Jack and Tom

By Martin Patriquin - Monday, July 25, 2011 at 9:46 PM - 2 Comments

We interrupt DMA’s regularly scheduled vacation to get to the news about Jack Layton. First off, it hurt to see him today. I know cancer well; the most enraging thing about it, apart from the prognosis, is how quickly it can physically ravage a human being. It makes even the strongest among us, and Layton is certainly that, look weak. And then people treat you as such, which makes it even worse. Go and kick it in the ass again, Jack. It deserves it.

A quick word about the leadership bit. With all due respect to Tasha Kheirddin, I don’t think the appointment of Nycole Turmel as interim leader of the NDP is a slight to Tom Mulcair at all. In fact, I doubt very much that Mulcair would have wanted the job. Think about it: Layton says he is temporarily stepping down as leader. It would look pretty bad for someone with long-brewing leadership aspirations like Mulcair to jump at a job that is, for now anyway, strictly a Bob Rae deal. At best, Mulcair would come off as an opportunist—and it would be way worse should Layton not return to the party. It’s best for Mulcair to keep his powder dry and his hopes alive by leaving the job to Turmel, whose pretensions to the NDP’s helm are exactly as old as the Orange Surge that swept her to power.

Toons Go Blu

By Jaime Weinman - Monday, July 25, 2011 at 5:08 PM - 0 Comments

As the resident old-cartoon buff, I should probably comment on the announcement of Looney Tunes on Blu-Ray, and before that, Tom and Jerry on Blu-Ray.

The Tom & Jerry set is the more important one. The Tom and Jerry series, good as it often is, is not one of my very favourites, but they are probably the most popular classic cartoon characters and almost all their home video releases have been in so-so prints, often with censored prints mixed in. A collection of properly remastered versions from HD-quality prints was long overdue. A presentation at Comic-Con indicated that WB might be willing to consider a Tex Avery Blu-Ray set if this T&J set is a hit.

The Looney Tunes set is going to disappoint anyone who was hoping for a chronological or comprehensive set; it’s a grab-bag of some of the best cartoons that have already been released on DVD, plus a few cartoons that didn’t make it to DVD, mostly the ones involving the highly merchandisable Martian and Tasmanian Devil characters. I will buy it, of course, but people who bought all the Golden Collection volumes might be annoyed at being told they have to buy this new set (and a Blu-Ray player, if they don’t have one) to get a few extra films. Plus there has still been no apparent movement on bringing the “Censored 11″ cartoons onto home video, even though this was promised a while back.

A lot of this is just working around an obvious and unavoidable fact: classic films and cartoons were very successful on DVD, but they have mostly not performed well on Blu-Ray. Blu-Ray is not as clear an upgrade over DVD as DVD was over VHS, so people who bought Gone With the Wind on DVD aren’t rushing out to buy the Blu-Ray. Plus, of course, all films on home video, new and old, have to deal with the fact that some people don’t want to own shelf-space-taking discs of everything. I wouldn’t say physical media is dead, because it isn’t. (Even in music, lots of people are buying CDs and LPs have made a comeback. I could actually see film projection making a comeback someday to match the LP craze.) But physical media is in decline, and the rush to go out and replace DVDs with Blu-Rays is not happening. Especially since the biggest selling point of Blu-Ray – super-great picture quality – is not a huge selling point when we’re going to be watching a lot of stuff on our phones anyway.

What I guess this comes down to is my usual argument, that to make the most of these cartoons as a valuable franchise, Warner Brothers will at some point need to look beyond home video and look into streaming and other online options – not because these are the best ways to watch them, but because that’s where new viewers are more likely to find them. But I’ve been saying this for a while, and it hasn’t happened yet. The remastered/restored prints of the pre-1948 Warner Brothers cartoons have still (as far as I know) not been made available for TV broadcast, let alone streaming.

Well, anyway, here’s one of the cartoons that will be appearing on Blu-Ray that wasn’t on any of the DVD collections: “The Hasty Hare,” the first cartoon where Marvin the Martian got his distinctive voice (Mel Blanc used a different voice for his first appearance). It’s never been as well-known as some of the other Martian cartoons, maybe because most of it takes place on Earth. But it’s pretty funny, as are all Chuck Jones/Mike Maltese cartoons from this period.

