The Liberal convention's undeclared star attraction

By John Geddes - Thursday, April 30, 2009 at 8:03 PM - 10 Comments

Watching Michael Ignatieff make his walk into the gleaming new Vancouver Convention Centre this afternoon—the sun shining abundantly on the water and the mountains that formed the perfect backdrop—he looked very much the man of the hour.

Every few strides, he and his wife, Zsuzsanna Zohar, had to pause to shake hands and embrace another clutch of beaming Liberals. They seemed so at ease. And why not? The polls are going his way and in two days he’ll be anointed Liberal leader  without an opponent left standing.

But now, only a few hours later, I wonder if I was right in thinking this was so definitively Ignatieff’s convention. Another name keeps coming up in the corridors: Mark Sullivan.

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Swine flu: Are we libelling pigs?

By Charlie Gillis - Thursday, April 30, 2009 at 7:40 PM - 6 Comments

In the past few days, the words “swine flu” have raised a lot of human hackles. Pig farmers say the label defames their product. Israeli cabinet ministers find it religiously offensive. Some disease experts see it as misleadingly simplistic, and while most media are clinging to it, the World Health Organization announced yesterday that it will henceforth refer to swine flu as “influenza A (H1N1). Was the WHO right to buckle?

Like a lot of verbal shorthand, “swine flu” has stuck because it is economical—and useful. The flu variant that has the world on a Level 5 pandemic alert must be distinguished, after all, from flu bugs we have seen before, including other editions of H1N1. Neatly encoded in this phrase, then, is both the origin of this pathogen (pigs) and its difference from other variants (it is not strictly a human virus). For the layman, it is a warning in two succinct words.

The pork industry worries that the warning will be misinterpreted, though, which is admittedly the last thing it needs. Struggling with the downturn in the economy, and already fused in the public’s mind with the grimiest forms of factory farming, it must now cope with the stigma of a pathogen that in all likelihood left pigs behind some months ago. “People will associate the disease with eating pork,” said Gary Stordy of the Canadian Pork Council to Canwest News. “They have a far greater chance of getting it from their neighbour.”

The industry’s objection is not entirely self-serving. Swine flu is not a food-borne disease, and the mistaken perception that it is could have serious public health consequences. People might assume they can avoid it by not eating pork, and fail to take other simple precautions, such as washing their hands or covering their mouths when coughing. In Israel, where large portions of the Jewish and Muslim populations do not eat pork, public ignorance of the dangers could accelerate the spread of the disease to unmanageable levels.

The “swine flu” label is also mildly redundant—like calling fleas “dog fleas.” As epidemiologists are quick to point out, pigs have always served as incubators for new variants of influenza. That’s because their physiology even permits the fusion of flu variants from two or more species of animal, which is exactly what happened in the current edition of H1N1 (swine, avian and human forms of the virus are all present in its genome). If we named every flu virus that originated in pigs “swine flu,” the term would quickly lose all meaning.

Still, it’s hard to imagine an alternative label that wouldn’t offend someone. Israel’s decision to call this bug the “Mexican flu” might spare the sensitivities of Jews and Muslims. But it’s hardly a favour to Mexicans (the geographical origins of the “Spanish flu” of 1918, in case you’re wondering, were never confirmed; it got its name after Spanish newspapers brought the epidemic to world-wide attention).  As for the pork council’s suggestion—“North American flu”—well, it’s vague to the point of absurdity. Why not call it the “Earth flu?”

In the end, “Swine flu” works because it is colourful and concrete, with an attention-grabbing power that may already be serving a redeeming purpose. Already, public health advocates are calling for closer surveillance of flu viruses arising from swine farms—especially factory-style facilities like the one thought to lie at Ground Zero of the current epidemic. Pork producers might not enjoy the extra attention, but this is the first flu arising from pigs in quite some time to pose such a threat to human health. So while the experts may wish to reconsider their nomenclature next time, keeping the swine in “swine flu” makes all the sense in the world for now.

