Heroin users inject each others’ blood

By macleans.ca - Tuesday, July 13, 2010 at 12:10 PM - 0 Comments

In a few African cities, including Dar es Slam, Tanzania, and Mombasa, Kenya, reports are emerging of heroin addicts injecting themselves with another addicts blood to share a high, or avoid the pangs of withdrawal, the New York Times reports. This practice, called flashblood or flushblood, creates the highest risk of contracting AIDS and hepatitis. According to Dr. Nora D. Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, whose researchers discovered this practice, it’s a relatively small group who does it, but “they are vectors for H.I.V. because they support themselves by sex work.” The practice was first described in a short letter to the British Medical Journal five years ago by Sheryl A. McCurdy of the University of Texas in Houston, who recently published a paper on the topic. In most East African countries including Tanzania and Kenya, only 3 to 8 per cent of adults are infected with the AIDS virus, but among those who inject heroin, it’s far higher: in Tanzania, about 42 per cent of addicts are infected. It’s not known whether people can actually get high from injecting less than a teaspoon of another’s blood; while addicts report being high, some believe it’s merely the placebo effect, or leftover drug in the syringe.

New York Times

Palin's fundraising befits presidential campaign

By macleans.ca - Tuesday, July 13, 2010 at 12:07 PM - 0 Comments

Analysts are saying that Sarah Palin’s political action committee’s financial report, filed Sunday night, suggests that the former vice-president hopeful has begun preparing for a presidential run. “In short, for the first time since the 2008 campaign when she was the vice-presidential running mate to GOP presidential candidate John McCain, Palin is supported by a political operation befitting someone considering a presidential run,” writes Kenneth Vogel for the U.S. political news site, Politico. SarahPAC, Palin’s action committee, raised $866,000 in the second quarter of the year—the highest amount yet since Palin created the group in January 2009. SarahPAC also spent more money than ever on list-building and fundraising, donations to candidates, travel costs and speechwriting. Committee’s like SarahPAC are often created by presidential hopefuls to drum up support before officially declaring their candidacies. Palin’s Republican rivals, including Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee, all boast their own committees. For Palin, it is a new approach (her previous tactics included sporadic Facebook and Twitter posts) and demonstrates her commitment to build a sophisticated nomination strategy.

Politico

Suspected Mafia boss arrested in Italy

By macleans.ca - Tuesday, July 13, 2010 at 11:58 AM - 0 Comments

Italian police arrested 300 people today who are believed to be connected with the Calabrian Mafia. Also known as the Ndrangheta, the crime family is linked to murder and money laundering. Police say they arrested the 80-year-old family head, Domenico Oppedisano, in a small coastal town in Calabria. In Milan, Police also nabbed the organization’s manager. According to reports, arrests were made in the U.S. that were linked to the Calabrian clan. The Mafia group is a major player in organized crime throughout Europe and is allegedly involved in the drug trade in South America.

BBC News

Rioting in Northern Ireland injures dozens of police officers

By macleans.ca - Tuesday, July 13, 2010 at 11:54 AM - 0 Comments

“Petrol bombs,” bricks, bottles and other flying objects injured dozens of police officers in Northern Ireland yesterday as Protestants marched through the Catholic enclave of Ardoyne. At least one officer is in hospital. Police deployed batons and water cannons to defend against masked men who threw explosive cocktails at the marchers from rooftops. Local nationalist politician Nichola Mallon told the Belfast Telegraph that residents object to the parade, but want nothing to do with the violent attacks on police. “It is clear that dissidents want to push residents into the front line of their own little war,” she said. “[Residents] have absolutely nothing to do with the political agenda of the petrolbombers.”

Belfast Telegraph

AFP

The least exciting Mr. Men character

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, July 13, 2010 at 11:30 AM - 0 Comments

Mr. Census is displeased.

Doug Norris was director general of social and demographic statistics until 2005 — earning the nickname “Mr. Census” — and following his 30-year career atStatistics Canada, he became chief demographer and senior vice-president at Environics Analytics…

He believes privacy concerns around the census are overblown and says the minor hassle of asking one in five households to take 45 minutes to fill out the long form is a fair exchange for gleaning information crucial to Canadian society and the huge range of programs, businesses and non-profits that rely on it. “Moving into a knowledge-based economy, it’s hard to imagine why people don’t value that knowledge and that information much more, and doing away with it at a time when we’re going to need it more than ever is really puzzling to me,” he says.

