Lists! O the humanity…

By Paul Wells - Wednesday, March 25, 2009 at 12:23 PM - 13 Comments

We are saddened to report that the Harper Prime Minister’s Office, apparently with too much time on its hands, has taken to preparing lists of acceptable questioners for Barack Obama. There is no other plausible answer for the president’s strange behaviour:

Breaking with tradition and using a prepared list, Obama did not recognize journalists with The Washington Post, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, the Wall Street Journal or USA Today — the last four of which were not picked at last month’s news conference, either. Instead, he called on reporters for Ebony magazine, Stars and Stripes, Univision, and Agence France-Presse..

Obama made clear during the transition that he did not plan to follow the usual journalistic pecking order. As president, he has broken with precedent by having his press office notify correspondents that they will be called on at upcoming news conferences. The more unorthodox approach was highlighted at his first evening session, when he took a question from a correspondent for the Huffington Post, a liberal Web magazine.

2:00 pm – Redraft entire tax code

By Andrew Coyne - Wednesday, March 25, 2009 at 12:14 PM - 8 Comments

Of course. ‘Cause after he’s through fixing the economy, overhauling health care, reforming the education system, and controlling the weather, he’s got the whole rest of the day staring at him…

Obama Asks Volcker to Lead Panel on Tax-Code Overhaul

March 25 (Bloomberg) — President Barack Obama is putting former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker in charge of a tax-code review aimed at closing loopholes, streamlining the law and generating revenue, budget Director Peter Orszag said.

Volcker, 81, who heads the president’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board, is being asked to take a top-to-bottom look at the laws in an effort to rebalance the tax system.

Why the French are Awesome XVIII

By Andrew Potter - Wednesday, March 25, 2009 at 12:08 PM - 8 Comments

When the going gets tough, the French turn to Bossnapping:

***

PARIS, March 25, 2009 (AFP) – Bosses across the world are having to break bad news to employees as companies go under. But that can be a risky business in France, where some furious workers have taken to holding their managers hostage to demand better pay-offs. In the latest outbreak of “bossnapping”, workers at a pharmaceutical factory were Wednesday holding their boss in his office for a second day to force him to improve their redundancy packages.

“This action is our only currency. But there is no aggression,” said union representative Jean-Francois Caparros from the plant owned by the US industrial conglomerate 3M in the central town of Pithiviers.

The detention came less than two weeks after workers held the boss of Sony France hostage for a night and barricaded their factory entrance with tree trunks. They freed him only after he agreed to reopen talks on their pay-off. In neither case did police intervene to free the managers, in a tacit recognition that such radical tactics were part of negotiations and that no harm would come to the bosses.

“It’s true that this might seem surprising abroad, but it’s less surprising in France, where we’re more used to this kind of situation,” said a Sony spokeswoman.

Hollywood pretends to be poor

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, March 25, 2009 at 11:52 AM - 0 Comments

The movie business is booming during the recession, but the Motion Picture Association of America would prefer not to talk about that. The organization has not yet issued its report on last year’s box-office take, and won’t give the report much publicity when it does come out; business was so good last year that there are fears that it might lead to attacks from Washington politicians, and further attempts to take away tax breaks and other goodies from Hollywood. In times like these, it’s good to know that there’s one business whose problem is that it’s doing too well.

Variety

Snowbirds under fire

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, March 25, 2009 at 11:24 AM - 1 Comment

The safety of Canada’s Snowbird fleet has traditionally been a sore point for the air force, but documents obtained by the Toronto Star show these questions are indeed warranted. The documents reveal that plans are underway to keep the planes flying for 10 years past their lifespan despite “technical risks.” Officials say that $116 million in upgrades is significantly cheaper than replacing the fleet. Seven snowbird pilots have been killed since 1972.

