"Plus, they can replace them, and no one can tell the diddley-ifference!"

By Jaime Weinman - Friday, July 17, 2009 at 3:26 PM - 5 Comments

Update 2: Nope, it’s a real salary dispute. Michael Schneider says the voice actors are demanding $75,000 per episode, and Fox is offering… not that.

Update: Or this could all be a hoax to attract attention to a Comic-Con panel. (No, it isn’t; see update # 2, above.)

Yes, apparently what you have heard is true: Fox has put out a casting call for the lead voice roles in the new season of Futurama.

According to no less than cast members John DiMaggio, Phil LaMarr, and Maurice LaMarche on their Facebook pages, a casting notice has gone out to replace actors DiMaggio, LaMarche, Billy West and Katy Sagal.

The casting call that follows lists all the roles played by those actors, and asks applicants to submit their best imitations of “these established characters.”

Those who remember the great Simpsons voice actor holdout of the late ’90s will remember that Fox put out a similar call asking for replacements. It was a negotiation gambit, to keep salaries down. The gambit failed because most established voice actors didn’t want any part of it (Pamela Segall, Bobby on King of the Hill, recalled that she told her agent not to go anywhere near this). In this case, there’s little doubt that Fox is doing this in hopes of getting the Futurama regular actors to take a pay cut, since Futurama will have a lower budget and less earning power on Comedy Central, and keeping voice-actor salaries down is one way to make budget cuts.

There are three ways this could work out, which I’d rank this way in order of likelihood: 1) The regulars are spooked into signing for less than they made before; 2) Fox can’t get any potential replacements lined up and the regulars get the money they want; 3) The show goes back on the air with new voice actors. I rank possibility 1 over 2 because Futurama is a less high-profile show than The Simpsons, being produced (now) for basic cable, and Fox and Comedy Central might have a better shot at at least signing up some plausible replacements, though not good ones.

West, of course, has been through the basic-cable replacement game on both ends. He replaced John Kricfalusi as the voice of Ren (on Ren and Stimpy) when Kricfalusi was fired by the network, and then, when the show came back with new (bad) episodes by Kricfalusi, West himself was replaced as Stimpy.

And, since I can’t find much else that deals directly with the replacement of voice actors, here’s a cartoon that ends with a guy getting scared into re-signing by the presence of lots of potential voice subs. “All righty, all here to read for the part of The Brain?”

‘Bogus’ peacekeeping?

By Martin Patriquin - Friday, July 17, 2009 at 2:00 PM - 144 Comments

Michael Ignatieff, Liberal leader, is lavish in his adoration for the country and the people he wishes to lead. His recently published book, True Patriot Love, which dovetailed with his ascension to the Liberal party leadership, is replete with fuzzy bromides about Canada and its “quietly but intensely patriotic” citizens.

Yet Michael Ignatieff, Harvard professor and public intellectual, was once slightly more harsh toward his native land. Following a 2005 lecture at the University of Dublin’s Trinity College, Ignatieff excoriated Canadians for trading on Canada’s “entirely bogus reputation as peacekeepers” for 40 years and for favouring “hospitals and schools and roads” over international citizenship. “If you are a human rights defender and you want something done to stop [a] massacre, you have to go to the Pentagon, because no one else is serious,” Ignatieff said. Continue…

TV Tidbits

By Jaime Weinman - Friday, July 17, 2009 at 1:42 PM - 1 Comment

It’s Friday, and since we no longer get to spend the day in eager, breathless anticipation of the arrival of ABC’s TGIF lineup, I guess the only thing to do is look at a few TV news items, blog posts, and clips:

- NBC is dropping The Listener. CTV hasn’t decided what they’re going to do with it.

- Earl Pomerantz talks about “period” comedies and why they don’t usually click with the audience. (I would say that M*A*S*H is a different kettle of fish because it had very few period touches — and the movie had even fewer. It deliberately played up the resemblance to our time.)

- In a clear suggestion that Nikki Finke’s influence is waning, The New York Times does an article about how influential she is. In a strange way, her success is similar to the type of success achieved by many modern TV shows (and therefore by the studios she writes about): she’s not a mass-audience success, but she’s hugely popular with a niche audience, of people who care about the business end of this business we call show. And by catering to a niche audience, she’s become more important and successful than someone who starts up yet another celebrity-gossip blog.

- Howard Bernstein on the CRTC and carriage fees.