George Steinbrenner dead at 80

By macleans.ca - Tuesday, July 13, 2010 at 11:29 AM - 0 Comments

How will George Steinbrenner be remembered? As the man who assembled the greatest franchise in sport? Or the guy who fired Billy Martin five times? As a winner at all costs? Or the keeper of a team so chaotic that in the 1980s it was known as the “Bronx Zoo”? The two sides of Steinbrenner’s legacy bear no more resemblance than his statements did his actions. After promising in 1973 to keep his nose out of the team’s operations, Steinbrenner became the most flambloyant and interventionist owner in baseball, publicly threatening to fire managers who underperformed, alternately coddling and ridiculing his players (he once called one of his pitchers, Hideki Irabu, a “fat toad”). But along the way, Steinbrenner restored the Yankees’ lost grandeur, harnessing cable TV revenues to pay for the top players in the game and fielding a contender for the last 15 years of his life. The result: seven World Series championships, 11 pennants, a lavish new stadium and a $1.6-billion sporting empire, which his sons Hal and Hank now control. Not too shabby.

New York Times

When what we say is the opposite of what is actually happening

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, July 13, 2010 at 10:40 AM - 0 Comments

Rona Ambrose misspeaks.

The Conservative government dispatched one of its ministers Monday to the city where a 16-year-old girl was killed by her father and brother to condemn so-called honour killings, but it appears Rona Ambrose may have spoken out of turn…

She was asked if the government was considering such changes, and she replied that it was under consideration. ”I’ll say that it’s something that we’re looking at,” she said. “Nothing more than that at this time.”

However, when contacted for more details about possible changes, a spokeswoman for the Department of Justice said in fact, that is not the case. ”There are currently no plans to do that,” said Pamela Stephens.

Small oil spill shuts down part of St. Lawrence

By macleans.ca - Tuesday, July 13, 2010 at 10:26 AM - 0 Comments

Crews are cleaning up after an estimated 50 to 200 tons of oil leaked into the St. Lawrence river south of Montreal last night. The Canada Steamship Lines vessel ran aground near the Côte Sainte-Catherine lock after losing power. The fuel tank was punctured. The lock has now been closed to contain the spill, blocking some river traffic. The area affected is about 500 metres by 500 metres. Residents living close by have been cautioned to check their water for signs of contamination.

Montreal Gazette

Feeling like a Newman

By Paul Wells - Monday, July 12, 2010 at 7:46 PM - 0 Comments

Tuesday at noon Global Television will announce the next anchor of its supper-hour newscast, who will replace Kevin Newman. There is all sorts of speculation about who the new person might be. A woman? Thalia Assuras? Sun Media won’t be happy.

Whatever. From 2001 to 2003 Kevin and I had the same employer or vaguely defined cloud of employers — the Asper-era Canwest — and I would come on Global National now and then in a half-hearted convergence play. It was truly impressive to watch him produce and direct the whole newscast from his anchor desk, always in close and courteous consultation with the actual producers and directors, even while on remote anchoring assignments in Ottawa (this was in the days when he normally ran his show out of Vancouver). The breaks between segments were when the real action happened: Newman would check the progress of various bits of the newscast, chat with passerby pundits like me, often amend the show plan in mid-broadcast, and come back to air all calm and collected as if nothing had been happening.

The Aspers, in those days still including Izzy, paid serious money to bring Newman home from ABC as an anchor for their entire broadcast news effort, in an attempt to boost its credibility at a moment when the acquisition of the Southam chain, the National Post and the canada.com website seemed on the verge of making Canwest a cross-platform titan.

But they took on too much debt getting there, and they called the moment wrong, buying in at the top of the convergence bubble and in the early days of a secular decline in newspaper ad revenues. They weren’t able to keep their end of the bargain. But Newman kept his. He’s been a smart and affable anchor, a welcome face around Ottawa since the show moved, and replacing him presents Global with a formidable challenge.