The Toronto Star

No more credit (for prisoners)

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, March 25, 2009 at 11:20 AM - 7 Comments

Judges have been doing it for years: awarding criminals a so-called “two-for-one” credit for time spent in custody before a trial. Example: an accused rapist who waits two years in prison before his day in court, and is later convicted and sentenced to four years for his crime, will actually walk free that very day (because those two years of pre-trial custody are, according to the two-for-one formula, worth four on the other end). Police and prosecutors hate the practice, and it’s clear that countless criminals try to exploit the rules by stretching their pre-trial custody—with endless motions and delays and other legal wrangling—in the hopes of lightening their sentence on the other end. Stephen Harper hopes to change that. According to reports, the federal Conservatives plan to table legislation tomorrow that will scrap the double-time credit. Get ready for the Charter challenges.
 
CTV

Google's street cameras are watching you

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, March 25, 2009 at 11:19 AM - 0 Comments

In several major Canadian cities, you may soon notice bizarre-looking vans with multiple cameras on top taking pictures of your neighbourhood. With Google’s controversial street view feature about to launch in Canada, the company’s vans are prowling the streets collecting images to allow someone using Google Maps or Google Earth to see a real street or building, or take a virtual tour of a neighbourhood. The office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada has expressed concerns with the service and says they are in discussions with Google over its concerns.

Ottawa Citizen

Israel’s Labour party backs Netanyahu coalition

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, March 25, 2009 at 11:17 AM - 1 Comment

Israel’s Labour party has voted to join a coalition government led by right-wing Prime Minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu of the Likud party. The decision, reached at the party’s convention last night, was extremely divisive, with some commentators now questioning whether the deal might spell the end of Israel’s most powerful party of the centre-left. The Jerusalem Post and Haaretz have reports and commentary on the deal and what it might mean for Israeli politics and Israel’s relations with its neighbours.

The Jerusalem Post

Haaretz.com

Haaretz.com

Summers in Sydney could be deadly by 2060

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, March 25, 2009 at 11:13 AM - 0 Comments

The Australian city of Sydney is known for its beaches, but that could soon change as one scientist predicts the city will be hot, polluted, and deadly to the elderly as early as 2060. Martin Cope, a researcher with the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, told a major climate change conference that warmer temperatures due to global warming, drier conditions and smog will increasingly put elderly and sickly residents at risk. The drier weather cold also contribute to more drought, dust storms, and risks for fire. “We’re talking about tripling the number of hospital admissions due to respiratory conditions,” he told Reuters. He suggested improving household insulation and encouraging electric car use to begin with.

Reuters

Da Vinci Code redux

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, March 25, 2009 at 11:12 AM - 1 Comment

Roman Catholics may be urged to boycott Angels and Demons, the film based on Dan Brown’s prequel to his megaselling The Da Vinci Code. The Vatican is known to be as unhappy with the novel as it was with its better known sequel, and barred director Ron Howard from filming Angels and Demons within its precincts or in any Roman church, but what has raised expectations of a full boycott when the movie is released May 15 is that the leader of the 2006 campaign against The Da Vinci Code film, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, was then Archbishop of Genoa but is now the Vatican’s secretary of state and Pope Benedict’s right-hand man. Bertone called The Da Vinci Code, “a potpourri of lies, a phantasmagorical cocktail of inventions.” Other prelates, however, worry that a high-profile campaign will boomerang and actually increase ticket sales.

Guardian.co.uk

U.S. abortions spike in hard times

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, March 25, 2009 at 11:10 AM - 0 Comments

For many Americans, the recession is affecting their most intimate decisions about sex and family planning. Doctors and clinics are reporting that many women are choosing abortions and men are having vasectomies because they cannot afford a child. Planned Parenthood of Illinois clinics performed an all-time high number of abortions in January, many of them motivated by economic worries, said CEO Steve Trombley, while Vicki Saporta, president of the National Abortion Federation, said her organization’s helpline is receiving many calls from women who postponed an abortion while trying to raise money to pay for it. Such delays often mean riskier abortions at even higher cost—the price can double in the second trimester.

Associated Press

It's quiet out there… Yeah. Too quiet.

By Andrew Coyne - Wednesday, March 25, 2009 at 10:39 AM - 0 Comments

Expected upsurge in Taliban violence fails to materialize

“On the whole it was very successful … It went far better than we expected,” said Ken Lewis, Canada’s senior diplomatic representative in war-ravaged Kandahar

Hard-core Taliban using more insidious tactics in Kandahar

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan – Hard-core elements of the Taliban that moved into Kandahar have imported more insidious tactics to sow confusion among NATO and Afghan forces, according to former insurgent fighters and Canadian army documents.