The Commons: A minor revelation

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, April 30, 2009 at 7:17 PM - 20 Comments

The Scene. The Prime Minister and Industry Minister were elsewhere and the latter’s parliamentary secretary had been given a rather short script from which to read so it eventually fell to John Baird to explain the government’s purchase today of a rather troubled automobile manufacturer. Only the Transport Minister didn’t want to talk about what he could do to put Ralph Goodale in a new PT Cruiser, he wanted to talk ominously about what Michael Ignatieff may or may not do if or when he becomes prime minister.

“Boooring! Boooring!” sang a voice from the Liberal side as Baird dutifully repeated a series of lines the Conservatives have been singing for two weeks now.

Switching from faux outrage, the minister next attempted to assuage his audience with comedy. “Mr. Speaker, the one remarkable thing that has happened over the last four or five months is that the Prime Minister has put aside partisan politics,” Baird quipped, the Liberal side loudly recognizing his joke with hearty laughter.

Then it was Jim Flaherty’s turn, the Finance Minister rising to scowl and stew and sigh, grimace and growl and grumble, swatting and swiping as he mocked the Liberal house leader and wondered aloud why the Liberal finance critic wasn’t driving a domestic.

And then, climactically, it was Jack Layton who stood and wondered dramatically about the generous incentives allegedly afforded managers of the Canadian Pension Plan. ”Are you,” he asked, poignantly, “kidding me?”

It is by such standards that Leona Aglukkaq has emerged as something of a star this week. Continue…

Swine flu: In the footsteps of a flu

By Michael Friscolanti - Thursday, April 30, 2009 at 5:20 PM - 1 Comment

THE NUMBERS
The official infection count continues to climb. As of this afternoon (April 30) there are at least 262 confirmed swine flu cases around the globe—a significant jump from yesterday’s tally of 148. Most of the patients are in Mexico (97, including seven deaths) and the United States (109; one death) but the virus has also spread to nine other nations: Canada (32 cases), the United Kingdom (8), Spain (13), Germany (3), New Zealand (3), Israel (2), and the Netherlands, Austria and Switzerland with one case each. Much of the spike can be attributed to the fact that Mexico—the suspected “ground zero” of the current outbreak—is still in the early stages of testing patients. Over the past week, Mexican officials have blamed the new swine flu for up to 178 fatalities and almost 3,000 illnesses, but very few of those cases have actually been scientifically validated. Laboratory technicians are now frantically examining thousands of lung swabs, trying to figure out which potential cases are officially linked to the new virus. Yesterday it was 26. Today it’s 97. Expect that figure to jump even higher by tomorrow. But don’t be surprised if some of those 3,000 illnesses—and the 178 deaths—turn out to be unrelated to swine flu.

CANADA
Like the rest of the world, confirmed illnesses are also on the rise in Canada. With four new cases in Nova Scotia, four in Alberta, three in British Columbia, one in Quebec and one in Ontario, the country’s swine flu tally is now 32 (nine in British Columbia, eight in Nova Scotia, eight in Ontario, six in Alberta, and one in Quebec). The surge, however, is not the most disturbing development. Health authorities in Nova Scotia revealed today that they have encountered the first human-to-human transmission on Canadian soil. The first four cases on the Atlantic coast were teenagers at a private school in Windsor, N.S., who contracted the virus during a spring break vacation in Mexico. Until now, every the other Canadian case also involved people who recently returned from Mexico. But of the four new cases reported today in Nova Scotia, one did not participate in the school trip. Instead, the unnamed student fell ill after coming into contact with another classmate. Leona Aglukkaq, the federal health minister, did not mention that fact during her daily press briefing with reporters. “Thankfully, all cases in Canada continue to be mild,” she said. “I repeat again, these new cases were anticipated and do not affect our approach. Aglukkaq also announced that the government is launching a “national citizens’ awareness campaign” tomorrow morning. “We want all Canadians to have the information they need to protect themselves and their families,” she said. “I want to reassure Canadians that our government is prepared to deal with this situation and we will do whatever it takes to protect Canadians and their families during this time.”

