Snuggie fever. But wait. There’s more.

By Jaime Weinman - Wednesday, February 25, 2009 at 8:50 AM - 0 Comments

Remember those cheaply produced commercials for useless products, and the hilarious catchphrases they spawned? Well, they’re back, and cheesier than ever. The most famous commercial in the world today is for the Snuggie, a “blanket with sleeves” that looks like a flimsy bathrobe. The ad shows a succession of Snuggie-wearers who look like members of an ancient cult; the spot has already been parodied on This Hour Has 22 Minutes (as “The Fuggly”), was used as a prop on Saturday Night Live, and most importantly, has resulted in the sales of four million Snuggies. Other products have led to commercials that are almost as successful and just as silly. For most of 2008, the advertising sensation was the Shamwow!, an all-purpose washcloth whose two-minute promo was named top infomercial of all time by CNBC. Around the same time, Grey Power, an insurance company for drivers over 50, bought up every spare moment of TV time for its ad featuring an angry woman driver screaming “Come on, already!”; The Rick Mercer Report, among other shows, has spoofed that one. Low-budget commercials have become big-budget business—and they may actually sell more products than the high-end commercials that cost millions.

The rise of cable TV in the ’80s and ’90s produced a glut of low-budget commercials that ran nationally; there was the medical emergency company Lifecall, whose commercial spawned the catchprase “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up!”, as well as the ads for the Clapper and the Chia Pet (a clay-figure animal that sprouted grass). Then when the Internet became popular, it seemed like that was a more logical place to sell useless products. But low-rent companies have realized that a TV commercial with real people has more of an impact than an online pop-up ad. Gregory Ferdinandsen, who created the website billymays.net to celebrate the veteran miracle-cleanser pitchman Billy Mays (“Hi, Billy Mays here for OxiClean!”), says these ads are appealing because “there’s a certain classiness about tackiness.” People may mock the bad production values and hard-sell approach of these commercials (and their promise that you can get two or more products if you order now), but mockable commercials make a product better-known, and that translates into sales. “When people talk about the commercials in the office or at school,” Ferdinandsen says, “that’s the sweet smell of success.”

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Something rotten in Bulgaria

By Nancy Macdonald - Wednesday, February 25, 2009 at 8:40 AM - 1 Comment

When Alexander Tasev was gunned down in his black Mercedes in an suburb of Sofia in May 2007, the wealthy Bulgarian businessman became the third president of the soccer club Lokomotiv Plovdiv to be assassinated in as many years. Tasev, who was shot in broad daylight, was also thought to control political interests in southwest Bulgaria. His death came a week ahead of state elections, and four days after a city councillor in the Black Sea resort town of Nessebar was shot and killed with seven bullets—the same number used earlier to kill Yanko Yankov, the mayor of the central Bulgaria resort town of Elin Pelin.

So went the last election season in Bulgaria, the newest European Union member state, where graft and contract killings are routine and a shady group of businessmen are muscling for their take of everything from new hospitals to billions in European aid. Brussels had hoped to encourage reform in Bulgaria—by any measure the poorest, most corrupt and violent country in Europe—by drawing the traditionally pro-Russian state into its orbit. Since it joined the EU in 2007, however, promised reforms have gone unmet, the legal system remains a shambles, and corruption, which taints everything from sausage-making to highway construction, has actually increased, according to the Sofia-based Center for the Study of Democracy.

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More trouble for banks: fake cheques

By Rachel Mendleson - Wednesday, February 25, 2009 at 8:30 AM - 3 Comments

As Justice G. R. Strathy put it, the experience of a Toronto business owner whose bookkeeper swindled him out of nearly $400,000 “is an all-too-familiar story.” In this case, office manager Ronald Krane faked his boss’s signature on 478 cheques from 2003 to 2006 to fuel his gambling habit. Currently, the business owner’s only recourse is to go after Krane for the money. But that could soon change. In February, the Ontario judge gave the green light to a lawsuit against the bank that cashed the cheques, which, says the victim’s lawyer, “could have wide implications” for financial institutions across the country.

