Gov't response to H1N1 was a communications failure: study

By macleans.ca - Monday, October 18, 2010 at 1:33 PM - 0 Comments

The latest issue of the Canadian Medical Association Journal contains two papers on H1N1, which tell of the mistakes and problems with Canada’s response to the flu pandemic. Among other conclusions, the reports conclude that our health-care system did not fully recognize the risks posed by the H1N1 pandemic on vulnerable populations such as pregnant women and aboriginal people. “However reasonable the initial precautionary decision to order 60 million doses of adjuvant vaccine was, subsequent decisions and problems resulted in the wheels falling off the immunization cart,” wrote Dr. Don Low of the microbiology department at Toronto’s Mount Sinai Hospital and Dr. Allison McGeer, also of Mount Sinai and the University of Toronto. “The vaccine could not be made quickly enough to protect Canadians from the second wave, the complexity of delivering vaccine was badly underestimated and attempts to deliver rapid public education about vaccination with an adjuvant vaccine failed.” While the death rate was lower than initially projected, the years of life lost and hospitalizations were notable because the 2009 pandemic skewed toward younger populations compared to the deaths from the seasonal flu. Certain groups, such as indigenous populations of North America, had rates of severe infection with swine flu increased by a factor of five to seven. A second paper in the CMAJ concludes that a third wave of H1N1 probably won’t occur in 2010.

CBC News

Canadian Medical Association Journal

'I am not a pirate'

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, October 18, 2010 at 12:07 PM - 0 Comments

Here is the prepared text of Liberal deputy leader Ralph Goodale’s speech to the Economic Club in Ottawa this afternoon, a direct response to Finance Minister Jim Flaherty’s speech four weeks ago.

This was the centrepiece of a three-speech campaign—including Scott Brison in Toronto and Marc Garneau in Montreal—apparently intended to confront directly Mr. Flaherty’s economic stewardship and metaphor.

Good afternoon everyone. Thank you for coming. May I specifically express my appreciation to Fraser-Milner-Casgrain for their sponsorship of this luncheon, and to the Economic Club of Canada for hosting.

I’m grateful for this chance to talk with you today – in a serious, measured way – about how the Liberal Party sees the economic prospects facing Canada … About the growing burden on this country’s middle-class families … And about the appropriate role for government in responding to a situation that’s becoming more, not less, concerning.

I want to offer a sober, unfiltered perspective on the international economic outlook. And what that means, from a Liberal point of view, for the priorities we need to pursue here at home … To protect ourselves from international risk … To position ourselves to succeed in an economy that has grown more perilous … And to prosper in the years ahead notwithstanding trying times right now.

This examination will contrast sharply with that offered by the Harper Conservatives. Our approach is far more responsive to the real hardships taking hold of Canadian families as they struggle with this challenging time.

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'Officer Bubbles' files $1.2 million lawsuit against YouTube

By macleans.ca - Monday, October 18, 2010 at 11:53 AM - 0 Comments

Known as “Officer Bubbles,” Toronto Police Constable Adam Josephs—who earned the nickname after a video was posted on YouTube that showed him threateing a G20 protester blowing bubbles at him—has filed a $1.2-million lawsuit against video sharing site. Josephs is seeking $1.2 million in damages, and the identity of the user who posted cartoons in reaction to the original viral video, as well as those of 24 other commentators who he says defamed him. The cartoon versions of the original footage depicts a policeman wearing a name badge reading “A. Josephs” going on an arresting spree, targeting Santa Claus and U.S. President Barack Obama, among others. If the cartoon was intended to criticize overzealous police force during the G20 this summer, this lawsuit may illuminate what some see as abuse of anonymity granted to online commentators.

