I've got your meltdown right here

By Colby Cosh - Monday, March 14, 2011 at 8:23 AM - 26 Comments

Like some of you, I’ve been trying to follow the post-earthquake events at the nuclear facilities in Japan’s Fukushima Prefecture. This effort has been both reassuring and infuriating. The bottom line at this moment appears to be that, despite worst case being heaped upon worst case, the design of the containment apparatus of the Fukushima power plants has successfully prevented any danger to the Japanese populace.

Indeed, one is forced to conclude that we have witnessed a demonstration of the near-impossibility of public danger from nuclear power plants of this type. This facility is situated in what we would be tempted to call the stupidest possible place—though densely populated Japan does not have much choice in the matter. An earthquake of the magnitude of March 11′s was literally considered impossible by seismologists, and the plants were not built to survive it. (Some, in fact, will certainly not survive as power-producing assets; where there has been partial meltdown or cooling by unfiltered seawater, the economic value of the cores will have become zero—minus the cleanup cost—almost immediately.)

When trouble came, the onsite generators that are supposed to circulate coolant in an emergency had been wiped out by the tsunami, and mobile backup generators rushed to the scene could not be hooked up because of flooding. (Who could have seen that coming after a tsunami?) As a consequence of the resulting heat buildup, hydrogen started exploding all over the place—presenting no apparent threat to the integrity of the containment vessels, but quite a significant one to the integrity of emergency responders’ bodies.

It’s a frustrating sequence of events to behold, and it has been made more so by the poor crisis management of the Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) and the Japanese government. A serious nuclear incident is the whole world’s concern, and TEPCO and Japan have an obligation to explain to the world just what has happened. But English-language reports from the state broadcaster, NHK, have been shockingly feeble and confused. TEPCO’s press releases, meanwhile, are masterpieces of indecipherable technical and even legal jargon. (“As the reactor pressure suppression function was lost, at 5:22am, Mar 12th, it was determined that a specific incident stipulated in article 15, clause 1 has occurred.”)

The global public has been left to figure out for itself what to make of hazy videos of nuclear power facilities exploding. What little context we can assemble, as we try to interpret such a mortifying sight, arrives mostly in shreds provided by Western oracles—ones who, in their turn, seem to mostly be working from supposition and indirect evidence, and who may not be particularly independent from the nuclear industry.

No one should forget, while trying to make sense of what’s happening in Japan, that something like 300 people died in major coal mining accidents around the world in 2010 alone. None of those accidents involved natural disasters, and probably not all of them even involved culpable human error. We just accept a certain quantum of mortality as the cost of keeping the lights on—when it comes to every means of power generation, that is, except nukes. A death toll in the single digits from the Fukushima troubles would represent an amazing triumph of design robustness. (Especially if we judge the quality of Japanese engineers and regulators by their competence at communications.)

Niall Ferguson, slow learner

By Paul Wells - Sunday, March 13, 2011 at 11:21 PM - 30 Comments

Tina Brown’s redesigned Newsweek is a mixed bag, but more promising on the whole than the glum tract that had been appearing under that title. One of her  coups is the addition of historian Niall Ferguson as a columnist. Ferguson writes bestselling books and is a hot ticket on the speaker circuit, but I’m starting to worry he’s not quite cut out for shorter formats.

Ferguson’s latest is typically eye-catching, from its title — “How to Get Gaddafi” — to the author’s (already familiar) contempt for the “trendy and ignorant” Obama administration. “We must hope that someone gives President Obama a history lesson,” Ferguson writes mournfully, “before thousands of Libyans share [the] fate” of Iraq’s doomed Marsh Arabs.

And here comes Niall Ferguson now with a history lesson. As if on cue! Continue…

Threat of nuclear meltdown looms over Japan

By macleans.ca - Sunday, March 13, 2011 at 2:00 PM - 15 Comments

Post-earthquake relief efforts in Japan are focused on averting a nuclear meltdown and caring for the millions that are still without power or water. Friday’s earthquake and tsunami are now estimated to have killed 10,000. Officials have confirmed three of country’s nuclear reactors remain at risk of overheating, which could lead o to a devastating radiation leak. At the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex, authorities say they had to release radioactive steam into the atmosphere to avert a meltdown. Japanese PM Naoto Kan says the current crisis is the country’s biggest challenge “in the 65 years since the end of World War II.”

Reuters

Twenty questions

By Aaron Wherry - Sunday, March 13, 2011 at 11:02 AM - 50 Comments

Tabatha Southey listens to Tom Lukiwski.

