Book brouhaha

By macleans.ca - Monday, August 17, 2009 at 11:07 AM - 8 Comments

The Ottawa Citizen reports on the brewing brouhaha at the Bonnechere Union Public Library over what the newest member of the library’s seven-person board of directors claims is a “left wing slant” in the acquisition process. Ken O’Day, who the Citizen describes as “an opponent of same-sex marriage and a frequent critic of feminism and some aspects of the environmental movement” has lashed out at the library for restocking its shelves with left-leaning literature, although the only example he could provide to the Citizen was a book authored by Al Gore. Town librarian Jennifer Coleman recalls that he was also irate over the availability of “Wild Things”, a 14A thriller starring Canadian Neve Campbell. “He can be very intimidating,” she told the Citizen. “He tries to bully people.” For her part, Coleman denies any bias in book selection, and says that the library needs to support all readers. “There are all kinds of beliefs in the community, including some that contradict each other.” Library board chairwoman Doyne Ahern has also dismissed the notion that ideology plays any role in book choice, and says she’s had “difficulty finding out exactly what kinds of books O’Day is objecting to.” The newly reconstituted board next meets in September, and, as Ahern points out, O’Day will have only one vote — “just like everyone else.”

Ottawa Citizen

Out of the medals

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, August 17, 2009 at 10:54 AM - 26 Comments

Stephen Harper, March 10. Canada was the last advanced country to fall into this recession.  We will make sure its effects here are the least severe and we will come out of this faster than anyone and stronger than ever. So far, in fact, while the global recession has hit Canada hard, it has hit us not nearly as hard as it has other countries. The American economy has been hit twice as hard as Canada. The same is true for the Europeans.  The Japanese have been hit four times as hard.

Stephen Harper, August 14. “Canada is not yet out of this world recession. We must continue our efforts, we have to persevere. Now is not the time for political instability,” Harper told a news conference in the Quebec town of Chelsea.

AFP, last night. Japan’s economy has grown for the first time in more than a year, climbing out of its worst recession in decades thanks to rebounding exports and government stimulus measures, data showed Monday … Japan follows Germany and France in exiting recession in the second quarter.

It's been a while since the last ITQ Wordle …

By kadyomalley - Monday, August 17, 2009 at 10:44 AM - 13 Comments

… to rectify that shortcoming, here’s Jack Layton’s Sunday speech at the NDP convention in Halifax:

For the full text of the speech, click here.

Why women keep getting prettier

By Rachel Mendleson - Monday, August 17, 2009 at 8:30 AM - 50 Comments

On their 2006 album Boys and Girls in America, Brooklyn, N.Y.-based band the Hold Steady proclaim: “Guys go for looks, girls go for status”—an acute observation of a phenomenon, which, according to researchers, is having significant evolutionary repercussions. A new study shows that the importance that men, rather than women, place on beauty when choosing a mate is actually a form of natural selection. One result: women keep getting prettier, while men are as hairy and pudgy as they’ve ever been.

The University of Helsinki study is based on data collected in Wisconsin, which followed 10,000 high school graduates for four decades. Using the yearbook photos of a random sampling of 3,250 of the participants, researcher Markus Jokela asked a separate group of people to evaluate their attractiveness. On average, the women identified as attractive had 16 per cent more children than their plainer counterparts—a difference that was much less marked in men. Continue…

Canada is Colombia North

By Jason Kirby and Nancy Macdonald - Monday, August 17, 2009 at 8:00 AM - 20 Comments

When Krysta Edwards crossed over from B.C. to Washington in June, border officers allegedly found a hidden compartment in the 23-year-old North Vancouver resident’s Ford Explorer. Inside was 27 kg of Benzylpiperazine, or BZP. Despite its origins as a treatment for intestinal worms in cattle, BZP has found new life as the it party drug at night clubs, and the little blue pills recovered from Edwards’ truck, stamped to look like Homer Simpson, were worth US$1 million. For those on the front lines of American law enforcement, it was yet another reminder of the huge synthetic drug industry booming in Canada. “They used to just throw marijuana in hockey bags and stuff it in the trunk, but now we’re seeing a level of sophistication similar to what we’ve been dealing with on the southern border [with Mexico],” says Chief Thomas Schreiber, with U.S. Customs and Border Protection in Blaine, Wash.

