The new world order

By Paul Wells - Monday, February 16, 2009 at 10:50 AM - 36 Comments

For all the assorted domestic and foreign woes weighing down on it, the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama is still in the relatively sunlit early days when it can afford to plan a few steps ahead. So when Vice-President Joe Biden showed up at the Munich Security Conference with a sunny and soothing speech, his largely European audience should have known other emissaries with a darker message wouldn’t be far behind.

By itself Biden’s was an extraordinary speech, and when he delivered it on Saturday morning to the world’s foreign policy elite in a packed ballroom at the Bayerischer Hof hotel, it was obvious why Barack Obama had chosen him for the No. 2 slot. Biden enhances the credibility of his boss’s foreign policy message simply by being the guy who delivers it. A veteran U.S. senator, he knows the Munich crowd well. He has attended the annual weekend getaway in the Bavarian capital many times. He knows it is a more focused, less ostentatious and arguably more important gathering than the glittering World Economic Forum in Davos. A perfect place for the Obama team to road-test its message to the world.

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A closed society

By Kate Lunau - Monday, February 16, 2009 at 10:00 AM - 2 Comments

When Saint John lawyer Barry Morrison agreed to take on the Law Society of New Brunswick, he says, “I was effectively suing myself.” Like any practising Canadian lawyer, Morrison is a member of his province’s self-regulating body. Even so, he agreed to represent First Canadian Title Co. in a suit alleging the lawyers’ group deliberately blocked First Canadian from the local land title search business. “For years, the bread and butter of private law firms was property transfers,” Morrison says. “Title insurance effectively replaced the need for a lawyer to do a title search,” offering the service at lower cost to the public. In 2007, Justice Thomas W. Riordon ruled in favour of First Canadian, scolding the law society for attempts to impede the title insurer. “Members of the Law Society are not happy with the encroachment on what has traditionally been the work of lawyers,” the ruling said. (The law society appealed, and a decision from the provincial Court of Appeal is pending. Neither First Canadian nor the Law Society of New Brunswick would comment.)

Across Canada, provincial law societies are charged with defending the public interest and the integrity of the legal profession. They dictate everything from who can be a lawyer, to how professional misconduct is punished. But the interests of the public and the legal profession can sometimes clash. A rising chorus of critics say that leaving regulation in the hands of lawyers has driven up the cost of legal services while Canadians pay the price. The time has come, they say, to break lawyers’ control over their own industry, and let some true competition and oversight take hold.

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Best paragraph I read this morning

By Andrew Potter - Monday, February 16, 2009 at 9:57 AM - 24 Comments

From Lawrence Lessig’s Remix:

One great feature of modern society is the institutionalized respect we give to processes designed to destroy the past. The free market is the best example. Democracy is another. In both cases, constant flux is not the objective (we have courts to protect private property; we have constitutions to slow the will of the democracy). But in both cases, the aim is to assure that the past survives only if it can beat out the future. 

 

Hollywood says ‘hi’ to Napster

By Rachel Mendleson - Monday, February 16, 2009 at 9:45 AM - 1 Comment

In a recent episode of The Office, Jim and Pam pushed their disdain for annoying co-worker Andy aside to watch pirated movies with him on his laptop. Why the change of heart? He was the only one at work who knew how to download bootleg films.

Meanwhile, in the real world, people are discovering that pirating movies has never been easier. Thanks to faster download speeds and easy-to-use software, it’s getting to the point where your grandmother can download any DVD she wants, for free, in minutes. Which means Hollywood is about to run headfirst into the same forces that have already decimated the music industry.

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HILARIOUSLY UPDATED: Your Monday Af-Pak briefing: No quiet on the Durand front

By Paul Wells - Monday, February 16, 2009 at 9:44 AM - 19 Comments

It was a busy weekend on the Afghanistan/Pakistan file. First, Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari told 60 Minutes what a lot of people in Western capitals have been eager to hear: Not that the Taliban pose an existential threat to the survival of the Pakistan state—lots of folks already knew that—but that Zardari gets it. Here’s the video:

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Much of the 60 Minutes report deals with the Swat Valley, northwest of Islamabad. On a whirlwind trip through the region, U.S. special envoy Richard Holbrooke told the Indians that what happens in Swat is as dangerous to India as it is to Pakistan, Afghanistan or the U.S. (Holbrooke is also eagerly messaging to Iran during this trip.)

