Sir Ben: Acting 101

By Brian D. Johnson - Wednesday, July 22, 2009 at 2:19 PM - 1 Comment

Drug-delivering contact lenses on the horizon

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, July 22, 2009 at 2:12 PM - 0 Comments

Almost 90 per cent of eye medication comes in the form of eye drops, Wired reports; but beyond being unpopular and awkward to use, drops just don’t work that well. Less than 10 per cent of the medication actually gets absorbed into the eye. For nearly a decade, researchers have been working on contact lenses that can deliver eye medication, but they’ve struggled to make one that releases a continuous supply of drugs. Now, scientists are reporting they’ve created a model that can deliver a constant amount of antibiotic for more than 30 days. Previous designs dissolved medication into the hydrogel that contacts are made of, but this new design is more like a “pita pocket,” researchers report. The prototype has been tested with ciprofloxacin, an antibiotic often used against eye infections. In experiments, the lense released about 134 micrograms of the drug each day for 30 days, which was enough to block bacterial growth. Animal testing is next, and human testing is expected to begin in a year or so.

Wired

The ghost of Tommy Douglas (II)

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, July 22, 2009 at 1:51 PM - 19 Comments

Susan Delacourt reports Jack Layton will be on MSNBC this evening, which leaves her somewhat confused.

Perhaps I’ve missed it, but have there been any Conservative-government representatives doing the same thing on the American airwaves? Is our current health minister unavailable?  Perhaps the government should hire some U.S. communications folks to get Harper and others some spots on American networks. Oh wait. They already have.

The ghost of Tommy Douglas

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, July 22, 2009 at 1:48 PM - 11 Comments

Video of Ujjal Dosanjh’s second appearance on CNN doesn’t yet seem available, but CNN has posted the transcript of its segment, Dosanjh and Wyoming Senator John Barrasso back-to-back in pseudo debate moderated by the insistent Rick Sanchez.

Full exchange after the jump. Continue…

Can higher ed reach higher?

By Paul Wells - Wednesday, July 22, 2009 at 1:18 PM - 48 Comments

There’s a paradox to being the president of a large Canadian university: on most days you get to feel more influential and more powerless than most people can imagine.

In next week’s Maclean’s, we’ll talk with the presidents of Canada’s five largest universities about the challenges they face, and what they think needs fixing in our university system. It’s first worth examining, however, just how big a footprint these five make in Canada, and how Canadian universities in general stack up internationally. The institutions in question—the University of British Columbia, University of Alberta, University of Toronto, McGill University, and the Université de Montréal—are an elite bunch. They have nearly 22 per cent of Canada’s undergraduate student enrolment and produce nearly 45 per cent of the country’s doctorates. Continue…

The girl with the universal appeal

By Brian Bethune - Wednesday, July 22, 2009 at 1:15 PM - 3 Comments

Lisbeth Salander, one of the coolest if most disturbing fictional crime fighters of recent years, was to have been the Watson to investigative reporter Mikael Blomkvist’s Holmes in Swedish writer Stieg Larsson’s scarifying Millennium trilogy. But, as strong secondary characters often do, she so dominated the story in the first novel that English-language publishers changed its title. The original title, Men Who Hate Women, may have captured one of Larsson’s key themes, but The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo rightly took note of Lisbeth’s star power. And she moves even more to the forefront of the hugely popular series in the second book, The Girl Who Played With Fire (to be released in August), when Lisbeth—a tattooed, pierced, brilliant, angry, Aspergerian and utterly ruthless computer hacker—is framed for the murders of two reporters.

The trilogy opens with Blomkvist facing the consequences of a mistake that threatens his career and his reputation. Convicted of libel against a corrupt businessman, he has little choice but to accept an assignment from another tycoon, Henrik Vanger. Four decades earlier, in a classic Agatha Christie situation—Larsson, a well-read fan of English-language mysteries, peppers his trilogy with homages to icons of the genre—the Vanger family was gathered on an island temporarily sealed off from the mainland when Vanger’s great-niece Harriet vanished. Now he wants Blomkvist to uncover the truth about that day. Together with Salander, Blomkvist uncovers a litany of abuse, suppressed truth and murder. Continue…

You smoke, I might as well

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, July 22, 2009 at 1:08 PM - 4 Comments

Researchers at Wake Forest University School of Medicine have found high rates of second-hand smoke among American college students. Of 4,223 undergrads, 83 per cent had been exposed to SHS at least once in the preceding seven days, usually at a restaurant or bar, at home or in a car. Binge-drinkers were even more likely to report SHS exposure. “We were really kind of floored to see how many, and how frequently, students are exposed to it,” said one of the study’s authors. The study appears online in the July 23 issue of Nicotine & Tobacco Research.

