France mulls all-out burqa ban

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, April 21, 2010 at 11:34 AM - 18 Comments

The debate over face-covering Islamic veils continues to heat up in France, where the government is speaking out in favour of an all-out ban. In a controversial statement today, spokesman Luc Chatel explained President Nicholas Sarkozy’s rationale for a bill that prohibits women from wearing the full veil, or burqa, which, he said, “hurts the dignity of women and is not acceptable in French society.” With government set to discuss a draft bill next month, the Muslim population of France, which, at about 6 million, is the largest of the 27 countries in the European Union, is divided. While some agree with the move, which they say will prevent families from forcing women to cover up, others deride it as an encroachment on personal freedom.

Reuters

Report exposes religious brutality in Somalia

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, April 21, 2010 at 11:21 AM - 4 Comments

A Human Rights Watch report on the swaths of Somalia under the control of the Islamist militia al-Shabaab describes a life of atavistic brutality and religious extremism. Men have their heads shaved with broken bottles if their hair is too long, and cell phones with “western” musical ring tones are smashed by roving patrols of religious enforcers. Women, however, suffer most. Those who work selling tea in public are whipped. All must where an enveloping burka-like garment, the abaya, which not everyone can afford. One woman who chased her child into the street without it was flogged and then locked in a shipping container. According to another, who was not incarcerated but simply had to live in a community under al-Shabaab’s control: “I felt like I was in a jail.”

Human Rights Watch

Newfoundland's moose-car collision problem parallels Germany's wild boar crossing dilemma

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, April 21, 2010 at 11:17 AM - 0 Comments

News reports from Newfoundland and Germany strongly suggest the advisability of trans-Atlantic research into the problem of large forest animals crossing highways to the peril of drivers. Newfoundland Environment and Conservation Minister Charlene Johnson recently announced the provincial government will be issuing more moose hunting licences and allowing a longer season as part of a bid to reduce the island’s moose population. More than 700 moose-vehicle collisions occur in Newfoundland and Labrador every year, 70 per cent between May and October. In Germany, the ADAC auto club has conducted crash tests on model wild boars to highlight the mounting risk of crashes involving the surprisingly large animals. In a quarter of a million collisions with wild animals on German roads in 2009, 27 people died and 3,000 were injured. Hundreds of thousands of animals perished. The ADAC recommends that drivers don’t swerve to avoid animals on the pavement, since smashing into an oncoming car is far more dangerous.

Der Spiegel

Der Spiegel

The Compass

U.S. food authorities target salt

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, April 21, 2010 at 10:57 AM - 3 Comments

For three decades the non-profit Center for Science in the Public Interest has campaigned for Americans to eat less salt. In the last few years, the drum beat from health researchers against salt has increased, as studies blame ingesting too much for 90,000 preventable deaths in the U.S. a year and $18 billion in spending to treat conditions like high blood pressure. Now, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has announced a far-reaching plan to cut the amount of salt Americans consume. The FDA will start by pushing the food industry to make voluntary cutbacks. Regulating acceptable levels of sodium in processed food could follow. The head of the salt lobby (yes, there is one) lashed out, of course. So did libertarians. Is salt the new nicotine?

L.A. Times

Foreign-owned or home-grown plants: as the C$ flies high, which are more apt to flee?

By John Geddes - Wednesday, April 21, 2010 at 9:51 AM - 9 Comments

The pattern is familiar: a U.S. parent company closes a Canadian factory and we are once again thrust into the ancient debate over the vulnerabilities of Canada’s “branch-plant economy.”

Lately, such closures, especially in the manufacturing heartland of Ontario, have hit the news regularly, from Pittsburgh Glass Works walking away from three auto glass plants to John Deere closing its Welland, Ont. factory.

Of course, Canadian-owned operations can close, too, especially when a rising loonie makes all Canadian exports more expensive. The question has always been whether there is really any difference between how foreign and domestic owners respond to precisely the same bottom-line hit.

Continue…

Jesus and his twin brother, Christ

By Brian D. Johnson - Wednesday, April 21, 2010 at 7:13 AM - 32 Comments

Superstock/ Getty Images

There’s always been something visceral about Philip Pullman’s atheism. The brilliant children’s writer is as convinced of the intellectual case against God as Richard Dawkins or any of the other so-called new atheists he’s associated with. But what really seems to animate him—certainly through the course of The Golden Compass, his most famous novel, and its two sequels—is a contemptuous anger for the institutional Church, both Catholic and Protestant, and the more sordid parts of its history. So it’s a bit surprising to see a few (a very few) kind words come the Church’s way in Pullman’s provocatively entitled new novel, The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ.

