Verdict reached in Semrau trial

By macleans.ca - Monday, July 19, 2010 at 1:25 PM - 0 Comments

Capt. Robert Semrau, the Canadian soldier accused of mercy killing a badly wounded Taliban fighter, will hear his fate within the hour. The four-member military jury assigned to decide his case has reached a decision, and a Canadian Forces spokesman says the verdict will be read in court at 2:00 p.m. Witnesses say Semrau, a married father of two young daughters, fired a pair of bullets into the chest of a severely injured enemy fighter in Afghanistan in October 2008, and then told his comrades that he couldn’t live with himself if he let the man suffer. Semrau’s defence team did not submit any evidence at trial, other than to argue that the prosecution failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the captain committed murder. Semrau is charged with second-degree murder, and if convicted, the minimum sentence is life behind bars with no chance of parole for ten years.

Source: macleans.ca

Notes on a brouhaha

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, July 19, 2010 at 1:03 PM - 0 Comments

Kevin Milligan looks at what Statistics Canada has to say about the accuracy of voluntary surveys. Mike Moffat says drop the threat of prison. Stephen Gordon wonders why the outrage Maxime Bernier was hearing wasn’t registered in the census review or the House of Commons. Tracey Lauriault lists some of the federal legislation that requires census data. Alice Funke explains how census data is used in elections. And Wikipedia details the Jedi census phenomenon the Prime Minister’s Office now cites.

"Those willing to follow"

By Paul Wells - Monday, July 19, 2010 at 12:46 PM - 0 Comments

I’m happy to second Colby Cosh’s “even stronger than usual recommendation” of Andrew Coyne’s column this week, in which he dwells on David Johnston’s prolonged reference to Samuel de Champlain in his remarks upon being named Canada’s next governor general. Johnston made it clear he believes his lineage to extend back to Champlain. It’s all quite deliciously subversive, Andrew says. Worth a read.

But is it new? No. (Indeed, Andrew does write that “Harper is not the first to have taken this line.”) Adrienne Clarkson’s installation speech in 1998 used, as its central connecting thread, the notion that the ancestor of all Canada’s governors, general and otherwise, was Champlain:

I take on the responsibility of becoming Canada’s 26^th Governor General since Confederation, fully conscious of the deep roots of this office, stretching back, to the Governors of New France and to the first of them, Samuel de Champlain. In our beloved Georgian Bay, which lies on the great water route he took from the French River to Huronia, there is a cairn, placed on a small island, between a tennis court and Champlain’s Gas Bar & Marina, which commemorates his passage and quotes from his journal:

Samuel de Champlain
by canoe
1615

“As for me, I labour always to prepare a way for those willing to follow”.

Those willing to follow have embodied the institution of the Governor General in ways which have demonstrated the evolution and constant reaffirmation of this country. Continue…

How do you feel about the Conservatives’ decision to eliminate the mandatory long-form census?

By macleans.ca - Monday, July 19, 2010 at 12:43 PM - 0 Comments

Free Lucy the elephant, say protestors

By macleans.ca - Monday, July 19, 2010 at 12:06 PM - 0 Comments

About a dozen people demonstrated outside the Valley Zoo in Edmonton on Sunday to demand that a 35-year-old elephant named Lucy be moved to a warmer climate. The elephant suffers from lack of companionship and health problems due to the long winters spent “cooped up indoors,” according to a statement from the members of Zoocheck, Voice for Animals and PETA. They have filed a lawsuit against the city zoo to have Lucy moved south, but the suit has yet to receive approval. The City of Edmonton says Lucy is well cared for.

CBC News

Women most attractive at 31: survey

By macleans.ca - Monday, July 19, 2010 at 12:03 PM - 0 Comments

Women are at their most attractive at age 31, according to a survey reported in the Telegraph. In fact, those in their late twenties and early thirties are considered even more attractive than 18 or 19-year-olds, researchers say. The survey polled over 2,000 men and women, and found that beauty is related to personality, too. 70 per cent of respondents defined beauty as being confident, 67 per cent described it has having good looks, and 47 per cent described it as being stylish.

