Will the doctor see you now?

By Julia Belluz - Tuesday, January 18, 2011 at 12:01 PM - 4 Comments

Jim Bourg/Reuters

The feeling of knives stabbing her abdomen was what brought Robyn Shanks to the doctor in Mississauga, Ont. The 26-year-old suspected she was suffering from food allergies (the pain usually arrived after eating certain foods), and asked her doctor for an allergy test. Instead, he told her she probably had irritable bowel syndrome, and ordered a barium enema test, which Robyn rightly dreaded: it required fasting, taking laxatives, and the insertion of an enema filled with dye. He didn’t ask about her medical history, Robyn says, or examine her abdomen, the site of her pain. “He just wasn’t listening,” she recalls. As Robyn suspected, results came back negative. An allergy test later revealed she had an intolerance to wheat, dairy and eggs. “I wasted a lot of time,” she says.

Anecdotally speaking, stories like Robyn’s seem to abound: ultrasounds to diagnose constipation, an appointment with an eye specialist for what turns out to be a bug bite. And there’s this frequent complaint: “The doctor didn’t examine me.” While technology has brought accurate and timely diagnosis, something is being lost, too: the ritual of the old-fashioned physical exam.

Lately, in test-happy and litigious America, the decline of physical exams has been the subject of debate in the popular press. One recent British Medical Journal editorial, “In praise of the physical examination,” was co-authored by Dr. Abraham Verghese, a Stanford University physician and author who is arguing for a revival of an exam he says is fading in the face of diagnostic technology. (Studies have shown that medical residents in the U.S., as well as the U.K. and Canada, have poor training and technique when it comes to that basic skill of listening to the heart.) In Canada too, where experts on both sides of the border agree the decline in patient examination skills is less dramatic, medical schools have been trying to improve the physical—to reverse what Dr. Brian Goldman, author of The Night Shift and an ER doctor at Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto, calls a sea change. “[It's] a 180-degree flip to the current technological approach, where you almost don’t even talk to the patient. You just send them through a scanner, and get 100 blood tests.”

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Hamlet: The new action hero

By Claire Ward - Tuesday, January 18, 2011 at 12:01 PM - 3 Comments

Andy Belanger/Kill Shakespeare Entertainment

In the age of the mash-up, who better to copy and remix than the great plagiarist himself, William Shakespeare? Two Toronto writers, Conor McCreery and Anthony Del Col, have done just that with Kill Shakespeare—a 12-issue comic book series that takes a handful of Shakespeare’s most beloved and infamous characters and places them in a fantasy world with the Bard himself. The story centres around Hamlet’s quest to find his creator, the great wizard William Shakespeare. In a classic story of good versus evil, half the cast wants Shakespeare dead and the other half reveres him as their god. The series has sold close to 40,000 copies since its spring launch, garnering glowing reviews—the New York Times described it as “gripping, violent and dark fun.” And the franchise is already expanding—the creators are now working on a screenplay, a Web-based or smartphone video game, and an animated version of the comic.

McCreery and Del Col met in 2002 as business students at Wilfrid Laurier University. A year later, after seeing Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill, they got to chatting about other “Bills” they would kill in story form. Before long, the phrase “Kill Shakespeare” emerged, and the idea for a franchise unfurled. In 2008, just as the recession hit, the pair quit their jobs and raised $300,000 to kick off the project. “Shakespeare’s plays were meant to be performed—they’re supposed to be kinetic and visual,” says McCreery, a self-professed comics geek. “Comic books are a perfect place for that.” Kinetic and visual are fitting adjectives for the resulting work, which is a gritty, action-packed adventure. The artwork, by Andy Belanger, has a pulpy, early 1970s feel, with impossibly buxom women and a Superman jaw for Hamlet. The characters’ looks actually became a playful point of contention, explains Belanger.

“[McCreery and Del Col] wanted Angelina Jolie for Lady Macbeth but I outright refused,” he says. Instead, “I modelled her after Monica Bellucci.” As for Hamlet, the writers wanted Ryan Gosling, but what they got was closer to Clive Owen. The cinematic references weren’t without intention: Del Col and McCreery like to fantasy-cast their future film as they work on the next project—a screenplay. They plan to visit Hollywood in the spring, where they’ve already drummed up interest from some major, as of yet unnamed, production companies.