Perhaps they arose from the equally surprising relationship—one of mutual respect—between the author and Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury. “The novel grew out of an onstage conversation that I had with the archbishop,” says Pullman in an interview. “He pointed out, correctly, that although I had attacked religion in my trilogy, I hadn’t grappled with Jesus. The idea wouldn’t go away, and I began thinking about the differences between the Jesus of the Gospels and the Christ of Paul’s epistles.”

So it is, in Pullman’s self-described “fable”—one of publisher Canongate’s series of ancient myths reworked by modern authors—that Mary gives birth to twins. Jesus is the spiritual genius, the one who preaches love and forgiveness, demands justice for the downtrodden and believes in the imminent arrival of God’s kingdom on earth. But Christ is the religious genius, the one who can envisage—with the help of a shadowy, never-named stranger (“the ultimate clerical bureaucrat,” Pullman calls him)—an entity called the “church” that will carry on his brother’s message, or as much of it as ordinary people, in the judgment of the church, can handle.

Continue…

The return of Hitler

By Katie Engelhart - Wednesday, April 21, 2010 at 7:10 AM - 165 Comments

Imagno/Getty Images

On April 30, 1945, Adolf Hitler took his own life with a simultaneous bite into a cyanide pill and gunshot to the temple. The day before, he dictated his will from the dank confines of the Führerbunker, a concrete shelter buried some eight metres below the old Reich Chancellery, as Soviet forces encircled Berlin. What exactly happened next is still fiercely contested, but by most accounts, the bodies of Hitler and his wife, Eva Braun, were carried upstairs to the garden by SS devotees, doused in gasoline, and burned to pieces—then buried, then later unearthed, and then buried again in an unknown location, or perhaps just scattered to the wind.

Almost 65 years later to the day, the man and the totalitarian regime he established continue to fascinate us. In just the last few years, Mein Kampf (My Struggle), Hitler’s poorly written, 700-page magnum opus, “turgid, verbose, shapeless,” to borrow from Winston Churchill, has earned bestseller status in some unlikely markets: India, Turkey and the Palestinian territories. His paintings are fetching record-setting prices, and trade in anything the Third Reich leader touched, or might have touched, is thriving. In some cases, the fascination is trivial, even absurd, such as the “Nazi chic” clothing that has been popular in Asia: T-shirts with Hitler portraits and swastikas. In others, though, it is more pernicious: the 65 years that have passed since Hitler’s death have not dulled the allure of the Führer, or his ideology, for the now-burgeoning extreme right.

Take the lead-up to last Sunday’s national elections in Hungary, which saw the far-right Jobbik Magyarországért Mozgalom (Movement for a Better Hungary) rake in 16.7 per cent of the national vote. In just a few years, Jobbik has grown from almost nothing, winning over a disenchanted electorate with its stark anti-Semitic and anti-Roma rhetoric. Party officials have been careful to dismiss any direct links to Nazism; anti-Semitism is masked in attacks on Israeli investors and hatred of the Roma is justified with talk of “gypsy crime.” But members of Jobbik’s paramilitary wing, the Magyar Gárda (Hungarian Guard), have not been so cautious. Neither have its supporters, who gathered by the Danube River last week to lash out at “Jewish pigs” and to unite in a common cry against foreigners on Hungarian soil: “They should leave!” Jobbik’s leaders, now at the helm of the opposition, are ready to take their country forward—away from all that “commotion over the Holocaust.”

Continue…

Ottawa Senators Thought Experiment

By Scott Feschuk - Wednesday, April 21, 2010 at 7:10 AM - 22 Comments

The scene: occupied France.

The time: 1943.

Jason Spezza is an allied spy during the Second World War – a man charged with protecting at all costs a code-breaking device that could shift the balance against the Nazi menace and preserve freedom for all. Imagine what happens Continue…

'This language is not me'

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, April 20, 2010 at 10:28 PM - 106 Comments

In a press release distributed by his office earlier today, Conservative MP Garry Breitkreuz was quoted as likening the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police to a cult and using some colourful language to lament Michael Ignatieff’s position on the gun registry.

