Hawaii to birthers: enough!

By Michael Barclay - Thursday, May 27, 2010 at 3:20 PM - 25 Comments

Alex Brandon / AP

Hawaii has had it. Ever since the first Hawaiian-born president of the United States took office, the state’s Department of Health has been bombarded with requests to see Barack Obama’s birth certificate, fuelled by persistently paranoid fantasies that Obama was not born on U.S. soil and therefore not constitutionally qualified to hold his current office. Last week, Hawaii’s Republican governor, Linda Lingle, signed a law granting state agencies an exemption from processing multiple Freedom of Information requests from the same person, which would stymie the small but determined group that sends dozens of requests every month—despite the fact that birth certificates in Hawaii are accessible only to the person named on the record, their immediate family and government officials.

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Right all along

By Andrew Potter - Thursday, May 27, 2010 at 2:47 PM - 48 Comments

In the wake of the gross bipartisanship and press-galleric cosyness at the unveiling of John Crouton’s portrait the other day, a few Ottawa journalists slapped themselves upside the head and remembered just what an enemy of parliament the ti-gars was, especially toward the end. It’s helpful to remember, as we fall over ourselves coming up with new ways of describing Harper as a fascist, that PMSH has always taken his lead from a man who was such a dictator that one prominent Ottawa columnist put him on the cover of his book mocked up to look like Pinochet.

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A principal reason for this low ranking is that Mr. Harper tends to emulate Mr. Chrétien’s weakness instead of his strengths. He seems to feel that running roughshod over the system with ruthless tactics will score him points. — Lawrence Martin, today

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The Conservatives are in power, but the danger is not that we have elected someone who wants to be George W. Bush. It is that we have elected someone who has no problem with a benign dictatorship, as long as he’s the dictator, for whom principle and politics are like church and state, if not oil and water. We have re-elected Jean Chrétien. — Me, four years ago

Mailbag: Dudus Coke, the Lost finale, Stephen Harper’s Near Death Experience

By Scott Feschuk - Thursday, May 27, 2010 at 2:28 PM - 29 Comments

Welcome to the Mailbag, where I’ve got no time for an introduction because I have to fix a speech for a client, find my kid’s jock so he can play baseball tonight and write a statement announcing the retirement from acting of Kim Cattrall’s vagina at the age of 103.

The following queries were actually submitted by actual readers. And remember: there are no stupid questions, unless you’re asking whether I ruined my chances with Kim Cattrall just there.

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Dear Scott:

Has there ever, in the long and colourful history of drug lords, been a better drug lord name then Dudus Coke? – Jeff B

Jeff B –

Well, Billy-Bong McCrackenhorse comes immediately to mind, right? That guy had a pretty colourful name. In fact, now that I think about it, all the McCrackenhorses sounded fairly “drug lordy”… Billy-Bong, Spliff, Mary-Jane and C.J. (Nose) Candy III.

Who else? Um… Bob and Dave Heroin. They lived over near the tracks. Sold cocaine (confusing). Oh – Bathtub Crank MacBenzidrine. Blunt Norm. Whack E. Tabaccy. Steve Methylenedioxymethamphetamine (of the Coney Island Methylenedioxymethamphetamines). The list is surprisingly long.

•••

Dear Scott:

Imagine you are on an airplane with Stephen Harper and Michael Ignatieff, the plane is going down, there are only two parachutes, you have one, who gets the other one? – Fred

Fred –

It’s fun to ponder the circumstances under which this flight could be taking place. Are the three of us up there to Continue…

Suicide crisis continues at iPod factory

By macleans.ca - Thursday, May 27, 2010 at 1:46 PM - 6 Comments

The “spiraling suicide crisis” at Foxconn electronics plant in China’s Shenzhen province worsened last night as a worker tried to kill himself by slitting his wrists, the Times of London reports. The attempt came just hours after the death of a 23-year old worker that brought to 11 the number of suicides at the company this year. Psychologists and experts in suicide have begun to talk of a “mass hysteria” among the 350,000 mostly migrant workers at the factory in southern China, which makes digital equipment such as iPods, mobile phones and laptop PCs for big-name clients. Sony has begun “re-evaluating” the working environment at Foxconn, the paper reports, and is understood to have asked employees to sign a pledge that they would seek medical help if they were ever overcome by suicidal thoughts. The fatalities come amid mounting condemnation of working conditions at the Taiwanese-owned plant and the decision of several of the company’s biggest clients — Apple, Dell and Hewlett Packard — to investigate how their products are being manufactured.

