Harper and Obama announce border deal

By macleans.ca - Friday, February 4, 2011 at 4:47 PM - 45 Comments

At a White House press conference on Friday, Prime Minister Stephen Harper and U.S. President Barack Obama announced a new bilateral agreement on border security and trade. Harper met for an hour with Obama in the Oval Office to discuss the idea of a North American security perimeter that would secure the border while allowing for more open trade. “It is in both of our interests to ensure our common border remains open and efficient,” said Harper, who addressed the White House press conference in English and French, noting that 8-million U.S. jobs are dependent on Canada-U.S. trade and that Canada was the largest and most secure supplier of energy to the United States. The new plan will combat bureaucratic inefficiencies by using modern technology, harmonizing inspection procedures and increasing shared information between the two countries. Harper rejected that the agreement will infringe on Canadian sovereignty, while Obama remarked that the U.S. and Canada “are not simply allies, not simply neighbours,” but “are woven together like perhaps no other two countries in the world.” Opposition critics have accused the Conservative government of having a “secretive” approach on the issue by not debating the terms of the agreement in Question Period.

Canadian Press

RCMP commissioner will step down in July

By macleans.ca - Friday, February 4, 2011 at 4:30 PM - 3 Comments

William Elliot, the beleaguered RCMP commissioner who became the first civilian chief of the force in 2007, announced on Friday that he will step down next July. Complaints began to surface in July of last year from RCMP officers who said that Elliot was abrasive, bullying and difficult to work with. Former CSIS director Reid Morden was later hired for $28,000 to produce a “workplace assessment” of the force. Many of Elliot’s critics were replaced, such as Deputy Commissioner Raf Souccar. CTV News’ Don Martin expressed surprise at Elliot’s resignation, saying “he seemed to have won,” while noting that Elliot himself had previously stated that “the mood of the senior leadership of the RCMP is very positive.” Liberal public safety critic Mark Holland says that with Elliot’s resignation, it is an opportune time to reform the RCMP.

CTV News

Harper and Obama's joint declaration

By Luiza Ch. Savage - Friday, February 4, 2011 at 4:25 PM - 1 Comment

A declaration by the Prime Minister of Canada and the President of the United States of America
4 February 2011

Ottawa, Ontario

Canada and the United States are staunch allies, vital economic partners, and steadfast friends. We share common values, deep links among our citizens, and deeply rooted ties. The extensive mobility of people, goods, capital, and information between our two countries has helped ensure that our societies remain open, democratic, and prosperous.

To preserve and extend the benefits our close relationship has helped bring to Canadians and Americans alike, we intend to pursue a perimeter approach to security, working together within, at, and away from the borders of our two countries to enhance our security and accelerate the legitimate flow of people, goods, and services between our two countries. We intend to do so in partnership, and in ways that support economic competitiveness, job creation, and prosperity.

We have advanced our prosperity through the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement and the North American Free Trade Agreement. Over $250 billion of direct investment by each country in the other, and bilateral trade of more than half-a-trillion dollars a year in goods and services create and sustain millions of jobs in both our countries. At the Canada-U.S. border, nearly one million dollars in goods and services cross every minute, as well as 300,000 people every day, who cross for business, pleasure, or to maintain family ties.

Canada and the United States share a long history of cooperation in defending our values and freedoms. We stand together to confront threats to our collective security as partners in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. We work shoulder-to-shoulder in the defence of both our nations through the North American Aerospace Defence Command (NORAD).

We share responsibility for the safety, security, and resilience of Canada and of the United States in an increasingly integrated and globalized world. We intend to address security threats at the earliest point possible in a manner that respects privacy, civil liberties, and human rights.

I. Principles

We intend to work together in cooperation and partnership to develop, implement, manage, and monitor security initiatives, standards, and practices to fulfill our vision. We recognize that our efforts should accelerate job creation and economic growth through trade facilitation at our borders and contribute directly to the economic security and well-being of both Canada and the United States.

We intend to strengthen our resilience – our ability to mitigate, respond to, and recover from disruptions. Success depends on readiness at all levels of our governments, within our communities, and among private sector owners and operators of our infrastructure, systems, and networks. We rely on secure communications and transportation networks, including our civil aviation system, and we intend to work together to make them resilient enough to continue operating in the face of a natural disaster or attack.