“Mr. Ignatieff’s hollow offer to amend the registry is a plastic olive branch that’s causing amusement and amazement with Canadian gun owners,” says Breitkreuz. “His attempt to force members of his caucus to vote against the bill is politically transparent. Imagine demanding eight members of your caucus to suddenly abandon the wishes of their constituents. This leader is a bully who may well be committing political suicide. With tactics like this, I doubt he’ll be missed on either side of the House …  the Liberal leader is trying to completely change the game in the House of Commons. It’s an act of desperation that insults the intellect of Canadians. His true colours are showing, and if his caucus has any integrity, those colours should be black and blue.”

And so, Mr. Breitkreuz would like to apologize. And to explain that he didn’t write those things. And he has no idea “how that got out of here.”

Marijuana advocates have their annual 420 smoke-in

By Mitchel Raphael - Tuesday, April 20, 2010 at 9:04 PM - 70 Comments

Parliament Hill was under a cloud of marijuana smoke as pot advocates gathered for 420.

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Mercy or murder?

By Michael Friscolanti - Tuesday, April 20, 2010 at 8:18 PM - 27 Comments

Capt. Robert Semrau is facing a military court-martial—and the possibility of life behind bars—for allegedly executing a severely wounded Taliban fighter. According to the prosecution’s version of events, the 36-year-old was bound by both international law and the Canadian Forces Code of Conduct to administer First Aid, but decided to fire two bullets into the man’s chest instead.

From the comfort of a courtroom in Gatineau, Que.—where tracer fire isn’t flying and flak jackets aren’t required—the Crown’s case seems simple enough. Mercy killing, regardless of the circumstances, is strictly forbidden, and the rules of engagement clearly state that medical care must be provided to every casualty, friend or foe. But as the latest witness made abundantly clear, the heat of battle has a way of messing with the best-laid plans.

Warrant Officer Merlin Longaphie, Semrau’s second-in-command during their Afghanistan tour, testified Tuesday that he saw the unidentified Talib shortly before the captain’s fateful encounter. Like Semrau, Longaphie was part of an Operational Mentor Liaison Team (OMLT) assigned to advise members of the rag-tag Afghan National Army, and on the morning of Oct. 19, 2008, they were conducting a major sweep through Taliban territory in Helmand Province. Under fire from enemy insurgents, Longaphie and his unit had just finished sprinting to safety across a large cornfield when he noticed a commotion 25 meters to his right. “It appeared to me there was a body on the ground,” he said on the witness stand. “Some other Afghans, two or three, were looking at the body and lightly kicking it.”

Capt. Thomas Fitzgerald, one of the prosecutors, wanted to know why Longaphie didn’t rush to treat the man—reminding him of his legal obligations under the Geneva Conventions and the military’s code of conduct. “If the person on the ground back there was a Canadian soldier, would you have done something different?” Fitzgerald asked.

After an angry objection from Semrau’s lawyer, Fitzgerald rephrased the question. “Why didn’t you move closer?”

“At the time I didn’t think there was a need to go over there,” Longaphie answered. “Visually, from what I perceived, it was a dead Taliban and there was no reason for me to go over and confirm whether he was dead or alive.”

Two other men—a private under Semrau’s command and an Afghan interpreter named “Max”—have told military prosecutors that the mangled enemy fighter was indeed breathing, and that the captain put him out of his misery. Longaphie didn’t witness the alleged crime; he had moved on from the scene by the time Semrau supposedly aimed his C-8 at the man’s heart. But if nothing else, his testimony was a poignant reminder that combat is not court, and just because the rules dictate that every injured foe must be treated, that doesn’t mean it happens.

Whether that helps Capt. Semrau remains to be seen. Failing to double-check a supposed dead body is one thing. Pumping two rounds into an unarmed man is quite another.

The government claims that Semrau subscribes to a so-called “soldier’s pact”—an unwritten code that says if he is too maimed to be saved, it’s up to a fellow warrior to put him to ease his pain and finish the job. If prosecutors are correct, Semrau extended that pact to the enemy, using it as an excuse to execute. “No one should suffer like that,” he allegedly told one subordinate.

This is the first time a Canadian soldier has been accused of homicide on the battlefield. He faces four charges in all, including second-degree murder, which carries a mandatory life sentence with no chance of parole or ten years.

A father of two young daughters, Semrau has pleaded not guilty to all counts. His trial continues Wednesday morning.

'Further questioning'

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, April 20, 2010 at 7:00 PM - 13 Comments

In his letter to the Afghanistan committee late last week, Gen. Walter Natynczyk wrote that “Canadian Forces do not transfer individuals for the purposes of gathering information.” In a letter sent today, the NDP’s Paul Dewar and Jack Harris have asked Gen. Natynczyk to clarify this point.

