NFL Picks Week 14: Peyton Manning would like his balls back, please

By Scott Feschuk - Thursday, December 9, 2010 at 11:34 AM - 1 Comment

Scott Feschuk Last week: 10-6 Season: 103-81-8

Scott Reid Last week: 9-7 Season: 90-94-8

•••

Indianapolis (minus 3) at Tennessee, Thursday night

Reid: This game is like the old joke about two guys who spot a homely girl walking her dog: Too bad about the one you’re stuck with. After three consecutive losses and bizarrely awful play from Peyton Manning, the Colts are pretty much out of the playoff hunt. How bad are things? To balance their attack, Jim Caldwell announced that Martin Landau will start at running back this week. In Tennessee, they’d die to have Indy’s problems. Not since David Caruso walked off the set of NYPD Blue have we seen such an ostentatious display of quitting. A few weeks ago this team was 5-2. Since then it’s lost seventy-eleven games in a row, been blanked by Houston and started the entire cast of 90210 at quarterback (the original 90210, at least – turns out Ian Ziering can really sling that pigskin). Pick: Indianapolis (surely to God?!)

Feschuk: To prove that things somehow can get worse, there’s breaking news that Peyton Manning has just been charged with violating the league’s substance abuse policy. The substance in question was his head, which Manning kept pounding against a wall after last week’s game. No one who’s this good can stay this bad for much longer  – unless Manning has entered the Continue…

Lingo 2010

By Patricia Treble - Thursday, December 9, 2010 at 11:20 AM - 0 Comments

Getty Images; Istock

Death grip: Holding an iPhone 4 by its edge resulted in signal interference and dropped calls, because that’s where Apple placed its antenna. Steve Jobs initially pooh-poohed complaints, ordering customers to hold the phone differently.

Gleek: A fan of Glee, the wildly popular TV show about a high school glee club.

Liberation procedure: An experimental technique developed by Dr. Paolo Zamboni to open up narrowed veins in the neck and chest of multiple sclerosis sufferers.

Flash crash: In May, American stock markets lost more than 1,000 points in an hour, and some stocks, like Procter & Gamble, lost virtually all of their value before recovering. Blame was pinned on high-frequency trading—supercomputers automatically sniff out bargains a fraction of a second before most investors see them.

Continue…

Star turns

By Charlie Gillis - Thursday, December 9, 2010 at 11:20 AM - 0 Comments

James Devaney/Jason Kempin/Getty Images; Aaron Vincent Elkaim/CP

Justin Timberlake
Always deeper than his image let on, the 29-year-old has officially completed the loop from tween heartthrob to serious acting talent, wowing critics this fall with his turn in the Facebook movie, The Social Network. Timberlake’s take on Napster inventor Sean Parker combined innocence and calculation, conveying evil beneath a sheen of effeminate whimsy. Not bad for a guy who got his start warbling country tunes on Star Search.

Caroline Wozniacki
Serena Williams’s outfits might steal the show at most tennis tournaments, but these days Wozniacki supplies the substance. The 20-year-old Dane won an amazing six tour events in 2010, including the Rogers Cup in Montreal, to claim the No. 1 rank in the world. She’s no slouch in the looks department, either, but with her crashing serve and her relentless work ethic, her opponents had best keep their eyes on the ball.

Continue…

The new normal

By Nancy Macdonald - Thursday, December 9, 2010 at 11:20 AM - 0 Comments

AP; CP; Getty Images; Istock; Illustration by Adam Cholewa | Banner year: (from left) Lynch; Smitherman and husband; Gaga

It’s hard to believe that a year marked by the heartbreaking suicides of a number of gay U.S. teens, including 13-year-old Asher Brown and Rutgers University freshman Tyler Clementi, could also be a banner year for gay rights. But their tragic deaths spurred an outpouring of public sympathy, hope and help for gay youth, including It Gets Better—a popular project featuring gay adults talking about overcoming bullies and hurt.

Continue…

Nobody's fault

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, December 9, 2010 at 10:59 AM - 19 Comments

In regards to the sweeping police powers invoked during the G20 summit, the Toronto Police Chief points to the Integrated Security Unit, the coordinating authority established by the RCMP. The RCMP says it was “made aware” that the Toronto police might invoke the law, but “not consulted.”

The Ontario ombudsman’s report lays out a series of discussions between federal, provincial and municipal authorities starting at paragraph 117 and by that telling, it was federal legislation that was first considered.