National Post

YouTube

Scientists baffled by the "Hispanic paradox"

By macleans.ca - Monday, October 18, 2010 at 11:42 AM - 0 Comments

Hispanics in the U.S. generally outlive African-Americans and non-Hispanic whites despite their high rates of poverty and comparatively low rates of health insurance, a phenomenon scientists call the “Hispanic paradox.” According to a government report released last week, as of 2006, life expectancy for Hispanics at birth was 80.6 years, 2.5 years more than for non-Hispanic whites, and almost 8 years longer than life expectancy for blacks. Longer life expectancy might have to do with cultural factors like close social networks and low rates of smoking, researchers said.

New York Times

The Taser debate, Down Under

By Patricia Treble - Monday, October 18, 2010 at 11:40 AM - 0 Comments

After the images of Spratt were released, the premier called the incident ‘excessive’; Corruption and Crime Commission/ Richard Hatherly/Newspix

The video is chilling. Police in Western Australia surround a man writhing and screaming on the floor of a police station after being repeatedly tasered for refusing to comply with a strip search. “Do you want to go again?” one asks. Moments later the Aboriginal man, Kevin Spratt, is tasered again. And again. In total, two officers tasered him 13 times, while nine cops watched. The 2008 incident is only coming to attention after video of it was released last week by the state’s Corruption and Crime Commission (CCC) as part of a report into the use of Tasers by police. The reaction was horror. “That particular incident was wrong,” said Western Australia’s acting police commissioner, Chris Dawson. “Clearly, in my view, the officers overreacted.” Premier Colin Barnett echoed the sentiment: “It was excessive use of a Taser that could not be justified.”

Continue…

Skip the mouth-to-mouth

By macleans.ca - Monday, October 18, 2010 at 11:38 AM - 0 Comments

New CPR guidelines released Monday urge potential rescuers to give compression-only CPR and forget about mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. The guidelines emphasize to “push hard and fast” on the chest between the nipples at a rate of 100 compressions per minute. The compressions need to be forceful and deep. For an adult, compressions should go at least five cm into the chest, and for children, at least 4. The new guidelines come after a body of research concluded that critical seconds are lost when people attempt mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and that doing compression right away increases the likelihood of a person surviving cardiac arrest.

Vancouver Sun

U.S. bloggers call for boycott of Campbell's halal soups

By macleans.ca - Monday, October 18, 2010 at 11:32 AM - 0 Comments

Some American bloggers are calling for a boycott of Cambell Co. of Canada’s line of halal soup. Pamela Geller, the woman behind the Atlas Shrugs blog and a vocal critic of the “9/11 Mosque,” says she opposed the soup not because of the certification, but because it was endorsed by the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), which she says is close to the terrorist group Hamas. “No one is suggesting they not have halal food. I’m not against halal food any more than I’m against kosher food. My issue is who’s doing the certifying,” says Geller. Campbell representatives say they don’t plan on extending the line to the United States, and that the boycott hasn’t had any effect on sales.

Washington Post

Barbara Billingsley: TV Mom, Jive Talker, Fashion Expert

By Jaime Weinman - Monday, October 18, 2010 at 11:30 AM - 0 Comments

Because “Leave It To Beaver” isn’t as ubiquitous in syndication as it used to be, reactions to the death of Barbara Billingsley at age 94 revealed that at this point she may be better known as the jive-talking old lady in Airplane! But of course June Cleaver is her definitive role; she got the part in Airplane! because all three directors were huge Leave It To Beaver fans. (One of them says on the commentary that the high point of doing the Kentucky Fried Theatre in L.A. was “the night ‘Lumpy’ showed up.”) It was a great show, well worth the cost of Shout! Factory’s complete set, and she was one of the best TV moms ever, despite the pearls and high heels — she became understandably irritated about having to explain them in every interview. (The pearls were to cover up a hollow in her neck; the heels were to make it less clear that the boys were getting taller.) Ward and June Cleaver are difficult characters to pull off because the show is not about them — it was the first TV family comedy that was about the kids — and yet the scripts require them to be more than just the generic parents who lecture the kids when they get in trouble. The idea that comes through in many of the scripts is that June and Ward aren’t completely sure how to be parents, or what it means to be a parent in a changing world. Many of their conversations have to do with the way things have changed since they were kids, and whether the things they remember are applicable to their own children. So they have to be simultaneously old-fashioned and modern: old-fashioned, because their instincts are old-fashioned; modern, because they’re the hippest parents on the block. Billingsley brought her natural sense of humour and intelligence to June, and made her the ideal TV mom: with-it in her own way — particularly when it came to seeing through Eddie Haskell — and a perfect mix of old-fashioned values and modern assertiveness.

