Will men buy Playboy to ogle Seth Rogen?

By John Intini - Wednesday, February 18, 2009 at 8:40 AM - 3 Comments

The Superbad star will grace the cover of the March issue of the struggling men’s magazine, reports New York Post’s gossip column Page Six, which will make him only the ninth man to do so. Other cover boys have also tended to be funny men, among them Steve Martin, Jerry Seinfeld and Peter Sellers. Playboy reps refuse to confirm or deny.

New York Post

Atwood pulls out of Dubai literary festival in censorship protest

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, February 18, 2009 at 8:30 AM - 0 Comments

Margaret Atwood has pulled out of the inaugural Emirates Airline international festival of literature in the wake of a novel being blacklisted for potential offence to “cultural sensitivities.” Other authors due to appear at the festival, including bestselling children’s authors Anthony Horowitz and Lauren Child, are now also reconsidering whether to attend. Atwood, a vice president of writers’ group International Pen, has written to the festival’s director about the “regrettable turn of events” surrounding Geraldine Bedell’s The Gulf Between Us. “I was greatly looking forward to the festival, and to the chance to meet readers there; but, as an international vice president of Pen ­ an organization concerned with the censorship of writers ­ I cannot be part of the festival this year,” she wrote in a letter posted on her official site. Bedell’s book is a romantic comedy set in a fictional Gulf emirate, and was due to receive its official launch during the festival. According to Bedell, the organisers of the festival were initially keen to feature it, but then produced a list of reasons why they couldn’t launch it there, citing its Gulf setting, its discussion of Islam and its focus on the Iraq war, as well as the fact that a minor character is a gay sheikh with an English boyfriend.

Guardian.co.uk

More than half of Afghan police in Helmand province on drugs, British official claims

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, February 18, 2009 at 8:20 AM - 0 Comments

A British official working in Afghanistan’s Helmand province says 60 per cent of the province’s police use drugs. In an email to Britain’s Foreign Office obtained by the BBC, the official said police drug use was “undermining security sector reform and state-building efforts as well as contributing to corruption.” The provincial government admitted that police taking drugs was a “huge problem” in his province.

BBC

The Last Ace

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, February 18, 2009 at 8:10 AM - 0 Comments

At a time when everyone is debating the difficult decisions facing Barack Obama, Mark Bowden tosses one out there that most people aren’t thinking about: should the President fork over the billions of dollars necessary to outfit the U.S. Air Force with a new fleet of fighter jets? In a nutshell, Bowden argues that as other nations stock up on old F-15s (think Russia, China and Pakistan) the Pentagon is quietly bracing for the return of air-to-air combat, which pretty much died in Vietnam. In fact, shooting down enemy planes is such a rarity that the modern-day pilot with the most recorded kills—Col. Cesar Rodriguez—has only three. And he just retired. As the article says, “we can stock the Air Force with the expensive, cutting-edge F‑22—maintaining our technological superiority at great expense to our Treasury. Or we can go back to a time when the cost of air supremacy was paid in the blood of men like Rodriguez.”

Atlantic Monthly

Hospitals can make you sick

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, February 18, 2009 at 8:00 AM - 0 Comments

When Stéphanie Verge went in for a minor surgery last January, the plan was that she’d be in and out within a day. One year later, she is just now recovering from a gruesome infection she developed after contracting MRSA at a health-care facility in Toronto. Verge suffered boils that burst into weeping sores that eventually turned into deep abscesses that took rigourous swabbing and gauzing to heal, besides painkillers, antibiotics and countless medical appointments. Relatively speaking, Verge was fortunate: MRSA is one of a few “superbugs” that kill an estimated 8,000 Canadians annually.

Toronto Life

How not to battle stereotypes

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, February 18, 2009 at 8:00 AM - 1 Comment

The founder of an Islamic television station in upstate New York aimed at countering Muslim stereotypes has confessed to beheading his wife, authorities said. Muzzammil Hassan was charged with second-degree murder after police found the decapitated body of his wife, Aasiya Hassan, at the Bridges TV station in the Buffalo suburb of Orchard Park, said Andrew Benz, Orchard Park’s police chief. Aasiya Hassan  filed for divorce January 6, and police had responded to several domestic violence calls at the couple’s home, Benz said.

