Week in Pictures: May 14th – May 20th, 2009

By macleans.ca - Friday, May 22, 2009 at 12:24 PM - 0 Comments

Hey, look

By Paul Wells - Friday, May 22, 2009 at 12:24 PM - 5 Comments

New Wells column. It’s about the end of Stephen Harper’s career, and why this isn’t it. Probably. It’s that kind of column: a festival of bet-hedging. But fun!

Spring house hunting: What $350,000 will get you

By macleans.ca - Friday, May 22, 2009 at 12:22 PM - 0 Comments

Click below to see what’s available in some of Canada’s largest markets.  

Spring house hunting: What $150,000 will get you

By macleans.ca - Friday, May 22, 2009 at 12:18 PM - 7 Comments

Click below to see what’s available in some of Canada’s largest markets. 

Ad Missions

By Andrew Potter - Friday, May 22, 2009 at 12:15 PM - 1 Comment

I’ve got a new bi-weekly gig as an ad critic, starting today on the back page of today’s Financial Post as a member of the Ad Missions panel that looks at ads and comments on them. It’s all for fun — the first installment is a look at a new crowd-sourced ad campaign for “Scream Cheese” flavoured Doritos.

Here’s a link to the online version of the panel, though the formatting is a bit screwed up: Our contributions are the ones that appear after our names, even though it looks like our names are listed after our contributions.

Here’s the video for the ad. Offer your own praise or criticism in the comments:

Spring house hunting

By macleans.ca - Friday, May 22, 2009 at 12:10 PM - 2 Comments

After hitting rough patches throughout fall and winter, the Canadian real estate market appears to be on the mend. This past April, the number of existing homes that changed hands rose for the third month in a row. Nearly 35,000 homes across Canada were sold in April, an 11.2 per cent increase over the previous month.

Prices haven’t yet recovered from the economic swoon—they’re down 3.2 per cent from a year ago—but analysts say that may have something to do with the apparent rebound. “So far,” says TD Bank economist Paul Gauthier, “the first four months of 2009 lends credence to the view that improved affordability is winning out against the weak economic backdrop of a recession.” Coupled with interest rates hitting all-time lows, buyers appear to be cautiously dipping into a market that, just a few months ago, looked like it might implode.

Click below to see what’s available in some of Canada’s largest markets.

The trouble with gas sippers

By Colin Campbell - Friday, May 22, 2009 at 12:08 PM - 6 Comments

North American car executives put on a happy face when they stood side-by-side with U.S. President Barack Obama and environmentalists to unveil new fuel efficiency rules this week. Under the new standards, the cars they build will have to get 35.5 miles per gallon (up from 25 mpg) by 2016—a much shorter timeline than any had expected. Speaking to reporters after the announcement, the executives applauded the ambitious move, which will force them to make cars over 40 per cent more efficient. But what they didn’t say publicly, in front of their new boss, is that this will be a severely onerous task for an already very fragile industry.

Meeting the new rules will cost the auto companies billions of dollars as they speed up the necessary engineering work to design and build more fuel efficient cars and retool plants. And this comes at a time when car makers like G.M., Ford and even Toyota have no money to spare. “This is the equivalent to be being very sick in the hospital and then coming down with pneumonia,” says Rebecca Lindland, an auto analysts at IHS Global Insight. Just hours before the deal was announced, Ford informed the White House it might not survive under the new rules and threatened to pull its support, reported the Los Angeles Times. It was eventually convinced to play along.

Continue…

G.M. and CAW strike a deal

By macleans.ca - Friday, May 22, 2009 at 12:02 PM - 1 Comment

General Motors reached a tentative deal with the Canadian Auto Workers last night that will help the company survive and keep plants open in Canada. The agreement will result in a restructuring of G.M.’s pension plan, but preserves pension benefits for workers, said CAW president Ken Lewenza at a news conference this morning. By bringing labour costs in line with those at foreign automakers like Toyota, the new cost-cutting deal also clears the way for G.M. to qualify for the critical government loans it needs to keep its doors open.