Canada is well known for its B.C. Bud, a highly-potent form of marijuana. But a new industry is thriving. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), in its 2009 report, said Canada is the largest ecstasy supplier to the U.S. Meanwhile, Japan says Canada is the single biggest source of seized ecstasy tablets. Asian-Canadian gangs have also ramped up the production of methampetamines, shipping vast quantities to the U.S. and overseas. According to the U.N., Canada accounts for 62 per cent of the meth seized in Japan by weight, and 83 per cent in Australia. The spoils are enormous. The U.S. Department of Justice estimates Canadian drug traffickers now generate between US$33.7 billion and US$56.2 billion each year from U.S. drug sales. Continue…

Our turn

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, August 17, 2009 at 1:18 AM - 30 Comments

This should perhaps feature prominently among the questions asked of every party leader whenever they next respectively make themselves available to the press.

“We all agree that the system is imploding, we all agree that things are more precarious than perhaps Canadians realize,” Doing said in an interview with The Canadian Press. ”We know that there must be change,” she said. “We’re all running flat out, we’re all just trying to stay ahead of the immediate day-to-day demands.”

… ”It’s not about choosing between an American system or a Canadian system,” said Doig. “The whole thing is about looking at what other people do. That’s called looking at the evidence, looking at how care is delivered and how care is paid for all around us (and) then saying ‘Well, OK, that’s good information. How do we make all of that work in the Canadian context? What do the Canadian people want?’ “

Doig says there are some “very good things” about Canada’s health-care system, but she points out that many people have stories about times when things didn’t go well for them or their family. ”(Canadians) have to understand that the system that we have right now – if it keeps on going without change – is not sustainable,” said Doig.

Perhaps not surprisingly, Drudge has, as of this hour, deemed this a top item for his readers.

Watching "Mad Men"

By Jaime Weinman - Sunday, August 16, 2009 at 10:01 PM - 12 Comments

It’s 10 p.m. and time to travel back to the days when Allan Sherman ruled the pop charts and Italian movies were popular. I refer, of course, to the third season premiere of Mad Men. While this isn’t exactly a full-fledged live-blog, I’ll write down some thoughts if they occur to me while watching.

- The credits. Why don’t network shows try putting all the credits into the main title? I used to think it was time limitations, but Mad Men only takes 30 seconds for the main title and still fits all the credits in, sparing us the indignity of seeing “supervising producer” credits plastered over the action. I guess it helps that they have a small staff. (One of the things that made me feel affectionate toward My Name Is Earl is that they tried putting all the credits at the end, leaving only the writing and directing credit to be superimposed over the action. But the network made them give that up toward the end of the run.)

- It’s been said that the way the secretarial-pool scenes are shot — low-angle shots so that you can see the ceilings — is supposed to give a physical dimension to the “glass ceiling” metaphor, but it also feels like a vague visual throwback to some old movies, where the director made a special effort to get the ceiling in the frame (to make it clear to the audience that they had in fact bothered to construct a ceiling). It gives a slight retro-ness to the look, along with the slightly old-school use of colour, with Joan’s red dress and other such fashion choices standing out in bold relief from the rest of the scene.

- Because of my inclinations, one of the things I like best about Mad Men is the old-school editing and camerawork, with most scenes shot from relatively few angles and simple ones at that.

- This has been, except for Don’s imagi-flashback at the beginning, a surprisingly light and funny episode so far. (Not that there haven’t been serious issues raised and stuff, just that overall most of it has played as comedy.) I guess that means heavy stuff coming in the second half.

- Minor thing that nobody else cares about, but given that Mad Men doesn’t have fade-ins or fade-outs before/after commercial breaks, they should eliminate the blackouts on the DVD and just have the episodes without interruptions (which is clearly the way they are made: Weiner cuts the episodes and then figures out a place to put commercial breaks).

- The farcical conclusion to Sal and Don’s hotel escapades might be the funniest part of the episode so far, mostly because of Sal’s facial expressions. Actually, Sal and Don are a generally great comedy team.

- A real gift to an actor is what I might call the “anticipated question” scene — the kind every show does sometime, where one character acts like he’s going to bring up something embarrassing or harmful, and then changes the subject (while making it clear what the conversation almost was about). It’s great for actors because it has built-in subtext for them both to play. Which is to say that it’s  a common scene, but it usually works, and is a great alternative to an on-the-nose discussion. (This is a subject that Don and Sal probably wouldn’t talk about openly anyway.)