Times Online

What makes 'Breaking Bad' so good

By Jaime Weinman - Thursday, May 27, 2010 at 1:40 PM - 4 Comments

Ben Leuner / AMC

Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan says his show is about “a protagonist who’s dying of cancer and who decides to spend his final months cooking crystal meth.” But the most implausible thing about it may be that it’s entertaining. When the show began three years ago on AMC, it sometimes seemed like it was cobbled together out of the clichés of “edgy” cable shows: Walter White (Bryan Cranston of Malcolm in the Middle) is a monstrous anti-hero like the star of Dexter, and the show exposes the underbelly of suburban life like Weeds. But since then, the show has increased its viewership every year; it found its own identity not with depressing drama, but weird, surreal comedic moments, like showing a Homeland Security agent whose car decoration reads “fighting terrorism since 1492.” Gilligan, the former X-Files writer who created Breaking Bad, says that he realized early on that the concept had to be leavened with humour or it would be “the kind of show you’d want to slit your wrists watching.”

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The next Madoff?

By macleans.ca - Thursday, May 27, 2010 at 1:34 PM - 0 Comments

Ken Starr (the Manhattan investment guru, not the former Clinton prosecutor) was arrested by the IRS this morning for allegedly running a Ponzi scheme that siphoned millions from his high-profile clients—a list said to include Uma Thurman, Henry Kissinger, Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg, Martin Scorsese and the financially beleaguered Annie Lebowitz. The complaint alleged Starr solicited investments from his clients and then diverted the money to himself, his family and close associates. Where Starr exercised direct control over the personal bank accounts of his clients, he allegedly made unauthorized transfers to himself and associates. Charges are expected to include investment fraud, tax fraud, NBC New York reports. Also arrested was Andy Stein, the former Manhattan borough president and New York City Council president, who is expected to face charges for allegedly lying to law enforcement officials conducting the probe. According to investigators, Starr was depositing money in a Wind River LLC account that was linked to a credit card used by Stein.

NBC

Seismic oil search to begin in Canada’s Arctic

By macleans.ca - Thursday, May 27, 2010 at 1:27 PM - 6 Comments

Just as the Obama administration is set to suspend proposed exploratory drilling in the Arctic Ocean, Canada intends to search for oil in the eastern Arctic’s Lancaster Sound despite objections that endangered sealife will be put at risk. The federal Geological Survey of Canada will blast underwater air guns to look for oil and natural gas at the eastern entrance of the Northwest Passage this summer, the Toronto Star reports, including in Nunavut, where the government review board turned aside Inuit objections, and those of environmental groups. Lancaster Sound is home to 30 species of fish, and the summer home to one-third of North America’s beluga population, as well as endangered bowhead whales. Hunters and environmentalists worry air gun blasts could put them at risk. Meanwhile, U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar says he won’t consider applications for permission to drill in the Arctic until 2011. Shell Oil will begin exploratory drilling this summer as far as 140 miles offshore, the Associated Press reports.

Toronto Star

Fox News

Alberta’s busiest builders

By Colby Cosh - Thursday, May 27, 2010 at 1:00 PM - 10 Comments

Stephen J. Krasemann / Getty Images

Here’s a complete list of the equipment Jean Thie used to discover the world’s longest beaver dam: 1. Google Earth. 2. His brain. One of these he was born with; the other’s a free download. His record, which came to international attention this month by means of one of those curious Internet epidemics, stands waiting to be broken. If you have a computer and a knowledge of beaver habitat, you could break it yourself. He seems a sporting fellow, and would probably rather like it if you did.

