Eight ways the PGA Tour can keep viewers from fleeing during Tiger’s “indefinite break”

By Scott Feschuk - Saturday, December 12, 2009 at 5:35 AM - 1 Comment

8. Allow tackling.

7. Wacky “Parnevik” hats now mandatory for all.

6. Have announcers whisper slightly louder.

5. Augusta’s storied Butler Cabin becomes Continue…

This week has four sketches

By Aaron Wherry - Saturday, December 12, 2009 at 12:33 AM - 1 Comment

Our Friday round-up of what we saw and heard this week.

Monday. John Baird exceeds himself
Tuesday. Support for the troops if necessary, but not necessarily support for the troops
Wednesday. ‘Will they stop already?’
Thursday. Shrug and dismiss

Hey look: I will anglosphere no evil

By Paul Wells - Friday, December 11, 2009 at 11:05 PM - 21 Comments

From the print edition, my column about an Australian politician and the Canadian politicians who are keeping an eye on him. A few times this week in social settings I was asked how we pick topics for my column. It’s usually the result of a chat between myself and Editor Mark Stevenson, and sometimes the question we bat around is whether we want me in the middle of one of the week’s big debates, or off on the sidelines somewhere looking at something that’s getting less saturation coverage. The answer changes based on my mood, the editors’, and the mix in the rest of the magazine. This is one of those “sidelines” pieces.

Crit_Reasoning, loyal to the end… or not…

By Paul Wells - Friday, December 11, 2009 at 10:42 PM - 57 Comments

We too were amused by this item in Jane Taber’s blog, to the effect that Peter MacKay is heading home to Nova Scotia and “a dose of reality,” thanks to staffers who’ve rounded up another inflatable pet dog and a new stack of talking points for him. Jane discovers that MacKay’s crack helpers have found a comment on Colleague Wherry’s blog which will, they hope, buck the boss up.

It would probably not help the minister’s mood to learn that the same commenter adds, a short way down in the same thread:

I really don’t care whether Mackay stays or goes. He seems to have botched the government’s defense with his recklessly unequivocal blanket declarations, so maybe it’s time for him to go.

Come to think of it, why use "volunteers" to run the Olympics?

By Colby Cosh - Friday, December 11, 2009 at 8:14 PM - 64 Comments

Don’t tell anybody, but I’m rather tickled that the Queen Charlotte Islands have been given back the name of the slaveholding empire that was once centred there. Such a cheeky gesture! So politically incorrect! So contrary to the stifling liberal spirit of our age! It is almost literally as if Mississippi got renamed Whitetopia; and yet the progressives are simply falling over themselves with naïve praise. I raise a glass to you and shoot you a sly wink, Government of British Columbia!

A "Young" Jack Cafferty Interviews the Star of NINE

By Jaime Weinman - Friday, December 11, 2009 at 5:30 PM - 1 Comment

No, not the movie musical that’s looking increasingly less likely to satisfy the Weinstein brothers’ Oscar hopes. This is from 1982, when the original musical was playing on Broadway, starring the late Raul Julia as the Italian director going through a mid-life crisis. One of the hosts of this local New York TV show is Jack Cafferty, whom you probably recognize as Wolf Blitzer’s comedy partner on CNN. (The dynamic they had — Cafferty clearly thinks, accurately, that Blitzer is an idiot; Blitzer doesn’t get it because he’s, well, an idiot — was the best part of the channel.)

The movie, having been subjected to Rob Marshall’s one-trick-pony direction (and it’s a dopey trick: presenting every musical number as a fantasy sequence is limiting, unnecessary, and headache-inducing), will probably not make much of a case for the show. In my opinion, Maury Yeston’s score is the last truly great Broadway score, songs that are melodic, funny, character-based and above all, theatre songs, not some guy singing songs that stop the action cold to explain things we already knew. Good musical-theatre songs don’t necessarily advance the plot, but they do lend themselves to staging, reactions from characters who aren’t singing, shed some light on themes/emotions that aren’t fully explored in the dialogue scenes.