BEYOND THE NUMBERS
Although the World Health Organization jacked up its so-called “pandemic meter” to the second-highest level on Wednesday, officials are downplaying suggestions that a worldwide pandemic­—or Phase 6, as it’s known—is imminent. “As of today, that assessment holds steady,” said Dr. Keiji Fukuda, the WHO’s assistant director-general of Health Security and Environment. “We do not have any evidence to suggest that we should move to Phase 6 today, or that any such move is imminent right now.” During his daily press briefing, Dr. Fukuda tried to explain why, in just two days, the alert level vaulted from Phase 3 to Phase 5. Phase 3, he said, indicates that an animal influenza virus (avian, for example, or swine) has infected people, but not at a high rate. When the WHO moved to Phase 4 on Monday, it was because the evidence revealed that this newest flu—a never-before-seen mixture of avian, swine and human influenzas—was capable of spreading from person to person at a relatively rapid clip. And the jump to Phase 5? That came after “sustained” human-to-human transition was confirmed in at least two countries (Mexico and the United States). “These phases are not intended to be a barometer of the epidemiology per se,” Dr. Fukuda said. “It’s really a warning and an alert to countries and to the global population that the risk of this new virus spreading and reaching their countries is now judged to be significantly higher. It’s really a call for governments and people to really take stronger preparations, to move ahead and take the preparations that they need to reduce the health impact of a new virus.” The final impact, though, is impossible to predict. Remember, a pandemic does not automatically mean that millions will die. Pandemic simply means “widespread.” The real question is whether this swine flu results in widespread muscle aches or widespread funerals. “The move from pandemic alert Phase 4 to 5 means we are closer to this being a pandemic virus,” explained Dr. David Butler-Jones, Canada’s chief public health officer. “To clarify, the WHO’s pandemic alert level speaks to the current global situation. It’s really a global snapshot of what the state of the outbreak is on a global scale. Right now, that snapshot shows that a pandemic is highly likely. How severe it is remains to be seen.”

VICE PRESIDENTIAL
Joe Biden certainly seems to think the end is nigh. In an interview with the Today Show, Barack Obama’s right-hand man said he has warned friends and relatives to stay away from airplanes and subway trains. “I would tell members of my family—and I have—that I wouldn’t go anywhere in confined places now,” Biden said. “It’s not just going to Mexico, if you’re in a confined aircraft and one person sneezes it goes all the way through the aircraft. That’s me. I would not be at this point, if they had another way of transportation, suggesting they ride the subway.” Many countries, including Canada and the U.S., are encouraging citizens to avoid unnecessary trips to Mexico. But nobody—not even the World Health Organization—is urging people to avoid air travel. “To suggest that people not fly at this stage of things is a broad brush stroke bordering on fear mongering,” said Tim Smith, a spokesman for American Airlines. Not surprisingly, Biden’s office has issued a “clarification.” Said a spokeswoman: “The advice he is giving family members is the same advice the administration is giving to all Americans: that they should avoid unnecessary air travel to and from Mexico. If they are sick, they should avoid airplanes and other confined public spaces, such as subways.” Ah, yes. That’s exactly what he meant.

TAKE YOUR MEDICINE
According to the experts, there is plenty of Tamiflu to go around. The leading antiviral flu drug, patented and produced by Roche Holding AG, is not in short supply, and if a pandemic does strike the company assures us it can make as many pills as the world needs. However, recent lab tests—including some conducted by Canada’s National Microbiology Lab in Winnipeg—have shown that Tamiflu is not effective against the H1N1 virus that causes the common flu. Which, of course, raises a troubling question: if Tamiflu doesn’t work against the common Type A/H1N1 flu virus, will it be an effective against this new strain, which is a so-called “distant cousin” of H1N1? Speaking of medication, Dr. Fukuda was asked how long it would take to create a vaccine that will protect against this newest strain. The answer: months, not weeks. “In order to make a vaccine against a new virus, such as this new H1N1 virus, you have to go through several different steps,” he explained. “And going through these steps takes months of work, even when you accelerate the pace at which you’re doing them.” In other words, keep coughing into your sleeve.

WHAT’S IN A NAME?

In the hopes of dispelling the outbreak’s biggest myth—that eating pork causes swine flu—The World Health Organization says it will stop using the phrase “swine flu.” It will instead refer to the virus by its scientific name: “H1N1 influenza A.” Dr. Butler-Jones said Canadian officials will follow the WHO’s lead. “From this time, we will be referring to this human virus as the H1N1 flu virus, to make it very clear that this disease is not spread from pigs or from either pork or pork products.” Unfortunately, the Egyptian government didn’t get the memo. At last check, every pig in the country is still slated for slaughter.