Telegraph

Lockout of longshoremen shuts down Port of Montreal

By macleans.ca - Monday, July 19, 2010 at 12:01 PM - 0 Comments

The Maritime Employers Association (MEA) in Montreal announced Sunday that it’s locking out 850 longshoremen, causing the Port of Montreal to ground to a halt Monday morning. More than 90 per cent of the goods imported to Quebec and Eastern Ontario could be delayed for a week or more, said a spokesperson for the MEA. The two sides have failed to agree to a contract since the previous one expired in 2008. The MEA says that they cannot afford to pay workers full wages on days when there are no ships to unload. Longshoreman began protesting in June by purposely slowing down the unloading of ships.

Montreal Gazette

Better know a talking point

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, July 19, 2010 at 11:53 AM - 0 Comments

From the official government lines distributed over the weekend.

The Ignatieff Liberals promise to force all Canadians to answer personal and intrusive questions about their private lives under threat of jail, fine, or both.

Though the threat of imprisonment is included in the Statistics Act of 1970, no one has ever apparently been sent to prison for refusing to answer the census. The threat of a fine appears in both the Statistics Act and the Census Act of 1870. Until 1951, the census was conducted every 10 years, afterwards every five years.

The following prime ministers then—assuming the threat of a fine was not momentarily suspended between 1870 and 1970—would seem to have forced Canadians to answer personal and intrusive questions about their private lives under threat of jail or fine: John A. Macdonald (thrice), Wilfrid Laurier (twice), Arthur Meighen, RB Bennett, William Lyon Mackenzie King, Louis St. Laurent (twice), John Diefenbaker, Lester B. Pearson, Pierre Trudeau (thrice), Brian Mulroney (twice), Jean Chretien (twice) and Stephen Harper.

$9 billion to go to fighter jets

By macleans.ca - Monday, July 19, 2010 at 11:48 AM - 0 Comments

Last Friday, Defense Minister Peter MacKay announced the Canadian government is planning to spent 9 billion dollars on fighter jets. The money will go to 65 new F-35 Lightening aircraft, a single-seat, single-engine stealth machine which performs close air support for ground troops, bombing and air defense missions. MacKay said that the fleet, which is planned to begin replacing the old fleet of F-18s in 2016, will “meet the threats of the 21st century.” The jets are to be built by Lockheed Martin following a development process that involved eight other countries whose companies, research laboratories and universities competed to win different design contracts.

Vancouver Sun

June was hottest month recorded worldwide

By macleans.ca - Monday, July 19, 2010 at 11:48 AM - 0 Comments

Last month was the warmest June on record for the land surfaces of the globe since researchers started keeping track in 1880. The temperature beat the last record in 2005 by .11 degrees C. Land and ocean temperatures combined, it was the fourth consecutive month that was warmest on record. However, for global ocean temperature June was only the fourth warmest. The last ten warmest global averages recorded since 1880 have been during the last 15 years. Currently, the warmest year to date is 1998. The report is released by the National Climactic Data Center.

Science Daily

Guardian

Can ecstasy help trauma victims?

By macleans.ca - Monday, July 19, 2010 at 11:32 AM - 0 Comments

Ecstasy can improve the success of therapy in patients with post-traumatic stress disorder, according to U.S. researchers who completed a small trial in 20 patients, Reuters reports. The drug is thought to reduce fear, enabling patients to get more out of therapy; in the trial, patients who’d suffered PTSD for many years, but failed to respond to conventional treatment, were included. Those with psychosis or addiction were excluded. Patients received two eight-hour psychotherapy sessions, a few weeks apart, with 12 of them given a dose of ecstasy, while eight of them got a placebo. Two months later, 10 of the 12 patients who received ecstasy had responded to the treatment, they said, while just two of eight patients on the placebo improved. A larger study in military veterans will now take place, and more research is needed to confirm the findings, they say.

BBC News

'These are not abstract considerations'

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, July 19, 2010 at 11:22 AM - 0 Comments

The Globe takes apart Tony Clement’s census claims.

Mr. Clement has stated that the long-form census questionnaire has generated many privacy complaints. Canada’s Privacy Commissioner has received just three complaints in the last two censuses. The House of Commons has no record of any petition tabled by an MP about these concerns. Nor has it come up in private members’ statements.