- AMC is using commercial time to plug its upcoming broacast of Rudy. It’s as if they want to reming us that most of their programming is nearly worthless.

- Betty hasn’t had much to do in this episode so far, but that will change later this season.

- I have never been terribly fond of the music of Mad Men, I mean the musical score. The scoring in this episode just seemed to scream “The Past, This Is Remembering The Past” without any particular relevance to the characters or the setting (though I realize that Weiner wants the music to go against period, rather than be part of it).

- A show like Mad Men, where the episodes often don’t have a strong individual identity or structure of their own — because the serialized, multi-plot aspect inevitably turns the episode into a series of vaguely-linked scenes — will often try to give some structure to the episode by thematically linking the first and last scenes of the show.  Which is pretty much what happened this week.

- Every time I see Vincent Kartheiser and Robert Morse in the same scene I expect at least one of them to start in with this. Pete will sing it someday, and Cooper did sing it in the past.

[vodpod id=Groupvideo.3213499&w=560&h=340&fv=%26rel%3D0%26border%3D0%26]

Ye Olde Ideas

By Aaron Wherry - Sunday, August 16, 2009 at 9:19 PM - 22 Comments

The Globe dismisses the faithful’s efforts.

Jack Layton says he is offering Canadians a new way of thinking. But the policies approved at the NDP conference in Halifax this weekend are not new to New Democrats.

The more than 1,000 delegates endorsed action to prevent violence against aboriginal women. They endorsed enshrining childcare into law. They endorsed investment in environmentally friendly jobs. They endorsed ending rules that prevent homosexuals from donating organs. In the end, there were more than 50 policies approved. But there was little to raise the eyebrows of the party’s socialist founders.

Jack's Canada

By Aaron Wherry - Sunday, August 16, 2009 at 8:44 PM - 3 Comments

Jack Layton sends the faithful home.

We will undo the legacy of neglect and inequality that the old thinking of the last three decades has left us. We ask all Canadians to join us, to imagine the Canada we will build together.

In our Canada, the unemployed get the EI benefits and the training that they need. In our Canada, First Nations, Inuit and Metis are full participants in the new economy. In our Canada, new Canadians are given help to find good jobs and they don’t have to fear, when they travel abroad, that their passports will be seized and their government will deny their identity. In our Canada, government protects citizens from the totally unfair practices of banks and credit-card companies. In our Canada, the disabled are treated with dignity and respect. In our Canada, families have access to affordable early-childhood education. In our Canada, climate change is tackled with tough limits on polluters, and a new energy economy, with technologies built here, creating jobs here, and exported to the world.

That’s the Canada we want.

Usain in the Brain

By Andrew Potter - Sunday, August 16, 2009 at 6:26 PM - 10 Comments

Jesus.

So many motions, so little time

By kadyomalley - Sunday, August 16, 2009 at 7:57 AM - 48 Comments

… and no, we don’t yet know for sure if they’re going to make it to the resolutions on changing the name, although the slightly less committal approach — consulting with members and reporting back at the next convention — definitely seems more likely to make it to the floor. There are also emergency motions on everything from Omar Khadr to cell phone fees, and who knows what procedural antics the Larsenistas might have in store for their unwitting brothers and sisters. It’s going to be great, y’all! The action — such as it is — starts at 8am EST sharp, but since ITQ is probably the only one who actually set her berry alarm to wake up, y’all can join the fun at your leisure.

The resolutions up for debate still aren’t available on the convention website — seriously, y’all, what’s with the holdup? — but thanks to National Newswatch, you can follow along, and if you happen to be CPAC-deprived, you can watch the coverage via livestream over at ndp.ca, and tune into the #hfx09 hashtag on twitter for all the gossip from the floor, including lots of

Oh, and for yesterday’s thread, click here.

8:01 AM

And we’re back! Good morning, everyone — by which, of course, I mean the one or two of you who were able to drag yourself out of bed on this lovely Sunday morning. CPAC’s Martin Stringer is rarin’ to go — he has two delegates up as we speak, including an already irate woman from Toronto who is very, very disappointed by the overwhelming Obamamania that the organizers have demonstrated thus far; she also has a warning for her fellow New Democrats in Nova Scotia: Don’t take victory for granted, and don’t assume that just because they’ve managed to install an NDP government, it doesn’t mean the work is over. The other delegate — a Nova Scotian, and a former Progressive Conservative — is far less doom and gloomy.