ReligionNewsBlog

Phone companies promise universal phone chargers

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, February 18, 2009 at 7:50 AM - 0 Comments

Cellphone manufacturers have announced that phone chargers will be universal by 2012, eliminating the need to buy a new and compatible phone charger with each new cellphone. Companies like Nokia and Sony Ericsson have said that concern about the environment, and for their customers, is behind the decision—but that hasn’t stopped critics from questioning why it wasn’t introduced earlier. “The key drivers have been a certain amount of proprietary operation to encourage brand loyalty, and also aesthetics—charging device connectors have become much smaller,” Richard Traherne, head of wireless at UK technology development firm Cambridge Consultants, tells New Scientist magazine. In fact, he suggests that the falling cost of micro-USB connections, which “enable commonality,” is behind the change, giving companies an opportunity to go environmentally friendly with little extra effort: “They would be crazy not to adopt a greener approach now,” he says.

NewScientist

Guess what vanished without a trace in yesterday's BC budget?

By Paul Wells - Wednesday, February 18, 2009 at 7:40 AM - 15 Comments

The last fugitive traces of this report on the future of post-secondary education in BC, which sought to make the province the most highly-educated jurisdiction in the world by 2020; was released only two years ago; and was forgotten within weeks of its publication. For this reason alone, I would certainly not vote Liberal if I were voting in the B.C. election this year; I suppose it would come down to the NDP or spoiling my ballot.

If this doesn't get Mickey Rourke an Oscar, nothing will

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, February 18, 2009 at 7:40 AM - 0 Comments

Mickey Rourke’s chihuahua Loki has died at the old (in dog years) age of 18. Rourke has said repeatedly that his dogs got him through his career crisis before “The Wrestler” made him a star again, even dedicating his Golden Globe acceptance speech to all the dogs he’s owned: “Sometimes, when a man is alone, that’s all you got is your dog.” If he wins the Oscar for best actor next week, his speech may set a record for the greatest number of dog references in under a minute.

E! Online

Not just stimulus, but big government

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, February 18, 2009 at 7:30 AM - 0 Comments

There are three cases to be made for big government, says Richard Parker, in this essay: short-term intervention to save Wall Street, medium-term mainly to rebuild infrastructure, and long-term to restore stability and spread opportunity. This latter option, though, is hardly ever discussed. Until now. It’s the subject of The Case for Big Government by Jeff Madrick. He argues for an annual $400 billion increase in Washington’s budget, to be spent on stuff like child care and health, which would be roughly equal to making Barak Obama’s original stimulus package part of normal government spending envelope.

The New York Review of Books

The business of education

By Paul Wells - Wednesday, February 18, 2009 at 7:28 AM - 22 Comments

Le Devoir editorialist Guy Taillefer notes that the $17.5 million allocated to the Social Science and Humanities Research Council for Canada Graduate Scholarships is uniquely allocated to “business-related” degrees. So let’s sum up: one of the few elements of the budget that’s devoted to the knowledge economy in any way is the CGS scholarships. Forty percent of the money ($87.5 million over three years) goes to NSERC for natural sciences; 40% goes to CIHR for health science; and only 20% goes to SSHRC, and all of that is for business-related study. So if you want to pursue study in a field of human endeavour that plainly terrifies Stephen Harper because it’s weird, like anthropology, literature, social work, linguistics, history, political science or comparative religion, you can be sure this hard-headed, no-nonsense government won’t be wasting an incremental dime on the likes of you. You’re welcome. It’s for your own good, you know.

Riding the (hypothetical, high-speed) vote train

By Paul Wells - Wednesday, February 18, 2009 at 7:10 AM - 20 Comments

Michael Ignatieff shows up in Quebec City, stands beside mayor, says he fully supports mayor’s “cherished” project of a high-speed train to Windsor. This is a transparent play for the affections of two key demographics: (a) Quebec City mayors and (b) TGV-obsessed blogger/pundits. But at least Ignatieff is in Quebec, working to consolidate the modest advantage he’s shown in recent polls, and hunting bigger electoral game than Elizabeth May.