Like many TV stars of the ’50s, she’s also an advertisement for the power of television to give an actor a break that he or she could never quite get on movies or on stage. I think it was Mad magazine that made jokes about how TV put Broadway and film stars on parity with moderately successful B-movie actors, and Billingsley and Hugh Beaumont are both examples of people who hit it big on television after years of not quite hitting it big in movies.

Here is one of Billingsley’s small movie roles from the pre-Beaver days, her appearance as a costume designer in my favourite Hollywood movie about Hollywood, Vincente Minnelli’s The Bad and the Beautiful. All the characters in the movie are amalgams of various real people from Hollywood (Kirk Douglas’s character is mostly David O. Selznick with a bit of Val Lewton thrown in; Leo G. Carroll’s British director is a thinner Alfred Hitchcock, and Kathleen Freeman is Hitchcock’s wife Alma Revile), and the likeliest model for Billingsley’s character is Helen Rose, the movie’s actual costume designer. Note that she’s wearing pearls here, too.

Also: did June ever say “Ward, you were a little hard on the Beaver last night?” Because that seems to be the line that people who have never seen the show quote most often in reference to it, and it has an urban legend feel to me.

Federal scientists launch website as government tightens its media controls

By macleans.ca - Monday, October 18, 2010 at 11:05 AM - 0 Comments

Federal government scientists have launched a website to show their work. The launch comes just weeks new restrictive rules affecting those at the National Resources department were revealed, the Globe and Mail reports. The new rules require approval from a minister’s director of communications before they can speak to reporters about their work. Reporters and scientists from all sorts of departments know the government has discouraged open communication between employees and the media unless prior approval has given. The union representing federal government scientists launched its website, PublicScience.ca, which features interviews with scientists, experts and Canadians. It called the government’s decision to end the mandatory long-form census the latest step in a trend away from policy making based on evidence.

The Globe and Mail

PublicScience.ca

Valedictorian slams Vic Toews as he sits by

By macleans.ca - Monday, October 18, 2010 at 11:01 AM - 0 Comments

The valedictorian at the University of Winnipeg’s fall convocation criticized Vic Toews as a “vocal opponent of the expansion of human rights”—with the federal Public Safety minister sitting nearby, eyeing the program for a ceremony that included his acceptance of an honorary degree. Toews is arguably Manitoba’s most powerful federal politician, but his staunch opposition to gay marriage and hardline advocacy of locking up more convicted criminals for longer prison sentences have made him a divisive figure in his home province. The valedictorian, Erin Larson, 22, call the decision to honor him “questionable at best.” Her university’s president, Lloyd Axworthy, the former federal Liberal cabinet minister, was mildly critical of her decision to politicize the moment. As for her fellow graduates, some cheered, others sat on their hands after Larson’s address. Toews slipped up quietly by a side door afterwards, avoiding some quiet and orderly picketers who backed Larson’s stand.

Winnipeg Free Press

Canadian flag tattoos popular among Afghan insurgents

By macleans.ca - Monday, October 18, 2010 at 11:01 AM - 0 Comments

Even as Afghan insurgents do their best to kill Canadian soldiers with roadside bombs, they are increasingly choosing Canadian flags for their new tattoos, reports Newsweek. Counterinsurgency expert David Kilcullen says he began to notice the maple leaf tattooed on Afghan insurgents and set to find out why. Kilcullen learned that the flag has become linked to the Toyata Hilux pick-up truck, which is the vehicle of choice for those fighting the coalition. It turns out that a flood of counterfeit pick-ups had disappointed insurgents, until they learned to distinguish genuine Hiluxes by the Canadian flag on the back. (Those with the Canadian flag had been sent by the Canadian government.) As a result, the flag now symbolizes “high quality” to Afghan insurgents, says Kilcullen.

