Newsmakers

By macleans.ca - Friday, November 27, 2009 at 9:30 AM - 1 Comment

So a blond walks into a courtroom

Mississauga, Ont., native Jordan Wimmer cleared more than $1 million last year working for Nomos Capital, a London-based hedge fund. But all was not a bed of roses for the attractive, 29-year-old blond financier. Indeed, her blondness is at the heart of her $7-million wrongful dismissal suit against her multi-millionaire boss Mark Lowe. Sexist jokes, piggish behaviour and even an attempt to run her down on the street were part of a campaign of harassment, Wimmer testified last week. She told a London employment tribunal that Lowe made cutting personal remarks, emailed sexist “dumb blond” jokes throughout the office and cavorted in front of her with a stripper, causing her to suffer depression and an eating disorder. Lowe accused Wimmer of “gross distortions,” though he admits “entirely as a joke” to calling her “decorative” and a “dumb blond.” As for his emailed gag about a blond confusing a Corn Flakes box with a jigsaw puzzle, he says that “feeble joke” wasn’t told at her expense. Depending on the tribunal’s sense of humour, the joke may be on Lowe. Continue…

Happy Black Friday, Americans

By Andrew Potter - Friday, November 27, 2009 at 9:13 AM - 3 Comments

Dear Americans,

Thanks for all the football on television yesterday. It kept Feschuk busy, and gave me something to do other than watch Two and a Half Men reruns.

Have fun shopping today. I hope you don’t get trampled! Of course, if you’re really worried, you might want to consider just buying nothing.

Love,

ap

P.S. Did you hear we got al-Jazeera?

Boy, it's a good thing this isn't a game

By Paul Wells - Friday, November 27, 2009 at 12:04 AM - 100 Comments

Government of Canada puts a decision about a pillar of its economic policy in the hands of an opposition party, just to make the guy in charge sweat. That’s not the kind of pathetic gamesmanship that reliably turns voters off the Conservatives every time they start to build a strong lead at all.

Loving 'The Road' and the plastic fantastic 21st century 'Fox'

By Brian D. Johnson - Thursday, November 26, 2009 at 11:01 PM - 5 Comments

The sky is falling at the multiplex this weekend, with two new movies about indomitable dads trying to survive the end of the world as they know it.  Take your choice between grim and giddy, and between a bunker and a foxhole. The Road is a gruelling post-apocalyptic odyssey based on the novel by Cormac McCarthy, with Viggo Mortensen starring as a widowed survivor dragging his son through the barbaric ruins of America. The Fantastic Mr. Fox is a stop-motion animated feature directed by Wes Anderson (Rushmore), with George Clooney voicing the role of Mr. Fox, whose compulsive banditry turns his family into homeless outlaws.  I can heartily recommend both movies, although they offer utterly different experiences. Featuring superb performance from Mortensen and Kodi Smit-McPhee, who plays his son, The Road is one of the year’s strongest dramas. But it’s no picnic, to say the least. The Fantastic Mr. Fox, on the other hand is a tonic, a painless treat, and although we have yet to see Disney’s The Princess and the Frog, it stands out as the year’s wittiest animated feature. And in an era of computer generated spectacle, both films have a rare physical realism.

The Road

Like No Country for Old Men, another Cormac McCarthy adaptation, The Road should make a significant dent at the Oscars, although it’s not as much fun: unlike the Coen brothers’ movie, John Hillcoat’s sombre epic is painted in shades of grey, not noir. It’s set in a world where there’s nothing left of civilization, including its sense of humour. And there’s no villain to speak of, just zombie-like hordes of cannibal vigilantes who roam a barren, burnt-out landscape under a permanently leaden sky. This is no 2012: it’s about an America where the havoc has already been wreaked, without explanation, and no one’s in Kansas anymore. Whether from a nuclear blast or a cosmic collision, this scorched Earth is a dirty, barren mess. There’s no power, no vegetation and virtually no food. Everyone’s a refugee and some of them want to eat you. Continue…

The Commons: 'Let us get beyond the rhetorical flourish'

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, November 26, 2009 at 5:50 PM - 34 Comments

The Scene. Bob Rae stood and reviewed the allegations of obstruction, of troubles faced by the Military Police Complaints Commission and Richard Colvin. “How is all this compatible,” he wondered aloud, “with the pursuit of the truth about allegations of abuse in Afghan prisons?”

