Cookie Joke, Cookie Joke, Cookie Joke

By Jaime Weinman - Tuesday, November 23, 2010 at 4:09 PM - 10 Comments

I try not to post two Filler Clips™ in a row, but this clip was released today, and all TV-related blogs are required by law to a) post it and b) point out that it’s more entertaining — or at least more concise — than most real episodes of the real Saturday Night Live.

White Stripes rock the National Ballet

By Brian D. Johnson - Tuesday, November 23, 2010 at 2:10 PM - 2 Comments

Bridgett Zehr and Aleksandar Antonijevic in Chroma / Photo by Cylla von Tiedemann

I’ve never been adept at deciphering classical dance. When the National Ballet of Canada launched their new season last week with a glittering production of Cinderella, I tried my best. The show was universally hailed as a triumph, but from where I sat, I wouldn’t know. I was distracted by a little girl behind me in a satin polka-dot dress, who kept asking the grown-up beside her to explain exactly where we were in the fairy tale. As the grown-up obliged her with endless patience throughout the show, I kept fighting the temptation to turn around and say, “save it for the intermission,” while imagining that’s what Larry David would do in Curb Your Enthusiasm, with disastrous results.  So I spent much of Cinderella scripting Larry David dialogue in my mind, which didn’t help my ballet-challenged brain appreciate the comic ironies of James Kudelka’s choreography.

I’m always more comfortable watching contemporary dance, which requires less erudition, and is often infused with vernacular art forms such as film, animation, modern art, jazz, and pop. Contemporary dance is the most cinematic of the performing arts, and the most elastic—an open invitation to synesthesia—as Robert Lepage, the contortionist king of multimedia stagecraft, has shown with Eonnogata, which enchanted audiences last week at Toronto’s Sony Centre.

All this serves as a prelude to explain why I’m keenly looking forward to the National Ballet’s mixed program of Chroma, Serenade and Emergence at the Four Seasons Opera House (Nov. 24-28). The marquee event is the international premiere of Chroma by British choreographer Wayne McGregor, an award-winning production that that he created for the Royal Ballet in 2006. This is a piece that clearly stretches boundaries. The stark white set was designed by an architect, John Pawlson, and the score, by British composer Joby Talbot, includes avant garde orchestral versions of three songs by the White Stripes. Talbot created them as part of Aluminium, a 2006 album of reworked White Stripes numbers that he recorded with Richard Russell, founder of the band’s label, XL (which also represents MIA and Radiohead’s Thom Yorke.)

I interviewed Talbot yesterday by phone, as he was taking a break from rehearsals to stroll Toronto’s zoo. He explained that Aluminium was Russell’s brainchild. “He’d been getting into classical music and had been impressed by the incredible intensity of it.” Remembering the famous Andrew Loog Oldham Orchestra‘s version of The Last Time by the Rolling Stones, which was sampled by The Verve, Russell wondered why there wasn’t more orchestral adaptation going on—of the adventurous kind, as opposed to those bland symphonic renderings of the Beatles or Led Zeppelin.

“We didn’t want to do some kind of cheesy orchestral tribute to the White Stripes,” Talbot told me. “We wanted to make something that was every bit as cutting edge and cool as the White Stripes themselves. So we chose some of their harder repertory, like the song Aluminum, which is not something people would know unless they’re die-hard White Stripes fans. It was a good starting point because it’s really raw and pared down. There’s just this driving guitar riff and this howling, wordless, screaming vocal.” Continue…

What do you call this most beautiful fabric?

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, November 23, 2010 at 1:52 PM - 28 Comments

The primary revelation from today’s committee hearings into the rebuilding of West Block seems to be that the Natural Resources Minister prefers cashmere.

The following day, Mr. Sauvé said, he received a call from one of Mr. Paradis’s aides who asked for an identical cashmere coat to be bought for Mr. Paradis at Holt Renfrew, at a cost of more than $5,000. Mr. Paradis acknowledges that the coat was stolen but denies that he directly or indirectly asked for compensation.