The contrarian mind

By Andrew Potter - Monday, July 12, 2010 at 5:12 PM - 0 Comments

I’m within striking distance of the end of Hitch-22, the reading of which has ended up being far less joyful than I anticipated when I bought it. I’ll write more on it soon, somewhere. But in the meanwhile, there’s a survey of Hitchens’ intellectual evolution by Michael Weiss in The New Criterion that is far better than anything I could manage. I especially liked this bit, remarking upon Hitchens’ notorious contrarianism:

Depending upon one’s taste, this mode of intellection indicates either a dazzling mind that can only think at 45-degree angles or a fetishist of counterintuition, in which case his weekly perch at Slate magazine seems foreordained.

The smoking pile of rubble where André Alexis used to be

By Paul Wells - Monday, July 12, 2010 at 4:50 PM - 0 Comments

Over at The Walrus, they’ve published an article-length whinge by André Alexis about how everything in book reviewing just sucks. Here is the seventh sentence in that whinge:

“The Toronto Star’s book section is small, ineptly edited, and not worth reading.”

I sometimes get accused of cynicism, and I suppose it has something to do with the fact that when I read that sentence, before I  even made my way to “not worth reading” a little voice inside me said, “Boy, somebody at the Star must have ripped the fish guts out of André Alexis’ last book.” And indeed it is so: Continue…

That David Johnston scandal, in full

By Andrew Coyne - Monday, July 12, 2010 at 4:31 PM - 88 Comments

I like to think my credentials as an Airbus obsessive are in order, so allow me to dissociate myself from any suggestion that the appointment of David Johnston as Governor General is somehow tainted by it.

It’s true that it was Johnston, as adviser to the Prime Minister on the terms of reference for the Oliphant inquiry, who recommended against including the Airbus scandal in its mandate, a decision that looks all the more baffling in light of the judge’s findings: not only that Brian Mulroney took hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash, shortly after leaving office, from the very man from whom he was accused of taking bribes while in office, but that he lied about it, up to and including his appearance before the inquiry. Regardless of whether Mulroney was personally involved, the circumstances surrounding the Airbus deal are so suspicious that, even 22 years later, they cry out for an inquiry — not in spite of the passage of time but because of it. Johnston’s reasoning, that Airbus, having once been the subject of an RCMP investigation, was “well-tilled ground,” is simply unsupported by the facts: the RCMP had only just begun their investigation when it was shut down by the leaking of the infamous “Swiss letter,” a calamity from which it never recovered.

That’s my opinion, at any rate. Lots of perfectly sensible people with no obvious axes to grind thought he was spot on. But even if you take my view of it, it’s a long way from an error of judgement to a conflict of interest. Those who insinuate there was something unseemly in Johnston’s appointment — sometimes accompanied by the disclaimer that, although they themselves do not believe any of this, others might — are obliged to offer some evidence, or even a plausible rationale, before tossing about such incendiary charges.

At the very least they should say clearly what they mean. Is it seriously alleged that Johnston and Harper cooked up a deal in advance — you keep Airbus out of the inquiry, and I’ll make you Governor General? Surely no one is that far gone. Is it, then, that a grateful Harper bestowed the appointment upon him as a sort of reward, ie that it was only the appointment, and not the advice, that was corrupt — a prospect the Star’s Jim Travers raises, but can’t be arsed to properly debunk? Or is it merely, as Rick Salutin claims, that Johnston’s role in the Oliphant inquiry was an “audition” (whoops, “what can be seen as an audition”), a “test of what the guy might do in a situation where Harper interests are at stake.” You follow the logic: because he had ruled in a way that was supposedly favourable to Harper’s interests in the matter of Mulroney’s cash, he could also be relied upon to do so, say, in a constitutional crisis, the connecting factor being — what? Continue…

A Harvard man

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, July 12, 2010 at 4:05 PM - 0 Comments

We know, because we’ve been told, that the next governor general is a non-partisan. But other facets of his history and personality are so far less understood.

For instance, though it was not noted in the official release announcing his appointment, in the third paragraph of the attached four-paragraph backgrounder we learn that Mr. Johnston, who was introduced to the country as a respected academic, began his post-secondary studies at Harvard. Granted, while at Harvard, he played “ice hockey,” as they call it there. But still, Harvard.