With the Prime Minister away, this seemed an appropriate time for Peter MacKay to stand and table the government’s response. Instead, here came John Baird, his relevance to this particular file unclear, professing outrage at the latest attempt of the Liberal party—a letter referencing the government’s handling of Afghan detainees—to garner funds from its supporters. ”It is unwarranted,” he said, accusing the Liberals of somehow impugning the men and women of the Canadian Forces, “it is appalling and it is absolutely shameful.”

These matters surely can be tricky. Given continued concerns over a recent Conservative mailout, one wonders whether we might be nearing the day when we’d all be better off with a complete and total ban on political party’s promoting themselves at all.

There was more sparring on this between Messrs Rae and Baird before Mr. Rae attempted to identify an indisputable fact.

“Mr. Speaker, the fact remains that partially and heavily blacked-out documents with key information missing are not disclosure. Non-answers in the House are not disclosure. Rhetorical personal attacks such as the minister himself has just indulged in are not disclosure and do not amount to disclosure,” he offered. “We need to get at the truth. Why is the government afraid of a public inquiry to get at the truth? What is it about the truth that the government is afraid of?”

Continue…

David Mulroney's side of the story

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, November 26, 2009 at 5:46 PM - 11 Comments

Early reviews from the Canadian Press, Globe, Star, Canwest, CTV, CBC and Inside Politics.

Analysis of one of Mulroney’s points from our John Geddes.

The Peter Milliken-Mary Kay Caption Challenge

By Scott Feschuk - Thursday, November 26, 2009 at 5:06 PM - 29 Comments

By popular demand (okay, LynnTO asked in the Comments under Mitchel’s photographic account of a reception held by the Direct Sellers Association of Canada), we invite one and all to submit captions for this photograph of the actual Speaker of the actual House of Commons hanging out at the Mary Kay table. (Please check out Mitchel’s pictorial for all the relevant scene-setting details and also photos of meatballs.)

The victor, as declared by a jury of me, shall receive a prize valued in the tens of dollars. But wait – that’s not all! If you enter now, the winner will also receive widespread public acclaim at no cost! (You pay only the shipping & handling.)

On training Canadian troops to handle detainees

By John Geddes - Thursday, November 26, 2009 at 4:41 PM - 2 Comments

In his testimony before the House committee on Afghanistan, David Mulroney just expressed great confidence in the training Canadian troops received on the handling of detainees.

Mulroney, the former top bureaucrat on Afghanistan issues, and now Canada’s ambassador to China, might want to consult Feb. 6, 2009, report of the military’s Board of Inquiry into In-theatre Handling of Detainees.

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Where our money goes in Afghanistan

By Michael Petrou - Thursday, November 26, 2009 at 4:38 PM - 3 Comments

Colleague Aaron Wherry points to an op-ed by University of Ottawa professor Nipa Banerjee, who ran Canada’s aid program in Afghanistan from 2003 to 2006, in which she alleges that the United Nations and bosses at the Canadian International Development Agency chose to ignore and suppress reports of fraud and incompetence at an NGO and aid project Canadians were financing rather than do anything to fix it:

“Upon receipt of my e-mail alerting CIDA headquarters about the alleged fraud, a superior instructed me to not write any more e-mails on the subject, specifically so as to not leave any written trail that might have to be made available to the Canadian public under the Access to Information Act. My attempts to probe the results of any audit on the NGO met with similar stern warnings.”

Ms. Banerjee’s bosses need not have worried. I can personally attest that the chances of the Canadian public finding out that CIDA wastes their tax dollars on dubious or fraud-ridden projects is negligible for the simple reason that CIDA is neither transparent nor accountable. Continue…

Numismatic dysphoria

By Colby Cosh - Thursday, November 26, 2009 at 4:31 PM - 19 Comments

I think it was a case of horror victorianorum. I mean by this, that horror which even nowadays is felt by almost everyone who visits a display of Victorian stuffed birds under glass, for example, or of Victorian dolls and dolls’ clothes.

