stingy Conservatives. If I were them, I'd take the money and run.

Xi and Putin's new world order dance routine

What's with the weird pose by Chinese President Xi and Russian President Putin at a photo op at the BRICS summit at Kazan recently?

As Putin outlined his "vision of a new democratic world order" [sic] to the expander BRICS delegates, this photo really stands out to me. Was it just coincidence that they were both digging in their jacket pockets at the same time? Was it part of a dance routine? A nod to Napoleon Bonaparte? Is it maybe some new kind of salute? Will we all have do this in the new world order? I'd like to know.

Ontario medical school announcement addresses a non-existent problem

The Ford government made a big splashy campaign-style announcement yesterday that it would be slashing the number of out-of-province students attending Ontario's six medical schools, with 95% of the spots being reserved for Ontario students.

This is clearly Doug Ford jumping on the runaway bandwagon of Pierre Poilievre's anti-immigrant sentiment. Ford said in the announcement that he had been told that 18% of Ontario's college and university students were international students, although it later transpired that that figure relates to graduate students, and is anyway nothing to do with medical sudents in particular.

The thing is, only 0.3% of undergraduate medical students in Ontario are actually international students. This amounts to all of 11 students out of 3,732 in the academic year 2022-23, and three of those were from the US. This number for 2023-24 was down to 10. Three of the six Ontario medical schools had no foreign students at all.

Granted, about 12% of medical school students were from other Canadian provinces, and this would be capped at 5% under Ford's new rules, but I'm not sure that is what Ford's supporters would have gleaned from the announcement (nor am I sure that is a problem that necessarily needs fixing).

Either way, none of this is going to address in any meaningful way Ontario's housing crises or the family medicine doctors shortage (which in fact, might get slightly worse as a result of this announcement). What we really need is more medical schools, and more money pumped into the training system (although, to be fair, two new medical schools, at Toronto Metropolitan University amd York University, have been separately announced).

 But, anyway, Ford got some useful sound-bites and media coverage out of it.

How many Russians are dying in Ukraine, and how do Russians feel about it?

While the US election and the ongoing Israeli war against the Arab world sucks up all the oxygen in the world news, it's sometimes hard to remember that Russia's invasion of Ukraine is also still going on in the background.

Now almost three years old, that war has settled into something of a stalemate, although in recent weeks and months Russia has started to make more progress, even if painfully slowly. The map of Russian gains in Ukraine does not seem to have changed a whole lot over the last couple of years but, while a year ago Ukraine seemed to be clawing back small parcels of territory, today the small gains are mainly going Russia's way.

But what really stuck me listening to one of the Economist's excellent briefings on the situation in Ukraine was the statistic that Russia is losing 1,200 soldiers a day for the bare metres of land they have been able to gain. That's staggering figure. The Guardian's figure is around 1,000 in Russian losses each day, but the shock remains. Estimates of total deaths throughout the war are in the range of 115,000 to 160,000, which means that current losses are higher than ever.

Now, sure, Russia is a big country with a population of around 144 millon, but that is still a lot of bad news arriving into the country each and every day, and it makes you wonder how long the Russian people can stomach it, for the sake of Valdimir Putin's personal legacy (and little else). 

For now, Russia is managing to find replacements for the thousands dying on the front lines by basically throwing money at it: the upfront payment for new recruits is now up to 3 million roubles (about C$42,000), and the monthly minimum wage is up to the equivalent of C$3,150, about four times the average salary in Russia. Plus, of course, they are sending in North Korean troops.

But already, Russians are much less gung-ho about the war than they were. Contrary to official polls in Russia, some independent polling has shown that as many as 84% want Russia to concentrate more on domestic affairs rather than on a useless war, and 63%  want to see a peace treaty with mutual concessions. Not that they have much control over the country's policies...