It appears that the federal government’s reluctance to enter into an agreement under the Foreign Missions and International Organizations Act provided increased incentive for officials to look to the Public Works Protection Act.  Under the federal Act, the RCMP appeared to have clear authority to construct and control the interior security barrier for the “red zone,” but the Toronto Police Service believed that unless it was somehow delegated power under that legislation, it would have to look elsewhere for incontrovertible legal support to construct and control the exterior security fence.

Independence Day

By Nancy Macdonald - Thursday, December 9, 2010 at 10:20 AM - 0 Comments

AFP/Getty Images

When, on the evening of Nov. 13, Aung San Suu Kyi suddenly appeared from behind the red iron bars surrounding her house, her lonely prison for most of the past two decades, her ecstatic supporters erupted into cheers; many were reduced to tears. Thousands had rushed to Suu Kyi’s crumbling white villa on Rangoon’s Inya Lake after security forces began taking apart the compound’s barbed-wire barricades: a clear signal the world’s most famous political prisoner would finally be freed from house arrest.

The crowd’s size, enthusiasm, and the strong youth element suggest “the Lady,” as she is known in Burma, had emerged from captivity with her popularity and moral authority intact. “We haven’t seen each other for so long,” Suu Kyi, dressed in a purple longyi, a Burmese sarong, told supporters, her grace unbroken. “We have a lot to do.”

Continue…

QUIZ: How news-savvy are you?

By macleans.ca - Thursday, December 9, 2010 at 10:17 AM - 5 Comments

Click here to take the Newsmakers quiz!

A year of new faces, returning heroes, and that golden goal

By macleans.ca - Thursday, December 9, 2010 at 10:00 AM - 0 Comments

Chris O'Meara/AP

How long does it take to be named Maclean’s Newsmaker of the Year?

For Sidney Crosby, it took about four seconds. That was all Crosby needed to beat Team U.S.A. defenceman Brian Rafalski to the puck along the boards, poke it to Team Canada teammate Jarome Iginla, break for the net, corral the give-and-go back from Iginla and shoot the puck underneath goaltender Ryan Miller’s outstretched stick and between his legs.

Crosby’s gold-medal-winning overtime goal was the perfect ending to a tremendously successful 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics—itself an event 14 years in the making, as Games organizing committee CEO John Furlong notes in this week’s Maclean’s Interview. The Games brought all Canadians together and were the capstone event of the year. We celebrated our ability to put on a show and proved we could compete against the best that the world has to offer. We demonstrated our organizational skills and hosting talents, as well as a fiercely competitive streak that, as a nation, we often keep under wraps. We mourned as a nation with figure skater Joannie Rochette over the death of her mother, Thérèse, and marvelled at her courageous bronze-medal performance, the epitome of grace under pressure.

Continue…

Going, Going…

By Brian Bethune - Thursday, December 9, 2010 at 9:40 AM - 0 Comments

Simon Cowell; Lloyd Robertson; Jaroslav Halák | Byron Purvis/Keystone Press Agency; Adrien Veczan/CP; Len Redkoles/NHL/Getty Images

Quit: Steven Slater
In 2010, no one cheered the hearts of disgruntled workers everywhere more than Jet Blue flight attendant Slater, who left his job—and his aircraft—in spectacular fashion. In August, he told off an annoying passenger, grabbed two bottles of beer, released the emergency exit on his landed plane, and slid away to freedom. And into a world of trouble: in October, he pleaded guilty to criminal mischief and was fined US$10,000. For the rest of us, though, it was worth it.

Evicted: the Niqab
After a pharmacist in a niqab—a face veil that reveals only the wearer’s eyes—refused to remove it during French-language class, the Quebec government announced plans to ban government agencies and public institutions from offering services to veiled women. Bill 94, when it becomes law, will effectively eject the niqab from Quebec’s public square in the name of gender equality and maintaining secular values in public services. Meanwhile, the imposing crucifix in the national assembly remains in place.

Continue…

They're golden

By Anne Kingston - Thursday, December 9, 2010 at 9:40 AM - 0 Comments

Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP

On Nov. 16, 2010, the world’s longest job interview came to an end: Prince William and Kate Middleton finally announced their decision to wed. In a televised sit-down with her fiancé, Middleton, the first commoner to marry into the British monarchy in 350 years, said she was “shocked” when the prince popped the question in October during a holiday in Kenya.

That would make one of us. The couple, both 28, met in 2001 at the University of St. Andrews; since 2006, when it was announced   Middleton would have her own security detail, there has been fervid “when-will-they-wed?” speculation. Throughout, Middleton, or “Waity Katie” as she was dubbed by the British press, displayed poise, discretion, loyalty, and a decided absence of personal ambition—all traits that will serve her well in her new job. Certainly there’s pressure on this union to succeed, especially after William’s parents’ scorched-earth divorce. Even the most staunch monarchists agree the royal family can’t survive another marital meltdown. Thus the prince doesn’t need to make a love match as much as a dynastic consolidation. Palace advisers are reported to be acclimatizing Middleton for life in the fishbowl, offering instructional videos so she can study Diana’s technique.