Since the 1970s, the law has stipulated that unless a bank “knew or could reasonably be fixed with knowledge of the forgery,” it can’t be held responsible for depositing a bogus cheque. As such, when the owner of Dupont Heating & Air Conditioning discovered he had been defrauded, he sued Krane—and won. But according to lawyer Ryan Naimark, the judgment is “not worth the paper it’s written on”; Krane doesn’t have the $585,000 he was ordered to pay. So they tried another approach. As part of tough anti-fraud legislation, passed in 2000 to snuff out money-laundering and terrorism, banks are obligated to monitor account activity and detect suspicious transactions, says Naimark. In this case, Krane was using up to 18 different ABM machines per month to deposit the forged cheques into his Bank of Nova Scotia account, then almost immediately withdrawing the same amount. Says Naimark, “The bank should have caught on to that.”

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Fast food introduces ketchup fees

By Cathy Gulli - Wednesday, February 25, 2009 at 8:20 AM - 1 Comment

Fast-food joints just got cheaper—or rather, stingier. They’re charging for items that used to be free. A quarter for four pumps of extra sauce. Eleven cents for a packet of ketchup. “It’s not just condiments,” says John Stanton, professor of food marketing at Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia. “They now put one napkin in the bag instead of a bunch.”

There’s growing evidence that during this economic downturn even the most recession-proof businesses—quick-service chains such as McDonald’s that thrive on people’s desire for inexpensive food from familiar brands—are tightening their belts. Stanton first heard about it when he complained to a passenger next to him on a plane about airlines charging for snacks. “He said, ‘That’s nothing. Now you have to buy the extra sauce at restaurants!’ ” he recalls. Franchisees have to buy ketchup packets, but have traditionally doled them out for free. Not anymore.

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RIM penalty warns of a tougher OSC

By Jason Kirby - Wednesday, February 25, 2009 at 8:10 AM - 0 Comments

When executives at Research in Motion agreed to pay $77 million earlier this month to settle a stock option scandal dating back to 2007, it was a chance for the maker of the BlackBerry device to put the episode behind it.

But for officials at the Ontario Securities Commission who investigated and negotiated the settlement, the hefty penalty was meant to send a lasting warning to any other companies playing fast and loose with securities laws. “No matter who you are, if you conduct yourself in this way and breach Ontario securities law, you’re going to get sanctioned,” says Sasha Angus, a litigator with the OSC. “Depending on what you’ve done, it’s going to be a bigger penalty.”

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Who will give in to despair is a mystery

By Barbara Amiel - Wednesday, February 25, 2009 at 8:00 AM - 10 Comments

Princess Luciana Pignatelli died in her seventies last October after taking sleeping tablets washed down with a bottle of gin. She had lost out on two currencies: her money and her looks. She could have managed with only one of them but not without both. “I can’t face being old and poor,” she told her friends after learning all of her investments were worthless. A memorial service was held two weeks ago in Rome for the woman who had once been the object of desire for Italy’s most dashing men about town, including Fiat’s Gianni Agnelli and his brother-in-law (Prince) Carlo Caraccioli, founder of the left-centre newspaper La Repubblica.

Older readers might recall her Camay soap commercials, described by Camille Paglia as “strangely somnambulistic.” There’s a 1974 one she did, when she was married to a cousin of photographer Richard Avedon, on YouTube. Her earlier marriage to Nicoló Pignatelli, a handsome, clever prince from Italy’s black aristocracy, gave her the name she kept. The New York Times Magazine’s beauty editor Mary Tannen profiled her in 2003, quoting from Pignatelli’s The Beautiful People’s Beauty Book: “I underwent hypnosis, had cell implants, diacutaneous fibrolysis, silicone injections, my nose bobbed and my eyelids lifted.” And that was just in 1970.