Thie is an expert in forests and wetlands, and in the use of computers and aerial imaging in environmental management; his Ecoinformatics International consultancy is based in Ottawa. In 2007, he was studying the effect of climate change on permafrost when he found himself becoming increasingly curious about the large beaver dams he was spotting on Google Earth in Canada’s boreal zone.

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Is the Prime Minister turning into a giddy celebrity hound?

By macleans.ca - Thursday, May 27, 2010 at 12:58 PM - 26 Comments

Proactive disclosure

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, May 27, 2010 at 12:50 PM - 24 Comments

Stephen Gordon has put together a valuable primer ahead of what probably should be a national discussion on taxes and the federal treasury.

Now, I’m as happy as the next person – okay, probably happier than the next person – to talk about corporate income tax policy. What worries me is that the quality of public debate on this topic is likely to be no better than that of the climate change file in the last election. For pretty much the entire 2008 campaign, reporting on climate change policy  – with all-too-rare exceptions – took the form of he-said-she-said, opinions-differ-on-the-shape-of-the-earth stories that made no reference to the scholarly literature. By the time academic economists intervened with this open letter a week before the election, it was too late: the damage had already been done.

Attempted attacks on U.S. is at all-time high

By macleans.ca - Thursday, May 27, 2010 at 12:35 PM - 2 Comments

The Department of Homeland Security has confirmed what Maclean’s recently reported in a cover story: the U.S. is indeed a land of constant terror. In a new report, the agency says “the number and pace of attempted attacks against the United States over the past nine months have surpassed the number of attempts during any other previous one-year period.” The DHS also warned that other operatives are likely at work on plots within America’s borders that are increasingly difficult to detect. That’s because the individuals behind these attempts, including Najibullah Zazi, who plead guilty to plotting to attack New York’s subway system and Faisal Shahzad, who attempted to bomb Times Square, spent a long time in the U.S. and used materials that are easily obtained in America.

CNN

Jewish public servant wins anti-Semitism case

By macleans.ca - Thursday, May 27, 2010 at 12:25 PM - 13 Comments

A federal adjudicator has found that a Jewish bureaucrat was discriminated against by co-workers in the Ottawa headquarters of Passport Canada. Valery LaBranche, who converted to Judaism in 1997, was seconded to the passport agency from Foreign Affairs and International Trade in Oct. 2005 to head up a project on security among Canada, the U.S. and Mexico. Her informal arrangement with her boss that she could leave early for the Jewish sabbath on Fridays and take time off for Jewish holidays apparently sparked ugly incidents. Among messages sent to LaBranche’s superiors, one called her a “Mossad agent” and another read “the Jew sucks your blood.” She took her case to the Public Service Labour Relations Board, whose adjudicator ruled that LaBranche’s managers did little or nothing to protect her from traumatizing treatment.

Ottawa Citizen

Area of uncertainty

By David Parker Jr. - Thursday, May 27, 2010 at 12:00 PM - 0 Comments



John Moore / GETTY IMAGES

Driving onto Grand Isle, La., an eerily familiar sensation crawls up the arms and into the hairs on the back of the neck. Similar to the aftermath of hurricane Katrina, elements of the ordinary collide with the extraordinary, creating a vivid sense of the surreal. On any typical Sunday in May, Grand Isle consists of charming rows of beach houses raised on pilings with names like Camp Chi Chi, Camp No Problem, and Mama’s Happy. The roads buzz with vacationers and sports enthusiasts who flock to this barrier island for the beaches, boating and fishing.

But this is no typical Sunday, and the roads are nearly deserted. Like spotting birds in the marsh, the signs of a disaster zone begin to emerge. Photographers perch upon sand dunes while the beaches themselves are nearly abandoned. Enormous military transport vehicles sit parked in the driveways of seaside cottages. Worse, the telltale indicator of something terribly amiss hangs in the air. Literally. It’s the smell of petroleum wafting in off the Gulf of Mexico, where the BP oil spill continues to spew thousands of barrels of oil into the waters off the Louisiana coast each day. Already, tar balls the size of pie plates have begun arriving on the coast here, and the sleepy, abandoned appearance of the island belies what’s actually happening: people are scrambling.

