The reckoning continues

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, April 24, 2009 at 1:09 PM - 24 Comments

Andrew Mitrovica traces the tale of Canada and the 9/11 terrorists.

Today, in the aftermath of Napolitano’s grating comments, Harper and some of his cabinet members who once condemned Canada as a “soft spot” for terror, have been busy instructing their man in Washington to disabuse the Obama administration of the notion that Canada was or remains a soft spot for terrorists.

In other words, Harper has mobilized the diplomatic and political machinery at his disposal to try to finally shatter a frustrating myth that senior members of his government once enthusiastically promoted.

Everything sounds better when you auto-tune the news

By Paul Wells - Friday, April 24, 2009 at 12:30 PM - 11 Comments

The most inspiring 107 seconds in the history of Canadian democracy

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, April 24, 2009 at 12:17 PM - 19 Comments

From yesterday’s QP. 

Her elements of style

By Robert Fulford - Friday, April 24, 2009 at 12:00 PM - 0 Comments

It was a truth universally acknowledged among Barbara Moon’s colleagues at Maclean’s magazine that no one had the right to be both that beautiful and that brilliant. In the 1950s and 1960s, beauty was not totally unknown at Maclean’s, nor was brilliance. But she demonstrated both, and to an unforgettable degree. When she died last week, at the age of 82, of viral encephalitis, I remembered my first impression when we met in the mid-1950s on the staff of a now long-defunct monthly, Mayfair. It was as if a bird of paradise had alighted among sparrows.

She came from St. Catharines, Ont., but looked like one of nature’s Parisians, a woman who made chic self-presentation seem easy and inevitable. She was elegant in clothes, hair, speech, and, above all, prose. She turned a sentence as gracefully as she arranged a scarf. She was educated at Trinity College at the University of Toronto but spoke with an accent that seemed to issue from some mythically perfect corner of the Empire. Later she added an imperious tone, for use on those who dared to mess with her prose.

Continue…

From hostage to witness

By macleans.ca - Friday, April 24, 2009 at 11:37 AM - 0 Comments

Canadian diplomat Robert Fowler was barely free yesterday when the inquiry looking into the dealings between former prime minister Brian Mulroney and Karlheinz Schreiber summoned him to testify. A spokesman for the Oliphant Commission says Fowler will not have to appear immediately, but his presence would still be appreciated. While the diplomat was being held captive in Africa, his name was frequently cited at the Oliphant hearings. Fowler was a senior civil servant at the time and he is said to have objected to the light-armoured vehicle project Schreiber was pitching.

Edmonton Sun

Exams for three-year-olds

By macleans.ca - Friday, April 24, 2009 at 11:36 AM - 0 Comments

Think you’re stressed? In what’s been dubbed “exam hell,” preschoolers in Japan (yes, preschoolers) are doing worksheets and attending special classes to secure a seat in primary school. Parents want their kids off to a good start.

The Christian Science Monitor

Bronx Zoo gives 700 animals pink slips

By macleans.ca - Friday, April 24, 2009 at 11:34 AM - 0 Comments

The economic slump has spread from Wall St. to the Bronx Zoo, which has just announced it’s closing four exhibits and shipping hundreds of creatures to zoos and aquariums around the country, the New York Post reports.  Those being laid off include deer, bats, porcupines, foxes, lemurs, caimans, antelopes—and a several human staff members. The move is part of the 114-year-old institution’s effort to cope with a $15 million budget shortfall. The country’s largest urban zoo, which 2.1 million people visited last year alone, is shutting its World of Darkness, Rare Animal Range and exhibits of the Arabian oryx and blesbok, two types of antelope.

New York Post

An ATM for books

By macleans.ca - Friday, April 24, 2009 at 11:19 AM - 2 Comments

The Espresso Book Machine is far from elegant—it looks like an ungainly photocopier—but it could herald the biggest change for the literary world since Gutenberg invented his printing press more than 500 years ago. Unveiled April 24 at a central London branch of the Blackwell bookstore chain, the machine prints and binds books in five minutes. Blackwell believes the introduction signals an end to the frustration of being told a title is out of print or not in stock. The Espresso offers access to almost half a million books, from a facsimile of Lewis Carroll’s original manuscript for Alice in Wonderland to Mrs Beeton’s Book of Needlework, a total the company hopes to increase to more than a million by the end of the summer. That’s the equivalent of 38 km of shelf space or more than 50 bookshops rolled into a single machine.