Jack Layton steps down temporarily to battle new cancer

By Alex Ballingall - Monday, July 25, 2011 at 2:19 PM - 7 Comments

Jack Layton announced Monday that he will temporarily step down as leader of the New Democratic Party due to his ongoing battle with cancer. Layton, appearing gaunt and speaking in a raspy voice, told a press conference in Toronto that he felt pain and stiffness in the final days of the last session of Parliament. He recommended member for Hull-Aylmer, Nycole Turmel, as his choice for interim leader until he returns to Parliament when it resumes on Sept. 19.

Layton’s battle with prostate cancer has been the focus of much media attention in recent months. Layton revealed today that, although his battle with prostate cancer is going well, recent tests revealed he has a new form of cancer. After Layton spoke, party president Brian Topp wouldn’t specify what type of new cancer Layton has, but said he had spent “some time” at Toronto’s Princess Margaret Hospital. Both Layton and Topp expressed optimism that Layton would return as leader when Parliament resumes from summer break.

The NDP caucus will meet Wednesday to discuss Layton’s recommendation for interim leader. The party will announce its decision on Thursday.

Jack Layton takes a leave

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, July 25, 2011 at 2:11 PM - 11 Comments

(This post last updated at 6:38pm.)

Looking gaunt and sounding hoarse, Jack Layton has told a Toronto news conference that while his fight with prostate cancer is going well, he is now dealing with a new cancer and will be taking a temporary leave from politics. He says he intends to return when Parliament resumes in the fall. In his place, he is recommending that Nycole Turmel serve as interim leader of the NDP caucus.

2:13pm… The official announcement is here.

If I have tried to bring anything to federal politics, it is the idea that hope and optimism should be at their heart. We CAN look after each other better than we do today. We CAN have a fiscally responsible government. We CAN have a strong economy; greater equality; a clean environment. We CAN be a force for peace in the world.

I am as hopeful and optimistic about all of this as I was the day I began my political work, many years ago. I am hopeful and optimistic about the personal battle that lies before me in the weeks to come. And I am very hopeful and optimistic that our party will continue to move forward.

We WILL replace the Conservative government, a few short years from now. And we WILL work with Canadians to build the country of our hopes Of our dreams. Of our optimism. Of our determination. Of our values… Of our love.

2:18pm… NDP president Brian Topp says the NDP caucus will meet Wednesday morning to consider Mr. Layton’s suggestion and who will lead the party until his return. Advice from the caucus will then be reported to the party’s federal council and then the council will choose the leader. Mr. Topp says Mr. Layton was in hospital for a period of time, but has no details on what his coming treatment will involve. “I wouldn’t bet against Jack Layton,” Mr. Topp says. Mr. Topp wrote about his own battle with prostate cancer last year.

2:25pm… Mr. Topp notes that Ms. Turmel is already caucus chair and thus already has a mandate from the caucus. More on Ms. Turmel here, here and here.

2:36pm… Video of Mr. Layton’s announcement is available here.

2:40pm… Early reports from the Canadian Press, Globe, Star and Postmedia.

2:46pm… The NDP has set up an online form for Canadians to send get well messages to Mr. Layton.

2:51pm… The Post’s Kathryn Blaze Carlson reports that doctors have not yet determined which type of cancer Mr. Layton is dealing with. Continue…

Violence, rhetoric and rhetorical violence

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, July 25, 2011 at 1:07 PM - 4 Comments

Charles P. Pierce considers rhetoric and violence in American politics. (This was first published before the horror in Norway.)