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Greetings to the people of China

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, May 27, 2010 at 11:36 AM - 20 Comments

Regardless of whether it is wrong or merely tacky, this infomercial starring Tony Clement is, at the very least, highly entertaining in its own way.

CTV has the necessary background and meddlesome questions.

Mitchel Raphael on the MP who made the worst-dressed list and Peter MacKay's suitcase

By Mitchel Raphael - Thursday, May 27, 2010 at 10:20 AM - 18 Comments

Tory MPs are sexiest
When the Hill Times came out with its annual “Politically Savvy, Stylish and Sexy Survey,” Montreal Liberal MP Irwin Cotler was disappointed to discover he’s tied for the worst-dressed male MP on the Hill, with Yukon Liberal MP Larry Bagnell. “I know I am not the best-dressed MP,” noted Cotler. “But I don’t think I am one of the worst.” He confessed to Capital Diary, however, that his family agreed with the Hill Times survey. Vancouver Liberal MP Hedy Fry, known for her fashion flair and commitment to ensuring animal prints never become endangered, said that Cotler is clearly “the best-dressed professor” on the Hill. What about Liberal leader and professor Michael Ignatieff? Fry joked, “Well, he has people around him.” And professor Stéphane Dion? “His wife [Janine Krieber] has excellent taste,” she quipped without missing a beat. The survey named Tory Maxime Bernier the best-dressed male MP. Sexiest male MP went to Defence Minister Peter MacKay, leaving Justin Trudeau in second place. Public Works Minister Rona Ambrose was voted sexiest female MP, followed by NDP MP Megan Leslie. Transport Minister John Baird cleaned up in two key categories: “Most Influence in Cabinet” and “Best Cabinet Minister in Question Period.”

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Positively gleeful

By Brian D. Johnson - Thursday, May 27, 2010 at 10:00 AM - 3 Comments

Imagno / Getty Images

Just as all the clichés about Canadian-American relations say—the mouse and elephant, the U.S. sneezes and we catch cold—Canada does not normally benefit when the Americans undergo one of their periodic upheavals. The way their current security consciousness is thickening the 49th parallel and slowing trade is a prime example. But there are exceptions to every rule, and Prohibition—perhaps the maddest of mad American dreams—did pretty well by our nation from 1920 to 1933. As American writer Daniel Okrent points out in his fine social history of the era, Last Call, the rivers of Canadian booze that flowed south enriched not only the Bronfman liquor empire, but our federal government. Canadians did make and smuggle illegal liquor, evading both Canadian taxes and American law, but we also made millions of litres of the legal, taxed stuff, the ultimate destination of which was of no concern to Ottawa. The amount of alcohol subject to excise tax—most of which went south one way or another—went from 36,000 litres in 1920 to five million 10 years later, and the excise tax on it rose to a fifth of federal revenue, twice as much as income tax.

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A working majority

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, May 27, 2010 at 9:25 AM - 86 Comments

Bob Rae marks the 25th anniversary of the Liberal-NDP accord in Ontario.

The Accord that was negotiated was not a coalition, but a working partnership.  The government gave up the right to declare votes of confidence whenever it wanted, limiting itself to budget bills.  It would accept a loss on anything else.  The deal would last for two years, and the government committed itself to a series of measures – on pay equity, labour law reform, social housing, environmental legislation, the protection of medicare and many others, all within a framework of fiscal responsibility – with timelines clearly set out.  A management committee of both parties would meet regularly to monitor the progress of the agreement…

In a parliamentary system elections produce a parliament, and parliament makes a government.  That was the lesson learned in 1985.  Prattle about “winning a mandate” with less than a majority in parliament is just that – partisan spin, all sound and fury, signifying nothing.  It is a lesson worth remembering.

The man with the golden plan

By Tom Henheffer - Thursday, May 27, 2010 at 9:20 AM - 1 Comment

Vincent Cheung, entrepreneur and computer engineering Ph.D. student at the University of Toronto, wins $25,000 here, $10,000 there, but he’s not a gambler. He’s the king of the business contest circuit.

