TV-show Glee bans sex on the set

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, June 23, 2010 at 1:35 PM - 5 Comments

The actors who play lascivious teenagers on the TV show Glee are apparently acting like, well, lascivious teenagers, reports the Telegraph. Ryan Murphy, one of the show’s creators, says that dating between the actors in the show about a high school glee club is fine, but sex at work is not. Murphy won’t say exactly who has been rocking the trailers, but considering most of the actors are approaching 30 years old, he probably can’t stop them from doing what they want off set.

Telegraph

San Francisco first to pass cell phone radiation law

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, June 23, 2010 at 1:29 PM - 0 Comments

San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors has approved a new law requiring cell phone retailers to post the amount of radiation emitted by each phone they sell. This is a first-of-its-kind ordinance that requires stores to disclose the phones’ specific absorption rate, or SAR. Violators would face fines of up to $500. Critics say this is an example of a city responding to unfounded concern over radiation from phones. But advocates say they hope the labels will dissuade consumers from buying higher-radiation phones until the science is clearer.

Globe and Mail

'The job in Afghanistan is not done'

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, June 23, 2010 at 1:24 PM - 4 Comments

The Senate committee on national security and defence released its report on the Afghanistan mission this morning, including its recommendation for the post-2011 mandate.

If there is a recurring theme to what witnesses have told us, it is that the job in Afghanistan is not done and that Canadian troops should stay in some capacity. With the surge of NATO forces now underway, gains are at last being consolidated instead of lost. That surge of forces is importantly fighting alongside soldiers of the Afghan National Army. Ultimately, this fight against the Taliban is their fight. It will be a key part of Canada’s legacy in Afghanistan that Canadian soldiers helped prepare them for this fight.

Based upon the evidence, testimony, and suggestions we have heard; upon our deliberations; and given our concern for our nation’s standing among its allies, this Committee believes and recommends that Canada‟s important and highly-valued contribution to the development of the leadership, training and mentoring of the Afghan National Army and the Afghan National Police must continue beyond 2011, and that Parliament should, at its earliest opportunity, give careful consideration to the question of the role of the Canadian Forces in Afghanistan after 2011.

Judge who overturned drilling moratorium had shares in oil industry

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, June 23, 2010 at 1:19 PM - 2 Comments

Martin Feldman ruled yesterday that a six-month drilling moratorium in the Gulf was unjustified because it assumed all deep water drilling was as dangerous as BP’s. Feldman, who had shares in the oil industry, has been accused of a conflict of interest. In financial disclosure forms dated 2008, the Louisiana-based judge had holdings in Transocean (the firm that owned the rig which exploded and killed 11 oil workers) and other industry firms, including Haliburton. While other judges have disqualified themselves from oil related claims because of their shares, others have sold their holdings so that they can take on cases. Feldman has yet to respond to the alleged conflict of interest.

Guardian

The Canadian experience

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, June 23, 2010 at 12:38 PM - 51 Comments

The Post’s Joe O’Connor gets a first look at the most scrutinized waterway in Canada.

And then there it was: the majestic fake lake, or most of it, since an amicable though vigilant young security person denied the Post a full, unfettered frontal preview. “You guys aren’t supposed to be in here,” she said. “You aren’t even supposed to get close enough to smell the chlorine.”

It did smell like chlorine, and it was only about six inches deep. An assortment of canoes — green, yellow and red — bordered the lake. A collection of bored-looking workers were sitting around on the, ah, dock (?), in Muskoka deck chairs, listening to a man with a microphone lecture them about what to do if “something” happens.

The Responsibility to Prevent Coalition's report and petition on Iran

By Michael Petrou - Wednesday, June 23, 2010 at 12:35 PM - 3 Comments

can be read in its entirety here.

Inside Langevin

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, June 23, 2010 at 12:11 PM - 29 Comments

Here is the transcript of the Prime Minister’s exclusive interview with the news agency that is now overseen by his former director of communications. Make of it what you will.