In early December, acclaimed Broadway and Hollywood director Julie Taymor mentioned Kill Shakespeare on The Colbert Report in a discussion of her latest film, The Tempest. Colbert replied, “Make that movie!” to Taymor, who laughed and responded, “Maybe.” But she had one reservation. “It’s in contemporary English, so I don’t know,” she said, gesturing two thumbs down. Indeed, the comic book’s language—what Del Col calls Shakespeare in Love English—has been the focus of the only real criticism directed at the series.

Maclean’s asked two Shakespearean experts to weigh in. James Shapiro, long-time Shakespeare professor at Columbia University, admires the effort but takes issue with the language. He points to a passage in issue eight, uttered by Richard III’s character: “We have a historical opportunity now—at this moment—to obliterate not the Prodigals, but their coward leader Shakespeare.” “That sounds like a dumb congressman from Alabama,” says Shapiro. Fellow Shakespearean scholar at Harvard, Stephen Greenblatt, isn’t so concerned. “I don’t think that mucking about with Shakespeare’s language or his stories is wicked. On the contrary, I think Shakespeare would have been amused.” Greenblatt mused that if he taught a class on contemporary transformations of Shakespeare, he would consider including it. (Shapiro, on the other hand, said he would not.)

But for the creators, winning over scholars isn’t the idea. “We welcome the debate,” says Del Col. “We like the fact that it gets people talking about Shakespeare.” They have a different kind of legacy in mind anyway. “The day we know we’ve made it,” says McCreery, “is when we go to a convention and somebody says, ‘I’m Lady Macbeth—but not issue three Lady Macbeth, I’m issue 11 Lady Macbeth.’ “

What the pluck????

By Anne Kingston - Tuesday, January 18, 2011 at 12:01 PM - 3 Comments

(Shaw Media Inc.)

Recent news that Gordon Ramsay had become a “partner” in a fabled Montreal chicken joint should have elicited one and only one response: the guy who helped put British cuisine on the map is now doing takeout in the colonies? What the @#$%^!?

True, the famously profane chef had promised to expand his embattled empire to Canadian soil: on the CBC’s The Hour in 2009 he said “definitely Toronto first,” and that he’d scouted locations. Still, “the most unexpected foodie news of 2010,” as the Montreal Gazette put it when the paper broke the story in November—that Ramsay had joined forces to remake Rôtisserie Laurier BBQ, a family-style restaurant in Outremont—was a head-scratcher.

Was the move part of a shrewd diversification into casual dining now that the fine-dining market is under siege? Or was the 44-year-old’s 25th restaurant venture a symptom of early onset “Wolfgang Puck syndrome,” wherein a talented chef stops cooking and starts shilling, thereby diluting his identity to the point he’s best known in the frozen-food aisle? For an example, one need only look at Ramsay’s own mentor, Marco Pierre White, the original bad-boy chef who’s now a pitchman for Knorr bouillon cubes and processed “Turkey Twizzlers.”

Ramsay’s surprising association with Rôtisserie Laurier BBQ grew out of his licensing deal with Danny Lavy, CEO of Elite Group Inc., the Montreal-based company that distributes Gordon Ramsay-branded goods—toasters, pots, blenders and such. Last year, Lavy bought the ochre building housing the restaurant, Quebec’s first roasted-chicken outlet when the Laporte family opened it in 1936, and seized the opportunity to revitalize a faded Montreal landmark. Over the years, clientele thinned as more fashionable restaurants popped up (the third Laporte generation closed the upstairs). Today, it’s a charming anachronism on an affluent stretch of Laurier, drawing diners of all ages, evident by the crayons at the front desk. The menu is displayed on paper placemats. The food—chicken, coleslaw, ribs, mac ‘n’ cheese—is hearty, if unmemorable. No one is photographing their plate. Desserts—sugar pie, “Hello Dolly” cookies, carrot cake—are unironically retro, as is the wait staff of older women. More than half of the business is takeout and delivery.