We expect to use a risk management approach where compatible, interoperable, and – where possible – joint measures and technology should proportionately and effectively address the threats we share. Effective risk management should enable us to accelerate legitimate flows of people and goods into Canada and the United States and across our common border, while enhancing the physical security and economic competitiveness of our countries.

We build on the efforts of many partners – from police and other emergency workers to our armed forces – who continue to safeguard us from the complex threats we face.

We also recognize that cooperation across air, land, and maritime domains, as well as in space and cyberspace, our enduring bi-national defence relationship, and military support for civilian authorities engaged in disaster response efforts and critical infrastructure protection, have all contributed significantly to the security of our populations.

We recognize that greater sharing of information will strengthen our ability to achieve the goals of this vision.

We intend to work together to engage with all levels of government and with communities, non-governmental organizations, and the private sector, as well as with our citizens, on innovative approaches to security and competitiveness.

We value and respect our separate constitutional and legal frameworks that protect privacy, civil liberties, and human rights and provide for appropriate recourse and redress.

We recognize the sovereign right of each country to act independently in its own interest and in accordance with its laws.

We expect to work together with third countries and with international organizations, and intend to facilitate security sector reform and capacity building around the globe, to enhance standards that contribute to our overall security.

Key Areas of Cooperation

Addressing Threats Early

Collaborating to address threats before they reach our shores, we expect to develop a common understanding of the threat environment through improved intelligence and information sharing, as well as joint threat assessments to support informed risk management decisions.

We intend to develop an integrated strategy that would enable us to meet the threats and hazards that both our nations face, including natural disasters and man-made threats, including terrorism.

We expect to continue strengthening our health security partnership, through existing mechanisms for cooperation on health emergencies, and by further enhancing our collective preparedness and response capacity to a range of health security threats, including influenza pandemics.

We intend to work together to uncover and disrupt threats that endanger the security of both Canada and the United States and to establish those agreements or policies necessary to ensure timely sharing of information for combined efforts to counter the threats. We intend to ensure we have the ability to support one another as we prepare for, withstand, and rapidly recover from disruptions. We intend to make the Agreement Between the Government of Canada and the Government of the United States of America on Emergency Management Cooperation, updated in 2008, a cornerstone of these efforts.

To increase security, counter fraud, and improve efficiency, we intend to work together to establish and verify the identities of travellers and conduct screening at the earliest possible opportunity. We intend to work toward common technical standards for the collection, transmission, and matching of biometrics that enable the sharing of information on travellers in real time. This collaboration should facilitate combined Canadian and United States screening efforts and strengthen methods of threat notification.

In order to promote mobility between our two countries, we expect to work towards an integrated Canada-United States entry-exit system, including work towards the exchange of relevant entry information in the land environment so that documented entry into one country serves to verify exit from the other country.

We intend to cooperate to identify, prevent, and counter violent extremism in our two countries. By working cooperatively on research, sharing best practices, and emphasizing community-based and community-driven efforts, we will have a better understanding of this threat and an increased ability to address it effectively.

We intend to formulate jointly Canada-United States privacy protection principles that should inform and guide our work in relation to facilities, operations, programs, and other initiatives contemplated by this Declaration.

We intend to work together to promote the principles of human rights, privacy, and civil liberties as essential to the rule of law and effective management of our perimeter.

Trade Facilitation, Economic Growth, and Jobs

We intend to pursue creative and effective solutions to manage the flow of traffic between Canada and the United States. We will focus investment in modern infrastructure and technology at our busiest land ports of entry, which are essential to our economic well-being.

We will strive to ensure that our border crossings have the capacity to support the volume of commercial and passenger traffic inherent to economic growth and job creation on both sides of the border.

To enhance our risk management practices, we intend to continue planning together, organizing bi-national port of entry committees to coordinate planning and funding, building, expanding or modernizing shared border management facilities and border infrastructure where appropriate, and using information technology solutions.

We intend to look for opportunities to integrate our efforts and where practicable, to work together to develop joint facilities and programs – within and beyond Canada and the United States – to increase efficiency and effectiveness for both security and trade.

We aim to build on the success of current joint programs by expanding trusted traveller and trader programs, harmonizing existing programs, and automating processes at the land border to increase efficiency.

We will look for ways to reduce the cost of conducting legitimate business across the border by implementing, where practicable, common practices and streamlined procedures for customs processing and regulatory compliance.