We are political animals. It is a truth as old as Aristotle, who attributed our political nature to the fact that, unlike any of the other animals that travel in herds, we are able to speak. We can ignore the politics central to all our various interactions, or we can pretend that actions, good and bad, are apolitical, but politics is there, binding us up, regardless of how fervently we deny it, which we do, and take refuge then in fragmentation rather than confront what we may have in common with other people — strange people, crazy people, violent people — who share with us the politics of our common humanity. And we have chosen fragmentation as our comfortable, counterfeit heritage… Continue…

Casting Against Type For People Who Aren’t Typecast

By Jaime Weinman - Monday, July 25, 2011 at 12:05 PM - 0 Comments

The news that Omar from The Wire (aka Michael K. Williams) will be a Special Guest Professor on Community is part of a recent pattern of Wire actors getting parts on comedies: The Office, of course, helped to kick-start it by signing up Amy Ryan and Idris Elba, and over on Fox a new sitcom has a part for Chad Coleman.

It occurs to me that actors from The Wire, while they no doubt have their struggles to get work like every other actor, are in a sweeter-than-usual spot than other supporting actors from long-running series. Usually there’s a trade-off for the great gift of being on a show that runs five years, and it’s type-casting. If the actor isn’t the star, he or she isn’t going to be flooded with offers, and type-casting will close off some of the potential jobs. But The Wire was never very widely watched, so most of the actors aren’t especially type-cast. And the show has become wildly popular within the industry, particularly among showrunners. Producers are on the lookout for Wire actors because they loved the show so much, and there’s no barrier to casting them in a comedy or in parts that (like Amy Ryan’s on The Wire) aren’t very similar to their drama work.

Something similar may have happened with many of the actors from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, who are in demand among showrunners – particularly younger showrunners – without being particularly famous to the general public. (Those shows were more widely viewed than The Wire, but they were never huge hits.) The stars may be somewhat type-cast, or maybe there’s an inherent amount of type-casting involved when you have to look for star parts. But the supporting players can easily go from comedy to drama and back again, or to different types of TV parts, because much of the How I Met Your Mother audience does not look at Alison Hannigan and think of her as Willow.

I’m not saying every actor from a cult show will avoid being type-cast, nor am I saying that nobody from a hit like Lost gets to do a different type of show. But a cult show is a great talent pool, because it offers an assortment of actors who have a) proven themselves to be really good, and b) don’t yet have the kind of instant recognition that would cause a casting director to reject them out of hand for a certain part. I’m sure it’s not a big advantage, but it might help a little.

Speaking of The Wire, Parks & Recreation‘s Mike Schur (formerly of The Office), a big Wire fan who has mentioned that show’s influence, tells Todd VanDerWerff that they probably went too far with the Wire connections at the beginning – not casting, but thematic connections:

I think our show got much better when we stopped trying to let The Wire, for example, influence the way that we told our stories. A lot of the promotional material from before we even shot the pilot, we used a lot of terminology like “bureaucracy” and “red tape” and “frustration” and “impossibility,” because that’s what we imagined the show was going to try to represent: one woman’s march against that tide. I think it got a lot better when we made it instead of focusing on the calcified system of the government, we focused on the woman who was trying to break that up and to improve the town. And I think that is probably the breakthrough that we had. Let’s not spend 80 percent of the time talking about how frustrating it is and 20 percent of the time showing Leslie fighting it. Let’s flip that ratio and focus on the sunny, bright, optimistic, happy, funny character played by a once-in-a-generation comedienne, who is way more fun to watch than our internal depiction of the calcified system.

That being said, The Wire’s the best show ever.

And one more thing about the popularity of The Wire among showrunners is that someone uploaded iCarly‘s infamous homage to Snoop’s final scene. I mentioned this in a piece on iCarly creator Dan Schneider a few months back, as an example of how he gets parents to watch by throwing in little jokes for them (also, lots of dirty double entendres). But this one is almost an in-joke for the writers, and it’s always good to see the writers of a kids’ show throw in a shout-out to something they happen to like.

Did Ottawa spy on Northrop Frye?

By macleans.ca - Monday, July 25, 2011 at 11:39 AM - 0 Comments

Canadian Intelligence archives have revealed that the RCMP Security Service once spied on prolific literary scholar Northrop Frye, CBC News reports. Frye’s anti-Vietnam war sentiments and his involvement in the anti-apartheid South Africa movement were of great interest to the RCMP Security Service, who regularly monitored influential people with left-leaning politics during the Cold War era. The RCMP Security Service no longer exists, and was replaced by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service in 1984.