Newsweek

Kids these days

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, October 18, 2010 at 10:56 AM - 0 Comments

The Class of 2010 valedictorian isn’t sure the Public Safety Minister deserves his honourary degree.

“The decision to give an honorary doctorate to someone who is best known among my generation of students as a vocal opponent of the expansion to human rights is questionable at best,” said Larson, who earned an honours degree in psychology.

Nobody Likes P.I.s No More?

By Jaime Weinman - Monday, October 18, 2010 at 10:07 AM - 0 Comments

I still hope Terriers finds its way to Canada at some point (or to a DVD) because I now think it’s the best new show of the current season. This is not saying very much, but it would even be one of the best shows in a good season. The new broadcast shows are “yes, but” shows at best — shows that have potential but haven’t fulfilled it. And on cable, the same mostly applies: Boardwalk Empire is a more exciting show in theory than it is to watch (so far), and while I know most critics I respect have come around to Rubicon, I still don’t like it. (These last two shows may benefit from the “halo” that surrounds both HBO and AMC; I know that if Rubicon weren’t an AMC show I’d feel less guilty about not liking it, but from pilot to finale it has struck me as a very by-the-numbers show, especially the dialogue, which has the same kind of functional, personalty-free style that sinks a lot of procedurals. However, I hasten to add that many people I know seem to like it, and the showrunner has some interesting things to say about it. It’s just not for me.) But Terriers is the real thing, a show that started good, got better, and knows exactly what it’s trying to be. Is it a great show? I don’t know and at this point I don’t care; it’s just about the only new show I can watch without wondering whether it will ever be able to live up to its potential. It already has, and it’s a smart, dark, modernized take on film noir the Stephen J. Cannell style of private-eye show about loser heroes. It has the serialized storytelling that FX viewers expect, yet it handles the necessary weekly cases more confidently than, say, Veronica Mars. The performances are good, funny and moving by turns; the characters are individualized — including the guest characters — and the whole thing just feels like it was made by pros. (Update: In response to a discussion in comments, I should clarify that the weekly cases don’t dominate or overpower the show they way they did on the first season of Angel. The show is already using the cases as a vehicle for revealing character, not for their own sake.)

And yet the show is unwatched. Not even unwatched by the standards of something like Rubicon, which has few viewers but is doing just enough that AMC might consider bringing it back for another 13 episodes. Terriers gets less than 500,000 viewers, on a network whose biggest hit drama, Sons of Anarchy, gets over 4 million an episode. Justified, a similar — and also good — series on the same network, got 2 million viewers an episode. There are plenty of explanations as to why Terriers isn’t a success, including the title, which is widely considered terrible and un-indicative of what the show is about. But poor promotion or a bad title can explain a few ratings points; when a show does this poorly, it’s because people simply don’t want to watch it. And yet it’s hardly an inaccessible show, and many shows that might be considered darker, or more morally ambiguous or confusing have gotten better numbers.

It’s hard to know why a show is rejected — we already went through this with Lone Star, and no one really knows why it did so much worse than even unsuccessful shows — but one pattern I’m starting to see is that the P.I. genre is hard to pull off these days and especially hard to pull off in the U.S. (Outside of the U.S., shows like Republic of Doyle have managed second-season renewals, which I’m afraid will be denied Terriers unless a miracle happens.) As Flashpoint and Rookie Blue writer Adam Barken put it on Twitter, “Nobody has made the PI thing work in the US recently, except superhigh concept stuff like Burn Notice. I think it’s too downscale.”