• In the U.S., schools are closing by the hundreds: 200 in Texas, 62 in Alabama, and scattered closings in New York, California, South Carolina, Connecticut, Minnesota, Illinois, Wisconsin, Arizona, Ohio, Utah, Washington state, Michigan and Maine. In Texas, Governor Rick Perry has issued an official disaster declaration and suspended all high-school sports until May 11.

• Mexico is closed for business. Acting on the orders of President Felipe Calderon, government offices and private businesses not crucial to the economy have shut their doors in an attempt to avoid further infection. “There is no safer place than your own home to avoid being infected with the flu virus,” Calderon said in his first televised address since the outbreak started. The official shutdown is expected to last until May 5.

• A Mexico City toddler who became the first swine-flu death on U.S. soil spent a day with his family shopping at a huge Houston indoor mall the day before he began to show symptoms. Cameron County Judge Carlos Cascos, who spoke with the boy’s aunt, said the family spent three nights in Houston just before he fell ill. After spending time in Houston, including at The Galleria mall, they drove the 350 miles back to Brownsville, where he was hospitalized on April 8. Houston health officials now say another boy—a 10-year-old American—is recovering from swine flu.

Inside the battle zone

By Sean M. Maloney - Thursday, April 30, 2009 at 5:20 PM - 0 Comments

Sean M. Maloney is a professor of history at the Royal Military College of Canada and has travelled to Afghanistan regularly since 2003. The author of the forthcoming Confronting the Chaos: A Rogue Historian Returns to Afghanistan, he is currently writing a history of Canada’s war in Afghanistan.

The grey-uniformed Afghan police, accompanied by Canadian soldiers from the Police Operational Mentor and Liaison Team (POMLT), were working their way on a patrol through the crowded market in Bazaar-e Panjwai. The market, lined with stores selling everything from oranges and pomegranates to colourfully embroidered bicycle seats, runs along both sides of the town’s main road, anchored in the west by the main Canadian and Afghan base, and stretching in the east to the dangerous IED-plagued highway that runs to Kandahar city. As the patrol greeted the shopkeepers and watched the children head down the road to the school, a robed man approached. He suddenly raised his arms, shouted “Allahu akbar!” and pressed a trigger that was attached to his bomb vest. The device refused to detonate as he madly mashed the trigger down again and again. The four Canadians opened fire with their assault rifles while the Afghan police moved the terrified crowd back. Even as the terrorist lay bleeding to death on the ground he was still trying to detonate the bomb. His batteries, it turned out later, were dead. According to one soldier, it was as if the pink Energizer drumming bunny had frozen in place at the end of the commercial.

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Coalition fever: The swine flu of 2008

By Philippe Gohier - Thursday, April 30, 2009 at 5:14 PM - 5 Comments

Just try to imagine the hand-wringing this would’ve caused across Canada: A Bloc-supported coalition in power in Ottawa with the PQ, propped up by the ADQ, in power in Quebec City.

According to a report in La Presse, it could’ve happened:

In order to stymie Jean Charest, who was clearly preparing to call an election for December 8, the ADQ made a suprising proposal to draw in the PQ. Mario Dumont and Pauline Marois would have gone to see the lieutenant-governor, Pierre Duchesne, to tell him that the parties with a majority in the National Assembly were uniting to form a coalition government, with Pauline Marois as premier.

The ADQ was apparently so desperate to avoid having to run a campaign that it was going to let a party holding less seats—recall that the ADQ was the official opposition at the time—take over the premier’s job!

Now imagine what the provincial and federal budgets would have looked like had it happened. Something tells me the fiscal imbalance would’ve been solved in no time.

John Turner has a couple of suggestions

By John Geddes - Thursday, April 30, 2009 at 5:01 PM - 10 Comments

The Liberal party’s riding presidents were meeting in Exhibit Hall A at the new Vancouver Convention Centre. Just before noon, they began letting reporters into the room to cover what would be Michael Ignatieff’s first public remarks at the party’s biennial convention.