How to kill time while waiting to "talk to CBSA": Liveblogging the launch of the Galloway legal challenge

By kadyomalley - Wednesday, March 25, 2009 at 10:15 AM - 26 Comments

Why does ITQ have the sinking feeling that this press conference is just going to leave us with more unanswered, possibly unanswerable questions and even more confused about what’s actually going on?

Hot off the Canada News Wire:

On Wednesday, March 25th, 2009, spokespersons for the Canada and Québec George Galloway speaking tour will be joined by Canadian MPs and a legal expert to address the media. At the conference they will unveil a challenge to the decision made by Conservative Immigration Minister Jason Kenney, which bans the British Parliamentarian from speaking to the Canadian public. MPs include Serge Ménard, Bloc Québécois critic for Public Safety, and Olivia Chow, New Democratic Party critic for Citizenship and Immigration.

10:15:20 AM
Greetings from the front steps of Parliament, where ITQ has already staked out a prime piece of cement in front of the lone mic stand, which is currently unoccupied. There are various organizers bustling around – this is, after all, a somewhat last-minute media event, and there was some confusion surrounding the exact timing of today’s press conference. We’re outside, which is – well, bracing, although it’s not quite as chilly as yesterday. Given past experience, though, I suspect there will be grumbling if it goes much beyond 10:45,

10:26:56 AM
Okay, I think this is about to get underway — the MPs are here: Olivia Chow and Serge Menard, from the NDP and the Bloc Quebecois respectively. Gosh, I wonder when the Liberal representative will arrive. I’m sure he or she is just running a few minutes late.

Continue…

The Drabinsky Verdict

By Anne Kingston - Wednesday, March 25, 2009 at 10:08 AM - 3 Comments

The country’s biggest corporate fraud trial came to an end this morning in the Ontario Superior Court with a verdict that was concise and backed by an 85-page “Reasons for Judgment” document: Madam Justice Mary Lou Benotto found Livent founders Garth Drabinsky, 59, and Myron Gottlieb, 65, guilty on two counts of fraud and one of forgery.

The courtroom was standing-room only for the resolution of a trial that began on May 5, 2008, spanned 62 days, featured 14 witnesses, 200 exhibits, and generated more than 7,000 pages of testimonies and arguments. The direction of Justice Benotto’s judgment quickly became apparent as she began her address. She  praised  the founders of Livent, a company known for its lavish productions of Phantom of the Opera, Showboat and Ragtime, for their cultural contribution: “…the creative success you achieved through the company was spectacular,” she told the long-term partners. You performed wonders for the entertainment industry, the arts, the tourism industry and anyone who enjoyed live theatre.” But the trial was not about that, she pointed out, a fact not lost on anyone who sat through the trial, a parade of accounting forensics and conspiracy theories. It was about accounting fraud, she said, before finding the two guilty of  “deliberate misrepresentation” and “systematic  manipulation” dating back to Livent’s  founding in 1990; she also found them guilty of forgery for misrepresenting financial statements between 1993, the year Livent went public, to 1998, a fraud estimated to cost investors $500 million.

The long-term partners who built the Cineplex movie chain before their dramatic ouster in 1988 betrayed little emotion as the verdict was read: Drabinsky lowered his head, Gottlieb removed his glasses. In the gallery, their families were visibly upset. Neither Drabinsky nor Gottlieb, who were charged in 2002, testified during the trial. Nor did they comment following the verdict; their lawyers, Eddie Greenspan and his brother, Brian Greenspan, said they will comment after they review the judge’s written decision.

The lawyers will return to court on April 8 to set a date for a sentencing hearing. Each fraud count carries a maximum jail term of 14 years while the maximum prison sentence for the forged document is 10 years.