Guardian.co.uk

Flaherty, Carney implore world economies to repair their banking systems

By macleans.ca - Friday, April 24, 2009 at 11:18 AM - 0 Comments

Ahead of a meeting of G7 finance ministers in Washington today, Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney and Finance Minister Jim Flaherty spoke out about the need for the world’s major economies to repair their banking systems. Decisive action, they said, is necessary for the Canadian economy can get back on course. While the U.S. banking system has shouldered much of the blame for the economic recession, Flaherty said European banks, which were “highly leveraged … participated in this too.”

CTV

Just in time for the Liberals’ Vancouver confab

By macleans.ca - Friday, April 24, 2009 at 11:14 AM - 0 Comments

The rise of Michael Ignatieff has Liberals thinking again that liberalism has something to do with thinking. For all his bookish credentials, though, Ignatieff hasn’t sparked a lot of debate about policy and principles. The two American books reviewed in this essay might fill that ideas vacuum. Alan Wolfe’s The Future of Liberalism suggests the bedrock conviction of liberals must be: “As many people as possible should have as much say as is feasible over the direction their lives will take.” And Jedediah Purdy’s A Tolerable Anarchy considers the “interplay between public and private, individual and community, freedom and obligation” as the way to understand liberalism. Food for thought as Grits hed to next week’s Vancouver convention (and Iggy’s coronation).

The Nation

Liberace, the Musical

By macleans.ca - Friday, April 24, 2009 at 11:10 AM - 0 Comments

A musical called Liberace: The Man, The Music & The Memories is coming to Broadway, starring comedian/pianist Wayland Pickard as the popular ’50s entertainer and wearer of rhinestones. Producers say that the musical will “recreate the experience of a Liberace concert in a Las Vegas show room.” The plot hasn’t been announced yet, but spoiler alert: it turns out he’s gay.

The New York Times

Arab world rocked by torture video involving UAE sheikh

By macleans.ca - Friday, April 24, 2009 at 11:02 AM - 4 Comments

A video recently smuggled out of the United Arab Emirates shows a member of the country’s royal family torturing a man so cruelly that the U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is now under pressure to investigate and take action. The footage, obtained by ABC News, shows Sheikh Issa bin Zayed al Nahyan, brother of the country’s crown prince, Sheikh Mohammed, stuffing sand down the man’s throat, shocking him with an electric cattle prod and, at one point, dousing the man’s testicles in lighter fluid and setting them aflame. The victim—who is held down through much of the video by a man in police uniform—has been identified as Mohammed Shah Poor, who the Sheikh accused of short changing on a grain delivery to his royal ranch on the outskirts of Abu Dhabi. Near the end of the video the victim is shown being run over by the sheikh who is driving an SUV, the sound of bones cracking can be heard. The UAE government has claimed the torture is not part of a patter involving Sheikh Issa, and that the matter is being settled privately: “By agreeing not to bring formal charges against each other, i.e., theft on the one hand and assault on the other hand,” a spokesman said. But in Washington, the co-chairman of the House Human Rights Commission, Rep. James McGovern, is demanding that Clinton temporarily stop any “funds, training, sales or transfers of equipment or technology, including nuclear” to the UAE until an investigation is completed.

ABC News

ABC News

Who’s really suffering in the recession? Aging boomer rock stars.

By macleans.ca - Friday, April 24, 2009 at 11:00 AM - 0 Comments

It appears even the endless boomer appetite for the hits of the seventies isn’t sufficient to cushion the erstwhile hit-makers from the effects of the recession. An annual list of the richest Brits estimates Elton John’s personal wealth fell by more than a quarter to 175 million pounds from 235 million pounds last year, Paul McCartney lost 12 per cent, and Mick Jagger’s fortune deflated 16 per cent  decline on last year. On the hopeful side, unless you have a shred self-respect concerning your listening habits, Clive Calder, who founded the record label that’s home to Britney Spears, and Judy Craymer, producer of the Abba musical “Mamma Mia!”, are both richer than ever.

Reuters

Next Year 101

By Martin Patriquin - Friday, April 24, 2009 at 10:42 AM - 3 Comments

Carey Price hails the success of Opération cent-un. Canadian Press photo.

It was all in the cards, ladies and germs. We planned that glorious early rise to the top of the standings, the so-so All-Star performance and the following déconfiture of the team. Carey Price was instructed to be a wobbly, confidence-free mess for the latter part of the season. Robert Lang’s Achilles heel? Andrei Markov’s concussion-inducing encounter with the boards? All brilliant head office concoctions to purposefully stymie the team, along with the the coup de grâce: the Four-in, four-out embarrassment of the Boston Bruins.

Why? Because a one hundred year anniversary is nice and all, but in Quebec there is a number with far more significance: 101, and nothing will be sweeter than taking Lord Stanley’s chalice in the one hundred and first year of nos glorieux. Then, once properly drunk on success and good cheer, we’ll make our own country. It’s going to happen. Mark my words.