This week in the House, Tom Lukiwski, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Government House Leader, offered up a 20-Questions-rules defence of International Co-operation Minister Bev Oda. Ms. Oda’s failure to answer questions properly regarding the now-infamous “NOT” led House of Commons Speaker Peter Milliken to rule that she may have misled the House.

“Specifically,” as Mr. Lukiwski explained it, the questions that should have been asked were, “Madam Minister, if you did not insert the word ‘not’ and you do not know who did, how did it happen? How did it occur?” If only the right question had been asked, you see, Ms. Oda would have been obliged to say “very clearly,” as no doubt she was dying to do …  “That would have answered everything right there, a pretty simple follow-up question,” Mr. Lukiwski chided. What? Is he going to have to explain the rules to I Spy next?

Au revoir, Chuck Strahl and John Cummins

By Aaron Wherry - Saturday, March 12, 2011 at 1:19 PM - 45 Comments

The Transport Minister and the Conservative backbencher will also refrain from seeking reelection. Both were members of the Reform party’s class of 1993.

Since the last election, Jay Hill has resigned, while Jim Abbott and Keith Martin have announced they will not seek reelection. Assuming that all those who remain decide to stand for reelection and are subsequently relected, that class is poised to be reduced to six after the next vote: Diane Ablonczy, Leon Benoit, Garry Breitkreuz, John Duncan, Stephen Harper and Dick Harris.

Au revoir, Stockwell Day

By Aaron Wherry - Saturday, March 12, 2011 at 10:47 AM - 269 Comments

The current President of the Treasury Board and the former leader of the Canadian Alliance won’t seek reelection.

After 14 years in provincial government in Alberta and almost 11 in federal politics, Day said it was “time to move on.” “Though there would be exciting and satisfying days ahead in public office, after prayerful consideration, Valorie and I feel at peace with our decision,” Day said in a statement, referring to his wife.

Our John Geddes chronicled Stockwell Day’s rise extensively, including pieces here, here and here.

This week has four sketches

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, March 11, 2011 at 6:04 PM - 7 Comments

Our weekly look back at all we saw and heard.

Monday. Leaping over a low bar
Tuesday. Stephen Harper, ever undaunted
Wednesday. The House rules
Thursday. John Baird will not be distracted by your democracy

B.C. and the Big One

By Jason Kirby and Ken Macqueen - Friday, March 11, 2011 at 5:56 PM - 21 Comments

Could a massive earthquake like the one that rocked Japan strike British Columbia? It’s inevitable. Over the next half century, exerts say there is a one in 10 chance that a Big One will hit somewhere in the province. The only questions left to ask are how big will it be? And where will it hit?

B.C.’s location along the Pacific Ring of Fire, a volatile region of active volcanoes and shifting tectonic plates, means a Japan-style 8.9 magnitude subduction quake, accompanied by a powerful tsunami, is possible offshore. So too is a milder 6.5 magnitude quake near the surface on land. Both would be devastating. “You might say an 8.9 is thousands of times stronger, but if [a shallow quake] happens in the wrong spot, like right under Vancouver, you now have hundreds of people dying and billions in dollars worth of damage,” says Paul Kovacs, executive director, Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction in Toronto.

One area in which B.C. is at risk is the number of old buildings that would most certainly topple as their foundations begin to shake. Continue…

The '90s, Age of Obscure Pop-Culture References

By Jaime Weinman - Friday, March 11, 2011 at 5:34 PM - 4 Comments

A comment on my earlier post rightly singled out Mystery Science Theatre 3000 as an example of a show that would toss out pop-cultural references from any era, including some very obscure ones. It was one of those shows whose fans would congregate online and collectively figure out where all the references came from; The Simpsons was another show like that, with its extended take-offs on discontinued comic strips Little Nemo or Dondi; Animaniacs still another, and there were many more.

It adds to my feeling that the ’90s had an unusually broad range of references in pop culture. (Maybe not historically unusual, if you include other media and think of, say, the crazy-quilt of literary references in James Joyce or even P.G. Wodehouse. But unusual compared to now, for certain.) The current era is not unusual for having mostly recent references; up until television started to bring old movies back into circulation, few filmmakers were particularly interested in tipping their hats to old movies. But in the ’90s, a combination of factors — home video, the internet, a generation of writers who had grown up with rerun-saturated TV — gave us movies and shows that were stuffed with references to everything and every era. You’d make a note of the references you got, and maybe go online to find the ones you missed, especially the old stuff.