- Just because you’re a long-running series going off the air doesn’t mean the Emmy voters will treat you with affection.

- Remember the Sotomayor episode of The Dukes of Hazzard?

And for fans of musicals and/or the era when New York was at the centre of the TV universe, a trip back to that time: Rodgers and Hammerstein as the “mystery guests” on What’s My Line.

Rodgers and an ailing Hammerstein made a return visit a few years later to plug a more successful show, The Sound of Music, and once again, that spoilsport publisher Bennett Cerf Continue…

Canada sees biggest drop in prices since 1955

By macleans.ca - Friday, July 17, 2009 at 1:22 PM - 1 Comment

Canada’s inflation rate went negative for the first time in 15 years. Inflation declined on a 12-month basis for the first time since November 1994, reaching negative 0.3 per cent in June. Statistics Canada says the drop in prices was primarily due to plummeting energy prices. The price for regular gasoline averaged $1.016/litre last month – down more than 24 per cent from a year ago. That’s why Douglas Porter, deputy chief economist with BMO Capital Markets, cautions that the price trend in Canada is not as dramatic as it might seem. “Outside of the deep dive in energy, there has actually been precious little major movement in underlying price trends, with core inflation continuing to surprise the Bank of Canada to the high side,” he explained on Friday. Still, he anticipates that the rising Canadian dollar will put downward pressure on prices over the next year.

Ottawa Citizen

Reviving the euthanasia debate

By macleans.ca - Friday, July 17, 2009 at 1:21 PM - 38 Comments

The euthanasia debate appears likely to undergo a revival in the next few months. A report by the Quebec College of Physicians, which should be ready for release this fall, may recommend it be legalized and a private member’s bill by a Bloc MP is aimed at doing just that. The college is reportedly going to recommend that drug-induced assisted suicide be authorized in cases involving terminally ill patients in severe pain. Under the current law, helping someone commit suicide is punishable by up to 14 years in prison. However, the last high-profile euthanasia case in the province resulted in the acquittal of Stephan Dufour. Dufour had been charged with helping his disabled uncle commit suicide.

The Gazette

Mexico fights back

By macleans.ca - Friday, July 17, 2009 at 1:20 PM - 6 Comments

Mexico isn’t going to accept new Canadian visa restrictions–which require all travelers from Mexico and the Czech Republic to obtain visas before entering Canada–without a fight. Thursday, Mexican Foreign Minister Patricia Espinosa announced that Canadian officials and diplomats will now need visas to enter Mexico. “We stated with a great deal of respect, but also very firmly, that we were in disagreement with this [Canadian] measure,” Espinosa explained. But she also confirmed that the 1.3 million Canadian tourists who visit Mexico each year will not be forced to get visas. Ottawa announced its new requirements earlier this week, citing skyrocketing numbers of refugee claimants from both countries. The number of refugee claims to Canada from Mexico has almost tripled to more than 9,400 since 2005. Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney say they will work with Mexican officials “to straighten this out.”

CBC News

Trashing economic indicators

By Andrew Potter - Friday, July 17, 2009 at 1:08 PM - 5 Comments

This is really interesting:

The garbage data in the U.S., for instance, tracks stock performance twice as well as the government’s consumption data. (The U.S. data has a correlation of 60%, while the government consumption data tracks at 30%.)

link

Forty-eight. And counting.

By Paul Wells - Friday, July 17, 2009 at 11:59 AM - 63 Comments

With two weeks left to go, July 2009 is already the deadliest month for NATO troops since the Afghan war began. The CBC reported the month’s tally at 46 last night. When I woke up this morning it was at 47, and at this writing it’s 48.

Obviously these numbers are relative. In November 2004, 141 U.S. and allied soldiers died in Iraq. In a single week in February 1968, 543 U.S. soldiers were killed in Vietnam. And any number of full-scale industrial wars have often been far bloodier still. The current sustained increase in violence in Afghanistan, meanwhile, was easy to predict with the arrival of thousands of new U.S. troops.

But yesterday ITQ was remarking on a sustained increase in Canadian opposition to the Afghan engagement, and one simple explanation is that there is, almost with every month, more to oppose. Only one month out of the past 22 has been deadlier for Western troops in Iraq than July already is in Afghanistan.

