U.N. chief in Afghanistan to step down

By macleans.ca - Friday, December 11, 2009 at 11:03 AM - 0 Comments

Norwegian diplomat and head of the U.N. mission in Afghanistan, Kai Eide, has told Secretary General Ban Ki-moon that he will resign when his term is finished in March. Eide was widely criticized for his inability to prevent widespread fraud in Afghanistan’s recent elections, and for prematurely praising them “as an important achievement.” He also created controversy when he fired his deputy, Peter Galbraith, who was lobbying to make the U.N. more engaged in monitoring the election and recommended shutting down polling stations that couldn’t be reached by international observers. A spokesperson for the U.N. implied that the controversy of Eide’s tenure had no bearing on his decision, and that he was always planning to resign when his term ended.

CBC News

Feeling funny (ie. "ha ha," not "peculiar")?

By Scott Feschuk - Friday, December 11, 2009 at 10:11 AM - 16 Comments

I’m running a quick challenge over on my Twitter thingy, where I “tweet” (quotation marks indicate verb used under protest) as The Voice in the Prime Minister’s Head.

Deadline is noon ET. The topic? One thing I learned while working in politics is that Continue…

So you really want to save the planet, do you?

By Colby Cosh - Friday, December 11, 2009 at 9:34 AM - 156 Comments

Diane Francis’s Tuesday Financial Post column calling for a global one-child policy as the real answer to man-made global warming has become an instant classic in the art of antagonizing readers. The piece could correctly be described as half-crazy, of course. Even granting that we are willing to endow the state with monstrous population-control powers, and Francis is obviously willing, her praise for China’s population-growth measures as “simple” suggests a willful blindness to its demographic effects and to the inegalitarian way the policy has actually been applied.

In China, the one-child policy has been a class war that skewed the natural sex ratio, introduced chaos into the family-formation process, and condemned millions of men to lifetime service in a reserve army of the unmarried. It’s the biggest, cruellest biological experiment in history. The results aren’t really in yet. And even if it “works” by environmental criteria, a project that the Chinese can pull off will not necessarily be scalable upward to the entire species. I feel silly even having to point all this out.

What I like about the column is that it puts population growth front and centre in the emissions debate; it gets in our faces. When economists or environmentalists assemble projections of future global CO₂ output, they sweat blood over the fine points of how economic growth will influence per-capita emissions… but the number of capita is basically treated as an axiom. This is probably appropriate: the interaction between economic growth and emissions is the part of the equation with the most uncertainty, the part that there exists a lively debate about. The problem is that when the scary hockey-stick diagrams are taken forth to the politicians and the public, no one ever mentions that population growth is part of the problem at the micro level—the level of “What can you do to change your personal contribution to carbon emissions?” We end up arguing nonsensically over whether we should buy an Escape or a Highlander to take the kids to hockey practice.

And meanwhile, we’re all left with the impression that we are a lot filthier and more sinful than our ancestors—that our exciting, affluent, high-tech lives are producing more eco-harm than theirs did. It’s mostly not true, in the countries that have been industrialized the longest.

Nobody is sure whether per-capita carbon emissions will, in the long term, hold steady in these countries or begin to decline. Pretty much everything depends on the energy technologies available to us. The environment has already benefited, as far as the developed world is concerned, from the abandonment of mass solid-fuel burning as a primary means of providing energy. We did that, not as a matter of environmental policy, but because cleaner alternatives to coal and wood stoves were also more efficient. The all-time peaks in per-capita carbon output in many countries are surprisingly far back in history. Canadians are thought to have reached a peak in CO2 output in 1948; for the UK, the worst year is said to have been 1913 [PDF].

In other words, mere economic growth might be part of the climate-change problem, or it might be the ultimate solution. Even granting that there is a man-made climate problem, trapping developing countries in the pollution-intensive phase of their history could easily be a huge mistake. The one thing we can be sure of is that fewer people will require less energy, however it is provided. I don’t advocate a one-child policy, or any policy at all that involves governments telling people how many children they can have, but I don’t understand why people who claim to be “passionate” about the environment of the future haven’t adopted zero-child policies for themselves.

Well, actually, I do understand it, because they all used to be big on Zero Population Growth as both a policy goal and a social ideal back in the ’70s. Diane Francis is singing an old song that environmentalists unlearned for strategic reasons. It made them look like she looks right now: authoritarian and nihilist and out of touch with the hopes and ambitions of ordinary people. And many of those environmentalists wanted to have kids themselves—i.e., they hypocritically put their personal desires above the interests of the planet when confronted with the biggest choice of all. Darwinian imperatives are not easily suppressed. It’s so much easier to nag the other guy about home insulation and bike paths, and, if necessary, take away his oilpatch job.

Don’t be delusional about your speed

By Julia McKinnell - Friday, December 11, 2009 at 9:19 AM - 0 Comments

“Sharks die when they stop moving. Runners do not. Please keep this in mind next time you encounter a DON’T WALK sign at a busy intersection. There’s no need to shuffle or bounce or dance from foot to foot like you have to pee,” writes veteran runner Mark Remy in The Runner’s Rule Book. Remy, the executive editor of RunnersWorld.com, has run 15 marathons, including five Bostons. His book is a crash course for the amateur on running etiquette and behaviour. “For Pete’s Sake Stand Still at Red Lights” is Rule 1.46. “Just chill. Wait a few moments then resume running—you will not cool down catastrophically in the time it takes for the light to change.”

On the subject of stretching, Remy tells Maclean’s, “I’m always too lazy to stretch.” Rule 1.42 is “Stretch If You Want To.” “If you’re looking for hard evidence of stretching’s benefits, good luck,” he writes. “Fact is, it doesn’t exist. And if you want to ask other runners or doctors or physical therapists or high school track coaches, go for it. Just be prepared to hear a different opinion from each one of them. If stretching seems to help you run better and feel better, then stretch. If not, then don’t.”

For marathoners, Remy’s rules are stricter. “Line Up Where You Belong” is a must for the slow runner who thinks he’s faster than he is. In bigger races, Remy tells Maclean’s, “you’ll have banners that say, ‘5:00 minutes per mile.’ In other words, if you expect to keep a pace of five minutes per mile, you should line up around that banner.” Behind the five-minute banners are banners for a six-minute mile pace “and so on until the very back where it might be 12 or 14 minutes a mile.”

Continue…

Son of a Terminator, Big Brother is driving you and Just another self-hating Canadian

By macleans.ca - Friday, December 11, 2009 at 9:10 AM - 0 Comments

It’s coal in your stocking, bucko
Santa shook like a bowl full of Jell-O at the Southlake Mall in suburban Atlanta, but not in a good way. Police in Morrow, Ga., say 45-year-old William C. Caldwell III dressed as an elf and waited an hour in line to have his picture taken with St. Nick. When he reached the man in red, Caldwell, looking very elfin at five feet tall and 108 lb., said he was packing dynamite in his bags. Santa called security. The mall was evacuated but no explosives were found. The naughty elf faces a variety of charges and the prospect of Christmas behind bars.

The other shoe drops
Two Iraqi journalists are now one shoe short of a pair. Muntazer al-Zaidi, who famously chucked a shoe at former U.S. president George W. Bush, has himself become a target of flying footwear. Zaidi was speaking at a news conference in Paris when an exiled Iraqi journalist, arguing in favour of U.S. policy, hurled a shoe at Zaidi. Zaidi’s outraged brother attempted to rough up the fleeing journalist, who wasn’t immediately identified. And Zaidi later complained, “He stole my technique.”