We intend to work towards developing an integrated cargo security strategy that ensures compatible screening methods for goods and cargo before they depart foreign ports bound for Canada or the United States, so that once they enter the territory of either we can, together, accelerate subsequent crossings at land ports of entry between our two countries.

We recognize the importance of the Canada-U.S. Framework for the movement of Goods and People across the Border During and Following an Emergency, agreed to in 2009. It underscores the importance of coordinated, cooperative, and timely border management decision making to mitigate the impacts of disruptions on our citizens and economies.

Integrated Cross-border Law Enforcement

We intend to build on existing bilateral law enforcement programs to develop the next generation of integrated cross-border law enforcement operations that leverage cross-designated officers and resources to jointly identify, assess, and interdict persons and organizations involved in transnational crime.

We intend to seek further opportunities to pursue national security and transnational crime investigations together to maximize our ability to tackle the serious security threats that these organizations and individuals present.

We intend to improve the sharing among our law enforcement agencies of relevant information to better identify serious offenders and violent criminals on both sides of the border.

Critical Infrastructure and Cybersecurity

We intend to work together to prevent, respond to, and recover from physical and cyber disruptions of critical infrastructure and to implement a comprehensive cross-border approach to strengthen the resilience of our critical and cyber infrastructure with strong cross-border engagement.

Canada and the United States benefit from shared critical and cyber infrastructure. Our countries intend to strengthen cybersecurity to protect vital government and critical digital infrastructure of national importance, and to make cyberspace safer for all our citizens.

We intend to work together to defend and protect our use of air, land, sea, space, and cyberspace, and enhance the security of our integrated transportation and communications networks.

II. Implementation and Oversight

Canada and the United States intend to establish a Beyond the Border Working Group (BBWG) composed of representatives from the appropriate departments and offices of our respective federal governments.

Responsibility for ensuring inter-agency coordination will rest with the Prime Minister and the President and their respective officials.

We intend for the BBWG to report to their respective Leaders in the coming months, and after a period of consultation, with a joint Plan of Action to realize the goals of this declaration, that would, where appropriate, rely upon existing bilateral border-related groups, for implementation.

The BBWG will report on the implementation of this declaration to Leaders on an annual basis. The mandate of the BBWG will be reviewed after three years.

This week in patriotism

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, February 4, 2011 at 4:23 PM - 59 Comments

Stephen Harper on Tuesday, responding to a question from Michael Ignatieff.

On this side of the House, we are Canadians first and only.

If you wanted to seriously engage such a statement, you might wonder how MPs who were born outside Canada fit into Mr. Harper’s paradigm. (How does the Prime Minister’s sense of “first” apply to a chronological sense of residency? A CBC survey in 2006 found that most of those Conservatives born outside Canada did not report dual citizenship, but does the Prime Minister’s insistence on “only” imply any kind of limit on future Conservatives MPs? And so on.)

Meanwhile, in response to the Defence Minister’s taunts, Liberal Marc Garneau sought yesterday to engage in a sort of patriotic penis-measuring contest. Continue…

Chart of the week: Twitter-iffic sales

By macleans.ca - Friday, February 4, 2011 at 4:09 PM - 1 Comment

Advertising revenue on Twitter is expected to triple this year as companies pay to promote their tweets on the social networking service.

A Quebec speeder may be Canada's worst driver

By macleans.ca - Friday, February 4, 2011 at 3:55 PM - 26 Comments

The provincial police in Quebec pulled over a man driving 240 kilometers an hour in a BMW SUV on a Montreal expressway early Friday morning. The driver, a 20-year-old man, had his license suspended and received a $2,598 ticket and 42 demerit points, a police spokesperson told the CBC. He was driving more than triple the 70 km per hour speed limit, making it one of the worst speeding cases in Canadian history.

CBC News

Harper and Obama announce new regulatory council

By Luiza Ch. Savage - Friday, February 4, 2011 at 3:25 PM - 35 Comments

To advance a vision of “perimeter security”, “Canada and the U.S. intend to establish a Beyond the Border Working Group composed of representatives from the appropriate departments of our respective federal governments.” It will report annually.

They announce the creation of a U.S.-Canada Regulatory Cooperation Council composed of senior officials from both governments to work on “increased regulatory transparency and coordination.”

This will “in no way diminish the sovereignty of either Canada or the U.S.”

This will include early notice of regulations that could have effects across the border and to help make regulations more compatible.

