Obama's lessons in tax cuts

By Luiza Ch. Savage - Tuesday, October 19, 2010 at 2:08 PM - 0 Comments

What if you cut taxes and no one noticed? And then they blamed you for actually raising their taxes…

There has long been a policy debate about how best to do tax cuts to “stimulate” the economy. Bush did it with one-time lump sum rebate checks in 2008. Whereas in his stimulus, Obama did what economists say is the more stimulative approach — stretch the cuts over time so people have bigger paychecks week after week. The theory is that people are more likely to save a one-time lump sum, while they are more likely to spend the incremental weekly increase, thereby injecting more money into the economy. Turns out the problem with the latter approach is that they hardly notice:

From Obama, the Tax Cut Nobody Heard Of (NYT)

In the Peter Baker interview with Obama published over the weekend, which is worth a read if you haven’t read it already along with the lengthy transcript excerpts, Obama addresses this problem as well as acknowledges another tax-cut mis-step:

“Now in retrospect, I could have told Barack Obama in December of 2009 that if you already have a third of the package as tax cuts, then the Republicans, who traditionally are more comfortable with tax cuts, may just pocket that and attack the other components of the program. And it might have been better for us not to include tax cuts in the original package, let the Republicans insist on the tax cuts, and then say, O.K., you know, we’ll compromise and give you your tax cuts, even though we had already proposed them. “

We're all that an alien species would want

By Scott Feschuk - Tuesday, October 19, 2010 at 2:00 PM - 0 Comments

Photo Illustration by Taylor Shute

The Security Council defeat was tough for Canada, but it overshadowed a more shocking international snub. Earlier this month, it was reported that the United Nations had appointed a diplomat from Malaysia—and not a Canadian—to serve as global ambassador to space aliens.

The news, reported in Britain by the Sunday Times, came as a real blow to Stephen Harper. Our Prime Minister had gone so far as to appoint John Baird to his cabinet—what more could he possibly have done to showcase his willingness to work with unusual life forms?

As it turns out, the Times made a mistake: the Malaysian official has in fact been put in charge of protecting us from incoming asteroids. Naturally, the UN hasn’t actually named anyone to serve in so silly a role as global liaison to E.T.

Which means the job is still up for grabs! I shall depart immediately to make Canada’s case to the General Assembly . . .

Continue…

More Than Mr. C

By Jaime Weinman - Tuesday, October 19, 2010 at 1:40 PM - 0 Comments

First June Cleaver dies, then Howard Cunningham, Tom Bosley. Not a good time for TV parents.

I first knew Bosley not from TV but from the cast album of Fiorello!, a Pulitzer Prize-winning musical where he didn’t have that much to sing (not that he was really a singer) despite playing the lead role. The songs don’t always do Fiorello! justice — good though they are — because it’s a musical where the book scenes are often more important than the musical scenes, and the title role is more of an acting than singing challenge (many of the songs are sung about him by other characters). But though its very New York-centric subject makes it hard to revive out of that city, it is in my opinion one of the ten greatest musicals ever written, the perfect “serious musical comedy” that uses the tools of the Broadway musical to deal with an ambitious and seemingly dry subject matter, municipal politics, and make it gripping.

Here’s Bosley in 1971, before he achieved TV stardom, re-creating a scene from Fiorello! on the Tony Awards. It’s the scene where Fiorello LaGuardia launches his underdog campaign for Congress, taking on the Tammany Hall machine that dominates New York, and we see how how he manages to win: by delivering the same messages in different languages to different ethnic audiences (playing on his mix of Italian and Jewish ancestry). Obviously it works better in the actual stage production, with the full sets and a full chorus, but this at least gives an idea of it.

Also, he nailed the final speech from the surprisingly strong Happy Days finale, even selling the brief fourth-wall break. Though I wish I could find the legendary (apocryphal?) outtake from the scene where he supposedly mentions “raising two kids,” does a double-take, and adds: “Hey, what happened to Chuck?!”