After Tuesday’s testimony, Mr. Paradis’s spokesman said the minister simply asked the Conservative riding association if he could be compensated $400 for the theft. Spokesman Richard Walker said that in addition to losing his coat, Mr. Paradis lost his keys, which forced him to replace a number of locks at his house. “The coat was worth $900,” said spokesman Richard Walker, saying it was bought at a wholesaler in Mr. Paradis’s riding.

Speaking of Reality Shows…

By Jaime Weinman - Tuesday, November 23, 2010 at 1:38 PM - 1 Comment

How I Met Your Mother isn’t going to get back to the level of its second season, but the last couple of episodes have been pretty good, and Barney’s list of reality show catchphrases last week was one of the better gags the show has done: it’s the sort of joke that’s so simple and even obvious that I’m surprised a high-profile show hasn’t done it before (or if they have done it, it didn’t become a famous moment). I know some shows including Family Guy have made jokes about how over-used and stale the “weakest link” tagline is, but just going on and doing all of the shows is just a good idea. Also it’s a textbook example of the comedy principle that if a joke goes on too long, it stops being funny and then becomes funny again.

[vodpod id=Video.4974764&w=640&h=385&fv=]

The Palin Kid

By Jaime Weinman - Tuesday, November 23, 2010 at 12:40 PM - 27 Comments

(Update: The original subject heading was “And you can’t get rid of the Palin kid,” and I should just explain that it was a self-referential callback to a post I wrote in September, where that was one of the lines in a proposed Dancing With the Stars theme song. (“Get rid of” means “vote off” in that context.) Probably goes to show why I shouldn’t do self-referential callbacks.)

Here are my very brief thoughts on tonight’s Dancing With the Stars apocalypse (I think Bristol is likely to win, but if she doesn’t, it’ll certainly be a great TV moment): I’m not being coy or condescending when I say I don’t care a lot about who will win. I understand the appeal of DWtS, which has taken the place of two mostly-defunct types of television, variety shows and celebrity panel shows. But I don’t have a personal commitment to the integrity of the show or the need for the best dancers to win. Palin has gotten this far because her family has a lot of fans who are willing to vote for her, and if there’s some gaming of the voting system going on, that’s because TV shows have voting systems that are really, really easy to game. It’s like that All-Star game when Cincinnati voters stuffed the ballot box and got Reds players elected to nearly every starting position. It’s not a real election, and these things happen.

The real question is why people are getting so upset about Bristol’s success, even to the point of exercising their Second Amendment rights on the television set. And my answer is that I think people are genuinely worried that this, along with the Palin family reality show, is sort of a stalking-horse for 2012. It’s not just Palin either, since Fox News has most of the potential Republican presidential candidates under contract, and is therefore basically paying them to campaign in front of a large audience. But Palin is the potential candidate whose family, life and persona fit in perfectly with modern reality TV and gossip magazines, and she has (sensibly, I guess) embraced it, turning to reality shows and cable TV as the place where she can build her popularity. It’s too early to know if she can get nominated or win in 2012, but the reality show and the cable news contract are part of an overall strategy to use modern media to grow her fanbase and improve her image. This delights her fans and terrifies non-fans.

The terror of non-fans is based on the assumption that TV has the power to pull the wool over people’s eyes. (This is a bipartisan assumption, since a frequent conservative argument about Obama is that the media covered for him and fooled people into thinking he was not a one-world redistributionist.) The fear is that the TV versions of the Palin family will convince people to like her and vote for her. When they see Palin family fans voting for Bristol in spite of the plain fact that she’s not the best dancer, they see an early version of what they fear will play out in 2012: the Palin wins, not because her fans think she’s the best at the job, but just because they want to vote for her to stick it to the elites.

I don’t think DWtS or even “Sarah Palin’s Alaska” is exactly a trial run for 2012 (the Fox News stuff is another story). But I do think the controversy over Bristol shows us, in miniature, how things might happen in 2012 — I don’t mean the voting, which can’t be known at this time, but the reaction of fans and non-fans alike to a Palin candidacy. It ain’t gonna be pretty.

John Doyle has more on this issue in his TV column.