The show had its problems, most obviously the fact that there’s no plot and the book could never come up with a clear organizing principle for the various segments, the way the original movie did. But it was an effective theatre piece thanks to the songs, the cast, and the direction by Tommy Tune, who — instead of trying to imitate Fellini — presented a very (again) theatrical vision, with all sorts of gimmicks like black costumes against a white set, a character ending a song by walking off the stage and out of the auditorium, and the basic idea of having only one adult male in the cast (something born out of necessity, since they weren’t seeing a lot of male actors who fit the show apart from Julia). Here’s the interview with Julia, where he discusses how an investor pulled out of the show when he was cast:

And here is Cafferty and co-host Katie Kelly interviewing two of the show’s stars, Anita Morris (whose number “A Call From the Vatican” was not allowed on TV because of the costume and the movements involved) Continue…

Dial 1-800-GRAVEN-IMAGES

By Colby Cosh - Friday, December 11, 2009 at 4:06 PM - 23 Comments

The Toronto Transit Commission has turned down the opportunity to earn $250,000 in ad revenue from the adultery-facilitation website AshleyMadison.com. I’m a believer in religious and particularly irreligious freedom, but I suppose the TTC’s refusal is all right with me: one can find a secular justification in the observation that it is contrary to public policy to encourage the breaching of contracts. So my future promotional plans for CovetThyNeighboursAss.com are probably still good to go.

I really think the Star has buried the lede here though.

[TTC spokesman Brad] Ross said the TTC has advertising standards to adhere to and that it would take only five complaints from the public to pull any ad off its vehicles.

A policy like that seems an invitation to mischief, and possibly even extortion, that I don’t know if I could resist if I lived in Toronto…

Will Tiger quit golf?

By macleans.ca - Friday, December 11, 2009 at 2:53 PM - 4 Comments

In the wake of revelations he cheated on his wife with at least two porn stars, a waitress and a nightclub hostess, Tiger Woods has reportedly told Elin Nordegren he’s prepared to “do anything” to win her back. But Nordegren, who has apparently decided to stay with Woods for the sake of the couple’s two children, may be asking for more than Woods ever imagined: “It’s golf… or me.” Woods and his wife “have agreed to try and rebuild their marriage, but Elin will be the one calling the shots,” a “friend” of the couple tells The Sun. “It will be a long time before he’s travelling the globe playing golf unless Elin’s by his side. [...] Quitting golf shows he is willing to sacrifice something he loves so much to protect his family.”

The Sun

The pivotal paperwork (II)

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, December 11, 2009 at 2:35 PM - 26 Comments

The most recent word, received just now from an official at National Defence, is that a response to the question raised yesterday is still being sought.

To recap, the 2006 field report cited by General Walter Natynczyk this week read, in part, “We then photographed the individual prior to handing him over, to ensure that if the ANP did assault him, as has happened in the past, we would have a visual record of his condition.”

When the same field report was released to the BCCLA and Amnesty International in Nov. 2007, that sentence read, “We then photographed the individual prior to handing him over [REDACTED].”

Tiger’s fall from glory

By Charlie Gillis, John Intini and Anne Kingston - Friday, December 11, 2009 at 2:25 PM - 14 Comments

When Elin Nordegren began dating Tiger Woods in March 2002, the golfing world greeted her as a country-club Cinderella. Sure, the 21-year-old had come from a respectable background—her father a prominent Swedish journalist, her mother a former cabinet minister. But this was Tiger Woods, the crown prince of golf and, financially speaking, the hands-down catch of the century. His winnings and endorsements would soon surpass $1 billion, making him the most monied athlete in history; his public image was as pristine as a Titleist fresh from the box. As courtship became engagement, speculation mounted among PGA Tour members and their spouses about whether the stunning blond who shrank from the public glare was up to the most important role that, in their charmed world, a woman could have: Mrs. Tiger Woods.
Not so Jesper Parnevik, a Swedish golfer as well-known for his candour as his flamboyant course wear. He and his wife, Mia, had employed Nordegren as a nanny during the previous year, and when Jesper’s travels brought her into contact with Woods during the 2001 British Open, attracting the young phenom’s attention, he appeared to feel some parental responsibility. “I think she’s a bit too good for him,” Parnevik remarked, and he seemed to be only half joking. Nordegren, it later became clear, was worlds removed from the groupies tour members sometimes refer to as “rope-hopers.” Winsome, intelligent and coolly self-possessed, she rebuffed Woods’s first advance because he made it through a third party. Another 20 months would pass before the couple became engaged, and even then the Parneviks remained ambivalent. “Tiger is the one who got the catch,” Mia told Sports Illustrated. “With the weird lifestyle he leads, he might never have met a nice girl. He’s lucky he found Elin.” Continue…

Don’t tase her, bro!