'A serious, adult discussion is called for'

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, October 19, 2010 at 12:34 PM - 0 Comments

Brian Mulroney considers the future of health care (among other matters).

On health care, for instance, we need to strike a better balance between the intrinsic value of universal coverage for basic medical service and the capacity of Canadians to pay the necessary taxes to support the system. The OECD, not exactly known for radical analyses, recently concluded that, because our health-care system is not sustainable in its current form, some form of user fees and greater scope for competition within the system will be necessary.

The current federal-provincial funding formula ends in 2014. A serious, adult discussion is called for and I believe a blue ribbon panel of medical and financial experts could provide a sensible framework for the debate and for the decisions needed. Not surprisingly, the fundamental assumptions on which Justice Emmet Hall based his recommendations for medicare almost 50 years ago have changed and we need to adapt accordingly.

Google violated Canadian privacy laws

By macleans.ca - Tuesday, October 19, 2010 at 12:25 PM - 0 Comments

An investigation by the federal privacy commissioner has concluded tech giant Google violated Canada’s privacy laws when its cars surreptitiously captured private information. “Our investigation shows that Google did capture personal information—and, in some cases, highly sensitive personal information such as complete e-mails,” said Jennifer Stoddart. “This incident was a serious violation of Canadians’ privacy rights.” The company has been given until February 1 to delete the information it gathered when its cars were outfitted to scan and capture data from unencrypted wireless networks. Google Canada has apologized for the incident, calling it a mistake. “As soon as we realized what had happened, we stopped collecting all Wi-Fi data from our Street View cars and immediately informed the authorities,” a company spokesperson said.

CBC News

Did Canadian troops bulldoze an Afghan village?

By Andrew Potter - Tuesday, October 19, 2010 at 12:22 PM - 0 Comments

Soldiers of Alpha Company(A Coy) watch as an engineer bulldozer clears away rubble in the Panjwaii District of Kandahar Province as part of Operation MEDUSA.

Given how keen the press gallery and the loyal opposition were, last year, to establish that Canada had committed war crimes in Afghanistan, I’m surprised that Carlotta Gall’s piece from the NYTimes this weekend has been ignored up here. The article is about how much suspicion American troops are encountering as they move to secure the Panjwaii district in Kandahar. The locals are pissed because they’ve been trapped for five years between insurgents and “coalition” forces, namely, Canadians:

Three years ago, Canadian troops built a temporary post near Lora. When they immediately came under fire from insurgents, they bulldozed much of the hamlet, flattening houses, water pumps and surrounding orchards, the villagers and local elders say.

“There were 10 families who had houses there that were totally destroyed, and mulberry trees were taken out by their roots,” Mr. Hamid said in a recent interview in Kandahar city. “They destroyed all these things, and we are unable to replace them.”

Is it true? Canadian officials won’t say:

Press officers for Canadian forces, who have led operations in Kandahar Province for the past four years, and the Afghan district administration said they could not confirm the destruction. But a provincial councilor, landowners and farmers from the area said at least half the hamlet was demolished. A year later the Canadians dismantled the post and left, but the village remains deserted, the villagers said.

And of course, both Afghans fighting for compensation, and NYT reporters looking for information, have to parkour their way through the now-customary Canadian government communications obstacle course:

Yet fighting through the bureaucracy seems just as hard for the Afghans. Lt. Kelly Rozenberg-Payne, a public affairs officer with the Canadian Expeditionary Force Command in Ottawa, wrote by e-mail that she had no information to support the allegations that Lora was bulldozed.

But she acknowledged the existence of an “austere platoon house” in the area, which Canadian forces upgraded to a substation for the Afghan police in the spring of 2008. It was dismantled in the fall of 2008 “because of changing operational priorities,” she wrote.

If only we had a period during which the opposition could question the government about such things.

The man in charge at the worst of times

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, October 19, 2010 at 12:07 PM - 0 Comments

John Boyko talks to Steve Paikin about RB Bennett.