In addition, governments still do mandatory “intrusive” surveys. The Labour Force Survey is mandatory. The Canada Revenue Agency requires disclosure of all sources of income. And completion of the 2011 Census of Agriculture is also mandatory; failure to participate can lead to a fine or prison.

WHO pushes early HIV treatment

By macleans.ca - Monday, July 19, 2010 at 11:11 AM - 0 Comments

The World Health Organization is pushing for earlier treatment of HIV, the AIDS virus, which could reduce related deaths by 20 per cent over the next five years, it says. At the end of 2009, there were over 5 million people receiving treatment for it, up more than a million from 2008, the largest ever increase in a year, Reuters reports. Under the new guidelines, the number needing treatment would go up to 15 million by 2015, even though some countries are concerned about funding. In its first new guidance for four years, unveiled at the AIDS 2010 conference in Vienna, the WHO called for treatment to begin before a patient’s immune system is severely undermine. Expanding treatment would push up the costs for 2010 to $9 billion, the UN says.

BBC News

AMC Gets Branded With Mad Men

By Jaime Weinman - Monday, July 19, 2010 at 11:08 AM - 0 Comments

With cable TV shows, I often wonder how they’re making back their money (if they in fact are doing so). So I appreciate Broadcasting and Cable doing an in-depth piece on Mad Men and the financial position of its network and production company. Though they don’t have official figures on how much money the network is losing, it’s fairly certain that it is (so is its production company, Lion’s Gate, but running deficits is pretty normal for a production company), and much of the piece is really a step-by-step attempt to show that there’s no way for AMC to recoup its investment yet. The show costs $2.3 million per episode; the commercials are higher-priced but there are only ten minutes of them — you may recall that Matt Weiner rebelled when the network suggested making the show shorter to fit in more ads — and AMC doesn’t get the ancillary revenue that would come from owning the show. And it’s not just AMC that’s in the red; John Landgraf, who has developed many of the big projects at FX, is quite blunt about it, telling reporter John Lafayette that “we don’t even come close to break-even.”

So why do networks invest heavily in shows that can’t make a profit? Landgraf hints at the reason when he lets the reporter know that “original programming represents just 8%-9% of FX’s primetime ratings and less than 20% of its primetime revenue.” The most profitable things on a cable network are usually the things that aren’t very prestigious or new: reruns, mostly. AMC is still primarily a network that shows chopped-up movies with lots of commercial breaks. (Mad Men, Breaking Bad or no, it’s a shell of its ’90s self most of the week.) Even a network like USA, with some of the most-watched original shows on cable, is a rerun centre a lot of the time. But it’s difficult to brand a network using reruns, and it’s difficult to get advertisers interested in a bunch of repeats. The idea of producing original programming is that if the programming is good, wins awards, gets good reviews, then the name brand of the whole network is increased. This happens on pay cable, too; HBO is obsessed with “brand enhancer” shows that can tempt people to subscribe to the network and watch their sports events and movie reruns. But it may be even more important for ad-supported cable networks, because the brand enhancement can lead to companies buying more expensive ad time on the whole network, not just on the originals:

According to Nielsen, revenue from Mad Men accounts for only 1.5% of AMC’s ad dollars, but ad buyers say that to advertise on Mad Men and other originals, the network encourages sponsors to buy other programming, pushing up prices for its movies as well.

So while it’s impossible to know, absent balance sheets, how much cash AMC is losing on Mad Men, it also makes sense that they’d want to do it: the only way you can survive as a cable network is to have something that sets you apart from the others. With very few exceptions, that simply can’t be your selection of reruns; it has to be original stuff.

Another example of this is mentioned in the article: TV Land, which used to be a Nick At Nite spinoff specializing in old television programs, found it could no longer survive on reruns alone. (The existence of DVDs and Hulu, which allow viewers to watch their favourite episodes now instead of waiting for them to come along in the rotation, have made repeats a tricky game.) So it has begun producing original sitcoms that are kind of like the ones they used to show — except they’re new. This is working for them so far, and it’s necessary: the value of their reruns can only be increased by the presence of more original programming on their network.

(The Canadian version of TV Land, by the way, has rebranded itself as “Comedy Gold” and is trying to sell itself as a home for sitcom reruns — it’ll be interesting to see whether rerun selection can still work as a “brand” in and of itself.)