There are three things that I think help account for this, two macro (the overall style of the show) and one micro (the Continue…

Holy war

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, October 18, 2010 at 9:21 AM - 0 Comments

Bob Rae laments for his opponents.

“It’s come to the point where you’ve got these 25-year-old jihadis in the Prime Minister’s Office. They are very, very focused on undermining, destroying. Attack, attack, attack. There’s no other way,” he complains.

So much for the market

By Chris Sorensen - Monday, October 18, 2010 at 9:20 AM - 0 Comments

Giovanni Rufino/CNBC/ Richard Drew/AP/ Aly Song/Reuters

With his pink shirt sleeves rolled up past his elbows, Jim Cramer, the hot-headed host of CNBC’s popular Mad Money program, hit the airways last summer just as the stock market rally began to sputter and offered viewers a tip on fixing a shredded portfolio. “Stocks as an asset class have become tarnished,” he said, referring to the gut-wrenching roller-coaster ride that average investors have endured over the past two years. “And I, as a noted stock evangelist, know that better than anyone. But, at the same time, I also know they are your best shot for making back all the money you lost.”

After plugging his book and punching up a few sound effects, the former hedge fund manager went on to suggest that investors “unlearn” the buy-and-hold philosophies made popular by billionaire investor Warren Buffett and start thinking like traders. That means buying on weakness and selling when things get too hot, taking advantage of short-term market fluctuations—just like the pros.

Continue…

Afghan detainees sans scandal?

By Andrew Potter - Monday, October 18, 2010 at 9:20 AM - 0 Comments

PHOTOGRAPH BY ANDREW POTTER

If there is one thing the hysteria over the “detainees” scandal that preoccupied Parliament for most of last winter points to, it is a widespread resolve amongst Canadians to distance ourselves as far as possible from the abuses of executive authority that stained the American record in Iraq and Afghanistan. The names of prisons like Guantánamo, Abu Ghraib, and Bagram will remain synonyms for the moral collapse of the leadership of the West.

We tend to forget, though, that Canadian officials are themselves just as keen to be seen upholding the Geneva Convention and the basic principles of due process. That is pretty much why I found myself in southern Afghanistan last week, part of a journalistic foursome touring the buffed-up detainee centre at Kandahar Airfield, and, a day later, the infamous Sarposa prison in Kandahar City itself.

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A nice rack of slogans

By Anne Kingston - Monday, October 18, 2010 at 9:00 AM - 0 Comments

Gary Kazanjian/Fresno Bee/Getty Images

Last week, when people logged into their Facebook feed, they found themselves confronted by titillating and occasionally creepy disclosures on female friends’ status updates: “I like it on the floor” was popular. And many children got to read mom admitting: “I like it hanging from the bedpost.” It soon emerged that the “it” in the innuendo-laden meme referred to where the women liked to put their purses, and that the whole thing was an incongruous stealth campaign to raise breast cancer awareness. Last year’s version was a “What colour is your bra?” campaign—which also made headlines, though it was nominally more connected to the cause.

Proponents of the viral crusade argue that a breast cancer awareness campaign that gets attention without mentioning the disease is ingenious. Perhaps, but it highlights the provocative sexualized pulse of the new breast cancer awareness campaigns targeted at women under 40—and more than a few men. The cheeky tone is evident in Feel Your Boobies, a U.S. foundation started by Leigh Hurst, who had a breast cancer diagnosis at age 33, and the “boob lube” soap sold on savethe­tatas.com. “I (heart) boobies” rubber bracelets sold by San Diego-based Keep a Breast are considered so risqué many U.S. school boards banned them. Michelle Murray, a member of the organization’s board who lives in Sudbury, Ont., can’t keep the five-dollar items in stock: “Even my dad wears one.”