Visits from high-level U.S. envoys are news wherever they happen; in Pakistan, visits from U.S. drone-mounted heavy ordinance are becoming closer to routine.

In Munich, Holbrooke leaned heavily on the Obama administration’s new emphasis on treating Afghanistan and Pakistan as  a single regional problem. Hence his own mandate. And now, key U.S. allies are following suit: The UK and Germany have both named a single contact person for Holbrooke with responsibility for the whole region. “I assume that other European countries will do the same,” Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Germany’s foreign minister, tells Reuters.

And what of Canada? Last autumn I heard that Canadian officials, including our ambassador to Kabul and our high commissioner to Islamabad, are working more closely together. Will Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon be naming an Af-Pak interlocutor? Did you sigh, as I did, at the sight of the phrase “Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon”?

Here I’m going to open up a brief digression. I’ll tell you one guy who doesn’t care what Canada does: Frank-Walter Steinmeier. Continue…

Dalton's Ontario

By Andrew Potter - Sunday, February 15, 2009 at 6:55 PM - 56 Comments

For crying out loud:

PORT HOPE — A Port Hope man is the second person in Ontario charged under a new law that prohibits smoking in vehicles carrying children. And while the 20-year-old man was waiting to be issued his ticket after being pulled over yesterday, his 15-year-old female passenger got out of the vehicle and lit up a cigarette.

Port Hope Police Const. Tammie Hartford said she could only watch in frustration as the 15-year-old smoked. ”She was the reason why I pulled the vehicle over,” she said. “She was under the age (of 16).”

MPs and chocolate fudge cheddar cheese!

By Mitchel Raphael - Sunday, February 15, 2009 at 2:21 AM - 16 Comments

The Dairy Farmers of Canada held a special reception at the Fairmont Château Laurier for their 75^th anniversary. The farmers served chocolate fudge cheddar and other tasty goodies.

NDP leader Jack Layton and NDP New Brunswick MP Yvon Godin.

Defence Minister Peter MacKay.

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Weekend Viewing: How To Steal From THE DICK VAN DYKE SHOW

By Jaime Weinman - Saturday, February 14, 2009 at 9:16 PM - 2 Comments

I mentioned in an earlier post that The Dick Van Dyke Show is one of the shows that frequently has plots “borrowed” by later shows. (Another is The Andy Griffith Show, which inspired everything from the Seinfeld “sentenced to be a butler” show-within-a-show to the Simpsons episode where Homer makes a friend that nobody else ever sees.) Because Dick Van Dyke wasn’t rerun much where I lived, I would sometimes see these borrowed plots and only later find out that they came from an old black-and-white series.

And checking on YouTube, I found that they have the example I remember best: there was an episode of Perfect Strangers (which I watched religiously in my misspent youth) where a hypnotist tries to put Cousin Larry under, only to accidentally hypnotize Balki in another room. Balki then becomes convinced that he’s Elvis Presley every time he hears a bell ring. It wasn’t until TGIF was long gone that I discovered that this whole episode was lifted from the plot of a Dick Van Dyke episode, “My Husband is Not a Drunk”: a hypnotist tries to put Buddy under, only to accidentally hypnotize Rob in another room. Rob then becomes convinced that he’s drunk every time he hears a bell ring. (The creator of Perfect Strangers, Dale McRaven, was a writer for The Dick Van Dyke Show, but he did not write or produce either of these episodes, so it’s not even a case of someone borrowing from himself.)

Lifting old TV plots and using them again used to be more common than it is now, but it’s still done, and the practice resides in the grey area of intellectual property: everybody knows that the one episode was inspired by the other, but it’s not actually plagiarism, because the characters, setting, dialogue and so forth are all different (and in this case, not as good). Only the inspiration is borrowed, and you can’t copyright inspiration.