Specifically, Messrs. Dewar and Harris want to know how to square the general’s statement with an October 2007 document they’ve obtained. The document is described as a transfer report and it reads, in part:

“During the interview conducted, it is believe (sic) that all the detainees were deceptive and they have a better knowledge on TB (Taliban) activity in their area. Based upon the above, it is recommended that [names of detainees] be transferred to the National Directorate of Security (NOS) for further questioning”.

The NDP is not making said document public as yet. But Mr. Dewar did raise it during committee hearings last week. He presented it to Malgarai Ahmadshah, a former translator for the Canadian Forces, and Mr. Ahmadshah explained the document as follows. Continue…

More TVOntario Nostalgia

By Jaime Weinman - Tuesday, April 20, 2010 at 6:56 PM - 9 Comments

Among the winners of last night’s Writers’ Guild of Canada Awards, one name might be familiar to Ontarians: Heather Conkie, who won the showrunning award for producing Heartland, preceded her long scriptwriting career by starring in TVOntario shows like Report Canada — which I watched all the time — and Dear Aunt Agnes, which I didn’t watch much. The former is not available online, but the latter is, and man, now I know why I didn’t watch it: the empty-studio feel of the whole thing makes it seem a little scary. It’s the best argument for why shows need laugh tracks:

I don’t know about the experience of other people growing up in other provinces, but I think I was pretty lucky to grow up with the kids’ programming on TVO in the early ’80s. A lot of the original programming was fairly imaginative, and the makers of shows like Today’s Special and Harriet’s Magic Hats understood how appealing fantasy/magic elements are to children. Plus there were various foreign-made cartoons like Dr. Snuggles, Willo the Wisp, and the Japanese-made Fables of the Green Forest, which presented a more realistic view of animals’ lives than we were used to (relatively speaking, I mean; the characters had weird round heads and talked to the wind). It’s not surprising that people who worked on TVO kids’ programming in that era have gone on to successful national careers.

Update: A commenter corrects me: “‘Harriet’s Magic Hats’ was an Alberta creation, not a TVO one.”

By the way, as a child, when trying to figure out which country “Green Forest” was from, I guessed Yugoslavia. So my geographical understanding of animation wasn’t great.

Ottawa has little help in store for stranded Canadian travellers

By Katie Engelhart - Tuesday, April 20, 2010 at 6:49 PM - 23 Comments

A news release from Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada (DFAIT), to which Maclean’s was granted advanced access, suggests Canadians stranded in Europe by the volcanic ash cloud shouldn’t hold their breath waiting for government help. While DFAIT vows it is “working flat-out to assist Canadians in this situation,” so far, the department’s response has been modest.

DFAIT recommends, “that travelers work with their airline or travel agent to discuss alternative travel arrangements.” In addition, it advises Canadians to consult the department’s website to learn more about available consular services. (As of 5 p.m on Tuesday evening, the site warned Canadians to expect furthers delays, and asked they continue to checking back for “regular updates.”)

So far, about 500 Canadians have made contact with embassies and high commissions in Europe to ask for help, and over 240 calls have been fielded by DFAIT’s operations centre in Ottawa. “It’s really not a lot,” a DFAIT official told Maclean’s on Tuesday. “It seems a lot of people are managing this on their own.”

They may have little choice in the matter. DFAIT’s response thus far has been limited. It has “extended consular hours” at its European embassies. It is also “providing local information, facilitating with transfer of funds, assisting with communications, [and] helping to ensure that Canadians have access to medical care or assistance when required.” But there is no sign that an evacuation plan is being considered.

“Does the government have any contingency plan whatsoever to assist these Canadians in difficult times, or are they just supposed to, as it were, fend for themselves?” Liberal MP Dan McTeague wondered during Tuesday’s Question Period. The government response’s, delivered by Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon, was that “Canadian officials are closely monitoring the ash cloud.”

Some speculated that the Canadian government might be moved to act after it was announced that Britain was using Navy ships to evacuate its stranded soldiers and civilians. European travel has been at a standstill since Iceland’s Eyjafjallajökull volcano erupted last Wednesday, spewing clouds of ash and chunks of ice the size of houses—and leaving an estimated 750,000 stranded across Europe.

However Cannon offered little more than condolences on Tuesday. “Clearly we sympathize with all the travelers who have been inconvenienced by this volcanic eruption,” he said. “As you know, it is a natural phenomenon that nobody could have been predicted.”