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Liveblog: Col. Russell Williams pleads guilty

By Michael Friscolanti and Cathy Gulli - Monday, October 18, 2010 at 6:00 AM - 0 Comments

A gifted pilot and respected leader, Russell Williams was a rising star in the Canadian air force, an elite officer who ferried prime ministers and the Queen and was later awarded the top job at the country’s largest and busiest airbase. But when he took command of CFB Trenton in July 2009, the colonel was harbouring a dark secret that—even now, with confirmation of a guilty plea—is difficult to believe: he was a serial sexual predator who stalked his female victims, broke into dozens of homes, and stole hundreds of bras, panties, and other perverted “trophies.”

By the time police figured out the truth—seven months into his stint as 8 Wing commander—Williams’ twisted crime spree had escalated from fetish burglaries to sexual assault to the brutal slayings of two innocent women: Marie-France Comeau, a 38-year-old corporal stationed at his base; and Jessica Lloyd, 27, of Belleville, Ont.

On Monday morning, the 47-year-old colonel will stand inside the bulletproof prisoners’ box of a Belleville courtroom—just a short drive from the base he once commanded—and plead guilty to 88 criminal charges, including two counts of first-degree murder, two counts each of sexual assault and forcible confinement, and 82 offences linked to his bizarre lingerie burglaries. Maclean’s will be liveblogging from inside the courthouse, providing up-to-the-minute coverage as the hearing unfolds.

[4:12 PM]

On Aug. 2, 2009, Williams stripped naked, walked to the house two doors down from his cottage, and broke in. He didn’t steal anything or take any photos. Still naked, he walked back to his cottage.

[4:02 PM]

On July 10, 2009—just five days before he was sworn in as the commander of CFB Trenton—Williams spent half an hour in a backyard near his Tweed, Ont., cottage, staring through a window at a woman inside. When the woman climbed into the shower, Williams stripped naked, ran inside the house, and stole a black pair of underwear from the bedroom. He later told police that he was tempted to go in the bathroom and steal the underwear the woman just took off, but decided that was too “risky.” 

[3:25 PM]

Crown prosecutors are up to Count 59, and the details are shocking. Even before he assaulted two women and murdered two others, Williams was a serial sexual predator obsessed with stealing—and wearing—female undergarments. In one case, he stole underwear from a 12-year-old girl, and then left a one-word message on the computer in her bedroom: “Merci.” In another house—which he robbed on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day 2009—he photographed himself rubbing a girl’s make-up brush on his penis. “There is nothing in the evidence to suggest the make-up brush was stolen,” said prosecutor Robert Morrison. “It was left there to be used again.” The Crown has unveiled dozens of sample photographs, many of them showing Williams posing and masturbating in his victims’ lingerie. He has remained stone-faced and silent through it all, rarely lifting his head to look at the TV screens displaying his photo shoots. 

[2:01 PM]
The lunch break is over and Williams is being escorted—hands and legs cuffed—back to his seat in the prisoner’s box. A police officer is sitting on either side.

[11:16]
Only now, eight months after his arrest, is the full story of Russell Williams being revealed. In painstaking detail, prosecutors plan to show portions of the photographic and video evidence relating to each of his 88 crimes. So far, they have gone through only two of the counts: Williams’ first break-ins, at the house next door to his cottage in Tweed, Ont. Two large-screen TVs at the front of the courtroom are displaying some of the photographs, including Williams dressed in underwear belonging to the 12-year-old girl who lives in the house. In some of the photographs, Williams erect penis can be seen protruding from the girls’ underwear. He stole some of the items he wore, but left some behind.

[10:39 AM]
The clerk reads the two charges of sexual assault and forcible confinement in connection with the home-invasion attacks against Laurie Massicotte and another woman, whose name is protected by a publication ban.

[10:13 AM]
The court clerk is now reading each of the individual break-and-enter charges linked to Williams. There are 82 in all, and will take some time to get through. Williams is still standing, his eyes glued to the floor as the clerk continues reading.