Son of a Terminator
If the rumours are true, Tallulah Willis, 15, is dating Patrick Schwarzenegger, 16. Doesn’t that have the makings of the ultimate teen-romance action flick? Willis shares her time with daddy Bruce Willis, and with mom Demi Moore and her hubby Ashton Kutcher. And Schwarzenegger’s dad, Arnold, is the governator of California. The New York Post says the pair started dating at Halloween. A rep for Bruce Willis denies it, but dads are always the last to know. Continue…

Mitchel Raphael on a bet, the MP who fixed Scott Brison’s ear, and the seal meat prank

By Mitchel Raphael - Friday, December 11, 2009 at 9:00 AM - 12 Comments

HIS SHAME JACKET
Environment Minister Jim Prentice lost a bet to Transport Minister John Baird when the Queen’s Golden Gaels won the Vanier Cup over the University of Calgary Dinos. Baird, a Queen’s alumnus, gave Prentice, who’s from Calgary, his original Queen’s jacket to wear in shame on the Hill. Joked Prentice: “The bet was actually that I could go to John Baird’s closet and wear anything I wanted. That was the best piece.”

THE EAR OPERATION
After doing an interview on CPAC, Nova Scotia MP Scott Brison got part of an earpiece stuck in his ear. He went to fellow Liberal MP Carolyn Bennett, who is a medical doctor, for help. Bennett used a paper clip to loosen the piece before taking tweezers to remove it. The two sit right beside each other in the House, where Bennett is known for speaking rather loudly. “She spent all this time damaging my ears,” joked Brison, “and now she has saved them.” Continue…

Harper’s model from down under

By Paul Wells - Friday, December 11, 2009 at 9:00 AM - 37 Comments

Michael Ignatieff is safe for the moment, but there is one Liberal leader whose party showed him the door this month. Malcolm Turnbull led Australia’s Liberal opposition until Dec. 2—when the party’s parliamentary caucus voted 42-41 to strip him of the top job and give it to Tony Abbott instead.

That made a few well-tuned Conservative ears here in North America perk up. Recall that in Australia summer is winter and the Liberal party is home to the country’s conservatives. (The main party they face, the left-leaning government, is formed by Labor under the blandly reassuring Kevin Rudd.) John Howard’s 1996 Liberal election victory was one of the models for Stephen Harper’s Canadian election win a decade later.

Tony Abbott’s sudden rise is no guarantee of anything. His party is still well behind Rudd’s in the polls. But the kind of guy Tony Abbott is has won him the attention of people close to Harper.

“He combines Stockwell Day’s religiosity and athleticism with Stephen Harper’s ideology and intellect,” one Canadian Conservative said to me in an email.

Continue…

Econowatch

By Jason Kirby - Friday, December 11, 2009 at 8:30 AM - 7 Comments

Even before Canada’s job market shifted back into high gear with Friday’s encouraging jobs report, it was clear something fundamental had changed. Never mind the recent prognostications by analysts about better days ahead. Sometimes all the cues you need can be found in the lives of the people behind the statistics.

Take the story of an employee we’ll call Janice who works at a small, struggling auto parts supplier outside Toronto. As the economy began to crumble last year, management put everyone on a four-day workweek and slashed pay, even as they rewarded themselves with bonuses. Workers weren’t happy, but what could they do? It was brutal out there.

Then a few days before the new employment data was released, the higher-ups tried to turn the screws again with more pay cuts. Only this time a couple of employees in the sales and accounting departments did something that even two months ago would have been unheard of—they told their boss to shove it. “Quitting felt so good,” Janice said, after giving her notice. And here’s the kicker: she didn’t even have another job lined up yet.

That, folks, is what economists describe as a rebound in confidence. But most people would just call it chutzpah. And it’s something we haven’t seen in the labour market for a very long time.

Make no mistake, the fact the economy added 79,000 new jobs in November doesn’t guarantee a prompt and speedy recovery. There are still vast numbers of Canadians out there fearful for their jobs. Younger workers in particular have felt the brunt of the recession, with an unemployment rate nearly twice the national average. Nor are investors convinced Canada’s economy is back on solid ground. It’s not gotten much attention yet, but Canada’s stock market has been sputtering sideways for months now, with the much-heralded rally actually ending back on Sept. 16, when the TSX closed at 11,555 points—almost exactly where it languishes today.

But put all that aside for a moment. During the recession Canadian employees were repeatedly asked to take one for the team. Yet prior to the downturn, Canada was in the throes of a labour shortage. As skilled workers begin to reassert themselves, the balance of power will shift back to its previous state. It may take some time, but you can bet many disgruntled employees are just plucking up the courage to follow in Janice’s footsteps.

THE GOOD NEWS

Building boom
The Canadian real estate sector continues to drive the country’s economic recovery even as some warn of the possibility of a housing bubble. Statistics Canada said the value of building permits hit a 13-month high of $6.1 billion in October, an increase of 18 per cent. Economists had predicted a one per cent jump.

TARP tamed
The Obama administration is planning to cut its Troubled Asset Relief Program by some $200 billion as Wall Street appears to be on the mend. The U.S. government now plans to spend just $141 billion over the next decade on the financial sector.

’Tis the e-season
U.S. online retailers enjoyed a five per cent jump in sales on the first Monday following American Thanksgiving, now known as Cyber Monday, the day when Americans return from a holiday spent window shopping and place online orders. The US$887 million that was spent equalled the busiest e-commerce day on record.

You’re hired
Restaurants, grocery stores and other retailers are hiring more employees, as confidence in the economic turnaround grows. In November, nearly four per cent of all job applications resulted in hires, the highest level so far this year.

THE BAD NEWS

Cool on cars
Automakers may be seeing a faint light at the end of the tunnel as North American sales of cars, trucks and SUVs gradually pick up—but Canadians don’t seem to be doing much of the buying. Car sales in Canada were down 2.9 per cent in November after driving off a cliff in October. By contrast, vehicle sales in the U.S. market were essentially flat year-over-year, with observers blaming the U.S. government’s Cash for Clunkers program for recent volatility in U.S. sales numbers.

Factory blues
Manufacturing levels in the U.S. did not increase as much as economists had hoped in November. The Institute for Supply Management’s manufacturing index fell two points from the month before to 53.6. Nevertheless, the index still shows an increase in output year-over-year, suggesting the economy continues to expand.

Busted
The number of U.S. companies and people being pushed into bankruptcy continues to soar. Bankruptcy petitions were up 26 per cent in November compared to the same time last year, according to data compiled from court filings by Jupiter eSources. The good news is there were slightly fewer bankruptcy petitions in November than October. Still, the first 11 months of this year resulted in 1.3 million U.S. bankruptcy filings, about 21 per cent more than in all of 2008.

Graph of the week

A real recovery • The very modest GDP growth in the third quarter suggested a recovery in Canada won’t be easy. But there are more encouraging signs that the recession is truly over. Both consumer spending and business investment posted the biggest gains since 2007.

Signs of the times

• Don’t stand between a banker and his bonus. The board of the Royal Bank of Scotland threatened to resign en masse after the British government suggested it might veto bonus payments for 20,000 investment bankers. Hundreds of the bankers have already reportedly quit in protest. The bank received a nearly $80-billion bailout last year, and has come under intense scrutiny for its bonus plans.
• Fore! Close! The game of golf has been sent running for cover by the recession. This year, 114 courses have closed in the U.S. as players cut back on green fees. Several others have been forced into bankruptcy as values of some courses have fallen as much as 50 per cent in the real estate crash. The industry has been hit by its own credit crunch, too, as golf course lenders have turned off the taps.
• Alligator farmers in Louisiana, the alligator farming capital of the world, have felt the bite of hard times. Last year, the farmers picked 500,000 wild alligator eggs. This year, they haven’t taken any as demand for luxury alligator skin products, from watch straps to hand bags, has disappeared. Their troubles have been made even worse by an oversupply of alligator skin in recent years.
• Damn the recession, it’s full speed ahead for the cruise ship industry. Royal Caribbean just launched Oasis of the Seas, a US$1.4-billion ship that rises 20 stories above the sea. Norwegian Cruise Line has an equally big ship in the works—the US$1.2-billion Norwegian Epic. Despite the downturn, the companies say they’re taking the long view with ships that will be plying the seas for 30 years.

Latest intelligence

After months of shedding workers, Canadian companies are finally hiring again. Some 79,100 jobs were created in November, including many in the key private sector. That blew by economists’ forecasts and, when combined with similarly positive U.S. jobs data, raised hopes that the economy is recovering faster than expected.