Border announcement to focus on trade

By Luiza Ch. Savage - Friday, February 4, 2011 at 2:30 PM - 0 Comments

The border announcement today will include the creation of a Council to review regulations with an eye to streamlining and helping facilitate trade. I’m told this is in part an extension of Obama’s domestic initiative to review regulations. He talked about it in the State of the Union.

First week fashion on the Hill

By Mitchel Raphael - Friday, February 4, 2011 at 2:20 PM - 2 Comments

MPs show off some new looks for the beginning of the new session. Below, Liberal MP Siobhan Coady and her sealskin ear muffs.

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Treasury Board President Stockwell Day in a foot cast.

Continue…

How Stockwell Day got crutches and lost his shirt

By Mitchel Raphael - Friday, February 4, 2011 at 2:00 PM - 3 Comments

Was it Gerard Kennedy’s cologne?
Illness and injuries seemed to be the theme of the day as the House of Commons resumed last Monday. Treasury Board President Stockwell Day was on crutches. “There was a puppy on a railroad… ” Day quipped. The truth, he confessed, was that a giant Labrador retriever came out of nowhere and knocked him down while he was on a run. Day now has a severe ankle injury. The dog didn’t just run him down: as he was running, Day was holding his shirt in his hand; after the fall, the dog grabbed the shirt and ran off with it.

Ontario NDP MP Glenn Thibeault slipped on some ice over the break, fracturing his arm and suffering severe hand injuries. Which meant, he says, that he could no longer do his hair. At one point it was looking like a comb-over, so he decided to just shave his head. He returned to Ottawa with a short buzz.

Quebec Liberal MP Alexandra Mendes showed up to question period wearing a medical mask. She was on day six of pneumonia. (It looks like the post-H1N1 trend of not coming to work on the Hill if you are sick is now officially over.) Her seatmate Gerard Kennedy asked whether she was trying to save him or was allergic to him. Later, Ted Menzies, the minister of state for finance, quipped to Mendes: “We thought Gerard just had strong cologne.” Other Conservatives joked about how the Liberals are literally muzzling their MPs.

Why’s Peter Kent so far away?
The House’s first day back for 2011 saw Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff ask the first five questions in question period, as opposed to just the first three. He has done this before, but Liberal MPs say watch for more QPs with Ignatieff piling on the first questions. Since this Prime Minister’s press conferences are few and far between, at least Stephen Harper now has to answer more questions in a public forum. Also on the first day back, Green party Leader Elizabeth May says she was not impressed with the remote seating position assigned the new environment minister. Peter Kent is now on the front bench, but is the second-last Conservative seat from the Speaker, down where the NDP sit. “We’ve never had an environment minister way down there,” says May.

Much ado over size
The first day of Parliament saw Speaker Peter Milliken throw his annual Robbie Burns dinner. This year, Ontario Conservative MP Ed Holder had the honour of addressing the haggis. When he pulled out a small knife to cut the Scottish delicacy, there were many chuckles. One MP shouted out, “Bill Blaikie‘s was bigger.” (The former NDP MP addressed the haggis with a sword.) Holder then pulled out a larger knife, to the delight of the crowd. This was Milliken’s 10th Robbie Burns dinner and likely his last as Speaker, since he does not plan to run in the next election. In honour of Milliken, a set of bagpipes was donated to the Rob Roy Pipe Band in Kingston, Ont., the city Milliken represents, for young people who want to learn to play the expensive instrument.

The tartan bazaar
The Cape Breton Highlanders were recently reinstated. (Formed in 1871, in 1954 they were combined with two other Nova Scotia battalions and renamed the Nova Scotia Highlanders.) Cape Breton Liberal MP Mark Eyking helped the brigade get reinstated, and for that he was made an honorary member. He says he now needs to get a kilt, but quips, “Can a Dutchman be a Highlander?” He says his wife, Pamela Eyking, is half-Scottish, so he is going to use her family tartan (the Gordon). Coincidentally, Defence Minister Peter MacKay, through his mother’s side of the family, already has a Gordon family tartan kilt, which he wore to Peter Milliken’s Robbie Burns dinner. MacKay said he would give Eyking his Gordon tartan kilt if Eyking would have a MacKay tartan kilt made up for the defence minister.

