To rule the world, dial star-zero

By macleans.ca - Tuesday, January 27, 2009 at 8:35 AM - 0 Comments

If politics is a world where status is determined by which conference call you’re on, then this one is the top of the heap: a daily early-morning call whose participants include veteran Democratic strategists James Carville and Paul Begala, talk-TV host George Stephanopoulos, and White House chief of staff Rahm Emmanuel. The calls began 17 years ago, when the four were trying to get Bill Clinton elected president. They never stopped, but they are newly relevant because Emmanuel is running the White House for President Barack Obama. The groggy power brokers wear their influence lightly, it’s said: “They talk like they are girls,” Carville’s wife Mary Matalin says.

Politico.com

Don't forget us when we're gone …

By kadyomalley - Tuesday, January 27, 2009 at 7:14 AM - 69 Comments

And if we have to leave you with a Glass Tiger earworm to ensure that out of sight won’t be out of mind, well … so be it.

Anyway, ITQ will be AFK for most of the day as she enters the maximum security enclave that is the budget lockup, but when she emerges into the post-embargo sunshine, she will post a full live-but-time-delayed-blog of how she and her fellow inmates have spent the preceding six or so hours of sequestration. Check back shortly after 4pm for all the details – and feel free to use this as an open thread in the interim.

Throne Speech: Set rhetoric to stun, lieutenant!

By Scott Feschuk - Tuesday, January 27, 2009 at 6:04 AM - 6 Comments

Apologies if this stuff has been commented upon elsewhere, for owing to work-based mayhem I’ve only now had the opportunity to glance at the Speech from the Throne, but…

Our Government approached the [pre-budget] dialogue in a spirit of open and non-partisan cooperation.

Hilarious. Always pays to have a laugh line somewhere in there.

Today we meet at a time of unprecedented economic uncertainty.

WTF? Really? Is this really a time of “unprecedented” economic uncertainty? Because I was kind of thinking that the crisis of the early 80s was pretty precedenty: Inflation out of control, interest rates at 20%, a Tarzan movie starring Bo Derek – we just couldn’t catch a break. And then there were the 1970s. Also, perhaps someone in government has heard of the Great Depression? It was in all the papers.

Your predecessors, too, were summoned to this chamber at times of great crisis: as Canada struggled to claim her independence, in the shadow of war, during the depth of the Great Depression and at moments when great policy division tugged the very bonds of this union.

Down, boy. So now we’re comparing this moment to world wars? (Can’t wait for Paul Gross’s Passchendaele II, about a brave Canadian who enlists to fight in the collateralized-debt-obligations wars of the 21st century.) During the Depression, unemployment hit 27% — as in, twenty-seven freaking per cent! The jobless rate today? Less than 7%. And the head of the Bank of Canada says things are going to start to improve pretty quickly. If you start using the I’m-freaking-out-here language now, Continue…

The News Business is Saved

By Andrew Potter - Monday, January 26, 2009 at 11:17 PM - 7 Comments

Well, the music business first. Over on that noted bastion of socialism and state-backed protectionism the Isle of Man, they’ve decided that having people pay for online content might make for a workable business model:

Under his proposal, the money collected by the Internet providers would be sent to a special agency that would distribute the proceeds to the copyright owners, including the record labels and music publishers. They would receive payments based on how often their music was downloaded or streamed over the Internet, as they now do in many countries when it is performed live or on the radio.

I could swear I read that idea somewhere before. 

World o Declinism (II)

By Andrew Potter - Monday, January 26, 2009 at 11:02 PM - 6 Comments

In last week’s New Yorker, Ben McGrath writes about his travels amongst the dystopians, aka declinists. You know the types — the various apocalyptos, misanthropes, primitivists, and eco-pornographers who fantasize of the day when our obsession with cars, suburbs, and Xboxes and hamburgers will finally whipsaw us back to the stone age.  

It’s very much worth reading, if only to realize what an odious jackass James Howard Kunstler really is. But more surprising was the discovery that Nassim Taleb — he of Black Swan fame — is pretty much insane.  Of course, he’s apparently being paid $4 million bucks for his next book, proving that you can never get too rich telling Americans how dumb capitalism is. 