CBC News

RIM cutting 2,000 jobs

By macleans.ca - Monday, July 25, 2011 at 11:34 AM - 0 Comments

Canada’s former smartphone leader Research in Motion announced Monday it will eliminate 2,000 jobs. The Waterloo, Ont.-based company will be cutting about 11 per cent of its workforce worldwide. The BlackBerry maker said in a statement that the layoffs are a “prudent and necessary step for the long-term success of the company.” RIM’s first quarter profits fell 10 per cent this year, while its market share dropped nearly five per cent. Analysts attribute the company’s losses to its inability to keep up with competitors Apple and Google. After RIM cuts the jobs, it will continue to employ 17,000 people worldwide.

CBC News

Al-Shabaab calls Somalia famine reports “sheer propaganda”

By macleans.ca - Monday, July 25, 2011 at 11:32 AM - 0 Comments

A week after the United Nations declared famine in two regions of Somalia, the country’s al-Shabaab Islamists have denied lifting a ban it imposed on specific aid agencies in 2009, according to Uganda’s Daily Monitor. Reports indicated the militia had allowed foreign aid agencies limited access to some areas under its control, but the insurgents now say no such ban was lifted. More than 166,000 starving Somalis have fled to Kenya and Ethiopia for help. According to the UN, 10 million people across east Africa need urgent food aid. However, delivering aid to Somalia is difficult: the country has no central government to organize food aid, and al-Shabaab has reportedly prevented people from fleeing camps to receive aid.

The Daily Monitor

Stocks tumble amid debt deal impasse

By macleans.ca - Monday, July 25, 2011 at 11:28 AM - 0 Comments

Global stock markets dropped on Monday as U.S. politicians again failed to reach a deal to extend that country’s debt ceiling. With an August 2 deadline for a deal now days away, investors in Asia, Europe and the United States have begun to react, pulling money out amid fears of an unprecedented U.S. default, despite reassurances from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that she is confident a deal will be struck. Congressional Republicans have so far refused all offers of compromise on the debt ceiling from U.S. President Barack Obama. Obama has said he is willing to slash spending in return for some marginal increases in revenue, but Republicans have so far declined these overtures.

The Globe and Mail

Maid in DSK case gives name and interview

By macleans.ca - Monday, July 25, 2011 at 11:20 AM - 0 Comments

The New York City hotel maid who accused former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn of sexual assault in May has revealed her name and face in an exclusive ABC interview. Nafissatou Diallo, a
32-year-old Guinean immigrant, says she walked into Strauss-Kahn’s Sofitel hotel room to clean it, where she saw him naked. Diallo says she apologized and he then proceeded to assault her. When asked about the inconsistencies in her story which prevented the case from going to trial, she noted “mistakes” in her testimony, but argued that DSK is culpable nonetheless—and her case deserves to be heard by a judge.

ABC News

Norwegian terror suspect claims he did not work alone

By macleans.ca - Monday, July 25, 2011 at 11:16 AM - 0 Comments

Anders Behring Breivik, the anti-Muslim extremist accused in Friday’s terrorist attacks in Norway, has admitted to killing more than 90 people in the Oslo bombing and Utøya youth camp shootings, but has nonetheless pleaded not guilty. In a closed hearing in Oslo on Monday, Breivik told a judge he was part of a network with two other cells and claimed his attack was was needed in order to “save Norway and Western Europe from cultural Marxism and a Muslim takeover.” Breivik will be held for eight weeks, the first four in complete isolation, while he awaits a trial. Monday’s hearing was closed at the request of the police. There were fears Breivik would use the occasion as a platform for his violent, anti-immigrant views.

Associated Press

So what did I miss?

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, July 25, 2011 at 11:13 AM - 52 Comments

The crime rate is at its lowest since 1973, but prison spending is set to boom. Jason Kenney is chasing fraudulent immigrants and war criminals. John Baird went to China. And the Prime Minister refused to move out of 24 Sussex.

And in other news, Bob Rae proved himself an adept and experienced master of the modern air travel system and/or totally big-timed Newfoundland novelist Kenneth Harvey out of a seat.