“Job numbers tend to be quite volatile, but there may be something to this.” - Eric Lascelles, chief economics and rates strategist, TD Securities

“November’s net hiring was all the more encouraging in that it included a swing back toward paid employment at the expense of self-employed jobs.” – Avery Shenfeld, chief economist, CIBC World Markets

“The solid November report offsets the prior month’s disappointing drop.” - Benjamin Reitzes, economist, BMO Capital Markets

“Canada’s economy is transitioning from recession to recovery.” - Sal Guatieri, senior economist, BMO Capital Markets

“This was a surprisingly strong report with details matching
the ‘wow’ factor in the headline print.” - Ian Pollick, strategist, TD Securities

“We consider this pace of job growth to be unsustainable.” - Millan Mulraine, economist, TD Securities

“With the unemployment decreasing and the participation rate rising, there is no doubt that the Canadian labour market is improving.” – Yanick Desnoyers, assistant chief economist, National Bank Financial

The Week Ahead

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 11: The U.S. Census Bureau will release retail sales figures for November. Sales are expected to rise slightly.
MONDAY, DECEMBER 14: The capacity utilization rate of Canadian industries will be reported by Statistics Canada. The rate hit a record low of 67.4 per cent in the second quarter of this year.
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 16: Statistics Canada will report manufacturing sales for October. Sales were up 1.4 per cent in September.

Wider ramifications

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, December 10, 2009 at 11:04 PM - 64 Comments

The Star covers today’s House debate. Canadian Press reviews the backroom battle. And with the Liberal motion now passed, the Globe considers what could come next.

The Liberals, NDP and Bloc Québécois, which together outnumber the Harper Conservatives in Parliament, passed a motion by a 145-143 vote that seeks to compel the release of thousands of uncensored documents on Afghan prisoners.

If the Conservatives ignore the order, as expected, opposition parties could vote to find the government in contempt, sparking a battle that might result in the courts being asked to weigh the limits of parliamentary privilege.

Ministers or other MPs found in contempt could be admonished and embarrassed by being compelled to appear before the Bar of the House – the floor of the Commons – to face a grilling from MPs.

But this House order-to-produce is a rarely used power and one that is in potential conflict with laws – such as those concerning privacy and national security – that Parliament itself has passed.

Newsmakers '09: Mergers

By Yoni Goldstein - Thursday, December 10, 2009 at 6:40 PM - 0 Comments

Alex Rodriguez and Kate Hudson
The baseball slugger and film starlet confirmed their relationship in July, though Hudson pretty much gave away the secret by following A-Rod’s Yankees across the U.S. during the baseball season. In February, Rodriguez admitted to using steroids between 2001 and 2003—which proves that women love an “honest” man.

Peter MacKay and Jana Juginovic
The hunk on the Hill is engaged, and this time the object of his affection isn’t a fellow pol. MacKay announced his engagement to Juginovic, director of programming at CTV News Channel, in November. Jack, the MacKay family dog, is reportedly happy—his master walks him way too often when there’s no amour in his life. Eat your heart out, Belinda and Condi.

Disney and Marvel
Disney got significantly cooler in August when it announced a US$4-billion deal to buy Marvel Entertainment. Walt’s company will finally have a stable of strong heroes—Iron Man and Wolverine come to mind. Perhaps the Marvel guys will find a way to toughen up Mickey and Pinocchio.

Archie and Veronica
First he married Veronica. Then he married Betty. But Archie’s no bigamist—both were “dreams.” Could you see this ending any other way? The redhead has been stringing these two on for 70 years. Some may say he’s got the best of both worlds—one rich girl, one nice girl—why ruin it by choosing Veronica? By the way, have you noticed Betty and Veronica look exactly the same, except for their hair colour?

Suncor and Petro-Canada
“I don’t know if it is a marriage made in heaven. But it is a match made in Canada,” Suncor’s CEO Rick George said when his company mergered with Petro-Canada. The deal protects two big players in Canada’s oil patch from foreign takeovers. It also means we have one less company to blame the next time gas prices skyrocket.

Michael Vick and the Humane Society
Michael Vick used to be a sick puppy, now he’s helping them. The dogfighting quarterback and the Humane Society of the U.S. teamed up after Vick was released from prison in May. Now that he’s back in the NFL, we’ll see how much time he has for the Sparkys and Rexes of the world.

Fiat and Chrysler
If anyone can make Chrysler stylish again, it’s the Italian automaker. But this deal isn’t just about reviving the moribund American institution—Fiat plans to use Chrysler’s dealerships and manufacturing plants to promote its own brands (and those of subsidiary Alfa Romeo) in the North American market. As the Italians say: Chi non risica, non rosica (“Nothing ventured, nothing gained”).

Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart
Honestly, we can’t figure out whether the Twilight stars are dating or not. They keep denying a relationship, but then were recently photographed holding hands in Paris. It’s not fair to keep so many teens languishing in crush purgatory.

Ivanka Trump marries
Mazel tov! Ivanka Trump—or Yael Trump, as she’s now known—converted to Judaism and married New York Observer owner Jared Kushner on Oct. 25. She wore a Vera Wang dress. No one could tell whether Donald was wearing a yarmulka—or whether he was having another bad hair day.

CPP and Skype
The Canada Pension Plan’s purchase of a portion of the Internet phone company signals the emergence of a bolder CPP. Now that a lawsuit between Skype and the computer nerds who developed the online phone technology has been settled, pensioners can expect to see money start rolling in—over the Web, that is.

Newsmakers '09: Winners

By Nicholas Köhler - Thursday, December 10, 2009 at 6:40 PM - 0 Comments

Usain Bolt
From afar, the six-foot-five sprinter towers above his rivals as though his real trick is to cheat perspective—he looms larger because he’s already closer to the finish. At 23 he has won 25 consecutive races in two years. In August at the Berlin world championships he broke his own records in the 100- and 200-m races, a repeat of his dual golds at the Beijing Games; his part in winning a third for Jamaica in the 4 x 100-m sprint relay made it a hat trick.

Susan Boyle
Surely, when Stephen Harper crooned a little Ringo this fall, he was channelling the spirit of a frumpy Scottish lady—too old and too unkissed to be called a lass—whose appearance on Britain’s Got Talent cast us all in the role of hidden understudy or unpolished diva, capable of reducing a mob to tears. Boyle’s careening rise, with its uncertain makeovers and tantrums, has yet to eclipse that first magic shock.

Sidney Crosby
Partway through the second period of game seven, Crosby finds himself crumpled against the boards after a hit from Detroit Red Wings forward Johan Franzen. In pain, he hobbles into the Pittsburgh Penguins’ dressing room, but is back before the night’s done to lift the Stanley Cup above his head—at 21 the youngest NHL captain ever to do so, and just four years after arriving as the No. 1 selection in the draft. Nuff said.

Senior citizens
Despite its oddly adult opening sequence—which follows Carl and Ellie Fredricksen from kiddie courtship to dotage and on to death—the animated film Up did gangbusters at the box office, making it Pixar’s 10th consecutive film to break US$100 million. Off-screen, too, it was good to be a geezer. The over-60 set learned it needn’t worry about H1N1 due to a youthful exposure to something similar. Paul Anka awoke at 68 to hear This is It, a tune he’d written with Michael Jackson years ago, on the radio, and earned a mint for his troubles. Willard Boyle of Halifax won a Nobel for physics at 85, for work put to bed 40 years ago, and McGill neuroscientist Brenda Milner a $1-million prize for her work on memory—at 91. Dame Vera Lynn, whose WWII anthem We’ll Meet Again we know from Dr. Strangelove, hit No. 1 in the U.K. with a greatest hits CD.

Michael Bublé
It wasn’t just that his new CD, Crazy Love, shot to No. 1 within days of its release; at 34, Bublé suddenly seemed comfortable being Bublé. The crooner had tired of being the big-band throwback mums and daughters love: the squeaky-clean routine didn’t fit with a lady-killer who likes a drink and may well Bublé your joint (to coin a phrase). He admits to the illicit fun-making now, and fans seem to love him no less.