Continue…

Democracy's not dead

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, December 9, 2010 at 9:25 AM - 50 Comments

I don’t agree with everything Andrew Potter says here—I think there are legitimate complaints to be made about how our system presently functions and a serious discussion about solutions that should be had—but I have found the recently fashionable hand-wringing over partisanship and decorum to be both over-wrought and shallow.

Why is everyone so convinced our democracy is ruined? There are at least two reasons. The first is the widespread tendency to mistake the work environment for the institution. That is, a lot of the hand-wringing over our democracy is actually just a dislike for the nasty tone of Question Period, or the partisanship of committees. But a lack of decorum is not the same as institutional dysfunction. Our members of Parliament treat one another with disrespect. So what? Why should that bother anyone off the Hill? If MPs want to run their workplace like it’s always last call on Friday night at YukYuks, that’s their business.

Bestsellers

By Brian Bethune - Thursday, December 9, 2010 at 9:00 AM - 0 Comments

Top-selling fiction and non-fiction titles (week of December 6th, 2010)

Fiction

Non-fiction

LAST WEEK (WEEKS ON LIST)

Introducing…

By Kate Lunau - Thursday, December 9, 2010 at 8:40 AM - 0 Comments

Reuters; Getty; Getstock; Keystone; Illustration by Adam Cholewa

EMMA STONE
Maybe it’s the red hair, but actress Emma Stone, who got rave reviews for her performance in this year’s edgy teen comedy Easy A, has been called the new Lindsay Lohan—minus the antics. Stone, who also appeared in Zombieland and Superbad, recently landed the female lead in an upcoming Spider-Man prequel: she’ll play Gwen Stacy, Peter Parker’s love interest. Unlike her best-known characters, all redheads, Stacy’s a blond—coincidentally, Stone’s natural shade (turns out that her famously red hair is a dye job).

THE DOUBLE DOWN
Amid both celebration and horror, KFC launched its Double Down—bacon, melted cheese and Colonel’s Sauce, sandwiched between pieces of chicken—across the U.S. and Canada. Named after a blackjack move, this bunless wonder represents something of a gamble for even the most devoted fast-food fan. Even so, the phrase “heart attack on a bun” suddenly seemed outdated thanks to the Double Down’s limited, four-week Canadian run.

Continue…

In demand economists

By Colin Campbell - Thursday, December 9, 2010 at 8:40 AM - 0 Comments

Ralph Orlowski/Getty Images

The job most in demand in Silicon Valley lately is not in social networking or marketing, but something slightly less trendy. Major technology firms are on the hunt for economists. Yahoo, Facebook, Amazon.com and eBay are all currently recruiting economists, reports the San Jose Mercury News. Those companies are following the likes of Google and Microsoft, which in recent years have added big-name academics to their staffs, including Hal Varian from University of California, Berkeley and Susan Athey from Harvard University, respectively.

Economists have proven adept at helping tech firms tweak everything from search methods to online advertising platforms—intricate systems that can be manipulated to produce better results, or studied to predict outcomes from different strategies. Tech firms also tend to be creating entirely new businesses, and sometimes the best person to help explain how traditional markets will react to them is a good old-fashioned economist.

Man of the deep

By Michael Petrou - Thursday, December 9, 2010 at 8:00 AM - 0 Comments

Peña emerges from the mine (left); Channelling Elvis Presley on Letterman | Hugo Infante/Reuters; Jeffrey R. Staab/AP

Edison Peña thought he would die, or maybe that he was dead already. He wasn’t. But the life of the 34-year-old man, who until recently earned about $1,000 a month digging for gold and copper in dank tunnels hundreds of metres beneath the ground, has changed utterly.

Peña is one of the 33 miners who spent more than two months buried in the collapsed San José mine in Chile’s Atacama desert. Their rescue was watched by as many as one billion people and transformed several of the miners, including Peña, into global celebrities. Brad Pitt’s production company is reportedly trying to secure exclusive film rights to their story. Of the 33, Peña is among the most famous. He charmed television viewers with his Elvis Presley impersonation on The Late Show With David Letterman. He performed a Santiago concert duet with Olivia Newton-John, belting out Summer Nights from the musical Grease. And in November, he successfully completed the New York City Marathon.