“Name,” called the woman, thrusting out her hand again as though to grasp hold of the drowning.

“Bob Rae,” said the pink-faced hobbit of a man, his glasses and suit looking a touch too big for him. “I’m on the delayed St. John’s flight.”

“No,” snapped the militant attendant. “Too late.” Her eyes caught on yet another lost soul and her fingers wiggled for his boarding pass, “Name.”

The man – identified as one of the blessed who belonged on the flight – was embraced as a comrade.

My eyes returned to Bob Rae to hear him utter: “I am Super Elite.”

Canada’s political TV looking forward to competitive fall season

By macleans.ca - Monday, July 25, 2011 at 11:09 AM - 0 Comments

This fall is shaping up to be a competitive one for Canada’s English-language political talk shows, albeit one that will strive for less hyper-partisan jousting.  CTV’s Question Period has brought Kevin Newman, formerly of Global TV, on board as co-host, while also giving him the unofficial title of  “digital evangelist,” tasked with bringing the network into the digital age. Elsewhere, CTV’s Power Play will compete with other suppertime politics programs like CBC’s Power and Politics and Sun News Network’s The Daily Brief. CBC’s Evan Soloman told The Hill Times that his show, Power and Politics, has an advantage because of its two hour time-slot. David Akin of the Sun News Network said The Daily Brief will focus on carving out its own niche by providing an alternative to viewer, and will focus on American politics from “Canadian eyes.”

The Hill Times

Maria Aragon inks deal with Filipino media company

By macleans.ca - Monday, July 25, 2011 at 11:07 AM - 1 Comment

Winnipeg’s 11-year-old singing sensation, Maria Aragon, has inked a record deal with the largest media conglomerate in the Philippines. While the value of the deal hasn’t been reported,  it is known that Aragon will make at least two records for ABS-CBN. The young Winnipegger shot to fame earlier this year after a YouTube video of her performing a rendition of Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way” went viral. Since then, Aragon has performed for Prime Minister Stephen Harper, American TV host Ellen Degeneres and the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. Aragon is currently in the Philippines recording her first album. Her father, Veni Aragon, told The Winnipeg Free Press that a version of “Born This Way” will be on it.

Canadian Press

The war on snoring heats up

By Kate Lunau - Monday, July 25, 2011 at 9:00 AM - 3 Comments

Getty Images, Corbis, Fotolia, iStock; Photo Illustration by Taylor Shute

We’re often told that celebrities are just like us, and in some respects, that’s true: a great number of them snore in their sleep. Tim Burton and Helena Bonham Carter don’t just have separate bedrooms; they live in separate (but adjoining) London homes, partly because of Burton’s noisy sleeping. “Tim does snore, and that’s an element,” she told the U.K. Radio Times about their arrangement. Judge Judy has a separate room built off the master suite of her Connecticut mansion that’s just for snorers—a “snoratorium,” although she insists that it’s not just for her husband, and that she snores as well. Tom Cruise reportedly has a snoratorium too, where wife Katie Holmes can stow him when he’s keeping her awake.

Special snoring rooms are actually becoming de rigueur in many upscale homes. Jim Toy, principal at False Creek Design Group Ltd. in Vancouver, says his firm has designed a number of homes with adjacent sleeping quarters, or smaller retreat areas built off the main bedroom, that clients request “for, among other things, the snoring issue.” Some even ask that these rooms be lined with acoustic insulation and “literally be soundproofed,” he says. In a 2007 survey from the U.S. National Association of Home Builders, experts predicted that over 60 per cent of new upscale homes would have dual master bedrooms by 2015. Those expectations dipped after the recession, but on the “upper end of the scale,” Toy says, clients are still keen on having an extra snoring room. “It used to be his-and-hers bathrooms, his-and-hers closets, and his-and-hers offices,” designer Tom Scheerer recently told House Beautiful. “Now, everyone wants a snoratorium.”