Alberta MLA booted from Tory caucus

By macleans.ca - Tuesday, November 23, 2010 at 12:23 PM - 7 Comments

Dr. Raj Sherman, an Alberta MLA and ER doctor, has been booted from the province’s Progressive Conservative caucus after criticizing his own party over emergency room wait times. In an e-mail that was leaked last week, Sherman accused Premier Ed Stelmach of breaking his promise to fix problems in ERs. On Friday, Sherman also criticized Alberta Health Minister Ron Liepert for being “rude and offensive” to medical staff. He said getting booted was a sad day for him, but he made the choice to stand up for patients. “For me, it’s really a matter of principle. I guess the principles of being a doctor and advocating for patients collided with the principles of politics,” Sherman told CBC News after he was fired. The caucus whip, Robin Campbell, disagreed. “This is not an advocacy issue that Raj was suspended for,” she said. “This was an issue of caucus discipline.” A debate over wait times was sparked in Alberta after Edmonton ER physician Paul Parks sent a letter to the health minister warning of a “catastrophic collapse” of emergency health care last month. Parks documented cases where patients had died waiting for care. Meanwhile, health care is consuming almost 50 per cent of provincial budgets across Canada as costs continue to mount.

CBC News

19-year-old man says he'll look after his four orphaned brothers

By macleans.ca - Tuesday, November 23, 2010 at 12:21 PM - 2 Comments

Jordan Dubois, a 19-year-old Winnipeg man says he’ll take care of his four borthers after his parents were killed in a car crash in Saskatchewan on the weekend. Two of the brothers, Matthew, 13, and Jarret, 14, were severely disabled by the crash that killed their parents. His 16-year-old brother and nine-year-old brother were also injured in the crash. The family, except for Jordan, were returning home from a taekwando tournament in Yorkton, Sask. on Sunday when their minivan was struck head-on by a car near Saltcoats, Sask. Marcel and Brenda Dubois both died at the scene; the 17-year-old female driver of the car also died. Dubois said he plans to provide for his brothers by taking over the family business, Dubois Delivery Service.

CBC News

Builder testifies about Parliament Hill reno deal

By macleans.ca - Tuesday, November 23, 2010 at 12:17 PM - 0 Comments

Paul Sauvé, the owner of the construction firm LM Sauvé—which won a Parliament Hill renovation contract—testified that some of the $140,000 in payments he made to a lobbyist with Conservative ties Gilles Varin likely went to party officials. Speaking before a parliamentary committee, Sauvé said he is convinced the payments he made to Varin between 2007 and 2009 were essential to the fact that his company obtained the $9-million contract to renovate West Block in 2008. “Yes, I thought that there were payouts that were made,” Sauvé said, adding that Varin frequently boasted that he walked the corridors of power “with felt boots.” Sauvé also talked about a cocktail party that he organized in 2009 as a fundraiser for a Montreal Conservative Party riding. The guest of honour at the party was Christian Paradis, the minister of Public Works at the time. When the party was over, it was discovered that Paradis’s coat had been stolen. The next day, Sauvé got a call from one of Paradis’s aides asking that the $5,000 cashmere coat from Holt Renfrew be replaced for Paradis.

The Globe and Mail

Your guy

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, November 23, 2010 at 11:52 AM - 56 Comments

Bruce Anderson contemplates Michael Ignatieff’s predicament.

More fundamentally, he hasn’t yet developed clusters of voters who see him as “their guy.” I’m talking about groups of voters with common interests: aligned by income or region or gender based concerns, or who hold a particular place on the political spectrum, or who care deeply about a single issue, and who know they can trust him to champion their causes … in the end, for the voter who worries about taxes, or health, or retirement, or fiscal management, or jobs, or the environment, or trade, or foreign policy, or who lives in Atlantic Canada, or economically stressed Ontario, or the lower mainland of British Columbia, there is a sense that he is sufficiently smart but insufficiently passionate about what keeps you awake at night.

Tim Hortons to take debit cards

By macleans.ca - Tuesday, November 23, 2010 at 11:45 AM - 7 Comments

After years of taking your cash and credit cards only, Tim Hortons has now added the debit card to its payment repetoire. The well-known coffee and doughnut restaurateur said Tuesday it will now accept Interac debit cards for payment. This change comes as part of a contract renewal with payment processor Chase Paymentech Solutions. “Chase Paymentech works with Tim Hortons to evaluate innovative processing technologies that allow us to offer safe and convenient payment options to our guests,” said Roland Walton, chief operations officer with Tim Hortons. With some 3,700 locations across Canada and the United States, Tim Hortons is one of the largest restaurant chains in North America.

