Idea alert

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, January 6, 2011 at 2:05 PM - 30 Comments

In a letter to the Economist, Hitotsubashi University professor Reiko Aoki suggests extending the vote to children.

The median age of voters in Japan will reach 65 within the next 15 years. We should seriously consider giving children a vote and having their parents use it on their behalf. Parents with children under 18 would then control 37% of the vote. Why should we give children a right to vote? Because intergenerational income distribution became a contentious public-policy issue with the establishment of public-pension systems. It may seem outrageous to extend the vote to children, but the extension of the franchise to women was also opposed. That historic change was achieved through the democratic process and resulted in a dilution of the voting power of the male-only electorate. Greying populations require such a fundamental democratic change.

Michael Kinsley considers.

How to win friends and influence people

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, January 6, 2011 at 12:40 PM - 13 Comments

Eric Grenier finds that cabinet ministers have faired better, both financially and electorally, in recent federal campaigns.

It was a similar situation in the 2008 campaign, when the entire Conservative cabinet presented themselves to their constituents as ministers for the first time in an election. While the party increased its support by 1.4 points nationally, ministers saw their support grow by an average of 2.8 points. Regionally, they out-performed their parties by a modest 2 per cent.

‘Bad management’ caused Gulf spill

By macleans.ca - Thursday, January 6, 2011 at 12:29 PM - 4 Comments

A presidential commission is blaming oil companies and federal regulators for the BP oil disaster that left 11 rig workers dead and the Gulf of Mexico awash in millions of gallons of oil. While BP bears the brunt of the blame, the commission’s report also faults Transocean, which owned the Deepwater Horizon rig, and Halliburton, which oversaw the sealing of the well, for making decisions aimed at saving time and money. Inadequate oversight and regulation on the part of the Department of the Interior, which did not have enough qualified staff to inspect the drilling operation, allowing the companies to cut corners. The report concludes that the disaster was an avoidable and recurring consequence of “systemic” inadequacies in industry practices and government policies.

BBC News

Team Russia kicked off airplane

By macleans.ca - Thursday, January 6, 2011 at 12:25 PM - 46 Comments

The World Junior Russian hockey team was scheduled to fly home today after last night’s 5-3 gold medal win over Canada. Instead, the team is sobering up at a Days Hotel near Buffalo-Niagara International Airport. The team was kicked off their Delta flight this morning because members of the team were intoxicated, WGRZ News reports. The team’s general manager is arranging new travel plans.

WGRZ

Canadian hip hop artist banned from U.S.

By macleans.ca - Thursday, January 6, 2011 at 12:23 PM - 3 Comments

Shane Bunting, a.k.a. Mad Child, of the Vancouver-based hip hop group Swollen Members, has been denied entry to the U.S. American officials haven’t confirmed their reasoning, but Bunting says he was turned back from the border after being held several hours and then questioned over his links to members of the Hells Angels biker gang. He has now been banned from the U.S., which will likely mean the Juno-winning group will have to cancel a North American tour planned for this spring. Bunting admits he was charged with assault when he was a minor, but has no other criminal record. However, in 2007, a SWAT team showed up at his Kelowna, B.C. home looking for the owner of a Dodge Ram pickup truck owned by a Hells Angels member that was parked in his driveway. In addition, three Hells Angels members appeared in his 2003 music video in full gang colours and Swollen Members performed at a show last September which was billed as a make-up session for warring gang members.

Vancouver Sun

Canadians have little faith in economic recovery

By macleans.ca - Thursday, January 6, 2011 at 12:17 PM - 12 Comments

What a difference a year makes. A new survey by the Economic Club of Canada and Pollara shows a year-over-year drop of 16 per cent in the number of Canadians who think the economy will improve, and a 14 per cent increase in the number of those who feel it will get worse. Concerns about the U.S. economy, the cost of living, and the national deficit are chief among the factors that have shaken consumer confidence. Pollara’s chairman, Michael Marzolini, said “Canadians were feeling overly bullish on economic recovery this time last year,” but that economic conditions around the world could not meet these expectations.