The whole Dick Van Dyke episode is not on YouTube, but here’s a relevant excerpt:

And here, in three parts, is the Perfect Strangers episode that “recycled” this old story (there seems to be an impressive array of Perfect Strangers clips and fan pages online):

Part 1 (with the hypnosis scene):

Part 2:

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Still working out the kinks, but…

By Andrew Coyne - Saturday, February 14, 2009 at 9:05 PM - 39 Comments

… baby takes its first steps:

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"Retool Canadian TV" Sounds So Ominous, Doesn't It?

By Jaime Weinman - Saturday, February 14, 2009 at 7:33 PM - 53 Comments

The Globe and Mail reports that the CRTC is considering limiting the amount of money Canadian broadcasters can spend on U.S. programming. Well, technically they can pay as much as they want for a U.S. show, but only if they spend an equivalent amount on domestic programming:

The proposal, which came as a shock to network executives Friday, would require CTV, Global, CITY-TV and others to spend the same amount on Canadian programming as they do on U.S. shows. For every $1 spent on programs from outside the country, a dollar would have to be spent at home creating a domestic show…

There are concerns in Ottawa that runaway spending to lock up U.S. shows that do well in the race for ratings is now contributing to network television’s financial woes in Canada.

(Link via Denis McGrath)

Read the rest of the article, and also the comments. One thing to note is that even after the bidding wars of recent years, the gap between the money spent on U.S. product and Canadian product is not huge, and equalizing the spending would just bring us back to the situation of five years ago:

Since 2003, CTV and Global have escalated the amount they spend on foreign shows in an effort to steal audiences from each other. Though numbers are not broken out by network, back then the commercial networks spent $541-million on foreign programs, and $536-million on Canadian ones.

Last year, spending on foreign shows hit a record $775-million, compared with $619-million to make domestic programs. The numbers include several commercial networks; CTV, Global, CITY-TV, and French networks such as TVA. Public broadcaster CBC is not included.

I really don’t know what to say about this idea; I’m skeptical of the idea that better Canadian programming will happen just because the CRTC demands more of it, but I have no great sympathy for the broadcasters, whose bidding wars over U.S. shows basically amount to a war over the right to deprive us of the superior U.S. feeds. (I’m always happy when there is no Canadian simulcast and I can see the original network commercials and bumpers. They’re supposed to be part of the viewing experience.)

Of course, I’ve had an innate suspicion of the CRTC ever since they took the “Bewitched Bunny” incident seriously. Update: I confused the CRTC with the CBSC. See comments.

Of manhood and memories

By Aaron Wherry - Saturday, February 14, 2009 at 4:43 PM - 23 Comments

A year ago now, at the peak of the sound and fury surrounding allegations of bribery and Chuck Cadman, the matter came round, as it so often has, to a question of manhood.

Question Period on March 3 began with Stephane Dion. “Mr. Speaker,” he said, “the Prime Minister has tried everything to avoid answering questions about his party’s million dollar bribe. He has even resorted to threats of a lawsuit. It is going to take much more than the threat of a lawsuit to stop us from getting to the truth. Is the Prime Minister willing to change his story? Is he ready to tell the truth?”

The Prime Minister responded with his grand prediction—”The truth is that this will prove to be in court the biggest mistake the leader of the Liberal Party has ever made.”

Only the Liberals didn’t let up. And so the Conservatives did as they do.

“You big wimp!” John Baird yelped at Dion. “You sneaky wimp! You’re gutless!”

The minister of the crown then barked in Ken Dryden’s direction. “You’re gutless!” he cried. “You’re gutless!”

The Prime Minister kept at Dion. “We will be watching very interestingly,” Stephen Harper smirked, “to see after Question Period whether the leader of the Liberal Party publishes those questions on his website.”

“He’s a weasel!” Baird concurred. “You watch, he won’t do it!”

Eventually the Liberals sent Dryden up, the former goalie ever ready with another gusty condemnation of the ruling party’s behaviour. Continue…

Helping People Vs. Punishing People On TV

By Jaime Weinman - Friday, February 13, 2009 at 10:30 PM - 3 Comments

Just a quick follow-up to my last post: someone with a sociological bent could read some weird things into the way the “standard” plot for the TV episodic drama has evolved over the years. As I implied, network TV is no longer naturally inclined to do stories where the hero helps the little guy in need. (You get it more on basic-cable networks, like USA and TNT, and in the few direct-to-syndication shows that pop up here and there.) So even when NBC did Knight Rider, it took them 13 episodes to remember that that was the sort of story a show like this was supposed to be doing. 

