Phoenix and Letterman in cahoots?

By Brian D. Johnson - Wednesday, February 25, 2009 at 10:50 AM - 0 Comments

Is it a hoax, or has Joaquin Phoenix truly lost his mind? That question has been ricocheting around the blogosphere ever since a spaced-out Phoenix appeared on the Late Show with David Letterman last week, masked by dark glasses and a bushy beard, and acting virtually catatonic. While Letterman tried to pry conversation out of him, Phoenix sat stone-faced or mumbled. He forgot the name of Gwyneth Paltrow, his co-star in the movie he was ostensibly promoting—Two Lovers, a small romance with no Canadian release. And he swore at bandleader Paul Shaffer for guffawing at the notion of him introducing a clip. Meanwhile, Phoenix stuck to his story that he’s quit acting to be a rap singer, and said he hoped to perform on the show. “That seems unlikely,” said Letterman. “We’ll keep you in our Rolodex.”

The 34-year-old actor—a two-time Oscar nominee for Gladiator and Walk the Line—first announced his bizarre career shift in October. Then, last month, he unveiled his “talent” as a rapper in Las Vegas, falling off the stage after three numbers. His shambolic performance was so preposterously bad, people assumed he was stoned, mentally ill—or perpetrating an elaborate hoax.

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Checking out before getting old

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, February 25, 2009 at 10:45 AM - 0 Comments

Meg Frederico and her friends often discuss their clever strategies to checking out of life before dementia and incontinence set in. In their 50s, the women dread living too long unless, as she puts it, “we’re ‘sharp as a tack’ and ‘fit as a fiddle.’ ” In this piece, Frederico shares her morbid fantasy, which involves a beach and a yet-to-be concocted “final martini,” and suggests that perhaps it’s time to truly start talking about what lies ahead.      

Wow O Wow

(Maclean’s review)

Inexplicably In Camera Committee Meeting of the Day

By kadyomalley - Wednesday, February 25, 2009 at 10:40 AM - 22 Comments

Okay, it’s distinctly possible that ITQ is missing some crucial tidbit of information that would make the following make sense, but as it stands, we are officially baffled by the decision by the Fisheries committee to go behind closed doors for a briefing on the latest developments surrounding the European Parliament’s longstanding – and not remotely secret – opposition to the Canadian seal hunt – especially when no such provision was included when the study was originally added to the committee’s to-do list. Regardless of which side one falls on the debate, it’s hard to see how the prospect of “European legislative or regulatory actions” targeting Canada wouldn’t constitute a matter of extreme public interest.

Israel’s big stick

By Michael Petrou - Wednesday, February 25, 2009 at 10:40 AM - 5 Comments

An Israeli soldier’s graffiti, scrawled on the wall of a ransacked home in Gaza during the recent war, best explains the shift that has occurred regarding Israel’s strategy toward its Palestinian neighbours: “Next time it will hurt more.”

Israel began its campaign in Gaza with measurable tactical goals: ensuring that Hamas, which controls the territory, can no longer use tunnels connecting Gaza and Egypt to smuggle in weapons, and stopping Hamas’s incessant rocket fire on Israeli civilians living nearby. Short of reoccupying the Gaza Strip, which Israel is unwilling to contemplate at this time, neither of these goals is completely achievable without implicit co-operation from Hamas. Now, as Israel awaits a new government, a report released this month by the Center for Strategic and International Studies confirms that the war did not change the political or military situation in Gaza. “The post-conflict situation looks strikingly like the situation before the fighting began,” it concludes.

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Maclean’s Interview: Kirk Radomski

By Michael Friscolanti - Wednesday, February 25, 2009 at 10:30 AM - 0 Comments

A former bat boy for the New York Mets, Kirk Radomski—a.k.a. “Murdoch”—became the sport’s go-to guy for steroids, human growth hormone and other performance-enhancing substances. By the time federal agents knocked on his door in 2005, he had clients on every major league team. Now a convicted felon, his testimony was the cornerstone of Sen. George Mitchell’s groundbreaking investigation into baseball’s “Steroids Era.” Radomski’s new book, Bases Loaded, is anything but an apology.