He — Stringer, that is — then switches to a pair of Quebec delegates, including the party’s candidate in Hochelaga, Jean-Claude Rocheleau, who talks about the passage of resolution to “force companies to work in French in Quebec”, which he sees as a “great success”, as was a motion to transfer cultural funding to the province.

Continue…

Alert: And now, back to your regularly scheduled NDP convention liveblogging coverage.

By kadyomalley - Saturday, August 15, 2009 at 4:11 PM - 6 Comments

Just a quick note to let y’all know that liveblogging of the NDP convention has recommenced! Gather ye, gather ye, etc.

Solidarity, people. Solidarity!: HFX09 NDP Convention Day Two – semi-liveblog/open thread

By kadyomalley - Saturday, August 15, 2009 at 8:46 AM - 52 Comments

What better way to spend a sunny Saturday morning than curled up in front of CPAC, watching an NDP policy convention? Anyway, if there are any readers out there who, like ITQ, are drawn to these events like a moth to a flame (or possibly vice versa), feel free to use this as an open thread to chat about the speeches, the speakers, the resolutions up for debate, your feelings on the ideological significance of the letter N — you know, whatever. If it gets particularly lively on the floor, or if another procedural wrangle breaks out, I’ll liveblog it, but otherwise, expect updates to be sporadic, at least for the first part of the day.

If you happen to be CPAC-deprived, you can watch the coverage via livestream over at ndp.ca, and follow chatter from the floor via the #hfx09 hashtag on twitter.

8:46 AM

A perfect opening vignette: During debate on a resolution on nationalizing the energy industry (or something like that), a female delegate in a ridiculous hat pops up on a point of order to rather snippily remind the chair of the rule passed at the last convention, which requires the chair to divvy up floor time by gender — if a man speaks at one microphone, a woman should speak at the next one. The chair — determinedly smiling but serious-business-minded party president Anne McGrath — assures her that she’s well aware of the rule, which is why she recognized Ridiculous Hat Wearing Delegate in the first place. Oh boy. Er, boy/girl/other/unspecified.

9:14 AM

We’re up to the third resolution of the day — the last two passed with near unanimous support from what ITQ could see – Arctic sovereignty through anti-militarism, cooperation and unionization. Brilliant — brilliant, I tell you! Topical, yet with that classic orange NDP twist. By the way, has anyone else noticed a distinct lack of orange at this convention? This time around, the convention colours seem to be blue and green, which is distressingly reminiscent of the new Canada Action! Plan logo.

9:22 AM

“I’m not saying we should nationalize the phone companies,” a delegate assures us, midway through a rambling diatribe about outsourcing, and how it’s impossible to get a live human being on the phone when you call your phone company with even the simplest question about your bill, and outsourcing exploits workers while fatcat executives rake in salary by the millions, and — yeah. Carried. Take that, Emily!

Hmm. Rather than take over Blog Central. I should probably stick in a jump, huh? It’s the polite thing to do. See you on the other side.

Continue…

Obama’s ability to recover

By John Parisella - Friday, August 14, 2009 at 6:03 PM - 64 Comments

Over the past month, the healthcare debate has taken a dramatic turn for the worse if you are in favour of reform. The conduct at the town hall meetings has become an even greater topic of discussion than the actual content of the reform package, and opponents seem to have gained an edge. Barack Obama’s people may have made the right decision by involving legislators early in the process, but it did give opponents an opportunity to organize beyond the lobbyists and marketing agencies who derailed a similar effort in 1993. This time, “real” people are coming out to the meetings, conveying the impression that a grassroots movement is opposing Obama’s reforms. Polls are starting to reflect the impact of the protest, leading many to ask whether President Obama is in trouble. If he fails to achieve his number one domestic priority, what impact will it have on the rest of his first term? Could it mark the beginning of a Republican resurgence, a first step towards regaining control of Congress as early as 2010 and mounting a significant challenge for the White House in 2012?