[10:07 AM]
Williams is ordered to stand so the charges against him can be officially read into the court record. The murder of Marie-France Comeau is the first charge read. “How do you plead?” the court clerk asked. “Guilty, your honour,” Wiliams answered, in a soft voice. The murder of Jessica Lloyd is the next charge read. Again, Williams pleads guilty.

[9:59 AM]
Russell Williams is now inside the courtroom. After being escorted to the prisoners’ box, an OPP officer removed his handcuffs and walked away as his lawyer, Michael Edelson, approached for a brief chat with his client. The disgraced colonel is dressed in a grey blazer, and did not make eye contact with anyone in the gallery.

[9:51 AM]
Relatives of Russell Williams’ many victims have begun to take their seats inside the coutroom. A section of the gallery has been reserved for them, and boxes of Kleenex have been left on the benches. Laurie Massicotte, one of Williams’ two sexual assault victims, is here with two of her daughters. Friends and relatives of Williams’ two murder victims—Cpl. Marie-France Comeau and Jessica Lloyd—are also making their way inside the coutroom.

[7:57 AM)
The doors to Courtroom 303 are open, and journalists are beginning to file in. Outside, a team of tactical officers from the Ontario Provincial Police are awaiting Col. Williams’ arrival.

The Backbench Top Ten

By Aaron Wherry - Sunday, October 17, 2010 at 3:35 PM - 0 Comments

Our weekly, and wholly arbitrary, ranking of the ten most worthy, or at least entertaining, MPs, excluding the Prime Minister, cabinet members and party leaders. A celebration of all that is great and ridiculous about the House of Commons. Last week’s rankings appear in parentheses. Continue…

‘It’s another shock’

By Michael Friscolanti - Sunday, October 17, 2010 at 8:20 AM - 0 Comments

Andy Lloyd: "Not looking for apology", just truth and Col. Williams in court last week; Sean Kilpatrick/CP/ Steve Russell/Toronto Star/CP

The actual sentence is not up for debate. First-degree murder carries a mandatory punishment of life behind bars with no chance of parole for 25 years, and when Russell Williams officially pleads guilty next week, his fate will be no different. The disgraced colonel will be transferred to a federal penitentiary, locked in isolation for his own safety, and left to wonder—until his 72nd birthday—whether it’s even worth applying to the National Parole Board.

If he’s as smart as everyone says, Williams already knows the answer: he will remain in prison until the day he dies.

But not before spending a few more hours inside a Belleville, Ont., courtroom, explaining to a judge—and his many, many victims—how he managed to conceal an elaborate double life as a serial stalker while busy commanding the country’s largest air force base, CFB Trenton. As part of his historic guilty plea, Williams must submit an “agreed statement of facts” that should finally shed some light on what sparked his unthinkable crime spree of two homicides, two home-invasion sexual assaults, and dozens of bizarre break-ins that targeted women’s underwear.

RELATED: LIVE BLOG from inside Col. Russell Williams’ hearing, day 2

Continue…

In the balance

By Aaron Wherry - Saturday, October 16, 2010 at 1:04 PM - 0 Comments

While the Prime Minister’s Office continues to distance the Harper government from any decision in the case of Omar Khadr, Michelle Shephard reports that discussions are taking place between officials in Washington and Ottawa. John Ibbitson figures the final decision Mr. Khadr’s fate will rest with Stephen Harper, at least so long as Barack Obama asks Mr. Harper to make a decision. But any deal would first, of course, have to be accepted by Mr. Khadr, who is due to meet with his lawyers today.

One way or another, here perhaps is the start of an ending to what Scott Horton described last month as both a “rollercoaster ride” and a “train wreck.”