I was thinking about the Toronto Transit Commission, and those metal fare tokens whose decades-overdue decirculation is causing so much trouble, and I suddenly realized that David Stove’s memorable coinage captured my feelings perfectly. I do believe photographs of the tokens actually make me a little nauseous. They are somehow redolent of… of rotting boardwalks, rusting fairground rides, oil-gummed old farm equipment. Black-and-white venereal-disease filmstrips. Bad teeth. Waxed moustaches. They represent the past obtruding onto our world. A dead hand grasping one’s throat.

Is this madness on my part? One would assume that living in the West makes one particularly sensitive to horror victorianorum; you don’t develop the psychic antibodies against creepy old buildings or folkways. I use public transit in my city, and I’m accustomed to thinking of it as miserable and irrational. But it has some of the virtues of modernity. It is easy to plan a trip; Edmonton Transit’s website is not pathologically user-hostile, and unlike Torontonians, we didn’t end up behind Fredericton and Walla Walla in the queue for access to Google Transit. Moreover, unplanned service interruptions are rare, despite the climate. Whenever I read or hear about Toronto public transit, and I mean absolutely every time, I just want to hug the first deadbeat dillweed Edmonton municipal worker I can find and buy him a big coffee. A triple-triple.

Behind the detainees issue: the 2006 Kandahar surprise

By John Geddes - Thursday, November 26, 2009 at 4:15 PM - 1 Comment

The Richard Colvin controversy raises broader historical questions about why Canada was so ill-prepared for combat in Kandahar—and the need to take all those detainees—in the first place. This is admittedly a matter of recent history, not current news, but I find it intriguing.

Continue…

MPs, Tupperware and Mary Kay

By Mitchel Raphael - Thursday, November 26, 2009 at 3:42 PM - 15 Comments

The Direct Sellers Association of Canada (DSA) held a reception in 200 West Block that featured tables filled with things Tupperware and Mary Kay products. Public Safetly Minister Peter Van Loan (left) with DSA president Ross Creber.

Speaker Peter Milliken.

Continue…

Tips For Stress-Free Holiday Season Travel

By Takeoffeh.com - Thursday, November 26, 2009 at 3:39 PM - 3 Comments

The holiday season is fast approaching, and many Canadians will soon be piling into planes, trains and automobiles for the annual pilgrimage to visit family and friends. The flurry of activity is stressful enough without adding travel mishaps to the list, so here are some tips dedicated to increasing the odds you’ll arrive with holiday spirit intact.

By Air

Book Now If You Haven’t Already
The key to securing the best deal during a busy time is flexibility in your travel dates. Weekdays between Christmas and New Year’s tend to be less busy and better-priced. And if you’re one of those who wait until the last minute, your best bet is to call a travel agent. You can spend hours on the Internet trying to save a few bucks, but an agent will save you time and money.

Arrive early
The early bird can avert many airport challenges, like long lines at check-in and security. If you didn’t pre-book your seats, the best chance of getting decent ones is by arriving early. New premium lounges are available in Toronto and Vancouver, so why not treat yourself, pay the entry fee and relax in a lounge for a couple of hours before your flight.

Watch Your Stuff
Airports are extremely crowded during the peak holiday period and all those gifts make an attractive target for thieves. Pay extra attention to your surroundings and maintain a close watch over tickets, wallets, purses, and other belongings at all times.

Liquid Assets
Help speed up security processing by following the rules. Remember that regulations now limit the amount of gels and liquids passengers can carry on. You can only carry travel-size toiletries of three ounces or less that fit comfortably in a clear plastic zip-top bag. Also, you are carrying gifts, don’t wrap them or you might find a security agent unwrapping Aunt Susie’s sweater. You can always pack collapsible gift bags to be used as wrapping upon arrival.

Pack Light Or Pay The Price
Airlines are much stricter these days on baggage weight limits, and it’s not hard to go over. Not only will you pay $20 or more per kilogram over the limit, you’ll waste time and hold up the line. If you have heavy gifts to bring with you, consider shipping them ahead of time.