Need a hand with your mortgage?

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, February 18, 2009 at 7:10 AM - 1 Comment

Another day, another massive U.S. bailout. This time it will be a $75 billion package—to be unveiled by President Obama this afternoon—to help the up to 9 million Americans who are in trouble with the mortgages. Buried in this AP story are some staggering figures: “Of the nearly 52 million U.S. homeowners with a mortgage, about 13.8 million, or nearly 27 percent, owe more on their mortgage than their house is now worth.” Very scary.

Associated Press

Air Canada pledging to improve customer service, then pull our other leg

By Scott Feschuk - Wednesday, February 18, 2009 at 5:59 AM - 19 Comments

The Globe reports this morning: Air Canada is becoming increasingly worried about the ascent of WestJet Airlines Ltd., assigning chief operating officer Bill Bredt to deliver cross-country pep talks urging staff to improve customer service amid competitive threats and the recession.

Wow, bad enough the guy actually has to speak in front of Air Canada employees – he also has to travel across the country on their planes. Bill Bredt, my nickname for you is Short Straw, for that is what you have drawn.

Air Canada’s customer service is legendary – among humorists, satirists and masochists. It’s the easiest joke in the world and one of the most rewarding to tell, because everyone gets it.

Of course there are some nice people who do good work for Air Canada (I remember encountering one – the year was 1985). But anyone who’s ever flown on the airline is familiar with Continue…

Twins

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, February 17, 2009 at 9:43 PM - 42 Comments

From CP’s wildly entertaining account of today’s briefing from the Prime Minister’s Office.

The prime minister’s spokespeople spent nearly as much time Tuesday pointing out personal similarities between the two leaders as they did discussing the issues to be raised Thursday.

“They really, at a basic level, have quite a bit in common,” said Harper spokesman Kory Teneycke. ”They’re similar in age, both have young families, they’re both policy-focused intellectuals. Neither has been in elected office for a long time, when they became president and prime minister, respectively. And they both come from outside the political establishment.”

Indeed, the primary challenge on Thursday will be telling the two apart.

Obamathon: Okay, PMO. Now it's a party.

By kadyomalley - Tuesday, February 17, 2009 at 9:24 PM - 68 Comments

I know it’s almost certainly horribly wrong, not to mention obtuse and unserious and spectacularly point-missing, but somehow, I just can’t not find this latest foray into hardball media management by the PM’s communicator general to be wonderfully amusing in its utter absurdity.

From the Canadian Press:

[...]Harper’s spokespeople threatened to cancel the press conference if, at any point in the day, a Canadian reporter shouts out a question without being invited to do so.

White House reporters habitually bark out queries during photo opportunities with the president.

But nobody had better dare pulling such a stunt in Harper’s office.

“If you do (ask a question), the photo op will immediately cease,” Teneycke said.

“And I think the remainder of the day will be . . . I’ll choose my words carefully on this: it would be very ill-advised, given that there’s a press conference later.”

When asked whether such a punishment would also apply to American visitors, Teneycke replied: “I’m not going to get into that.”

It’s hard to come up with a response to such an entirely unnecessary bout of swaggery more succinct than, “Oh, come on.” Really, PMO? Really? What are you going to do, turn this presidential visit around and go home?

Continue…

Welcome to Canada, Mr. President

By Rachel Mendleson - Tuesday, February 17, 2009 at 7:27 PM - 1 Comment

Since Barack Obama will be in Ottawa this week, we thought it timely to look back at some previous presidential visits to our nation’s capital.

Franklin D. Roosevelt: August 1943
The city proclaimed a half-day holiday to mark the first-ever U.S. presidential visit to Ottawa. About 27,000 people jammed Parliament Hill to hear FDR’s public address. During his car tour of Ottawa, spectators held up black Scottie dogs as a show of support for his dog Fala.