When the most sensible person in the piece is a 46 year old Russian software developer who lives in a sailboat with his wife and a six-month supply of propane, beans and rice, you know you’ve found the lunatic fringe. Terrific journalism.

Bracing for the cold: both me and Obama

By Barbara Amiel - Monday, January 26, 2009 at 10:40 PM - 9 Comments

According to Genesis, Noah was 600 years old when “the flood of waters was upon the earth.” Which is exactly how old I felt when I awoke to find boxes of my personal files limp and soggy with escaped papers floating about. As with many homes in Toronto last weekend, the heating had failed and my bedroom was a bracing 5° C. I ought to have known that water pipes would burst but I had forgotten that bit of common sense due no doubt to the cryogenic suspension of my thought processes.

The interesting aspect of the experience was actually having to look at material I had stored from 10 years ago or more. I find it perfectly easy to throw out or give away clothes, but decades-old copies of Commentary worrying about Natan Sharansky’s imprisonment in the gulag and pamphlets from various think tanks have a perpetual-care contract with me. They follow my life about in cardboard boxes waiting to see the light. Or in this case the water.

Continue…

A plan to cut the banks out entirely

By Duncan Hood - Monday, January 26, 2009 at 10:39 PM - 1 Comment

Many solutions have been proposed for the global credit crunch, but the most novel one yet is circulating in an unassuming academic paper that’s been stirring up a lot of buzz. The idea? That businesses create their own backup currency and leave the banks out of it entirely.

The proposal is set out by Bernard Lietaer and his colleagues in “White Paper on the Options for Managing Systemic Bank Crises.” In it, Lietaer, who is currently a research fellow at the Center for Sustainable Resources of the University of California, suggests that if businesses can’t get the money they need from banks, maybe they should lend it to each other instead. For instance, if the banks won’t lend money to HP to buy processors from Intel, then why not create a credit system that lets Intel lend money to HP so it can buy Intel’s chips?

Continue…

Michelle Williams’s vanishing act

By Brian D. Johnson - Monday, January 26, 2009 at 10:38 PM - 2 Comments

Among the pictures vying for attention this awards season, none is larger or louder than The Dark Knight, and no prize seems more predictable than the posthumous Oscar Heath Ledger is expected to win for his supporting role as the Joker. But at the other end of the spectrum, the smallest and quietest film attracting serious notice is Wendy and Lucy, which features a remarkable performance by Michelle Williams, Ledger’s ex and the mother of his child. At the time of writing this, the Oscar nominations had not yet been announced, and it seemed unlikely such a tiny film would be recognized—especially with no campaign and a reclusive star. But Wendy and Lucy has landed on numerous top 10 lists (mine included), received two nominations from the Independent Spirit Awards, and won citations for best picture and best actress from the Toronto Film Critics Association.

Williams has won acclaim before. She and Ledger both received Oscar nominations for Brokeback Mountain (after falling in love and conceiving their daughter during the filming). But Wendy and Lucy, which begins a limited Canadian release next week in Toronto, is unlike anything she’s done. Scripted and shot with stark minimalism by director Kelly Reichardt, this marginal movie about a marginal character is virtually a one-woman show—the tale of a drifter (Wendy) who loses her dog (Lucy) while shoplifting groceries. Carrying barely enough money to buy gas, and sleeping in her car, Wendy is driving to Alaska to look for work in a cannery when her car breaks down in Portland, Ore. Cornered by a string of small catastrophes, then devastated by the loss of her dog, she comes to rely on the kindness of strangers—notably an aging security guard who spends his days standing watch in an empty parking lot.

Continue…

Maclean’s Interview: Robert Helmreich

By Kate Fillion - Monday, January 26, 2009 at 10:37 PM - 1 Comment

Q: You’re known as the “father of crew resource management,” which is credited with dramatic improvements in aviation safety. Capt. Sullenberger, the pilot who safely landed on the Hudson River, was involved in implementing CRM training at USAir. What is CRM, exactly?

A: It’s the application of human factors to flight and aviation, the study of how humans interact with each other and machinery that may or may not be very friendly. What I really do is social psychology in the aviation setting.

Q: Is Sullenberger a hero?