Continue…

Grace under fire

By Brian Bethune - Thursday, December 9, 2010 at 8:00 AM - 14 Comments

Stefano Rellandini/Reuters

There is always, in the spiritual and political life of the Roman Catholic Church, a fire smouldering somewhere: minority Christians under persecution here, an abortion initiative in a Catholic country there, rebellious laity, scandalous clergy. So Pope Benedict XVI had no particular reason, on New Year’s Day, to foresee that the long-running clerical child sexual abuse scandal would suddenly burn white-hot, and spread far outside the confines of his Church. But as the penitential season of Lent began in February, hundreds more victims surfaced with their harrowing stories, not only in Ireland and the U.S., the epicentres of the scandal, but across Europe, including Benedict’s native Germany.

This time it was more than the original crimes that angered the faithful and outsiders alike. The focus was increasingly on the cover-up—the swearing of victims to secrecy, the shuffling of pedophile priests to fresh starts (and fresh opportunities) in unsuspecting parishes—and the way that cover-up touched the papacy itself. Questions were raised in the media and among Catholics about Benedict’s role, before he became pope, in determining the Vatican’s treatment of predatory clergy, a response widely condemned as ineffectual at best and criminally negligent at worst. Benedict found himself launched on an annus horribilis that would prove as awful as any experienced by a pope in modern times.

Continue…

'We're not disinterested in politics. It's just that politicians are disinteresting'

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, December 9, 2010 at 12:11 AM - 81 Comments

Forty years after Richard Nixon regarded him as an enemy of the state, John Lennon is toasted by Stephen Harper.

Harper then paused midway through his set to play a slice of “Imagine” to pay tribute to the 30th anniversary of the murder of John Lennon, whom he called “probably the most important person in the history of rock.

“Let’s just take a moment to remember.”

David Akin has video of the whole show.

The Commons: These fleeting words

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, December 8, 2010 at 7:20 PM - 75 Comments

The Scene. This space has been used in the past to acknowledge the futility of placing anything more than passing significance on the pronouncements of this government’s ministers and mouthpieces. Their words are like daylilies, blooming only for 24 hours before fading into memory. To quibble, to seek to extend their meaning beyond nightfall, is to argue with the sun.

Perhaps then what follows here is relatively pointless. But then sometimes the rhetoric is so colourful, its aroma so intoxicating, that it is difficult to forget; near impossible, whatever one knows to be true, to admit to oneself that these are merely passing fancy.

So it is that we turn to the blooming words, uttered less than a week ago, of this nation’s Justice Minister and Attorney General.

“Mr. Speaker,” Rob Nicholson declared, under some attack from the other side, “no group of individuals has more respect for human rights in our country than the Conservative Party … There is no group of individuals over the course of Canadian history that has had a better record for standing up for human rights than the Conservative Party of Canada and its predecessors.”

These were strong words strongly delivered. Mr. Nicholson’s reading comprehension has been the subject of some lament, but his ability to stand and fulminate is unquestioned. His is a raring appearance of great conviction.

But here we are, less than a week later, struggling to reconcile that rhetoric. Continue…

Do the Liberals need a new leader?

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, December 8, 2010 at 5:03 PM - 82 Comments

A new poll by Angus Reid, conducted for the Toronto Star, found that of those who voted Liberal in the 2008 election, just 38 per cent think Michael Ignatieff should remain party leader, while 46 per cent said the party should replace Ignatieff. The poll also revealed that if an election were to be held today, Parliament wouldn’t look much different. Conservatives would have the support of 38 per cent of voters, Liberals 26 per cent, the New Democrats 18 per cent, and the Bloc Quebecois 10 per cent.

Toronto Star

'Put that in your pipe, you left-wing kooks'

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, December 8, 2010 at 4:59 PM - 40 Comments

Adorned in typically flamboyant pink-and-white patterned silk, Don Cherry, the colourful co-host of Coach’s Corner on Hockey Night in Canada, spoke Tuesday at the new Toronto city council’s inaugural meeting as a special guest of Mayor Rob Ford. “I’m wearing pinko for all the pinkos out there that ride bicycles and everything, I thought I’d get it in,” said Cherry, who went on to blast “left-wing pinko newspapers,” and praise Rob Ford by saying he’s “honest, he’s truthful … he’s going to be the greatest mayor this city has ever seen.” The speech sparked a flurry of activity on social networking sites like Twitter, and a number of councilors wore pink to work on Wednesday to criticize what they see as an unnecessarily divisive speech that sets a negative tone for the start of Ford’s tenure as mayor. The pink trend is catching on—two Toronto groups, Spacing magazine and the cycling organization Biking Toronto, have already started selling “pinko” buttons and t-shirts to “commemorate” the speech.