By macleans.ca - Friday, December 11, 2009 at 2:03 PM - 5 Comments

Tasers—and their misuse—are back in the spotlight again. A new report says the RCMP was out of line when it used a Taser on a 15-year-old girl in 2007. What’s more: the report, written by the force’s federal watchdog, claims the RCMP in Inuvik, N.W.T tried to cover up the incident afterwards. The teenage girl, known to the press only as “Miss X”, was an inmate at the Arctic Tern Young Offenders Facility in Inuvik at the time of the assault. When the “combative” girl began acting out one day—swearing at facility workers, and “pulling and kicking”—she was handcuffed and held down on the floor. Officers then used a 50,000-volt stun gun for “a full five-second cycle, causing Miss X to co-operate.” “The manner in which the RCMP handled this matter was at best negligent and at worst biased,” says investigating commission chairman Paul Kennedy

CBC News

A porno by any other name…

By macleans.ca - Friday, December 11, 2009 at 1:54 PM - 1 Comment

In the world of pornography, the name Larry Flynt carries serious cache. Which could explain why the porn media mogul is so eager to protect it by suing two of his nephews for trademark infringement. The suit alleges that Jimmy Flynt Jr. and Dustin Flynt branded two sexually explicit film series with the family name after being fired by their uncle in 2007. Larry Flynt says he only hired them out of familial obligation, and described them as incompetent employees. For their part, the nephews, while conceding they did use the Flynt name, argue that their material would not be mistaken for that of their uncle. The case is expected to go to jury in Los Angeles today.

CBC News

Top 10 Romantic Destinations

By Chris Robinson, Takeoffeh.com - Friday, December 11, 2009 at 1:40 PM - 3 Comments

“Chris’ Top Ten Favourite Places” is a regular feature of top travel destinations selected from Chris Robinson’s personal experience. This week he picks his favourite “Romantic Places”.

Ah, the romance of travel… Here are ten places where I have become starry-eyed, beguiled and bewitched by the moment, the place and the person with me. I dare you to visit and not fall in love!

1. St. Vincent & the Grenadines
   Undeveloped, unspoiled and cloaked in emerald green rain forest, the mother island of St. Vincent also boasts an archipelago necklace of pristine tropical islands for the most perfect get-away-from-it-all experience. This is the spot we have chosen to renew our wedding vows after 30 years of marriage.
2. Treetops Lodge, Kenya
   There is something wonderfully powerful, primeval and romantic about staying up all night together in this atmospheric old wooden lodge built on stilts among the trees overlooking a waterhole and watching the nocturnal activities of the animals of the African plains. This is where Elizabeth arrived as a princess and departed as Queen Elizabeth II in 1952.
3. 

   Heidelburg, Germany
   Imagine an ancient castle ruin standing atop a wooded hill overlooking a medieval university town, with the Neckar River meandering through the town, old cobbled streets, quaint taverns, marketplaces and coaching inns dating back centuries…We wandered the streets just soaking up the atmosphere.

4. Kashmir, India
   Once upon a peaceful time in this Shangri-La land, I stayed in blissful peace on a Victorian houseboat on Lake Dal beside a medieval town, with the Himalaya perfectly mirrored in dazzling waters…and I was lost to the magic of Kashmir. One day it will be possible to visit again and I will return with the love of my life.
5. Taj-Mahal, India
   I was so prepared to be disappointed with the Taj…and yet was blown softly away on the river breeze when I first saw it, by moonlight, from a distance. Close up, the love affair deepened. It is, quite simply, the perfect architectural embodiment of love and everyone should write it down now on their Bucket List if it isn’t there already.
   
6. 

   Moorea, French Polynesia
   A thatched hut built on stilts over the warm waters of a turquoise lagoon, a tiny verandah over the natural aquarium around us, and steps that led us gently into the clear warm waters…heaven on earth…well, heaven on water really I guess – but heaven nonetheless!
   

7. 

   Cambridge, UK
   OK, so this is a very personal choice…it’s where my romantic fate was sealed, arm-in-arm together on the medieval Magdalene Bridge as the moon’s reflection rippled across the River Cam and the spires of King’s College Chapel were silhouetted in the distance…I placed a ring on the finger of my girlfriend that is still there over thirty years later.
   

8. 

   Le Château Frontenac
   Our very own romantic hot spot: winter or summer, this castle-like hotel occupies an eminence in between The Citadel and Old Quebec in Quebec City and epitomizes the chic grandeur of our most beautiful Canadian city. This was where I took my wife for our first romantic weekend getaway when we arrived in Canada.