Instead, thanks to CSI and House and their imitators, a  lot of episodic TV focuses on the heroes punishing people, or exposing people’s weaknesses. Even when House helps somebody, he also exposes their deceptions and problems. CSI-type shows frequently focus on cautionary tales about the horrible things that can happen if you’re not careful or if you use internet chat rooms too much. None of this is at all new or at all unpopular; it was common on the TV procedurals of the ’60s and ’70s. But it’s not (and is not intended to be) escapist, except in the sense that we can see people whose problems are worse than ours. But during the recession of the early ’80s, there was a vogue for escapist, A-Team style shows that threw economic reality to the winds: heroes who didn’t seem to care about money and helped the downtrodden against the big bosses. There are signs that TV executives today want to move in the same direction, or at least that they think that’s what the audience is looking for. Some (not all) of this season’s Sarah Connor Chronicles plots have made moves in that direction.

Oh, and while I’m on the subject: An upcoming episode of Sarah Connor Chronicles is apparently going to use the “checking into a clinic and suspecting something fishy is going on” plot. Bless you, TV producers. You know what we’re looking for.

Equal Voices get $1.2 million, NDP mad

By Mitchel Raphael - Friday, February 13, 2009 at 10:16 PM - 32 Comments

At an Ottawa reception at the Métropolitain Brasserie & Restaurant, Equal Voice Acting National Chair Donna Dasko thanked party leaders for their work in advancing women in politics.

Helena Guergis, Minister of State for Status of Women, announced at the reception that Equal Voice will receive over  $1.2 million to fund their program to introduce women ages 12–25 to politics and ultimately encourage them to engage politically.

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Coyne v. Wells on Obama's visit

By macleans.ca - Friday, February 13, 2009 at 8:16 PM - 19 Comments

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Coyne v. Wells on Obama's visit

By macleans.ca - Friday, February 13, 2009 at 8:11 PM - 4 Comments

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HD Version | Comments

The President and the Prime Minister

By John Parisella - Friday, February 13, 2009 at 6:26 PM - 6 Comments

On Feb. 19, President Obama will visit Canada in his first official foreign visit, reestablishing a tradition where the U.S. President’s first foreign visit following election is with the neighbor to the north.

The visit will be a short one, and hardly the kind to achieve any significant breakthrough. One can assume talks will revolve around the economy, the respective stimulus packages, energy, trade issues and Canada’s concerns about a potential rising tide of protectionism, and possibly Canada’s participation in Afghanistan. It’s unlikely Omar Khadr will be discussed. Too bad. Whether there will be enough time to discuss border security issues and climate change are also question marks. Continue…

Tom Zytaruk takes James Moore on an uncomfortable trip down memory lane …

By kadyomalley - Friday, February 13, 2009 at 4:31 PM - 40 Comments

.. in today’s edition of Surrey Now:

I’m loathe to admit it, but Conservative MP James Moore and I do have one thing in common: We have both suffered the public indignity of being wrongfully accused of doing something we did not do.

In my case, of course, Moore led the Conservative Party charge claiming that I fraudulently “doctored” a taped conversation with Stephen Harper in connection with the so-called Cadman Affair.

In Moore’s case, the young MP was accused of viewing “soft porn” on his laptop computer while in the House of Commons, back in December 2007. As it turned out, he’d actually been looking at pictures of his girlfriend. At any rate, Moore was clearly distressed by the false allegation. Mortified. Humiliated.

“I hope nobody in this House goes through what I did in the last 24 hours,” he told the media, after the dust settled.

In my case, I hope no Canadian ever goes through what I’ve been going through over the past year.

At least Moore’s accuser, an NDP MP, had the class to apologize. Do you, James Moore, have the class to apologize to me? [...]