Japan’s Democratic party
After nearly 54 years of rule by the Liberal Democratic Party, the notoriously cautious Japanese voter decided in August to try something different and cast a ballot for the Democratic party. The landslide made Yukio Hatoyama PM, a moment Barack Obama recently called a “political earthquake,” even if it did little to fix a Japanese economy still burdened by a recession that took hold in the 1990s.

Lady Gaga
In the early 1970s, Bette Midler emerged from the bathhouses of New York with a stage show in which the outrageous costumes and setpieces were as important as the music. Strip away Midler’s irony and sense of fun and you get Gaga, a 23-year-old Yonkers gal who’s sold over four million copies of her debut, The Fame, and 20 million digital singles. If she wears bits of fly screen on her fingernails, she still sounds refreshingly expert singing solo from behind a piano.

Anthony Calvillo
At 37, he’s a little longue dans le dent to be up for his second straight MVP nod. Quarterback Calvillo, a 14-year CFL vet, was also among nine Montreal Alouettes named to the league’s all-star squad, and his 26 touchdown passes were tops. In July he let fly the 335th scoring pass of his career, shifting him into second. He came in third in passing and only tossed out six interceptions in 550 attempts.

Jerry Mitchell
Even as cost-cutting continues to gut investigative journalism, Jerry Mitchell, a reporter with the Clarion-Ledger in Jackson, Miss., is a wonderful anomaly. Over 20 years, his work to probe civil-rights era killings has put four Klansmen in prison, including Byron De La Beckwith, convicted in the 1963 murder of Medgar Evers. This fall he won a US$500,000 MacArthur Foundation “genius grant”; he plans to continue his reporting.

Jon Hamm
In a series of Vanity Fair photographs featuring Hamm with his so-beautiful-it-hurts Mad Men co-star January Jones, Annie Leibovitz presented a fairy-tale creature whose veins run with ink from the Harlequin presses. But it was his turn on 30 Rock as Tina Fey’s fling, Dr. Drew Baird, that convinced the hitherto unimpressed. That self-deprecating take on a man so handsome he’s oblivious to his shortcomings led to one of two Emmy nominations—the other was for Mad Men.

Privacy commissioner
The social networking site Facebook changed the way it handles personal data provided by users all over the world, in part due to a report issued by federal privacy commissioner Jennifer Stoddart blasting Facebook for violating Canadian privacy law. Among other things, it will make it clearer how to delete accounts and to choose what personal info is sent to third parties.

Beyoncé
Though released late last year, Beyoncé’s video for Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It), settled into being the secret heart of 2009. It was the one Kanye West felt should have won over Taylor Swift’s You Belong to Me. It became the subject of countless YouTube homages, creating the first dance craze of the 21st century. Greeting Beyoncé in January, Barack Obama flapped his hand in glorious Ring on It mimicry. With the grace of a balletic giraffe, Beyoncé demonstrated her infinite self-possession.

Moammar Gadhafi
In flowing golden robes and trademark sunglasses, flanked by seven “traditional kings of Africa,” Gadhafi arrived in Addis Ababa in February to assume the leadership of the African Union. His ascendency was not without controversy. Gadhafi waited until 2003 to renounce terrorism and appeared to want the leadership merely to help propel Libya from the shadows of international isolation. Next stop . . . Mugabe?

Alec Baldwin
Who said there are no second acts in American lives? F. Scott, meet Alec Baldwin, the leading man-turned-celebrity-divorcé-turned-awful-voice-mail-dad, whose role on 30 Rock spawned a comeback. This year he’s earned an Emmy, starred alongside Meryl Streep in It’s Complicated as a man cheating on a trophy wife with his aging ex, and was named co-host (with Steve Martin) of the 2010 Oscars. Alec, grab that winning streak and start marketing Schweddy Balls—now.

The Commons: Shrug and dismiss

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, December 10, 2009 at 6:01 PM - 126 Comments

The Scene. The Prime Minister stood and shrugged and declared that the military and the government had conducted themselves properly. Michael Ignatieff asked a second question. The Prime Minister rose and shrugged once more, suggesting the Liberal leader was without evidence of wrongdoing by the Canadian Forces.

In the face of futility, Mr. Ignatieff switched to English for a third try. “Mr. Speaker, there are no allegations against Canadian Forces. It is the conduct of the government that is in question,” he attempted to clarify for the umpteenth time. “The government has withheld evidence, it has intimidated witnesses, it has censored documents. This morning it even tried to prevent Parliament from debating the issue. The Prime Minister is responsible for this conduct. He is responsible for a year of wilful blindness. What does he have to hide?”

The Prime Minister stood here to declare the matter closed. “Mr. Speaker, the reason the leader of the opposition now tries to say he does not point the finger at the Canadian Forces and diplomats is, of course, because they have always respected their obligations. These people have been operating in extremely difficult conditions in Afghanistan. Whenever they have been faced with difficulties, they have taken the appropriate action,” he explained. “Systems have been changed two, three, four years ago. This issue has long since been dealt with.”

The government would seem to no longer be interested in trying to explain itself. Continue…

Hands off the silverware, Grapes

By Colby Cosh - Thursday, December 10, 2009 at 5:58 PM - 48 Comments

So Don Cherry likes the idea of changing the name of some of the NHL’s year-end trophies, does he? Breaks my heart to say it, but I guess he is a bad role model after all.

Let’s not get distracted by broad notions of respecting heritage and preserving the old imperial spirit of hockey. Most of these trophies were given to the NHL specifically so that people’s memories would be preserved in perpetuity by means of some small token. The Norris Trophy was donated to the National Hockey League by the children of James Norris. The Art Ross trophy was a gift from Art Ross. The Hart Trophy, or the original one, came from David Hart. Not many people know who James Norris, Art Ross, and David Hart were, but if anyone does, it’s because of the generosity and devotion to hockey of themselves and their families.

It would be morally and spiritually unspeakable for the league to unilaterally annul these pledges and rename these objects, and the arguments given for doing so are asinine. We want to rename the Norris Trophy for Bobby Orr because… everybody already knows who Bobby Orr is? Memorials are meant for the people we all still remember, are they? Then why the heck do we call them that?

The heritage angle is relevant too, but it is only likely to confuse things. When the NHL locked out its players in 2004 and decided not to hold a Stanley Cup tournament, we were all outraged that a long tradition had been broken. But while we were lamenting for history, we weren’t quick enough to remember that the NHL doesn’t have any ethical claim at all to exclusive control of the Cup, and isn’t even its legal owner. That principle has now more or less been established by a court settlement, but in the meantime, the league succeeded in holding the Cup hostage in a labour dispute.

Now it wants to turn its other trophies, whose beauty and antiquity are the envy of all other professional sports, into cheap marketing trinkets. Unless you believe the conveniently anonymous NHL source who says the idea was to make the trophies more “relevant” to the players. If I said something that stupid to a journalist, I would insist on anonymity too. (þ: Staples)

Discord With Conchords

By Jaime Weinman - Thursday, December 10, 2009 at 5:37 PM - 6 Comments

There will be no third season of Flight of the Conchords; the creator/stars have announced that they will not return for a third season.

HBO had previously stated that they were interested in doing another season; the stars declared that they weren’t ready to come back, and finally decided that they wouldn’t. Specifically, they seemed to feel that they had used up a lot of their best material on the show already, and that the longer they went on, the harder it was to come up with ideas. (It might also illustrate the balance that live performers have to strike when they do a TV show: the show is a useful promotional tool, but it’s also dangerous because it over-exposes a lot of material, reducing its effectiveness in performance.) They felt, and some viewers agreed, that they were running short of good material in the second season.

This is the first HBO show in a while that has ended early, and it continues their recent streak of not canceling anything outright. (Though you might rightly point out how annoying it is that they cancelled Deadwood and soon afterward stopped cancelling anything.) They’ve said that Conchords was not a show that commanded a large audience but that it was a “brand enhancer,” presumably because of the hip cred it gave to the network and because it was a funny show in a lineup that will now be a bit comedy-deficient. They’ll have plenty of half-hour shows that aren’t really funny, but not a lot of comedy-comedies apart from Curb.