Q: You sold steroids and human growth hormone (HGH) to hundreds of major league baseball players. Yet you insist that the players who bought those drugs from you weren’t technically cheating. How is taking steroids not cheating?

A: If you and me take steroids it doesn’t mean we’re going to hit a 95-mile-an-hour fastball. You have to have talent, you know? Basically, a lot of these guys who were taking these drugs, they were calling me when they got hurt. Most of the guys I met—99 per cent of the guys—they called me when they were hurt, or they were going to get surgery, and they wanted to know how they could get back on the field faster and earn their paycheque. They don’t want to sit out. Sometimes you hear in the papers, “Oh, these guys, they don’t care. He signed that five-year, $50-million…” But these guys don’t want to sit at home and be with their wives. They want to be on the field, they wanted to heal quicker, and with growth hormones, you could cut your recovery time in half.

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MPs' voting records want to be free

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, February 25, 2009 at 10:20 AM - 0 Comments

From the “Seriously, you can’t already do that?” department, the Ottawa Citizen reports that Canadians—or, more specifically, obsessive-compulsive political junkies—will soon be able to track MPs’ votes online. Although voting results are published in Hansard, the daily transcript of House business, there is currently no easy way to collect or cross reference that data. According to Liberal MP Mauril Belanger, the House of Commons is in the process of developing specialized software that will produce a complete voting record. The new system is expected to be unveiled within the next few weeks. 

Ottawa Citizen

Must be all those bushfires

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, February 25, 2009 at 10:15 AM - 0 Comments

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, last seen on TV doing an impressive if emotional job handling the aftermath of his country’s deadly bushfires, may have just received a little political help from Washington. Rudd’s Labor Party government, lately criticized for moving too fast on the climate-change file despite the world’s faltering economy, will likely feel vindicated by Obama’s call last night for a market-based cap on carbon. Rudd favours an emissions-trading regime, but some at home worried recent musings by U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu indicated Washington might prefer a carbon tax. Obama’s request during his address to a joint session of congress that the lawmakers cough up carbon-cap legislation means Australia should now feel safer. All this just reinforces how different Canada and Australia have become since PM Stephen Harper’s friend, the right-of-centre former Australian PM John Howard, was replaced two years ago. Australia appears prepared for how the U.S. deals with climate change—Canada a little less so.

The Australian

Windsor’s Symphony is looking for a bailout

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, February 25, 2009 at 10:10 AM - 1 Comment

To the list of Windsor’s economic troubles—the demise of its principle industry, a 10.9% unemployment rate—you can now add the city’s symphony. And like the auto industry, the symphony is looking for a bailout. Projected to run a deficit for the fourth straight year, the WSO is asking city council for a $300,000, interest-free loan. “I expect there will significant debate by council on this issue next Monday,” says Mayor Eddie Francis. “Our economic climate and budget challenges we are facing put us in a difficult environment (to consider the loan) … But having said that we know the symphony is a significant organization that brings tremendous value to the city.”

The Windsor Star

Growing a new heart

By Kate Lunau - Wednesday, February 25, 2009 at 10:10 AM - 1 Comment

How do you mend a broken heart? For the zebrafish, an aquarium dweller with bright stripes down its side, it just takes time. Clip off a piece of its heart, says Gordon Keller, director of the McEwen Centre for Regenerative Medicine in Toronto, and it will eventually repair itself. “Why can the fish do it,” he wonders, “and we can’t?” Maybe, one day, that could change.

After a heart attack, a scar is left behind, distorting pumping action, “which can result, eventually, in heart failure,” says Ottawa cardiologist Dr. Andreas Wielgosz, spokesperson for the Heart & Stroke Foundation of Canada. Cardiovascular disease is the No. 1 killer in Canada—yet cell-based therapies are offering new hope for treating damaged organs. Using the body’s own building blocks, researchers are attempting to coax the human heart into generating functioning tissue where a scar would otherwise be.