The Commons: Finally, a straight answer

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, April 20, 2010 at 6:11 PM - 17 Comments

The Scene. Mark Holland walked out into the foyer and, surrounded by cameras, gamely tried to explain that he was not particularly interested in the cocaine and hookers, that this was about much more fundamental matters of governance and accountability. A short while later, Libby Davies, in sandals, strode out and, surrounded by microphones, attempted to parse the difference between the Conflict of Interest Code and the Conflict of Interest Act. The assembled reporters gamely pretended to be interested.

Alas, Day whatever-this-is of whatever we’re calling this crisis (“The Gaffer Affair” seems both a tidy and au courant moniker) passed without much more in the way of insight. Which is perhaps precisely the problem. Continue…

How Canada measures up

By Jason Kirby - Tuesday, April 20, 2010 at 4:17 PM - 6 Comments

Susan Walsh/AP

When not teaching law at Harvard University or overseeing the U.S. Treasury Department’s massive bank bailout program on behalf of Congress, Elizabeth Warren has found another calling of late: middle-class folk hero. Warren, a tough-talking, no-nonsense Oklahoman whose parents lived through the Dirty Thirties, has repeatedly blasted fat-cat bankers, credit card companies and politicians for grinding down workers. “Dang gummit, somebody has got to stand up on behalf of middle-class families,” she twanged to the New York Times last month. And with America’s unemployment rate stuck at 10 per cent and debt levels still near record highs, she’s found an eager audience. After she took comedian Jon Stewart through her down-home analysis of the financial crisis on The Daily Show recently, Stewart admitted, “When you say it like that, and when you look at me like that, I know your husband’s backstage, I still wanna make out with you.”

But while Warren is winning fans among the millions of Americans who have lost their jobs and their homes during the financial crisis, her underlying message—that ordinary workers are falling behind—appears to resonate far beyond America’s borders. Thirteen years after then British prime minister Tony Blair vowed to create a “classless society,” his Labour Party successor Gordon Brown is desperately trying to reinforce his “ordinary middle-class” roots ahead of the country’s general election. Before the global recession hit, many developed nations were already fretting about their dwindling centre grounds. Reports of Germany’s shrinking middle class have become common, as has talk of rising inequality in countries like Australia. Even in South Korea, which until relatively recently was still considered a developing nation, headlines warn of the collapse of the middle class.

For Canadians who’ve seen the middle-class debate take on an urgent edge during the recession, one thing should become abundantly clear—we’re far from alone. Across the developed world, countries are grappling with a similar problem. After experiencing tremendous growth in incomes during the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s, there’s a growing sense that prosperity has stalled. Yet, looking at the international scene, an obvious question emerges. How exactly does Canada’s middle class stack up to the rest of the world? Turns out, much better than you might think. “The situation in Canada is actually much improved from where it was,” says Mike Veall, a professor of economics at McMaster University. Yes, the recession has set everyone back, but middle-class workers have made great strides since the mid-’90s.

Continue…

Coyne v. Wells on Helena Guergis and Jean Charest affairs

By macleans.ca - Tuesday, April 20, 2010 at 2:59 PM - 10 Comments

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The newspaper is dying, hooray for democracy revisited

By Andrew Potter - Tuesday, April 20, 2010 at 2:27 PM - 28 Comments

There’s lots of blog chatter today about David Brooks’ latest column, reporting on a new study that debunks the myth of group polarization on the net. It’s a good column, reporting good news, namely, that Cass Sunstein’s fears that the death of newspapers and other mainstream media would have a negative impact on democracy have been greatly oversold. Forgive me, though, for not being as surprised as some people about this, since, well, since I told you so. Here’s what I wrote for Maclean’s in April 2008:

Nothing about how people consume media online suggests they are looking for confirmation of pre-existing biases. In fact, we have every reason to believe that as people migrate online, it will be to seek out sources of information that they perceive to be unbiased, and which give them news they can’t get anywhere else. The newspaper may be dying, but our democracy will be healthier for it.

Here’s Brooks today:

Gentzkow and Shapiro found that the Internet is actually more ideologically integrated than old-fashioned forms of face-to-face association — like meeting people at work, at church or through community groups. You’re more likely to overlap with political opponents online than in your own neighborhood.

This study suggests that Internet users are a bunch of ideological Jack Kerouacs. They’re not burrowing down into comforting nests. They’re cruising far and wide looking for adventure, information, combat and arousal.