Research group urges Ottawa to scrap telecom restrictions

By macleans.ca - Tuesday, October 19, 2010 at 11:58 AM - 0 Comments

Canada should scrap all restrictions on foreign companies entering the telecom market to encourage competition and maximize gain for consumers, an influential research group said on Monday. In a new report, the SeaBoard Group called for the federal government to lift limitations on foreign investment in the sector, a move which, it said, would inject fresh capital and know-how into the industry. The report comes as Industry Canada is considering possible amendments to current telecom laws dating back to 1993.

The Globe and Mail

Islamists storm Chechen parliament

By macleans.ca - Tuesday, October 19, 2010 at 11:56 AM - 0 Comments

Armed Islamist militants stormed the Chechen parliament on Tuesday morning, leaving at least three dead and half a dozen injured.  At least three gunmen went on a rampage after breaking into the parliament building. According to several witness accounts one might have blown himself up in a suicide attack. The Russian government said all members of parliament had been safely evacuated as special units moved in to neutralize the militants. The attack runs in the face of Russia’s claim to have stabilized the region after battling a separatist insurgency there in two wars in the 1990s.

New York Times

Calgary elects first Muslim mayor, Naheed Nenshi

By macleans.ca - Tuesday, October 19, 2010 at 11:54 AM - 0 Comments

One of Alberta’s two biggest cities has a new mayor, while the other has re-elected the incumbent. Naheed Nenshi, a 38-year-old Harvard-educated business professor from Mount Royal University is Calgary’s new mayor. Nenshi will be the first Muslim-Canadian to ever run a major city. He earned 40 per cent of the votes, defeating Councilor Ric McIver and former news anchor Barb Higgins in a three-way race. His platform based was based on limiting urban sprawl and protecting the environment. Voter turnout in Calgary was 53 per cent. In Edmonton, Mayor Stephen Mandel was easily re-elected with 55 per cent of the vote. David Dorward came second with 30 per cent of the vote.

CBC News

Taking stock of the future

By macleans.ca - Tuesday, October 19, 2010 at 11:05 AM - 0 Comments

It’s been 40 years since Alvin Toffler published Future Shock, the book that predicted technological advancement so rapid some people would feel cut off from life, and also foreshadowed gay couples raising kids and environmental disasters. To mark the anniversary, the firm Toffler Associates has offered sweeping predictions for the next four decades. The good news includes more women in positions of power, and fewer of both sexes working in cubicles. As for technology, the firm heralds the dawning “Petabyte Age”—named for the 10-to-the-15th-power bytes, or measures of computer files, currently used today only to measure the storage on multiple hard drives or huge collections of data, but which will become the norm before 2050, signaling even faster information gathering and transmission than now.

AFP

Idea alert

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, October 19, 2010 at 11:05 AM - 0 Comments

Deborah Coyne looks abroad.

We need to rethink how government should work with the social sector to overcome the inertia of a bureaucratic, rule-bound public sector. We should open up public services to new providers like charities, social enterprises, and private companies with the goal of increased social innovation, diversity, and responsiveness to public need.

One model of this kind of forward thinking is Barack Obama’s Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation. Through the Social Innovation Fund, this department is creating new partnerships among government, private capital, social entrepreneurs, and the public.

Another model, the British “Social Impact Bond,” facilitates considerable up-front funding to non-profit organizations to create successful models for helping the young or the elderly. This Dragon’s Den approach secures long-term funds for promising ideas, with public investment tied to positive social, environmental, or economic benefits.

The Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation is online here. Last month, the British government launched a pilot project aimed at prisoner reform.

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, October 19, 2010 at 10:03 AM - 0 Comments

As someone who is employed for the expressed purposes of describing—”sketching,” as they say— the words, actions, behaviours and appearances of public figures, I am a keen student of community standards as they relate to physical description. And so, of course, I have been watching with great interest the discussion that has resulted from the printing and retracting of Stephen Marche’s description of Toronto mayoral candidate Rob Ford as “fat.”

This description—”great deflated tires of defeat,” Mr. Marche wrote quite illustratively—has provoked a great deal of consternation and, indeed, condemnation. To the greater community, the use of the term “fat” is apparently offensive. And on those grounds, Mr. Marche has been soundly and publicly rebuked. We have, as a society, identified a line over which it is unacceptable to tread.