A fine madness

By macleans.ca - Friday, July 17, 2009 at 11:21 AM - 2 Comments

Szabolcs Kéri, a scientist at Semmelweis University in Budapest, Hungary, examined a gene involved in brain development called neuregulin 1, which previous studies have linked to a slightly increased risk of schizophrenia. Moreover, a single DNA letter mutation that affects how much of the neuregulin 1 protein is made in the brain has been linked to psychosis, poor memory and sensitivity to criticism. About 50 per cent of healthy Europeans have one copy of this mutation, while 15 per cent possess two copies. When Kéri genotyped 200 adults who responded to ads seeking creative and accomplished volunteers he found that people with two copies of the neuregulin 1 mutation—about 12 per cent of the study participants—tended to score notably higher on measures of creativity, compared with other volunteers with one or no copy of the mutation. Those with one copy were also judged to be more creative, on average, than volunteers without the mutation. All told, the mutation explained between three and eight per cent of the differences in creativity, Kéri says, speculating that the mutation dampens the prefrontal cortex of the brain, which reins in mood and behaviour. This change could unleash creative potential in some people and psychotic delusions in others.

New Scientist

Hey look: Your latest update on those top-secret undercovered Canada-EU trade talks

By Paul Wells - Friday, July 17, 2009 at 11:17 AM - 6 Comments

From the magazine’s print edition, this week’s Wells column. The main impetus for this week’s column was a desire to write something that did not contain the phrases “communion wafer” or “late for the photo opportunity.” The situation the column describes has two elements that will be familiar to just about any Ottawa reporter:

(1) Being in a building that’s crawling with reporters, and yet realizing you’re the only reporter in one specific room when news breaks out;

(2) Listening to a visitor from afar who is more at ease being candid than any of the Canadian officials present.

Why free trade with the EU goes nowhere

By Paul Wells - Friday, July 17, 2009 at 11:00 AM - 31 Comments

The occasion was a recent economic conference in Montreal. The place was crawling with reporters, but the president of Colombia was in town so none of the reporters bothered to attend one particular breakfast session. Well, almost none.

The topic at the breakfast was trade between Canada and the European Union. Guests included Roy McLaren, the former trade minister under Jean Chrétien, who runs something called the Canada-Europe Round Table. Also Ross Hornby, Canada’s ambassador to the EU. Continue…

Pope fractures wrist

By macleans.ca - Friday, July 17, 2009 at 10:56 AM - 2 Comments

Pope Benedict XVI’s vacation hit a little bump. The Pontiff, who is taking some time off in Italy, slipped while in the bath and broke his wrist. He went on to eat breakfast and celebrate mass, and was then driven to a hospital where doctors performed a minor 20-minute surgery. His wrist will be immobilized for about a month, and it’s possible that he may cancel commitments scheduled over the next two weeks, but Vatican officials say the injury isn’t serious. Concern has been expressed over the Pope’s health as of late, with some saying he appeared tired in recent public appearances.

The New York Times

Ex-Hab "Knuckles" Nilan charged with stealing a swimsuit

By macleans.ca - Friday, July 17, 2009 at 10:55 AM - 0 Comments

Another sad tale from a pro sport retiree. Chris Nilan, affectionately known as “Knuckles” for his on-ice fisticuffs, was picked up for allegedly trying to steal a men’s bathing suit from a Lord & Taylor store in Quincy, Mass. “I just wanted to save a few bucks,” he told police—or so says the Patriot-Ledger. Not a banner day for Nilan, who missed the NHL’s big money era by a few years, but made a enough playing for Montreal and Boston during the 1980s that he should be able to afford a pair of swim trunks.

Patriot Ledger

Sotomayor's lost opportunity

By Andrew Potter - Friday, July 17, 2009 at 10:42 AM - 41 Comments

Jeffrey Rosen gets it exactly right: “It’s too bad that neither Sotomayor nor any of the Senators felt at liberty to say what many scholars and court observers believe to be true: Justices often legislate from the bench, and sometimes that’s a good thing.”

This confirmation hearing has turned into a huge lost opportunity for liberals. She’ll definitely get the job, but the Republican senators have done a really good job of cornering her and forcing her to backtrack. This was a great chance for liberals to give a proper defence of judicial activism and of the role of judgment in interpreting the law; instead, she’s on record now endorsing a preposterous theory about the judge as an “umpire,” whose duty it is to simply follow and apply the law.