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Bestsellers

By Brian D. Johnson - Thursday, May 27, 2010 at 9:00 AM - 0 Comments

Top-selling fiction and non-fiction titles (week of May 24th, 2010)

Fiction

Non-fiction

LAST WEEK (WEEKS ON LIST)

Trying to take a bite out of Apple

By Chris Sorensen - Thursday, May 27, 2010 at 8:40 AM - 0 Comments

Justin Sullivan / Getty Images

Last week, software-maker Adobe took the unusual step of taking out full-page advertisements in major newspapers to say “We [heart symbol] Apple,” the popular maker of iPods, iPhones, and now iPads. But—in a confusing twist—the ads also say that Adobe loves things like creativity and innovation, but they don’t love it when someone takes away “your freedom to choose what you create, how you create it and what you experience on the Web.”

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Viva Guergis

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, May 27, 2010 at 8:30 AM - 15 Comments

So, apparently, it was also Rahim Jaffer, in Cuba, with the special passport and the Castro administration. And maybe even that isn’t the entirety of it.

Sources close to the controversy say Harper was told Jaffer used the passport on a trip to Cuba promoting green technology to the Castro regime. That raised immediate fears that Cuban officials could have been misled that Jaffer carried Canada’s seal of approval…

It’s not clear when the Prime Minister first learned about the passport issue or if it is part of unspecified information still being withheld about the case. More certain is that Harper was justifiably riled by the combination of the visit to a country loaded with Canada-U.S. diplomatic sensitivities, as well as the abuse of privilege. Even so, both the warnings and the Prime Minister’s reaction are being kept under unusually tight wraps. That suggests there’s more to an incident that on the surface seems little more serious than a breach of protocol.

Oil sands: the clean alternative?

By Jason Kirby - Thursday, May 27, 2010 at 8:20 AM - 5 Comments

Eric Gay / AP

Until the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded in April and a massive slick oozed across the Gulf of Mexico, environmentalists had managed to dramatically shift public opinion in the U.S. against the Alberta oil sands. Now, as crude-soaked birds wash up on Louisiana shores, Canadian officials are seizing the opportunity to brand Fort McMurray crude as the clean, safe alternative to offshore drilling. It’s a message environmental groups are desperate to undermine.

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We’re too broke to be this stupid

By Mark Steyn - Thursday, May 27, 2010 at 6:58 AM - 599 Comments

Benoit Tessier / REUTERS

Back in 2008, when I was fulminating against multiculturalism on a more or less weekly basis, a reader wrote to advise me to lighten up, on the grounds that “we’re rich enough to afford to be stupid.”

Two years later, we’re a lot less rich. In fact, many Western nations are, in any objective sense, insolvent. Hence last week’s column, on the EU’s decision to toss a trillion dollars into the great sucking maw of Greece’s public-sector kleptocracy. It no longer matters whether you’re intellectually in favour of European-style social democracy: simply as a practical matter, it’s unaffordable.

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‘Dr. Goldbloom, am I crazy?’

By David Goldbloom and Pier Bryden - Thursday, May 27, 2010 at 6:56 AM - 27 Comments

Photograph by Jessica Darmanin

It’s 8:30 on a Monday morning. David Goldbloom, a psychiatrist and professor of psychiatry at the University of Toronto, shows up for one of his irregular shifts in the emergency room of the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) in downtown Toronto. He is one of approximately 4,200 psychiatrists who practise in Canada. These physicians share the dubious distinction of working in medicine’s most stigmatized specialty. Dr. Goldbloom is currently working on a book about contemporary psychiatrists with his colleague Dr. Pier Bryden, who is a child and adolescent psychiatrist at the Hospital for Sick Children and an assistant professor in the department of psychiatry at the University of Toronto. In the following exclusive story for Maclean’s, the two doctors depict one of Goldbloom’s days in the ER. The names and identifying details of the patients described have been changed.

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