Pakistani Taliban announce retreat from recently captured district

By macleans.ca - Friday, April 24, 2009 at 10:35 AM - 0 Comments

Pakistani Taliban say they will withdraw their fighters from Buner, a district only 100 km from the capital that they effectively took over earlier this week. Their advance had greatly disturbed the United States, with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton accusing Pakistan of posing a “mortal threat” to the world by abdicating to the Taliban. U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates warned Islamabad that relations between Pakistan and the United States would be threatened unless Pakistan’s government confronted the Taliban’s spread. A Taliban spokesman said the movement’s fighters would leave the district by Saturday. Pakistani television has shown footage of what appears to be Taliban withdrawing, and Al Jazeera reports that up to 500 Taliban militants have already left.

BBC News

Al Jazeera

Anger management helps smokers quit

By macleans.ca - Friday, April 24, 2009 at 10:34 AM - 0 Comments

Tackling the anger experienced by smokers could be an important part of helping them quit smoking, a new study suggests. University of California researchers recruited 20 people, and had them play a computer game, once while wearing a nicotine replacement patch, and once while using a placebo patch. After each round, players could disturb their opponent with an unpleasant noise, choosing their own duration and volume. When participants were not wearing the nicotine patch, they were more likely to react with anger, the study showed, leading researchers to hypothesize that nicotine affects the part of the brain responsible for emotion. Smokers who can’t quit may be the ones most likely to have difficulty staying calm, prompting them to reach for a cigarette for relief. “Novel behavioural treatments like anger management training may aid smoking cessation efforts in anger-provoking situations that increase withdrawal and tobacco cravings,” said lead researcher Jean Gehricke, according to the BBC.

BBC News

Turkey and Armenia break the silence

By Kate Lunau - Friday, April 24, 2009 at 7:59 AM - 2 Comments

For Armenians, today marks an annual day of remembrance for a genocide dating back to the First World War. Historians estimate that 1.5 million Armenians were killed under Ottoman rule, an incident that’s poisoned relations with the Turks ever since. This year, though, there’s a positive development: Armenia and Turkey have announced plans to re-establish diplomatic ties, agreeing on a road map that should reopen the border between the countries after more than 15 years. Foreign ministers for both nations are expected to meet soon in Switzerland for mediation.

The Turkish-Armenian border has been closed since 1993, when Turkey sided with oil-rich Azerbaijan, a country at war with Armenia. But this only aggravated existing hostilities. While the genocide has been officially recognized as such by several countries (including Canada), Turkey has yet to acknowledge it. This week, the country recalled its ambassador to Canada after Stephen Harper spoke at a vigil commemorating the mass killings. And, when questioned during Barack Obama’s recent visit to Ankara, Turkish president Abdullah Gul called it “not a legal or political issue, but an historical issue.”

Taner Akçam, a prominent Turkish historian, says that reopening the border would ease poverty in the region by encouraging trade. “I was born in the province that borders Armenia,” he says. “Everyone wants the border open.” After Turkey closed it off, he adds, Armenia was taken under Russia’s wing; re-establishing ties “could move Armenia towards the West.” Both the U.S. and the European Union support reopening trade between the countries, and if Turkey succeeds in joining the E.U., Armenia would benefit from having a member state as its neighbour.

While it does not appear that Turkey will be required to recognize the genocide as a term of the agreement, Akçam believes that resuming diplomatic ties between should create much-needed dialogue around the mass killings that took place in the First World War. “This is crucial for Turkey’s democracy,” he says. “If a country does not face its own history, it cannot develop a democratic future.”

The five things you need to know about the National Sex Offender Registry

By Michael Friscolanti - Friday, April 24, 2009 at 6:50 AM - 7 Comments

When Christopher Stephenson was a young boy—before he was kidnapped, sexually assaulted and murdered by a notorious pedophile—his father would often tuck him into bed with a classic fairy tale: The Emperor’s New Clothes. A well-known children’s book, it tells the story of a pompous but gullible monarch who mistakenly hires two swindlers to revamp his kingly wardrobe. The result? The con men convince the emperor that they have discovered a gorgeous—but invisible—new material, and then promptly parade him around town in his latest “clothes.”

In Ottawa yesterday, as Christopher’s dad testified in front of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security, he used that fictional fable to illustrate a very real point. “Mr. Chair, committee members,” said Jim Stephenson, sitting beside his wife, Anna. “In its present form, the [national sex offender registry] has no clothes, either. It is dysfunctional, and fails to properly protect Canadians from becoming victims.” Continue…

Eight years of rabble.ca

By Mitchel Raphael - Friday, April 24, 2009 at 3:07 AM - 9 Comments

To mark rabble.ca’s eighth birthday the website’s publisher Kim Elliott (who is the partner of Vancouver NDP MP Libby), convened a panel at the University of Toronto to discuss “What’s Wrong With Canada’s Newspapers?” Below is Elliott (left) with rabble.ca board member Duncan Cameron and author/journalist Linda McQuaig who was one of the panelists.