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'Disregarding its powers and authority'

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, December 10, 2009 at 5:25 PM - 18 Comments

The Parliamentary Law Clerk responds to the Justice Department’s response.

'The national interest'

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, December 10, 2009 at 3:35 PM - 69 Comments

The Department of Justice responds to the Parliamentary Law Clerk’s opinion of what Parliamentary committees are entitled to.

Newsmakers '09: Good Samaritans

By Brian Bethune - Thursday, December 10, 2009 at 2:50 PM - 1 Comment

The citizens of Charlottetown
When a P.E.I. landlord dropped an unzipped bag of cash on a windy day, money began swirling through the air. Passersby pitched in, reaching under parked cars and chasing down fluttering bills. When it was all over, Ian Walker had every one of the 10,300 dollars he started with.

Faron Hall
Seven years of living homeless along Winnipeg’s Red River hasn’t blunted Hall’s humanity. In May, when a teenager fell into the freezing water 40 m away, Hall, a self-described “chronic alcoholic,” jumped in and brought him safely to shore. In August, Hall plunged in again, this time saving a drowning woman.

Chesley Sullenberger III
He may have a name better suited to a trust-fund brat, but Capt. “Sully” works for a living. He’s very, very good at his job. In January, he piloted his crippled Airbus A-320 to a near-impossible smooth landing on New York’s frigid Hudson River. All 155 on board escaped alive. Last man off the rapidly sinking jet, after searching it twice: Sully.

Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet and James Cameron
If the Titanic trio weren’t rich before, the 1997 film took care of that. In May they gave some back, contributing $30,000 to the nursing-home fees of the ship’s last survivor. Millvina Dean, 97, died soon after, her final days free of financial concerns.

J.P. Neufeld
The Concordia University student spotted an Internet posting in which a British teen claimed he would burn down his high school within the hour. Neufeld alerted police in Norfolk, England, who arrested the suspect at the school.

Ian Cartwright
The retired Ontario Superior Court judge knows that there are innocent people in prison and that those who would free them are woefully underfunded in comparison with the Ministry of Justice. So in January he gave $1 million of his own money to the Association in Defence of the Wrongly Convicted. Cartwright won’t even get a tax break for his generosity.

David and Penny Chapman
After their ice cream plant in Markdale, Ont., burned down, the Chapmans told their 350 workers they would rebuild in town. Salaried staff would receive full pay for a year, hourly employees for four months—and, if necessary, the Chapmans would “take care of them” beyond that. One worker told a reporter she didn’t know exactly what that meant, but the Chapmans’ word meant “we’re going to be fine.”

Lisa Campbell
The University of California at Berkeley police specialist knew there was something not right about the man in her office seeking permission for a campus event. Rather than ignore the feeling, she set in motion the inquiry that saw Phillip Garrido arrested and Jaycee Dugard, the woman he had kidnapped 18 years before, set free.

Jack Windolf
When the Bollinger Insurance CEO sold half of his New Jersey firm, he picked up a US$500,000 bonus. Instead of keeping it, he gave each of his 434 employees US$1,000. His only request? “I like it when they spend it on themselves rather than pay bills.”

Unknown benefactor
Someone is determined to see women succeed in higher education, and not just students. This year, an anonymous donor gave US$100 million to at least 15 U.S. post-secondary schools, with a portion earmarked for scholarships for women and minorities. The only link between the institutions: large or small, they all have female presidents.

Newsmakers '09: At last . . .

By Jaime Weinman - Thursday, December 10, 2009 at 2:50 PM - 0 Comments

Garth Drabinsky and Myron Gottlieb
The founders of Livent Inc. were convicted of fraud in Ontario Superior Court. The conviction came 11 years after Livent collapsed and the partners were accused of cooking the books. Their sentencing in August brought an end to a saga that seemed as long as Livent’s Ragtime, though less boring.

Roman Polanski
More than 30 years after he fled the U.S. to escape sentencing for sexual abuse of a 13-year-old girl, Polanski was arrested in Zurich. Many of the director’s industry friends signed a petition protesting the arrest, saying if Polanski is extradited and sentenced, it will “take away his freedom.” Well, yeah, that’s the idea.

Pete Seeger
When the singer-songwriter (Turn, Turn, Turn) performed at a San Diego school in 1960, the school board tried unsuccessfully to cancel the concert after he wouldn’t sign an anti-Communist loyalty oath. This year, the board sent a letter of apology to Seeger for its past Red-baiting. He replied that the controversy helped his career. Even left-wing folk singers need publicity.

Oprah Winfrey
America’s sympathizer-in-chief announced she’s leaving her syndicated daytime show at the end of next year’s season, her 25th. The billionaire isn’t abandoning her millions of loyal followers to the harsh world of cable news. She hopes to take them to her own network, where they can watch Oprah-approved shows around the clock.

Section 13
The so-called hate speech section of the Canadian Human Rights Act allows government to regulate messages of “hatred or contempt.” After many challenges, a tribunal ruled it violates constitutional rights. The ruling doesn’t actually overturn the law, but it’s the thought that counts.

‘Burke’s Peerage’
For 173 years, the venerable volume has told us who’s who in the families of British aristocrats. This year it included out-of-wedlock children for the first time ever. Editor William Bortrick ordered the change to reflect the reality that “many people, even from titled families, do not marry.” This may be the biggest blow to the sanctity of aristocratic marriage since Charles and Diana broke up.

Kelly Marie Ellard
Part of a group that murdered Vancouver teen Reena Virk in 1997, Ellard has been keeping lawyers busy since her 2000 conviction was overturned. (It was followed by a mistrial and another conviction.) This year, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that her last conviction would stand, with no more do-overs.

Philadelphia, Miss.
The confusingly named town, best known as the site of the murder of three civil-rights workers in 1964, elected its first African-American mayor this year. James Young defeated the white incumbent by 46 votes. As with Obama’s election, this presumably proves that racism no longer exists.

Apple Inc.
The U.S.’s biggest music retailer (thanks to iTunes) sold most files with “digital locks” that prevented them from being copied to non-Apple devices. In January Apple announced it would remove the locks. This may be bad news for music producers, since it will encourage piracy. But it’s good news for that pathetic PC from those commercials, who can finally get access to some of the Mac’s tunes on his Zune.

Newsmakers '09: Exits

By Nicholas Köhler - Thursday, December 10, 2009 at 2:40 PM - 1 Comment

‘Guiding Light’
Go to the light, a voice said, and, after 72 years on the air, it did. Guiding Light, the longest-running scripted program in broadcast history, had declined to an average of just 2.1 million viewers an episode, making it the least-watched of the remaining soaps. So CBS executives extinguished the town of Springfield and its denizens—Reva, Josh, Lizzie and all—forever.

Paula Abdul
Stoned, drunk or flaky? It’s always been hard to tell with Abdul. So when she announced she was leaving the judge’s table on American Idol, the question became whether she was quitting or just playing hardball. Fox ended the speculation by tapping Ellen DeGeneres; Abdul’s subsequent TV impersonation of Ellen—less straight up than a strange variation on drag—closed the deal.

Wayne Gretzky
A casualty of the Phoenix Coyotes’ financial ill-fortune, Gretzky stepped down as coach in September, even as Jim Balsillie and Gary Bettman competed for the team’s future. Later, a dispute over millions in salary Gretzky says is still owed him caused some to wonder whether he’d attend the Hockey Hall of Fame inductions of former teammates Brett Hull, Luc Robitaille and Steve Yzerman. Always the gentleman, Gretzky did come. “The game is bigger than any individual or any person,” he said.

Rachelle Lefevre
Not by garlic or a stake in the heart, but by scheduling conflict, Montreal actress Rachelle Lefevre last summer found herself exterminated from the role of creepy Twilight vampire Victoria in the second sequel, Eclipse. Filming for the adaptation of the Mordecai Richler novel Barney’s Version, in which she’ll appear as Barney’s first wife, Clara, was slated to overlap with Eclipse, so producers dropped Lefevre in favour of Bryce Dallas Howard, daughter of director Ron Howard.