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Fatal plane crash near Amsterdam

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, February 25, 2009 at 7:50 AM - 0 Comments

At least nine people are dead after a Turkish Airlines plane crashed near Amsterdam today. The plane ploughed into a muddy field and broke into three pieces on impact. It is believed the plane was carrying 135 passengers and crew. At least 50 were injured, but many were able to wall away from the wreckage unaided. The cause of the crash is not yet known. Passengers said the plane lost height suddenly as it came in to land.

Guardian.co.uk

A running diary of Obama’s Congressional Address

By Scott Feschuk - Wednesday, February 25, 2009 at 6:26 AM - 10 Comments

8:45 p.m. ET Fifteen minutes to go! As members of Congress mill about the House of Representatives, Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi stand stiffly in their positions at the front of the room, like the bride and groom at a wedding attended by 535 of the world’s toothiest people.

8:53 The mingling continues. Lots of overly enthusiastic handshakes and plenty of forced smiles – two of the three fundamental skills possessed by all politicians. (At a formal event such as this, there really isn’t much demand for the third skill: page fondling.)

8:58 We are informed that the member of cabinet staying away from Capitol Hill tonight for “just in case”-based reasons is Attorney-General Eric Holder. “He volunteered for the assignment,” Wolf Blitzer tells us. It seemed like a savvy move, but Holder is two minutes away from realizing that Obama’s speech means Supernanny is pre-empted.

9:00 Capt. Chesley Sullenberger, Hero of the Hudson, Guest on Letterman, Future Motivational Speaker and Paid Spokesman for Viagra, is in attendance and being acknowledged by members of Congress. He’s been to the Super Bowl, the Vanity Fair Oscar party and now a Presidential address. The only major American event he has yet to attend is anti-Semitic Scrabble night at Mel Gibson’s house.

9:04 The Justices of the Supreme Court are introduced and enter the chamber. We see Ruth Bader Ginsburg, just three weeks removed from cancer surgery. She’s smiling and accepting handshakes while walking slowly and – whoosh! – Clarence Thomas just totally cut around and blew past her! The other judges are queuing respectfully behind Ginsburg but Thomas wasn’t having any of that “waiting” bullcrap. In his defence, it’s an established fact that Continue…

Poetry. Or comedy. Or both.

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, February 25, 2009 at 2:00 AM - 33 Comments

Earlier this week, the government announced an adjustment to its distribution of foreign aid. 

The explanation from Canadian Press was exceedingly straightforward: “The Canadian government has announced it will steer foreign aid toward a smaller number of places around the world—20 countries or regions where it hopes to have a bigger impact.”

Now, here is the nearly transcendent transcript of Bev Oda, the minister for international cooperation, explaining her department’s new policy to reporters after QP on Monday. Should you be looking to capitalize on Frost/Nixon and the public’s newfound interest in the collision of journalism, truth and power, the screenplay rights are still available. Continue…

Paul Martin on obsoleteness

By Mitchel Raphael - Tuesday, February 24, 2009 at 11:29 PM - 6 Comments

Former Prime Minister Paul Martin spoke at the University of Ottawa about the G8 being obsolete and the future belonging to the G20. The talk was presented by the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs in partnership with the Centre for International Policy Studies and Library and Archives Canada.

University of Ottawa president Allan Rock.

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Jindal's thankless task

By Luiza Ch. Savage - Tuesday, February 24, 2009 at 10:35 PM - 14 Comments

It’s always a thankless task to deliver the opposition party’s rebuttal to a state of the union-type speech. None of the pageantry, none of the applause. The effect is very anti-climactic: Who is this guy?

Bobby Jindal, the governor of Louisiana, the Republicans’ Great Non-White Hope for 2012, is trying to seem presidential, and actually offers up his own life story as a competing American dream narrative to Obama’s. But Obama wasn’t giving a campaign speech — he was giving a policy speech, so Jindal’s effort comes off a little shallow and irrelevant.

On his broader critique of Obama’s call to action, he offers a very different vision:  government is the problem, not the solution.

**

Good evening. I’m Bobby Jindal, Governor of Louisiana.