What Belhassen Trabelsi was doing in Canada

By Martin Patriquin - Friday, February 4, 2011 at 2:00 PM - 3 Comments

Until his sister married into power and plundered wealth, Belhassen Trabelsi was a businessman of middling success whose life revolved around the modest cement company he started in 1986. Six years later, when his sister Leila married Tunisian president Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, Trabelsi’s name became synonymous with power, absurd luxury and a bulletproof sense of impunity. He owned a radio station and a newspaper chain, as well as a luxury hotel. At one point he started a discount airline, availing himself of the facilities of Tunisair, the government-run airline, to service and run his airplane. His high-flying lifestyle apparently included travel to Canada, where, sometime in the mid-1990s, he acquired permanent residency.

This last bit would come in handy when his life took another turn. With the recent spectacular collapse of Ben Ali’s government, following a mass revolt of the Tunisian people, Trabelsi and his family fled to Montreal via private jet last week, and promptly checked in to a $325-a-night hotel in the Montreal suburb of Vaudreuil. Montreal’s sizable Tunisian community was almost instantly up in arms; many descended on the hotel after a local TV station reported that Trabelsi and his family had holed up there.

His welcome from the government hasn’t been any warmer. Prime Minister Stephen Harper has made a statement saying Trabelsi isn’t welcome here; Trabelsi reportedly had his permanent residency stripped shortly after. (According to Citizenship and Immigration Canada, permanent residents must live in Canada for at least two years of the five-year period after being granted status.) Trabelsi is now seeking refugee status—a strange twist of events, given the thousands of Tunisians who have turned up in Canada fleeing his family’s brutal regime in the past.

Continue…

Tribal politics

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, February 4, 2011 at 1:48 PM - 48 Comments

Shankar Vedantam argues that partisanship is the new racism.

When partisanship is seen as a form of social identity—I’m a Democrat because people like me are Democrats, or I’m a Republican because people like me are Republicans—we can understand why so many blue-collar Kansans are Republicans and why so many Silicon Valley billionaires are Democrats, even though each group’s rational interests might be better served by the other party. Partisanship as social identity helps explain why, if you’re a black man in America, it’s really, really difficult to be a Republican. Same goes if you are a white, male, evangelical Christian in rural Texas who supports Barack Obama. Social identities are not deterministic—there will always be some black Republicans and some born-again Christians who are liberals—but most of us stick with our social tribes. Any liberal who supported George W. Bush’s adventure in Iraq would have been ostracized by his friends. A conservative who feels Barack Obama is a cool president will be made to feel like a traitor at church.

Film critic Brian D. Johnson reviews 'Sanctum', from executive producer James Cameron

By macleans.ca - Friday, February 4, 2011 at 1:31 PM - 0 Comments

Special thanks to Toronto’s Magic Lantern Carlton Cinema

Go to Brian’s blog

Canada paid ransom for return of Robert Fowler

By macleans.ca - Friday, February 4, 2011 at 1:29 PM - 7 Comments

According to a leaked U.S. State Department cable made available Wikileaks, the Canadian government paid a ransom to al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb in exchange for the safe return of Canadians Robert Fowler and Louis Guay in 2008. The cable, which does not specify the amount of the ransom, details an exchange between a Libyan official and the U.S. ambassador in Tripoli. Musa Kasa, Libya’s then foreign minister, expressed concern that paying such a ransom is “unfortunate and only increased the strength of al Qaeda.” The Canadian government has maintained that there was no ransom paid and that the governments of Mali and Burkina Faso negotiated the diplomats’ release. Fowler and Guay were kidnapped while visiting a gold mine in Niger. Fowler was the UN’s special envoy to Niger at the time, and had played a leading role in ending the blood diamond trade in Angola.

CBC News

Ottawa favours ‘gradual’ transition in Egypt

By macleans.ca - Friday, February 4, 2011 at 1:25 PM - 20 Comments

The Canadian government supports President Hosni Mubarak’s gradual transition plan, which would see him step down in time for Egypt’s presidential elections, scheduled for September. “A vacuum does not mean transition,” Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon said on Thursday, “The transition must be orderly, we have said it from the beginning.” It is a position that breaks with other Western governments as well as the Obama administration, which is reportedly working on a proposal that would have Mubarak resign immediately and hand over power to his new vice-president, Omar Suleiman. NDP foreign affairs critic Paul Dewar portrayed the Canadian government’s decision as hindering pro-democratic forces in Egypt, and said that keeping Mubarak in power will only magnify the civil chaos and the impotence of the government in regaining order.

