Coyne v. Wells on Obama’s Nobel and Iggy’s month from hell

By macleans.ca - Friday, October 16, 2009 at 3:00 PM - 20 Comments

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Another right-wing hack on the Conservative payroll

By Paul Wells - Friday, October 16, 2009 at 2:32 PM - 168 Comments

My kickback from the Harper PMO didn’t arrive in time today, so you’re going to have to make do with that other notorious rightwing lackey of the Conservative master schemers, Chantal Hébert. In this column, no doubt motivated (as is all such base criticism of Our Michael) by a fiendish desire to sell newspapers,* she argues that Michael Ignatieff’s semi-annual discovery of the Earth’s natural environment seems to be targeted at the fleeting headlines, rather than stemming from any convictions or ideas. I heartily urge all Liberals to do the one thing that has always guaranteed electoral success: question Chantal’s motives. That’ll help.

*You mean political columns that criticize an opposition leader aren’t a major driver of newsstand circulation? Now you tell me.

Mea culpa

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, October 16, 2009 at 2:29 PM - 20 Comments

Conservative MP Bruce Stanton twitters his feelings on the partisan use of giant novelty cheques.

stanton_brucemp I can see the reasons why other attributes to the MP on the big cheque are also wrong. These are public investments.

stanton_brucemp You won’t see any such references on big cheques here in the future, including today at the CDC.

Stanton is among those cited by the Liberals for improper self-congratulation.

Idea alert

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, October 16, 2009 at 1:50 PM - 87 Comments

Writing about Francine Lalonde’s private member’s bill on euthanasia, Don Martin considers the national conversation we’re not having.

Parliament, however, has been notoriously shy about having this discussion — even though prolonged agony continues to haunt thousands of Canadians who want an assisted way out of life, but are prevented from finding a legal exit.

For the seventh time in 18 years, a private member’s bill on the subject has been introduced and may reach the Commons floor this fall. For the seventh time, the bill seems doomed to die from a lack of political oxygen.

MacKay sees no evil, hears no evil

By macleans.ca - Friday, October 16, 2009 at 1:28 PM - 6 Comments

Defence Minister Peter MacKay says he was never made aware of a senior Canadian diplomat’s warning that allegations of prisoner torture in Afghanistan were “serious, imminent and alarming.” An affidavit filed this week with the Military Police Complaints Commission says the reports were widely circulated with the Foreign Affairs and Defence departments a full year before the claims of torture came to light in 2007. At the time, the Harper government claimed it had no credible evidence the allegations were true. However, Richard Colvin, the man behind the first reports of torture, told the Commission he received a reply from senior officials to his initial reports, which included interviews with inmates who showed physical signs of abuse. The Commission’s public hearing into the torture allegations was shut down for at least six months on Wednesday, prompting commissioner Peter Tinsley to blame the federal government’s efforts at stonewalling the inquiry. Both McKay and Stephen Harper could nonetheless be called to testify before the Commons defence committee, which has launched its own investigation into the matter.

Toronto Star

Improper CT scans pose a risk: report

By macleans.ca - Friday, October 16, 2009 at 1:27 PM - 1 Comment

Americans receive more diagnostic radiation than ever, the New York Times reports, yet two California cases suggest there are risks involved when CT scans are incorrectly used. One week ago, LA’s Cedars-Sinai Medical Center said it had mistakenly administered up to eight times the normal radiation dose to 206 possible stroke patients over an 18-month period, during a procedure meant to take images of the brain. The case is under investigation. Meanwhile, in Arcata, CA, a 2-year-old boy complaining of neck pain after falling off his bed was subjected to over an hour of CT scans, a process that usually takes about three minutes. In what the hospital radiation manager called “a rogue act of insanity,” X-ray technologist Raven Knickerbocker activated the scan 151 times on the same area, according to state investigator, in a test that normally involves 25 images. The child showed a line on his face “consistent with the anatomical region that received the excessive radiation,” state investigators said. Knickerbocker was fired, but is contesting the state’s revocation of her license. She suspects the machine malfunctioned.

The New York Times

Camera captures life's events

By macleans.ca - Friday, October 16, 2009 at 12:57 PM - 1 Comment

Is every moment of your life worth recording? The researchers of the SenseCam think so. The camera, which is worn around the neck like a pendant, snaps a photo every time it detects the body heat from someone else in front of the wearer. Initially created to help those with Alzheimer’s disease to remember, the SenseCam may soon allow everyday people to chronicle their life’s events. Developed by Microsoft Research Cambridge, U.K., the technology has been licensed to Vicon, another U.K.-based company. Expected to retail for about US$820, Vicon’s version will be marketed to researchers at first. A consumer version could be on the market as early as 2010.