Lavy, a restaurant newbie, teamed up with Danielle Lord and Marie-Christine Couture, veterans of the Montreal hospitality scene, to run the day-to-day. He turned to Ramsay, for his input—and name. “It’s a real estate investment and it made sense to go with comfort food,” Lavy says.

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Prime noir

By John Geddes - Tuesday, January 18, 2011 at 12:00 PM - 27 Comments

I haven’t been able to get that Conservative TV ad “Rising to the Challenge“—the one with the Prime Minister working alone in semi-darkness in Parliament’s Centre Block—out of my mind. I think I know why: I’ve always been a sucker for old film noir movies, and this ad is a one-minute slice of derivative noir film-making, although it would have been more effective as homage if the Tories had shot it in black and white.

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How Arizona happened

By Michael Petrou and Luiza Ch. Savage - Tuesday, January 18, 2011 at 11:57 AM - 33 Comments

Tom Willett/Getty Images

In recent weeks, after she was one of only a handful of Democratic moderates to win re-election amid the great Republican party wave, congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, who represents a conservative district in Arizona, told friends that bipartisanship in Washington was getting tougher and that middle-ground voices like hers were being drowned out by the extremes. A high-energy motorcycle aficionado whose youthful looks and sincere manner made her seem younger than her 40 years, she had received death threats, and her constituency office door had been vandalized, possibly shot in.

A former Fulbright scholar, Arizona state senator, and CEO of a tire business founded by her grandfather, Giffords was a rising star in the Democratic party, which she joined after switching from the Republicans in 1999, and was starting to garner national attention. Centrism has long been part of her politics. During the 2006 congressional campaign that sent her to Washington, she wrote a letter to constituents aimed at garnering the votes of independent voters and centrist Republicans. “Growing up, my mother was a Republican and my father was a Democrat—so I learned about ‘bipartisanship’ from an early age,” Giffords wrote. In the House, she was a member of the conservative Democrat “Blue Dog Coalition.” She sought out a middle ground on various issues: she was for tougher border security, but supported immigration reform that would provide undocumented immigrants a path to citizenship. She voted for health care reform, but this month voted against Nancy Pelosi for minority leader.

Her dependence on conservative voters made her a prime political target for the Republicans. In March, Giffords’s district appeared on an online map posted by Sarah Palin of 20 congressional races where Democrats in previously Republican districts had voted for health care reform. They were marked with gun-sight crosshairs. On Twitter, Palin tweeted: “Commonsense Conservatives & lovers of America: “Don’t Retreat, Instead—RELOAD!” Later, Giffords’s Republican opponent, a former Marine named Jesse Kelly, advertised a “Target for Victory” campaign event at a shooting range. “Help remove Gabrielle Giffords from office,” he asked his supporters. “Shoot a fully automatic M16 with Jesse Kelly.” The violent imagery worried Giffords during an MSNBC appearance: “We need to realize that the rhetoric, and the firing people up and . . . for example, we’re on Sarah Palin’s ‘targeted’ list, but the thing is, the way she has it depicted, we’re in the crosshairs of a gun sight over our district. When people do that, they’ve got to realize that there are consequences to that action.”

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Regis Philbin announces his retirement

By macleans.ca - Tuesday, January 18, 2011 at 11:30 AM - 1 Comment

Regis Philbin, who has hosted ABC’s Live With Regis and Kelly (originally Live With Regis and Kathie Lee) since the 1980s, announced today that he will be stepping down from the show. The 79-year-old Philbin spent many years as a host on both television and radio; he was selected by comedian Joey Bishop to be his sidekick on a talk show that tried, and failed, to take on Johnny Carson. In addition to his talk show duties, he also hosted ABC’s version of Who Wants to Be a Millionare?, which became one of the biggest hits of its era. He also appeared as himself on my other talk shows and TV series like How I Met Your Mother, and had a role in Woody Allen’s movie Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Sex But Were Afraid to Ask. Live will continue after Philbin’s departure, slated for the summer; the network is looking for a new host to work with Philbin’s co-star, Kelly Ripa.

Deadline

Losing is in the eye of the beholder

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, January 18, 2011 at 11:30 AM - 39 Comments

In his chat with Mr. Mansbridge, the Prime Minister again asserts a rule for coalition government.