View-Master scenic reels
Slipped into that plastic viewer, with its distinctive fire-engine red colour and a side-trigger to move between images, the 3-D scenic reel was the next best thing to being there. The Grand Canyon threatened real vertigo, the glacial cools of the Rockies actual hypothermia. But citing long-diminished sales, Fisher-Price has stopped making the scenic reels (it will continue with TV and movie-related discs). Meaning our children will no longer gaze at the View-Master’s astonishing verisimilitude with the pock-marked moon or red Mars.

Oscar De La Hoya
Dubbed “the Golden Boy,” he was a throwback to the classic Hollywood pugilist. A Mexican-American raised in hardscrabble east L.A., De La Hoya promised his dying mother he’d win gold in the 1992 Olympics; he did, then went on to become one of history’s most successful pro boxers. Good looks and scrappiness made him widely popular, but he was an outright hero to America’s Hispanic population. After his last bout in May before retirement at 36—he lost to Filipino Manny Pacquiao—De La Hoya ap­proached his old trainer, Freddie Roach. “You were right, Freddie. I don’t have it anymore.”

‘High School Musical’ cast
Four years after its television debut in 2006, the cast of High School Musical—the Disney franchise so at home in sterile Salt Lake City, where it is filmed—has graduated, never to return. What to do? Replace Zac, Vanessa and Ashley with a new crew of post-pubescent vocalists, who will also no doubt be outfitted with the Antares Auto-Tune pitch-correction software, for High School Musical 4: East Meets West (which sounds exotic, but likely goes no farther east than Minneapolis).

Monthly beer allotments
For years, Molson retirees enjoyed a benefits package that could surely only exist in the booze-fuelled fantasy lives of Bob and Doug McKenzie: lots of free beer. Retirees in St. John’s got six dozen bottles a month. But in June, Molson said it would cut the quota of complimentary beer it allots its retirees to a monthly dozen in St. John’s. Five years from now, retirees across Canada will get no beer at all. Current workers will see their allowance slashed to 52 dozen bottles a year. Union grievances and protests are expected to go flat.

Radio-Canada’s ‘Bye Bye’
Once a very funny way for francophones to call in the New Year, Radio-Canada’s year-end television event had in recent years devolved into an offensive, unfunny caricature of Québécois humour. Indeed, last year’s review, which featured controversial sketches mocking Barack Obama and singer and child-abuse survivor Nathalie Simard, drew tough criticisms from the CRTC. Adieu, adieu, Bye Bye.

Dresden
For its 18 km of unspoiled 18th- and 19th-century riverside landscape and its historic old town, UNESCO named Germany’s Dresden Elbe Valley a UN World Heritage Site in 2004. Last summer, it took the rare step of rescinding the distinction—just the second time it’s done so—after “the Florence of northern Europe” went ahead with plans to build a modern bridge in the middle of the heritage zone. Dresden had rejected a tunnel alternative and the structure was backed by a local referendum, creating an unbridgeable gap between locals and UNESCO.

Karlheinz Schreiber
The former arms dealer and self-styled international man of mystery avoided extradition from Canada for a decade. This to the obvious horror of Brian Mulroney, who describes taking cash from Schreiber as “my second-biggest mistake in life,” the first being ever agreeing to meet him. There’s no chance they’ll bump into each other at the ATM these days—the Mounties escorted Schreiber to Germany in August.

Phthalates
Almost 10 years after Europe restricted their use and close to six months after the U.S. said it would do likewise, Canada placed a partial ban on phthalates, a family of compounds better known as “rubber duck chemicals” for their frequent use in softening plastics in toys. The chemicals are believed to impede the production of testosterone, particularly during fetal development, when high phthalate levels may feminize males.

Best polka album
Despite protestations by some that polka remains a vibrant musical form, the Grammy Awards have discontinued their award for best polka album. This vastly reduces the chances that Canada’s polka king, Walter Ostanek of St. Catharines, Ont., who has been nominated for 21 Grammys and won three, will ever be nominated again.

The Lockerbie bomber
Three Canadians were among the 270 victims of the 1988 Lockerbie bombing. In August the Scottish government agreed to repatriate the ill Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi, the only man convicted in the terrorist act, on compassionate grounds. Back in Libya, he got a hero’s welcome. Terminal prostate cancer was the bomber’s ticket home; we’re still awaiting his final exit.

Chinese Uighur detainees
The odyssey continues for a group of Chinese Muslims captured in Afghanistan and Pakistan after 9/11 and sent to the U.S. prison at Guantánamo Bay. Quickly identified as non-combatants, the Uighurs could not be returned to China for fear of persecution, and no other big power would have them. In November, six landed in the Pacific island nation of Palau, a former U.S.-run trust territory that will be their refuge until another country—possibly Australia—agrees to take them permanently. Meanwhile, they may learn to love fruit bat cooked in coconut, a local delicacy.

Kodachrome
It was the film used to capture the image of the beautiful green-eyed Afghan girl for National Geographic and the basis for the infamous Zapruder reel that caught the murder of president John F. Kennedy, sparking a thousand conspiracy theories. It could only be thus: Kodachrome, introduced 74 years ago but discontinued in June, was at once too real and too vivid. Singer Paul Simon recognized in its bright hues a promise reality could not keep: “Makes you think all the world’s a sunny day,” he sang. Digital photography, which offers a starker reality, led to the end of its colourful optimism.

Newsmakers '09: Feuds

By Philippe Gohier - Thursday, December 10, 2009 at 2:40 PM - 1 Comment

	PALIN vs. JOHNSTON Call it the tussle on the tundra: America’s most famous Alaskans have been at each other’s throats ever since Levi Johnston left the Palin family home shortly after the birth of his son, Tripp, to Sarah Palin’s daughter, Bristol. In interviews and a tell-all article for Vanity Fair, Johnston paints a portrait of Sarah as a lazy, tempestuous, money-hungry egomaniac. Palin, meanwhile, has dismissed Bristol’s relationship with Johnston as a “mistake” and accused the 19-year-old newly minted Playgirl model of being a deadbeat on a “quest for fame, attention, and fortune.”
	PORT vs. COHEN The Skanks in NYC blog was never destined for greatness. And yet its musings about Canadian-born model Liskula Cohen (right) made headlines after Cohen went to court to force Google to identify the anonymous blogger. Cohen eventually dropped her US$3-million defamation suit against Rosemary Port, the 29-year-old fashion student in question. Port, though, launched a US$15-million suit against Google, which she claims should have upheld her right to call someone a “psychotic lying whore” online.
	INDIA vs. SCOTLAND It’s a fixture in Indian restaurants, but Glasgow chef Ahmed Aslam Ali says chicken tikka masala isn’t Indian at all—it’s Scottish. In fact, the 64-year-old founder of the Shish Mahal restaurant claims he invented it in the early 1970s. A Scottish MP is now taking the Scot’s claim one step further, trying to secure “protected designation of origin” status for the dish. Indian foodies have dismissed Ali’s claims as “preposterous,” and say chicken tikka masala is an “authentic Mughlai recipe” that’s been passed down for generations.
	VLADIMIR PUTIN vs. UKRAINE When Ukraine missed a US$500-million payment for Russian gas in November, Russian PM Vladimir Putin was incensed. His Ukrainian counterpart, Yulia Tymoshenko, stepped in and negotiated a deal to guarantee gas deliveries. But Putin has since suggested Ukraine’s payment “problems” could be met with significant supply “problems.” And should Ukraine decide to siphon gas from shipments meant for Europe rather than buy it from Russia, he threatened, “we will cut supplies,” a tactic he already used last January.
	SEPARATIST vs. THE NATIONAL BATTLEFIELDS COMMISSION When Quebec’s hard-core separatist fringe threatened to disrupt a re-enactment of the battle on the Plains of Abraham, Canada’s National Battlefields Commission simply cancelled the event altogether. “We don’t want it to become a clash,” André Juneau, then commission president, said by way of explanation. “There was one in 1759 and we don’t want another.” History, it seems, isn’t written by the winners, but by the whiners.
	BECKHAM vs. FANS David Beckham probably knew better than to expect a warm welcome when he returned to L.A. for his first home game with Major League Soccer’s Galaxy. Despite his US$250-million contract, the star had skipped the Galaxy’s first 17 matches of the season, opting to play for an Italian club. But the reception was enough to leave Beckham wishing he’d stayed in Italy. Fed up with the taunts and boos, he tried to climb a barrier to get at an angry fan. Beckham claims he just wanted to shake hands; he was fined US$1,000 for the goodwill gesture.
	ATHEISTS vs. UNITED CHURCH Last winter, Canadian atheists announced they would be buying ad space on buses to promote their message: “There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.” Rather than try to censor the message, the United Church of Canada opted to run a cheeky reply of its own: “There’s probably a God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.” Whatever impact the ads may have had, the real message may very well have been, “There’s probably no point arguing about religion on the sides of buses.”
	AMERICAN APPERAL vs. WOODY ALLEN Woody Allen isn’t the first name that comes to most people’s minds when the topic of fashion models comes up. Still, no one was as surprised as Allen himself when his frumpish mug found its way onto an American Apparel billboard in 2007. Allen sued over the ad, which showed him dressed as an Orthodox Jew, with a caption, in Yiddish, calling him “the high rabbi.” They settled out of court in May for US$5 million.
	CHINA vs. RIO TINTO Last July, Chinese officials arrested four employees of Australian mining giant Rio Tinto, accusing them of stealing state secrets. The arrests followed a failed bid by Chinalco, a state-owned Chinese manufacturer, to invest US$19.5 billion in the company. Rio Tinto, along with Australian officials, is still working to free Stern Hu, the company’s chief iron ore negotiator, but Chinese officials say their investigation isn’t complete.