I note only that, based on the photographic evidence, it appears Mr. Harper has had a G20 banner erected behind the desk in his office.

Canada—a world power?

By Claire Ward - Wednesday, June 23, 2010 at 12:00 PM - 16 Comments

Michael Stuparyk/TORONTO STAR

Canada needs to be a nation of 100 million people before it can become a thriving global power, writes Irvin Studin, an assistant professor at the School of Public Policy and Governance at the University of Toronto and editor-in-chief and publisher of Global Brief. “A well-distributed, larger population creates a national vitality,” he says. “It increases our prospects for being a meaningful player in the world.”

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Down under, upside down; or, names that rhyme with Mudd

By Paul Wells - Wednesday, June 23, 2010 at 10:42 AM - 36 Comments

So the Labor caucus in Canberra will vote at 9 a.m. — soon — on whether Kevin Rudd should remain as the party’s leader and therefore as Australia’s prime minister. The betting is, he’s toast — vegemite toast, mate — and his lieutenant Julia Gillard, who had of course denied any such ambition, will replace him. Australia news front pages here, here and here. A very basic blog post to help you get up to speed is here.

The heart of the problem is shown here — national polls show the right-of-centre opposition coalition (cue coalition geek schadenfreude) gaining on Rudd and that the pain is most acute in swing ridings Labor needs for victory.

Gee, if only someone would explain What It All Means for Canada. Way ahead of you. Here’s a column I wrote before Christmas about Tony Abbott, the Stock Day/Stephen Harper-ish leader of the opposition, whose brash social conservatism seemed merely novel only six months ago but has now pushed a sitting prime minister to the brink.

Buyers beware

By Chris Sorensen - Wednesday, June 23, 2010 at 9:40 AM - 17 Comments

Arlen Redekop/The Province

The golf season has barely started and already courses in Ontario and British Columbia are gearing up for a year of lacklustre sales. In a few weeks, both provinces are set to usher in a new harmonized sales tax (13 per cent in Ontario and 12 per cent in B.C.) that replaces a separate provincial sales tax and the five per cent GST. In many cases, that means goods and services that were previously subjected to only the federal GST—including golf memberships and green fees—will become more expensive. “It’s essentially an eight per cent hit that’s going to be [passed along to] consumers,” says Mike Garside, the chief operating officer of GolfNorth Properties, which runs 18 courses in Ontario.

While most club memberships have already been sold for the season, the price hike is expected to have its biggest impact on casual golfers or groups booking tournaments, which are a major source of revenue for many public courses. “If you’re out there with a $100 green fee, that’s another eight bucks” says Garside, adding that GolfNorth will respond by abandoning its usual “all-in” pricing scheme so it’s more obvious to customers where the price hike is coming from.

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Soccer like art? Sure, with more fighting

By Andrew Potter - Wednesday, June 23, 2010 at 8:40 AM - 1 Comment

Darren Staples/Reuters

The World Cup had an early case of life imitating advertising on Saturday, when England goalkeeper Robert Green let a slow shot from American striker Clint Dempsey skip off his hands and into the net. The goal salvaged a tie for the U.S.A., and the deep meaning of it all could be discerned from the comparative reaction of the two countries’ tabloids.

“Hand of Clod!” screamed at least two London dailies, a reference to Diego Maradona’s infamous handball goal that put England out of the 1986 finals. Across the pond, the New York Post captured the spirit of things with its gloating front page: “USA Wins 1-1”.

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Lawrence Cannon isn't much for dancing

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, June 23, 2010 at 12:09 AM - 30 Comments

In an interview with CTV this evening, the Foreign Affairs Minister was fairly dismissive of the Liberal proposal for a post-2011 mandate in Afghanistan and the Defence Minister’s reported “interest” in said proposal. The following is from the end of the conversation.

Tom Clark. Would training the Afghan army in a non-combat role be considered development aide?