Sun surges: Yet another apocalypic theory to worry about

By Kate Lunau - Monday, July 19, 2010 at 11:07 AM - 0 Comments

NASA/Getty Images

In March 1989, six million Quebecers lost power for nine hours after a massive solar flare—an explosion of magnetic energy from the sun—created electric ground currents here on Earth, collapsing the power grid. Another geomagnetic storm, in 1921, brought ground currents 10 times as strong. But the fiercest one ever recorded, called the Carrington Event of 1859, electrified telegraph lines—even setting telegraph papers on fire—and created northern lights visible as far south as Cuba and Hawaii. If such a storm were to strike today, the consequences would be devastating. But NASA researchers say severe space weather could be on the way.

Continue…

Canada is a French country

By Andrew Coyne - Monday, July 19, 2010 at 11:05 AM - 0 Comments

Mathieu Belanger/Reuters

The most striking passage in David Johnston’s speech on being named Canada’s next governor general, apart from the reference to the Queen as “our head of state” (there seemed to be some doubt on his predecessor’s part), was his lengthy encomium to Samuel de Champlain, “Canada’s first governor.” In case anyone did not catch his drift, he ended by invoking the example of his predecessors, “from Samuel de Champlain to Michaëlle Jean.”

But wait a minute. Johnston is, as he says, the representative of the Queen of Canada, Elizabeth II, great-great-granddaughter of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom, granddaughter of George III, the first monarch to rule over what was then called British North America. Champlain served a different king, from an altogether different royal house: Louis XIII of France.

Continue…

Follow the Intrepid Explorer; One-Stop Arizona Shopping

By Takeoffeh.com - Monday, July 19, 2010 at 11:04 AM - 0 Comments

Celebrated Explorer to Lead Tours to the Far Corners of the Earth
Kensington Tours is a different kind of tour operator. It is the creation of explorer and Royal Geographic Society Fellow Jeff Willner, whose passion for travel was incubated during a youth spent in Africa. He’s now a veteran of expeditions to over 70 countries. During his years of travel, Willner realized the vast difference between a typical package tour and a journey of personal discovery — where the deep knowledge and personal attention of a local guide transforms a trip into an experience. While private-guided touring sounds like it would be prohibitively expensive to most, Kensington’s private tours with guide, vehicle and driver are on average 30% lower in cost than group tours offered by other quality travel companies.

Willner says he is now taking his vision to a new level with an Explorer-In-Residence program which will launch tourism to the Congo. The first member explorer is Mikael Strandberg, considered one of the 50 most important explorers on earth by the London-based Royal Geographical Society. Willner and Strandberg recently undertook a scouting mission to The Democratic Republic of Congo to assess its potential and readiness as a destination for intrepid travellers. Congo itineraries – featuring endangered Eastern Lowland Gorillas, Pygmy tribes and the Nyiragongo volcano – will be the first in the Expedition Series. Other trips under development include Antarctica with polar explorers, motorcycle safaris in Kenya, Tanzania and Russia, a deep dive submarine trip into the Cayman Trench and cultural discoveries in Yemen, Oman and North Korea. These itineraries will appeal to intrepid global explorers, but not all of Kensington’s offerings are so exotic or demanding – there’s everything from a four-day tour of Montreal and Quebec City to a seven-day Costa Rica discovery tour.

For Peat’s Sake: Porter Puts The Fun Back In Flying
Many Porter Airlines passengers have a nose for business. Now Porter is betting they have a nose for fine Scotch too. The airline has partnered with Glenfiddich, the world’s most awarded single malt, on a time-limited pre-flight experience for travellers departing from Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport. Until July 23, Porter customers can participate in a guided tasting of the Glenfiddich 12 Year Old, 15 Year Old and 18 Year Old single malts. Experienced “Malt Specialists” will be on-hand to lead travellers through the nuances and subtleties of tasting and understanding the complex but rewarding world of single malts. “We place a great deal of emphasis on each detail making up the overall passenger experience,” says Porter CEO Robert Deluce, president and CEO of Porter Airlines. “Partnering with Glenfiddich is a new way we can make the journey for travellers as enjoyable as the destination itself.” Whisky nosings will be offered to Porter passengers between 4:00 and 8:00 PM on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays through July 23.