Continue…

Stephen Harper announces formal policy of staycation

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, August 14, 2009 at 4:17 PM - 39 Comments

From earlier today, the Prime Minister comments on Omar Khadr and the government’s general approach to Canadians travelling abroad.

On dealing with Canadians abroad, look, one of the realities, in fact I was talking about this with some diplomats I met in Mexico and Panama, one of the realities we have in this world, with the increasing amount of travel of people and also the increasing proliferation of threats and circumstances of various kinds, you know, this is a more and more difficult area. There are more and more Canadians who have challenges when they’re abroad, of very different kinds. Government, the department of foreign affairs, does what it can to aid people, but we always advise people to be cautious when they’re travelling. The government of Canada does not control affairs in other countries. We do our best to aid those who are in various forms of difficulty, but ultimately we’re not the sovereign government once people leave our territory.

BREAKING! HFX09 NDP convention coverage bumped by …

By kadyomalley - Friday, August 14, 2009 at 4:10 PM - 4 Comments

A Senate committee. From May. On CPAC. Yes, ITQ is appalled too, although at least she doesn’t have to listen to the rest of the speech that was underway when they pulled the plug. Silver linings, people.

UPDATE: In what turns out to have been a serendipitously timed Globe and Mail online op-ed, Gerald Caplan reminisces about NDP conventions past, and somehow manages to be more entertaining than every speaker to address the Halifax crowd so far put together.

EVENUPDATEDIER: According to the NDP, it wasn’t up to the CPAC program director: the network has a contractual obligation to devote two hours on Friday to parliamentary content. You’d think they could make an exception for a live event, but I guess not.

This is how you know they're real people who understand you

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, August 14, 2009 at 3:54 PM - 9 Comments

Stephen Harper gets to work on that highway he’s been meaning to build.

Michael Ignatieff tends to his potato farm.

'In a sense, they are interchangeable cogs in a merciless machine'

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, August 14, 2009 at 3:01 PM - 1 Comment

Susan Riley keeps the faith.

One of the small miracles of political life is that good people still want to be involved — despite the degraded status of the profession, the relative powerlessness of the average MP, and the financial and family sacrifices that are sometimes involved.

Is the iPhone killing RIM?

By Colin Campbell - Friday, August 14, 2009 at 3:00 PM - 25 Comments

Last month, a posting appeared on the popular Business Insider blog that no doubt filled some Research In Motion executives with a sense of dread. Under the heading “How I Ended My Affair With BlackBerry And Eloped With The iPhone,” former tech analyst Henry Blodget described how he somewhat reluctantly went out and bought Apple’s latest “it” phone, the new iPhone 3G S, after 12 years of loyal BlackBerry service. Business users have long been skeptical of the sleek iPhone and its touchscreen display, which can make emailing and typing a chore, but Blodget wasn’t disappointed with his switch. “It’s nice here in Apple world,” he concluded.

Research in Motion (RIM) is still a smartphone juggernaut, but the defection of influential business leaders like Blodget sends a chilling signal to the Waterloo, Ont.-based company. More than half of its 28.5 million subscribers are business users, and while they haven’t been dropping their BlackBerries en masse, momentum is quickly building behind the iPhone. While RIM reported a decline in the number of new subscribers in its latest quarterly results, Apple saw iPhone sales jump sevenfold. And when the new iPhone 3G S launched this summer, U.S. buyers snapped up one million of them in just three days. If the trend continues, and iPhone sales continue to rocket up, it’s easy to see who will come out on top. Analysts say that Apple’s rise out of nowhere to become a legitimate rival to the BlackBerry is something that RIM is now going to extraordinary lengths to guard against. Continue…

On eating fish when pregnant and how stress hormones affect our bodies

By Dr. Elaine Chin - Friday, August 14, 2009 at 2:50 PM - 5 Comments

It seems there’s a lot of conflicting advice about whether pregnant women should eat fish, or avoid it due to concerns over high mercury levels. What do you think?
The concern is real.  Pregnant women should not eat fish that are high in mercury. It is also good to rotate and eat different types of fish in your diet.