Toronto Star

Winnipeg Free Press

Rights and Democracy: Friends in high places, or not

By Paul Wells - Wednesday, December 8, 2010 at 4:59 PM - 37 Comments

The foreign-affairs committee runs out of patience.

I wasn’t going to write about what follows, but what the heck. Since I am now officially not the worst news Rights and Democracy will receive today, I might as well.

Last night Rights and Democracy handed out its John Humphrey Award to a Venezuelan group called Provea. By all accounts, including those of observers who are not fond of R&D’s current management, Provea richly deserves this award, named after the Canadian author of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. They had a big shindig over at the Museum of Civilization in Gatineau to celebrate.

Weeks before the ceremony, some at R&D seemed preoccupied with achieving an appropriate turnout. Brad Farquhar, a board member who previously ran as a Conservative candidate in Saskatchewan, sent out the invite to several Ottawa acquaintainces with this top:

“FYI — I hope you can attend this event. More conservatively-minded people need to be engaged in the discussion of human rights and democracy promotion so we don’t leave this space to others by default.”

I don’t see anything nefarious about Farquhar’s email. One function of members of any board is to drum up support for the organization’s activities. Farquhar has a lot of contacts in this town.

Unfortunately this time it didn’t work well. There were no Conservative members of Parliament at yesterday’s event at the Museum of Civilization. That’s largely due to a confidence vote in the Commons that ended shortly after 6 p.m. But even before that vote was scheduled, no member of the Cabinet was ever scheduled to attend. Continue…

Operation Payback hits MasterCard

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, December 8, 2010 at 4:54 PM - 11 Comments

Operation Payback, a series of co-ordinated attacks by online activists who support embattled WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, have taken the websites of MasterCard and the Swedish prosecution authority offline. MasterCard was targeted after it announced it would no longer process donations to WikiLeaks. MasterCard maintains that its security has not been compromised. Other sites, such as Visa, Amazon, and Swiss bank PostFinance, have also said they will not allow donations to WikiLeaks. For its part, Operation Payback has vowed to take down any commercial enterprise that censures WikiLeaks.

The Guardian

G20 laws “illegal” and “unconstitutional”

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, December 8, 2010 at 4:50 PM - 2 Comments

Ontario ombudsman Andre Marin argues the enactment of a secret law ahead of the G20 was “illegal’” and “likely unconstitutional” in an extensive 125-page report titled Caught in the Act. In the report, Marin said the law “should never have been enacted” and “was almost certainly beyond the authority of the government to enact.”

Earlier this year in June, at the request of Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair, Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty’s Liberal cabinet designated areas within the G20 security zone a “public work” using regulation 233/10 under the Public Works Protection Act. Marin maintains the public should have been better informed when the police powers were changed. “By changing the legal landscape without fanfare in this way, regulation 233/10 operated as a trap for those who relied on their ordinary legal rights,” wrote Marin in the report. “It gave police powers that are unfamiliar in a free and democratic society. Steps should have been taken to ensure that the Toronto Police Service understood what they were getting.”

The Toronto Police force is currently being investigated by the Ontario’s Office of the Independent Review Director, the province’s Special Investigations Unit, and the Police Services Board over allegations police used excessive force against anti-globalization protesters during last June’s summit.

Ontario ombudsman’s office

Toronto Star

The Globe and Mail

Toronto Star

A dictator in the making?

By Julia Belluz - Wednesday, December 8, 2010 at 4:20 PM - 57 Comments

Rajapaksa (left) says he wants to build the economy; ‘75 per cent of the government’ is controlled by his family | Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/Reuters

It was a ceremony fit for a king. Adorned in white dress, surrounded by powerful family members and military officials, Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa was sworn in for his second term on Nov. 19. The lavish procession incorporated some of the country’s dominant institutions: Buddhist monks gave their blessing, and the sound of a 21-gun salute rounded off the event. In his speech, Rajapaksa made grand promises. This would be a new era for Sri Lanka after the island nation’s brutal 26-year civil war, which he helped to end in 2009, during his first six-year term, by defeating the Tamil Tiger insurgency. He promised to employ that same leadership to maintain peace, rebuild democratic institutions, and accelerate the economy.

But leaders who win wars are not always the best governors in peace. A string of increasingly repressive and undemocratic moves by the Rajapaksa administration has caused opponents to worry that Sri Lanka’s economic growth and development are camouflaging human rights transgressions and a tilt toward authoritarianism. For one, there are the changes he’s made to the constitution since being re-elected. Though he pulled in nearly 60 per cent of the vote in the election held last January, he recently rallied a majority in parliament to pass an amendment that removed constitutionally set term limits, ensuring he can remain in power indefinitely.

Continue…