Website Features Arizona Summer Bargains
The Arizona Office of Tourism (AOT) has launched a website featuring packages created by the state’s many tourism providers. The website is aimed at state residents in a bid to boost tax revenues through domestic tourism, but it is open to Canadians as well, providing a one-stop shop of travel deals available around the state through the end of September. Tourism is big business in the Grand Canyon State – in 2008 visitors spent $18.5 billion in Arizona and the industry employs nearly 200,000 residents. The Travel Deals section of the website is packed with special offers on hotels and lodging, vacation packages, seasonal specials, outdoor adventures, golf and sport trips, dining and more. There are literally hundreds of offers featured on the site, including a one-night stay at the Days Inn Lake Havasu and a two-hour Jet Ski rental for just $100, or an overnight stay with unlimited golf and cart for just $45 per person per night at the Francisco Grande Hotel and Golf Resort.

Photo Credits: travel.nationalgeographic.com, arizonaguide.com, glenfiddich.com

Naughty Mounties

By macleans.ca - Monday, July 19, 2010 at 11:00 AM - 0 Comments

An internal report on the RCMP disciplinary process has revealed that there are naughty seeds within Canada’s national police force. The probe—the first of its kind for the Mounties—reveals that Mounties have been getting up to everything from masturbating in a cruiser to drunk driving and sexual assault. There were 56 cases of “formal” action taken to address violations of the Code of Conduct in the 2008-09 fiscal year, and another
231 cases where informal steps. Most sanctions were leveled against constables, but there were also some involving higher-ranking officers. The RCMP says that while only a fraction of officers committed these offences, all acts that potentially tarnish its reputation are taken seriously. Media relations officer Sgt. Pat Flood explained, “To be an effective police force, the RCMP must maintain the respect and trust of the public it serves. To do this, the conduct of its members must be beyond reproach.”

Canoe

Bob Probert’s final years

By John Intini - Monday, July 19, 2010 at 10:57 AM - 0 Comments

GETTY IMAGES/ CP / BRIAN KERSEY/AP

In September 1999, about three years before his playing days in Chicago were over, Bob Probert and his wife, Dani, set their homecoming in motion. They purchased a waterfront property in Lakeshore, Ont., a sleepy town near Windsor, where they planned to build their dream home. After years on the road, they wanted to be close to family (Probert’s mother Theresa, his brother Norm, and father-in-law James all live in Windsor). Today, their large grey-stoned home, with its slate roof, sits on a quiet street along Lake St. Clair. There’s a swimming pool on the lake side, a big rec room in the basement with a pool table and hockey jerseys from Probert’s playing days framed and hanging on the walls, and a limited-edition Harley Davidson Fat Boy parked in the dining room. It’s a stunning place, but like the former NHL heavyweight, not overly showy. From the curb, at least, it’s not even the most palatial residence on the street. A few doors down, another home, protected by a large gate at the front, features a water fountain and a full-sized basketball court.

Less concerned about his jumpshot, Probert treated himself instead to a massive garage. It’s the ultimate man cave, with 1,725 sq. feet of space to work on his old Chevrolet Chevelles, Monte Carlos and a ’68 Dodge Charger. (The garage also houses Probert’s Porsche, and a couple of Harley Davidsons.) He collected all kinds of tools and old car parts. But it wasn’t a secret, say friends, that Probert was better at taking cars apart than putting them back together.

Still, after facing off against some serious demons in his life, Probert was in full control. Much of his focus, say friends, was on his family (his wife, four children, and two Yorkies named Carly and Simon) and his charity work. Then, on the afternoon of July 5, the former left-winger died suddenly of an apparent heart attack while boating on Lake St. Clair with his family. Probert was only 45, leaving some to wonder if all those years of hard living in his playing days—his struggles with alcohol and substance abuse during that time were well-known—had caught up with him. Or, perhaps, it was hereditary. In 1982, his father Al, a Windsor police officer, died of a heart attack at 52.