Many Arab-Americans will vote for Trump (don't ask me why)

More bizarro stuff from America. A YouGov poll of Arab-Americans shows that that demographic intends to turn out in force for the upcoming presidential elections, and that they are likely to vote in slightly greater numbers for Donald Trump than for Kamala Harris. They also apparently consider the situation in the Middle East to be more important than any domestic issues like the economy, immigration, affordability, etc.

It seems that they are so cross with Joe Biden and the Democrats for continuing to support and arm Israel in the Gaza/Lebanon conflict that they will vote for literally anyone else. So, they would vote for Donald Trump, who is even more pro-Israel than Kamala Harris, and who is campaigning on a promise of mass deportations of immigrants living in the USA.

Here's a quote from a Muslim iman at a Trump rally in Novi, Michigan: "We as Muslims stand with President Trump because he promises peace not war". It's mind-boggling stuff. Are they really that naive and uninformed?

Look at it another way, if you like: if you don't like Kamala Harris' policies on Israel, she is a reasonable person and she MAY be open to change; Donald Trump, on the other hand, will NOT change.

There are many things about this election that seem to us outsIders to make absolutely no sense, but this is a real headscratcher. Now, maybe these people are just grandstanding for the sake of the poll in an attempt to shake up the Democrats' policies, and maybe wiser heads will prevail on the day. But don't count on it.

Why would Transnistria even bother seceding from Moldova?

As the little East European country of Moldova goes to the polls in a general election in which the pro-Europe incumbent party is hoping to consolidate power and make membership of the EU a reality, it is fighting against Russian electoral meddling and disinformation. Like Russia doesn't have anything better to do right now...

One of the hot issues in Moldova is the would-be breakaway region of Transnistria, a tiny isolated sliver of land on the Moldovan border with Ukraine. It has remained defiantly pro-Russian, even as Moldova, like most of the rest of the region, looks westward toward Europe as a way of extricating itself from Russian dominance. It usually hosts some 1,500 Russian troops, and remains a persistent thorn in Moldova's side.

Transnistria wants to be independent of Moldova. It even went to war over it briefly in 1992, after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. It has its own constitution, flag, national anthem, and coat of arms. But pretty much nobody considers it an independent state (apart possibly from Russia), and it is internationally recognized as just another part of Moldova. Moldova has warned, though, that if Russia defeats and annexes Ukraine, little Transnistria is likely to be the next Ukraine, which would give it a platform to invade Moldova.

The thing that gets me, though, is that Transnistria is TINY. It has a population of about 400,000 and an area of around 4,000 square kilometres. That makes it significantly smaller than the city of Toronto and MUCH less populated. It would be the equivalent of, say, the city of Saskatoon wanting to secede from Canada.

It's not even THAT Russian. Ethnically, it's population is split about evenly between Russians, Ukrainians and Moldovan/Romanians, although almost half have duel Russian citizenship. 

So, why would it be so vociferous about wanting to split from Moldova? Does it really want to declare its vassalage to Russia, after all that went down during its time in the USSR? Maybe Moldova is not the best state to belong to, but it can't possibly be worse than being an entirely insignificant part of the Russian Empire. The whole thing seems bizarre to me.

UPDATE

Well, Moldova barely managed to avoid a very awkward situation by narrowly voting to continue its commitment to joining the EU, by a 50.46% to 49.54% margin in a referendum, alongside the elections, which were so close they are going to a second round of voting next month.

UPDATE UPDATE

And let's not forget that neighbouring Georgia is also going through a similar existential election, which is also effectively a referendum on whether the country should cleave closer to Europe or fall back into Russia's orbit. Four out of five Georgians apparently support joining the EU, but the increasingly authoritarian and divisive incumbent president has tried to frame the election as a choice between peace with Russia and war with Russia, a framing that is particularly poignant since Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE

Well, Georgia has gone over to the dark side, as it gave a decisive electoral victory to the ruling, Russia-appeasing "Georgian Dream" party. And it wasn't even that close, although there are multiple allegations of vote buying, voter intimidation and ballot stuffing.