So be it. But we should not let this pass with that as the only result. Here, indeed, is a teachable moment—a chance to ask ourselves pseudo-intellectually serious questions about how we describe the shapes, sizes and features that constitute the human mosaic. If, indeed, we are to describe them at all. Continue…

Liveblog: Col. Russell Williams hearing, day 2

By Cathy Gulli - Tuesday, October 19, 2010 at 9:41 AM - 0 Comments

WARNING: The following contains graphic testimony that readers may find disturbing.

For more on the first day of Russell Williams’s hearing go to: The dark, depraved side of Russell Williams revealed in court

Continue…

Ignatieff gets personal

By John Geddes - Tuesday, October 19, 2010 at 9:00 AM - 0 Comments

Darryl Dyck/CP/ Sean Kilpatrick/CP

It was at once Michael Ignatieff’s most nakedly personal moment as Liberal leader, and his most carefully constructed policy pledge. In announcing a $1-billion-a-year plan to help those who need to stay home to take care of a sick or aging family member, Ignatieff invoked the memory of his mother’s struggle with Alzheimer’s disease—a family ordeal he fictionalized in his 1993 novel Scar Tissue. He conveyed the toll that caring for her exacted on his elderly father in raw terms. “In my view,” he said, “it pretty much killed him.”

Critics cringed at what sounded to them like too intimate a reference point for framing a partisan policy commitment. But sympathetic Liberals approved of Ignatieff’s heartfelt tone. Either way, he seemed to have, at least for the instant, shucked off the aura of the aloof intellectual that his Tory tormentors have tried to make him wear since he took over the Liberal party in late 2008. That glimpse of tragic family lore, combined with the policy heft of the family care plan, added up to the clearest sign of how Ignatieff is repositioning himself and his party for the next election.

Continue…

Special Olympics Canada on the Hill

By Mitchel Raphael - Tuesday, October 19, 2010 at 8:00 AM - 0 Comments

Special Olympics Canada held a reception on the Hill. (Left to right) Olympian Mark Tewksbury, Government House Leader John Baird and Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff.

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Steven Fletcher, Minister of State for Democratic Reform.

Continue…

The dark, depraved side of Russell Williams revealed in court

By Michael Friscolanti and Cathy Gulli - Monday, October 18, 2010 at 9:13 PM - 0 Comments

Four days before Russell Williams took command of CFB Trenton, he stood in a neighbour’s backyard for at least half an hour, staring through an open window. It was dark, after midnight, and when the woman inside climbed into a shower, Williams pounced. He stripped naked, headed for the bedroom, and fled the scene with a single pair of black underwear. “Very tempting to take her panties/bra from bathroom,” Williams later wrote on his computer. “Decided it would be entirely obvious that someone was in the house while she was in the shower—took panties from panty drawer instead…”

Later that week, Williams was handed control of the country’s largest and most important airbase. At the time, nobody—not his wife of 18 years, not his close friends, and certainly not the military brass—had any idea that the colonel was harbouring a dark, depraved secret: he was a compulsive sexual predator who stalked his female victims, stole their lingerie, and spent countless hours photographing himself while wearing their bras, dresses and underwear. Some of the bedrooms he targeted belonged to girls as young as 11 years old.

Tragically, Williams’ promotion to the top job at Trenton also marked a turning point in his criminal life. As the disgraced officer later confessed to detectives, when he stood in that backyard on July 11, 2009 (his clothes lying on the ground beside him) his predatory behaviour was “escalating.” He wanted, as he put it, “to take more risks”—and in the weeks to come, he would do just that. By the time police figured out the truth in February 2010, Williams had sexually assaulted two women as they slept in their homes, and raped and murdered two others: Marie-France Comeau, a 38-year-old corporal stationed at his base, and Jessica Lloyd, 27.