Harry S. Truman: June 1947
While in Ottawa, Truman met with Mackenzie King and Governor General Alexander. During his parliamentary address, Truman praised Canada for achieving internal unity. When he was finished, politicians thumped their desks in approval. Truman’s trip to the capital included lunch at the Chateau Laurier, a tree-planting and a state dinner at Rideau Hall. He also traveled to Montebello, where he fished for trout. It was his second trip abroad after the Second World War.

Dwight D. Eisenhower: November 1953, July 1958
Both visits to the capital included a parliamentary address. In 1953, more tickets were sold to the House of Commons gallery than there were seats, and some spectators had to be turned away. In 1958, Ike drew fire for his virulent defence of U.S. trade interests in his speech. It was during his second visit that he and PM John Diefenbaker agreed to set up the Canada-United States Committee on Joint Defense. While in Ottawa, Ike played a round of golf at the Ottawa Hunt and Golf Club and took a trip to Gatineau Park.

John F. Kennedy: May 1961
When JFK and Jackie arrived on Parliament Hill, there were reportedly 50,000 people there to greet them. It was their first post-inauguration trip. Jackie looked on from the visitors’ gallery during the President’s Parliamentary address, during which he famously said: “Geography has made us neighbours. History has made us friends. Economics has made us partners. And necessity has made us allies.” He even tried to articulate a few sentences in French — albeit poorly. And he hurt his back while planting a tree on Parliament Hill.

Lyndon B. Johnson: May 1967
While in Canada for Expo 67, Johnson spent some time at the prime minister’s official retreat on Harrington Lake, where he met with Lester B. Pearson. As the story goes, a security stopped PM Pearson on his way to the bathroom to ask him who he was and where he was headed. “I’m the Prime Minister of Canada and I’m about to go and have a leak,” he reportedly answered.

Richard Nixon: April 1972
Vietnam War protestors greeted Nixon when he arrived in Canada. Despite his infamously acrimonious relationship with Pierre Trudeau, he opened speech to the House of Commons with a joke about Ottawa’s weather, and cheered Canada for being a fine neighbour. “The Canadian-American example is an example for all the world to see,” he said. The Great Lakes Pollution clean-up agreement was inked during his visit.

Ronald Reagan: March 1981, April 1987
During Reagan’s address to Parliament in 1981, NDP MPs sported black armbands to indicate their opposition of the U.S. involvement in El Salvador. Though his relationship with Brian Mulroney was much warmer than it had been with Trudeau, Reagan only visited Ottawa once while Mulroney was in office. When Reagan spoke in the House of Commons in 1987, he was interrupted by MP Svend Robinson, who implored the president to “Stop Star Wars now.” During their time in Canada, Nancy Reagan urged students at Ottawa’s Brookfield High School to “say no to drugs.”

George H. W. Bush: February 1989, March 1991
George and Barbara traveled to Ottawa less than a month after Bush’s inauguration. While the President met with Mulroney, Barbara read to local students at a nursery school in  Fern Hill. Among the pupils was the PM’s son, Nicholas.

Bill Clinton: February 1995, October 1999
Jean Chrétien, with whom Clinton had a close relationship, took the President on a tour of the Centre Block while Hillary skated on the Rideau Canal. During his first address, Clinton touted Canada as an example “of how people of different cultures can live and work together in peace, prosperity and respect,” and spoke of the “ties that bind the United States and Canada.” In 1999, he came to Ottawa to dedicate a new Embassy building.

George W. Bush: November 2004
Though George W. was scheduled to address Parliament in May 2003, he cancelled the trip, citing the war in Iraq. Others suggested that the President’s relationship with Chrétien, which had become strained, was to blame for the change in plans. When he did arrive in Ottawa in November 2004, some 5,000 protestors demonstrated against the Iraq war. The first couple visited a Gatineau archival presentation centre, where they reportedly set eyes on Shania Twain’s songbook, and one of the earliest baseball rule books.

Afghanistan: Obama makes a decision

By Paul Wells - Tuesday, February 17, 2009 at 6:47 PM - 14 Comments

And the magic number of incremental troops is 17,000, which is a 50% increase and less than the nearly 25,000 that had been bandied about in some reports late last year. But the NYT reports that this decision — acceding to requests from commanders in the field without implementing a truly historic boost — merely “postpones” a final decision on whether to increase the deployment still further.