New Scientist

Louisiana JP blocks interracial marriage

By macleans.ca - Friday, October 16, 2009 at 12:56 PM - 5 Comments

Maybe Keith Bardwell, a justice of the peace in Tangipahoa Parish, was unaware President Obama was in the state the day he denied a marriage license to an interracial couple, citing concern for the pair’s children. That would be President Obama—child of a Kenyan father and a mother from Kansas. Nor could Bardwell be watching True Blood, where Louisianan characters not only have relationships with members of other races, but with vampires. Ease up, Keith. If vampires existed, you’d be glad to marry white people to black people.

Chicago Tribune

Ice-free Arctic summers in 20 years: report

By macleans.ca - Friday, October 16, 2009 at 12:52 PM - 57 Comments

Global warming will make for an ice-free Arctic Ocean in as little as 20 years, which could spell disaster for the Northern ecosystem, according to leading British polar scientist Peter Wadhams, a professor of ocean physics at the University of Cambridge. While he expects the winter ice to stay for centuries more, an ice-free summer will raise sea levels and endanger seals, polar bears and other species, also meaning the Earth will appear blue, not white, when photographed from space. What’s more, a new sea route North of Russia will become navigable. To reach his conclusions, Wadham’s compared ice thickness measurements from 2007 to ones gathered this year. The Arctic ice plays as important role in the world’s climate, he notes; as the ice melts in the summers, it exposes ocean water that absorbs sunlight instead of reflecting it, which accelerates global warming. “The Arctic Sea ice holds a central position in our Earth’s climate system. Take it out of the equation and we are left with a dramatically warmer world,” he told Reuters. “This could lead to flooding affecting one-quarter of the world’s population, substantial increases in greenhouse gas emissions …. and extreme global weather changes.”

Reuters

Whistleblowers say mafia is fixing Montreal construction bids

By macleans.ca - Friday, October 16, 2009 at 12:51 PM - 3 Comments

Industry whistleblowers have revealed that a small number of construction companies are colluding to artificially keep prices high on major municipal infrastructure projects in the greater Montreal region. Taxpayers may be  paying up to 35 per cent too much, according to a report by Radio Canada. François Beaudry, a former consultant with Quebec’s deputy minister of transport, says the firms are controlled by the mafia and use a fictitious golf game to rig the bids.

For example, an anonymous contractor says the organizer of the “game” would tell the other companies that nine players would be leaving from the fourth hole at 11 o’clock. In this case, the “fourth hole” represents $4 million and “nine players” indicates $900,000, meaning the winning bid would be $4.9 million. “Competing” companies would therefore have to bid above that. “I’m not surprised [by the report]” said Montreal Mayor Gérald Tremblay. “Everyone is focusing on Montreal, but it is a problem across the province of Quebec.”

CBC

Are kindergarteners better off in the sandpit than at desks?

By macleans.ca - Friday, October 16, 2009 at 12:47 PM - 2 Comments

Forget about traditional kindergarten. A recent review of primary education in England found that forcing young children to sit in desks all day may actually cause harm, and suggested that young children should be exposed to “play-based learning” instead. For some insight into what this means, BBC spends some time at a school where five-year-olds spend their days in interactive settings like the sandpit, learning without realizing they are being taught. Northfield Infants School in East Yorkshire is open plan, and kids are free to explore counting tables and number cards on their own.

BBC

BBC

Hey look: A smart guy, not in Ottawa

By Paul Wells - Friday, October 16, 2009 at 12:36 PM - 1 Comment

From the print edition, my column about Neil Turok and the latest from the Perimeter Institute. Turok and I talked about a wide variety of topics when I interviewed him in Toronto. What made it into the column was very nearly randomly selected. What got left out, including a discussion of his ambitious and fascinating work at the African Institute for Mathematical Science, will be up here on the blog soon, if I can find time during an entertaining weekend away from Ottawa.

'That choice is now his'

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, October 16, 2009 at 12:11 PM - 54 Comments

Glen Pearson considers Barack Obama’s Nobel Prize, Stephen Harper and Michael Ignatieff.