Before Ignatieff made his entry, with the room slowly filling up, John Turner was sitting alone behind a table on the speakers’ platform. On June 7, the man who was prime minister for such a short time—late June to mid-September of 1984—will be turning 80. He walks with difficulty these days.
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Mitchel Raphael on how Ignatieff lets you know it’s time to go

By Mitchel Raphael - Thursday, April 30, 2009 at 5:00 PM - 0 Comments

‘Please don’t make me wear that’

Hostess Marguerite Charlebois has been working at the Parliamentary Restaurant for 28 years. Among her other duties there, she is the sartorial gatekeeper. With the exception of Aboriginals and people in military uniforms, all men eating in the restaurant must wear a jacket and tie. (Women, on the other hand, can wear practically anything they want.) Cape Breton Liberal MP Mark Eyking is considered one of the troublemakers at the restaurant. He recently tried to slip past Charlebois and get in—once again—without a tie. In a situation like this, Charlebois takes the open-shirted MP to the dreaded tie drawer and makes him choose one, or grabs one of those on loan herself and brings it to him. Then come the groans: “Please don’t make me wear that tie.” The dress code for men is one of the few things that hasn’t changed in the years Charlebois has been there. Smoking is no longer permitted; nor are candles allowed on the tables. (They were deemed a fire hazard.) Long gone from the menu, she says, are rack of lamb, escargots, and the calorie-rich dessert sabayon. About 10 years ago, healthier items started to appear; the portions today are also smaller and the buffet has gone from daily to once a week, on Wednesdays. When Charlebois started at the restaurant (Pierre Trudeau was prime minister), she was a waitress and often served the table where senators sat. Back then, some of the senators would ask her not to let them order certain items because of a doctor’s advice. Even when they begged for their favourite dishes, says Charlebois, she kept them on the straight and narrow. It is rare to see a prime minister in the Parliamentary Restaurant—they’d be mobbed, she explains. Still, back in the Trudeau days, after Hill events the restaurant catered, Trudeau “used to come into the kitchen where we were cleaning up and thank all the staff. He always did that. He was such a gentleman. He was the only [prime minister] to do that.”

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Liberal leadership festivities: a sneak preview

By Scott Feschuk - Thursday, April 30, 2009 at 4:40 PM - 8 Comments

The Liberal Party of Canada Leadership and Biennial Convention
Schedule of Events

Thursday, April 30

9:00 a.m. Registration begins. Making a rare public appearance, the recession will be on hand to ask delegates what more it could have done to dissuade them from spending thousands to attend a leadership convention whose outcome is preordained.

11:30 A moment of respectful silence will be observed for the thousands of defenceless words that are about to be sacrificed to state the following: Dion’s out, Iggy’s in.

12:00 p.m. National Membership Update. Everyone say hi to Dave.

2:00 A number of concurrent workshops are offered, including “Making Politics Meaningful.” The party’s MPs will offer their input by standing up and hollering accusations in 30-second increments.

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‘The only way we can leave is by boat’

By Nicholas Köhler - Thursday, April 30, 2009 at 4:20 PM - 0 Comments

Eighty-five-year-old Ted Sabourin has lived alone in his Manitoba farmhouse ever since his wife, Bella, died a little over two years ago. Widowhood is already a lonely state, so Sabourin was perhaps almost too well prepared when, on April 6, the Red River burst its seams and, joined by its tributaries, rippled out across the valley. The flood waters eventually covered 1,680 sq. km of Manitoba, forcing the evacuation of some 2,200 people.

Through it all—for more than two weeks so far—Sabourin, a laconic farmer, has stayed put, his little home perched on a plot of land “like an island in the middle of the ocean,” as his 57-year-old son Donald puts it. His road access to the nearby francophone community of St. Jean Baptiste, on the east bank of the Red some 80 km south of Winnipeg, is frequently the first to close during flooding. So Sabourin stocked up on food and a month’s supply of medication. For a week, chunks of ice flowed fast past his home, preventing him from leaving at all; now he is able to travel to town only by boat, when the winds aren’t too fierce, and will likely have to do so for the next three weeks. Sabourin would have it no other way. “Leave to go elsewhere?” he asks in French. “Who would work my pumps?”