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The Speech

By Luiza Ch. Savage - Tuesday, February 24, 2009 at 9:19 PM - 6 Comments

THE WHITE HOUSE

Office of the Press Secretary

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Your new drinking game

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, February 24, 2009 at 8:22 PM - 7 Comments

Total number of “Obama” references during QP today: 7.
Total number of references yesterday: 11.

Like you, I blame the Aspers

By Paul Wells - Tuesday, February 24, 2009 at 7:33 PM - 18 Comments

Hearst plans to sell or close the San Francisco Chronicle.

Owner of Philadelphia’s two dailies files for bankruptcy.

Journal Register Press, owner of 20 dailies, files for bankruptcy.

Stock in McClatchy and Lee Enterprises is now cheaper than a copy of either chain’s newspapers.

Keeping pace with the French

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, February 24, 2009 at 7:08 PM - 11 Comments

Lawrence Cannon comments after his meeting with Hillary Clinton.

Cannon also said he brought up the case of Canadian Omar Khadr — accused of murder in the death of a U.S. soldier during a firefight in Afghanistan in 2002 — and being held at the naval prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

He said the case was raised in the context of Obama’s directive to shut down the prison within a year. ”I wanted to get an idea from Secretary Clinton as to what the steps forward were to be, and secretary Clinton gave me a brief description of where this process was probably going to lead in the coming months,” he said, without elaborating.

In other news, Khadr’s legal situation seems to have gotten somehow even more complicated.

Time for some hopemongering

By Luiza Ch. Savage - Tuesday, February 24, 2009 at 7:04 PM - 4 Comments

Barack Obama will give his first speech to a joint session of Congress tonight.  It will be part policy wonk — making the case for the broad range of ambitious policy changes he’s trying to make — and part, one hopes, “hopemonger.”He will also try to make the case that there will be an end in sight for the deficit bloat.

As Bill Clinton recently pointed out, the “hope” from his campaign has been missing from the presidential rhetoric. Obviously Obama has had to make as urgent and powerful a case as he could for the  enormous stimulus package and for the various taxpayer funded bailout programs of the banks and auto companies. But the crisis rhetoric has had the side-effect of adding to, well, a sense of crisis.

Fed chairman Ben Bernanke today tried to bring some hope by saying he thought the recession could end later this year. Markets turned up a bit today. Now it’s Obama’s turn.

The White House apparently wants “hope” to be the headline, because here is the excerpt they have sent out this evening ahead of the speech.

“But while our economy may be weakened and our confidence shaken; though we are living through difficult and uncertain times, tonight I want every American to know this:  We will rebuild, we will recover, and the United States of America will emerge stronger than before. ”

“The weight of this crisis will not determine the destiny of this nation.  The answers to our problems don’t lie beyond our reach.  They exist in our laboratories and universities; in our fields and our factories; in the imaginations of our entrepreneurs and the pride of the hardest-working people on Earth.  Those qualities that have made America the greatest force of progress and prosperity in human history we still possess in ample measure.  What is required now is for this country to pull together, confront boldly the challenges we face, and take responsibility for our future once more.”

I’ll post a transcript here once it’s available.

The Commons: Why they don't call it Answer Period

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, February 24, 2009 at 6:32 PM - 11 Comments

The Scene. It is periodically instructive to note precisely how far removed our politics are allowed to stray from the basic expectations of our civilization. Take, for instance, the basic concept of oral communication. The clear, typically well-mannered, verbal exchange of information between individuals that separates us from the animals.

Michael Ignatieff opened Question Period this afternoon with another of his straightforward appeals for information. Since taking over the Liberal side, he has tried each day to make this his trademark—these precise, civil, generally unimpeachable queries. This was, perhaps, his most humble so far.

“Mr. Speaker, saving Canada’s auto sector could cost upward of $10 billion. Canadians want to know all the facts. They want to ask the companies, the unions, and government, some tough questions. They want the same transparency that Americans are getting from their government,” he said by way of prelude. “Would the Prime Minister support the creation of a special parliamentary committee to lay the facts about the auto sector and the rescue package before the public?”