A: I’m sure he doesn’t think of himself as a hero—most pilots who perform splendidly in crises don’t think of themselves that way—but it’s reassuring to the public to think of him that way. One thing he did that was particularly good was setting a tone for the passengers. A lot of the time, pilots are so involved in managing a crisis that they tend to forget they might have a couple hundred people in back who are in a state of panic.

Continue…

They came from afar, the people and the adjectives

By Scott Feschuk - Monday, January 26, 2009 at 10:33 PM - 2 Comments

Long before dawn, they began descending on Washington’s National Mall—the people and the adjectives. The people came from across America and beyond to secure a place for Barack Obama’s inauguration. The adjectives came from the mouths of approximately 2.96 billion TV anchors on hand to mark the event. “Historic . . . extraordinary . . . really historic . . . truly historic.” In the face of such enthusiasm, Wolf Blitzer had to double down on descriptors, welcoming viewers to “this amazing, awesome swearing-in ceremony.” For some, existing adjectives were deemed insufficient. “This is a monumentous occasion!” CNN’s John Roberts told viewers.

Cable news usually thrives on the oxygen of conflict—two voices rising in sound and fury, signifying nothing except a firm belief in the other’s idiocy. But the emotional power of Inauguration Day was such that right across the dial, TV was a bummer-free zone. When one pundit criticized the cost of the ceremony, he was shouted down by his fellow commentators. When Roberts’ co-anchor Kiran Chetry began detailing restrictions on spectators—no backpacks, no strollers . . . —Roberts interrupted to cut off the bad vibes. “People just brought themselves,” he cooed. “They brought their hearts. They brought their hopes.” No one dared to indulge in snark even when Barbara Bush rushed up ahead of her ailing husband, leaving him to struggle down the stairs on his own.

Continue…

They are the ones we've been waiting for

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, January 26, 2009 at 9:40 PM - 14 Comments

Two attempts to assess our presented circumstance, two ideas of who is at fault and two concepts of who is responsible for putting things right.

Barack Obama’s inaugural address, marking the start of a new American administration

“Our economy is badly weakened, a consequence of greed and irresponsibility on the part of some, but also our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age … Our challenges may be new. The instruments with which we meet them may be new. But those values upon which our success depends — hard work and honesty, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism — these things are old. These things are true. They have been the quiet force of progress throughout our history. What is demanded then is a return to these truths. What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility — a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation and the world; duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task.”

Stephen Harper’s third throne speech, marking the restart of Canada’s 40th Parliament

“Today we meet at a time of unprecedented economic uncertainty. The global credit crunch has dragged the world economy into a crisis whose pull we cannot escape. The nations of the world are grappling with challenges that Canada can address but not avoid … The present crisis is new, but the imperative of concerted action is a challenge to which Parliament has risen many times in our history. What will sustain us today will be the same strengths of character that have pulled Canada through critical times before: unity, determination and constancy of purpose.”

Michael Chong Maverick Watch

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, January 26, 2009 at 8:08 PM - 0 Comments

The Guelph Mercury has posted video of Conservative Michael Chong commenting, at a debate during last fall’s election, on Omar Khadr.

Suffice it to say, you can add Mr. Chong to the list of pinko softies who believe Mr. Khadr should be repatriated.

Full clip after the jump. Continue…

The Trudeau conundrum

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, January 26, 2009 at 7:36 PM - 14 Comments

The magazine has helpfully compiled some of the nasty letters generated by this month’s Trudeau profile.

And yet, for all the spitting and fury, that piece is the second most read political story—after our interview with the Prime Minister—on the website this month.

You despise him. But you can’t look away.

From north of the border, more of the standard emissions

By Paul Wells - Monday, January 26, 2009 at 5:39 PM - 24 Comments

Canada’s government has been “working toward” emissions standards like the ones Barack Obama allowed California to impose “for the past year,” Jim Prentice just said on the brooooadcast. I’m looking into that. Fun fact: Canada’s government has been in power for three years; President Obama for six days.

UPDATE: Well, here’s something, I guess.

UPDATER: Ah. Baird was “working on an aggressive, dominant North American standard” with George W. Bush, who was blocking California from implementing its own standard, a little more than a year ago. And his successor, Prentice, was careful to say on Don Newman’s show just now that Canada still wants standards set “at the national level.” Obama just blew that whole stalling tactic up. Canada’s government will have to spend some part of the next year working toward a new talking point.