Science Daily

Hugo Chavez says its time to give the media back to the people

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, July 22, 2009 at 1:07 PM - 0 Comments

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is moving to tighten government control over national media. Most recently, Chavez announced that the government might close as many as 240 radio stations – shifting airwave supremacy to Chavez’s own pro-administration “Community Radio.” “If we recover I don’t know how many stations, it won’t be to give them back to the bourgeoisie,” Chavez explained on Tuesday. “No, no. We have to create popular radio for the people.” Also among the proposed measures is a plan for a new “media law” – which would make publishing opinion, rather than fact a crime. “Threats to the media are nothing new, but they have become an avalanche,” says Rafael Chavero, a constitutional law professor in Caracas. Two years ago, Chavez refused to renew the license of RCTV – the country’s most popular TV network which broadcast commentary critical of Chavez’s policies.

Los Angeles Times

More bad news for newspapers

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, July 22, 2009 at 1:06 PM - 2 Comments

It costs the New York Times about twice as much money to print and deliver the newspaper over a year as it would cost to send each of its subscribers a brand new Amazon Kindle. According to the Times, the company spends $63 million per quarter on raw materials and US$148 million on wages and benefits. Wages and benefits for just the newsroom are about US$200 million per year. After multiplying the quarterly costs by four and subtracting that US$200 million out, a rough estimate for the Times’s delivery costs would be US$644 million per year. The Kindle retails for US$359. In a recent open letter, Times spokesperson Catherine Mathis wrote: “We have 830,000 loyal readers who have subscribed to The New York Times for more than two years.” Multiply those numbers together and you get US$297 million—a little less than half as much as US$644 million. Actually, things could be worse: a source with knowledge of the real numbers tells Business Insider that it’s “so low in our estimate of the Times’s printing costs that we’re not even in the ballpark.”

The Business Insider

The Rico Act(or)

By Jaime Weinman - Wednesday, July 22, 2009 at 12:55 PM - 2 Comments

Via TV, Eh?, a German publication recently had an interview with Enrico Colantoni to promote Flashpoint‘s German TV premiere. He also says he hasn’t heard anything about the long-rumoured, ever-elusive possibility of a Veronica Mars movie.

As the introduction to the interview makes clear, Colantoni will always be best known (or should be, anyway) as Keith Mars, but I think I appreciated him even more on Just Shoot Me, for one reason: he managed to do well in that part despite being totally miscast. He was the right age, but I remember watching the pilot and wondering why this bald, intense guy was cast as the show’s resident ladies’ man. The part was written like the character was handsome, cocky (cue hilarious double-entendre) extremely successful with women, and displaying hints of romantic tension with the heroine. And Enrico Colantoni was a good actor who looked about 10 years older than he was, and seemed unlikely to be more of a hit with women than even David Spade.

But he was cast because he was a good actor, and available (his last show, Hope and Gloria, had just failed), and the writers worked around his appearance and, if they couldn’t make him a sex symbol, at least didn’t try too hard to convince us that he was one. Which kind of taught me, as a viewer, that casting the right actor is often better than casting the right physical type: the writers can deal with womanizing photographer who looks like a more personable George Costanza, as long as he can act the part. (Veronica Mars is one of many other shows where this lesson played out, because Kristen Bell is a completely different physical type than the one Rob Thomas specified in his original script.)

'Is it we're gay?'

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, July 22, 2009 at 12:12 PM - 20 Comments

Suzanne Girard poses the question of the day.

“To be told that there is no money, when there is. They have $100 million put aside; they chose not to give to Divers/Cité. The reasons … we don’t know. Is it we’re gay? Is it we’re Montrealers? We’re Québécois? It’s incredible they would decide at this late date, five days before our event starts,” said Girard.

Girard said the Divers/Cité festival, in its 17th year, provides vital economic stimulus. ”Per capita, we bring in more tourism than any other festival in Canada. And you can ask any Montreal taxi driver, the hotels … about our impact on Montreal … we are a niche market, we are an extremely important tourism event,” said Girard.

More from Kady and Paul.