It will probably surprise you not in the least to learn the Prime Minister answered Mr. Ignatieff with neither a yes nor a no. Continue…

The Post to Quebec: Love Canada or else

By Philippe Gohier - Tuesday, February 24, 2009 at 5:28 PM - 37 Comments

If you haven’t read the National Post‘s editorial about the canceled re-enactment of Battle on the Plains, it’s worth checking out, if only because it stands out as a perfect example of the breathtaking lunacy Quebec’s identity debates sometimes generate in the Rest Of Canada. To wit:

Enough of the decades of appeasement; it’s time for Ottawa to adopt a tough-love attitude toward Quebec. And who better to do that then Mr. Harper and his Tories? They’ve got nothing to lose…

They can start by reinstating the Plains of Abraham re-enactment and, if need be, providing federal security for the event. They also can end the unofficial federal policy that as near to half as possible of all federal defence spending must go to manufacturers in Quebec.

While they’re at it, they should tell the truth about equalization… There is no “fiscal imbalance,” at least not between Ottawa and Quebec…

Let’s also take away the Quebec chair at the Francophonie. Defend vigorously in court any challenges filed that seek to uphold the minority-language rights of English-speaking residents in Quebec. Such an approach won’t make any friends in Quebec. But at least everyone in the rest of the country won’t keep feeling like suckers.

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Can apples help prevent cancer?

By Cathy Gulli - Tuesday, February 24, 2009 at 5:09 PM - 3 Comments

Turns out, an apple a day may keep the oncologist away. A researcher at Cornell University has found that fruit, especially apples, substantially inhibits breast tumor growth. “The apple is a magical fruit,” says Rui Hai Liu, a professor of food science. The magic, he explains, lies in the apple’s high concentration of phytochemicals, which pack many disease-fighting properties.

Liu’s research shows that among rats fed apple extract during a 24-week stretch, a type of adenocarcinoma—the deadliest kind of breast cancer tumor—was less prevalent. The more apple extract the rats received, the better: tumors were found in 57 per cent of rats fed a low dose of apple extract, compared to 50 per cent and 23 per cent in rats given medium and high doses, respectively—that’s like a human eating one, three or six apples daily.

That’s not to say we should be eating half a dozen apples a day, explains Liu, who receives some funding from the U.S. Apple Association. One is enough, he says, as long as it’s part of a diet that includes other fruits and vegetables. “Phytochemicals in fruits and vegetables work [together] to help optimal nutrition,” he says. This assertion is backed up by other research. A 2007 article in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that “a diet high in vegetables and fruit probably decreases breast cancer risk.”

Liu says of the 25 most popular fruits and vegetables in the U.S., apples are the source of 33.1 per cent of the phenolics (a type of phytochemical) that Americans consume annually. That’s more than any other fruit. Oranges (14 per cent), grapes (12.8 per cent), strawberries (9.8 per cent) and plums (7.3 per cent) round out the top five. He says the same is likely true in Canada.

Next, Liu will look into whether the apple can have a curative effect as profound as its preventative impact. (The JAMA study found that eating five fruits and vegetables a day didn’t prevent breast cancer in previously treated people, nor did it slow down the progression of the disease.) In the meantime, his best advice is for people to eat several fruits and vegetables every day to stave off disease. And there’s one more incentive, he adds: “They’re delicious.”

Dated reference of the day

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, February 24, 2009 at 4:28 PM - 22 Comments

Conservative Chris Warkentin, also during members’ statements.

“Mr. Speaker, the Liberal opposition benches remind me of that Alicia Silverstone movie Clueless.”

Clueless appeared in theatres in 1995. When Mr. Warkentin was 17.

Dan Gardner's new favourite MP

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, February 24, 2009 at 4:25 PM - 6 Comments

The NDP’s Bill Siksay, during members’ statements this afternoon.

Mr. Speaker, people all over greater Vancouver are deeply concerned about gang violence. While tough on crime measures always top the list of potential fixes there is a growing realization that drug prohibition policies are making the situation worse.