Better Than Jenna Elfman

By Jaime Weinman - Friday, October 15, 2010 at 6:17 PM - 0 Comments

In the midst of this depressing new TV season, one’s thoughts naturally turn to the development of next season’s shows. It’s mostly no less depressing (two more pilots based on Twitter accounts, plus a Modern Family clone based on the “Awkward Family Photos” site). One piece of news that’s at least not totally horrific, just sort of so-so, is the news that HBO is looking to do a Sex and the City-type show and that they hope to get Téa Leoni to star. What intrigued me was the statement that Leoni, who hasn’t done a TV series in a while, is “probably the most consistently pursued comedic actress for pilots on broadcast and cable.” I guess that could be true — she does seem to have a very high reputation in Hollywood as a comedic actress — but I always found her to be a bit oversold by the shows she was in, as well as the publicity machine, which constantly told us she was the “next Lucille Ball.” Her willingness to do strange line readings and other experimental things certainly made her unusual, as did her not-quite-conventional looks (as Roz said about her on Frasier, “she’s attractive, but not an ‘Oh, My, God!’”). But the shows she was on, Flying Blind and The Naked Truth, did seem to be trying too hard to make her a star when the public hadn’t really accepted her as one. In that respect she’s a bit like Jenna Elfman, who was also beloved by the people she worked with whose shows were constantly ordering us to love her. The difference being that Leoni has actually done good work in films like Flirting With Disaster, while Elfman’s movie career just gave us even more reasons not to like her.

Anyway, this is an excuse to haul out the pilot of Leoni’s vehicle The Naked Truth, also a vehicle for the distinctively bitter humour of Chris Thompson, creator of Bosom Buddies and Action. (Also, even a so-so ’90s comedy reminds us of one of many reasons why network sitcoms were generally better in the ’90s: more female stars. Julia Louis-Dreyfus’s brilliant appearance on 30 Rock reminded us how depressing it was that the guy-obsessed CBS dumped her show in favour of William Shatner and Bland Son. Today ABC is the only network that does sitcoms about women, and even their biggest hit has only two adult female characters.) The show, and Leoni, tried too hard, but I recall it being fairly enjoyable when it was on ABC. Then it moved to NBC and was retooled into a bland, boring NBC yuppie comedy, Suddenly Susan style.

Pilot, part 1

Part 2

Continue…

'A Canadian dream that no longer exists in reality'

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, October 15, 2010 at 5:09 PM - 0 Comments

Gilles Duceppe charms an American audience.

“One thing is certain: Our relationship with the U.S. would be the focal point of a sovereign Quebec’s foreign policy,” Duceppe said at the event co-hosted by the Canadian Institute of the U.S.-government-funded Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and the Hudson Institute. ”The United States already has a very solid ally in Canada. Should Quebec become a sovereign state, the U.S. would have two very solid allies for the price of one.”

… Duceppe said the low approval ratings of Charest, now in his third mandate, indicate the premier’s departure is imminent leading up to the next election, which must be called before 2013. ”There are many reasons to think that events may begin moving quite quickly and that Quebecers will be making a decision on their political status for the third time,” Duceppe said.

Idea alert

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, October 15, 2010 at 4:05 PM - 0 Comments

Paul Mitchell, a defence studies professor at Canadian Forces College, says now might be the time for turboprops.

Still, there are real concerns about the F-35 program, despite the benefits outlined above. Just 65 airframes will be purchased: we are not getting a lot of capability for the money we will spend and that will be all the offensive air capability we will get for the next 30 to 40 years. Our 79 CF-18s already have difficulty meeting our Norad commitments as well as having sufficient numbers for international operations. Further, there will be no room for losses — a sobering thought considering we have lost 17 CF-18s since 1982 in just peacetime operations…

The most likely avenue of attack from the air on Canada today is not from a lumbering Bear bomber, but rather a small privately owned commercial aircraft. The American Norad commander, Admiral James Winnefeld, recently called for aircraft that can fly “low and slow” in order to counter this threat; “F-16s don’t fly slow very well,” he said. The same could be said of the F-35. A turboprop aircraft like Embraer’s “Super Tucano” or Beechcraft’s AT-6B (whose engines are manufactured by Pratt & Whitney Canada in Nova Scotia) would easily fit this bill. At roughly $6-million per copy, we could outfit the air force with 10 times the number of airframes.