And yes, in case anyone wonders, ITQ agrees completely. Tom Zytaruk deserves a public apology from Moore, and from every other footsoldier who was — and, in at least one case, still is — willing to cast unproven – and, in fact, subsequently debunked – allegations against a journalist solely to spare the Prime Minister from having to explain what he meant by “financial considerations”. Frankly, he also deserves an apology from the rest of us in the media, who, for the most part, pretty much stopped asking that question after the PM filed suit against the Liberals — not because it had been satisfactorily answered, but due to the not unreasonale fear that we might find ourselves similarly targeted. In fact, we owe the public itself an apology for that one, so consider this mine.

Burn Notice, Keep On Bringing Those Old Plots

By Jaime Weinman - Friday, February 13, 2009 at 3:11 PM - 2 Comments

Alan Sepinwall points out that last night’s Burn Notice was a great variation on an old chestnut of a plot, the bank heist/hostage situation that just happens to break out while the hero is there. I think one key to the success of Burn Notice is that even though it has big overriding mysteries involving Michael, many of the episodic plots are old-fashioned in the best way: they’re stories about Michael helping people who are being picked on by those who are bigger, stronger and more powerful than they are. People falsely accused of crimes, in trouble with drug smugglers, victims of all sorts: people who in real life wouldn’t have a hope in hell of winning, but who, in this world, are lucky enough to have Michael Westen and his MacGyver-esque brilliance working for them. It’s a type of plot that always works, but works even better in an era when the little guy seems to be losing even more than usual. Matt Nix even built one of the recent stories around Michael trying to help a guy get back the money he lost to scam artists; no plot could be more satisfying in times like these.

As I said earlier, Knight Rider tried to get back to this type of story, but too late; they should have been doing it from the beginning like the original show did. And one potential weakness with the episodic plots on Dollhouse is that, because the Dolls mostly work for wealthy clients, the plots don’t have the emotional punch they might otherwise have. They’re using all the sure-fire plots about saving kidnap victims and such (one of the upcoming episodes, which I haven’t seen, has Echo going undercover as a singer to protect a pop star from being killed; even David Hasselhoff went undercover as a singer, for God’s sake), but with clients who can actually afford to pay.

ObamaWatch: He's coming! He's really coming!

By kadyomalley - Friday, February 13, 2009 at 2:39 PM - 25 Comments

Well, they’re shutting down the airspace around our fair city, at least, from 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., which would suggest – well, if it’s true that he’s going to be in Ottawa for five hours -  that the presidential jet will probably land at approximately 11:30 a.m., and he’ll head back to Washington at 4:30 p.m.

"I Stayed Up All Night Watching a Designing Women Marathon…"

By Jaime Weinman - Friday, February 13, 2009 at 2:11 PM - 3 Comments

…”At first I hated it.And then I liked it. Then I hated it again. Then I got horny. And then I fell asleep. ” (Frank, 30 Rock)

The latest of the Shout Factory licenses (along with the even more welcome announcements of Peyton Place and The Dana Carvey Show, about which more later) is the first season of Designing Women, which has been kept off DVD until now, except for best-of collections, because Sony didn’t want to pay the music licensing fees.

I would expect this one to sell well, since the show still has a substantial fan base and is still sometimes seen in reruns (as 30 Rock already pointed out). I’m not as excited for it as I am for some other, lesser-known shows; I personally couldn’t get into it. I think one of the things that turned me off was the Meshach Taylor character, who was such a eunuch. The Golden Girls and Sex and the City were smart enough not to try to bring a male character into the core group — Golden Girls actually had a gay male character in the pilot, who was dropped by the second episode — because it’s the equivalent of bringing in a token female character who has no reason to be with an all-male group.

The creator of Designing Women and writer of most of the episodes, Linda Bloodworth-Thomason, was one of a number of female writer-creators who became famous for using their TV shows to address whatever was on their minds. Amy Palladino is another writer in the same mold, and Gilmore Girls was like a one-hour, less abrasive take on the Designing Women format. And of course, though he’s not a woman, David E. Kelley is the ultimate writer in this mold, someone who uses episodic television to work out his own obsessions. I think that a lot of what we now think of as “personal” television, TV shows where episodes are a reflection of the creator’s own neuroses and moods, owes something to the work of Bloodworth, Susan Harris, Diane English etc.; they helped raise the bar for the amount of his or her own personal self a showrunner could put into a show with continuing characters.