The Whiteypedia

By Andrew Potter - Wednesday, March 25, 2009 at 8:49 AM - 13 Comments

This should be good: A crowdsourced project to help people understand rap lyrics. Sort of like Yahoo answers, but for extremely square people. For example:

Top Gun shut down your Firm like Tom Cruise

Term from Song: Woo Ha!! on Album: The Coming by Artist: Busta Rhymes

Busta Rhymes is declaring that he’s the Top Gun (the best) which is the name of a Tom Cruise movie. He will then metaphorically “shut down your firm” (destroy you). The Firm was also a Tom Cruise movie, where he shut down a corrupt law firm.

Even better, if this lyric confuses you: 

better toss that yayo, keep your bankroll

You are in luck:

Term from Song: 1st of Tha Month on Album: E 1999 Eternal by Artist: Bone Thugs N Harmony

when you’re being chased by the police, take any cocaine you’re carrying out of your pocket and throw it into the bushes or elsewhere so you can get it later, but keep your money because you can’t get in trouble for having that.

Tweets from the Night of the Long Knives

By Scott Feschuk - Wednesday, March 25, 2009 at 7:42 AM - 21 Comments

Bill_Davis: What a day. Things got so heated today I almost slightly altered my facial expression.

Roy_Romanow: Planned a quiet night in hotel but turns out I’m off to do a little work. Don’t feel bad for me! This is part of the job of serving the publi

JChretien: Hello? Hello???? This is the first time that I Twit.

DiscoDickHatfield: In Ottawa on business. Anyone know where to go to have a good time and score some weed? Asking for a friend.

JChretien: kdfng;fdbgobnov;sovbm

Roy_Romanow: Am just in the kitchen at the Continue…

Dueling rants: Mercer on Ignatieff

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, March 25, 2009 at 1:36 AM - 13 Comments

From this week’s episode.

Dueling rants: Mercer on Harper

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, March 25, 2009 at 1:35 AM - 0 Comments

From last week’s episode.

The Maclean's bump

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, March 25, 2009 at 1:16 AM - 0 Comments

Reigning Parliamentarian of the Year Bill Blaikie wins a seat in the Manitoba government.

“I’m looking forward to being on the government side,” Mr. Blaikie told reporters at his election night celebration, noting that will be a first in his lengthy political career. ”It’s one of the reasons I chose to come out of retirement. I’ve always wondered how government works — now maybe I’ll find out.”

Public intellectual (II)

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, March 24, 2009 at 9:15 PM - 11 Comments

Douglas Bell responds to Andrew Steele’s advice for Michael Ignatieff.

Steele points to Ignatieff’s review of Leslie Gelb’s new book on American foreign policy as a good example of what Ig ought to be doing, ie exercising his considerable skills as a writer and intellectual to augment the leadership grind … True. But I would also suggest it’s all a bit of a mixed blessing. Here are two things that bug me about Ignatieff’s writing, his style of intellection and ultimately his leadership. On bad days he can be both glib and needlessly scheming. Both cropped up recently.

As one example of Ignatieff’s diabolical nature, Bell cites the Liberal leader calling Brian Mulroney to wish him him a happy birthday. Because, as everyone obviously knows, no one ever just wishes someone else a happy birthday. Not to mention that, as is generally accepted by those pure of spirit, no one accused of political crimes really deserves to have their birthday recognized anyway.

Try making a movie for adults

By John Intini - Tuesday, March 24, 2009 at 8:47 PM - 6 Comments

It’s a Hollywood story befitting the times: Bonuses for executives who promote economy-destroying mortgages, more studio cash for a film director who uses bank-breaking budgets to make embarrassing flops. Zack Snyder’s comic-strip opera Watchmen, which reportedly cost $150 million and which Warner Brothers spent $50 million marketing, may, best-case-scenario, earn $115 million by the end of its run. But Snyder has little to worry about: IMDB.com has him directing five films in 2010, including the “much-anticipated” animated film Guardians of Ga’Hoole and Sucker Punch, an R-rated flick said to have a budget of $100 million and the Snyder-esque premise of ‘Alice in Wonderland with machine guns.’ Note to Zack Snyder: Read a book (without pictures).