What Philosophers Think About Philosophical Questions

By Andrew Potter - Thursday, December 10, 2009 at 2:33 PM - 14 Comments

Via Tyler Cowen:
The PhilPapers Survey was a survey of professional philosophers and others on their philosophical views. You can find the survey and the results here. Some of the more interesting results are below:

Analytic-synthetic distinction: yes or no?
Accept or lean toward: yes 604 / 931 (64.8%)
Accept or lean toward: no 252 / 931 (27%)
Other 75 / 931 (8%)

God: theism or atheism?
Accept or lean toward: atheism 678 / 931 (72.8%)
Accept or lean toward: theism 136 / 931 (14.6%)
Other 117 / 931 (12.5%)

Mind: physicalism or non-physicalism?
Accept or lean toward: physicalism 526 / 931 (56.4%)
Accept or lean toward: non-physicalism 252 / 931 (27%)
Other 153 / 931 (16.4%)

Normative ethics: deontology, consequentialism, or virtue ethics?
Other 301 / 931 (32.3%)
Accept or lean toward: deontology 241 / 931 (25.8%)
Accept or lean toward: consequentialism 220 / 931 (23.6%)
Accept or lean toward: virtue ethics 169 / 931 (18.1%)

Trolley problem (five straight ahead, one on side track, turn requires switching, what ought one do?): switch or don’t switch?
Accept or lean toward: switch 635 / 931 (68.2%)
Other 225 / 931 (24.1%)
Accept or lean toward: don’t switch 71 / 931 (7.6%)

I find the first interesting, since Quine’s arguments against the analytic/synthetic distinction always struck me as some of the most accepted results in philosophy. I’m happy to see that a healthy majority of philosophers are atheists, though that result might be difficult to square with the much small majority that are physicalists about the mind. I’m also surprised at the narrow plurality of deontologists, especially in contrast with the large number who are willing to sacrifice some innocent person just to save five others, which is consequentialist in spirit.

Newsmakers '09: Entrances

By Kate Lunau - Thursday, December 10, 2009 at 2:30 PM - 0 Comments

Victoria’s Secret
No longer will underwear aficionados have to gaze longingly south of the border: Victoria’s Secret, the lingerie chain synonymous with romance, glamour and Heidi Klum, is set to launch its first Canadian stores in the new year. For those who can’t wait, little sister store Victoria’s Secret Pink, aimed at university-age girls, opened a few Canadian outlets this year.

Micro pigs
The most in-demand accessory in Hollywood isn’t a handbag or pair of heels—it’s a tiny pig. Micro pigs start out as big as a teacup, and grow to be about the size of a spaniel; they’re clean and sweet-natured, and they love to be around people. David and Victoria Beckham have scooped up two, reportedly at a cost of over $1,200 each; Harry Potter actor Rupert Grint has one, too.

Chinese curling team
Who’ll win curling gold at Vancouver in 2010? China, which just began its curling program in 2000, could be a real contender. In March, the Chinese team defeated Sweden, Olympic champions in 2006, to win the Women’s Curling Championship, making history. Observers are calling the People’s Republic the new curling superpower.

Lottie the Otter
Eighty years after A. A. Milne’s beloved books were published, Winnie the Pooh has a new friend: Lottie the Otter, who appears in the first authorized Pooh sequel, Return to the Hundred Acre Wood. Author David Benedictus describes Lottie as an outspoken otter who’s a stickler for etiquette. Illustrated by Mark Burgess, who brought Paddington Bear to life, she’s a graceful and rare female addition to Pooh’s crew.

Joaquin ‘Shorty’ Guzman
This year saw an unusual addition to Forbes magazine’s list of the world’s wealthiest people. Alongside Bill Gates and Warren Buffett was Joaquin “Shorty” Guzman, a Mexican drug lord. With an estimated net worth of US$1 billion, Guzman heads the Sinaloa cartel, one of the biggest suppliers of cocaine to the U.S. Mexican officials quickly slammed his inclusion as “deplorable.”

Nova Scotia’s first NDP government
June’s vote saw the province get its first-ever NDP government after a decade of Progressive Conservative rule. The NDP trounced the Tories, who were reduced to third-party status. Even Leader Darrell Dexter seemed surprised: “Who would believe that NDP orange would cover Nova Scotia?” he said after the win.

Ardi
Move over, Lucy: a hominid even more primitive than the famous 3.2-million-year-old fossil is now our earliest known ancestor. Ardi, short for Ardipithecus ramidus, is 4.4 million years old; an adult female, she likely stood about four feet tall and weighed 120 lb. With a brain the size of a chimp’s, Ardi could climb trees, yet walked upright on two legs.

Al Franken
Al Franken was once better known for his turn as self-help guru Stuart Smalley on Saturday Night Live. This year, he left the limelight to become Minnesota’s new Democratic senator. Declared the winner after a lengthy recount and legal battle against his Republican rival, Franken marked his arrival in Washington with a sober declaration: “I’m ready to get to work, thank you.”

Shawn A-in-chut Atleo
In Canada, roughly half the native population is under 25. Atleo, a hereditary chief of Vancouver Island’s Ahousaht First Nation, was a fitting choice to represent them: elected national chief of the Assembly of First Nations in July, he was the youngest candidate at age 42 (and the only one whose campaign had a Twitter account). Atleo is not known to shy from a challenge; in his new role he promises he’ll be “kicking down doors.”

Camilla
Canadians’ ambivalence to the royals was on show during the duchess of Cornwall’s first official visit, which was marked by inevitable comparisons to Diana’s. Still, Camilla has Canadian roots: one of her ancestors was premier of Canada West. On a stop at Hamilton’s Dundurn Castle, built for her great-great-great grandfather, she and Prince Charles received one of the largest turnouts of their trip, and were greeted with cries of, “We want the duchess!” Camilla, in a fur-lined cape, replied, “Oh, lovely.”

Gabourey Sidibe
Most of Hollywood’s leading ladies are rail thin, but Gabourey Sidibe, who stars in the film Precious, is just the opposite, reportedly weighing more than 300 lb. But that might be the least remarkable thing about her: Sidibe has received massive praise for her brave performance as a sexual-abuse victim, a poor, illiterate teenager who’s impregnated by her own father. She’ll next star in Yelling to the Sky opposite Don Cheadle.