Politics is desperately in need of game-changers – leaders who go for the impossible as opposed to the prudent, for principle over power, peace over pragmatism. Stephen Harper can never be that person because he’s an incrementalist, attempting not to change the channel but to just bore us with all the noise in hopes we won’t catch on to the subtle changes he’s introducing. To accomplish his agenda, he requires stealth.  Michael Ignatieff is the only leader close enough to forming government who has the potential to inspire us once again. But for that to happen he mustn’t be so much defined by politics as transcending it. That choice is now his.

And the ITQ Awesome Department of the Week Award goes to …

By kadyomalley - Friday, October 16, 2009 at 11:14 AM - 25 Comments

PCO — yes, that PCO — for fulfilling one of ITQ’s most oft-muttered wishes with this not-quite-complete-but-getting-there online archive of commissions of inquiry past, from the 1981 MacDonald report on the state of the RCMP  to H.C. Cogston’s 1914 investigation into the decision to turn away  ”300 Hindu passengers” of the Komagata Maru.

The Gomery report is there, of course — as well as a mirror of the now defunct commission website — but the PCO website also provides the sordid details on the underlying cause of  unrest in the asbestos mining industry in early 20th century Quebec, as well as the official findings on contradictory accounts of a spat between Agnes McPhail and the inspector of penitentiaries and the results of an investigation into “defalcations” at the Department of Militia and Defence.

It all makes for fascinating reading, no matter how dated or obscure the topic — so dig in! Feel free to share any noteworthy tidbits you find in the comments.

Fatherly Advice

By Andrew Potter - Friday, October 16, 2009 at 10:54 AM - 12 Comments

According to Valerie Bertinell, before Eddie Van Halen took their son Wolfgang out on tour, he did his best Polonius-to-Laertes impression:

“But he did say a lot of the same things that I thought. He said, ‘Be careful with your heart. When you do give it away have patience and kindness… and be careful of the skanks and w**res; they’re gonna want you because you’re in Van Halen!’ That’s it. He’s a really terrific dad, he really is.”

Be careful with your heart. Be careful of the skanks. That’s lyrics, dude.

UPDATE: Oh, what the heck, it’s Friday:

Speaking of props

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, October 16, 2009 at 10:49 AM - 33 Comments

Susan Delacourt considers the life of a government MP.

Every time I see one of those photos, I  feel sorry for the member of Parliament in the picture. When they’re in Ottawa, they’re given lines to recite, like children. When they’re back in their ridings, they have to pose like circus artists for the cameras. I’m continually amazed that anyone wants that job.

That Timmy O'Toole Is a Real Hero!

By Jaime Weinman - Friday, October 16, 2009 at 10:49 AM - 8 Comments

There might have been some people who didn’t think of the Simpsons “Radio Bart” episode after yesterday’s Balloon Incident (or “Ballooncident”), but I certainly don’t know who those people might be.

I would like to add that I think of “Radio Bart” as the perfect Simpsons episode. I don’t know whether it’s my choice for the very best episode, though at various times it’s been my favourite. But I do know that it’s got everything the show had in its prime period: observational, realistic humour (Bart’s crappy birthday party and gifts), satirical humour (obviously), surreal stuff (“The Lincoln squirrel has been assassinated!”), movie takeoffs (the whole episode came about because Matt Groening wanted to do a homage/ripoff for Billy Wilder’s Ace in the Hole) family interaction, sentiment, celebrity-bashing, and the “happy God!” scene. Like most of the best episodes, it’s not just packed with jokes, it’s packed with every different kind of humour and storytelling you can do on television.

Week in Pictures: October 10th – October 15th, 2009

By macleans.ca - Friday, October 16, 2009 at 10:42 AM - 0 Comments

Daughter of Ahmadinejad's spin doctor flees Iran

By Michael Petrou - Friday, October 16, 2009 at 10:37 AM - 4 Comments

Nargess Kalhor has applied for asylum in Germany. Potkin Azarmehr has the story.

Booklovers beware

By macleans.ca - Friday, October 16, 2009 at 10:22 AM - 1 Comment

The Ottawa Citizen reports on the plight of part-time psychology professor/full-time book collector David Bentley, whose decades-long quest to complete a rare collection of Alexander Pope’s poetic works seemed on the verge of triumph when he found the elusive second volume up for sale on the website of a rare book dealer in France. One $170 electronic transaction later, the book was winging its way to Ottawa, but when it didn’t turn up, Bentley turned to Canada Post for answers, only to discover that it had been “misdelivered” to a likely somewhat puzzled recipient, address—and identity—currently unknown. Although the post office did offer to launch an investigation into the missing mail, it informed Bentley that the Bordeaux-based bookseller would have to initiate, and pay for the claim, which seems unlikely. “While I know that nothing can replace the rare book,” the apology to Bentley concluded, “I am enclosing two booklets of stamps for your future use.” All in all, it’s hard not to share Bentley’s view: “I hate my natural misanthropy being confirmed,” he told the Citizen—a sentiment with which Pope would doubtless heartily agree.