That’s a theory no legal scholar in the land endorses, not even the so-called “strict constructionists”; if it were even remotely true, not only would we not need a Supreme Court, we wouldn’t even need judges. The Dems will win this battle but the cost is high: They have conceded the strategic ground for the next fight to the Republicans.

Facebook has "serious privacy gaps"

By macleans.ca - Friday, July 17, 2009 at 10:42 AM - 0 Comments

Due to “serious privacy gaps,” Canada’s Privacy Commissioner says Facebook, used by 12 million Canadians, needs to improve its privacy practices. Canada is the first country in the world to investigate the social networking site’s privacy practices with such detail. “Our law says that if you’re operating this service in Canada, you’re subject to Canadian laws. So I think our jurisdiction is fairly clear,” says commissioner Jennifer Stoddart who conducted the investigation. “We have every confidence that we’ll come to an acceptable conclusion,” says Chris Kelly, chief privacy officer for Facebook.

Toronto Star

Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada

Surprise, surprise, $285,000 Olympic packages failing to sell

By macleans.ca - Friday, July 17, 2009 at 10:21 AM - 1 Comment

The Olympics are too expensive even for the stinking rich. Originally, Vancouver 2010 organizers were hoping to sell 75 $285,000 Club 2010 VIP packages. But slow sales have resulted in their lowering of that goal to 50 high-end hospitality packages. Approximately half of those VIP packages have been sold. For other high-rolling Olympic patrons that still want top-class accommodation, Cobb says luxury suites in GM Place and B.C. Place are still available.

Canada.com

Bad boys, bad boys – seriously, what are you gonna do?

By macleans.ca - Friday, July 17, 2009 at 10:18 AM - 2 Comments

Anyone who has ever attempted to corral a contingent of unruly children will likely concur with the conclusions of Universite de Montreal child development expert Richard Tremblay, who released a study yesterday that found that youth delinquency, like chicken pox, is “contagious.” Tremblay’s findings on the link between “the involvement of youth in the criminal justice system and adult offenders” are based on the results of a 20-year joint research project between UdM and the University of Genoa in Italy. “If you put a bunch of delinquents together, they won’t help each other, they will teach other,” says Tremblay.”They will try to one-up each other.” Like many other academics, Tremblay is “troubled” by the zeal with which the federal government appears to be “toughening up” the youth justice system, and fears that, far from increasing public safety, it will have the opposite effect. He touts prevention programs instead, and suggests that the overall prison population would be “greatly reduced” if “problem cases” were identified early. “Six-year-olds are not making people scared … But that same 6-year-old will some day be 16. Then he will scare us.”

Montreal Gazette

The Abandoned Frontier

By Andrew Potter - Friday, July 17, 2009 at 10:15 AM - 31 Comments

I love it when Krauthammer writes about space:

But look up from your BlackBerry one night. That is the moon. On it are exactly 12 sets of human footprints — untouched, unchanged, abandoned. For the first time in history, the moon is not just a mystery and a muse, but a nightly rebuke. A vigorous young president once summoned us to this new frontier, calling the voyage “the most hazardous and dangerous and greatest adventure on which man has ever embarked.” We came, we saw, we retreated.

link

(O)PBOWatch – Thirty Helens 134 (and counting) economists agree: Fix that darned statute already, you guys.

By kadyomalley - Friday, July 17, 2009 at 9:27 AM - 59 Comments

So while ITQ was busily burrowing through bankruptcy documents — oh, don’t worry, she lives for that stuff — the ever vigilant Colleague Wells was on PBOWatch. Or OPBOWatch, as the case may be.

That was, in fact, what struck ITQ most about this latest campaign, which calls on supporters to sign on to an open letter that urges parliamentarians to ensure the budget officer’s independence by making him a full Officer of Parliament. Instead of employing the more familiar short form —  ”PBO”, which can refer to either the office or the officer —  the site’s creator, UBC economist Kevin Milligan, consistently uses “OPBO”, which stands for “Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer” .

Now, this could be just a semantic quirk, but it may reflect a subtle attempt to move the debate away from the individual who currently holds the job — the embattled but unbowing Kevin Page — to the office itself, focusing on policy, rather than the personalities involved. Which suggests that at least some (O)PBObackers may be preparing themselves for the possibility that  Page himself may eventually no longer be a factor – and, if Colleague Wells is right, that “eventually” may turn out to be sooner rather than later.

Tehran: again

By Paul Wells - Friday, July 17, 2009 at 8:53 AM - 11 Comments

From Nico Pitney, who as always on days like this is must-reading.