Snoring is extraordinarily common. It tends to get worse as we age, partly because of weight gain, says Dr. Charles Samuels, medical director of the Centre for Sleep and Human Performance in Calgary. Given the fact that our population is getting older—and heavier, too, as obesity rates rise—snoring could soon reach epidemic proportions. In a recent survey from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 48 per cent of people said they snored. (Of course, some people don’t realize they do, or will deny it when confronted.) About 858,900 adult Canadians say they’ve been diagnosed with sleep apnea, a more serious problem in which a person’s breathing briefly pauses, disturbing sleep until they start breathing normally again; people with sleep apnea almost always snore. Marketers are clearly aware of these numbers, evidenced by the growing range of products that claim to “cure” snoring—from nasal sprays to chin straps, special pillows and everything in between.

Continue…

End of the U.S. empire?

By Luiza Ch. Savage - Monday, July 25, 2011 at 9:00 AM - 32 Comments

John Moore/Getty Images

It took a truck driver from Manchester, N.H., to put the matter succinctly. “Well, I support the U.S. military,” Greg Salts told the arrayed candidates at the Republican presidential debate in the Granite state last month. “But frankly, we’re in debt up to our eyeballs.” Isn’t it time to close some U.S. bases abroad, he asked. A retired navy man named John Brown also wanted to know, “Osama bin Laden is dead. We’ve been in Afghanistan for 10 years. Isn’t it time to bring our combat troops home from Afghanistan?”

Not so long ago, such questions would have come from Democrats and would have been met with charges of disloyalty and taunts of “cutting-and-running” from Republicans. No longer. The Republican presidential front-runner, Mitt Romney, said in that debate, “We’ve learned that our troops shouldn’t go off and try and fight a war of independence for another nation.”And the Tea Party darling, Minnesota congresswoman Michele Bachmann, said the U.S. should never have intervened in Libya. “First of all, we were not attacked. We were not threatened with attack. There was no vital national interest,” she declared. Former Utah governor Jon Huntsman went even further, calling for a smaller U.S. footprint abroad. “The deployments are mighty expensive,” he said at a campaign stop in New Hampshire. “We’re going to have to look at the map at some point and reset our level of engagement and our deployments in some corners of the world.”

Welcome to the new U.S. reality. As discussions of national security morph into a debate over spending and debt in a nation still limping out of the Great Recession, questions are being raised about just how big a military America can afford—and what happens if the global cop walks off the job? And they are coming not just from Democrats, whose President is drastically drawing down troops from Afghanistan and Iraq, but also from Republicans who for a decade had rallied around a hawkish view of America’s role in the world.

To appreciate how far the mood has shifted, consider the November 2007 Republican presidential debate in St. Petersburg, Fla., where candidates such as John McCain and Rudy Giuliani sought to out-hawk one another and were pressed by voters on whether they would “make a permanent long-term military commitment to the people of Iraq?” Giuliani urged Americans to “stay on the offence” and not to put their “head in the sand,” like their opponents. “You’ve got a Democratic debate and not a single one of those Democratic candidates used the word ‘Islamic terrorism,’ ” he declared. That phrase was used four times in the 2007 GOP debate. In the latest Republican contest, it was not uttered at all.

Continue…

Two crises, but one is far more dangerous

By Andrew Coyne - Monday, July 25, 2011 at 9:00 AM - 4 Comments

Kevin Lamarque/Reuters

On either side of the Atlantic, the scene is the same: dramatic closed-door negotiations; days and nights of brinksmanship and finger-pointing; fears of debt spirals competing with fears of default.

What is different is the reaction to each. The American economy is the largest in the world, its government the biggest spender and heaviest borrower in the world. The consequences if the United States were to default on its debts would be incalculably greater than if Greece were to, harming not only its own borrowing ability but the whole structure of international credit. If the “full faith and credit” of the United States of America is not a safe bet, after all, what is?

And yet, with a possible default just days away, investors seem unperturbed. The interest rate on American 10-year bonds remains among the lowest in the world, and has been falling for months. It is tiny, perennially penniless Greece that has the financial markets in an uproar. This week’s meeting of European leaders is being pitched as a last chance to avert disaster, with agreement on a bailout (a second, actually) far from assured.

Continue…

Who owns the North Pole?