The Hollywood Blog (NYTimes)

Nikki Finke Hates Ben Silverman, Chapter XVIIIIII

By Jaime Weinman - Tuesday, March 24, 2009 at 6:53 PM - 2 Comments

A Focus Group In Action

You may have seen that Nikki Finke posted a report on audience-testing data for Parks and Recreation, the new Amy Poehler show from the producers of The Office. Even granted that a) anything Ben Silverman executive-produces for his own network is an irresistible target and b) no one can resist speculating that a new, much-hyped show is in trouble, that seems like kind of a low blow. Focus-group responses don’t tell you much about how well the show is doing, and this report doesn’t suggest that it’s in any more trouble than any other show.

Focus-group responses are useful for various things — like pinpointing aspects of the show that might turn off the viewers, or aspects of the show that play particularly well; the instantly-famous line about the lack of “datable” men will almost certainly be used by NBC to push to make one or more of the male characters more likable. But as a flat-out test of how popular the show is going to be, focus groups are hard to figure because they’re always self-contradictory: the participants are asked questions that inherently contradict each other, but both sound like good ideas. The Simpsons famously explains how this works in “The Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie Show.”

“Okay, how many of the kids would like Itchy & Scratchy to deal with real life problems like the ones you face every day?”
“Yay!”
“And who would like to see them do just the opposite, getting into far-out situations involving robots and magic powers?”
“Yay!”
“So you want a realistic down-to-earth show that’s completely off the wall and swarming with magic robots.”

And now look at the report on Parks and Recreation, which has the exact same dynamic: the respondents want it to be more like The Office because they like that show, but they also think it’s too much like The Office.

Expectations for this show are very high, especially among OFFICE viewers. Many had seen the promos and were expecting an “OFFICE-type mockumentary” with the same tone, but felt the pilot was too close and similar to the OFFICE.

The thing is that those are both legitimate points — we do want it to give us the same things The Office does, but we don’t want it to be just the same as The Office – but that’s why the points are of limited usefulness; legitimate points often have a way of canceling each other out.

Since this is a Greg Daniels production: does anybody remember the episode of King of the Hill where Hank and his father are on a focus group for a new, modern, wimpy redesign for Hank’s beloved lawn mower? Twelve Angry Men style, Hank is the only one who opposes the redesign, and eventually talks everyone around to seeing things his way, but it becomes apparent that this is really not so much about the mower as Hank’s resentment over his father dumping his mom for a younger woman. Nobody combines comedy with pain with underlying emotional themes like Daniels, which is why I’m looking forward to this new show, despite my contradictory desire for it to be more and less like The Office.

My mower is not too old and my Mom was not too old. But this isn’t about my Mom and it certainly isn’t about my mower. It’s about a bitter old man who blames everybody but himself for his own problems. And if you ever talk like that again about my Mom or my mower, you’re not welcome in my house.

Hey Liberals, want to Impress Jason Kenney?

By Andrew Potter - Tuesday, March 24, 2009 at 6:08 PM - 18 Comments

Guess how many questions the Opposition asked during QP today about the Galloway affair?

Hint: It rhymes with “none”.

The Commons: 'The government is trying to patch EI with duct tape'

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, March 24, 2009 at 6:05 PM - 31 Comments

The Scene. Michael Ignatieff put his right thumb and index finger together and tried to explain the situation to the Prime Minister.

“Mr. Speaker, there were 24,000 new claimants for employment insurance this January,” he said. “That is bad enough. But thousands more Canadians are losing their jobs and are not able to claim EI, even though they paid into the system.”

He closed his fist as he approached the question.

“The government is trying to patch EI with duct tape while evading the real issue, which is eligibility,” Ignatieff continued. “Will the government adjust the eligibility requirements so that all Canadians, wherever they live, can claim EI when they need it?”

The Prime Minister rose to respond. Or at least speak next.

“Mr. Speaker, the leader of the Liberal party should know that eligibility for EI is determined by the region in which one lives, according to a formula. As, obviously, employment conditions become more difficult, eligibility becomes easier,” he explained. “This is the government that has put additional moneys into EI. This is the government that has made sure people who need EI during this recession will be able to access it for a longer time to get more training. We have brought in new additional EI training. Also, we have made sure that EI cheques can get out faster.”

The Liberal leader did not appear obviously impressed with this. “Mr. Speaker,” he said, “I take that as a ‘no,’ so let me rephrase the question.” Continue…