This is obviously confusing, for if we have learned anything at all over the last four and a half years it’s that the name of that American educational institution is only to be invoked or referenced in the derisive sense, for the purposes of mocking another’s character or intellect.

To wit. Continue…

An Apple by any other name

By Jane Switzer - Monday, July 12, 2010 at 3:47 PM - 0 Comments

Historical, biblical, painstakingly unique or exceptionally common, first names are the great marker of identity. New parents need to look no further than the Internet for thousands of options, and some even enlist the help of naming consultants and numerologists to find the perfect moniker. For every thousand people in the world named Sarah or Michael, there’s an Apple, Pilot Inspektor or Sage Moonblood. But depending on where you live, your proposed name for your new baby could be illegal. Though North Americans are free to name their children almost anything—a New Jersey couple named their son Adolf Hitler in 2005—countries in Europe and Asia have enacted more stringent laws to protect children from their parents’ eccentric whims.

Germany: Children’s vornamen (first names) must be gender-specific, and are approved or rejected by the Standesamt, the office of vital statistics. Appealing a rejected name can be both time consuming and costly, and requires parents to think of a new name each time one is rejected. Because naming can be such a hassle, many parents opt for traditionally popular names such as Elisabeth or Alexander. Name changes are allowed in certain circumstances, such as marriage, clerical error or gender reassignment surgery. The name Matti was rejected for a baby boy because German officials deemed it too ambiguous.

Sweden: Sweden’s naming law was enacted in 1982, and was originally passed to prevent non-noble families from giving their children noble names. Elisabeth Hallin and Lasse Diding decided to name their son Brfxxccxxmnpcccclllmmnprxvclmnckssqlbb11116, pronounced Albin, in 1991 to protest the country’s naming laws. Because they didn’t register their son’s name until his fifth birthday, Hallin and Diding were hit with a 5,000 kronor fine. They appealed the decision and tried to change their son’s name to A, also pronounced Albin, but the courts refused to accept the name and upheld the fine. Google, however, was deemed an acceptable middle name when Elias and Carol Kai named their son Oliver Google Kai in 2005. Michael and Karolina Tomaro locked themselves in a lengthy court battle for the right to name their daughter Metallica, after their favourite band. Baby Metallica was initially denied a passport, but the opposition dropped their case in 2007.

New Zealand: New Zealand’s laws leave a bit more room for interpretation, but registrar officials have been known to try to talk parents out of giving their children unusual names. Names cannot be offensive, unreasonably long, have inadequate justification or include or resemble an official title or rank. Although Sex Fruit, Fish and Chips and Adolf Hitler were rejected, there are people named Midnight Chardonnay, Number 16 Bus Shelter and Violence somewhere in New Zealand. Names also cannot begin with a number, much to the frustration of Pat and Sheena Wheaton, who wanted to name their son 4Real. Undeterred by the rejection of 4Real by the country’s registrar of births, deaths and marriages, the Wheatons opted for the name Superman instead. The couple said they still planned to call their son 4Real at home.

China: Chinese names are written with the family name first and the given name second, and babies are named based on the ability of computer scanners to read those names on national identification cards. Non-Chinese symbols and characters are not allowed, and, as of now, Chinese symbols that cannot be recognized on computers are not allowed. Wang @ was rejected as a baby name due to the inclusion of an unusual symbol. @ in Chinese is pronounced “ai-ta” and is similar to a phrase that means “love him.” Unofficial cultural naming taboos also exist that discourage people from naming their children after exalted people in China and neighbouring nations.

Denmark: Denmark might just have the strictest laws in Europe when it comes to naming. Parents can only choose from a list of 7,000 government-approved names—3,000 for boys, 4,000 for girls. If parents want to deviate from the official list, they have to get permission from their local parish, where names are registered. Alternative spellings of common names and gender-ambiguous names are most commonly appealed by parents hoping to make their children unique, but about 15 to 20 per cent of more than 1,000 names that are reviewed each year are rejected. Jakobp, Bebop, Ashleiy are examples of rejected names, but parents Greg Nagan and Trine Kammer had their daughter’s name Molli Malou approved in 2004 after having to write a letter to the Danish government explaining why they chose an uncommon spelling—they liked it.