9. Tuscany, Italy
   Romance spices the Tuscan air, infuses the Tuscan wines and hangs miasma-like in the early morning mists that often surround the hill-top villages; stay in a castle, a villa or a farmhouse and let the essence of Tuscany seep into your soul! We stayed in the Villa Pitiana, a converted Benedictine Monastery on a hilltop outside Florence with views that went on forever.
   
10. 

    Frégate Island, Seychelles
    A 20 minute flight from the main island of Mahé, itself an island speck in the Indian Ocean, this tiny island boasts a single luxury lodge, unique flora and fauna and perfect granite coves all to yourself. If you are looking for the perfect tropical island romantic paradise, this is it – and we would return in a heartbeat.

By Chris Robinson
Chris hosts Canada’s top rated radio travel show – the Chris Robinson Travel Shows on Newstalk 1010 CFRB in Ontario and CJAD 8000 Montreal in Quebec. www.chrisrobinsontravelshow.ca

Photo Credits: iscoversvg.com, naturephotographer.net, Chris Robinson

Week in Pictures: December 3rd – December 10th, 2009

By macleans.ca - Friday, December 11, 2009 at 1:00 PM - 0 Comments

What we can know

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, December 11, 2009 at 12:30 PM - 61 Comments

Stockwell Day says the government will not comply with Parliament’s demand for access to uncensored information on Afghan detainees. Wesley Wark, appointed to the government’s advisory council on national security in 2005 and reappointed by Prime Minister Stephen Harper in 2007 (his term has since expired), suggests the government take a different approach.

Intelligence specialist Wesley Wark said the heavy censorship of the documents supplied to the parliamentary committee probing the handling of prisoners has turned the hearings into a “farce.”

“I think a much more liberal approach to provision of documents would be the way to go so that the public at large doesn’t feel that the government is simply trying to stiff the parliamentary committee, which is very much the impression one gets at the moment,” said Wark, a visiting professor at the University of Ottawa.

Farewell, Amos Burke

By Jaime Weinman - Friday, December 11, 2009 at 12:04 PM - 0 Comments

Gene Barry has died. TV fans knew him best as the wealthy, babe-magnet LAPD detective Amos Burke from Burke’s Law, the show that provided the template for most of the later shows of its producer, Aaron Spelling.

(One thing I did not mention last time I posted that clip is that it was written by Harlan Ellison. He even re-used a few lines in other scripts.)

Before Burke, Barry starred for three years in Bat Masterson, which seems to be the show most obituaries are highlighting.

Barry’s huge list of film, TV and stage credits goes far beyond those two shows, of course. He was, for example, the best thing about the 1983 Broadway musical La Cage Aux Folles (with George Hearn miscast as a drag queen and a mostly mediocre score, it was Barry’s authoritative style that held the show together).

Top 10 Canadian books of the decade

By Brian Bethune - Friday, December 11, 2009 at 12:00 PM - 8 Comments

10. Paris 1919 by Margaret MacMillan (2002)
MacMillan’s revisionist take on the peace treaty that ended the First World War—and gave the world such ongoing headaches as Yugoslavia and Iraq—is a triumph of narrative history, one that downplays anonymous “historical forces” to place individuals like Woodrow Wilson and David Lloyd George back where they belong, at the centre of events.

9. The Life of Pi by Yann Martel (2001)
No one has ever found an easy way to sum up Martel’s novel, a surprise—but highly popular—Booker prize winner. That’s only to be expected, considering the storyline: take one teenaged boy—a devout Hindu who also prays to Jesus, Mary and Allah—put him on a lifeboat for some seven months with a hyena, a zebra, an orangutan (all soon to disappear) and an enormous Bengal tiger named Richard Parker (who causes the disappearances). A long, strange trip indeed, “something so bright, loud, weird and delicate as to stupefy the senses,” as Pi himself says about life in general.

8. This Is My Country, What’s Yours? by Noah Richler (2006)
There are an endless number of lesser matters to quibble over in Richler’s monumental literary atlas of Canada—one of the many great things about the book—but there’s no quarreling with the main themes of this shrewd and subtle consideration of CanLit. Canada is an anti-epic society, born of struggle with an unforgiving land, highly skeptical about authority, and fertile ground for ironic and individualistic novels.

