The Commons: Bring it on

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, October 27, 2009 at 6:21 PM - 63 Comments

The Scene. Worried perhaps that his point had been lost amid yesterday’s unpleasantness, David McGuinty stood at the start of Question Period this afternoon and picked up approximately where he had left off the day before.

“Remember the facts,” he said. “One hundred million dollars of partisan propaganda without accountability, infrastructure funds distributed as if they were reward points and more than 60 investigations by the office of the Ethics Commissioner, a minister under investigation for his ties to lobbyists and federal agencies, a Conservative senator linked to key players in a scandal.”

Then, a simple-enough question. “When,” Mr. McGuinty wondered, “are the Conservatives going to clean up this ethical mess?”

The Prime Minister stood, buttoned his jacket, adjusted his left cuff and addressed the Speaker on another matter entirely.

“Mr. Speaker, this is a time of global economic recession,” he said, “but Canada’s performance exceeds that of many other countries and the measures of government are well-supported by Canadians and even the vast majority of provincial governments.”

This much had been said in French, the language employed for Mr. McGuinty’s first question. But, before sitting, the Prime Minister switched momentarily to his first language. “This question,” he said, “reminds me of the old saying: ‘When you throw mud, you lose ground.’”

So there. The Prime Minister returned to his seat then, entirely done dealing with the Liberals for the day. Continue…

The vast socialist conspiracy (III)

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, October 27, 2009 at 5:39 PM - 26 Comments

Here is the airing of accusations and denials that followed Question Period today.

In other news, the protester known as Jeh was just on Power & Politics explaining that nothing was amiss with the blood on his face, that the poor quality of the image of him leaving Parliament is to account for the blood not being visible. He also produced what he said was an ER report of his injuries to the nose and face. Continue…

Why I Hate Those Kids From the Trix Commercials

By Jaime Weinman - Tuesday, October 27, 2009 at 4:45 PM - 15 Comments

Okay, it’s come to my attention that I may need to explain what I mean when I say I hate those kids from the Trix commercials. Not to dwell on it too much (since this would bore those of you who already hate them too), here’s the quick explanation:

1) Every Trix commercial has the Rabbit trying to eat some Trix.

2) In every commercial, a bunch of kids take the cereal away from him and won’t let him eat it, because “Trix are for kids!”

3) The people who made the original commercials in the ’60s apparently thought we’d root for the kids, because they get to have something that’s all their own, and the commercials are selling the idea that Trix was a special sugary treat for kids only, not adults or talking rabbits.

4) But every kid who watched the commercials hated the kids for being so cruel to the rabbit.

Examples of this wanton cruelty, from the ’60s:

The ’70s:

Continue…

High-speed rail over hockey

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, October 27, 2009 at 4:36 PM - 16 Comments

Is this the birth of a brave new Michael Ignatieff?

Leader Michael Ignatieff says he hopes for the return of the Quebec Nordiques, but his funding priority would be the often-discussed and never-built high speed rail link from Quebec City to Windsor.

The popular idea of bringing the Nords back to the provincial capital arose when the city’s incumbent mayor began campaigning on a promise to build a modern arena that could attract an NHL team.

The Hilarity of Harry Reid

By Jaime Weinman - Tuesday, October 27, 2009 at 4:32 PM - 7 Comments

Don’t worry, this isn’t a controversy-type post, just a quick look at the apparent ineffectuality of U.S. Senate leader Harry Reid. What has become clear is that nobody trusts Reid to deliver the votes necessary to pass anything, partly because he’s been fairly passive about letting the Republicans filibuster everything (creating what amounts to a supermajority requirement to pass legislation) and partly because he can’t even guarantee that the members of his own caucus won’t join a filibuster. This became clear today when Joe Lieberman, former Democrat who caucuses with his former party, expressed an intent to filibuster a health-care bill with a public option.

Reid, who appalled the Washington Post’s snarky liberal-basher Dana Milbank by including the option in his health-care bill, can pass anything if he just keeps all 60 of his caucus members from filibustering (up to nine of them can vote against the bill; they just have to vote to allow a vote). The news that the Obama administration was pushing against the public option, in favour of a plan favoured by semi-Republican Olympia Snowe, was taken as a sign that they didn’t have confidence in Reid’s ability to deliver 60 votes against a filibuster. And it seems, for now, that they were right. That might change, or Reid might simply drop the public option from the bill; this way he at least gets credit for trying to put the public option in there, which can help him get liberal support for his tough upcoming re-election campaign. But for now, Reid has gained such a reputation for weakness that everything he says or does sort of re-inforces the perception that he’s weak; he’s even taken to referring to himself in the third person, Bob Dole style.