Whatever the case, the death of Windsor’s favourite son struck a nerve in this blue-collar town. Everyone, it seems, was quick to share a story about “Probie.” His popularity benefited from being one of a rare breed of enforcers. In his 16-year NHL career, split between the Detroit Red Wings and the Chicago Blackhawks, his fists made him the most feared man in hockey, and yet he could also be dangerous with the puck, scoring 163 goals and assisting on 221 others. For many who knew him, his well-documented struggles off the ice—including the three months he spent in jail after trying in March 1989 to cross the Canada-U.S. border with cocaine in his underwear—are secondary to the family man that he had become. He was a guy who was most comfortable in a T-shirt, jeans and a pair of Crocs—the ones with fur lining were favourites since he could wear them year-round.

That’s not to say retirement for Probert was totally smooth, especially in the early going. Though not necessarily front-page news, Probert had a few run-ins with the authorities in the last decade. In June 2004, he was Tasered by police in Delray Beach, Fla., and charged with battery, resisting arrest and disorderly conduct (a jury acquitted him several months later). Probert would later say he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. “Some guys were getting mouthy and I was getting mouthy and then the police arrived.” In July 2005, police were called to the Probert’s Lakeshore residence. Nine officers arrived, eight were wearing black gloves, “as though ready to do battle,” says Patrick Ducharme, Probert’s long-time agent and lawyer. Probert was charged with assaulting police and intent to resist arrest. But video footage, captured by surveillance cameras that he had on the property, showed that Probert had not been aggressive with the police at all, says Ducharme.

After the Crown saw the tape, the charges were withdrawn. Ducharme thought his client might have a good civil case, but Probert didn’t want to proceed. “He said, ‘That’s my community and I don’t want them angry with me,’ ” recalls Ducharme. Then, in June 2006, Probert was asleep on the sidewalk when he was picked up by the police and brought in to the station on suspicion of public intoxication. During a routine search, the authorities found half a gram of cocaine in his pocket. He was charged with possession. But according to Ducharme, there was no fingerprint evidence to indicate Probert ever touched the packet in question, and two individuals, who had been drinking with Probert that night, came forward to say they had stuffed the cocaine in his pocket after he’d passed out, and planned to come back for it later. That charge was withdrawn as well.

Through it all, Dani stuck with him. The couple first met about two decades ago when Probert was serving out a suspension from the Red Wings in Windsor. On Canada Day, four days before he died, they celebrated their 17th wedding anniversary. “I’ve learned a lot from that guy,” says Donald Cadarian, one of Probert’s friends. “I’ve learned how to say ‘sorry.’ I’ve learned how to say ‘I love you.’ He used to tell Dani every time they were on the phone, ‘I love you, baby,’ ‘I love you so much.’ Every time. Every day. Nobody does that after 17 years of marriage. If you’d seen them together, there was no question why they stayed together.”

61 dead in Indian train crash

By macleans.ca - Monday, July 19, 2010 at 10:45 AM - 0 Comments

Sixty-one people are dead and another 125 other are injured after a speeding express train drove into a stationary passenger train in eastern India on Monday. The accident destroyed two passenger cars and a luggage car, and was so severe that it sent the roof of one car flying onto an overpass. Locals dove into the wreckage to try to free survivors before rescue workers arrived at the scene. Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee says authorities have doubts about whether this was indeed an accident, but instead, a case of sabotage—just two months after Maoist rebels were blamed for a derailment that killed 145 people.

CBC

Airline Alliances

By Takeoffeh.com - Monday, July 19, 2010 at 10:37 AM - 0 Comments

For frequent flyers, airline alliances are a way of life. Oneworld, Star Alliance, SkyTeam – they all claim to offer travellers the world on a silver wing. In looking into why the airlines formed these global agreements, it’s clear there are many advantages for them. But what about for you?

Alliances were created by airlines for airlines – they are businesses after all. The initial idea was to extend their networks through code-sharing agreements – in other words, while airline A may not fly directly to your destination, they can take you part of the way and hand you over to partner Airline B, who does. The appearance of a relatively seamless trip extends to selling the flights as being on one carrier – from the search results to ticketing.

Since governments are notoriously protective of their national airlines, they make the creation of global brands extremely difficult. Alliances have created a way to get around many of those obstacles.