The Globe and Mail

Vaccine-autism link 'an elaborate fraud'

By macleans.ca - Thursday, January 6, 2011 at 12:08 PM - 8 Comments

A 1998 study by UK researcher Andrew Wakefield that linked childhood autism to a vaccine was not only wrong, but an “elaborate fraud” according to the British Journal of Medicine. Wakefield’s study showed that twelve autistic children had first showed symptoms shortly after receiving the MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) vaccine. British investigative journalist Brian Deer revealed last year that not one of the 12 children’s official medical records matched the study’s assertion, including the dates when they first showed autism-like symptoms. The BMJ has confirmed Deer’s assessment. Even though doctors warned that the study was flawed because of its tiny sample size and lack of control group, hundreds of thousands of British parents refused to give their children the vaccine over the next decade because of the study. The fear of the MMR vaccine spread across the world. In 2008, measles was declared endemic to the UK once again—a symptom of panic over the vaccine.

Edmonton Journal

More hospital visits due to prescription drugs, study shows

By macleans.ca - Thursday, January 6, 2011 at 11:25 AM - 0 Comments

New data shows the number of emergency room visits that stem from misusing, or abusing, prescription drugs has almost doubled over the last five years in the U.S., reports the New York Times. At the same time, the number of visits from illicit drugs (for example, cocaine and heroin) has barely changed. In fact, emergency room visits due to prescription drugs have exceeded those from illicit drugs for three years now. There were about 1.2 million visits to emergency rooms due to pharmaceutical drugs in 2009, compared to 627,000 in 2004, researchers found. Visits due to adverse reactions to drugs that were taken according to prescription weren’t included. The Drug Enforcement Administration recently organized the first national prescription drug take-back program that saw thousands of people drop off old, unused drugs at drop-off points.

New York Times

The Year in Democracy (II)

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, January 6, 2011 at 10:35 AM - 141 Comments

David Eaves nominates the census debate.

That’s why at a time when Canadian political coverage tries to cleave the country’s citizens into different, competing groups – rural versus urban, French versus English, left versus right – I think the best moment in Canadian Democracy was seeing over 500 groups including all levels of government, non-profits from across the country, business organizations, rural communities, and virtually all the major religious organizations come together and challenge the government with one voice … The decision and the process surrounding it may be one of the year’s darkest moments for Canadian democracy but the country’s reaction was definitely one of our brightest.

Bestsellers

By Brian Bethune - Thursday, January 6, 2011 at 10:34 AM - 0 Comments

Top-selling fiction and non-fiction titles (week of January 3rd, 2011)

Fiction

Non-fiction

LAST WEEK (WEEKS ON LIST)

Canada loses World Junior hockey final

By macleans.ca - Thursday, January 6, 2011 at 10:29 AM - 20 Comments

Canada suffered an epic third period collapse in the gold medal game of the World Junior Hockey Championship on Wednesday, allowing the Russians to storm back into a game that as all but over before the start of the final frame. Down 3-0 going into the third, Russia scored five unanswered goals to send the Canadians home with a silver medal for the second year in a row. “They just turned it on and I just think we weren’t ready for what they had to throw at us,” Team Canada captain Ryan Ellis said after the game. The Canadian squad was apparently so confident of the outcome, the players were discussing to whom they would dedicate their victory in the dressing room between periods. “It’s probably 10 times worse,” Ellis answered when asked about how the result compares to last year’s overtime loss to the U.S. “[The gold medal] was right there. We had it and now it’s gone.”

Sportsnet

'Strategic brand building'

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, January 6, 2011 at 9:30 AM - 17 Comments

The Canadian Press details the struggle to sell the stimulus.

The Economic Action Plan website, touting the Conservative’s big-spending budget of January 2009, was criticized from the outset for its highly partisan appearance. Despite earlier vehement denials by the Prime Minister’s Office, the nature of the exercise was explained this week as “strategic brand building” by Mr. Harper’s freshly departed former chief of staff …

Documents obtained under Access to Information show the Privy Council Office – the bureaucratic arm that serves the Prime Minister’s Office – spent four months in 2009 trying to convince Treasury Board to give it numerous exemptions to the new rules. But it never succeeded in convincing the gatekeepers of the online standards of its case.

Is there a doctor in the House?

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, January 5, 2011 at 5:24 PM - 42 Comments

Chris Selley questions the medical wisdom of politicians.