The Globe and Mail

Supreme Court sides with unilingual traffic ticket claim

By macleans.ca - Friday, February 4, 2011 at 1:24 PM - 96 Comments

The Supreme Court of Canada has agreed with an Alberta man that his ticket for an illegal left turn should be thrown out because it wasn’t offered in both official languages. The judges also said he deserves to have his legal costs reimbursed for raising an “important constitutional issue.” In a similar case last week, a New Brunswick judge acquitted a man of drunk driving after he claimed he wasn’t offered the option to be arrested in English. That’s despite the fact that the man, Donat Robichaud, is a francophone who lives in a predominantly French-speaking area of the province and he understood the police’s instructions.

Winnipeg Free Press

National Post

Algeria to end to 19-year “state of emergency”

By macleans.ca - Friday, February 4, 2011 at 1:22 PM - 1 Comment

With protesters planning an anti-government demonstration in Algiers on Feb. 12, the president of Algeria, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, says he will lift the country’s 19-year “state of emergency” law. The government had previously extended emergency rule in the 35-million person North African country because it said it was needed to fight terrorism. Now, Bouteflicka says he has ordered the government to “draw up appropriate provisions which will allow the state to continue to fight against terrorism with the same effectiveness [as emergency rule].” The planned protest, which is banned under the state of emergency, will be permitted by the government. Emergency rule was enacted in 1992 when it appeared the Islamic party was set to beat the country’s more secular party in parliamentary elections. Bouteflika, elected first in 1999, removed the two-term limit on the presidency in 2008, allowing him to stay in power indefinitely.

France 24

The sinister plot that is daycare

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, February 4, 2011 at 12:49 PM - 238 Comments

Human Resources Minister Diane Finley, rebutting a Liberal attack yesterday.

Mr. Speaker, it is the Liberals who wanted to ensure that parents were forced to have other people raise their children. We do not believe in that.

The Liberals once pursued—and still seek—a national daycare and early learning program

Grading the Internet

By Colin Campbell - Friday, February 4, 2011 at 12:17 PM - 3 Comments

The movie-streaming service Netflix reported last week that it now has 20 million subscribers, up from 12.3 million one year ago. Netflix’s growth has quickly made it a force in the entertainment business, but its increasingly popular service is putting steep demands on the Internet service providers responsible for delivering all those movies to customers’ homes­—and prompting a simmering battle over who should carry the data costs.

Last week, Netflix released a report card ranking ISPs in the U.S. and Canada and their ability to handle Web video offered by the company. Measuring streaming rates in kilobits per second, Netflix ranked Charter and Comcast highest in the U.S. But it was the Canadian providers who stood out, with the top-ranked Shaw and Rogers (which owns Maclean’s) and the third-placed Bell beating out all the American ISPs.

The company says it will offer the reports monthly, keeping tabs on which ISPs remain Netflix-friendly.

This week: Newsmakers

By Charlie Gillis, Chris Sorensen and Nicholas Köhler - Friday, February 4, 2011 at 12:00 PM - 0 Comments

A breath of fresh Canadian air
The usual right vs. left political jabber of American talk TV was punctuated this week by a few clear-eyed statements courtesy of Canada’s first female prime minister. On Real Time With Bill Maher, former Progressive Conservative leader Kim Campbell called Republican Jack Kingston‘s views on global warming “absolute rubbish,” pointing out to the Georgia congressman that scientists didn’t set out looking for a non-existent problem just to torture right-leaning politicians. When the conversation shifted toward the evolution vs. creation debate, Campbell asked if Kingston was concerned about the alarming rise of antibiotic-resistant microorganisms in hospitals. He squirmed. “That’s evolution,” she said to applause. Does 132 days as PM preclude Campbell from a future in politics?

Lolita’s lepidopterist
In addition to writing great novels, Vladimir Nabokov was a self-taught expert on the evolutionary biology of butterflies—though, like any amateur, the Lolita author faced skepticism from the scientific establishment. Now one of his most audacious theories has been proven right. A paper published by the Royal Society has endorsed Nabokov’s hypothesis that butterflies are not indigenous to North America, but rather arrived in a series of “waves” from Asia. The new research was made possible by gene-sequencing technology Nabokov never had. Said Naomi Pierce, a Harvard expert who co-authored the study: “It’s really quite a marvel.”