Michael Jackson’s love child?

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, July 22, 2009 at 12:11 PM - 2 Comments

Omer Bhatti has reportedly asked for a DNA test to confirm that he is the son of Michael Jackson. According to the Daily Mail, Jackson was said to have told friends that Bhatti, now a 25-year-old Norwegian rapper, was conceived after a one-night stand in Norway in 1984. Jackson’s youngest son, Blanket share similar physical characteristics, fuelling speculation that Bhatti is Jackson’s progeny. Bhatti was in the first row at Jackson’s memorial service at the Staples centre, sitting between Prince Michael I and Rebbie, Jackson’s oldest sister. “‘Make what you like. I don’t want to discuss anything,” says Bhatti’s father Riz, who acknowledged Bhatti’s presence at the memorial but refused to comment further.

The Daily Mail

Canadians mostly like their health care

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, July 22, 2009 at 11:36 AM - 7 Comments

The U.S. health-care debate is dominated by dark warnings about the flaws of the nationalized Canadian system. But apparently somebody forgot to tell Canadians that their system is a socialistic nightmare. A new Ipsos-McClatchy online poll shows that Canadians, overall, are happier with their health-care than Americans are with theirs, at least when it comes to access: almost two-thirds of Canadian respondents say that they have access to the care they need at a price they can afford, compared to less than half of U.S. respondents. One U.S. warning, however, may be true — most Canadians say they have to wait a long time to see a specialist, and they’re often kept waiting for appointments. On the other hand, of course, it’s easier to have shorter waiting times if nobody gets treated.

McClatchy Newspapers

Welcome back, Earl Jones

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, July 22, 2009 at 11:35 AM - 1 Comment

Turns out, disgraced Montreal investment advisor Earl Jones is in Canada after all. And police knew it all along, according to Jones’s lawyer, who says his client has been keeping a low profile after receiving threats. Jones is alleged to have siphoned up to $50 million from his clients, some of whom invested their entire life savings with him. His firm has since been shut down while investigators try to piece together evidence amid rumours Jones had fled to the U.S. or the U.K. lawyer Jeffrey Boro says Jones did indeed travel to the U.S., but says his client is back in Canada and ready to meet with police. “I have access to my client and when the police are ready to speak with him, he will be ready to meet with them,” he says. Boro adds Jones isn’t handling the controversy surrounding him very well, suggesting “it would not be a surprise” if Jones took his own life.

CTV News

Mideast phone company rigging BlackBerries with spyware, RIM charges

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, July 22, 2009 at 11:34 AM - 0 Comments

Fascinating dust-up out of Abu Dhabi, where Waterloo, Ont.-based Research in Motion is calling out the local phone monopoly over a so-called “performance enhancing” application the company issued to BlackBerry subscribers. In reality, RIM alleges in an eight-page letter to customers, the application—known as a patch—is spyware. “Independent sources have concluded that it is possible that the installed software could then enable unauthorized access to private or confidential information stored on the user’s smartphone,” the statement read. The company, Etisalat, has not yet responded to the charge, but claimed in a recent statement that the app was intended to facilitate the “handover between 2G and 3G networks.” Etisalat is 60-percent owned by the United Arab Emirates government, and provides wireless service in 17 countries.

Gulf News

More on Iran's Press TV and those in the West who work for it

By Michael Petrou - Wednesday, July 22, 2009 at 11:22 AM - 9 Comments

Some Iranian ex-pats living in London aren’t too happy with their fellow Brits who work for Iran’s propaganda arm either. They are distributing the following leaflet to Press TV employees later this afternoon. A copy of the leaflet was sent to me by British-Iranian blogger and pro-democracy activist Potkin Azarmehr.  

Press TV Employees, Do You Have a Conscience?

The election fraud on 12^th June, engineered by Ahmadinejad and his messianic junta, has resulted in massive protests throughout Iran. Hundreds of peaceful protesters including those in their teens have been killed, either as a result of direct gun shots or savage beatings by the Baseej and hired criminal thugs at the disposal of the coup masters.

Thousands, who have opposed the election fraud, including pregnant women, are in various jails and unknown detention centres and subject to the most horrific tortures. Some have even been raped in order to be humiliated into silence. Continue…

Liesl! Pack little Farahilde and the cellos. We're going to Ottawa!