By Charlie Gillis - Monday, July 25, 2011 at 9:00 AM - 1 Comment

Janice Lang/NRCan/DFO

The ancient Norsemen believed the mountains and oceans were made from the remains of Ymir—an unlucky “frost ogre” whom the gods slaughtered for the purpose of creating the world. Odin and company were not known for tenderness, but they must have had a sense of humour. The undersea mountain range they left at the top of the planet makes that much clear.

Known as the Lomonosov Ridge, this towering, silt-covered furrow on the ocean floor begins from the nexus of Ellesmere Island and Greenland, then runs some 1,800 km beneath the polar ice cap to an archipelago called the New Siberian Islands. About halfway across, there is a single jag that sticks a couple of hundred kilometres toward the Barents Sea. And there, just below the point of the elbow, under about 4,200 m of frigid water, lies the geographic North Pole.

If they’d had degrees in international boundary law, the creators of the Lomonosov Ridge hardly could have concocted a surer recipe for 21st-century trouble. The Russians laid claim in 2001 to a section of it that includes the pole, and a glance at a relief chart would suggest their claim has merit. By all appearances, the ridge is an extension of the Eurasian continent. Then, last month, leaked documents revealed Danish plans to put dibs on the range based on Greenland’s proximity and apparent geological connections to it. Not to be outdone, Canada is preparing its own claim on territory we’ve long romanticized but historically ignored: this summer, our scientists will take the last in a series of Arctic research voyages intended in part to prove the Lomonosov Ridge is a “natural prolongation” of Ellesmere Island, which it also appears to be. We’re gathering our information with the help of Denmark and the United States—the better to save money and avoid future disputes as to the findings. But make no mistake, we’re in it for ourselves.

The project has amassed an impressive array of data, from the depth of silt across our Arctic shallows to the constitution of the rock going 40 km down. But the geological origins of the Lomonosov Ridge? Well, that’s not so clear. “Russia says it’s a prolongation of their margin, we say it’s a prolongation of ours,” concedes Jacob Verhoef, the federal geologist in charge of Canada’s research mission. “I think the end result is that we both are right.”

That’s a greater level of candour than one hears these days from Moscow, where political leaders speak as though Russia’s Arctic claims require nothing more than the UN’s rubber stamp of approval. But Verhoef’s words are also an acknowledgement that after more than a century of superhuman effort—ill-fated sea voyages, sled-dog expeditions, low-altitude flyovers—we are no closer to answering a question that goes to the heart of any Arctic country’s identity: who, if anyone, owns the North Pole?

We used to think it was ours. Back in 1925, Canada raised eyebrows around the world by declaring as our maritime boundaries the 60th and 141st western meridians, a pie-slice expanse between Alaska and Greenland that converged at, and presumably included the pole. A few months later, the Soviet Presidium passed a law declaring an even larger Arctic domain on its side of the globe, while the recognition of Greenland as Danish territory in 1933 suggested a potential claim for that country between the 60th and 10th western meridians. Both extended in a triangular form toward the pole, as per the so-called “sector principle” countries used at the time to determine polar boundaries.

Continue…

Amy Winehouse, dead at 27

By macleans.ca - Saturday, July 23, 2011 at 3:05 PM - 13 Comments

Amy Winehouse, the English singer-songwriter who was one of the most popular music artists of the ’00s, has been found dead in her London flat at age 27. Winehouse, whose drug and alcohol problems became major tabloid stories soon after she rose to fame, had recently canceled a planned European tour after her substance issues left her unable to perform at a concert. Paramedics were called to her home today and found that she was already dead. The police are inquiring into the circumstances of the death.

Daily Mail

The U.S. deficit debate: lopsided stories make balanced reporting tricky

By John Geddes - Saturday, July 23, 2011 at 12:05 PM - 44 Comments

The ideal of balanced reporting, which in its classic formulation goes back to Walter Lippmann,  serves us well in most cases. The general notion is to seek to report from neutral ground. That doesn’t mean, of course, that journalists should suppress their own sense of judgment. But in conventional reporting of clashes between legitimate actors, the journalist tends to toward giving roughly equal weight to the opposing camps.