National Post

Death toll mounts after bridge stampede in Cambodia

By macleans.ca - Tuesday, November 23, 2010 at 11:44 AM - 5 Comments

The body count continues to climb in Phnom Penh in the aftermath of a deadly stampede on a bridge Monday night that coincided with the end of Cambodia’s annual Water Festival. “This is the biggest tragedy we have experienced in the past 31 years, since the collapse of the Khmer Rouge regime,” Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen said on Tuesday. The official cause of the stampede is unknown, but reports say that a rumour developed among revelers that the bridge was unstable, causing crowds to panic. “People started running and were falling over each other,” 23-year-old Kruon Hay told Agence France-Presse. “I fell too. I only survived because other people pulled me up. Many people jumped in the water,” he said. The bridge, which leads to an island in the Tonle Bassac River, was also decorated with brightly lit cables that began snapping under the weight of the overcrowded bridge, electrocuting people in the crowd. Mr. Hun Sen announced that Thursday would be a national day of mourning for Cambodia.

National Post

Time

The implosion of Expo '17

By Colby Cosh - Tuesday, November 23, 2010 at 11:16 AM - 58 Comments

The federal government has officially refused to give the City of Edmonton $700 million to hold a World’s Fair/Expo here in 2017, and I’d just like to mention to the Dominion at large, for the sake of civic dignity, that not everybody here is as apoplectic about it as our mayor, Stephen Mandel. I know what you’re all thinking, since you have probably learned about the bid for the first time in the morning papers.

A World’s Fair? Really? Edmonton’s latest bright idea for crashing through the scenery onto the world stage…was a concept that was already moth-eaten a hundred years ago? Are we talking about the kind of World’s Fair that attracts public debt, corruption, ethnic folk dances, and tractor displays? The kind that indulges everything from phony science to junk food to dictators? The kind that’s essentially an Olympics without the fun? That kind of World’s Fair?

Yeah, that kind of World’s Fair—the kind that, nowadays, comes with a tagline like “Harmony of Energy and Our Future Planet”, which was the proposed slogan of the aborted Edmonton proto-bid. (Presumably it sounds better in the original Mandarin.) To senior citizens and nostalgia freaks, the idea of the Expo carries a certain cachet; you must be a person whose pulse was once capable of being quickened by words like “progress” and “modernity” to feel the allure. I’m not immune myself, but a professional brand manager would surely suggest that Edmonton ought to get involved with something more hip, current, and relevant. Like the Boy Scouts or the League of Nations.

Certainly $700 million is $700 million, and in fact the total would certainly end up being much more. But one can’t help feeling that Edmonton has been spared some humiliation in being forced to withdraw from a bribery/flattery contest in which we were destined to be pitted against a super-heavyweight like the capital of Kazakhstan. “The bidding process alone,” the Edmonton Sun notes this morning, “was expected to carry a price tag of around $22 million.” Twenty-two million; nobody says either “Wow!” or “Why?” anymore when presented with a fact like this. Such an investment carries a nice little return (obtained from other Canadians) if you win the competition, but where do you suppose it ends up, and what obligations to the recipients are involved?

Some of the $700M that came Edmonton’s way would have been left behind in the form of infrastructure—infrastructure that would not in any sense benefit the nation as a whole (and that, in the wake of past Expos, has often taken the form of rusting, guano-streaked eyesores). Edmontonian boosters of the bid didn’t seem to realize that as their scintillating shopping lists of purely local benefits got longer and longer, the necessary rationale for federal funding grew shorter and shorter. The same could certainly be said of the Toronto Pan Am Games of 2015, which Ottawa is supporting; but, then, Toronto wisely held out its begging bowl in the summer of 2008, while the federal treasury was still in surplus and the streets were still paved with gold.