This clip is from David Mirkin’s short-lived Fox comedy series The Edge (after it was canceled, he took over as showrunner of The Simpsons). And yes, that is Jennifer Aniston in the cast.

Cold cure on the horizon?

By macleans.ca - Friday, February 13, 2009 at 2:00 PM - 1 Comment

Researchers who’ve decoded the genomes of the 99 strains of the common cold suggest they have new insight on ways to kill off the virus, the New York Times reports. “We are now quite certain that we see the Achilles’ heel, and that a very effective treatment for the common cold is at hand,” says Stephen B. Liggett, a University of Maryland asthma expert and co-author of the finding. Since the virus is thought to set off half of all asthma attacks, such a cure would have a huge impact on the lives of the 20-million Americans who suffer from asthma. But others say we shouldn’t get too excited at the prospect of a drug to kill off the cold. Not only would it be incredibly expensive to produce (the typical cost of developing a new drug is around $700 million); there’s some concern a vaccine couldn’t protect the lining of the nose, where the virus attacks. Even so, the new data will help analyze a new family of rhinoviruses that’s become cause for concern: those that attack the lungs, instead of the nose, causing viral pneumonia.

The New York Times

Judge Pierre (III)

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, February 13, 2009 at 1:48 PM - 76 Comments

The NDP’s Joe Comartin raised the matter of the Cadman tape in QP today, focusing his efforts on Pierre Poilievre’s privileged statement of a day ago.

Here’s that exchange.

Mr. Joe Comartin (Windsor—Tecumseh, NDP): Mr. Speaker, last week Canadians were surprised to learn that the lawsuit involving serious allegations of bribery offers to the late M.P., Chuck Cadman, had been suddenly withdrawn with no answer. According to an expert hired by the Conservatives journalist, Tom Zytaruk, was falsely accused of tampering with the audiotape record of his interview with the Prime Minister. Despite this, the government continues to claim Mr. Zytaruk tampered with the tape. Will the government today either provide evidence that Mr. Zytaruk doctored the tape or apologize to him immediately?

 Mr. Pierre Poilievre (Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister and to the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs, CPC): Mr. Speaker, we need not provide that evidence because it was already provided in court. It is proven that the tape was doctored, but happily the issue is resolved now. There has been a settlement and we can say that we are very pleased with that settlement. 

Mr. Joe Comartin (Windsor—Tecumseh, NDP): It is not over for Mr. Zytaruk. The member just maligned him again, Mr. Speaker. I am going to suggest to the parliamentary secretary that he leave the House after question period and repeat that statement so Mr. Zytaruk can sue him for maligning his reputation. Will he do that or not? 

Mr. Pierre Poilievre (Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister and to the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs, CPC): Mr. Speaker, I have said before and will say again that the matter is settled.

Mr. Comartin continued in this way after QP. Here’s his altogether entertaining exchange with reporters. Continue…

Judge Pierre (II)

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, February 13, 2009 at 1:33 PM - 6 Comments

After QP today, Liberal house leader Ralph Goodale was asked to comment on Pierre Poilievre’s assertion, repeated in the House this morning, about the veracity of the Cadman tape.

Here’s the transcript. Continue…

Stelmach on George W. visit

By macleans.ca - Friday, February 13, 2009 at 1:30 PM - 8 Comments

George W. Bush’s speech next month in Calgary, organized by the youthful cloak-and-dagger duo of Calgary-based Christian Darbyshire and Andy McCreath, who very politely answer no questions, is generating mixed feelings even in conservative Alberta. As the Calgary Herald’s Michelle Magnan reports today: “Asked whether he welcomes Bush’s visit to Calgary, Premier Ed Stelmach’s response was curt before leaving a media conference Thursday. ‘He’s a free man, can travel to any country he wants,’ the Premier said.” Magnan also reports that Bush’s appearance, an invitation-only affair that will be the former president’s first public talk since leaving office, will be followed by a question-and-answer session moderated by Frank McKenna, the former premier of New Brunswick and Canada’s one-time Washington envoy.

Calgary Herald