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Jan 28 2024

Voting different. UNWRA fallout. Middle-aged Mac: The Roundup

Jan 28, 2024
David Akin's Roundup
Clippings of #cdnpoli, #media, and #tech content aimed at those with an interest in Canadian politics and policy. And sometimes Canadian postage stamps.
Canada
As progress on some measures in the Liberal-NDP confidence-and-supply agreement continue to play out publicly, the two parties have quietly been in talks to table electoral reform legislation before the next federal vote. [CTV]
A chill on freedom of speech is deepening the pain Muslims in Canada are already feeling over the ongoing tragedy in the Gaza Strip, says Canada's special representative on combating Islamophobia. [CP]

Police are investigating after the Sgoolai Israel synagogue in Fredericton was vandalized on Saturday morning, as glass was shattered in the door of the building's entrance. [Global]

No consistent associations were found between police funding and crime rates across municipalities, and overall, net increases in spending per capita are not associated with greater net decreases in crime rates. These findings describe the wide local variation in police funding trends and point to the complexity of interactions between crime rates and police funding. [Canadian Public Policy]
From the provinces

Alberta's Opposition NDP says it will announce a new leader to replace Rachel Notley on June 22. The party announced the date on Saturday following meetings in Red Deer to set the rules and timelines of the leadership contest.

Robert Libman: Recent polls show the governing Coalition Avenir Québec is vulnerable. With the return of face-to-face combat in question period, opposition parties can pounce — an opportunity that Québec solidaire, which seems stuck in neutral, and the Liberals, still floundering without a permanent leader, will try to capitalize on. [Montreal Gazette]
Elsewhere

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres vowed on Sunday to hold to account "any U.N. employee involved in acts of terror" after allegations that some refugee agency staffers were involved in the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks on Israel. [Reuters]

Most white people support the Republicans, while most non-white people support the Democrats. In the 2020 election, 57% of whites voted for Trump – compared to 32% of Hispanics, 31% of Asians and just 12% of blacks. If only whites had voted, Trump would have won the vast majority of states; if only-non whites had voted, he would not have won any.
But what about differences between more fine-grained groups, such as English Americans versus Irish Americans? [Aporia]
It’s not out of the goodness of Walmart’s corporate heart that it pays truck drivers a truckload. Rather, truckers are key to Walmart’s retail dominance — and they have been from the start. Without a highly engaged trucking workforce, it’s not likely that the company would have flourished in the way it has. The Fortune 1 company prioritized supply chain long before it became a buzzword. [FreightWaves]
Media
Traffic to political coverage on digital news sites is down compared to the 2020 and 2016 presidential primaries. Television ratings for the Iowa caucuses were terrible: CNN averaged 688K total viewers with 194K in the 25-54 demo sought by advertisers in the primetime hours of 8 to 11 pm, while MSNBC averaged 1.15 million total viewers, with 143K in the demo. Fox couldn’t crack 2.8 million viewers, with 402K in the demo. In 2020, Fox News drew 4.4 million viewers overall, while 1.8 million people tuned into CNN and 2.5 million watched MSNBC. That was down 17% across the board from 2016 Iowa caucus viewership. By comparison, the NFL wild card game between the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Philadelphia Eagles the same night drew 28.62 million viewers. [Semafor]
Isabelle Hachey: Mathieu Bock-Côté s’est bâti une carrière florissante en martelant ce discours, toujours le même, dans la presse écrite et sur les plateaux de télé, au Québec et en France. Jamais aura-t-on vu régime totalitaire aussi tolérant à la critique, même des plus acérées. L’impressionnant succès médiatique de Mathieu Bock-Côté, des deux côtés de l’Atlantique, démontre par l’absurde que sa thèse ne tient pas. [La Presse]
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Sci/Tech
The Mac turns 40 — and keeps on moving
40 years after Apple CEO Steve Jobs introduced the original Macintosh, the Mac product line is in a strange place. First Apple computer I used was an Apple II but the first I owned was a Power PC clone. Still have a working Apple Cube on hand.... [The Verge]

Broadway’s digital turn will have effects beyond the sensory experiences of individual theatergoers. It is not just that the tap of a thumb on a smartphone has replaced the grasp of printed cardstock within the theatrical sensorium. As the platforms evolve that manage our ingress to those playhouses in the vicinity of Times Square (home of another media empire, subject to its own sea changes), so does information about theatrical culture. [Public Books]
The Calendar
  • 0900 ET: Ottawa  - The CPC national caucus will meet
  • 1200 ET: 025B West Block, - Opposition Leader Pierre Poilievre addresses the CPC national caucus.
  • 1600 ET: Ottawa -  The Government of Canada holds a state funeral for Ed Broadbent.
Issued this day ...
... in 1992: Scott # 1389 -  “Quick Stick” Booklet Issues: Flag over Shoreline. Design: Gottschalk + Ash International.

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