By Paul Wells - Wednesday, July 22, 2009 at 11:10 AM - 51 Comments

Here in the string quartet section of macleans.ca, I know you’ll be as delighted as I am to learn that the federal government’s not-at-all-ridiculous Marquee Tourism Events Program has announced another grant. And just in the nick of time! Yes, it’s the Ottawa International Chamber Music Festival, which truly is a marvellous event, and for which I have already, long ago, purchased a single Platinum Pass so I can spend much of the next 10 days geeking out to Haydn and Mendelssohn without actually having to drag any of my already-long-suffering friends along. Anyway, just this morning, the indefatigable Royal Galipeau, Conservative MP for Somewhere Around Here, announced a MTEP grant of $210,000 to “make it possible to increase marketing and promotional efforts aimed at attracting audiences from out-of-province and out-of-country, specifically targeting major cities in the U.S., England and other European centres.”

For this year’s Chamberfest.

Which starts in three days.

This is asinine.

But perhaps I am being too harsh. Continue…

Clinton threatens "crippling action"

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, July 22, 2009 at 10:59 AM - 3 Comments

U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton threatened “crippling action,” against Iran if it continues on its alleged pursuit of nuclear weapons, breaking with the US policy of staying silent on plans to deal with the rogue country. The move is an apparent attempt to reassure the America’s Arab allies, many of whom are worried about Iran’s uranium enrichment program. An Iranian official has called Clinton’s remarks “a mistake,” and the government continues to claim that its enrichment program is meant to provide fuel for nuclear reactors, and not weapons. Six major powers have offered Iran expertise and economic assistance in constructing a nuclear power grid—in exchange for halting uranium enrichment—but with the recent reelection of hard-line president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, it looks like the government will turn down the offer. In any case, experts say Iran is quickly depleting its uranium supply, meaning it can probably only build a very limited stockpile of nuclear weapons.

The Guardian

On the uses of absence

By Paul Wells - Wednesday, July 22, 2009 at 10:41 AM - 38 Comments

Michael Ignatieff’s absence from the headlines is getting noticed. Certainly (he said with a sigh) it’s unsurprising; at a dinner with friends on June 18 I counted the weeks until the Blue-Chip EI Report was to come, with its attendant Threat Level Alpha Confidence Vote Crisis, and there were 14 weeks, and I said, Boy, he probably doesn’t want to blow half that time getting ready to do something — this I said in the tone of someone who fully expected Ignatieff to do just that — and now there are nine weeks until the Major Crisis. And Colleague Feschuk and ex-Colleague Radwanski (whose new mug shot looks very good) have sent out the search parties.

But that reminds me of something. It reminds me of Stephen Harper’s first summer as leader of the Canadian Alliance, when even the non-hostile editorialists of the National Post ran an editorial complaining about his absence from the spotlight. (Our editorial ran the day after Harper showed up at a National Post Calgary Stampede party, and if it’s any consolation, Prime Minister, Ken Whyte still feels a bit sheepish about that.) On the CBC’s At Issue panel — this was a long time ago, before they got the formula right — I did a little comic riff on Harper’s absence, calling him the first narcoleptic opposition leader on record. The next time he saw me, in September, he made a point of catching my eye and pretending to nod off. This was a long time ago, when he still permitted himself to have a sense of humour.

But I digress. Continue…

UPDATED: Tony Clement: Righting the course with Rev. Charles McVety?

By kadyomalley - Wednesday, July 22, 2009 at 9:02 AM - 66 Comments

I know Colleague Wherry has already posted about it, but honestly, it’s getting harder and harder not to see a possible connection between Rev. Charles McVety’s “Right The Course” campaign to stop federal funding for “sex parades” and stories like this:

A gay and lesbian arts festival that was told it met all government criteria under a new tourism stimulus program learned Tuesday it was rejected for funding.

The news arrived at Montreal’s Divers-Cite a few weeks after tension swept the Conservative caucus over funding for Toronto’s Pride week, and just days before the beginning of the event. [...]

Government relations and marketing director Paul Girard said bureaucrats handling his file at Industry Canada told him his application met all the criteria, and had been sent up to Minister Tony Clement’s office for final approval.

When he phoned to check on the bid Tuesday, Mr. Girard says he was told by a senior bureaucrat that the $100-million program had received so many requests, the government simply had to make a choice.

“We knew that anybody that was to be refused and didn’t meet the criteria got a quick No,” Mr. Girard said. “As time advanced, we became more and more confident.” [...]