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Theme Songs That Are Musically Up-To-Date

By Jaime Weinman - Thursday, April 30, 2009 at 4:15 PM - 12 Comments

Here’s an obscure TV theme song that I just found on YouTube (a pretty good one) that brings up a question: how often do TV shows have theme songs that actually reflect current trends in pop music? This show was called “Karen,” a one-season flop from 1964 starring Debbie Watson as a spunky, flighty teenager. It was one of several shows from the mid-’60s that were about teenaged girls, but this one had something resembling a rock n’ roll theme song, sung by the Beach Boys. It wasn’t exactly up-to-date for the fall of 1964, but it was closer than most teen shows of its era; The Patty Duke Show and Gidget were about teenagers, but had (terrific) theme songs in an old-fashioned big-band style that no teenaged girl of the time would have been listening to.

TV themes usually tend to be lagging indicators, if only because it’s dangerous to pick a song that’s too closely tied to a particular musical trend. (If you hope your show will last five years, you don’t want to have a song that will sound out of date in a year. Better to go with a Who song instead, since that’s always out of date.) But what are some other shows that featured theme music that had a closer-than-usual relationship to pop-music trends of the period?

Law societies under fire

By Kate Lunau - Thursday, April 30, 2009 at 4:00 PM - 15 Comments

Cora MacPhail doesn’t dislike lawyers. She has close friends who are lawyers; family members, too. MacPhail considers the law to be an honourable profession. Which helps explain why her dealings with the Law Society of Upper Canada (LSUC) left her shaken.

In 2006, MacPhail was confined to a wheelchair for eight weeks following ankle surgery. The retiree, who lives alone in London, Ont., asked for help at home from a local care centre, but due to a mix-up, was at first denied (the centre later apologized, and provided her with services including a personal care worker). MacPhail’s son fired off a letter of complaint to the local MPP, and copied it to the centre; days later, the elderly woman got a knock on her door. It was the care centre’s “director of quality and contracted service delivery,” who questioned her and her son about the letter, she says. The meeting left her feeling uneasy. Weeks later, her son typed the care centre employee’s name into Google and discovered he was a lawyer, not a social worker, as they had believed. On Dec. 4, 2006, MacPhail filed a complaint with the LSUC, which regulates Ontario’s lawyers and paralegals. “He did not disclose who he was—a lawyer,” she wrote in her letter. “I trust you will take action.”

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Man claims $200,000 for herpes

By Cathy Gulli - Thursday, April 30, 2009 at 4:00 PM - 1 Comment

Is getting a rare disease an “accident”? Randolph Gibbens, who was paralyzed after contracting herpes, believes so. But his insurer, which is fighting his workplace disability claim, contends that if diseases are considered accidents, then everyone’s insurance premiums could skyrocket.

After Gibbens, 48, had unprotected sex with three women in early 2003, he developed herpes simplex type 2. The disease progressed into a rare inflammation in his spinal cord, and within weeks he was paralyzed from the mid-abdomen down. Gibbens, who lives in Port Coquitlam, B.C., and worked as a high pressure water blaster, was insured by Co-operators Life Insurance. His accidental disease or dismemberment plan pays $200,000 for “proof of paraplegia” or lost use of his legs due to “external, violent and accidental means.”

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‘The best thing you never taste’

By Joanne Latimer - Thursday, April 30, 2009 at 3:40 PM - 2 Comments

Cameron Bogue had one condition before accepting the bar manager job at Vancouver’s Lumière and DB Bistro Moderne restaurants. He wanted a Kold-Draft ice cube machine. No other brand would do. “Kold-Draft makes big, dense, perfectly square, 1¼-inch cubes that are frozen in layers under a horizontal evaporator,” explains Bogue. “The ice gives optimal cooling of the cocktail without quick dilution.” For special occasions and photo shoots, Bogue makes his ice by hand with distilled water (not mineral water) that he boils first, then freezes twice to remove any dissolved gasses. It is not a process for the impatient.

Bogue might be dismissed as a rogue perfectionist behind the bar if there weren’t others like him. “Mass-produced ice from a cheap machine is not the way to go,” concurs David Wolowidnyk, head mixologist at West restaurant in Vancouver. “We’re in the process of reconfiguring our bar so we can expand our ice program. The plan is to add a small freezer so we can custom-make round ice cubes the size of tennis balls. We have the spherical moulds and they’re ready to go!”