Of course, and David Cameron’s an interesting example because they had that debate there, and what I think the public concluded was undemocratic and not really legitimate was the coalition of parties that lost an election. Mr. Cameron won the election. And then was able to form a coalition.

It’s unclear if Mr. Harper intends this judgment of legitimacy to be applied to the governments of Israel, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, not to mention the Liberal government that oversaw the province of Ontario between 1985 and 1987.

Why Harper should hire Bob Rae

By Andrew Coyne - Tuesday, January 18, 2011 at 11:01 AM - 98 Comments

Sean Kilpatrick/CP

Bob Rae’s recent intervention in the continuing dispute between Canada and the United Arab Emirates over airline landing rights has earned him a rebuke from the National Post. Under the headline “Liberals forget they’re Canadians first,” the paper editorialized on how unseemly it was of the Liberal foreign affairs critic to have, er, criticized the Harper government, after meeting with U.A.E. officials in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, for its “ham-fisted” handling of the dispute.

While it conceded that “a case could indeed be made that Ottawa has been ‘ham-fisted’ in its approach to the U.A.E.”—could, and has: by Peter MacKay, among others—the paper nonetheless observed that “patriotic politicians don’t bash their own government on other people’s shores.” For his part, the Prime Minister’s spokesman, Dimitri Soudas, accused “the Ignatieff Liberals” of taking the U.A.E.’s side in the dispute, “rather than defend the interests of Canadian workers and the Canadian economy.”

Well, that’s one interpretation: Rae is sticking his nose where it doesn’t belong, and advancing a position that is contrary to Canadian foreign policy. The other is that he is auditioning for the role of Canadian foreign minister. Indeed, “a case could be made” he looks rather more convincing in the part than the incumbent.

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Harper on Harper

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, January 18, 2011 at 10:22 AM - 57 Comments

The CBC has posted the first half of Peter Mansbridge’s interview with the Prime Minister, including this assessment from Mr. Harper.

I’m not going to say we’ve run a perfect government by any means, but there have been no corruption scandals or anything resembling that under this government.

Let’s try to follow Harper’s thinking, why not

By Scott Feschuk - Tuesday, January 18, 2011 at 9:53 AM - 75 Comments

At last we have clarity on Stephen Harper’s position regarding a potential coalition government. It came last night during the Prime Minister’s interview with Peter Mansbridge.

Harper said: “I think the next time our party will either form a majority or I think we’ll see a coalition of the other parties. That’s my belief. Everything I see points to that.”

Great. That’s as clear as can be. If Harper wins a majority, he continues to govern. If he wins more seats than anyone else – but falls short of a majority – it leads in his mind to a likely coalition government. Got it. Now we can all move on and–

“I of course,” Harper added, still talking for some reason, “will always be happy to see if the people of Canada elect a Conservative minority, I’d be happy to do that.”

Wait, what? But you just said…

Let us dare to venture together into the realm of Continue…

How late is too late?

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, January 18, 2011 at 8:53 AM - 74 Comments

At the risk of dwelling upon the Prime Minister’s words, it is probably worth noting all of the questions raised by Mr. Harper’s offhand remark last week about the December 2008 coalition—questions that might be asked of Mr. Harper and probably should be asked of the Governor General.

First, a useful reminder of events. The 2008 election occurred on October 14. On November 19, the House reconvened and the Throne Speech was presented. Eight days later, on November 27, the government presented its economic update. Shortly after, the Throne Speech passed the House.

On the evening of November 28, with that update facing mounting criticism, the Prime Minister announced that an opposition day scheduled for December 1, the following Monday, would be pushed back a week—thereby postponing a vote of non-confidence the Liberals intended to bring.

On December 1, the coalition accord was signed and Stephane Dion sent a letter to Michaelle Jean informing her of his ability to form a government. Three days later, on December 4, the Prime Minister asked the Governor General to prorogue Parliament and she granted his request.