It took some flaming cheek for Mr. Dosanjh and Ms. Duncan to claim that “disregarding experts is a dangerous precedent” in an op-ed that involved disregarding — not to mention disrespecting — literally dozens of medical practitioners and researchers. But precious few politicians are capable of resisting the lure of emotionally charged issues, and the opportunities they afford to care out loud. From this appalling cynicism, there seems very little hope of liberation.

For the record, there are four physicians in the House of Commons: Liberals Carolyn Bennett, Hedy Fry, Keith Martin and Bernard Patry.

Northeastern Australia under water

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, January 5, 2011 at 5:20 PM - 3 Comments

The flooding that has submerged an area of Queensland, Australia bigger than the size of British Columbia seems to have peaked at around nine metres, but Australian officials say it could be a at least a week before the Fitzroy River recedes. So far, the flood has affected about 200,000 people, and Queensland Premier Anna Bligh estimates the cost of recovery to be more than $5 billion. Another unexpected factor complicating resettlement plans: many regions are now awash with venomous snakes.

CBC News

British anti-Islamists coming to Canada

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, January 5, 2011 at 5:18 PM - 72 Comments

The English Defence League, a UK-based group responsible for violent anti-Muslim protests and whose members include football hooligans, has been invited to hold a “support rally” in Toronto next Tuesday. The EDL’s leader, Stephen Lennon, was charged with assaulting a police officer last November, but will speak to the rally remotely via the web. The controversial Jewish Defence League, classified as a “right-wing terrorist group” by the FBI in 2001, invited EDL supporters to rally at the Toronto Zionist Centre, based on their unconditional support for Israel and their militant stance against political Islam. Bernie Farber, CEO of the Canadian Jewish Congress, expressed “disappointment that the JDL would support an organization whose record in the U.K. is one of violence and extremism.” While its supporters are typically described as being from working class districts of northern England with little interaction with diverse communities, the EDL says it welcomes all other faiths and ethnicities, as long as they are active in confronting Islam.

National Post

Kory Teneycke to return to Sun TV News

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, January 5, 2011 at 5:16 PM - 41 Comments

Kory Teneycke is expected to return to the top job at Sun TV News, the right-leaning TV venture introduced by Quebecor last year, The Globe and Mail reports. The former director of communications for Prime Minister Stephen Harper abandoned the job in mid-September following a series of controversial events that arguably hindered the company’s chances of acquiring a federal broadcasting license (which it has since obtained). In particular, Teneycke embroiled himself in the controversy surrounding a petition against Sun TV News by Avaaz.org, in which several fake names appeared to be entered by a prankster. Teneycke used his Twitter account to announce that the culprit had been in touch, and that the “petition lacks basic controls.” Regarding his expected return, Teneycke declined comment. The network, which will feature right-wing personalities such as Ezra Levant, is set to launch in mid-March.

The Globe and Mail

Designer drug makers “stole” blueprints, scientist says

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, January 5, 2011 at 4:40 PM - 0 Comments

In an article for the journal Nature, David Nichols of Purdue University in Indiana writes he’s “haunted” by the deaths of patients linked to a drug that was based on his research,. In the 1990s, Nichols and others were looking at chemicals like the one used in ecstasy, to find drugs that might treat depression. His work on one chemical, called 4-methylthioamphetamine or MTA, was used to create pills called “flatliners,” linked to at least six deaths. Only recently did Nichols realize how the designer drugs industry drew on his own research, and notes that several synthetic drugs that produce a cannabis-like effect were developed using data from publicly available scientific literature, speaking out against the misuse of this research.

BBC News

Seventy-six shoulders strong

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, January 5, 2011 at 3:23 PM - 25 Comments

In his first news conference as a minister of state, Ted Menzies is asked to explain why the ministry is so much larger than it was when the current government first took office and proceeds to offer a number of words in response. For the sake of saving readers some time, I’ll bold the words that seem most relevant to the question.