Here’s one example: this Animaniacs cartoon built up to a very old, deliberately lame punchline that every single viewer could see coming (“the viper” turns out to be the “vindow viper’). And instead of ending there… it ends with an extended reference to those colour Jackie Gleason specials, taped in Miami, where Sheila MacRae and Jane Kean filled in as Alice and Trixie. (Jackie Gleason references were pretty popular with that era of writers; Barney on The Simpsons is partly a riff on a character from the original black-and-white Gleason show.) Presumably the writers had seen those specials when they aired, but this was not only over the heads of kids, it was over the heads of the show’s secondary audience of college kids and even parents. When I saw this cartoon I had seen the original Honeymooners, but never the colour specials, and I had no idea what was going on here or what the reference was supposed to be. Luckily, I was able to find out from the Cultural Reference Guides compiled on the internet by fans. That’s what the ’90s were like. Trying to decode the old, obscure or just plain weird references was almost an interactive experience, very different from just noticing a parody of Goodfellas (which, as it happens, was a recurring bit on Animaniacs).

"Broad Initiative," Whatever That Means

By Jaime Weinman - Friday, March 11, 2011 at 4:34 PM - 5 Comments

I know it’s easy to feel less than optimistic about home-grown English-language television in Canada. Then I see press releases like this and I feel even less optimistic than before.

It’s not that the objective, to “create a groundswell in favour of Canadian content,” is a bad one, it’s just that it’s so generic and non-specific, and gives no real indication of how such a groundswell is to be created. Particularly since the only real way to make great Canadian content is for writers, directors, actors, et al to make it — and those people are hardly mentioned in the press release at all. Instead we get this:

Brabant and Creighton are of one mind that the time has come to leverage the success and investment in our content. The project will look to industry expertise from the production, broadcast and distribution sectors as well as other agencies to work towards a cohesive strategy that positions Canadian content in the forefront, and that will explore and leverage the opportunities offered by multi-platform digital distribution and social media.

But what of the content itself? Why isn’t it as popular in English Canada as local content is in other countries, or in Quebec? Now, I’m probably being unfair here: The issue of how to encourage the creation and promotion of quality content is a hard one for these organizations to take up, so it may be that I’m expressing unfair expectations here. But it does give the release a bit of the feel of those “friends of serious music” organizations that ignore the primary problem: there’s not enough new content out there that people want to listen to.

Meanwhile, we learn that fewer U.S. pilots are shooting in Canada this year, because the exchange rate is no longer friendly and the CW is less able to pretend it’s a real network. Which makes it still more important that we find things to do with the expert technical crews we have in this country — like make some popular dramas of our own. It is a real issue worth studying, in other words; I just don’t get the impression that this “broad initiative” is studying it from the right direction. Maybe I’ll be wrong.

When ministers misspeak

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, March 11, 2011 at 4:00 PM - 27 Comments

Nine years ago, it was a Liberal minister, Art Eggleton, who was the subject of a prima facie finding of privilege by the Speaker.

That finding was referred to the standing committee on procedure and House affairs, but the Liberal majority there decided that Mr. Eggleton had not “deliberately misled” the House and was thus not guilty of contempt. Each of the opposition parties filed a dissenting opinion.

Those reports can be found here.

REVIEW: 'Red Riding Hood' feels like a bad, failed remake of 'Twilight'

By Tom Henheffer - Friday, March 11, 2011 at 3:37 PM - 0 Comments

Shot and edited by Tom Henheffer
Produced by Claire Ward

The long, post-earthquake walk home in Tokyo

By Nicholas Köhler - Friday, March 11, 2011 at 3:24 PM - 4 Comments

Though they are located some 300 km south of Sendai, the closest major city to the epicentre of Japan’s 8.9 earthquake, the residents of Tokyo experienced significant disruptions today. Many rail lines remained closed in a city where literally millions of commuters depend on them, and officials have hastily set up dozens of shelters. Here is the story of one Tokyo woman, 36-year-old Rie Wakabayashi, a paralegal who was on her way to a business meeting in Roppongi Hills when the quake hit at 2:46 p.m.

When the quake hit and everything started to shake I was in a public bus under an overpass. I was convinced the overpass would collapse and that I was about to die. It was a scary moment, but still people reacted in a surprisingly calm way. Continue…

The YouTube vote

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, March 11, 2011 at 2:55 PM - 28 Comments

Green party attack on attack ads, released five days ago: 44,175 views.
Conservative party attack on Michael Ignatieff, released two months ago: 19,768 views.