Single White Premier seeks less idiotic press
With three female premiers and a female prime minister, Julia Gillard, Australian voters seem fairly accustomed to the idea of women in politics. The media? Not so much. The country’s biggest national newspaper, the Australian, ran a front-page story about Tasmanian premier Lara Giddings‘s first day in office that zeroed in on her comments (in response to a reporter’s question) about the challenges of snaring a husband when you’re a busy politician. The headline read: “Leftist Lara still looking for Mr. Right.” Critics shook their heads. “Why on Earth was this suddenly relevant the day Giddings became Tasmania’s first female premier?” asked one Sydney Morning Herald columnist, noting Giddings was previously an unmarried treasurer and an unmarried attorney general. “It was not as if she had landed from Mars.”

Continue…

Where’s the beef?

By Jason Kirby - Friday, February 4, 2011 at 11:57 AM - 0 Comments

When fast-food chains have faced lawsuits over the quality of their grub, the standard tactic has been to lawyer up and shut up while the case was before the courts. But Taco Bell has taken the battle to the court of public opinion first.

Recently, an Alabama law firm put Taco Bell”s “meat mixture” through lab tests and claimed it found just 35 per cent beef. It then launched a class-action suit over false advertising. The case went viral—”Where”s the beef?” everyone wanted to know. Right where we said it was, the company shot back in a humorous ad campaign. Under the headline “Thank you for suing us,” the chain says its meat is 88 per cent ground beef. The other 12 per cent of ingredients are added because “plain ground beef tastes boring.” Never mind the optics of a restaurant arguing over the percentage of “food” in its meals. Next up, back to the legal courts with a countersuit.

Obama, Harper to call on 1 reporter each

By Luiza Ch. Savage - Friday, February 4, 2011 at 11:38 AM - 21 Comments

Wow. It’s not as if there’s anything to ask them about…. Egypt? Border Security deal? Pick one and hope the other guys ask the other.

So reports Politico:

President Obama and Canada’s prime minister will call on just two reporters at their “joint press availability” Friday afternoon, according to the White House.

Reporters have complained that Obama has evaded them all week so he doesn’t have to talk about his handling of Egypt’s political crisis. On Wednesday, press secretary Robert Gibbs dismissed their concerns by saying, “I think you’ll get a chance likely to talk to the president later in the week when Prime Minister Harper is here.”

But White House spokesman Tommy Vietor says Obama and Stephen Harper plan to call on just one reporter each.

“We always want more questions,” David Jackson, the president of the White House Correspondents’ Association, said in an e-mail. “We wish the president would take more questions about Egypt and the economy.”

Egyptian government officials join anti-Mubarak protests

By macleans.ca - Friday, February 4, 2011 at 11:38 AM - 3 Comments

With no sign of the government supporters who clashed with protesters in Cairo two days ago, hundreds of thousands of people gathered in Tahrir square for an eleventh straight day of demonstrations against Hosni Mubarak’s government. Several government officials, including Amr Moussa, secretary general of the Arab League and a former foreign minister, and Mohamed Rafah Tahtawy, spokesman for Egypt’s highest state-run religious authority, appear to have aligned themselves with the protesters. The military has begun to gain some control over the chaos of the previous days. The government has also said it is open to negotiations with the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, who in turn said they would not be presenting a candidate for the next election in September. “It is not a retreat,” said Mohammed el-Beltagui, a leading spokesman for the Brotherhood, said, “it is to take away the scare tactics that Hosni Mubarak uses to deceive the people here and abroad that he should stay in power.”

New York Times

The Guest Star Hat Trick

By Jaime Weinman - Friday, February 4, 2011 at 11:14 AM - 8 Comments

A young actor named Charley Koontz was the best thing about last night’s Community episode, managing to steal his scenes by not trying to steal them — a low-key, human performance that instantly made this new character the most likable guy in that room. Then Community ended and the flailing Perfect Couples began, and who was a guest on that show? Charley Koontz. That’s one guy, playing two different guest parts on two different shows that air one after the other on the same network. It probably wasn’t planned this way, since Perfect Couples shot this episode before they knew they’d be airing after Community, but that’s the way it worked out.

We’ve seen people cross over to shows in the same lineup playing the same character, or a star from one show play a guest on another show that night. But playing two different guest roles on the same network in one night is probably rarer. It must have happened before, maybe not one show right after the other, but at the very least in the same block on the same network. A busy character actor might have appeared on, say, two “Must-See TV shows from the NBC glory days. But are there any other examples you recall,where you saw an actor turn up one one show, and then in a different part on the show that followed it?