UPDATE-IS-THE-NEW-STALEDATE-DATE: More…of the same:

The federal government appears to have missed a key legislated benchmark to bring in new fuel-efficiency standards that will help Canada reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, which cause global warming.

Moreover, the failure of the federal government to meet the deadline could end up costing the beleaguered auto industry money and jobs…

Almost a year ago, Lawrence Cannon, then the federal transport minister, vowed to publish new fuel-efficiency standards by the end of 2008. Those standards, he said at the time, would take effect with the 2011 model year.

“We made a commitment to implement fuel-consumption regulations for the 2011 model year that are benchmarked against a stringent, dominant North American standard, and we are keeping our word,” Mr. Cannon said on Jan. 17, 2008…

By failing to publish the new figure by the end of 2008, the earliest the government could force car companies to meet new standards would be the 2012 model year, a year later than Mr. Cannon had promised…

Chris Day, press secretary to Transport Minister John Baird, said Canada believes it’s best there is one North American standard, and not one for each country or separate ones for provinces or states.

They're big fans

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, January 26, 2009 at 5:12 PM - 6 Comments

During debate this afternoon, Peter MacKay, Josee Verner, Jay Hill and Laurie Hawn all appeared to pass their copies of the Throne Speech to the Prime Minister for an autograph.

The Commons: The mild voice of consensus

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, January 26, 2009 at 4:59 PM - 7 Comments

With the Throne Speech through, MPs returned to the House to lounge about before business began. Speaker Peter Milliken fiddled with the morning paper’s Sudoku. Veteran Affairs Minister Greg Thomson flipped through the New Yorker. The Prime Minister scrutinized a copy of the new seating chart, periodically looking up to see precisely where his least favourite members of the Liberal side were now seated.

Eventually it was decided that perhaps they should get on with the business of rescuing the nation from economic apocalypse, so Milliken put away his Sudoku and called the proceedings to order. The Prime Minister rose to a standing ovation and commenced with the procedural formalities.

When it came time to begin debate, Mr. Harper turned to Tilly O’Neill-Gordon, the retired elementary school teacher from Miramichi who sits in the back row and speaks in exactly the tone of voice one would expect from a retired elementary school teacher. Here, one imagined, was the mild voice of consensus we had been promised.

She spoke of our “unprecedented time” and its “unprecedented challenge.” 

“What,” she asked, “are we going to do about it?” Continue…

For those who like their Throne Speeches loaded with irony

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, January 26, 2009 at 4:03 PM - 5 Comments

The writers of today’s three-and-a-half page promise of what is to come observed that “there can be no pride of authorship” yet still managed to use the phrase “our government” 15 times.

Another year, another labour dispute at a Quebecor paper

By Philippe Gohier - Monday, January 26, 2009 at 3:21 PM - 1 Comment

Staff at the Journal de Montréal, the biggest newspaper in Quebec, have been locked out. Unable to come to terms on a deal to replace the contract that expired Dec. 31, both sides had walked away from the table last week. The workers were formally told not to show up to work until a deal is in place on Saturday morning.

(Fellow Concordia grad) Fagstein has the best writeup around. Here are some of the juicy bits—make sure you hit up Fagstein for the rest: Continue…

Tween Steam, Or Wilder Times

By Jaime Weinman - Monday, January 26, 2009 at 2:42 PM - 3 Comments

Shelley Youngblut has an interesting and long piece in the Calgary Herald about the onslaught of Canadian ‘Tween TV (most of it on the Family Channel), focusing particularly on Brent Piaskoski, creator of The Latest Buzz and writer for Naturally, Sadie, and his wife Barbara Haynes, who is a writer/producer on his shows. (Having attended the live-audience taping of Buzz, I gathered that Piaskoski was a very intense-looking guy and one of the few crew members wearing a suit through the whole thing; as he comments in the article, “people always think I’m kind of angry, but this is just how I look.”)

The article notes some of the other projects they’re developing, including something he mentioned last year: a spinoff about the family life of Buzz‘s breakout character, Wilder — sort of a younger version of Sacha Michell’s brain-damaged surfer-dude character from Step By Step — which, as he noted, is a departure from the tendency of current ‘tween shows to be about kids with no apparent family lives or family units. Though Buzz takes on the Disney wish-fulfilment style and does it better (it has better writing and less overacting than the Disney channel shows of the same type), Family Channel tends to be at its very best when dealing with, well, families — its flagship property, Life With Derek, is still probably the best kids’ comedy here or in the U.S. — so it’s good that they haven’t given up on that kind of show, even if Disney has.

