Céline Dion bans ridiculous pictures of Céline Dion

By Jesse Brown - Friday, July 22, 2011 at 3:29 PM - 13 Comments

The publisher of the Tumblr blog Ridiculous Pictures of Céline Dion has scrubbed the site of all but one ridiculous picture of Céline Dion, citing a threatening legal note from the singer’s representatives as the reason. The site is almost certainly legal, but its author Duckumu writes that  ”though this blog is well within the realm of ‘fair use’, I don’t have the money or time to get a lawyer to respond.”

Too bad. When it comes to hyper-sensitive multi-millionaires and their aggressive lawyers, only “important” cases of celebullying get challenged. If you’re trying to expose crazy Tom Cruise’s bonkers Scientology tape, Gawker’s got your back (and is happy to collect the web traffic). But what about the silliness of it all? Those who blog not for holy causes or big pageview numbers but for shits and giggles deserve protection too. Perhaps we need some sort of Electronic Foolishness Foundation to fight for our right to have a laugh for its own sake (note to self: we do; it’s called 4chan).

Meanwhile, if Dion wants to scrub the Internet of ridiculous pictures of herself, she’s got her work cut out for her.

Captain America is not on fire

By Claire Ward - Friday, July 22, 2011 at 11:53 AM - 71 Comments

Centre to right: Chris Evans plays Captain America and Sebastian Stan plays James "Bucky" Barnes in CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER (Jay Maidment / Marvel Studios)

IN TEN WORDS OR LESS: Captain America saves the day, but not the movie.

Hollywood seems to be grasping ever further into the past to dredge up superheroes to reinvent, and it’s becoming clear that the fad has run its course. Captain America: The First Avenger feels like a clichéd blast from the past, lacking the spunk and grit that has made other comic book movies successful. Captain America—the comic book character—was first sketched in 1941 to capture the patriotic imagination of Americans on the homefront. The revenge fantasy let readers watch our boy in red, white and blue smash Hitler’s various super-villain incarnations to pieces. Director Joe Johnston’s (The Rocketeer, Jumanji) big screen adaptation of the classic story is, in a way, too classic. The sepia-toned cityscapes and throwback accents take us back in time, but they also serve to separate us from the action.

Set during WWII, Captain America is the tale of Steve Rogers, a scrawny, sickly kid from Brooklyn with a heart of gold who desperately wants to serve his country. He’s so persistent that he tries—and fails—to enlist in the army at five different recruitment offices in five different cities. Finally, a military scientist by the name of Dr. Abraham Erskine takes note of the boy’s tenacity and offers him the enlistment opportunity of a lifetime. One explosive lab experiment later, we have ourselves an invincible, square-jawed superhero with a jaw-droppingly chiseled torso. His mission: take down Hitler’s supernaturally powerful former second-in-command, Johann Schmidt. Continue…

Going to hospital is riskier than flying, WHO says

By macleans.ca - Friday, July 22, 2011 at 11:49 AM - 9 Comments

According to the World Health Organization, going to the hospital is much risker than flying, since millions of people die every year due to medical errors and infections that are linked to health care. The WHO’s envoy for patient safety, Liam Donaldson, told Reuters that “something like 1 in 10″ people who go to hospital “in any country” face the risk of being subjected to medical error, while chances of dying due to a health care mistake are 1 in 300. The risk of dying in an air crash, he continued, is about 1 in 10 million. Of every 100 hospitalized patients in developed countries, seven will acquire at least one infection related to their care; in developing countries, the number rises to 10.

Reuters

U.S. Senate expected to reject Republican-backed debt plan

By macleans.ca - Friday, July 22, 2011 at 11:45 AM - 0 Comments

The U.S. Senate is expected to vote down a Republican-backed plan to cut government spending, increase the country’s debt ceiling and implement a constitutional amendment for a balanced budget. The legislation has already passed the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, but the Democrats who hold sway in the Senate have called the plan “weak and senseless.” President Barack Obama has also promised to veto the legislation. American lawmakers have been arguing for weeks over how to raise the country’s $14.3 billion borrowing limit. Obama has agreed to cutting trillions of dollars in government spending over the next decade, but also wants to raise revenues to preserve public services. Republicans have rejected this approach, opposing anything they perceive as a tax increase. Despite the setbacks, White House spokesman Jay Carney says the Obama administration is “absolutely confident” the debt ceiling will be raised by August 2, when the government runs out of money to pay its debt obligations.