The question, then, is whether Reid is as weak as he seems, or whether this is a misconception that comes from his famously meek manner and his difficult job. He obviously has a tough job because the Democrats are a more heterogeneous party than the Republicans. But the Republicans are able to keep their members in line more than the Democrats can theirs. Snowe and Susan Collins, the only “liberal” Republicans left, often vote with their party when they’re under serious pressure to do so. The Democrats under Reid are infamous for not threatening committee chairmanships or other perks (Lieberman was allowed to keep his chairmanship after campaigning for the other party’s candidate), so they have no real reason to do anything they’re told.

Reid also kind of seems like a guy who became majority leader almost by accident. He was appointed to lead the Democrats after their previous leader, Tom Daschle, lost re-election. The Democrats were in a pretty deep hole at the time (2004) and seemed likely to be in the minority for some time. Reid seemed like the kind of guy who would be a good minority leader: from a state that went for Bush in 2004 (Nevada) with a reputation for being somewhat conservative on social issues like abortion, and well-liked. He could block certain Republican initiatives and cut deals with the majority on other things. Once the Democrats unexpectedly recaptured the Senate and he became majority leader, he had to take a role in actively pushing things through, and he doesn’t seem particularly good at it. The Republicans may have had a somewhat similar problem when they unexpectedly recaptured the Senate in 1980 on Reagan’s coattails: their leader was Howard Baker, a moderate, bipartisan-type Republican who was arguably more suited to the role of minority leader.

Worse, because Reid’s not from a reliably blue state, he has to worry that certain things will hurt his re-election chances; he’s always looking over his shoulder at the voters. Daschle, from South Dakota, had a similar problem when he was Majority Leader in 2001-2. Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader, is from Kentucky, a strong Republican state; he had a stronger-than-usual challenge in 2008, but won by a comfortable 100,000 vote margin. He can do his job without worrying that the voters will punish him for being too beholden to his party.

Former writer for Letterman show reveals charged atmosphere

By macleans.ca - Tuesday, October 27, 2009 at 4:30 PM - 0 Comments

Women writers have long been excluded from late night television, writes Nell Scovell in a Vanity Fair online exclusive, so when she was hired to work on David Letterman’s show—which, in 27 years, has only hired seven female writers—she jumped at the chance. But the dream job didn’t pan out. While Letterman, recently in the news for his affairs with female staffers, never hit on her, Scovell says she was aware of rumours he and other high-level male execs were having sexual affairs with other female employees. These female staffers had “access to information and wield[ed] power disproportionate to their job titles,” she writes, adding that this contributed to a “hostile work environment.” Scovell eventually quit the show, returning to sitcom writing. The predominance of male writers, she notes, is a persistent problem: there are currently more females serving on the US Supreme Court than there are writing for shows hosted by David Letterman, Jay Leno and Conan O’Brian combined. In fact, out of the 50 comedy writers working on these three late-night shows, none are women. “It would be funny if it weren’t true,” she writes.

Vanity Fair

A bloody good PR move?

By macleans.ca - Tuesday, October 27, 2009 at 3:52 PM - 11 Comments

It certainly didn’t lack drama: yesterday, environmental protester Jeh Custer—one of about 200 who disrupted yesterday’s Question Period, and were consequently banned from Parliament Hill for a year—appeared on CBC television with his face smeared in blood, the result, he said, of being thrown to the ground in a stairwell by security officers. But new raw footage from CBC shows that, before Custer appeared on the show, his face was clean. CBC now says the “onus” is on Custer to explain himself.

CBC News

The vast socialist conspiracy (II)

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, October 27, 2009 at 3:45 PM - 18 Comments

The NDP is now categorically denying any involvement in yesterday’s kerfuffle. A rather long discussion of the matter occurred in the House after Question Period (transcript will be posted here once it becomes available).

Meanwhile, Jane Taber makes contact with the individual widely identified as the organizer.

There was blood

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, October 27, 2009 at 1:57 PM - 35 Comments

David Akin bears witness to the original bloodshed.

I was the only reporter standing in the basement of the Centre Block when Custer and the rest were frogmarched into an interrogation room with their hands handcuffed behind their backs. I saw Custer myself with a line of blood running out of his mouth while he was in handcuffs.