Cannon. Well, you know, I’ve been prodded all around on that particular question. But Tom, I’m responding in the same manner. We are, I’m not going on a hypothetical that may be and perhaps and if this is done, no that’s not it. The position, the door is firmly closed. There’s nothing other than the resolution, not the resolution, I’m sorry, the motion that was adopted in the House of Commons.

Clark. Then why is Peter MacKay open to this idea?

Cannon. Well, Peter might be open to the idea, but this doesn’t mean that the Prime Minister and the Government of Canada is open to the idea.

Now, you could, conceivably, find a difference between interest and openness. But setting aside the question of a gap between the ministers, the conclusion of this exchange with Mr. Cannon is likely relevant.

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Cameras, Lighting, Action

By Jaime Weinman - Tuesday, June 22, 2010 at 10:26 PM - 18 Comments

Having written a bunch about the two competing formats for situation comedy, I thought I would dig a little farther into a question that interests me: why is it that, in the ’80s and ’90s, virtually all U.S. sitcoms were shot with multiple cameras? This is not the natural state of things; the current situation, where most sitcoms are one-camera with a few producers preferring the other format, is closer to the way TV used to be. So while I can’t answer the question of why the multi-camera format used to be so dominant, I wanted to try and get closer to answering it for myself.

When TV started, there were two ways to do a TV comedy series: do it live, or film it. The live shows naturally used an audience, the way radio comedies did. The filmed shows were, just as naturally, done like movies. (The laugh track was invented to make it clear that these shows were, in fact, comedies.) Then, famously, Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball decided to combine the two formats — live and filmed — by doing I Love Lucy with three film cameras in front of an audience, creating the format which has remained unchanged to this day (except that now they use four cameras instead of three).

After the success of Lucy, some shows took up its format, particularly the ones that were built around successful comedians who wanted to maintain their usual, audience-dependent timing. Danny Thomas chose the multi-camera format for his vehicle Make Room For Daddy. When Jackie Gleason spun The Honeymooners off into its own show, three-camera film was perfect for him: he didn’t like doing things over and over again (or even rehearsing).

One thing about three-camera that has always appealed to performers is that the hours are much shorter than single-camera. (And there’s a lot less travel time, waiting around on location, and so on.) So if you want to get a star to do a sitcom, the multi-camera format can be an enticement. Betty White explained a few years ago why the hours are so much easier:

But multi-camera didn’t catch on quite as widely as one might have expected after Lucy. In fact, Betty White’s early signature show, Life With Elizabeth, was shot one-camera without an audience (though the laugh track sounds like they played it back to an audience for responses; no laugh track is that obnoxious). One reason for this is that many shows were making use of film studio resources and studio equipment, and most studios weren’t set up for Lucy’s format. An artistic reason, then as now, is that some shows needed to be able to shoot outdoors, like Leave It To Beaver, which often needed to show us Beaver walking home, or at the park.

And a financial reason, which sounds strange today, is that the multi-camera format was probably more expensive than single-camera. Single-camera shows back then were shot very fast, so fast that some of them could have the same director every week (something that is impossible for any modern single-camera show, of any kind). Most of them didn’t spend a lot of time on lighting or setups. So multi-camera sitcoms had the extra expense of two extra cameras — and film wasn’t cheap — plus other expenses that Sheldon Leonard, the master sitcom producer (for Danny Thomas, Dick Van Dyke, Andy Griffith) described to the New York Times in 1963:

It costs from $4000 to $6000 per half-hour show to have an audience in the studio. The set construction is more expensive, we have to pay overtime because we re shooting at night and we have to supply dinner for the cast and crew.

Another possible reason why multi-camera sitcoms couldn’t sustain their initial popularity: some performers Continue…

The Slow, Insane Death of 'TIL DEATH

By Jaime Weinman - Tuesday, June 22, 2010 at 5:11 PM - 3 Comments

I’m glad Todd VanDerWerff did a long post about this, because I was thinking someone needed to: the fourth and final season of ‘Til Death, a show that was picked up even though nobody was watching it. (The “crazy deal” VaDerWerff refers to is that the studio, Sony, offered to let Fox have the show dirt-cheap because they wanted to get the show up to 80 episodes, which would give it a better chance of being sold into syndication; Sony hasn’t produced many successful sitcoms lately, so they must have been desperate to get at least one property into the syndication market.)