By Car

Plan and Book Well in Advance
Rental car fleets are smaller than they used to be and you don’t want to get caught without wheels. Last summer saw some disappointed Canadians who couldn’t find vehicles during peak times. The same goes for hotels and popular restaurants.

Winter Driving Tips
Before any long-distance drive during a Canadian winter, make sure your oil is fresh and your fluids topped up. Snow tires are highly recommended and an emergency kit is essential. The kit should include a shovel, food and water, a blanket, extra gloves and scarf, a candle and a deep can to burn it in. A roll of duct tape can always come in handy too.

Photo Credits: gtaa.com, filo

Al Jazeera English, coming to a TV near you

By Philippe Gohier - Thursday, November 26, 2009 at 1:59 PM - 1 Comment

Tired of the CBC and CTV? How about Al Jazeera English for a change? On Thursday, the CRTC approved Al Jazeera English—the English language wing of the Qatar-based broadcaster—for satellite distribution in Canada, clearing the path for Al Jazeera to make its way into Canadian homes. The CRTC decision comes despite concern from the Canadian Jewish Congress and B’nai Brith Canada about the balance of Al Jazeera’s reporting. The groups are asking the government to be on the watch for anti-Semitic statements on the Al Jazeera network. But Ethnic Channels Group Ltd., the satellite service that made the initial request to the CRTC, points out that
Al Jazeera English has been up and running with a good track record since 2006, and now is broadcast in more than 100 countries.

CBC News

"goodbye my sweety…..im going to miss yo”

By macleans.ca - Thursday, November 26, 2009 at 1:52 PM - 1 Comment

The whistleblower website Wikileaks has just released more than a half million text messages that it says are from the morning of 9/11. They reveal panicked family members trying to contact loved ones, first-hand reports of the attacks that killed close to 3,000 people, as well as officials frantically trying to grasp what was happening, CNN reports. Many reveal the human instinct to reach out to loved ones: “The only thoughts I have are of Nicholas, Ian and you,” read one. “I am terrified. I needed to tell you that I truly love you. always, diane.” Another was tinged with remorse: “I know you have a new relationship and do not care about me. But just in case anything happens know I love you hon. Missed Ya good bye.” One message from 11:32:56 a.m. reads: “if i do not hear from you by high noon, i am going to pick laura up at school and tell her her father is dead.” A message at 10:24 a.m. appears to show authorities working to secure the first family, using the code names used for then-president George W. Bush’s twin daughters Jenna and Barbara. “TWINKLE AND TURQ ARE ACCOUNTED FOR AND SAFE,” it said.

CNN
Wikileaks

Awful food, commie cars and the bad old days

By Andrew Potter - Thursday, November 26, 2009 at 1:40 PM - 5 Comments

Travelling through Eastern Europe a few years ago, my companion and I took a tour of Nova Huta, the Krakow suburb that had been designed by Stalin as the ideal proletarian city. Our guide was Mike, an excitable 30-year-old in camo pants and a flat-top who had ditched his law career when he realized the old ladies selling potatoes in the market made more than he would.

Mike drove us around Nova Huta in a rickety old Trabant, pointing out various totalitarian sites, then took us to his rented apartment, which he had tricked out with all manner of Soviet-era furnishings, artwork and appliances. It was all very authentic. It was all very crappy.

This was my first experience with Ostalgie, a neologism that is a mash-up of the German words for east and nostalgia, meaning nostalgia for life in the GDR and the other countries of the former Soviet bloc. Ostalgie is a phenomenon driven by the conviction that while socialism was often difficult, life was in many ways better. Fear and suspicion may have been the background radiation of daily life, this view goes, but the old Communist societies were more egalitarian and had a greater sense of solidarity and common purpose.

Continue…

Dubai is broke

By macleans.ca - Thursday, November 26, 2009 at 1:26 PM - 2 Comments

The glittering jewel in the middle of the United Arab Emirates is broke. In a development that shocked both markets and its bankers, the Dubai government announced it has asked its banks for a six-month stay on its schedule of debt repayments. The news comes in the middle of negotiations between creditors and Dubai World, the corporate arm of Dubai, which has led many of the emirate’s most ambitious real estate projects, including man-made islands shaped like the continents, an indoor ski slope, and the world’s highest building. Such grandiosity, along with the plummeting value of its assets in the past year, have left Dubai World US$59 billion in debt. (The emirate’s total debt is estimated to be around US$80 billion.) The announcement makes clear that Abu Dhabi, the oil-rich governing emirate of the UAE, will not unconditionally bail out its more profligate neighbor. It also comes just weeks before Nakheel, the developer of Dubai’s signature palm-shaped islands, which also owns Barneys of New York and the MGM Grand, was scheduled to make payment on its $3.52 billion of Islamic bonds.