CTV News

Toronto Star

The Most Important Issue Of Our Time: Drew Carey's Hair

By Jaime Weinman - Friday, May 22, 2009 at 11:58 AM - 6 Comments

Today was the first time in a while that I’d looked at The Price Is Right, and all I could focus on was Drew Carey’s hair. (Hair is, of course, an important TPIR element; I say this as one who lived through the controversial Bob Barker black-to-grey switch.) His signature look is the short Dilbertian haircut, but now he seems to have let his hair go all shaggy. I can’t find a recent TPIR picture, but here’s what he looks like now, minus the stubble:

It’s weird. Not that it’s a weird hairstyle (Alex Trebek’s hairstyles: some of those were weird, especially when he was working in Canada on shows like Pitfall). But Carey is not associated with messy hair, and more importantly, TPIR isn’t either; Barker started hosting the show in the ’70s, yet he didn’t adopt the insane hairstyles of the period. Carey has always had trouble projecting the fatherly, authority-figure image that a traditional game-show host needs to have — which means that when he makes fun of the contestants, it comes off as kind of mean; Barker was able to subtly mock idiot contestants without making us hate him — and I don’t see how he hopes to improve matters by, apparently, growing a mullet.

Also on the episode I watched, the “bad” showcase (the one with no theme) turned out to be worth more than the “good” showcase (with the cool presentation theme). That just doesn’t seem right.

Piano Man

By Rachel Mendleson - Friday, May 22, 2009 at 11:56 AM - 1 Comment

In a feat that was as much about physical stamina as musical prowess, Canadian pianist Gonzales won himself a place in the Guinness Book of World Records on Monday, with a concert that lasted an exhausting 27 hours, three minutes and 44 seconds. Originally from Montreal, Gonzales (born Jason Beck), has earned notoriety for producing Feist’s second album “The Reminder,” and releasing six of his own. But his most recent performance at a theatre in Paris, where he now lives, is attracting attention from well outside the confines of his traditional indie-rock fan base—which, according to Gonzales, was precisely the point.

Q: When you were preparing for the marathon performance, you had a team of doctors and an acupuncturist giving you advice. What was the most useful suggestion you received?

A: Well, useful in an oppositional way, interestingly enough. They told me, “Listen, you can’t give 100 per cent all the time. It’s a marathon. You’re not going to be able to do that.” That really rankled me, because the whole point of doing this was to show that not only could I assure the quantitative aspects of the challenge—to do the 27 hours—but I wanted as well to qualitatively succeed, and to me, that meant giving 100 per cent all of the time. And I think I did. Despite being advised to coast on autopilot at certain moments, I really resisted that temptation. And I went as deep as I could into the music and as deep as I could into the dynamics. Playing softly, playing very loudly, taking it to some surreal levels, letting the audience decide what songs I was playing, all of that was a strategy to avoid autopilot, so that they would be implicated in it with me. Because otherwise it would have been very easy for me to get that 27-hour record, but have people leave, or watch the stream and go “Ah, this is useless.” To me, I only get the ego boost when I feel like I’ve shared something. That’s what makes me an entertainer, not an artist.

Q: Before the concert, you said you were “freaking out but enjoying the freak out.” To what extent did that change once you started to play? Were you more nervous or less? How did that play out?

A: It went in cycles. There were a few moments where I just was worried about keeping up the qualitative aspects. I don’t think that I ever thought that I wouldn’t make it to 27 (hours), but I was having doubts about whether the audience would indulge for hours, and just listen to the piano, especially when it became clear that it was going to be a long day. You don’t really realize that until you play the first three hours and then you realize, “Okay, I’m a ninth of the way through.” It looms in front of you.

Continue…

The Obamas' personal art stimulus package

By macleans.ca - Friday, May 22, 2009 at 11:52 AM - 2 Comments

The First Couple’s intention to revamp the White House art collection to include the bold abstract work of lesser-known African-American, Asian, Hispanic and female artists is sending ripples of joy through the art market, reports the Wall Street Journal. Like Michelle Obama’s clothing choices, the Obamas’ art selections telegraph a political message-signalling political inclusiveness and a defiant change from the staid 19th-century still lifes, pastorals and portraits that dominate the White House’s public rooms. Collectors predict that the choices will likely affect the artists’ market values-and raise their profiles. The changes in White House art come as the Obama administration seeks to boost arts funding; the president included $50 million in his economic stimulus package for the National Endowment for the Arts.