Mandel ranted yesterday about his city receiving different treatment during a recession, showing no sign of perceiving any difference between the conditions of 2008 and those of 2010. The supposed injustice to Edmonton is perhaps a good example of why cities should be left alone (with the necessary tax points) to build their own monuments to planetary energy harmony and whatnot. But for as long as we are governed according to Sloppy Federalism, some projects are inevitably going to become victims of the business cycle. You snooze, you lose—in this case, you lose several million dollars and get nothing back but James Moore’s signature. (Moore can now boast that his autograph costs several orders of magnitude more than Wayne Gretzky’s.)

The Pan Am Games cannot be rationally regarded as imposing a universal, permanent obligation on the federal government to fund the frenzied dreams of every big-city mayor. And thus Edmonton loses an opportunity for an expensive prolonged applauding of its ever-rambunctious self. Our arts, our sciences, and our industry will just have to bear the blow. Lily-livered culture cringers who imagined that a World’s Fair (actually a second-rate “International Recognized Expo” under BIE rules, rather than a full-fledged “World Expo”) would fling Edmonton onto the front pages of the planet’s newspapers have had their fantasies euthanized. Since these were nonsensical fantasies in the first place—go on, can you name the location of Expo 2010? It ended less than a month ago!—it is hard to regret their demise.

Irish legacy

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, November 23, 2010 at 11:09 AM - 34 Comments

Brian Topp draws lessons from Ireland’s meltdown.

The state is awash in debt (thanks in part to excessive tax cuts); the deregulated private sector has gorged itself in an orgy of speculative greed, and finally expired in a property and banking bubble; and now the working and middle class – and their children, and their grandchildren – get to pick up the tab while the winners enjoy their properties in the Grand Caymans. Nobody in Ireland stood up to the special interests. They “ran like a business.” Now the bill has come due.

These are the real stakes between those who work for moderate, prudent, incremental progressive government, moving forward within its means in the public interest, and the other side – the mouthpieces for greed and reckless irresponsibility. The shills and charlatans of the populist right, and those who fund them.

HIV epidemic is "halted," UN says

By macleans.ca - Tuesday, November 23, 2010 at 10:58 AM - 5 Comments

The number of new HIV infections—and deaths as a result of AIDS—are decreasing globally, new statistics from the UN show. Stigma and discrimination continue to be a problem for the roughly 33 million people in the world with HIV, but there are signs the epidemic is declining: last year there were 2.6 million new HIV infections, down almost 20 per cent since the peak of the epidemic in 1999. And in 2009, 1.8 million died from AIDS-related illnesses, a drop from 2.1 million in 2004. Meanwhile, AIDS researchers have found that taking a daily antiretroviral pill greatly reduces the chances of becoming infected with the virus, the New York Times reports. In an article published in the New England Journal of Medicine, they reported on a study of hundreds of gay men randomly assigned to take drugs, and found they were 44 per cent less likely to get infected than the equal number who took a placebo. Looking at the men who took their pill faithfully every day, the pill was more than 90 per cent effective. Observers call it the best news in the AIDS field in years.

BBC News

New York Times

South Korea warns of "enormous retaliation" against North Korea

By macleans.ca - Tuesday, November 23, 2010 at 10:55 AM - 16 Comments

South Korean president Lee Myung-bak said Tuesday that North Korea’s “indiscriminate attack on civilians can never be tolerated,” the Toronto Star reports. Earlier in the day, North Korea fired dozens of rounds of artillery at an island near the disputed sea border with South Korea, killing two South Korean marines, and injuring 16 more. South Korea returned fire and the entire exchange lasted about one hour. The attack occurred a day after the South Korean military conducted exercises in the area‹which North Korea’s military demanded they bring to an end early Tuesday.

Toronto Star

Canadian band councillors making up to $1 million

By macleans.ca - Tuesday, November 23, 2010 at 10:53 AM - 9 Comments

New figures made public by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation show that 82 band chiefs and councillors from across the country earn more than the prime minister, who makes $317,574 annually, and 704 take in more than $100,000 a year, with one earning close to $1 million. The announcement comes three days ahead of a scheduled vote on a private member’s bill outlining requirements for councillors and chiefs to report their earnings. The individual band chiefs and councillors aren’t identified in the report, which contains data released by Indian and Northern Affairs Canada, though it does reveal the populations of the bands in question. The million-dollar councillor, for instance, is from a community of 304 people. “One million a year for one person, that’s obscene,” said Nova Scotia NDP MP Peter Stoffer. “And I think the people on that reserve, and other First Nations people across the country, would be quite upset with that.”