The vast socialist conspiracy

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, October 27, 2009 at 1:55 PM - 15 Comments

Asked Karl Belanger, press secretary to Jack Layton, about suggestions that the NDP was associated with yesterday’s protest. His response.

Ya, that’s right. We organized a protest to interrupt our Leader during his question. Clearly, it was a socialist plot from the NDP.

So there. Nonetheless, whether officially sanctioned or not, NDP MP Nathan Cullen seems to have appreciated the disruption.

Hey look: And what if Toronto became a cultural suburb of Kitchener?

By Paul Wells - Tuesday, October 27, 2009 at 1:46 PM - 8 Comments

From the magazine, my profile of Edwin Outwater, the very impressive musical director of the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony. He’ll be taking his band up the road to Toronto on Thursday to the Royal Conservatory’s new Koerner Hall, for a program of music selected by the young composer/ party host Nico Muhly, whom some of us saw last year in Toronto opening for (and rather overshadowing) Final Fantasy at the Danforth Music Hall. The program will include a new piece by Richard Reed Parry from Arcade Fire, in which stethoscopes are used in a novel way. This Kitchener-Waterloo, as I have noted on several occasions, is an unusual and impressive place, and Edwin Outwater helps make it so.

Canadian citizen charged in U.S.-based terror plot

By macleans.ca - Tuesday, October 27, 2009 at 1:30 PM - 0 Comments

A Canadian citizen living in Chicago has been arrested and charged with plotting an attack on a Danish newspaper over its publication of cartoons depicting Prophet Muhammad. Tahawwur Hussain Rana, a native of Pakistan with a Canadian citizenship, is facing one count of conspiracy to provide material support to a foreign terrorism conspiracy. Rana is accused of helping U.S. citizen David Coleman Headley plan an attack on the facilities of Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten, the newspaper that published the cartoons in 2005. Headley, meanwhile, has been charged with one count of conspiracy to commit terrorist acts involving murder and maiming outside the United States and one count of conspiracy to provide material support to that overseas terrorism conspiracy.

CBC News

Smile like you mean it

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, October 27, 2009 at 1:10 PM - 3 Comments

Bruce Anderson considers the politics of grinning.

When characterizing what we like or don’t like, we often rely on concepts such as strong or weak, hard-nosed or vacillating, warm or cold, introspective or popularity addicted, determined or lacking fire in the belly. All good, all relevant, based on my work. But one thing that’s frequently underestimated is the enormous power of optimism, an infectious enthusiasm for the future. It’s human nature: offered a menu of hope or fear, we dine on hope.

… there is actually quite a bit of science about the social effects of smiling, and even a name (Duchenne smile) for the type of facial expression that seems the most sincere and spontaneous. Leaders who smile, who signal that we are going to succeed, are leaders we are drawn to. Leaders who signal just how bad things are or could be, who appear to be bearing the weight of the world on their shoulders, find us slipping their embrace.

The case of the reappearing blood

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, October 27, 2009 at 12:15 PM - 44 Comments

The CBC’s Janyce McGregor compares and contrasts images of the bloody faced protester as he was led away from Parliament Hill (no blood) and as he appeared a few hours later on Power & Politics (blood).

Fewer Canadians collecting EI, but jobless numbers grow

By macleans.ca - Tuesday, October 27, 2009 at 11:29 AM - 6 Comments

Despite encouraging statistics on the number of Canadians collecting employment insurance, there has been an increase in new claims. According to Statistics Canada, the number of people receiving jobless benefits fell 2.4 per cent from July to August, but as economists have predicted, more Canadians are likely to receive pink slips in the coming months. After two months of decline, the number of new and renewal EI claims rose 8.2 per cent in August. The provinces with the biggest jump in new claims: Ontario and British Columbia. Overall, the number of people on EI has spiked 52.5 per cent in the past year, with the biggest increases among those living in major cities. In August, some 763,200 Canadians were collecting EI.