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Econowatch

By Steve Maich - Thursday, April 30, 2009 at 2:30 PM - 1 Comment

Things are getting a tad frosty in the world of high-level economics. U.S. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner said this week that he sees “encouraging signs” in the global economy. But vague assurances aren’t enough for the growing backlash against America’s financial leadership, which has been characterized by half-measures and missteps since last September. The problem, as the critics see it, is that Geithner’s cautious optimism is focused on the symptoms of this crisis. Despite hundreds of billions in stimulus spending and bailouts, there has been little progress in treating the disease itself—which is rooted deeply in the U.S. housing market.

That disease is still getting worse, not better. The S&P/Case Shiller housing index fell another 2.2 per cent between January and February, prices in 20 major cities are down 18.6 per cent from a year ago, existing home sales fell three per cent in March and distressed home sales (including foreclosures and so-called “underwater” properties in which the mortgage is bigger than the value of the house) represented almost half of all transactions last month.

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Working when sick increases risk of long-term sick leave

By macleans.ca - Thursday, April 30, 2009 at 2:00 PM - 1 Comment

A Danish study has found that going to work when sick significantly increases the risk of having to take long-term sick leave later. Researchers randomly selected a group of 12,000 Danes who had been working continuously for at least a year to answer questions on their attitudes to work, willingness to take time off when sick, and general health. The group was also asked how many times in the last year they worked while ill when they should have stayed home, and compared  the answers with work records about periods of sick leave taken over the next 18 months. Employees who worked while under the weather at least six times were 53 per cent more likely to end up off sick for two weeks. Researchers say short periods off when sick help people cope with work stress. The study will appear in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.

British Medical Journal

Newsmakers

By Lianne George - Thursday, April 30, 2009 at 2:00 PM - 0 Comments

Indecent proposal

Friends of U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have devised a number of creative solutions to help her pay off the remaining US$2.3 million she owes in campaign debts. Her former campaign manager James Carville sent out an email to supporters asking them to contribute $5 in exchange for an opportunity to win great prizes, including tickets to the American Idol finale or a day in New York with Bill Clinton. Later, during the taping of an online radio show sponsored by Go Daddy—a Web-hosting company known for its racy commercials—Go Daddy founder Bob Parsons told Carville he would contribute US$1 million to help Clinton if the secretary of state would appear as a “Go Daddy Girl” in one of his ads. “Look, I’d be all for it, but I wouldn’t write the check just yet,” Carville replied, noting that lawyers in the State Department tend to “piss on every fire.”

After Lolita

Thirty-two years after Vladimir Nabokov’s death, the Lolita author’s final novel, locked in a Swiss bank vault since 1977, will see the light of day. The Original of Laura was written on a series of 138 index cards. Nabokov had instructed that the incomplete work be destroyed upon his death. His son Dmitri, who’d kept it for all these years, opted to sell the rights to Penguin Classics for an undisclosed six-figure sum. “It was quite emotional for Dmitri because it was a big decision to publish, which took him decades,” Alexis Kirschbaum, editor at Penguin Classics, told the BBC. The novel, due this fall, is the story of a man obsessed with his promiscuous wife. “[It’s] not necessarily extremely polished,” she said, “but you can still see kernels of genius in everything he wrote.”

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Chrysler to file for bankruptcy protection

By macleans.ca - Thursday, April 30, 2009 at 1:59 PM - 29 Comments

Chrysler will file for bankruptcy protection in a New York courtroom today for what White House officials expect to be a 30 to 60 stay after last-minute negotiations with creditors failed to yield an alternative solution. The filing is part of the automaker’s ambitious restructuring efforts, for which Chrysler will receive yet more government money. The U.S. Treasury has pledged US$3.3 billion to keep the company afloat during its bankruptcy, while the Canadian government has agreed to kick in another $800 million in exchange for two per cent of the company’s equity. The Treasury has also agreed to provide Chrysler with US$4.5 billion to exit bankruptcy. The key sticking point in the negotiations that led to the bankruptcy filing was the reluctance of three of Chrysler’s 46 creditors to accept over US$2 billion in cash in exchange for wiping out US$6.9 billion of the automaker’s debt.