Here’s the full column on this I wrote for the magazine:

Continue…

Top al-Qaeda leaders in Iraq killed

By macleans.ca - Tuesday, April 20, 2010 at 2:17 PM - 1 Comment

Three top al-Qaeda leaders have been killed over the past few days in Iraq. In an early-morning raid on Sunday, American and Iraqi special forces directed an air strike against a house in Saddam Hussein’s former hometown of Tikrit, north of Baghdad, killing Abu Ayyub al-Masri, the Egyptian leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, and Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, who headed the Islamic State of Iraq, an umbrella organization consisting of several Sunni insurgent groups. On Tuesday, an Iraqi military spokesman announced that Ahmed al-Obeidi died in an operation in the northern province of Nineveh. Al-Obeidi directed al-Qaeda operations in three of Iraq’s northern provinces.

BBC News

Washington Post

Google passwords were reportedly compromised

By macleans.ca - Tuesday, April 20, 2010 at 2:12 PM - 1 Comment

A source with knowledge of the investigation into a recent cyberattack against Google’s servers says hackers gained access to the tech behemoth’s vaunted password-management system which controls access to online services like e-mail and business applications. Though the attackers aren’t thought to have stolen actual passwords, it’s possible last December’s intrusion allowed them to find security weaknesses inside the system that even Google isn’t aware of. The data theft was made possible by a Google employee in China being duped into logging in to a poisoned website that granted hackers access to his computer and those of a group of developers at the company’s headquarters in California. Google first revealed the theft in January and has blamed cyberattacks for its decision to pull out of China.

New York Times

This afternoon in Guergis

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, April 20, 2010 at 1:55 PM - 3 Comments

Though reported last night to have decided not to proceed with an investigation of Ms. Guergis, the ethics commissioner is now said to be looking into Ms. Guergis’ affairs. Mr. Snowdy, the private investigator, is back from the Bahamas to talk to the RCMP. The RCMP is so far undecided on pursuing a formal investigation. And Liberal MP Marcel Proulx is thinking about calling Ms. Guergis to testify at the procedure and House affairs committee to explain why Mr. Jaffer was using one of her office e-mail addresses and Blackberries.

Former U.S. official says Iran has too much leeway

By macleans.ca - Tuesday, April 20, 2010 at 1:54 PM - 3 Comments

A former top official with the U.S. government says “it may be too late to stop Iran from becoming nuclear-capable.” The unnamed official, who The Times describes as having “long experience with several U.S. administrations” says Barack Obama hasn’t been forceful enough to dissuade Tehran from pursuing nuclear weapons. “Fifteen months into [Obama's] administration,” the official says, “Iran has faced no significant consequences for continuing with its uranium-enrichment program, despite two deadlines set by Obama, which came and went without anything happening.” One nightmare scenario evoked by the official had Iran passing its weapons off to Hezbollah which could use them against Israel or its other enemies in the region. Meanwhile, Iran announced on Monday that it was moving ahead with the construction of a third nuclear site to go along with those in Natanz and Qom.

The Times of London

The keys to Rideau

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, April 20, 2010 at 1:31 PM - 18 Comments

The Mark asks various thinkers for viceregal nominations and ends up with a shortlist that includes Preston Manning, Wayne Gretzky, Leonard Cohen, William Shatner, Mary Simon, Rick Hansen, Phil Fontaine, Marcia McClung, Jean Vanier and Mike Harcourt.

Relatedly, here is a piece I wrote for the magazine a couple weeks ago, in which there is an attempt to point out that the Governor General is invested with extraordinary powers and so, perhaps, the selection of one should be taken somewhat seriously. And in that regard it might be difficult to present a candidate who can compete with the preferred candidate of our John Geddes.

'I find that to be close to offensive'

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, April 20, 2010 at 12:38 PM - 25 Comments

Less than a week after the government’s man pontificated on what was, or wasn’t, revealed in unredacted versions of detainee documents, the Military Police Complaints Commission is told it will be allowed to see whatever the government says it can see whenever the government decides the commission can see it. Glenn Stannard, the former Windsor police chief who now presides over the MPCC, isn’t impressed.

“The documents will be given to your counsel when they are good and ready,” Justice Department lawyer Alain Prefontaine told the complaint commission.

The tone of Mr. Prefontaine’s response prompted astonishment from Glenn Stannard, the acting chair of the commission. “I find that to be close to offensive, not only to this panel but also to the public,” Mr. Stannard said. “The government of Canada can’t tell us how long it’s going to take to get the documents?”

More from the Canadian Press, Star, Canwest and Sun.