Knowing that nobody would be watching, and reeling from the fact that the show had been repeatedly retooled until nobody knew what it was supposed to be, veteran showrunner Don Reo — creator of Blossom, Wizards and Warriors and The John Larroquette Show; showrunner of Action and Everybody Loves Chris — apparently decided to turn it into a meta-sitcom, including a season-long arc where Doug (Timm Sharp) realizes that he’s trapped in a sitcom and that his wife had been re-cast multiple times. Reo brought in his Blossom star Mayim Bialik, playing herself, as a sitcom-expert psychiatrist who is doing a reality show about her patients’ inability to distinguish between sitcoms and reality. At least one episode had an animated fantasy sequence. As VanDerWerff notes, It wasn’t exactly good, but it was some of the strangest material we’ve seen on prime-time TV in the past year, a testament to the weirdness that can arise when the writers have no audience, no job security and nothing to lose.

'You get to big numbers in a hurry'

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, June 22, 2010 at 4:52 PM - 56 Comments

The Parliamentary Budget Officer projects the cost of justice reform.

In his review, Page found the cost of running prisons could go to $9.5 billion annually in 2015-2016 from $4.4 billion this year, and it could require the construction of as many as a dozen new prisons. The act limits the credit a judge can allow for time served and Page said it will add about 159 days to average sentences, bringing the average time in federal custody to 722 days from 563.

But the numbers are much higher in the provincial system. ”If you look at average head counts, they are twice as big in the provincial system — 26,000 every year versus 13,000 at the federal level,” he said. ”The provinces and the territories carry the weight of the correctional services system in Canada so the impact is going to be enormous on the provinces and territories.”

Mr. Page says Correctional Services Canada didn’t fully cooperate in his investigation. Public Safety Minister Vic Toews claims otherwise and maintains that if Mr. Page “wasn’t getting any information from Correctional Services Canada, he must be making this up.”

The full report is here.

The Gastronauts club: where jaded palates meet

By Julia Belluz - Tuesday, June 22, 2010 at 4:05 PM - 0 Comments

Lamb eyeball (Photograph by Dan Kim)

More photos from The Gastronaut Club

On a cold Tuesday evening in December, a group of New York “Gastronauts” headed out to Flushing to sample the delights of Northern China. At A Fan Ti, a tiny hole-in-the-wall, they feasted on a massive pile of lamb’s eyeballs in brown sauce, spicy shredded lamb stomach, lamb brain, and grilled kidneys, among other traditional fare.

“It was bizarre to see an entire plate of eyeballs,” says Benjamin Pauker, co-founder of the Gastronauts club for adventurous eaters. “You have a gelatinous white area, and the harder pupil, plus the entire ocular nerve behind the eyeball. So when you slice through it, it looks like an onion.” He likens the flavour—fatty, melt-in-your-mouth—to bone marrow. “But I’m connecting one weird food to another,” he laughs.

Pauker would do that. In under five years since he started the club, he’s ingested live octopus, chicken feet and braised goose feet, pig knuckle, tripe soup, myriad bugs, smoked pork tongue, pig stomach, as well as fried frog. He’s seen his club expand from four to over 450 members, and now there are offshoots of the original popping up in Berlin, London, Paris, and other parts of the U.S.

Of his criteria for picking eateries, Pauker says, “We’re not going to cross lines of legality, like cannibalism or eating cats and dogs, but everything else is fair game.” Indeed, most dinners rival Trimalchio’s lavish banquets. Gastronauts usually eat off-menu, and order “the weird items in small print at the bottom of the menu that folks eat everyday in Manila, Lagos, Bangkok, or Lima.”