RELATED: LIVE BLOG from inside Col. Russell Williams’ hearing, day 3

On Monday morning, Williams officially pleaded guilty to all 88 charges he faces, including two counts of first-degree murder that carry a mandatory sentence of life behind bars with no possibility of parole for 25 years (when he will be 72 years old). And for the first time, Crown attorneys revealed dozens of “extremely disturbing” photographs and other graphic evidence detailing Williams’ perverted double life—and how it quickly evolved from underwear burglaries to cold-blooded murder.

“I caution the public that these facts will be extremely disturbing and will cause further emotional pain,” warned Crown Attorney Lee Burgess. Behind him, in a bulletproof prisoners’ box, Williams sat hunched over, his eyes staring at the ground.

The colonel was meticulous. He planned his targets, staked out houses “where attractive young women lived,” and took a similar pattern of pictures during each heist: first he photographed the bedroom, then the underwear drawer, and then the stolen items, placed in perfectly neat piles. He would then turn the camera on himself. In many of the shots, he can be seen lying on a victims’ bed, masturbating with her lingerie; during one robbery, Williams wiped a girl’s make-up brush on his erect penis. “There is nothing in the evidence to suggest the make-up brush was stolen,” said Robert Morrison, another Crown Attorney. “It was left in her room to use again.”

RELATED: Russell Williams’s victims hoped photo evidence would remain sealed

Williams told police that he preferred women in their late teens to early 30s. However, Morrison pointed out that “females under the age of 18 were either the sole or joint targets of Mr. Williams in 13 of the homes he broke into.” His first two burglaries, in the summer of 2007, targeted the bedroom of a 12-year-old girl who lived directly beside his Tweed cottage (Williams and his wife, Mary-Elizabeth Harriman, were close friends with the girls’ parents, and the mother, in the courtroom on Monday, wiped away tears as photos of her daughter’s room were displayed on two big-screen televisions). His third and fourth break-ins targeted 11-year-old twin girls; Williams photographed himself wearing their underwear.

Every image was more horrifying than the next. Williams lying naked on a girl’s bed, surrounded by her underwear and a large stuffed animal. Williams sniffing and licking a pair of blood-stained panties, and then wrapping them around his face like a balaclava. Williams wearing someone’s Tweetie bird underwear. Williams in an undisclosed wooded area, posing in his latest batch of stolen panties. Before leaving one crime scene, he typed a one-word message on young girl’s computer: “Merci.”

With each new crime, Williams grew more confident—and more daring. He kept a file of police press releases detailing some of his break-ins, an obvious symbol of pride. But he clearly craved more. In September 2009, just two weeks before he graduated to sexual assault, Williams almost claimed a different victim: a 14-year-old girl.

The unnamed girl lived a short walk from Williams’ cottage, and in his own words, he had wanted to raid her bedroom “for a long time.” On Sept. 1, after numerous unsuccessful attempts, he finally managed to get inside. He left the house with five pieces of lingerie—but didn’t actually leave the property. Instead, he hovered in the backyard, took off his clothes and masturbated while waiting for the girl to get home. Her dad arrived instead.

A detective later asked Williams what he planned to do if the girl’s father had not foiled his plan. “Mr. Williams refused to answer the question,” a prosecutor said.

He was a rising star in the Canadian air force, an elite officer who ferried prime ministers and the Queen and later advised DND on the acquisition of multi-million-dollar aircrafts. Williams’ work ethic was legendary, to the point where some colleagues jokingly wondered if he ever slept. “He never showed fatigue,” said one fellow air force officer. “It was a different sort of metabolism at work, and you just assumed it wasn’t nefarious in any way. You thought it was a positive thing.”

Tragically, it was not. Despite the grueling demands of his high-profile posting, Williams found ample time to feed his violent sexual obsession—and then report to work the next morning with the same smile and the same can-do attitude that motivated so many of his subordinates. In one photo disclosed by prosecutors, Williams is wearing a pair of pink panties underneath what appears to be his blue air force uniform.