All of which makes the Prime Minister’s contention that the opposition parties “waited too long” and were thus “too late,” all the more curious. Continue…

Sophisticated Cable Programming

By Jaime Weinman - Monday, January 17, 2011 at 6:48 PM - 2 Comments

As Todd VanDerWerff reminded us in his primer on ’80s sitcoms (see below), the ’80s were a treasure trove of terrible sitcoms because of the opening up of the direct-to-syndication market, which gave us Small Wonder and several failed network shows revived. And then you had the first glimmers of direct-to-cable sitcoms, most famously with It’s Garry Shandling’s Show. But even before that, TBS — back when they were WTBS, the network that, powered by Ted Turner’s satellites, everybody got in their cable package without knowing why — decided to throw its hat into the first-run ring with a very sensible premise for s sitcom, with a theme song that would explain the whole thing for you.

When I show this to people, they’re astonished that it’s not a parody, but it isn’t. Because the only difference between parody and the real thing is money; bad real shows usually have a slicker and more professional look to them. If the producers of a bad show have no money, they’re likely to come up with something that looks like this:

Someone pointed out that this is an early example, very early, of cable networks trying to create an original-programming brand that fits in with their popular reruns.TBS had a lot of ’60s sitcom reruns back when ’60s sitcom reruns were still big moneymakers in syndication, and they were doing especially well with the gimmicky fantasy shows like Bewitched. They even fired the dad from this show after the first few episodes and replaced him with, of course, why not: Dick Sargent.

And yes, the daughter on this show, Kyle Richards, is now one of the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. Which reminds me, maybe I shouldn’t be so quick to make fun of the standards of sophistication and production values in cable programming from 25 years go.

Going for a skate

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, January 17, 2011 at 4:32 PM - 144 Comments

Not to be entirely outdone this day, the Liberals have released the following video of Michael Ignatieff skating about in a hockey jersey, high-fiving children: all no doubt intended to contrast with a Prime Minister who is “not a great skater.”

'Strange reticences'

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, January 17, 2011 at 3:34 PM - 28 Comments

Rex Murphy considers the first five years of Stephen Harper.

Stephen Harper has many strange reticences; and his restraint over celebrating the West’s ascension, or in being himself more of a real bridge between central Canada and the West, is very puzzling. Yet it is of a piece with his manner of governing, the theme of which can be described as: He governs best who is least seen to be governing.

Mr. Harper is a serious, smart and thoughtful politician (we have not seen too many of these); and in times of economic shock such as we have seen, he is a reassuring figure: certainly more reassuring that his two main opponents — Michael Ignatieff and Jack Layton. Despite the persistently expressed dread of Mr. Harper’s hidden agenda (a lurid fantasy of those who viscerally cannot stand him), most Canadians see him as a comfortable steward of the nation’s economic interest.

You are the caretaker, Stephen Harper. You've always been the caretaker.

By Scott Feschuk - Monday, January 17, 2011 at 3:05 PM - 33 Comments

People are focused on the new attacks ads released today by the Conservative Party, but I can’t stop watching the pro-Harper commercial that was included in the bunch.

After some lovely stock footage, it opens with Stephen Harper wandering in the dark through an otherwise vacant Centre Block – just walking and wandering, all on his own. Then he spends the rest of the ad holed up in his office at night, writing and writing, then writing some more. I can’t be the only one who was waiting for Continue…

'An important one'

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, January 17, 2011 at 2:46 PM - 17 Comments

Conrad Black considers the first five years of Prime Minister Harper.

Stephen Harper’s stature as a prime minister will depend on the extent to which he emphasizes his gift for tactical skill in pursuit of desirable goals over his occasional weakness for combining unacceptable severity with unleavened cynicism. I believe the probability is that he will be a durable and distinguished leader. He is already an important one.

Golden Age of TV Talk, But in a Different Way

By Jaime Weinman - Monday, January 17, 2011 at 1:51 PM - 1 Comment

I have said repeatedly that I don’t believe there’s a golden age of television (it’s not the ’00s, it’s not the ’50s, it’s not now), so it follows that I also don’t agree with Alasdair Wilkins’ argument that we are also in “a golden age of awful television.” But it’s still an interesting read, since it makes some points about how the latest round of Lost clones can be so frustrating to watch.