Well, first of all, I’m honored to be part of this cabinet. Many of us have played a role, a pivotal role, many parliamentary secretaries that don’t have a seat at the cabinet table. We are in some very unique and challenging times right now and the more shoulders behind the wheel that we have, I think, will help us. There has been some many – many challenges we faced. We feel that we have done a good job. We need to stay the course and keep moving towards what Canadians have asked us to do and that is get back to balanced budgets and whether, you know, the numbers  at the cabinet table — we have seen more historically in the past. I don’t think that is as big an issue as the quality that we have there, the strength in this cabinet that are working in unison, as recognized by some of the papers in the U.S. just in the last couple of days. Canada is the envy at getting our fiscal house in order, encouraging new businesses to invest. That is the important thing. We are talking about jobs here today. The more we can do to encourage jobs in Canada, I think the better off we will all be.

Our Andrew Coyne notes that Mackenzie King made it through his challenging times with a ministry of 17. More recently, when Mr. Harper became Prime Minister he named a 27-member ministry (with 26 parliamentary secretaries). He now has a 38-member ministry (with 25 parliamentary secretaries).

Continue…

Boehner's new House rules

By Luiza Ch. Savage - Wednesday, January 5, 2011 at 2:44 PM - 9 Comments

The just-sworn-in Speaker of the US House of Representatives, John Boehner, has introduced new rules for how the House will work.

One congressional rules wonk, Norman Ornstein at the American Enterprise Institute, sees problems with some of the changes.

Boehner’s new schedule will give the House two weeks of work followed by one full week off during which lawmakers will spend in their districts.This is supposed to keep them close to their constituents and prevent them from becoming creatures of Washington, but Ornstein sees a big downside to such frequent trips home:

“The concept is a good one. But it leaves me queasy. I have long called for a three weeks on, one week off schedule for two reasons. The first is I want to find ways to encourage members to spend more time together, and to move their families to Washington. The best way to encourage civil discourse is for people to get to know each other as people; it is very hard to call a colleague a treasonous pig if you have spent time with his or her family on the sidelines of a kid’s soccer game. The second is to provide the long and continuous stretches of Congressional sessions that encourage real deliberation and debate, and do not provide the kinds of disincentives for the regular order that the disjointed and limited schedule has set in place.”

In addition, Boehner has made it easier to adopt spending cuts. He will deputize the chairman of the House Budget Committee to unilaterally create spending and revenue limits and caps by committee and enact them simply by publishing them in the Congressional Record.

“This is breathtaking: It demolishes the Congressional budget process in one fell swoop, and it takes away the accountability, openness and deliberation that a regular budget process provides. This is the opposite of accountability; Members, by voting in lockstep to enact a package of rules, will implicitly vote for a budget they have never seen. It will be binding in the House.”

“When individual appropriations come up, any proposal that changes the edicts of Budget Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) by restoring cuts in spending will be ruled out of order. Dramatic and Draconian budget cuts without votes or debate. That is the new open and deliberative House?”

The Year in Democracy

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, January 5, 2011 at 2:40 PM - 13 Comments

Samara is soliciting nominations for the best in democracy for 2010 and Alison Loat notes the trend of the current entries.

From the submissions made so far, it would seem that Canadian democracy is on the defensive. Many of the entries were public outcry in reaction to a policy decision, a government move, or even an individual politician. What does this say about Canadian democracy? Does democracy always need defending?

Patients are getting unnecessary heart implants, study finds

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, January 5, 2011 at 1:57 PM - 10 Comments

Thousands of patients are being implanted with high-tech heart devices they probably don’t even need, and might even harm them unnecessarily, according to a new study reported in the New York Times. The devices are called defibrillators, and fire an electric shock to jolt the heart into a normal rhythm in case it starts beating in a disorderly way, which can cause death. About 100,000 are implanted each year in the U.S., in procedures that can cost over $35,000 and involve surgery and anesthesia. Researchers looked at the records of 111,707 people who got implants at 1,227 hospitals in the U.S. from 2006 to 2009, and found that more than 25,000 people (22.5 per cent of all who got them) didn’t match the guidelines of professional societies that specify when they should be used. Most of these patients were 64 to 68, and for unknown reasons, blacks and Hispanics were more likely than whites to get defibrillators they probably didn’t need. At some centres, over 40 per cent of devices were implanted into patients outside the guidelines.