The Detroit News

What's up at the Liberal convention. (Or should that be "Liberalist"?)

By John Geddes - Thursday, April 30, 2009 at 1:56 PM - 5 Comments

As delegates assemble here at the new Vancouver Convention Centre for the Liberal biennial convention, chatter in the hallways suggests to me that five points (itemized after the break) are worth watching over the next three days.
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Feel this speech

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, April 30, 2009 at 1:55 PM - 19 Comments

Justin Trudeau’s evil twin talks to Liberals in Vancouver.

'We should encourage more of these types of people'

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, April 30, 2009 at 1:32 PM - 0 Comments

Somewhat surprising paragraph from the definitive Zoomer profile of Michael Ignatieff.

Still, even those from opposing sides are excited by his political career thus far. “It’s fantastic when people who are accomplished and have a track record of success make this transition,” says Jaime Watt, a political strategist and former senior communications adviser for the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party. “We should encourage more of these types of people to enter public service. There’s been a fundamental shift in the electorate. We’re in an economic situation we’ve never been in before, and people want solutions that we’ve never had before. It’s a post-partisan world.” 

Layla Khalil 1952-2009

By Nicholas Köhler - Thursday, April 30, 2009 at 1:20 PM - 1 Comment

Layla Khalil was born in Baghdad on March 8, 1952, her father a landowner, her mother one of Iraq’s first professional women, a high school vice-principal. As a girl Layla, the oldest of six, lived in the Rusafa district, just east of the Tigris River. Fascinated by books, particularly histories of the ancient world, she became a librarian. A traditional betrothal arranged by relatives led to marriage with Samir Alsalihi, a bookish man six years her senior. A daughter, Ban, arrived two years later, just before Samir’s academic career took the family to Europe—first Paris in 1981, when Firas, a son, was born, then Manchester, England.

In 1990, while Samir finished his degree in England, Layla and the children returned to Baghdad. The family was not political—“We were always trying to avoid the regime,” Ban says—yet neutrality did not protect them from the Gulf War and the bombing of Baghdad a year later, and the family briefly fled north to the farmlands of Diyala province, Layla’s ancestral homeland. Soon after the war, Layla had a second son, Mustafa. When UN sanctions made scarce such commodities as milk and gasoline, Layla improvised. “She would go to the jewellery shop and sell what she had so she could bring us food,” says Firas. Electricity was intermittent, and Layla lived by its flow, awaking at 2 a.m. to do the laundry. Such were the hardships that Samir, now a linguistics professor, left to teach in Libya, visiting for only a few weeks a year; he would not return to Baghdad for seven years. “So she became our mother and our father,” says Firas. “She was dedicating herself for us.”

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Passengers recount a different pirate tale

By macleans.ca - Thursday, April 30, 2009 at 1:06 PM - 0 Comments

When news broke that the crew of MSC Melody, an Italian cruise ship, had fought off a Somali pirate attack the captain and company took credit for defending the passengers in a totally “professional” manner. Now some of those same tourists are telling a much different version of the attack, including how they threw deck chairs and tables down on pirates, who climbing the side of the ship before the alarm sounded. They say armed crew members didn’t arrive for nearly 10 minutes, while Capt. Ciro Pinto was in the bar sipping a drink while telling other passengers that flip-flop wearing pirates posed no danger to his vessel.

Spiegel Online

Why are we setting pirates free?

By Philippe Gohier - Thursday, April 30, 2009 at 1:00 PM - 0 Comments

Late Saturday, a Canadian warship escorting a shipment of aid through the Gulf of Aden crossed paths with Somali pirates attacking a Norwegian oil tanker. After a seven-hour nighttime chase, which included warning shots fired at the pirates’ skiff, the crew of the HMCS Winnipeg caught up with the pirates, seized a single rocket-propelled grenade from their vessel, and took seven of them prisoner. But there was an anticlimactic end to the Canadian sailors’ hard-won victory: they were told to send the pirates home, releasing them unconditionally.

Such incidents are becoming more common as international authorities have more success at intercepting Somali attacks, and that’s raising a difficult question: if pirates are captured on the high seas, when does the country that captures them have the right to bring them to trial?

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