So the new president’s caution on what his administration has already defined as his most pressing foreign-policy file is striking. As to whether it’s wise or too tentative, I will wait until everything’s over and then claim, with hindsight, to have known what the right answer was all along.

Defence Secretary Bob Gates seems to be a substantial influence here. He has argued that it’s possible to have too many troops in the Afghan theatre, and that that would actually play against the goals of counter-insurgency by making Americans too heavy a presence. Or I could swear he’s made that kind of argument in the recent past, but now I can’t find any quotes to back me up. Inkless Irregulars, can you do a better job looking than I just did?

Quick, someone get that goat some skis

By Jonathon Gatehouse - Tuesday, February 17, 2009 at 6:26 PM - 0 Comments

Obviously, being the goat must mean something else in German. Or the Austrians have a way better sense of humour than their international stereotype allows. Either way, a civic celebration in Kirchberg, Austria on Monday has provided the photo of the decade for Canada’s Alpine Ski Team. Mike Janyk (left) of Whistler, bronze medalist in the men’s slalom at the recent World Championships in France, flanked by John Kucera of Calgary, winner of gold in the downhill, both wearing traditional Tyrolean lederhosen and clutching a furry friend. American Lindsey Vonn, who won gold in both the women’s Super-G and the downhill, stands off the side in her civvies. (Multiple winners, it seems, are spared the ritual humiliation. Or maybe she just earned a pass after slicing her thumb tendon on a broken champagne bottle during a victory celebration earlier in the week.)

The animal award was the small village’s way of “welcoming home” the athletes. Vonn, as well as the entire Canadian ski team have adopted the municipality, close to the famed Kitzbühel course, as their European training base. And the business relationship has blossomed into a full-fledged love affair. Hundreds of cheering residents turned out for the ceremony and a brief parade featuring local folk musicians and a horse drawn carriage for the victors. Children formed an honour guard, waving Canadian and U.S. flags. “It’s great when you have partners like the town of Kirchberg,” said Kucera. “They’ve been so welcoming…standing behind us and supporting us. It gives us a sense of home, even when we are so far from Canada.” Continue…

Obstructionists

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, February 17, 2009 at 6:25 PM - 6 Comments

Peter Van Loan in Vancouver today. Canada’s public safety minister is calling on the Opposition to stop preventing his government’s efforts to get tough on gang-related crime. ”What we really need is for the people of British Columbia and Canadians to send a clear message to other parties that the time has come to rebalance our justice system and support our agenda on tackling violent crime,” Conservative MP Peter Van Loan told a news conference in Langley, B.C. ”I’m not trying to cast blame, I’m trying to get everybody to work together,” he said.

Canadian Press, back in September. When Prime Minister Stephen Harper rolled out his party’s criminal justice platform Monday, he repeated an assertion that has become an article of faith among hard-core Conservative partisans. The opposition, led by the Liberal party, obstructed and delayed every major piece of Conservative criminal justice reform over his first term in office, Harper claimed … But the Conservative version of events does not jibe with reality.

Environmentalists blamed for Australia's Bush Fires

By Alex Shimo - Tuesday, February 17, 2009 at 5:58 PM - 3 Comments

The blame over the tragic bush fires in Australia has a new target: environmentalists and green policies. Some experts say more prohibitions on logging and burning worsened the fires that have claimed the lives of at least 200 people. Prescribed burning creates a natural break that stops the flames from spreading, yet in recent years, it has sharply decreased in favour of greening the natural urban environments. With the exception of Western Australia, all of the nation’s six state governments have reduced heir forest burning programs since the 1980s, according to Phil Cheney, a retired chief scientist from the Bushfire Research Unit of Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization. In some areas, there are strict laws on cutting down trees around one’s property, and residents now say this put their houses at risk. In a heated exchange, a Victoria resident, Warwick Spooner, blamed local councilors for the deaths of his mother and brother, who had died in the home in the blaze.