The other speaker was author and journalist Peter C. Newman.

Continue…

Peace, order and high comedy

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, April 23, 2009 at 10:29 PM - 11 Comments

The Prime Minister addresses the Jamaican parliament. Hilarity ensues at about the 1:15 mark.

The Commons: 'The facts have not changed'

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, April 23, 2009 at 7:01 PM - 57 Comments

The Scene. Ralph Goodale stood with breaking news.

“Mr. Speaker, this was not a good morning for a Conservative government in abject denial,” the Liberal house leader reported. “A Federal Court judge has just ruled that the Prime Minister is legally obliged to immediately press the United States to return Omar Khadr to Canada.”

The Liberals applauded. The Conservatives grumbled.

“We have been telling the Conservatives to do so for years. The American process was deeply flawed. Now the courts have said so too,” Goodale continued. “Will the Prime Minister confirm that he will comply with today’s ruling of the Federal Court?”

The Prime Minister, listening impassively, took a sip from the glass of water on his desk. When the Liberal finished, he stood and spoke in his reasonable voice. “Mr. Speaker,” he said, “of course for years this government has been continuing exactly the same policy that the previous government had.”

In fairness, that the Prime Minister has been the Prime Minister for some three years is sometimes lost on him. Such is his regard for his predecessors that it often does not occur to him that he might contradict their negligence.  Continue…

Greece slides a bit closer to bankruptcy

By Patricia Treble - Thursday, April 23, 2009 at 4:40 PM - 6 Comments

Greece’s economy will post zero growth this year, according to Bank of Greece governor George Provopoulos, and concern is growing that the Mediterranean nation is perilously close to bankruptcy. “The country is dancing on a volcano,” political scientist Kalliope Amyg told Der Spiegel. “Nobody wants to see it, but everyone is afraid of it.”

Years of corruption, bloated budgets and bureaucracies have left Greece with a public debt worth 95 per cent of its GDP. (In the U.S., by comparison, public debt just topped 50 per cent.) In January it was the first euro-zone nation to have its sovereign debt rating downgraded by Standard & Poor’s. This summer, its tourism sector is expected to be devastated, and there are fears that its banks, which invested heavily in central and eastern Europe, will be dragged down by that region’s severe contraction.

Continue…

The power of going green

By Nancy Macdonald - Thursday, April 23, 2009 at 4:00 PM - 2 Comments

The best view of Whistler-Blackcomb’s soon-to-be-complete micro hydro project belongs to the tourist 45 metres above it on a zip-line—a kind of horizontal bungee jump. But at 80 km/h—and screaming her lungs out—she seems to have missed it. In fairness, the pale blue pipe hugging Fitzsimmons Creek for about a quarter of its 15-km length doesn’t look like much, dwarfed as it is by stands of centuries-old Douglas firs, western hemlocks and red cedars. But when complete in November, three months ahead of the Olympics, the $32-million project will make Whistler better than carbon neutral, producing an annual 33.5 gigawatt hours of clean, renewable energy—more than enough to power its 38 lifts, 17 restaurants and 270 snowmakers.

The so-called “green hydro” project will divert part of the stream into a pipe, just over a metre in diameter. Speed and kinetic energy will be generated in its final 500-m descent, when the water comes crashing down a steep, 75-degree slope. At the base, a turbine will capture that energy before returning the water to the watercourse below.

Continue…

The Green 30

By Richard Yerema - Thursday, April 23, 2009 at 3:40 PM - 7 Comments

Click on company names for details on how they do it:

Town of Banff
Bayer Inc.
B.C. Public Service
Busby, Perkins & Will Architects Inc.
Cascades Inc.
Enmax Corp.
Fairmont Hotels Inc.
Hewlett-Packard (Canada) Co.
HOK Canada Inc.
IBM Canada Ltd.
IKEA Canada LP
Intrawest ULC at Whistler Blackcomb
Jacques Whitford Ltd.
KPMG LLP
McGill University
Nature’s Path Foods Inc.
New Flyer Industries Canada ULC
Rescan Environmental Services Ltd.
Royal Bank of Canada
SAS Institute Canada Inc.
Sapient Canada, Inc.
SaskEnergy Inc.
SaskTel
Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre
Toronto-Dominion Bank
Toronto Hydro Corp.
Toyota Motor Manufacturing Canada Inc.
University of Alberta
Vancity Group
Zerofootprint Inc.