Ottawa Citizen

Crisis averted—or publicity stunt?

By macleans.ca - Friday, October 16, 2009 at 10:21 AM - 7 Comments

UPDATE: A new statement from the Weld County Sheriff’s Office has stirred rumours about exactly what caused yesterday’s dramatic events. “We might send them a bill,” announced Depty Margie Martinez on Friday. “We had all these resources taken away from doing the workload that would normally be done and redirected toward this one incident.” Apparently, Martinez estimated that potential bill at “hundreds of thousands” of dollars.

Richard Heene says he is “appalled” by suggestions that yesterday’s drama was nothing but a hoax. Yesterday, major news networks tuned their attention to the Heene family after six-year-old Falcon Heene—and a large balloon shaped like a spacecraft that had been tethered in the family’s backyard—went missing. Believing that the boy might have climbed in the balloon, which reached heights of 7,000 ft, Colorado state authorities initiated a massive and expensive rescue mission. In the end, it turned out that the boy was not in the balloon, but rather hiding in his attic. The family breathed a sigh of relief.

Or did they? Last night, in an interview on CNN, Falcon was asked why he stayed hiding in his attic. His response, “You had said we did this for a show,” referring to his father, has spurred rumours that the whole chase was simply a publicity stunt. The Heenes are certainly not camera shy. The self-described storm chasing, thrill-seeking family has twice appeared on the ABC reality show, Wife Swap. And Richard Heene has an amateur video series on YouTube, where he comments on topics ranging from Britney Spears to the Loch Ness Monster. After Falcon’s suspicious comment on CNN, Mr. Heene interrupted the interview to say, “I’m kind of appalled after all the feelings that I went through, up and down, that you guys are trying to suggest something else.” Later, he said he believed that Falcon had been confused by all the TV crews reporting on his story.

BBC News

Fox News

Times Colonist

Time for Ignatieff to take a chance

By Andrew Coyne - Friday, October 16, 2009 at 10:20 AM - 83 Comments

It is true in politics, no less than in physics, that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Michael Ignatieff, as is well known, has seen his popularity nosedive in recent weeks, when it seemed he could not put a foot right. Very well: if he is smart, he can turn that to his advantage, using the very speed of his decline to propel his rebound. Reculer pour mieux sauter and all that.

There is a script for this. If listening to his advisers, playing it safe, taking no stands, guarding every word has brought him to this humiliating low, then the way is open for one of those Hollywood moments, where the candidate rips up the speech that has been prepared for him and speaks from the heart—when he sheds the ingratiating poses of “politics as usual” in favour of his authentic self. Of course, it helps if that is, in fact, what the candidate is up to. Continue…

So unlike anything else out there

By Andrew Coyne - Friday, October 16, 2009 at 10:10 AM - 3 Comments

At the end of Where The Wild Things Are, Spike Jonze’s wondrous adaptation of the beloved Maurice Sendak classic, Catherine Keener, as the mother, gazes searchingly, adoringly, into the face of her son, just returned after briefly running away from home. Who are you, she seems to be thinking. What is going on inside that head?

The gift of this film is to give us a glimpse. It is, as Jonze has said, not so much a children’s film as a film about childhood. Most films “for” children are dispensed to them like candy, with a few knowing pop-culture references tossed in to keep the adults awake. Jonze and his collaborators pay children the respect of taking them seriously. As such, the film makes absorbing viewing for adults and children alike. Continue…

This week: Good news/Bad news

By Michael Friscolanti - Friday, October 16, 2009 at 9:30 AM - 1 Comment

Face of the week
Nobel glee: Desmond Tutu laughs during a press conference celebrating U.S. President Barack Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize win

A week in the life of Hamid Karzai
Based on a final tally, the Afghan president won more than 54 per cent of the popular vote in the country’s August presidential election. However, as many as 1.1 million of those votes may have been fraudulently cast, according to European Union election observers. If those were to be disqualified, Karzai’s support would fall below 50 per cent, triggering a runoff election against his main challenger, Abdullah Abdullah. Continue…