New York Times

North Korea calls for “unconditional” talks

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, January 5, 2011 at 1:28 PM - 11 Comments

South Korea has batted down an unusual offer by North Korea to engage in “unconditional and early” talks, in order to ease the escalating military stand-off on the peninsula. In a statement made via the Korean Central News Agency, North Korea said it is “ready to meet anyone anytime and anywhere, letting bygones be bygones, if he or she is willing to go hands in hands with us.” Seoul dismissed the offer as an insincere gesture, saying it would only negotiate if Pyongyang issues an apology for killing four South Koreans in the shelling Yeonpyeong Island, and for sinking the Cheonan warship, during which 46 South Korean sailors died. However, both sides have eased their war-like rhetoric and indicated that peace talks are a definite option. U.S. envoy Stephen Bosworth is meeting with Chinese officials on Thursday to see how China might pressure North Korea to calm its tendency towards military brinksmanship.

Associated Press

The 'How I Met Your Mother' countdown

By Jaime Weinman - Wednesday, January 5, 2011 at 1:21 PM - 3 Comments

Here’s a compilation of the “countdown” from Monday’s How I Met Your Mother, where (probably with the help of digital retouching) numbers appeared in decreasing order in the background throughout the episode, starting with the number 50.

People looking closely would realize that the episode was counting down to something, so it was an interesting and effective use of the “easter egg.” It led sharp-eyed viewers to expect that these numbers were building up to something, but those viewers would be if anything more surprised by the ending than the rest of the audience, since it seems like the countdown to a joke or maybe just a private in-joke.

As for the actual ending, I was fine with it. I wouldn’t want to see it end this way every week; that way lies Facts of Life territory. But once in a while a sitcom like this needs to deliver an actual emotional punch and a story idea that really matters to the characters. And since having “heart” or learning a lesson has been devalued by the fact that almost every show is doing it, it seems appropriate that HIMYM (in a season that has been a big improvement over the last one) would try to create a moment that feels more significant than just learning another lesson about relationships.

King of the Hill Revisited: "Westie Side Story" and "Shins of the Father"

By Jaime Weinman - Wednesday, January 5, 2011 at 1:00 PM - 7 Comments

The retrospective look at the first season of King of the Hill continues with two episodes that introduce some very important supporting characters — two of them angry guys voiced by Toby Huss.

“Westie Side Story”

This episode is the first in this batch that I felt was less good than I remembered. I remembered it as being one of the better first season episodes, but now I think it’s one of the weaker ones. I know why I remembered it fondly, though: the first act of the episode, when they’re setting up the story, abounds in great lines. Several of the most-remembered jokes and exchanges from the series come from this episode. Once they get to the big second-act plot twist, the quality goes down quite a bit — but what lingers in the memory a lot of times are not plots, but scenes or lines or moments.

When you think of a TV episode you haven’t seen in a long time, you might not even remember the plot, but you do remember the premise and the funniest scene. So what I remembered about “Westie Side Story” is that it’s the episode where the Souphanousinphone family moves next door to the Hills, and that it included this exchange, so well-known that it gets the ultimate compliment that can be paid to a comedy scene: people quote it, as the perfect satire of Americans’ lack of knowledge about other countries, without knowing what it’s from.

The story is based on a subplot that was cut from Mike Judge’s first draft of the pilot script; Greg Daniels suggested saving the story, and the Souphanousinphone family, for later. The episode where they show up is written by Jonathan Aibel and Glenn Berger, a team that would be extremely important in the first six seasons of the show (they were showrunners for the sixth season). It has a lot of other funny lines, and it’s also the first episode to take the step — inevitable in a comedy — of making characters a little dumber or weirder for the sake of comedy. Luanne, who was not particularly dumb for the first few episodes, now gets her first Ralph Wiggum-ish lines (“At beauty academy, they teach us that people aren’t black or white or yellow or red, but their hair can be”), Bobby loses enough IQ points that he thinks a male and female dog are “playing piggyback,” Dale is getting more excitable and his conspiracy theories more outlandish.

Above all, Peggy is really coming into her own in this one. Early episodes only hinted at the idea that she might think she’s smarter than she actually is. But that’s the main basis for her characterization in this episode. In her first scene, she’s stating obviously false information as fact because she “read it somewhere”; Kahn gets on her bad side when he actually asks her where she read one of these absurd factoids. She is inordinately Continue…