Alcohol prohibition did not work. Many of the same problems now associated with the drug trade were experienced in the United States during its period of alcohol prohibition. Gang violence that often caught innocent citizens, impure and dangerous alcohol sold in black markets, home stills and underground production, untreated addictions and family dislocation were all serious issues.

It took ending prohibition and implementing alcohol control policies to restore respect for the law and make progress on alcohol related social issues. We must apply what we know to be true. We must move from prohibition to drug control regimes modelled on the experience of alcohol prohibition and control. Bold steps to confront our drug use hypocrisy and end the profitability of illegal drugs will make our communities safer.

Creating a TV Franchise Just For the Heck of It

By Jaime Weinman - Tuesday, February 24, 2009 at 4:18 PM - 3 Comments

The CW has been planning to remake Melrose Place for some time now, but I kind of figured they’d wait until their 90210 update became a more solid hit. But though 90210′s future isn’t completely secure, the network (whose future isn’t completely secure either) is going ahead with re-creating the whole franchise; a few weeks ago they hired two writer-producers of Smallville to come up with a new pilot, and today they announced the list of characters and confirmed that they’re greenlighting that pilot with Davis Guggenheim as director. Guggenheim’s best-known work is the documentary An Inconvenient Truth, though he’s directed a lot of episodic TV.

It’s unusual for a network to try and establish a franchise when the parent show isn’t settled yet; 90210′s ratings are adequate by the CW’s low standards, but the network had no idea what kind of show it wanted to do, and the highly-expected result was that the showrunners were booted out of the writers’ room (“promoted” to purely administrative duties until their contract is up). Also, the biggest problem the network had with the new 90210 is that it was too guy-oriented for their primarily female audience — the showrunners, Freaks and Geeks veterans, tended to write with a guy perspective — so they replaced them with a female Freaks and Geeks veteran, Rebecca Kirshner, who could skew the writing more toward young women. I guess they figure that if 90210 can turn itself around by the end of the season, they’ll want to have a companion piece ready to go for the second season. But this isn’t even like the WB coming up with Angel after Buffy had been a modest hit for a couple of years; this is like a network deciding that they are going to stick to their plan of re-creating the trashy ’90s prime-time soap opera, even before it’s at all clear that the plan is working, and they don’t even seem to be completely aware that Melrose‘s audience might be a little bit older than they’re looking for. But this is the CW we’re talking about here.

Actually, Melrose seems like a more obvious remake subject than 90210, considering that it was a pure prime-time soap instead of 90210‘s hybrid of soap opera and lesson-learning teen drama. But giving it to Smallville guys and once again not hiring Darren Star to come back (maybe they asked him and he wouldn’t come back, I don’t know, but it would be better if they got him to write it) are not great signs. Today’s networks have real trouble reviving the trashy style of Aaron Spelling’s shows because they can’t manufacture his total, unabashed belief in the awesomeness of trash; 90210 always seemed to be apologizing for itself and trying to prove it was cool, while the original never did. Same with Dirty Sexy Money, another network show that couldn’t bring itself to really believe in its own identity as a prime-time soap. This is one area where cable, including basic-cable shows like some of the ones on ABC Family, have fewer inhibitions.

How Keynes became cool again

By Colin Campbell - Tuesday, February 24, 2009 at 3:31 PM - 9 Comments

This American Life, a popular show on National Public Radio, recently described John Maynard Keynes, rather cheekily, as “a foul-mouthed, slutty British elitist.” Keynes did, after all, have a reputation for being disagreeable and less than charming. Regardless, he is the man whose theories are now being trusted by presidents and prime ministers around the world to save us from economic catastrophe.

Until recently, talk of Keynes was relegated to university lecture halls—an important guy if you cared about economics, not so much if you didn’t. Even to many economists, his theories had been falling out of fashion in recent times. But suddenly, Keynes and his ideas are back in a big way. Never mind that he died in 1946 and his great work was published a decade before that, in 1936.  Nowadays, in the midst of a deep recession, Keynes is one of the most much-debated figures around. And what happens in the coming months as governments struggle to right the global economy could cement his place as, arguably, the most important and interesting economic thinker of all time.