1. Which fish in this “Watch Out list” contains the highest mercury levels?
a. Tuna
b. King Mackerel
c. Shark
d. Swordfish
e. Tilefish

2. Of the fish listed here, which have the highest concentrations of Omega 3 Fatty Acids?
a. Salmon
b. Trout
c. Herring
d. Sardines
e. Pollock

(Answers are at the bottom of the page)

What is the “stress hormone” cortisol, and how does it affect our bodies?
Cortisol is your “stress response hormone.” Your body secretes it in response to physical or emotional stress. It prepares your body to meet physical or emotional challenges by increasing your heart rate, blood pressure and level of alertness.  It helps us defend against an “attack.” While cortisol is a survival hormone, chronic stress creates a high level of this ‘fight or flight’ hormone, which causes undesirable mental and physical effects. It engenders survival instincts–quick decisions based on minimal analysis. Sharp strategic thinking ability is impaired. Caffeine is a major stimulator of cortisol secretion. Too much caffeine might make you more alert but not a smarter thinker! Insulin–secreted in response to cortisol–causes sugars (from ingested carbohydrates) to move out of our blood stream and stored in the form of fat–increasing overall body fat and weight. As blood sugar levels decline, ‘brain fog’ ensues.

Send your questions for Dr. Elaine Chin, chief medical officer of the Scienta Health Group, to macleanshealth@rci.rogers.com

In the meantime, find out how healthy you are by doing this quiz:

Quiz answers:

1. Tilefish – the highest – 1.45 parts per million mercury concentration
Shark – next highest – 0.99 parts per million
Swordfish – 0.98 parts per million
King Mackerel – least of this group – 0.73 parts per million mercury concentration
Tuna, fresh – not the worst! – 0.383 parts per million; canned chunk light tuna 0.118

2. Herring – the highest – 1 gram of omega-3 fatty acids per 1 oz! (1:1)
Salmon – the wild variety – close 2nd – 1 gram per 2 oz (1:2)
Sardines – also high – 1 gram per 2 to 3 oz (1:2.5)
Trout (freshwater) – 1 gram per 3 to 4 oz (1:3.5)
Pollock –least of this group – 1 gram per 6.5 oz (1:6.5)

Political conventions are inherently bonkers

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, August 14, 2009 at 2:24 PM - 7 Comments

Twenty minutes into the NDP convention business and we’ve got a request that everyone celebrating a birthday or anniversary this weekend be recognized and a rant against Barack Obama’s “regime.”

CPAC has never been more entertaining.

Madoff accused of having an affair

By macleans.ca - Friday, August 14, 2009 at 2:20 PM - 0 Comments

Bernie Madoff may not only have been dodgy when it came to managing money. It’s being alleged that he wasn’t so honest when it came to his marriage, either. Sheryl Weinstein, the chief financial officer for Jewish volunteer organization Hadassah, which had millions invested with Madoff, claims in her memoir that she carried on an affair with the disgraced investment advisor. The affair between Madoff, who’s been married for nearly 50 years, and Weinstein, who’s been married for 37 years, “spanned 20 years” according to the book’s publisher. Madoff’s relationship with Hadassah, on the other hand, was a relatively short-lived one, even though the organization still had millions invested with him when his massive Ponzi scheme was uncovered; after investing $40 million with Madoff beginning in 1988, it stopped putting its money in his hands in 1997, the year Weinstein stopped working for Hadassah.

The New York Times

Stephen Harper meets Postal Service

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, August 14, 2009 at 2:19 PM - 3 Comments

Finally, a synth-pop anthem for the Stephen Harper Era.

Who will come to save the day? No, seriously, who?: Liveblogging Bob Rae on Conservatives' "failure to protect Canadians abroad"

By kadyomalley - Friday, August 14, 2009 at 2:15 PM - 13 Comments

For those of you not transfixed by the NDP convention — and really, watching Ken Georgetti on CPAC right this very moment, ITQ can’t imagine how any of you aren’t — with a hankering to find out how Bob Rae rates this government’s track record in protecting Canadians abroad, check back at 2:30 pm for full coverage.
2:28:00 PM
Greetings, enthusiasts of human and constitutional rights even for those stranded abroad, where a small but feisty contingent of gallery membrs have gathered to await the arrival of Bob Rae, although in the interim, we’re discussing the highlights of the NDP convention so far. Apparently, just as ITQ was forced to tear herself away from CPAC, the opening spectacular was derailed by some sort of sinister shenaniganery, but that’s all I know at the moment.

2:32:29 PM

Continue…