Halifax Chronicle-Herald

Police chiefs want more power to suspend bad-apple officers

By macleans.ca - Tuesday, November 23, 2010 at 10:49 AM - 0 Comments

Ottawa’s police chief wants more power to suspend officers without pay in the wake of revelations that three male officers on his force strip searched a 27-year-old woman, kneed her violently in the back, and left her topless in a cell for three hours. And they did this despite the fact that, according to a judge who watched video of the incident, the woman displayed “no hint of violence or aggression.” Ontario Court Justice Richard Lajoie condemned the “unlawful” treatment of Stacy Bonds, a 27-year-old theatrical make-up artist with no criminal record. Now, the incident is under review by Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit, a civilian agency that typically investigates cases of serious injury or death involving police. But Ottawa Police Chief Vern White now says the province’s Police Services Act should be changed so he and other chiefs have more power to impose discipline. “Every police chief I know,” White said, “has asked for a review of the act to allow us more latitude.”

Ottawa Citizen

Royal wedding date is set

By macleans.ca - Tuesday, November 23, 2010 at 10:42 AM - 2 Comments

Prince William and Kate Middleton will marry on Friday, April 29 at Westminster Abbey, according to Clarence House. The Royal family and the Middletons will pay for the wedding, while taxpayers will cover the cost of extra security and transport. Westminster Abbey was also the venue of the Queen and Queen Mother’s weddings, and Princess Diana’s funeral in 1997. The couple, both 28 years old, were engaged on a holiday in Kenya in October. The couple chose the date because it came after Easter and Lent, and before a busy political time in May and June, the BBC reports. “We want to mark the day as one of national celebration, a public holiday will ensure the most people possible will have a chance to celebrate on the day,” Prime Minister David Cameron said. As a result of the royal wedding, millions of workers in England, Wales and Northern Ireland will have a three-day week.

BBC News

Flying into trouble

By Chris Sorensen and Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, November 23, 2010 at 10:10 AM - 62 Comments

Using its Airbus A380s, Emirates wants to offer daily flights to Toronto; Rovinescu accuses Emirates of being a foreign predator | Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg/Getty Images; Darryl Dyck/CP

In early October, Canada’s armed forces learned they had just one month to pack up and move a key Mideast military base used to support the war in Afghanistan. Located in the United Arab Emirates, Camp Mirage has been used primarily as a transfer point for Canadian Forces flying to and from Kandahar. For the past eight years, it had provided the Forces with a safe place to land and refuel hulking Hercules transport planes while weary soldiers relaxed at a makeshift camp, complete with a ball-hockey rink.

But the desert oasis, a short drive from Dubai’s beaches and air-conditioned shopping malls, ceased to be part of the military’s operations as of Nov. 3, following a high-level spat between Ottawa and the U.A.E. over commercial airline flights between the two countries.

It was an abrupt end to a long-standing strategic relationship between the countries, and it sent the military scrambling. “It’s a pain in the ass for all these guys who are supposed to be doing other things,” says Douglas Bland, the chair of defence management studies at the School of Policy Studies at Queen’s University. “Now they have to stop, pack up and move all of this equipment.” At no small cost: by some estimates $300 million.

Continue…

British sensibility

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, November 23, 2010 at 10:05 AM - 10 Comments

David Eaves lauds David Cameron’s new commitment to transparent accounting.

After a brief video announcement from Prime Minister David Cameron about the importance of the event, Francis Maude, Minister of the Cabinet Office, and Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web, announced that henceforth the spending data for every British ministry on anything over £25,000 (about $40,000) would be available for anyone in the world to download…

For the British Conservative Party, this is a strategic move. Faced with a massive deficit, the government is enlisting the help of all Britons to identify any waste. More importantly, however, they see releasing data as a means by which to control government spending. Indeed, Mr. Maude argues: “When you are forced to account for the money you spend, you spend it more wisely. We believe that publishing this data will lead to better decision-making in government and will ultimately help us save money.”