Globe and Mail

U.S. diplomat resigns in protest of the Afghanistan war

By macleans.ca - Tuesday, October 27, 2009 at 11:18 AM - 1 Comment

Matthew Hoh, a Marine Corps war hero turned diplomat, has resigned his post in Afghanistan—sending “ripples all the way to the White House.” Hoh, who was the senior U.S. civilian in Zabul province, a Taliban hotbed, is the first American official to quit in protest over the Afghan war. “I have lost understanding of and confidence in the strategic purposes of the United States’ presence in Afghanistan,” he wrote in a four-page letter to the State Department’s head of personnel. “I have doubts and reservations about our current strategy and planned future strategy, but my resignation is based not upon how we are pursuing this war, but why and to what end.” In his letter, Hoh wrote that many Afghans are fighting the U.S. because its troops are there—not because they all support the Taliban. While the Taliban is a malign presence, and Pakistan-based al-Qaeda needs to be confronted, he said, the United States is asking its troops to die in Afghanistan for what is essentially a far-off civil war.

The Washington Post

Castro’s sister worked for the CIA

By macleans.ca - Tuesday, October 27, 2009 at 11:12 AM - 0 Comments

Juanita Castro was disillusioned with the injustice that grew out of the Cuban revolution. So when the CIA approached her after the failed Bay of Pigs invasion and asked her to help protect its Cuban agents, she agreed. Details about her time with the agency are revealed in Castro’s new book, “My Brothers Fidel and Raul, the Secret History.” According to the memoir, she received her missions via coded messages on the radio, and worked under the condition that she would not commit violence against her brothers. Castro says she refused any payment, but remained with the CIA through the Cuban Missile crisis and in the years after she became an exile in Miami. The agency hasn’t commented on her claims.

CNN.com

Why Michael Ignatieff should be more like George Costanza

By Scott Feschuk - Tuesday, October 27, 2009 at 11:01 AM - 44 Comments

It’s been a rough go for Michael Ignatieff. He came into political life like some suave fella all full of brains and handsome and by now he’s got to be feeling like Sideshow Bob being smacked in the face with the sixth rake and, oh, look, there’s three more lying there on the ground.

There’s no denying it: Ignatieff is in a tough spot right now. He’s so low in the polls that he can see Gilles Duceppe’s bald spot. But you know who else is often in a tight spot? Sitcom characters. And yet they always seem to finagle their way out of it. Maybe it’s time for Michael Ignatieff to stop following the advice of political strategists and start learning from the titans of the small screen.

Tip No. 1: Do the opposite of what you’d normally do (George Costanza/Seinfeld) – George was the ultimate loser until he started denying his every impulse. Doing so made him attractive and popular. So when Ignatieff feels the urge to issue another ultimatum or threat, he shouldn’t. When he’d normally skew toward hyperbole, he should pursue measured discourse. And when he thinks the eyebrows are good for another couple weeks, no, time for a trim.

Tip No. 2: Get Peter Frampton to serenade Canada with the song Baby I Love Your Way (Peter Griffin/Family Guy) – After golfing on his anniversary, Peter has an epiphany (thanks to a lighting strike and, indirectly, Death’s hectoring mother) and realizes how important his wife is to him. He wins her back by Continue…

False dichotomy

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, October 27, 2009 at 10:54 AM - 11 Comments

Rob Silver responds to Glen Pearson’s response to Andrew Coyne’s suggestion.

The dichotomy Glen buys into is either you say nothing (the “safe option”) or you put out lots of smart, detailed policies (the “risky option”). The risky option is akin to political suicide and therefore the safe option must be followed at all costs … The real dichotomy is between communicating your ideas well – whether those ideas are bold or more of the same – versus communicating your ideas poorly.

Family "grounded" by doc over swine flu

By macleans.ca - Tuesday, October 27, 2009 at 10:52 AM - 1 Comment

There’s a fine line between precaution and panic, but when it comes to swine
flu, who knows where it lies? Consider the case of the Boyd family of
Herring Cove, N.S., all four members of which quarantined themselves behind
closed doors for a week after 17-year-old Brendan Boyd was diagnosed with
the virus. They did so on the advice of their family doctor, but the GP’s
message contradicts that of provincial public health officials, who insist
that only people diagnosed with H1N1 need to stay home from work and school.
It also highlights the confusion in the minds of many Canadians—physicians
included—about the best way to keep the germ from spreading. “We’ve
repeatedly told doctors that there’s no reason to quarantine well
individuals,” said Dr. Robert Strang, Nova Scotia’s chief medical officer.

http://thechronicleherald.ca/Front/1149625.html

Microsoft vs. Family Guy, Or This Program Has Performed An Illegal Operation

By Jaime Weinman - Tuesday, October 27, 2009 at 10:48 AM - 10 Comments

This is yesterday’s news, literally, but Microsoft pulled its sponsorship from the upcoming Family Guy variety special (where Seth MacFarlane and Alex Borstein will perform as themselves) because they heard the jokes and realized that this was full of “offensive” humour. Microsoft’s announcement makes it clear that they (or the people who greenlit this, anyway) had no idea what the show was about and simply chose to sponsor it because of the demographics:

We initially chose to participate in the Seth and Alex variety show based on the audience composition and creative humor of ‘Family Guy,’ but after reviewing an early version of the variety show, it became clear that the content was not a fit with the Windows brand.