Formed in 1997, Star Alliance was the first and remains the largest, with 28 members including Air Canada. More than 500 million passengers fly with Star Alliance members each year. Oneworld was next. Launched in 1999 it has just 11 members, but they include biggies like American Airlines, British Airways and Cathay Pacific. SkyTeam is the youngest of the group, formed in 2000 and featuring a dozen members. Together, the three alliances represent almost three-quarters of global air travel.

As alliances have grown in size and importance, they’ve also expanded in scope. Member airlines now share sales offices, maintenance, catering and IT facilities, operational staff and purchasing programs. These add up to cost savings that have become all but essential in a highly competitive marketplace.

So what’s in it for you? Frequently cited alliance benefits to travellers include lower fares due to lower operational costs, more departure times to choose from on a given route, easier access to more destinations, optimized connections, easier access to shared airport lounges and the ability to earn mileage rewards from multiple carriers for a single account.

Critics say alliances can have negative impacts on customers too, such as higher fares when competition on specific routes is reduced and less frequent flights on shared routes. And avid flyers and mileage collectors complain about variations in perks and policies between members of the same alliance. “There are still really deep pockets of incompatibility. It’s not always what it’s cracked up to be,” said Randy Petersen, founder of FlyerTalk.com, in a recent Wall Street Journal article.

Despite some complaints, for most frequent flyers the biggest attraction of alliances is earning miles and enjoying privileges like priority check-in, boarding and lounge access. Flying isn’t much fun these days and anything that eases the pain is welcome. In fact, alliances have now become so important for miles and perks that picking an alliance may be more important than picking an airline.

A recent Wall Street Journal article rated the three alliances on a variety of measures. For example, it suggested that using mileage points for a free ticket or to upgrade from economy to business class is generally easier if you’re a Star Alliance member. It found that airport lounge access is often better for frequent fliers at Oneworld. Overall, though, the Wall Street Journal gave decent marks to all three alliances, giving Star an A-, Oneworld a B and SkyTeam a B-.

Airline alliances have become a critical component of the industry and will remain so well into the future. “Alliances exist because airlines cannot offer comprehensive global coverage the way consumer brands like Nescafé or Coca-Cola do,” aviation consultant Olivier Fainsilber recently told Agence France Presse. “Everyone wins with alliances, which is why airlines and travellers like them and competition authorities accept them.”

Image Credits: DSGpro, staralliance.com, oneworld.com

Week in Pictures: July 16th – 20th 2010

By macleans.ca - Monday, July 19, 2010 at 10:27 AM - 0 Comments

What Washington is talking about today: "Top Secret America"

By Luiza Ch. Savage - Monday, July 19, 2010 at 9:22 AM - 0 Comments

Two-years in the making, and the subject of much speculation and anticipation, the Washington Post has released its investigative project into the growth of  US intelligence establishment since 9/11 co-authored by Dana Priest — the reporter who won two Pulitzers — one for her story revealing CIA secret prisons, and one for co-authoring a piece on problems with veterans’ care at Walter Reed hospital.

It’s a big, sprawling project with all kind of on-line features. I haven’t browsed them all yet myself.

The bottom line –  a big, expensive, unaccountable, secretive “fourth branch” of government has grown up since 9/11. Priest and William Arkin write:

“After nine years of unprecedented spending and growth, the result is that the system put in place to keep the United States safe is so massive that its effectiveness is impossible to determine.

The investigation’s other findings include:

* Some 1,271 government organizations and 1,931 private companies work on programs related to counterterrorism, homeland security and intelligence in about 10,000 locations across the United States.

* An estimated 854,000 people, nearly 1.5 times as many people as live in Washington, D.C., hold top-secret security clearances.

* In Washington and the surrounding area, 33 building complexes for top-secret intelligence work are under construction or have been built since September 2001. Together they occupy the equivalent of almost three Pentagons or 22 U.S. Capitol buildings – about 17 million square feet of space.”

Civil liberties are in the eye of the beholder

By Aaron Wherry - Sunday, July 18, 2010 at 6:52 PM - 0 Comments

On Monday, the Conservatives filibustered an attempt to by opposition parties to start hearings into the biggest mass arrest in Canadian history.

On Sunday, the Conservatives demanded hearings into their own decision to change the census, in part so that, in the words of Maxime Bernier, the opposition parties can “explain to Canadians why they want the state and the government of Canada to know lots of details from their private lives.”