Seal meat as political rite
On a trip to the Arctic, Governor General Michaëlle Jean sampled the heart of a freshly slaughtered seal, making headlines around the world. Now, everybody’s doing it: in Iqaluit a few months later, Stephen Harper dined on seal meat, offering a public rebuke to Europe’s ban on Canadian sealing products. Cabinet ministers followed suit, and it has been added to the menu at Parliament Hill’s exclusive restaurant, alongside more routine fare like beef tenderloin and salmon.

Nadya Suleman
In January, Suleman, a single mom with six children, gave birth to octuplets, the second set in U.S. history. The story quickly progressed from heartwarming tale to ethical quagmire: the American Society of Reproductive Medicine ejected her fertility doctor after revelations he transferred at least six embryos to the 33-year-old (guidelines would have recommended one or two). Suleman was soon a tabloid freak: reports suggested the so-called “Octomom” would appear alongside fellow reality train-wreck Jon Gosselin on a new show, though the dad of eight denied it.

Sri Lankan Tamil ship
After a decades-long insurgency, Sri Lanka’s Tamil Tigers, viewed by Canada as a terrorist organization, were defeated in that country this year. In the crackdown that followed, some ethnic Tamils fled, including 76 who travelled to B.C. aboard a run-down cargo ship. Seeking refugee status, most were kept in custody in a Vancouver-area detention centre as officials attempted to weed out any terrorists. Still, family members were reportedly relieved: “He’s in Canada, so he’s safe,” one said of his brother.

Jacob Zuma
A goatherd-turned-guerrilla leader, Jacob Zuma seemed an unlikely candidate for South Africa’s top office: the leader of the African National Congress was ridiculed in some quarters for his lack of education, for breaking into song and dance while out campaigning and for his three wives. Largely thanks to his grassroots appeal, he was sworn in as president in May. Arriving at his lavish inauguration, where he knelt at the feet of Nelson Mandela, Zuma had just one wife in tow, which must have meant a bit of a song and dance back home.

Amanda Seyfried
Following last year’s Mamma Mia!, in which she appeared alongside Meryl Streep, the 23-year-old rising star has shown off her remarkable range with two vastly different roles. In the dark comedy Jennifer’s Body (scripted by Oscar-winner Diablo Cody), Seyfried plays a nerdy bookworm. And in Atom Egoyan’s erotic drama Chloe, set in Toronto, she claimed the title role: a prostitute hired by a woman (Julianne Moore) to seduce her own husband (Liam Neeson). For those who prefer her lighter fare, Mamma Mia 2 is on its way.

‘Glee’
The high school musical comedy Glee is the hottest thing on TV, thanks in part to Cory Monteith, a Calgary native, who charms as Finn Hudson, a dreamy football jock who can sing. He appears alongside the rest of the gang at McKinley High, including the fabulously evil cheerleading coach, Sue Sylvester, played with gusto by Jane Lynch. Once the refuge of lonely nerds, glee clubs, thanks to Monteith and his crew, are finally cool.

The best of the decade

By macleans.ca - Thursday, December 10, 2009 at 2:21 PM - 0 Comments

It’s nearly impossible to winnow down the best in Canadian culture from the past 10 years, but we asked our critics to do just that and will be publishing their selections over the next four days. Click on a button below to discover Maclean’s picks for the best Canadian television shows, books, movies, and music.

Newsmakers '09: Comebacks

By Cathy Gulli - Thursday, December 10, 2009 at 2:00 PM - 0 Comments

Tiger Woods
He sank a 15-foot birdie to bag the Arnold Palmer Invitational golf tournament in the spring, making it his 66th PGA victory. It had been nearly a year since the super-athlete had enjoyed a big win, and Woods was ecstatic: “It’s been a while, but God, it felt good.” You can bet his competitors didn’t share the feeling.

Tim Hortons
Tims is officially a Canadian company again. The coffee giant has moved its operations base to Oakville, Ont., from Delaware—where it had been registered since Wendy’s burger chain bought it in 1995 (and spun it into an American subsidiary). But the move isn’t motivated by patriotism. Tim Hortons is taking advantage of Canada’s low corporate taxes. Canuck love comes cheap.

Robert Fowler, Louis Guay and Amanda Lindhout
After four months in al-Qaeda captivity, Canadian diplomat Robert Fowler and his aide Louis Guay were released. The pair had been working in Niger, where Fowler was a UN special envoy. The president of Burkina Faso helped negotiate their freedom, and some speculate a hefty ransom was paid. Another big payout was demanded for Alberta journalist Amanda Lindhout, who was held by Somalian fighters for 15 months. She was freed in November. Her family raised money to appease her abductors.

Whitney Houston
After battling drug addiction and getting a divorce, Whitney Houston has a new album called I Look To You. But all eyes have been on her: the American Music Academy gave Houston the international artist award in recognition of her global diva status. She also recently opened the new season of The Oprah Winfrey Show, where she belted out a moving rendition of Diane Warren’s I Didn’t Know My Own Strength to a blubbering audience. Houston told Winfrey that she got back into singing because “I needed my joy back.”

Kim Clijsters
Belgian tennis player Kim Clijsters came out of retirement to win the U.S. Open. She quit two years ago because of injuries, then got married and had a baby. But Clijsters was invited to the tournament as a wild card. She nabbed the US$1.6-million prize, and became the first mom to take the championship in 29 years. “It’s the greatest feeling in the world being a mother,” Clijsters told the crowd when her 18-month-old daughter ran onto the court for a post-match celebration. Clijsters had planned nap time that day so they could be together. After all the excitement, mom must need a rest too.

Ford Taurus
Can a car whose top-selling days were in the 1980s and ’90s really return Ford to its glory days? CEO Alan Mulally believes the new and improved Taurus will do just that. Among the perks the company touts are that it has more durable paint than a Lexus, a “blind spot information system” that uses radar to detect nearby cars, and an “EcoBoost” engine that delivers more power without chewing through extra fuel. If only Ford could make gas 50 cents a litre again.

Fabergé
For the first time in 90 years, Fabergé—maker of those intricate Easter eggs for Russian royalty—has issued a collection of jewellery. It features a marine theme: there is a seahorse broach, shell earrings and a water-lily bracelet. The 100 gem-encrusted pieces range in price from $46,000 to $11 million. They can only be purchased online or at the Fabergé store in Geneva. CEO Mark Dunhill balks at the idea of multiple retail outlets: “If you are thinking of spending $1 million for a bracelet, why not have the designer come to you and show it to you on your yacht?”

Julia Child
She’s more famous than ever, thanks mostly to the Hollywood hit Julie & Julia. The film has catapulted Julia Child’s 752-page tome, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, to the top of the best-seller lists, 48 years after it was first published. Her other culinary bible, Julia’s Kitchen Wisdom, has been reprinted six times and is the second-bestselling cookbook in the U.S. An autobiography called My Life in France has been reprinted nine times, which makes going for seconds seem restrained.

Horses on Parliament Hill
The RCMP are once again allowed to ride horses in front of the Peace Tower on Parliament Hill. The clip-clopping was banned in 2007 for fear tourists would wind up hurt by suddenly spooked animals. Before that, Mounties on horseback were an Ottawa highlight for 30 years. Now, one officer stays in the saddle while another walks alongside the horse. If only we could control question period so easily.

Lilith Fair
Travelling music festival Lilith Fair will be resurrected next summer, a decade since the last all-female tour. Canadian crooner Sarah McLachlan, who founded the concert in 1997, is behind its revival. No word yet which celebrity songstresses are on the bill, but this time there’s a new angle, the “Lilith Local Talent Search,” to find upcoming stars. Women’s work is never done.

The ’80s
They were the best of times, and they were the worst of times. Here is what’s back: the Winter Olympics in Canada; Petro-Canada’s commemorative Olympic glasses; Michael Jackson’s music; and a remake of The A-Team. But many other remnants of that decade would be better forgotten: provincial deficits, shoulder pads and skinny pants. Thankfully, acid wash has not made a resurgence. Yet.