Yes, he Will

By Rosalind Miles - Tuesday, November 23, 2010 at 10:00 AM - 2 Comments

Anwar Hussein/Samir Hussein/WireImage/Getty Images

Hallelujah! Throughout Britain, the announcement of the engagement of Prince William to his long-time girlfriend Kate Middleton has been greeted with an outburst of relief. The eight-year courtship of the student prince and the girl dubbed “Waity Katie” has been dogged by intense and often poisonous coverage by the British press. Incessant media speculation—“Will Will?” “When, Will?”—has strained the nation’s nerves to the breaking point.

Now Kate has passed the test. Hers has been one of the longest examinations in history, but with the disaster of Diana still fresh in mind, deemed vitally necessary. Careful to keep a low profile, averse to self-publicity, happy to take second place, Kate has shown herself royal consort material from the first. And like the universally revered late queen mother, Kate can keep her mouth shut.

We know too that Queen Elizabeth II has decreed that this is the moment to release the news. With the young couple accepted as an item for some time, earlier announcements were reportedly mooted then aborted, most recently in the escalating bank crisis and credit crunch, when the Queen determined that any demonstration of royal rejoicing or monarchical triumphalism could only fuel the country’s fury and feed republican sentiment. But now, two days after Remembrance Sunday, the climax of a week of solemn ceremonies honouring the military’s dead, and with Prince William newly returned from observing the memorial with soldiers serving in Afghanistan, love is seen to follow death in a time-honoured, deeply consoling and deftly ordered arc.

Continue…

Put it to a vote

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, November 23, 2010 at 9:02 AM - 11 Comments

So it seems that it will be the separatist party that compels the House of Commons to debate and vote upon this country’s mission in Afghanistan.

The Commons: What alien hordes may come

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, November 22, 2010 at 6:30 PM - 110 Comments

The Scene. With the opposition persisting for another day to question the allocation of some $16-billion for new warplanes, it was Laurie Hawn, a former air force colonel himself, who rose to impress upon the House a most profound question—perhaps the single most daunting dilemma that faces this or any government.

Earlier in the day, the Finance Minister had invited himself in for coffee and cookies at the house of some nice suburban family to demonstrate that, from here on, his government was done spending taxpayer dollars recklessly (or words to that effect). That next year’s budget, unlike previous attempts, would be prudent and responsible.

At this, the opposition was easily puzzled. ”This government continues to spend billions of dollars on wasteful purchases for fake lakes, untendered stealth fighter jets and Republican-style prisons that Canadians are convinced we do not really need,” moaned Liberal Bryon Wilfert. “How is putting $16 billion, and counting, at risk for the purchase of untendered stealth fighter jets, using the minister’s own words: ‘practical, pragmatic and moderate?’ Is he serious?”

Here then came Mr. Hawn, moved to lay bare the existential crisis at the heart of good governance. “Mr. Speaker, what we are very serious about is giving the Canadian men and women who carry out the very difficult missions on behalf of the people of Canada and others the very best equipment to do the job tomorrow and for the next 20, 30 and 40 years,” he said. “We do not know what is coming in the next 20, 30 or 40 years and neither does the member opposite.”

Indeed. Here is what every government must confront in directing its citizens forward. We do not know what may come, we cannot know what may come, but we must prepare for it all the same. We must make our best guesses and act decisively, but ultimately we can only imagine. And so we must push ourselves to consider every possibility, prepare ourselves for every eventuality and dream impossible dreams of every potential doom.

To understand why we might need $16-billion-worth of new fighter jets then, think not simply of Russians or exploding printer cartridges, but cast your mind even further forward to the threats of the future—to the time of 2050 and perhaps the most dire possibility of all: the looming spectre of alien invasion.

Continue…

Ottawa won't fund Nordiques arena: report

By macleans.ca - Monday, November 22, 2010 at 5:51 PM - 9 Comments

Ottawa will not be putting any federal money into an NHL arena in Quebec City after all, according to a report in La Presse. The federal government’s newfound austerity also means Edmonton should abandon its hopes of securing funding for its bid to host the 2017 Expo, for which it had requested $600 million. While the Prime Minister’s Office wouldn’t confirm either decision, the Montreal paper cites a government source saying the projects were simply too expensive.

La Presse