'After careful consideration'

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, July 12, 2010 at 3:20 PM - 0 Comments

In not-at-all surprising news, the government will appeal last week’s Federal Court ruling on Omar Khadr.

“After careful consideration of the legal merits of the July 5, 2010, ruling from the Federal Court, the Government of Canada will appeal the decision to the Federal Court of Appeal.

“This case raises important issues concerning the Crown prerogative over foreign affairs. “As the Supreme Court of Canada ruled in an earlier case involving Mr. Khadr, ‘it would not be appropriate for the Court to give direction as to the diplomatic steps necessary to address the breaches of Mr. Khadr’s Charter rights.’ “Omar Khadr faces very serious charges, including murder, attempted murder, conspiracy, material support for terrorism, and spying. The Government of Canada continues to provide consular services to Mr. Khadr.”

The business of Guantanamo, meanwhile, is proceeding as smoothly as ever.

‘Barefoot Bandit’ busted

By macleans.ca - Monday, July 12, 2010 at 3:06 PM - 0 Comments

A teenager dubbed the “Barefoot Bandit” who evaded capture for two years has finally been caught in the Bahamas. Since 2008, police have not been able to capture Colton Harris-Moore as he stole cars, powerboats and at least five airplanes after escaping from a Washington state halfway house. He has also been accused of breaking into dozens of homes on his journey that has taken him from Washington, to British Columbia and Idaho. Witnesses on Eleuthera, an island in the Bahamas, spotted Harris-Moore, and called police. He was then captured him in a high-speed boat race, and flown to Nassau, where he was seen shoeless as he walked off the plane. Despite the destruction he has caused, his fan base grew, including some 60,000 Facebook fans who even advertised T-shirts and tote bags with the words ”Free Colton!” and ”Let Colton Fly!”

New York Times

Comics legend Harvey Pekar dies

By macleans.ca - Monday, July 12, 2010 at 2:58 PM - 0 Comments

Harvey Pekar, the comic book writer who created the celebrated autobiographical series American Splendor, has been found dead at the age of 70. The Cleveland native Pekar, a friend of underground comics pioneer R. Crumb, launched American Splendor: From Off the Streets of Cleveland to examine his own life and thoughts in comic book form. The series, which won the American Book Award, became a key influence on many artists and writers in expanding the scope of comics to include everyday life and the creator as a character. When he was diagnosed with cancer in 1990, he and his wife turned the illness and the treatment into a comic book, “Our Cancer Year.” He was also well-known to world audiences as a regular guest on Late Night With David Letterman, and American Splendor was turned into an award-winning film in 2003.

Cleveland.com

Swiss authorities won't extradite Polanski

By macleans.ca - Monday, July 12, 2010 at 2:50 PM - 0 Comments

Switzerland will not extradite film director Roman Polanski, who was convicted in the U.S. of having sex with a 13-year-old girl in 1977. Polanski took a plea bargain in the case, but left the country before he could be sentenced and never returned. He was taken into custody last year after traveling to receive a lifetime achievement award at the Zurich Film Festival, though he has since been moved from a prison to his chalet in Gstaad. Swiss authorities rejected U.S. requests for extradition, saying American officials didn’t provide the right information. Polanski is the director of Rosemary’s Baby and The Pianist.

BBC News

ROOKIE BLUE Moves To Toronto… From Toronto

By Jaime Weinman - Monday, July 12, 2010 at 2:46 PM - 0 Comments

ABC has given a second-season renewal to Rookie Blue (further proof that changing the title from “Copper” was a good idea). Unfortunately, the Hollywood Reporter has revised its original item, depriving me of an opportunity to make mild fun of it: when the news first went up, THR said that “production will be moving to Toronto.” They revised it to indicate that the show is filmed in Toronto, and — though restrained about dropping the name of the city — takes place there too.

Someone pointed out that “Rookie Blue” may be less appropriate in a second season, but just because you’re in your second year doesn’t mean you’re no longer a rookie, I think. Cops aren’t athletes. And if it runs longer, they can always introduce new, young and pretty rookies to make the title make sense.