While some may think this kind of dining is extreme or fetishistic, Shyon Baumann, co-author of the new book, Foodies: Democracy and Distinction in the Gourmet Foodscape, argues that exploratory eating represents the democratization of food culture. “Within the last 50 to 60 years, eating clubs have gone from focusing on elite, French cuisine to focusing on good food from every tradition.” The clubs of today are more inclusive, less Eurocentric.

But the Gastronauts are “kind of on the edge,” he adds, bestowing them with the highest foodie honour: “People who push the envelope most when it comes to eating are seen to have the most credibility,” he explained. “The fewest number of people can gain mastery or knowledge of food at that level.”

For the Canadian food writer and culinary anthropologist Naomi Duguid, the most important part of venturing into the food of another place is shifting one’s cultural lens. “It’s not about exoticizing or seeing food as product or performance, but it’s about trying to appreciate the culture it’s part of.”

Pauker says members are encouraged to try everything, and most are willing to open their palates to exotic fare, even cod sperm. Of the Japanese specialty, he admits the hardest part of eating it was overcoming the cognitive obstacle that “I was ingesting an enormous amount of sperm.” He reasons, “This is just how people eat in other cultures.”

For Gastronaut co-founder Curtiss Calleo, a recent highlight was his second foray into dancing shrimp. “You get the shrimp drunk and numb them to the point when they go comatose, and then you eat them.” Isn’t that a bit excessive? No, he says. He sees their food adventures as part of the wider “Nose to Tail” movement. Coined by the British chef Fergus Henderson, eating this way involves using the entire animal from nose to tail—or from sperm to eyeballs.

“We hear that a bit of what we’re doing is excessive,” says Calleo, “but we would counter that by saying the rest of the world eats this stuff. So it’s not extreme to eat a goat’s eyeball if it’s what people eat in Northern China. And it’s more ethical to eat the entire animal, rather than grow a chicken, chop off the breasts, and throw out the rest. I would argue that our Western palate is what’s excessive.”

The Gastronauts club | Photo Gallery

By Julia Belluz - Tuesday, June 22, 2010 at 4:05 PM - 0 Comments

Podesta: "green oil sands" like "error-free deepwater drilling"

By Luiza Ch. Savage - Tuesday, June 22, 2010 at 4:01 PM - 24 Comments

John Podesta, the head of an influential center-left think tank here in DC,  whose many alumni populate the Obama administration, gave a keynote speech at a forum this morning about the “Greening the Oil Sands” put on by Canada 2020. Podesta said that he didn’t want to be the “skunk” at the party, but he still managed to drop quite a stink-bomb into a gathering otherwise focused on promoting the environmental measures underway in Alberta.

The event at a Georgetown hotel ballroom began with Canadian ambassador Gary Doer calling on Americans to approach the challenges and opportunities of oil sands “not in a ‘Holier Than Thou’ way” but in a “realistic way.”  He recalled hearing a Hollywood actress state at the Copenhagen climate meeting that she had completely weaned herself off of fossil fuels. “I thought to myself, it was a long kayak ride from Los Angeles,” said Doer. “Being Holier than Thou won’t get us anywhere.”

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The dance continues

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, June 22, 2010 at 3:34 PM - 7 Comments

The Defence Minister indicates some degree of interest in Michael Ignatieff’s proposal for a post-2011 mission in Afghanistan.

“I’m very interested. I know the Prime Minister has expressed interest in what Mr. Ignatieff said. But the parliamentary motion is very clear so that is where we are today,” he said.

As has been noted elsewhere, the parliamentary motion that extended the mission in 2008 spoke specifically of the Canadian deployment “in Kandahar.” The Liberal proposal would see Canada “pursue a post-combat role, for a fixed period, based on training of police and military personnel in a staff college setting in Kabul.”