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“A sad and sudden death”

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, February 25, 2009 at 10:00 AM - 0 Comments

Ivan Cameron, the six-year-old son of British Conservative leader David Cameron, died early this morning in London. The boy suffered from cerebral palsy and epilepsy and needed to be cared for around the clock. George Osborne, the shadow chancellor and a close friend of Cameron and his wife Samantha, said Ivan’s disability “does not make today’s very, very sad and sudden death any less shocking.” British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and his wife Sarah sent condolences. Their daughter, Jennifer Jane, died when she was a few days old in 2002.

Telegraph.co.uk

Gaming causes skin disorder: study

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, February 25, 2009 at 9:50 AM - 0 Comments

Gamers who grip their consoles too tight and mash on the buttons might find themselves suffering from painful bumps on their palms, say Swiss scientists who’ve named the newly identified skin disorder “PlayStation palmar hidradentitis.” In the study, published in the British Journal of Dermatology, researchers from the University Hospitals and Medical School of Geneva reported on the case of a 12-year-old girl who came to hospital with painful lesions on her hands, but nowhere else on the body. The team concluded these lesions were due to “minor but continuous trauma to the (palm) surfaces” from playing video games for several hours a day; after she stopped playing for 10 days, she recovered. Sony has promised to take a look at the study, but a spokesman noted it involved just one person, while the company sold hundreds of millions of PlayStations since introducing it in 1995.

BBC News

Recession tonic: Scarlett O’Hara

By Peter Shawn Taylor - Wednesday, February 25, 2009 at 9:50 AM - 1 Comment

Scarlett O’Hara had more than her share of trouble back in the day. There was the Civil War, fire, poverty, hunger, thieving Yankee deserters, rapists, carpetbaggers, weak-willed husbands and lovers, a feeble-minded father, disapproving neighbours, spiteful relatives and the maddeningly elusive Rhett Butler. She survived them all, of course. But can she survive the subprime mortgage meltdown, an auto sector collapse and Bernie Madoff? She’d better. America is counting on it.

For generations, Gone with the Wind’s controversial heroine has inspired and shocked us with her gumption and steely optimism. The iconic popularity of the book and movie—Margaret Mitchell’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel came out in 1936 and has since sold over 30 million copies; the 1939 movie with Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh remains the all-time Hollywood box office champ with US$1.3 billion (inflation adjusted) in tickets sold—means her story is never far from the public consciousness. But now, with America in the depths of despair, Scarlett may be more necessary than ever.

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Chrétien in Chicago: The second draft of history

By Paul Wells - Wednesday, February 25, 2009 at 9:44 AM - 87 Comments

On Feb. 13, 2003, five weeks before the invasion of Iraq, Jean Chrétien gave a speech to the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations. He covered a few different topics: fiscal management, trade, foreign affairs.

First, Chrétien explained why he was bringing this message to this blue-chip audience, a group whose other guests that year included the chancellor of Germany, the president of Ireland and the Saudi foreign minister. “Let me begin with a few remarks on the Canadian economy. For, quite simply, it matters to your economy that ours does well: we consume 25% of your exports.”

Then he detailed Canada’s fiscal turnaround, in detail I needn’t imitate here, but part of his goal was to show that Canada pays off its debts:

“We have had five consecutive budget surpluses. We are predicting another budget surplus for this year and surpluses in the years after that. Canada is the only G-7 country in that position. Since 1997 we have paid down more than 10% of our market debt. And we are continuing year after year to pay down the debt.

“Our debt-to-GDP ratio has fallen from 71% to 49% over this period; and it continues to fall. The OECD predicts that in 2004 our debt to GDP ratio will be below that of the United States.”