Williams showed no emotion as the photos were unveiled—one by one, hour by hour. Shackled at the wrists and ankles (but still sporting a military crew cut) he rarely took his eyes off the floor. If he did look up, it was only for a brief moment.

The Crown finished the day’s proceedings with counts 73 and 74 of the charge sheet: Williams’ first sexual assault. It occurred in the early morning of Sept. 17—just hours after the colonel returned from a two-day trip to the North Pole—at the home of 21-year-old woman whose name is protected by a publication ban. Her boyfriend was working out of town that week, and she was alone with her 8-week-old daughter.

Williams briefly watched her sleep, then tied her up, blindfolded her, and took off her clothes. The woman tried to talk him out of it, saying “she was fat, having just had a baby.” Williams assured her that “she was perfect and sweet,” and then proceeded to take photos of her naked body. (After his arrest, he told police that he had initially spotted the woman while out on his boat, and “thought she was cute.”)

On Tuesday, prosecutors will continue reading the “agreed statement of facts,” including details about Williams’ second sexual assault and his progression to murder.

RELATED STORIES:

• Liveblog: Col. Russell Williams hearing, day 2—WARNING: Contains graphic testimony that readers may find disturbing (October 19, 2010)
• Liveblog: Col. Russell Williams pleads guilty—Coverage from inside the courtroom in Belleville (October 18, 2010)
• Col. Russell Williams to plead guilty—Accused killer and former base commander will plead guilty to all counts, says lawyer (October 7, 2010)
• Colonel Williams’ wife, under attack—An accused killer’s spouse struggles to rebuild her shattered life (July 27, 2010)
• Col. Russell Williams, accused sex killer, makes brief court appearance—Murder victim’s brother among those in attendance (July 22, 2010)
• Williams faces additional charges—Former CFB Trenton commander linked to 82 more crimes around Ottawa, Belleville and Tweed (April 29, 2010)
• Colonel accused of double murder tries to kill himself—Russell Williams used mustard to write his suicide note (April 5, 2010)
• I feel pity for Colonel Williams if he’s guilty—Barbara Amiel on the blessing and the curse of human sexuality (February 23, 2010)
• Col. Russell Williams, a timeline (PHOTOS)—The busy schedule of an accused killer (February 18, 2010)
• The secret life of Colonel Russell Williams—If police are correct, he was a cold-blooded planner who in hours could transform from commander to monster (February 16, 2010)
• The two faces of Col. Russell Williams (VIDEO)—Portrait of an accused predator (February 10, 2010)
• Round up: Investigating Col. Russ Williams—Tire tracks led police to Williams; investigators look into unsolved crimes (February 9, 2010)
• Col. Russell Williams’ double life?—Top officer facing murder charges commanded Canada’s largest air base, flew top diplomats (February 8, 2010)

Outsourced: Still Not Canceled

By Jaime Weinman - Monday, October 18, 2010 at 7:34 PM - 0 Comments

A while back, I was chastised in comments for predicting that Outsourced would be canceled to make room for the return of Parks & Recreation. The point, as I recall, is that despite all the complaints about its stereotyping, this is one of the few diverse shows on the U.S. networks (which extends to some of its staff writers like the Canadian co-creator of How To Be Indie, Vera Santamaria). But anyway, the prediction was wrong: Outsourced has been picked up for a full season of 22 episodes, along with two other NBC shows, “The Event” and “Law & Order L.A.”

Were any of these shows picked up because they’re hits? Of course not. Outsourced has actually performed the best of the three; LOLA looks like the franchise’s equivalent of “Joey” — beloved New York franchises just shouldn’t move to California — and “The Event” has bled viewers every week up until this point, and its ratings are becoming embarrassing despite its promising start. But this is such a bad season for new shows that Continue…

Nearly one quarter of Afghan votes may be tossed

By macleans.ca - Monday, October 18, 2010 at 6:12 PM - 0 Comments

Fraud, including ballot-box stuffing and forced-voting, could mean as many as one-quarter of the votes cast in the September 18 Afghan parliamentary election will be thrown out, reports the New York Times. The Afghan Independent Election Commission says it will nullify votes from 430 polling stations and is currently auditing the votes from 830 other locations. Observers say the Commission is under pressure to change the result before it is announced. The commission has delayed its final confirmation of results until Wednesday. What’s at stake is the lower house of Afghanistan’s parliament, the Wolesi Jirga. If President Hamid Karzai’s party gets fewer than 130 seats, he will no longer have a majority government. His main competitor, Abdullah Abdullah’s Coalition for Hope and Change, is believed to have made substantial gains.