Jonah Hill, almost a grown-up

By Brian D. Johnson - Tuesday, June 22, 2010 at 3:20 PM - 0 Comments

Ture Lillegraven/Corbis Outline

Chances are you’ve seen Jonah Hill. He’s only 26 and he’s racked up over 20 film credits. He wasn’t a child star—he made his screen debut just six years ago—but as Hollywood’s go-to fat kid, it seemed he might never grow up.

From the oversexed teenage virgin in Superbad to the embittered comedian in Funny People, Hill found a niche as the overweight, oversexed and under-laid loser in Judd Apatow’s slacker clubhouse.

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Drill, baby, drill

By macleans.ca - Tuesday, June 22, 2010 at 3:06 PM - 23 Comments

So much for Barack Obama’s moratorium on deep-water drilling. A federal judge has struck down the White House ban on new permits for deepwater drilling and the suspension of drilling at 33 exploratory wells in the Gulf. The moratorium was imposed in light of the ongoing spill in the Gulf of Mexico, but companies and individuals who depend on the drilling complained it was arbitrary. U.S. District Judge Martin Feldman agreed, saying the Interior Department “cannot justify the immeasurable effect on the plaintiffs, the local economy, the Gulf region, and the critical present-day aspect of the availability of domestic energy in this country.” The White House has already said it would appeal the decision.

New York Times

The handball rule is obsolete

By Andrew Potter - Tuesday, June 22, 2010 at 2:55 PM - 20 Comments

While I continue to abhor diving in soccer, I’ve reluctantly come to the conclusion that the handball is an infraction that is falling into desuetude. There have just been too many goals scored off handballs for it to be an accident or a matter of the game going too fast or referees being too inattentive. The closest analogue I can think of is the traveling rule in basketball. At a certain point, referees just stopped enforcing it except in the most blatant and egregious cases.

The same thing seems to have happend with the handball in soccer. As long as a plausible case can be made that it was incidental, everyone – the refs, the other team, the fans, the league, FIFA — is willing to look the other way and not make a fuss. And as in basketball, I suggest the rationale is the same: to enforce the letter of the rule gives too much of an advantage to the defence, and restricts the creativity of the offence.

Fabiano probably summed up the current mindset of the sport yesterday, when he admitted that he’d twice used his hands before scoring against Cote d’Ivoire:

Well that is true, it seems as though the ball hit my hand,” said Fabiano. “It seems the ball hit my hand and the second time it hit my shoulder.

“But in order to make the goal more beautiful, there had to be a doubtful element. It was a spectacular goal and I believe it was not a voluntary handball. It was a legitimate goal and it was one of the most beautiful goals that I’ve scored in my career. Where better to score such a goal than at the World Cup?”

Canada joins U.S. and EU in imposing stricter sanctions on Iran

By macleans.ca - Tuesday, June 22, 2010 at 2:19 PM - 3 Comments

Canada has announced sanctions against Iran that will restrict access to uranium, helicopters and other materials that could be used to build weapons, Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon has announced. The fourth round of international sanctions follows a resolution by the UN Security Council on June 9 that was opposed by Brazil and Turkey. The sanctions will also target financial institutions with suspected ties to Iran’s nuclear program. Iran continues to deny accusations that it is trying to build nuclear weapons.

CBC News

Man on alleged mission to kill RCMP officers arrested

By macleans.ca - Tuesday, June 22, 2010 at 2:03 PM - 1 Comment

Mark Baltzer, a Nova Scotian man believed to have a hit list of four RCMP officers he wanted to murder, was arrested Sunday in Nova Scotia during a “high-risk” takedown on the Trans-Canada Highway. The man had allegedly told a female passenger on the ferry to Port aux Basques, N.L. that he planned to kill police officers, and the woman told the crew, who in turn notified police. Officers then waited for Baltzer to drive away from the terminal and pulled him over on the highway. They found weapons in his vehicle, and Baltzer, who has prior convictions and is well known to police in both Newfoundland and Nova Scotia, is now facing 12 charges.

Chronicle Herald