The Wall Street Journal

The ultimate bubble-gum movie

By macleans.ca - Friday, May 22, 2009 at 11:51 AM - 0 Comments

Producer Michael Eisner has commissioned a script for a movie about Bazooka Joe, the eyepatch-wearing comic-strip character who has appeared on the wrappers of Bazooka gum since the 1950s. Eisner recently bought the Topps company, which manufactures Bazooka, and this is his attempt to “rejuvenate the brand” by bringing Joe’s family-friendly hijinks to the movies. Gum isn’t just for the floors and seats of movie theatres anymore; now it’s going to be up on the screen, too.

The Hollywood Reporter

"I want the killers dead"

By macleans.ca - Friday, May 22, 2009 at 11:42 AM - 9 Comments

In her first interview since learning that her daughter is not coming home, Tara McDonald said she wants the suspects “dead”—and the police to apologize. Two people, 28-year-old Michael Rafferty and 18-year-old Terri-Lynne McClintic, have been charged in connection with the little girl’s abduction and murder. But in the weeks before the arrests, McDonald says detectives repeatedly accused her of being responsible for Tori’s disappearance. “The three times I was interviewed by police, they said: ‘We know it’s you,’ ” she said. “One officer came into my house and said: ‘You are my prime suspect. I have been doing this job as long as you have been alive and I have never seen a mother behave like you.’ ” While eight-year-old Tori was still missing, McDonald was often criticized for her apparent lack of emotion (she held a daily press conference on her front lawn, and somehow managed never to cry). But during an interview with the London Free Press, she repeatedly fought back tears, saying that police owe her family an apology. “I don’t want anyone else to have to go through this,” she said. “All I kept thinking, all along, was that she’s somewhere; she’s fine; someone is taking care of her. They just wanted a beautiful little girl for themselves and they took my beautiful girl.” Investigators are still searching for Tori’s remains.

London Free Press

How to get rid of 'bed blockers' from your party

By macleans.ca - Friday, May 22, 2009 at 11:41 AM - 0 Comments

Britain’s on-going parliamentary expense scandal continues to claim more victims, with two more MPs announcing their intention to step down today. But there may be a silver-lining for the opposition Conservatives says the Daily Telegraph. David Cameron, the youthful Tory leader, is seizing the opportunity to rid his part of “bed blockers”-older backbenchers whose careers had stalled, but who refuse to step aside. A Tory “star-chamber” is examining all members expense claims and showing no mercy to the weak and infirm.

The Telegraph

The political peril of sitting on a lead

By Paul Wells - Friday, May 22, 2009 at 10:50 AM - 101 Comments

The scuttlebutt in Ottawa—from senior Conservatives, retired civil servants, people-who-know-people—goes like this: it is fin de régime time for Stephen Harper. Discipline is out the window. Young staffers, who hoped they were coming into government to do something, are listless and demoralized.

The Prime Minister’s Office is obsessed with leaks on the inside and lousy coverage on the outside. This is significant because it represents a change of attitude at the centre. For long after he was elected in 2006, Harper really was a man on the move, too busy and determined to worry about critics. A friend of the Prime Minister’s bragged to me, in late 2006, that articles from the Globe and Mail weren’t even included in the PMO’s daily press clippings. Transcripts from talk radio were. Who cared what some snooty Bay Street rag was saying about the people’s government anyway?

Continue…

Insights into the aging brain

By macleans.ca - Friday, May 22, 2009 at 10:49 AM - 0 Comments

Fewer than one in 200 people will live past 90 without a trace of dementia, yet these people are helping researchers understand how mental lucidity can be preserved late in life, the New York Times reports. At Laguna Woods, a retirement community of 20,000 seniors outside L.A., scientists have been studying health and mental wellbeing in the elderly since 1981. The 90+ Study, as it’s called, has included more than 14,000 people aged 65 and older. People who spend three hours or more on mental activities like cards or crosswords seem to be at lower risk of developing dementia, while diet and exercise so far seem to have little effect. Social engagement also seems to be important. “There is quite a bit of evidence now suggesting that the more people you have contact with, in your own home or outside, the better you do” mentally and physically, says Dr. Claudia Kawas, a neurologist at the University of California, Irvine. “Interacting with people regularly, even strangers, uses easily as much brain power as doing puzzles, and it wouldn’t surprise me if this is what it’s all about.”

The New York Times

Maxime Bernier Maverick Watch

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, May 22, 2009 at 10:49 AM - 3 Comments

He’s started a blog.