New York Times

Roman Polanski placed under “ski chalet” arrest

By macleans.ca - Thursday, November 26, 2009 at 1:23 PM - 1 Comment

Roman Polanski has been released from prison and will be placed under house arrest at his ski chalet in Switzerland, the Telegraph reports. A Swiss court granted the film director’s request to be released on US $4.5 million bail and the government will not challenge that decision. Polanski will be released from custody as soon as bail has been transferred, ID and travel documents have been lodged, and the electronic monitoring system has been installed and tested, the ministry said. The decision to grant bail does not affect the justice ministry’s pending decision on whether to extradite the 76-year-old director to the United States for having sex in Los Angeles in 1977 with a 13-year-old girl, the paper notes. That decision is expected “within weeks.” Polanski faces up to two years in a US prison if he is extradited.

Telegraph

On Hillier's assertion the Afghan detainees were killers

By John Geddes - Thursday, November 26, 2009 at 1:21 PM - 14 Comments

There was a lot to ponder in Gen. Rick Hillier’s testimony yesterday before the House committee on Afghanistan. But the retired chief of defence staff’s affronted “nothing could be further from the truth” response to diplomat-whistleblower Richard Colvin’s claim that Canadian troops have detained Afghans who were not really insurgents is particularly worth considering.

“We detained,” Hillier said, “under violent actions, people trying to kill our sons and daughters, who had in some cases done that, been successful at it, and were continuing to do it.” Listening to him, I can’t have been alone in thinking back to his famous remark about Canadians fighting “detestable murderers and scumbags” in Afghanistan.

No doubt the Taliban is full of killers who fit that description. Still, Hillier’s assertion does not quite square with the most thorough probe of a detainee incident conducted by the Canadian military itself: the “Board of Inquiry into In-theatre Handling of Detainees,” a exhaustive investigation of the treatment of three individuals detained in Afghanistan in April 2006.

Continue…

Major Nidal Hasan had an enabler

By Mark Steyn - Thursday, November 26, 2009 at 1:10 PM - 255 Comments

Ever since this magazine attracted the attention of Canada’s “human rights” regime, defenders of the system have clung to a familiar argument. In a letter to Maclean’s, Jennifer Lynch, Q.C., Canada’s chief censor, put it this way:
“Steyn would have us believe that words, however hateful, should be given free rein. History has shown us that hateful words sometimes lead to hurtful actions that undermine freedom and have led to unspeakable crimes. That is why Canada and most other democracies have enacted legislation to place reasonable limits on the expression of hatred.”

“Hateful words” can lead to “unspeakable crimes.” The problem with this line is that it’s ahistorical twaddle, as I’ve pointed out. Yet still it comes up. It did last month, during my testimony to the House of Commons justice committee, when an opposition MP mused on whether it wouldn’t have been better to prohibit the publication of Mein Kampf.

“That analysis sounds as if it ought to be right,” I replied. “But the problem with it is that the Weimar Republic—Germany for the 12 years before the Nazi party came to power—had its own version of Section 13 and equivalent laws. It was very much a kind of proto-Canada in its hate speech laws. The Nazi party had 200 prosecutions brought against it for anti-Semitic speech. At one point the state of Bavaria issued an order banning Hitler from giving public speeches.”

And a fat lot of good it all did.

Continue…

On fourth thought

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, November 26, 2009 at 12:52 PM - 42 Comments

November 13. Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s jet-setting fall tour won’t include a stop at a global climate change summit in Copenhagen next month.

November 14. Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s aides say he will attend a key climate change summit in Copenhagen next month, but only if it appears that other world leaders plan to show up … Harper aides say if Obama goes to Cophenhagen, Harper likely will attend.