One other point about “family” shows is that with the disappearance of the family show (or, really, any and all kids) from network prime time, one type of show we don’t see much of any more is the show that is aimed at family audiences, but has at least some “adult” content, in the sense that the teenaged characters can talk about sex (though if they actually have it, that’s a “very special” episode). There used to be a bunch of those. Now most of the shows about teenagers are on networks whose target audiences are actually younger than that, so they have what might be called the Archie problem: they are banned from even suggesting the topics that are # 1 on the minds of most real teenagers. I think that’s one reason for the continuing ratings success of Secret Life of the American Teenager; it is one of the few shows that is moral and upstanding enough to be a “family-friendly” show, but is at least allowed to discuss the things that wouldn’t be brought up on the Disney Channel.

And now, another trip into weirdly literate television

By Paul Wells - Monday, January 26, 2009 at 2:25 PM - 3 Comments

Fareed Zakaria’s GPS show on CNN: it’s really, really not Crossfire! This week’s edition was about Afghanistan. Guests include Rory Stewart, Steve Coll, occasional faux-Canadian Michael O’Hanlon, a potential challenger for the Afghan presidency, and Elián Gonzalez. Just kidding about that last one!

Out of the woodwork

By macleans.ca - Monday, January 26, 2009 at 1:33 PM - 4 Comments

Two of Jim Flaherty’s former colleagues from his days in Mike Harris’s government in Ontario say running deficits is contrary to the finance minister’s “political philosophy.” But both Ernie Eves and and Janet Ecker insist his doing so shouldn’t come as a surprise given the economic climate in Canada. “I know there are those that totally disagree,” Eves says, “but I do think we need an economic stimulus.” In November, Flaherty was still projecting Ottawa would run a surplus. However, It’s since become clear Flaherty will oversee the first federal budget to feature a deficit in over a decade, a reversal which has led to much criticism of the finance minister’s performance. And while there are many who claim the November update was crafted by people outside the finance department, neither Ecker nor Eves believe that’s a likely scenario. “Based on what I know of Jim Flaherty,” Ecker says, “people don’t hand him a piece of paper and say, ‘Read this.’”

The Hill Times

'I think in this game I'm in, eating properly is the most important thing'

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, January 26, 2009 at 12:39 PM - 13 Comments

Michael Ignatieff: Not a dessert eater.

Michael Chong Maverick Watch

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, January 26, 2009 at 12:25 PM - 7 Comments

The Conservative surveys the scene for the Guelph Mercury.

“I think that both sides of the House have learned from their mistakes before the Christmas break,” said Wellington-Halton Hills MP Michael Chong. “I think we’re going to see a renewed sense of co-operation.”

Mistakes on both sides?

One of the Best Re-Created TV Intros: "Ricky, Ou La Belle Vie"

By Jaime Weinman - Monday, January 26, 2009 at 12:04 PM - 2 Comments

It’s been a long time since I posted one of those videos where people re-create the TV openings of their childhood, because, well, there haven’t been many to match the famous Simpsons re-creation. But this one is pretty close to being in that class. It’s four people in (I think) France doing the title sequence of Silver Spoons, which is popular in French-speaking countries under the title “Ricky, Ou La Belle Vie,” and recapturing all the corny poses and clips, even the one with the mustache. Here’s the video:

Update/ Revision: I had the original title sequence in this spot, but this version is better: it places the remake side-by-side with the title sequence they’re spoofing, to show shot-for-shot how they replicated it. Vive la France et ses parodies!

Trivia time: The producers of Silver Spoons, David Duclon, Michael G. Moye and Ron Leavitt, all went on to do Married… With Children after this show ended, as kind of a self-created backlash against the type of show they’d been doing for so long. Also, Moye, who was one of the few African-American showrunners in TV at the time, said that he did Silver Spoons because he’d been typecast as a guy who did black shows, so he decided to make the whitest show ever. I think he succeeded, and he certainly did the show with the whitest theme song.