As Canadians visiting the United States often do, he reminded his hosts that our country is an important customer and supplier — “in 2000, Canada bought more U.S. goods than all 15 countries of the European Union combined and three times as much as Japan” — not least for energy:

“We supply the United States, with 94% of your natural gas imports, close to 100% of your electricity of uranium for nuclear power generation. In 2002, Canada supplied the United States with 17% of its imported crude and refined oil products–more than any other foreign supplier, including Saudi Arabia. Canada’s oil sands contain 2.5 trillion barrels of oil, of which 315 billion barrels are recoverable with current technology. This surpasses the oil reserves of Saudi Arabia… The most important point I can make here is that we are a secure energy supplier you can count on.”

And then he moved, a little more delicately, to foreign affairs, and of course to Iraq.

War must always be the last resort, not only because of the human suffering it produces but also because of the inevitable unforeseen consequences. But if it must come to war, I argue that the world should respond through the United Nations. This is the best way to give legitimacy to the use of force in these circumstances. We must all be concerned about the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. And we all fully understand why action is required before it is too late. I argue, however, that the long-term interests of the United States will be better served by acting through the United Nations than by acting alone.

There was much more of this multilateral stuff before Chrétien moved on to the link between human development and security. “We must also recognize that long-term peace and security require not only better intelligence, or armed responses… For hundreds of millions of people, the main threats to their well-being are those of famine, disease, feeble economies, lack of educational opportunity, corrupt or inept governance, and regional conflicts.”

So, three messages: At home, Canada is a good customer and a key supplier of vital goods because it takes the management of its fiscal house seriously. Abroad, Canada urges caution in Iraq and multilateralism. Elsewhere, Canada urges all fortunate nations to look after less fortunate neighbours, because bad neighbourhoods can become dangerous ones.

The next morning Christie Blatchford wrote about Chrétien’s speech in the National Post.

“It sounded for all the world like a twist on the sort of dreamy nonsense you hear sometimes from Earth Mother-type dames,” she began, “like the woman in Eastern Ontario who recently berated her child’s school for including the word ‘gun’ in the Grade One curriculum.” Continue…

Bobby Jindal Is the New Kenneth, and Kenneth Is the New Urkel

By Jaime Weinman - Wednesday, February 25, 2009 at 9:42 AM - 5 Comments

Kenneth from 30 Rock really does seem to be on his way to becoming the “Urkel” of that show, the cartoony idiot who overtakes most of the other characters. 30 Rock has already signaled this by doing an episode where Tracy and Jenna (two characters who are now playing second banana to Kenneth) get jealous of Kenneth’s overwhelming popularity, and then Alec Baldwin’s SNL monologue included a skit about how audience members like Jack McBrayer better than him.

And now Kenneth has a pop-culture icon who immediately comes to mind when people see a dorky guy who talks in a weird, over-emphatic way: last night’s speech by Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal has caused many high-profile bloggers to compare his speech patterns to those of Kenneth the Page. They’re young, they’re Southern, they’re adorable and they talk like they’re filled with awe and wonder at the sound of every word they say. There’s already a Facebook group devoted to that proposition.

Luckily for Jindal, any problems he had with delivery may have been overshadowed by Chris Matthews once again proving that he is completely dumb and insane. (But he’s insane and dumb in a bi-partisan way, so I guess that’s supposed to make it all OK.)

I don’t know if Jindal will be the Republicans’ 2012 nominee, but he does represent what has become the Republicans’ strategy: the same policies in a more appealing package. Jindal was an extremely conservative Congressman who became an extremely conservative Governor; he is an orthodox Republican on taxes, guns, social issues etc. (Part of the problem with his speech last night was how it dwelt too much on things that only conservative Republicans are obsessed with.) But he doesn’t fit the traditional demographic profile of conservative Republicans. Sarah Palin, an attractive woman who happened to be a very conservative Republican, is also in this mold. The strategy, if it is a strategy, makes a certain amount of sense, because Obama is basically a orthodox Democrat in most of his policy positions, but has an appeal that goes beyond orthodox Democrats; the Republicans could be forgiven for thinking that it’s all about marketing. On the other hand, many conservative Republican policies are genuinely unpopular at the moment — but who knows if that will still be true by 2012? Elections are more about timing than anything else.