Japan after the earthquake: 'People were very stoic'

By Ken MacQueen - Friday, March 11, 2011 at 2:51 PM - 2 Comments

Maclean’s Vancouver-based correspondent Nancy Macdonald was on assignment in Japan when the earthquake hit Thursday. She spoke with Maclean’s Vancouver bureau Chief Ken MacQueen.

Q: Glad to know you’re safe, could you tell me where you are?
A: Hi Ken, thanks, I’m in Toyota City in southern Japan, two hours south of Tokyo on the fast train.

Q: Where were you when the quake hit?
A: I was headed from Toyota City to Nagoya and then to Tokyo. I was in a taxi on the highway when it hit. The first sign I had was the taxi started swerving left and right.

Q: Did you understand what was happening?
A: No, I didn’t. The taxi had the radio on, and it reminded me of that old War of the Worlds scene where the radio announcer cuts in [with news of a disaster]. The building he was in was shaking, he was looking outside the window, describing boats being pulled out to the ocean. Then he was saying ‘Oh my God, and buildings are being pulled out to the ocean.’ I had someone in the car with me who was translating what the radio was saying so I understood very quickly that something very serious was happening.

Q: Did the traffic stop?
A: No, we carried on. I headed to an electronics shop with the guy I was travelling with. There were hundreds of people there watching the images on the TV screens.

Q: What was the response of the public?
A: They were very stoic. I was looking around and I saw the images that you’ve seen in Canada now of the water hitting the north and grabbing cars and people. I think if I were in Canada and North America [in similar circumstances] people would have been shouting ‘Oh my god.’ No one there was. People were very stoic. No one was making any kind of noise. This is a very earthquake-prone country so they’ve seen this kind of thing happen before.

Q: There was some thought you were going to be heading north yesterday, what happened?
A: I’m here in Toyota City doing a story on Toyota. I had been speaking with the company and we’d been trying to decide whether to go to Toyota City or their new plant in Northern Japan, in which case we would have wrapped up the interview and would have been heading to Sendai Airport. That’s the airport that was [devastated], that you’ve seen the footage of, when the earthquake hit. We’re lucky we decided ultimately to do the interview in Toyota City.

Q: Japan has a reputation for being one of the best prepared countries in the world when it comes to earthquakes. You live in Vancouver, which is rather less prepared. Are you concerned about the state of preparations in your own city?
A: I am. I’m not sure how much warning people had for this quake. I think they had enough time to get under their desks. Certainly that is a concern going forward for me.

Q: Do you have an earthquake kit?
A: I don’t. Something to consider.

Plastic money to enter circulation in November

By macleans.ca - Friday, March 11, 2011 at 2:28 PM - 1 Comment

Canadians will soon be lining their wallets with a different kind of plastic—revamped dollar bills designed to be virtually impossible to forge. In November, the Bank of Canada will begin circulating $100 bills made of a special polymer, which will render them slicker, smoother, and distinctly different in feel from the cotton-paper blend we’re familiar with. $50 notes will enter circulation next March and the $20, $10, and $5 bills will arrive by the end of 2013.

CTV News

'Day of Rage’ begins quietly in Saudi Arabia

By macleans.ca - Friday, March 11, 2011 at 2:27 PM - 1 Comment

One day after police fired on protesters in Saudi Arabia, the streets in the eastern city of Qatif are quiet, with only peaceful demonstrations on the outskirts of town. Witnesses report heavy police presence in the country’s capital, Riyadh, and no protests. Another city, Al-Ahsa, saw several protesters arrested but again witnesses reported no violence. Protesters have been calling for democratic reforms in the country, which has been ruled by the al-Saud family for the last 80 years. Shiite Muslims in the Eastern Province have called for an end to what they say is government discrimination against them; the royal family and the majority of the country’s population are Sunni Muslims.

Washington Post

The Harper government will not be distracted

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, March 11, 2011 at 1:34 PM - 71 Comments

Conservative Senator Don Meredith wants Michael Ignatieff to apologize for a phrase that is not inherently racist.

Human Resources Minister Diane Finley wants a federal employee in Brampton disciplined for sending an insulting email from his government account to a Sun columnist (who, it is probably necessary to note, volunteered for the Conservative campaign in 2008).