“We met all the criteria — this is a democracy,” Mr. Girard said. “They changed the rules as they went along.

“I feel like I’ve been had.”

Divers/Cite, of course, was one of two major Montreal-area LGBT events — what McVety would call  ”sex parades” — that were waiting anxiously by the phone following the furore that erupted after Conservative backbencher Brad Trost bragged to LifeSite News that the decision to fund the Toronto pride parade likely led to Diane Ablonczy being yanked off the marquee event file.

As it happens, ITQ actually dropped a note to the organizers of the other one — The Black & Blue Festival — just the other day to see if they’d heard anything about the fate of their application. Here’s what  Robert Vezina had to say in response:

Continue…

Toronto stinks

By Charlie Gillis and Kate Lunau - Wednesday, July 22, 2009 at 8:30 AM - 32 Comments

The apocalypse, as advertised on morning radio, hadn’t come to pass. Traffic moved well along Toronto’s Lakeshore Boulevard last weekend as pickets allowed people to drop off their garbage at three giant parking lots fenced off for the purpose. Union leaders had warned that striking municipal workers would be delaying residents up to an hour at these specially designated dump sites before letting them off-load—a gambit that would have transformed the area into a knot of snarled traffic and snarling drivers. But instead of chaos, motorists were greeted on Saturday by two men wearing strike placards and morose expressions. One held back drivers for all of two minutes, before letting them roll ahead to the drop zone. Most drivers passed through without hearing a gripe.

Maybe the workers figured Toronto’s municipal employees strike was nearing its bitter end. But if they thought they were getting the upper hand they were wrong. For more than three weeks, mounds of plastic bags had been stretching toward the far reaches of the lakeshore lots, as 24,000 inside and outside workers represented by the Canadian Union of Public Employees walked the picket lines, and residents grimly took up the task of transporting their own trash for disposal. The resulting spectacle is at once impressive and revolting: in a few short days, the piles at the lakeshore—one of 21 such sites through the city—rose and spread to cover several acres behind translucent snow fences, attracting squadrons of seagulls and emitting an odour whose foul complexity was hard to describe (rotting food and soiled diapers were just the beginning). On Sunday, city managers had obtained their second court injunction allowing pest control workers to spray the burgeoning piles, while the zones themselves were nearing capacity. Yet somehow Torontonians were struggling through. Continue…

Coming to a milk carton near you

By Scott Feschuk - Wednesday, July 22, 2009 at 7:17 AM - 43 Comments

Back from some time away and, okay, very funny and everything guys but, um, what have you done with Michael Ignatieff?

I swear – he was right here when I left. Tall guy. Smart. Fairly eyebrowy. Come on, you remember him! He was threatening this and wagging his finger at that – then he flipped a pancake or two out in Calgary and… poof! Gonzo.

Has anybody checked the salons of 18th century Europe?

Don’t get me wrong: I understand the rigors Continue…

No trains to Toronto — Canada cut off

By Andrew Potter - Tuesday, July 21, 2009 at 11:10 PM - 7 Comments

Via Rail announced Tuesday night that numerous train trips will be cancelled or stop short of their original destinations due to pending job action by locomotive engineers.

Service being disrupted included routes between:
• Toronto and Vancouver;
• Toronto and Windsor;
• Toronto and Ottawa;
• Montreal and Toronto;
• Montreal and Ottawa;
• Quebec and Montreal;
• Montreal and Halifax;
• Winnipeg and Churchill, Man;
• Jasper, Alta. and   Prince Rupert, B.C.;
• Toronto and Niagara;
• Toronto and London; and
• Toronto and Sarnia.

'The facts … do not support such an inference'

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, July 21, 2009 at 10:22 PM - 12 Comments

An official response from foreign affairs to the Globe’s latest report on Abousfian Abdelrazik’s exile.

The inference drawn in today’s Globe and Mail article is not supportable and is in fact irresponsible. There was no such offer, as was suggested in the reporter’s questions. Despite DFAIT’s unequivocal statement to that effect in our response to the Globe and Mail reporter, this conjecture was reported as fact.

We reject the premise of the reporter’s question and the inferences he drew in the subsequent article.

Furthermore,  the facts of this case do not support such an inference. Mr Abdelrazik was released from custody in Sudan in July 2006, despite his inability to return to Canada at that time.

Following his release, he lived openly and at large in Sudan with his family, during which time he remarried and had a child.