7. The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill (2007)
Hill has been a very good writer for a long time, a graceful and understated stylist whose latest novel turns a thorny historical subject—the fate of black slaves who served the British in the American Revolution only to be shabbily betrayed in Nova Scotia—into a tour-de-force, an entire era personalized in one superbly realized female character.

6. River Thieves by Michael Crummey (2001)
Historical fiction is one of the dominant themes within CanLit, and there’s no more subtle and profoundly self-aware example than Crummey’s first novel. The weight of the extinction of the Beothuks, Newfoundland’s aboriginal population and the impossibility of truly understanding the past, hang over this story of mutual and tragic misunderstanding.

5. Three Day Road by Joseph Boyden (2005)
Nothing haunts the national historical imagination like the Great War. The eternal Canadian novel, the one we keep writing over and over again, is set, at least in part, against the mud and carnage of the Western front. Boyden’s first novel, the tale of two Cree snipers—one broken in body and spirit, the other destroyed morally—is perhaps the finest in a rich tradition.

4. There is a Season by Patrick Lane (2004)
The poet’s account of a year in his life and garden begins when Lane, then 65, was barely two months out of the rehab centre he entered after 45 years of heavy drinking. Memory floods him, much of it harsh to recall (and to read), but there are “moments of such joy that to remember them makes me reel through the thin air of the past.” An exquisite memoir, beautiful in its prose and terrifying in its honesty.

3. Where War Lives by Paul Watson (2007)
The author is the Toronto-born foreign correspondent who snapped the famous 1993 photo of U.S. Army Sgt. William Cleveland’s mutilated corpse being dragged in triumph by a howling mob through Somalia’s capital of Mogadishu. The book is Watson’s account—utterly devoid of self-pity and propelled by an apocalyptic mix of anger, guilt and post-traumatic shock—of the interplay of media and war, and his life since Cleveland’s spirit spoke to him that day: “If you do this, I will own you forever.”

2. The Little Girl Who Was Too Fond of Matches by Gaetan Soucy (2000)
Few anglophone readers know the work of Soucy; a pity, really, given he’s a writer of genius. This slim novel has more layers of meaning than most far fatter volumes can imagine. A word-drunk, hallucinatory, heartbreaking story of two isolated siblings adrift in a surreal landscape after their abusive father’s suicide.

Financial advice for Mrs. Woods

By macleans.ca - Friday, December 11, 2009 at 11:58 AM - 0 Comments

Save the marriage if you can. Don’t run out and hire the nastiest divorce attorney in the country. Get out of the public eye and stay out, because it hurts the financial interests of everyone involved to feed the tabloid machine. These are just a few of the thoughts of a panel of experts the Wall Street Journal asked to provide unsolicited advice to Elin Nordegren, Tiger Woods’s wife. They make some salient legal points: for example, Nordegren probably can’t break her pre-nup with the fallen superstar without proof he made her sign it under duress, or that he held back financial information; the good news for Nordegren is that the pre-nup has no bearing on the child support he’d be required to pay if she did divorce him. Child support is based entirely on his assets and earnings and the lifestyle the kids enjoy at the moment. In other words, they wouldn’t exactly be destitute.

Wall Street Journal

A Welshman and two Irish lads go to the Masonic Temple

By Patricia Treble - Friday, December 11, 2009 at 11:55 AM - 0 Comments

Season two of Elvis Costello’s musically-driven interview series (Dec. 11 at 10 p.m., CTV ) starts with one of the biggest “gets” in the industry: Bono and the Edge of U2. For an hour in Toronto’s Masonic Temple they chatted about everything from the first time the three of them met nearly three decades ago to the spectacle that was Bono singing Two Shots of Happy, One Shot of Sad to Frank Sinatra in a Mexican restaurant.

Usually Bono and the Edge are interviewed by awestruck hosts trying to play it cool. Elvis Costello’s advantage is that he is cool, and a colleague not a fan. He was a star when U2 was just starting out, and delights in showing a 1981 playbill with Elvis Costello and the Attractions as the top act and U2 as an unknown act out of Dublin. That, and other, touches of musical history knowledge turns this 60-minute Q&A session into a funny intimate conversation, complete with riveting musical interludes.