Wilkins’ argument is that TV takes more chances and is more artistically ambitious now, but because TV aims higher, it is even worse when it fails. Specifically, he’s arguing that the recent batch of pointless, plotless, Continue…

Montreal Jews fear hate campaign

By macleans.ca - Monday, January 17, 2011 at 1:44 PM - 24 Comments

B’nai Brith, the Jewish advocacy and community organization, is warning against “an orchestrated campaign of anti-Semitic attacks” in Montreal after the windows of three synagogues, a Jewish school, and a daycare were smashed over the weekend. The targeting of the school and daycare is of particular concern to Montreal’s Jewish community, given the 2004 firebombing of the United Talmud Torah School. So far, no arrests have been made and no eyewitnesses have come forward, although police will be reviewing surveillance video.

Toronto Star

New mortgage rules announced

By macleans.ca - Monday, January 17, 2011 at 1:43 PM - 4 Comments

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty has announced a new set of mortgage rules in an effort to alleviate concerns over consumer debt. Under the new rules, the maximum amortization period has been reduced to 30 years, the maximum amount of equity to be borrowed for refinancing has been lowered to 85 per cent of a home’s value, and the government will no longer provide insurance for lines of credit secured by homes. By shortening the amortization period, the government has increased monthly payments but has shortened the amount of interest paid over the life of the mortgage, which makes building up equity easier. Economist Avery Shenfeld likens the new rules to the government putting Canadians on “a debt diet” that would further protect against a U.S.-style mortgage crisis. The minister’s announcement indicates an increasing concern in the federal government about the impact of consumer debt on the Canadian economy.

The Globe and Mail

Childhood video game addiction linked to mental illness: researchers

By macleans.ca - Monday, January 17, 2011 at 1:41 PM - 28 Comments

A study published the journal Pediatrics suggests that children who become addicted to video games are more likely to be depressed, anxious or have social phobias. It also found that teens who have trouble fitting in with other kids are more likely to become addicted in the first place. But the “real surprise” of the study, according to researchers, was that once addicted children who qualified as depressed stopped playing altogether, their depression lifted. The study included data on 3,034 children in Singapore over two years. The average time spent playing video games was 20.5 to 22.5 hours per week. About 9 per cent of the children surveyed qualified as “addicted.”

U.S. News

Reagan had Alzheimer’s in office: son

By macleans.ca - Monday, January 17, 2011 at 1:12 PM - 5 Comments

Ron Reagan, son of U.S. President Ronald Reagan, writes in a new book that his father showed signs of Alzheimer’s disease as early as 1984, when he was campaigning for a second term. However, Ron’s older half-brother Michael, who is also releasing a book commemorating the 100th anniversary of Reagan’s birth, says the claim is untrue and offensive. Doctors have said that the disease, which was officially diagnosed five years after he left office, may explain the confusion Reagan experienced during the 1984 debates with Walter Mondale. Ron says he noticed then too: “There was just something that was off. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it,” he told ABC News. Ron cites the fact that his father had difficulty naming familiar canyons in 1986 and called Princess Diana, “Prince David” by accident as evidence of the degenerative brain disorder. Older son Michael believes the statement tars his father’s legacy; Ron thinks it shouldn’t. “This no more discredits or defines his presidency than Lincoln’s chronic depression, Roosevelt’s polio, Kennedy’s Addison Disease any of those things.”

The Telegraph

Stuxnet worms damages Iranian nuclear facilities

By macleans.ca - Monday, January 17, 2011 at 1:04 PM - 3 Comments

The New York Times is reporting that over the past two years, Dimona—the Israeli centre for nuclear research—has taken on a new and secret role as a critical testing ground in a U.S.-Israeli effort to undermine Iran’s efforts at acquiring nuclear weapons. They say Dimona tested the effectiveness of the Stuxnet computer worm, perhaps the most sophisticated cyberweapon ever deployed, and that the worm appears to have broken roughly a fifth of Iran’s nuclear centrifuges. This has helped delay, though not destroy, Tehran’s ability to make its first nuclear weapon. “To check out the worm, you have to know the machines,” said an American expert on nuclear intelligence. “The reason the worm has been effective is that the Israelis tried it out.” According to anonymous intelligence and military experts, Israel has spun nuclear centrifuges that are virtually identical to Iran’s at Natanz, where Iranian scientists are attempting to enrich uranium.