There is, however, no truth to the rumour that Seth MacFarlane and the “Mac” from those John Hodgman commercials are the same person. Even though they’re both young and smug. (On a tangent, I now find myself rooting for the PC in those commercials. The Mac is such a smarmy, self-satisfied jerk, in the tradition of those kids from the Trix commercials.) But obviously this won’t help Microsoft any in their quest to make themselves seem hipper.

Actually, I can see the MacFarlane/Borstein thing being decent, or at least better than the other variety specials that the networks have greenlit in their ill-fated quest to bring back the format. One thing I actually do like about MacFarlane is that even though I find him unfunny, he does have genuine love for old-fashioned showbiz, particularly Broadway musicals and Vegas-style cabaret. He has, for example, done at least two parodies of songs from the Bob Merrill/Jackie Gleason musical Take Me Along, a show that only hard-core Broadway buffs seem to know about. I might actually watch this thing just to see if they choose to parody any songs as obscure as Take Me Along‘s “But Yours.”

Nunavut: polar bears are not endangered here

By macleans.ca - Tuesday, October 27, 2009 at 10:35 AM - 3 Comments

Nunavut officials are not pleased with U.S efforts to ban the commercial trade of polar bears. The United States has proposed that polar bears be reclassified under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), a move which could effectively put an end to the polar bear trade. The suggestion is now part of an international treaty that will be put to a vote in March and 175 countries have already signed on. But those in Nunavut say the move would be detrimental to the economic well-being of territory residents. Since the treaty would prevent hunters from taking home polar bear hides from Nunavut, sport hunting in the territory would all but disappear—and, along with it, the jobs of those who who work as hunting guides. Nunavut Environment Minister Daniel Shewchuk insists this is all a big misunderstanding. Americans, he says, don’t understand that Canada has a strong polar bear management system and that the species in not endangered here: “It’s a matter of educating these other countries and the U.S. on our management system, on what we have done for polar bears and what we continue to do.”

CBC.ca

Coming soon: novels as popular as Latin poetry

By macleans.ca - Tuesday, October 27, 2009 at 10:31 AM - 0 Comments

At 76, Philip Roth shows no signs of slowing down. The American novelist has a new book, The Humbling, out less than a year after his last novel, and another one ready for 2010 publication. Not that he thinks very many people will be reading them a quarter century from now. Roth believes that the concentration and focus required to read a novel is becoming less and less prevalent, as potential readers turn instead to computers or to television. “I was being optimistic about 25 years really. I think it’s going to be cultic. I think always people will be reading them but it will be a small group of people. Maybe more people than now read Latin poetry, but somewhere in that range,” Roth told Tina Brown, editor-in-chief of The Daily Beast. The advent of e-readers such as the Kindle will make no difference. “The book can’t compete with the screen. It couldn’t compete [in the] beginning with the movie screen. It couldn’t compete with the television screen, and it can’t compete with the computer screen,” Roth said. “Now we have all those screens, so against all those screens a book couldn’t measure up.”

Guardian.co.uk

Karzai's rival speaks

By macleans.ca - Tuesday, October 27, 2009 at 10:16 AM - 0 Comments

As Afghanistan braces for a run-off presidential election on Nov. 7, a probing interview with Abdullah Abdullah, President Hamid Karzai’s main challenger, offers insights into the leadership alternative for the troubled country. Dismissed as foreign minister by Karzai three years ago, Adbullah is now viewed by some as Washington’s favoured candidate. He denies that the US is anything but neutral. On other key points, Abdullah endorses Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s proposal—now being considering by President Barack Obama—for boosting the number of American troops in Afghanistan. “But it takes two to tango,” Abduallah says. “The other part is the Afghans—if they fail, it can’t work.” He denies rumours that he would accept a power-sharing deal with Karzai, vowing to push for “real change” in Kabul.

Spiegel.de