Obama's Green Stimulus and how it breaks down

By Alex Shimo - Tuesday, February 17, 2009 at 5:05 PM - 0 Comments

Obama just signed his $767 billion dollar stimulus, and whether it helps the US economy or multiplies its financial woes, it’s hard to find an environmentalist who doesn’t sing its praises. In total, $60 billion, or about 8 per cent, is devoted to causes like energy efficiency and clean tech. A total of $8 billion is going towards high-speed rail links. [And according to Politico.com, Obama will outline another billion for high-speed rail in his budget next week.] The Department of Defense is supposed to get $3.6 billion to pay for energy efficiency projects and facilities upgrades.

Here’s how the green stimulus breaks down, (courtesy of the Natural Resources Defense Council)

$6 billion for clean and safe water
$4.5 billion for greening federal buildings
$2.5 billion for energy efficiency and renewable energy Research and Development
$5 billion for the Weatherization Assistance Program
$6 billion in loan guarantees for renewables, transmission and leading edge biofuels
$2 billion for advanced batteries
$9.3 billion for intercity rail, including high-speed rail
$27.5 billion for highways (this large pot of money is not exclusively for highways, and states and cities must use this flexibility to invest in fuel-efficient public transportation)
$8.4 billion for transit
$1.5 billion in competitive grants for transportation investments (which could be used for public transportation)

The full conference report is available here.

On TV And In Movies, All TV Shows Are Live

By Jaime Weinman - Tuesday, February 17, 2009 at 5:00 PM - 4 Comments

I didn’t mention this in my piece on Slumdog Millionaire, and I’m glad I didn’t because I don’t really think this one is a problem, but one of the classic clichés it used was the idea that all television shows are broadcast live. In this universe, Who Wants To Be a Millionaire is on the air live, so when someone calls in, someone else can be watching the show and hearing her call in at that precise moment. Most versions of Millionaire are pre-taped — they have to be, because if the show is done live, it makes the phone-a-friend option too easy. (If the friend is watching at home, he or she might have time to look up the answer before the call comes in.) As I said, this is not one of the things that bothers me about the movie, because it was necessary for the plot that the show be broadcast live, and it’s not the sort of thing that you question until after the movie is over.

But it is one of my favourite movie and TV clichés: everything is live. All the time. When somebody goes on a news show, a game show, even a scripted show, they’re always broadcasting live, because the plot calls for the hero to be embarrassed on television, and so you have to remove the option of editing that part out before the broadcast. (Sometimes they’ll even work that in: Homer Simpson: Can you edit that part out? Kent Brockman: Mr. Simpson, we’re on the air live. Homer Simpson: D’oh!) Occasionally the writers will try to come up with a plausible reason why the show would be broadcast live, like in the movie Tootsie, where we learn that a major scene has to be done live because a technician accidentally destroyed the master tape. This allows Dustin Hoffman to make his big dramatic revelation on nationally broadcast live TV. But usually it’s not necessary, because, again, this is not something that we’ll question, and it’s not something that reflects on character or motivation; it’s just fooling around with reality for the sake of plot mechanics, and that’s fine.

I think I first became aware of this cliché when watching the episode of Night Court where Dan humiliates himself by running onto the set of a game show and telling Bull “I want to be your love slave!” (I don’t feel that it’s necessary to explain how the story got to that point.) The host says “We’re on the air live, you pervert!” I wondered: Hey, why are they on the air live when game shows are usually pre-taped? Then I realized that the answer was: Because. And I stopped worrying about stuff like that.

So this is what it's like to work in the eye of the Obamastorm, huh?

By kadyomalley - Tuesday, February 17, 2009 at 4:54 PM - 25 Comments

With two days to go before the Layover of the Century kicks off here in the capital, ITQ can report that the transformation of Parliament Hill into a maximum security staging area is nearly complete.

We — those of us who actually work in Centre Block, that is — have been advised that, as of Wednesday night, every single person who wants to enter the building will have to be scanned — no exceptions, although I’d love to see them try to force a recalcitrant MP or senator to submit to the indignity of the wand. If we show up after 10:30 a.m. on Thursday, we’ve been warned that we won’t be able to enter the building directly at all, but will instead have to trudge over to West Block and take the tunnel — after being cleared by security, of course.

Continue…