Both American and Israeli officials refuse to talk publicly about these operations. But the efforts at Dimona illustrate the extent of joint American-Israeli collaboration to sabotage the Iranian nuclear program. Right now, questions remain about who designed the Stuxnet work, since it appears to have several authors working on multiple continents. But what is known is that the worm was designed to send nuclear centrifuges in Iran spinning out of control. The computer program also secretly recorded what normal operations at the nuclear plant looked like, then played those readings back to plant operators so that it would appear that everything was operating normally while the centrifuges were actually destroying themselves. Though the attacks were not fully successful—some parts of Iran’s operations were disabled, while others survived—it’s not clear the attacks are over. Some experts say the code contains the seeds for yet more versions and assaults.

New York Times

Trouble in the big house

By Stephanie Findlay - Monday, January 17, 2011 at 1:01 PM - 35 Comments

JOSE CABEZAS/AFP/Getty Images

If the views of Julian Fantino, the former chief of the Toronto and Ontario police forces and now a Conservative MP, are anything to go by, the Conservative government is hell bent on sending more people to prison. “In some cases, the Charter has been exploited and the rulings that have followed have, in fact, benefited some criminals, absolutely,” said Fantino, in a TV interview last November. His attitude echoes the Conservative government’s anti-crime philosophy, which has resulted in legislation like last February’s Truth in Sentencing Act, which removed the two-for-one credit that prisoners received for time served prior to their conviction.

Now the Tories are proposing the establishment of mandatory minimum sentences for a flurry of offences. For example, Bill S-10, which was on the agenda in the House of Commons and Senate in December, would impose mandatory minimum sentencing for growing marijuana (currently, the law sets only maximum penalties). It’s an expensive venture. This week the Harper government announced that it intends to invest $2 billion over five years to absorb the influx of inmates.

This stance has confounded criminologists and opposition politicians alike, who say the hardline agenda will drive more people into prison for longer, and flies in the face of StatCan reports that show police-reported crime rates have been falling. And, critics say, mandatory minimum sentencing would worsen an already increasing problem in Canada’s justice system: the boom in women in federal prisons.

Continue…

Europa, Europa

By Andrew Potter - Monday, January 17, 2011 at 12:57 PM - 23 Comments

The best sentences I read today:

Yet as the earlier Ireland-Nevada comparison shows, the United States works as a currency union in large part precisely because it is also a transfer union, in which states that haven’t gone bust support those that have. And it’s hard to see how the euro can work unless Europe finds a way to accomplish something similar.

That is from Paul Krugman’s essay in this weekend’s NYT magazine, “Can Europe be Saved?”

Krugman’s argument is that while the blame for the economic crisis of the past three years has been largely pinned on Wall Street, the European Union is at least as much at fault. For me, the key parts of his story are the comparisons between Iceland and Brooklyn, or Ireland and Nevada, explaining why the economic crisis has hit these places differently, and how currency zones affect the policies various regions are able to implement in order to cope.

Europe’s problem, crudely put, is that it is half-assed. For half a century, its elites have imagined that it could build a federal state by incremenents, adding one piece of the puzzle every decade or so until everyone would eventually wake up and realize they lived in a country called Europe. But as Krugman points out, a lot of people argued that the currency union, in the absence of proper federal oversight, would lead to precisely the sort of crisis we’re seeing now.

Krugman ends his essay by listing four ways Europe might emerge from the crisis. Two involve muddling on through, one foresees the dissolution of the Eurozone (or at least the exit of some participants). The last possibility would see Europe become properly federalized — hence the passages I quoted above. Krugman seems to think that muddling through won’t work, and that Europe has a choice to make — the backwards step of a failed Euro, or the positive step of deeper political integration. I don’t see anything close to the political will necessary to push Europe toward a proper constitution.

PS Larry Sidentop’s Democracy in Europe remains the best book I’ve read on the subject. IMO it’s a must-read for students of comparative constitutionalism.