Keynes’s big idea (or at least a crude summary of it) was that economies, when left to the devices of supply and demand, are not necessarily self-correcting. Economies that are shrinking, or in recession, risk slipping into a vicious downward cycle as people and businesses stop spending. Sometimes, he argued, a government must step in to boost the economy. At the time, Keynes’s idea, born out of the Great Depression, was revolutionary. And it soon became immensely popular. It launched an entire school of economics that developed into mainstream thinking.

By the 1960s, governments everywhere had embraced the idea that they could guide economies, and protect against protracted downturns by spending money. “First the U.S. economists embraced Keynesianism, then the public accepted its tenets. Now even businessmen, traditionally hostile to government’s role in the economy, have been won over,” wrote Time magazine in 1965. A short decade later, however, his popularity was ebbing as western governments, facing problems like stagflation, looked to smaller government and less intervention as the answer. Reaganomics in the 1980s seemed to mark the death of Keynesian theory.

But now, 30 years later, with tax cuts and the slashing of interest rates failing to revive the economy, Keynes has become more relevant than ever. The stimulus packages being proposed in the U.S., Canada, and elsewhere are Keynesian to the core. “Only government can provide the short-term boost necessary to lift us from a recession this deep and severe,” said U.S. President Barack Obama recently, echoing Keynes. But whether the stimulus will work is the trillion-dollar question. This will be, many argue, the first true test of Keynes’ theories. Can a massive government investment really save an economy from itself, as he first proposed? A question that was never really answered by the limited (and late) spending after the Great Depression, argue some economists.

The economic debate has also put renewed focus on the man himself. Often forgotten amid all the talk of his theories, was that Keynes wasn’t a typical university economist. Early in his career, he worked as a lecturer at Cambridge University and was a member of what became known as the Bloomsbury Group, a collection of thinkers that included writers E. M. Forster and Virginia Woolf. Woolf once described the group as “the society of buggers”–—Keynes, along with other members, was known to be a homosexual who rebelled against traditional Christian beliefs. And yet, he later became a devoted husband to Lydia Lopokova, a ballerina.

During the First World War Keynes went to work for the British Treasury and was its representative at the Versailles Conference (he eventually quit in protest with the outcome, and wrote a book on the subject). He later moved back to teach at Cambridge. But only during the Great Depression did he truly make his mark, publishing his most famous work, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money.

His sometimes curious life and meteoric rise is fodder for a Hollywood epic. But for the time being, it’s still his ideas—and whether they actually work—that people are focused on. In the 1960’s Richard Nixon declared, “We’re all Keynesians now.” We’re hearing that refrain once again. Soon enough, we’ll find out if following his theories was a wise decision. As Keynes presciently concluded in his 1936 piece: “Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist.”

A (Chalk) River runs through it – Liveblogging AECL, CNSC and CNA at the Natural Resources committee

By kadyomalley - Tuesday, February 24, 2009 at 3:09 PM - 21 Comments

Fresh from her sojourn down electoral memory lane with the Procedure and House Affairs committee, ITQ will spend the rest of the afternoon at Natural Resources, where members will plumb the depths of Chalk River – the reactor, not the body of water -  with the help of senior officials from AECL, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission and the Canadian Nuclear Association.

3:20:51 PM
You know you’ve picked the right committee when there’s a camera crew staked out in the hallway. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, really — it *is* Chalk River — but apparently somebody wasn’t expecting quite as much interest; once again, the media tables are glaringly conspicuous in their utter absence, which causing considerable consternation amongst my colleagues, particularly when a staffer tries to shoo us out of *their* chairs. After some rather tense words are exchanged with the actual chair – Leon Benoit – we’re allowed to remain in the staff seats, but nobody is terribly happy about it, and Nathan Cullen brings it up once the meeting begins, and suggests that in future, they take into account the potential public interest in a particular meeting when booking committee roons. Benoit concurs, and hands the floor over to the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission’s Michael Binder, who gives a brief, bright overview of his agency.

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