Khadr turned down plea bargain

By macleans.ca - Monday, July 12, 2010 at 1:32 PM - 0 Comments

Omar Khadr revealed Monday he had spurned a plea deal offered by U.S. prosecutors that would have seen him serve five years of a 30-year sentence provided he admitted to war crimes charges. “I will not take any of the offers because it’ll give the U.S. government an excuse for torturing me and abusing me when I was a child,” Khadr told a military tribunal holding pre-trial hearings at Guantanamo Bay. Khadr also told the tribunal he wouldn’t mount a defense after attempting to fire his lawyers last week. (The judge refused to allow him to fire Lt.-Col. Jon Jackson after Khadr fired his two American civilian lawyers on Friday.) “It’s going to be the same thing with lawyers or without lawyers,” Khadr said. “It’s gonna be life sentence.” Khadr’s trial is due to begin this August.

AFP

CBC News

The census coalition

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, July 12, 2010 at 1:30 PM - 0 Comments

To those who oppose the government’s changes to the census you can now add the Statistical Society of Canada, the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, the Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, the Canadian Marketing Association, the Canadian Federation of Francophone and Acadian Communities, the Executive Council of the Canadian Economics Association, the director of the Prentice Institute at the University of Lethbridge, the senior economist at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, the Canadian Institute of Planners, the Canadian Association for Business Economics, and the editorial boards of the Saskatoon Star-Phoenix, Calgary Herald, Winnipeg Free Press and Globe and Mail.

They join the co-chairman of the Canada Census Committee, Ancestry.ca, city planners in Calgary and Red Deer, the Canadian Association of University Teachers, the former head of Statistics Canada, and the editorial boards of the Toronto Star, Montreal Gazette, Edmonton Journal and Victoria Times-Colonist.

Belly buttons determine athletic prowess, says study

By macleans.ca - Monday, July 12, 2010 at 1:29 PM - 0 Comments

Black athletes perform better on the running track, and whites in the swimming pool, because of their belly buttons, according to a new study in the International Journal of Design and Nature and Ecodynamics. The shape of the belly button isn’t the issue; rather, it’s where it’s positioned relative to the rest of the body, AFP reports. As the centre of gravity for the body, its position is more important than total height, according to lead author Andre Bejan of Duke University. “It so happens that in the architecture of the human body of West African-origin runners, the center of gravity is significantly higher than in runners of European origin,” giving them an advantage in track sprints, he said, as black athletes therefor have a “hidden height” three percent greater than whites, giving them a speed advantage. Meanwhile, in the pool, those with longer torsos have an advantage.

AFP

‘Voice of Yankee Stadium’ dies at 99

By macleans.ca - Monday, July 12, 2010 at 12:34 PM - 0 Comments

Public address announcer Bob Sheppard, known as the “Voice of Yankee Stadium,” died Sunday at his home in Baldwin, New York at age 99. Sheppard announced his first game at the Yankee’s home opened on April 17, 1951, and worked until his retirement in 2007, according to a statement released by the Yankees. His career spanned 4,500 baseball games, including 121 playoff contests and 52 World Series games. During his 56 years at the microphone, Sheppard witnessed a number of career highlights, like Roger Maris’ 61st home run in 1961 and Reggie Jackson’s three-homer game at the World Series in 1977. In addition to the Yankees, Sheppard was the announcer for the NFL’s Giants for 50 seasons, as well as for other sports teams in New York at all levels.

CNN

Psychic octopus to retire after perfect World Cup record

By macleans.ca - Monday, July 12, 2010 at 12:31 PM - 0 Comments

With the World Cup over, Paul the psychic octopus will return to his day job—entertaining children at the aquarium. The German eight-legged oracle became a pop culture sensation when he correctly predicted all seven of Germany’s games plus the Spain-Netherlands final. Tanja Munzig, a spokeswoman for the Sea Life aquarium in Oberhausen, said Paul won’t be giving any more predictions, “either in football, nor in politics, lifestyle or economy.” Paul made one last appearance on Monday, when aquarium officials presented him with a golden cup similar to the official World Cup trophy. Although he initially ignored the cup, which was garnished with three mussels, as it was lowered into his tank, he finally picked off one mussel and devoured it in front of television cameras.

Toronto Star