But back to Kenneth: The unusual thing about 30 Rock is not that it has a breakout character but that it hasn’t been revamped to focus more on him than it already does. If this were any other low-rated comedy with a spastic nerd who unexpectedly becomes the show’s most popular character, the network would long ago have had the whole show rewritten so he’d have as much screen time as the nominal stars. (Exhibit A: Family Matters.) But while Kenneth has more to do on 30 Rock, he doesn’t have that much more to do than he used to. NBC has been unusually indulgent of 30 Rock because Ben Silverman loves the show so much, and because the awards keep coming in, and so they haven’t ordered the kind of changes that a network would normally insist upon for a show with those ratings. Which is another way of saying that Tina Fey is lucky her producer is Lorne Michaels, not Miller-Boyett.

Steven Page no longer a Barenaked Lady

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, February 25, 2009 at 9:40 AM - 1 Comment

Singer-guitarist Steven Page has left The Barenaked Ladies “by mutual agreement,” the band’s website announced last night. During their 20 years together, the Ladies recorded 11 albums, had five top singles in Canada, and received multiple Junos.  But the last year was a difficult one for the group, with Page’s arrest for drug possession in July (he reached a deal with prosecutors in October that felony drug charges would be dropped if he stayed out of trouble for six months). In August, bandmate Ed Robinson miraculously survived a float plane crash with three others. This year, however, the band appeared to be on a mini-comeback, with a Juno Award nomination for its children’s album, Snacktime. The band says it will continue to tour and record without Page who is said to have solo ventures in the works but it just won’t be the same.

The Sun

Violence and Internet addiction: the link

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, February 25, 2009 at 9:30 AM - 0 Comments

The long-running question of whether the Internet turns regular people into jerks or if jerks are disproportionately attracted to the Internet in the first place, was revitalized by a study in the Journal of Adolescent Health. Taiwanese researchers studying 9,405 teenagers claim those with signs of “internet addiction”—preoccupation with online activities, “withdrawal” symptoms like irritability if unable to access the internet, and skipping real-world endeavors—were more likely than their peers to say they’ve hit, shoved, or threatened someone in the past year.

The Register

After the detention, a betrayal

By Michael Friscolanti - Wednesday, February 25, 2009 at 9:30 AM - 0 Comments

Eight days after the World Trade Center crumbled from the New York skyline, a team of federal agents paid a visit to a small taxi-driving school in Manhattan. With smoke still billowing from the ruins of Ground Zero, the officers were searching for one specific student: a Canadian citizen named Shakir Baloch.

The FBI was anxious to know how the Toronto man, originally from Pakistan, entered the United States. They peppered him with pointed questions. Is your visa valid? Are you a devout Muslim? Do you recognize any of the men who hijacked those airplanes? Still suspicious after a four-hour interrogation, the agents escorted Baloch to a detention centre downtown. He spent that night—and the next seven months—behind bars. “I call it my death valley,” he says now, sitting in a crowded Scarborough coffee shop. “They were threatening to arrest my family and revoke my Canadian citizenship. I was very afraid.”

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PBOWatch: Is that a Cabinet Confidence in your budget forecast …

By kadyomalley - Wednesday, February 25, 2009 at 9:21 AM - 7 Comments

Or do you just not want to give away all your secrets?

Everyone’s favourite fiscal futurist Kevin Page appears to have hit a brick wall in his efforts to persuade the FInance department to hand over the economic and fiscal projections underlying last fall’s Economic and Fiscal Statement (which, ITQ readers may dimly recall, very nearly brought down the government).

As it turned out, the folks at Finance were happy to send along the results of the private economic survey that were used to come up with their projections, but balked at releasing any “additional details” without first getting the green light from PCO, according to Deputy Minister Rob Wright, whose response is dated December 24, 2008:

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Will San Fran be the first major city without a newspaper?