The Passion of the beard

By macleans.ca - Friday, May 22, 2009 at 10:33 AM - 2 Comments

Jack Passion, a 25-year-old American musician, has the world’s best beard. Seriously. In 2007, Passion won first place in the World Beard and Moustache Championships in the category “full beard: natural.” The victory, as the Los Angeles Times reports, launched him to “overnight celebrity in the insular subculture of competitive facial hair.” He just finished a book called The Facial Hair Handbook. Passion, whose explosion of red facial hair reaches down to his belt (it’s been growing for six years), will try to defend his title at the upcoming championships in Anchorage, Alaska this year. Says a fellow competitive bearder about Passion: “He is to bearding what the Octomom is to motherhood.”

Los Angeles Times

Ruby Dhalla is losing the PR war

By macleans.ca - Friday, May 22, 2009 at 10:12 AM - 4 Comments

Liberal MP Ruby Dhalla, who can now officially be described as “embattled”, is losing the public relations war, according to an Angus Reid poll commissioned by the Toronto Star: Just 8 per cent of respondents believe Dhalla’s version of events, compared with the 29 per cent who side with the caregivers who have accused the MP and her family of forcing them to perform “non-nanny jobs” and withholding their’ passports. Amongst Liberals, support for Dhalla is a bit higher — 19 per cent — although 22 per cent back the workers. The survey also found that 34 per cent of Canadians – and 39 per cent of Ontario residents – “now have a worse opinion of Dhalla”, although it’s not clear how many had any opinion about her at all in the first place.

Toronto Star

Beat the Taliban in Afghanistan, push them into Pakistan

By macleans.ca - Friday, May 22, 2009 at 10:11 AM - 0 Comments

America’s top military man, Admiral Michael Mullen, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, says beating the Taliban in Afghanistan might mean merely pushing the problem deeper into Pakistan. Mullen almost makes that sound worse. After all, the UN already says up to two million Pakistanis have had to flee the northwestern part of their country, where Pakistan’s army is taking on the Taliban. Now that thousands of new US troops are poring into Afghanistan-partly to help out the beleaguered Canadians in Kandahar- Taliban fighters are retreating to Pakistan. “Can I… [be] 100 per cent certain that won’t destabilise Pakistan?” Mullen said. “I don’t know the answer to that.”

BBC News

WWII death camp survivor to testify

By macleans.ca - Friday, May 22, 2009 at 10:10 AM - 0 Comments

Sobibor death camp survivor Thomas Blatt is in Munich to testify at the trial of John Demjanjuk, who is accused of participating in the murder of at least 29,000 people while a guard at Sobibor during the Second World War. Blatt spoke to Der Spiegel about the role Ukrainians played at the camp: “The SS group was made up of only 30 Germans, and of those half were always on vacation or sick. We saw more Ukrainians than Germans at Sobibor, and we were terrified of them.” Blatt escaped Sobibor during a prisoner uprising in October 1943 in which some 300 Jews escaped. It was the largest prisoner outbreak of the Second World War.

Spiegel Online

The Canada-Philippines Parliamentary Friendship Group

By Mitchel Raphael - Friday, May 22, 2009 at 9:30 AM - 3 Comments

The Canada-Philippines Parliamentary Friendship Group was recently created on the Hill at a meeting in a West Block conference room just a few doors down from Ruby Dhalla’s office.

(Left to right) Winnipeg Conservative MP Rod Bruinooge, Philippines Ambassador Jose Brillantes and NDP Winnipeg MP Judy Wasylycia-Leis. Bruinooge and Wasylycia-Leis are the co-chairs of the new group.

MPs (standing) and three congresswomen from the Philippines (sitting).

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'It corrodes the reputation of our political institutions'

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, May 21, 2009 at 9:48 PM - 54 Comments

Bruce Anderson offers a long and thoughtful consideration of political advertising.

Reach and frequency of advertising can accomplish a lot in the world of advertising effectiveness, and it may well be the case that Mr. Ignatieff’s reputation suffers somewhat through the coming weeks. But in authorizing these ads, at this time, the risk to Prime Minister Stephen Harper may over the long run prove greater still.

What they're reading in the PMO

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, May 21, 2009 at 9:19 PM - 5 Comments

CPAC broadcast tape this evening of Drew Westen, author of The Political Brain, speaking in Ottawa last month. Video is online here. Near the end, Westen was asked a question by someone who at least looked a lot like Mark Cameron, senior policy advisor and director of strategic initiatives in the Prime Minister’s Office.

Here’s how Westen describes his book. Continue…