That usually works fine. Let’s say you’re covering a labour dispute. Rarely is either the employer or the union so clearly in the right that it seems fair for the reporter to emphasize the merits of one side’s bargaining stance over the other’s. In an election campaign featuring competitive parties with proper platforms, reporting generally should give the rivals’ policy positions similar emphasis. (Of course, columnists and editorial writers and partisan pundits needn’t feel any such constraint.)

Continue…

The rise and/or fall of radical Islam

By Paul Wells - Saturday, July 23, 2011 at 11:06 AM - 40 Comments

David Frum is one of several commentators this morning emphasizing the distinction between the horrible mass murder in Norway and Islamist extremism. [UPDATE: I forgot to link to the article; clumsy of me. Here it is. David is on stronger footing than some of his peers, I should note, because he didn't spend Friday trying to make any connection between the Norway atrocity and Islam. He actually waited for some evidence.

David then departs from the events of the day to draw a more sweeping conclusion:

"Those guesses [about an Islamist link to Norway] proved wrong, not because Islamists have ceased to wish harm to the West, but because Islamists have lost almost all their ability to coordinate large-scale attacks upon Western countries.

“Individuals may still grab weapons and start shooting, as happened for example at Fort Hood in November 2009. The self-radicalization of young Muslims must remain a serious security concern.

“Radical Islamist plotting, however, has been all but vanquished in the Western world.“

That last bit kind of jumped out at me, because as I sometimes do these days to my immediate regret, I picked up a copy of Newsweek this week and flipped to Niall Ferguson’s column. Nested in there with Ferguson’s general, post-2008 narrative (he’s pretty sure Barack Obama is a goof) and his immediate argument (he’d like military spending to be exempted from any debt-ceiling-prompted spending restraint) is this paragraph:

“The United States certainly needs to get its fiscal house in order. But any serious analysis of the benefits of defense cuts needs to consider the potential costs of walking away from countries like Afghanistan and Iraq. If radical Islamism is a declining force around the world, I hadn’t noticed.“

Continue…

An irresponsible impromptu on Utøya

By Colby Cosh - Saturday, July 23, 2011 at 4:37 AM - 94 Comments

The intelligentsia spent Friday afternoon spinning madly like the Fates, weaving a tapestry of anticipated political repercussions from the emerging factual matter of Norwegian terrorism. But the continued unravelling of events has left their handiwork in tatters. The almost comforting familiarity of a conventional terrorist attack in a European city has been superseded by a nightmarish cadenza: the most effective peacetime spree killing in human history—perpetrated by a lone individual on a microscopic resort island owned by a young socialists’ organization. Continue…

Blame Kevin Kline?

By Jaime Weinman - Friday, July 22, 2011 at 5:02 PM - 9 Comments

Not really, but I was reading Felix Salmon on the foolishness of equating government finances with a single family’s finances (the “families tighten their belts and so should the government” thing, which you hear politicians say a lot regardless of ideology, and which doesn’t even apply to actual families). He half-seriously places the blame on the Ivan Reitman movie Dave, one of those inspiring Capraesque comedies about how we could solve our problems if Those Clowns in The Capital would get together and use some Common Sense. (Reitman’s Canadian, so we can’t even blame this idea on the Americans alone.) It’s an idea that’s so wrong in so many ways, but it forms the basis of most movies about politics – that there is some kind of Common Sense solution that both sides could agree on if they’d just stop posturing.

The idea that there are serious differences about politics is not very popular in movies and TV; even the serious, dark ones tend to lean toward the idea that there are no real differences between parties, which is not that different from the idea that partisan politics are getting in the way of common goals. So what we get is Dave and lines like “if I ran my business this way, I’d be out of business.”

This whole Common Sense fallacy is, ironically, one of the few things that is genuinely bipartisan, since the mantle of Common Sense is claimed by people on all points on the political spectrum. But it’s especially popular in Hollywood.

Anyway, I don’t think (and Salmon doesn’t either, I’m sure) Dave is to blame for people thinking that a government can be run like any other business, but it certainly was part of a trend in ’90s movies, a longing for someone like Dave or Forrest Gump or The American President to come along and fix everything through simple, transcendent values and beliefs. It never works out.