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, February 25, 2009 at 9:20 AM - 0 Comments

In the race to economic rock bottom, media division, San Francisco, CA is set to earn a dubious distinction—becoming the first major metropolitan area in the United States without a real daily paper. The Hearst Corp. has announced that it will close the San Francisco Chronicle in a matter of weeks, unless a buyer can be found, or expenses reduced dramatically enough to put the money-losing paper in the black. Last year, Hearst sold the city’s other daily, the Examiner, for $100 and it has since been transformed into a commuter freebie. And San Fran, pop. 800,000, is not alone. Papers in many of America’s largest cities are seeking bankruptcy protection and threatening closure.

Associated Press

Quebec gets the French kiss-off

By Paul Wells - Wednesday, February 25, 2009 at 9:20 AM - 20 Comments

Rejoice! We bring word of the latest progress in the inevitable march of the Québécois nation toward independence or sovereignty or sovereignty-partnership or whatever we’re calling it this week—but never mind that now, because look! Giant steps:

On Monday, Pierre Paquette, the House leader of the Bloc Québécois, reacted to the letter French President Nicolas Sarkozy wrote a week earlier, in response to a letter written on Feb. 4 by Bloc Leader Gilles Duceppe and Parti Québécois Leader Pauline Marois, taking issue with remarks Sarkozy made on Feb. 2 when he decorated Jean Charest, Quebec’s premier, as a commander of France’s Légion d’honneur.

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Cyber-bullying on the rise: survey

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, February 25, 2009 at 9:10 AM - 0 Comments

The number of kids being bullied online is increasingly, according to a survey by Microsoft Canada and Youthography. Forty per cent of the 1,000 kids surveyed said they’d experienced cyber-bullying, up from 25 per cent in 2004. Meanwhile, 16 per cent confessed to being a bully. Though the majority of kids said they’d discussed the perils of the Internet with their parents, many still said they partake in risky practices, such as posting personal information on social networking websites, and accepting “friend” requests from strangers. Of the boys surveyed, a quarter confessed to using the Internet to find adult sexual content.

Mississauga News

Seven habits of highly not fired yet people

By Scott Feschuk - Wednesday, February 25, 2009 at 9:10 AM - 7 Comments

Between you and me, I’m beginning to think this “recession” may be for real and not some imaginary thing my broker made up to justify his poor performance and suicide. All of a sudden I’m regretting that my eulogy was so heavy on accusation and throwing things.

In recent months, millions of people across the United States, thousands across Canada and even the 20 stout men paid to pull Demi Moore’s face tight each morning have lost their jobs due to the severe economic downturn. Could you be next? Lord, I hope so. Anything to save my own bacon.

But assuming you don’t work at Maclean’s, I’m here to help.

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It tastes like tap water

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, February 25, 2009 at 9:00 AM - 0 Comments

A 29-year-old New Yorker is bottling and selling New York City tap water—said to be among the tastiest in the U.S. Called Tap’d New York, he’s marketing it as the anti-bottled water, noting that it didn’t ship from France or Fiji, and that no glaciers were harmed in its making. The city’s water—which comes from a system of 19 reservoirs and three lakes in upstate New York—is almost entirely gravity-driven, and dissolves tart-tasting minerals while traveling through the ground. “It doesn’t require energy or pumping,” says Zucker. “And it’s so pure and clean.” So far, only one customer has complained that it doesn’t taste as good as the competition.

Los Angeles Times

The CRTC isn’t just a nuisance now, it’s a real threat

By Andrew Coyne - Wednesday, February 25, 2009 at 9:00 AM - 72 Comments

Once upon a time there were only four or five television channels. Hardly anyone had the money to broadcast a television signal, and if anyone did, there were only so many spots available on the dial.

In such a world of “spectrum scarcity,” it was argued, government regulation was essential to ensure a diversity of content—and, in Canada, to ensure that some of that content was Canadian. Or as the cultural nationalists had it, to make it possible for Canadians to “tell ourselves our own stories.” This was the world in which the CRTC was born.

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