New York Times

The Commons: A matter of principle

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, October 18, 2010 at 5:52 PM - 0 Comments

The Scene. “My question is for the government,” Bob Rae said. The Speaker having just called a start to Question Period, that seemed appropriate. And this being the Liberal foreign affairs critic’s first chance in quite awhile to publicly question the Conservative side—the Liberals lately preferring to focus on more domestic, which is to say “real,” matters—he seemed eager to get full measure for his minute and a half.

Specifically, Mr. Rae wanted the government side to account for its failure to secure a seat on the United Nations Security Council. Notably, the government side was more than eager to accept all blame.

“Our government is very, very proud of the principled foreign policy positions that we have taken over the past five years,” government House leader John Baird enthused to applause from the Conservatives around him. “Our government makes foreign policy decisions based on what is right and not what is popular, and we have nothing to be apologetic about.” Continue…

What should play the biggest role in the federal government's efforts to eliminate the deficit?

By macleans.ca - Monday, October 18, 2010 at 4:45 PM - 0 Comments

Are we raising our boys to be underachieving men?

By John Intini - Monday, October 18, 2010 at 4:00 PM - 0 Comments

Nicole Hill/ Getty Images

The trick to having a baby girl, according to researchers in the Netherlands, is a calcium- and magnesium-rich diet, full of hard cheese, rhubarb, spinach, canned salmon and tofu. It’s also important, claim the authors of the study, for women to steer clear of salty foods, potatoes and bananas. Though the study was based on a small sample, it wouldn’t be a shock if the results prompted prospective parents to stock their fridges accordingly.

As Robert Bly and others prophesied in the 1990s, when they retreated to the woods to beat drums and exhort men to embrace their inner caveman, the modern male is in danger of losing his way. The process apparently begins early. On average, boys earn lower marks, study less, and are more likely to repeat a grade than girls. Young men are more likely to drop out of high school and less likely to graduate university than young women. And while they still dominate in engineering and computer science, men are outnumbered in most professional programs, including law and medicine.

Continue…

Where Are We Going To Find a Duck and a Hose at This Hour?

By Jaime Weinman - Monday, October 18, 2010 at 3:59 PM - 0 Comments

The interesting thing about this compilation of Pinky and the Brain “Are You Pondering What I’m Pondering?” moments, as others have pointed out, is that if you listen to Pinky long enough, he starts to sound really intelligent. Particularly since what Brain was actually pondering usually turns out to be some stupid plan that will horribly backfire in the end. As always, it’s useful to remember that when the theme song says “One is a genius, the other’s insane,” it doesn’t tell us which one is which.

Also, have you noticed that in every Pinky and the Brain cartoon, they start every sentence by mentioning each other’s name (“Pinky, are you pondering what I’m pondering?” “I think so, Brain”). It’s an old comedy-writing convention that derives from radio, where you had to mention the other person’s name so we’d know who they were speaking to. But on some shows it’s so much a part of the rhythm that I simply couldn’t imagine a Pinky and the Brain cartoon where they don’t say each other’s names all the time.

Please do not disturb the props

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, October 18, 2010 at 3:14 PM - 0 Comments

Joe Brean follows the Prime Minister around for a few hours.

Mr. Harper comes in with Mr. Fantino, meets the family of five-month-old Katelynn Neto, and rather than kiss her, boops her on the forehead with his finger. It takes a good 10 minutes to cross the dining room floor, shaking hands as everybody takes pictures on their cellphones … A PMO staffer drags a cameraman away from interviewing Katelynn’s family because the deal was photographs only.