November 25. The White House said Wednesday that Obama will be in Copenhagen Dec. 9 for the opening of a major climate-change summit … The Canadian government lauded the “important step,” but the Prime Minister is still refusing to make a stop at the 11-day meeting… ”I have always been clear; if there is a meeting of all major leaders involving climate change, I will, of course, attend,” Harper said in the House of Commons.

November 26. Prime Minister Stephen Harper has done an about-face and will attend the Copenhagen climate-change meeting next month. A spokesman said Harper decided today to attend after the American and Chinese presidents announced that they will show up.

If you’re rude, she’ll hunt you down

By Julia McKinnell - Thursday, November 26, 2009 at 12:50 PM - 4 Comments

Rude children of “the underparented,” cellphone screamers, obnoxious drivers and telemarketers, look out! Amy Alkon, a.k.a. the Advice Goddess, is on the warpath, photographing, blogging and now publishing a book she hopes will stop the growing epidemic of some people’s ignorant rudeness.

Alkon is the sharp-tongued syndicated L.A. advice columnist whose online ranting about her stolen car once attracted the attention of Marlon Brando. Alkon managed to find out the car thief’s name and phone number and posted it on her blog.When Brando heard about it in a chat room, he was amused, and emailed her, offering to help. “Tell me what his name is and other ancillary info. And I’ll call him myself.”

In Alkon’s new book, I See Rude People: One Woman’s Battle to Beat Some Manners into Impolite Society, she tells the Brando story. “Marlon hopped on ‘the blower’ and rang Fred [the car thief]—at 3 a.m., when else? I can’t say exactly what he said to Fred, but I know he took his time and said it Godfather-style, and that it started with something like, ‘She’s a nice girl. Why did you take her car?’ ”

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Lessons from the FALL

By Jason Kirby - Thursday, November 26, 2009 at 12:40 PM - 7 Comments

From the moment Derek Foster published his first investing guide in 2005, thousands of Canadians have hung on his every word. At just 34, Foster had punched out of his day job as a Radio Shack clerk and telemarketer to become Canada’s self-proclaimed “youngest retiree.” With a net worth of about $1 million, and time on his hands, he turned to writing. And his books, with titles like Stop Working: Here’s How You Can and The Lazy Investor, suggested the path to retirement bliss was alluringly simple. Buy shares in leading companies that pay healthy dividends, he recommended, and hold on to them for the long haul.

Then, in February, eight months into the stock market crash that had wiped more than 40 per cent from the value of the Toronto Stock Exchange, Foster performed a stunning about-face and sold nearly his entire portfolio of stocks and income trusts. “I held on all last year, but I’ve been doing lots of research and I don’t think we’re close to the bottom yet,” he told one newspaper in mid-March. “I don’t see the market suddenly booming,” he told another, the very same week markets launched into the most astonishing mid-recession rally in a century. So what has Foster been doing as markets surged? “I’m reassembling my portfolio,” he says. “I tried to get out and get back in cheaper. I’m now replacing some of the exact same names.”

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Lindhout reaches Nairobi

By macleans.ca - Thursday, November 26, 2009 at 12:37 PM - 0 Comments

Amanda Lindhout and Nigel Brennan landed by charter plane in Nairobi this morning before a cavalcade of vehicles, some with diplomatic plates, whisked the newly-released pair through a mob of reporters. The CBC reports that the families of Lindhout and Brennan paid their captors US$600,000 in ransom to secure their release after 15 months in Somalia. An Australian newspaper notes that while Lindhout has been transparent about the payout in interviews, Brennan has remained silent. Photographs taken in Mogadishu prior to their flight to Nairobi show the journalists as thin but apparently healthy, Lindhout in Muslim dress, Brennan with a long beard. The pair, she a freelance TV and print journalist from Red Deer, he an Australian photojournalist, had arrived in Mogadishu last August to report on conditions in Somalia. Lindhout is now said to have been reunited with her mother in Kenya and has been taken to hospital in Nairobi for an assessment. Meanwhile, a Calgary spokeswoman this morning reiterated the Lindhout family’s desire for privacy in the wake of her release.

CBC News
Calgary Herald