The genius of having a host like Costello was apparent from the start: half way through singing a rough-and-ready version of Mysterious Ways, Costello starts talking: “Long ago, giants and monsters walked the Earth. There were Beatles, there were Stones and an iron butterfly. There were the Who, the what and the why and a Zeppelin of Led. And the faithful worshipped at their feet. But in time giants grow old and the people ask ‘Who shall join their company? Who shall climb up and take their place on the mountain?’ Four lads pushed their way to the front of the line and said: ‘Let us try to go up the mountain…’ ”

From that wildly original introduction the three chums meander through how they “assemble” songs, learning to really play music only after they hit the big times and how the notoriously-tight band has stayed together while so many others have splintered. U2 are the biggest musical act in the world, but they still like talking craft with a fellow musician. And for an hour, we all get to eavesdrop.

Wildrose country

By macleans.ca - Friday, December 11, 2009 at 11:40 AM - 12 Comments

A new poll shows momentum behind the conservative Wildrose Alliance Party now gives it a double-digit boost over the Progressive Conservative Party, in power since 1971 but now in its worse slump in popularity in 17 years. A couple of months ago, the Wildrose Alliance was in a dead heat with the Alberta Liberals for second place, but had slipped passed the reigning Tories in Calgary. That was a worrying but ultimately unheeded trend for the Stelmach Conservatives, who’d already lost a long-held Calgary by-election in September to the Wildrose. Now charismatic Danielle Smith’s fiscally hard-nosed Roses are beating Stelmach everywhere, in the main due to Stelmach handling of the economy and ongoing questions about his team’s competence. A nice way to start the Christmas season in Edmonton.

Calgary Herald

Canadian democracy: Think of it as authoritarianism with manners.

By Scott Feschuk - Friday, December 11, 2009 at 11:20 AM - 38 Comments

Can this (scroll down to No. 2) possibly be true? Can one really be tossed out of the Parliament Buildings for wearing a Greenpeace T-shirt? WTFF? (The first F is the adjective version of the second F.)

Talk about a policy that can’t withstand even the first of the myriad questions it raises. For instance: Who gets to decide what is considered “political or partisan?” Is my red tie a form of Liberal propaganda? Is my sweater vest Continue…

Confronting reality

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, December 11, 2009 at 11:19 AM - 8 Comments

Payam Akhavan reviews the legal and international standards.

The allegations in question are not “large-scale” war crimes that would fall within the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court as some have argued. However, they may constitute offences under the War Crimes Act and raise far-reaching questions about whether we are adequately protecting our soldiers against potential liability.

Whether one believes Colvin’s testimony or not, this issue is far too important to be politicized by either the government or the opposition. It belongs to an impartial inquiry that demonstrates Canada’s commitment to the rule of law.

Authenticity Watch (?): Eating Dirt

By Andrew Potter - Friday, December 11, 2009 at 11:17 AM - 3 Comments

This was probably inevitable: From the NYT ideas of the year series, Gourmet Dirt:

During the tastings, Parker spoons dirt into stemmed wineglasses and adds a small amount of water — essentially making mud — to release the soil’s aroma.

Tasters bury their noses in the wineglasses and sniff deeply. The dirt’s vapor molecules fall on the backs of tasters’ palates, and they taste what they smell. “It’s just like when you walk out after it rained,” Parker says, “and you say, ‘Oh, my God, that smells vibrant.’

The shrimp and the damage done

By Andrew Coyne - Friday, December 11, 2009 at 11:10 AM - 88 Comments

As the 15th United Nations Climate Change Conference gets under way in Copenhagen, the pages of what one might call the skeptical press are filled with scandalized accounts of the many ways the assembled delegates will be—get this—wasting carbon.

A report in the Sunday Telegraph reckons the total number of limousines commissioned for the event “has already broken the 1,200 barrier,” while as many as 140 private jets are said to be flying VIPs in and out of the city. An editorial in the National Post laments that delegates will be treating themselves “to jumbo Indian Ocean shrimp, Norwegian salmon and fruits and vegetables from South America, Africa and Southern Europe, all flown in daily to ensure maximum freshness.” The columnist George Will predicts the delegates’ collective carbon footprint, estimated at 41,000 tonnes of CO2, “will be the only impressive consequence” of the gathering.

You see a lot of this kind of thing. “That Al Gore, preaching restraint on the rest of us, but have you seen the size of his house?” It’s supposed to highlight the hypocrisy of global warming activists. But all it really does is tacitly endorse the doomsters’ most alarmist assumptions. The planet will not be consigned to a warming hell because Al Gore lives in a big house, or because the UN delegates eat too much Norwegian salmon. You can say it’s hypocritical, but only if you accept that stopping global warming requires us to abstain from imported foods, or large houses, or flying. It doesn’t.

Continue…