That wasn't so hard

By Paul Wells - Thursday, July 16, 2009 at 10:33 PM - 41 Comments

One hundred and thirty-four economists, including 15 past presidents of the Canadian Economics Association, sign a clear letter of support for proper budgetary support and institutional independence for the Parliamentary Budget Officer.

The contrast with Michael Ignatieff’s stumblebum Liberal opposition, and with a government that wants credit for creating the PBO as an institution but doesn’t want any actual sass from Kevin Page, is striking.

Imagine Adoption: Gary Goodyear's wife on the payroll – and the company they co-own is on the creditor list.

By kadyomalley - Thursday, July 16, 2009 at 10:12 PM - 43 Comments

The Kitchener-Waterloo Record reports on the link between Valerie Goodyear and the ongoing Imagine Adoption/Kids Link International bankruptcy meltdown:

The 16 employees of the bankrupt agency included Valerie Goodyear, wife of federal cabinet minister and Cambridge MP Gary Goodyear.

In a written statement yesterday, Gary Goodyear said his wife helped place children with families and wasn’t involved with the agency’s finances. He also said he has never been involved with its operations. [...]

In an agency newsletter last year, Valerie Goodyear was described as co-ordinator of its African adoption programs.

A profile said she had been to Ethiopia three times and was one of the agency’s first employees.

In the same newsletter, photographs showed Gary Goodyear and other local politicians alongside Susan Hayhow at a ribbon-cutting to mark the agency’s move to new offices.

He is also quoted in a story accompanying the photos.

“This is a wonderful group of people,” Gary Goodyear reportedly said. “I want to congratulate Sue (Hayhow) and her team on the most excellent work and incredible progress.“

The agency newsletter can be found on the Imagine Adoption website.

The Record reports that bankruptcy officials are “trying to determine why the agency was renting three properties in Cambridge with payment obligations of $13,000 a month,” and notes that only one of the three — “the location at 780 King Street East … was used for agency offices.”

ITQ checked the public registry for MPs, and found a disclosure summary for Gary Goodyear, filed earlier this year. In it, he states that he and his wife are co-owners of Constant Energy Ltd. — the same “private real estate holding firm” listed as the landlord of one of those three properties.

Continue…

EnCana pipeline bomber issues a public warning

By macleans.ca - Thursday, July 16, 2009 at 4:42 PM - 3 Comments

The purported bomber of EnCana-owned gas pipelines in northern B.C. issued a public warning to the company on Wednesday, saying things will “get a lot worse” if it doesn’t shut down its oil and gas operations. In a hand-written letter to the Dawson Creek Daily News, the bomber gives EnCana “three months to convince the residents here and the general public that you will commit to this program” and promises to halt all attacks on the pipelines until the deadline runs out. The letter goes on to describe the first six attacks—two of which have taken place this month—as “minor” and “fully controlled.” The RCMP, which says it got a copy of the letter from the newspaper soon after the Daily News received, has been investigating the bombings for months but have yet to lay charges.

The Canadian Press

It's not easy being tween

By Kate Pocock, Takeoffeh.com - Thursday, July 16, 2009 at 4:03 PM - 4 Comments

Does the thought of taking your ‘tween’ on holiday make you cringe? Don’t despair. As the old adage goes, it’s all about location, location, location. To please those in the exuberant age between childhood and the teen years, plan a visit to a theme park with water action, a cruise with tween-themed programming or a sunny all-inclusive like Club Med that offers trapeze and wakeboarding in between‘mocktails’ and the requisite check-in with the ‘parental units’.

There are a host of destinations with set-ups specifically geared for this age group. At the Fairmont Scottsdale Princess in Scottsdale, Arizona, young teens can chill in the Hang Out, a sophisticated space outfitted with comfy leather sofas, an internet café and headphone listening station where they can catch the latest from Miley Cyrus and the Jonas Brothers. “We kick out adults all the time,” laughs public relations director Jennifer Franklin. Then there’s the new Circle “C” club for 12 to 14 year-olds, just launched fleet-wide aboard all Carnival Cruises. The Circle “C” offers high-tech sound systems, touch-screen jukeboxes and gaming pods. At Loews Coronado Bay Resort in San Diego, the “Super Suite Vacation” package includes teen-decorated rooms and private surf lessons, complete with boards the youngsters can custom design and take home. Surf’s up brah! Continue…