EU divided on military intervention in Libya

By macleans.ca - Friday, March 11, 2011 at 12:50 PM - 16 Comments

The European Union is meeting at a crisis summit in Brussels to discuss the ongoing fighting between loyalists and anti-government forces in Libya. The European leaders are debating whether or not to push for military action. While British and French representatives say they would support military intervention and officially recognizing the rebel body identified as the Libyan National Council, Germany is proving reluctant to follow suit, saying Europe should consult with the Arab League before stepping in.

Al Jazeera English

Senator found guilty of fraud

By macleans.ca - Friday, March 11, 2011 at 12:46 PM - 29 Comments

Embattled Senator Raymond Lavigne has been found guilty of fraud related to his reimbursement for illegitimate travel claims worth $10,120.50. Lavigne was also found guilty of using public funds to pay one of his office employees to do work on his property. So far, it’s unclear how the verdict will effect Lavigne’s status in the Upper Chamber. Lavigne’s trial on fraud and other charges was the result of an investigation by the RCMP and the Senate after one of Lavigne’s staffers was found to be cutting trees on Lavigne’s property during working hours. A second former employee eventually came forward to say Lavigne would pocket part of the travel allowance claimed for the employee’s trips between Ottawa and Montreal. While he hasn’t sat in the Senate since he was charged, Lavigne continues to collect his $130,000 salary, plus travel and office expenses.

CLARIFICATION: Lavigne was originally identified in the above headline and article as a “Liberal senator.” Though Lavigne was named to the Senate as a Liberal after serving as a Liberal MP, he was suspended from the Liberal caucus in June 2006.

The Globe and Mail

Former integrity commissioner takes on critics

By macleans.ca - Friday, March 11, 2011 at 12:18 PM - 14 Comments

In testimony before a Commons committee on Thursday, the federal government’s former integrity commissioner Christiane Ouimet took on the auditor general’s report that led to her ouster. “I am here to point out that there are serious flaws and erroneous facts that have attacked my reputation,” she testified before the Commons public accounts committee. Ouimet resigned in October and received a controversial $500,000 severance package that included a confidentiality agreement. At the time, Auditor General Sheila Fraser was investigating her office. “I’ve always been known to do what is fair, to do what is right … I spoke truth to power,” Ouimet said. As for the report’s findings he failed to properly investigate complaints by government whistleblowers, “I am shocked,” she said. “I find this appalling.”

Toronto Star

Japanese tsunami reaches from Canada to Kenya

By macleans.ca - Friday, March 11, 2011 at 12:09 PM - 7 Comments

The 8.9-magnitude earthquake that has devastated Japan has triggered tsunami alerts across the Pacific from the coast of California to Indonesia, and beyond. On Friday, Kenya’s meteorological department issued a tsunami alert for Saturday, but said the waves should not be as powerful as those that hit Japan. Waves have already hit Hawaii, and were spreading as people along the island chain’s coast evacuated. Warnings were issued for U.S. West Coast states. The Philippines, Indonesia and Chile, as well as more than 20 other countries, have been told to brace for a possible tsunami. As for Canada, the West Coast Alaska Warning Centre issued the tsunami watch for parts of British Columbia, and about 150 residents in Tofino, B.C. who live on houseboats or near the shore were advised this morning to be on alert for rising water.

Calgary Herald

Bloomberg

Postmedia News

Photo gallery: Devastation after Japan’s 8.9 earthquake

By macleans.ca - Friday, March 11, 2011 at 11:35 AM - 0 Comments

Click on the thumbnail to enlarge the image.

Click here to watch video footage of the earthquake and tsunami.

Wireless customers can text ASIA to 30333 to donate $5 to earthquake relief efforts. 100% of all donations will go to the Canadian Red Cross Japan Earthquake/Asia-Pacific Tsunami fund.

The House passes judgment, again

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, March 11, 2011 at 11:22 AM - 54 Comments

Last night, by a count of 145-135, the House of Commons passed the following motion.

That this House denounce the conduct of the government, its disregard for democracy and its determination to go to any lengths to advance its partisan interests and impose its regressive ideology, as it did by justifying the Conservative Party’s circumvention of the rules on election spending in the 2005-2006 election campaign, when the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism used public funds to solicit donations to the Conservative Party, when the Party used taxpayers’ money to finance a pre-election campaign under the guise of promoting Canada’s Economic Action Plan, when it changed the wording in government communications to promote itself, when it showed that it is acceptable for a minister to alter a document and make misleading statements to the House, when it refused to provide a parliamentary committee with the costs of its proposals, and when it improperly prorogued Parliament.

Debate on the motion begins here and continues here.