Voice of America 

North and South Korea ready for disarmament talks

By macleans.ca - Friday, July 22, 2011 at 11:37 AM - 2 Comments

Officials from North and South Korea are saying they are ready to resume disarmament talks. The news comes after top nuclear envoys from each country met face-to-face on Friday for the first time since 2008, when efforts to halt North Korea’s nuclear program broke down. In recent months, North Korea started indicating its willingness to resume talks. The country is reportedly in desperate need of international aid, and it could expect to receive some if it returns to the negotiation table. Both South Korea and its long-time ally the United States say North Korea must commit to denuclearization before talks can resume. The two Koreas are technically in a state of war since the end of the Korean War in 1953, since the two sides signed a truce rather than a peace treaty.

The Globe and Mail

Tories target illegal migrants with most-wanted list

By macleans.ca - Friday, July 22, 2011 at 11:26 AM - 4 Comments

The Harper government has released the names and mugshots of 30 men wanted for war crimes or crimes against humanity believed to be living in or on the run in Canada. The list is now posted on the Canadian Border Services Agency website. Public Safety Minister Vic Toews says he hopes the list will produce new information to track down the men. Immigration Minister Jason Kenney said the suspects “will find no haven on our shores.” The men are from a variety of countries, including Sri Lanka, Somalia and the former Yugoslavia. Fourteen of the suspects were last seen in the Toronto area.

Toronto Star

Ex-NotW execs challenge James Murdoch’s testimony

By macleans.ca - Friday, July 22, 2011 at 11:24 AM - 0 Comments

Former News of the World executives broke ranks on Thursday to challenge James Murdoch’s denials that he knew phone hacking was common at the tabloid. The son of Rupert Murdoch and chairman of British newspaper division News International denied he knew of an email that suggested the problem went beyond one reporter before authorizing the payment of an out-of-court settlement to a hacking victim. A British Labour MP has claimed Murdoch mislead parliament and has called for a police probe, while Prime Minister David Cameron said Murdoch had “questions to answer.”

AFP

Mars landing site announced for NASA rover

By macleans.ca - Friday, July 22, 2011 at 11:22 AM - 0 Comments

NASA has chosen a landing site on Mars for its Curiosity rover, which is set to launch later this year and will continue the search for signs of whether Mars was ever inhabitable. On Friday, NASA scientists announced the rover—roughly the size of a small car—will touch down at the foot of a layered mountain inside Mars’ Gale crater, which is about the combined area of Connecticut and Rhode Island. The landing site was chosen among 30 potential sites which have been considered since 2006; in 2008, that number was whittled down to four. NASA reports the chosen site, named for Australian astronomer Walter F. Gale, has an alluvial fan that was likely formed by sediments carried by water, and layers at the base of the mountain contain clays and sulfites, both of which are known to form in water. Curiosity is carrying instruments that can identify other ingredients of life, such as organic compounds. Curiosity’s mission is scheduled to last nearly two Earth years.

NASA

Policeman shot north of Toronto

By macleans.ca - Friday, July 22, 2011 at 11:17 AM - 0 Comments

A police officer was shot at a strip mall north of Toronto on Thursday while investigating an alleged armed robbery. The officer, a member of the York Regional police, suffered non-life-threatening injuries and is recovering in hospital. Three men were arrested in the incident. One suspect was taken to hospital with unknown injuries. The shooting of the 40-year-old officer comes just weeks after Const. Garrett Styles, also of the York police, was killed following a traffic stop. Styles was pulled under a minivan and crushed in Newmarket, Ont. A 15-year-old boy was charged with first-degree murder in his death.

CBC News

One dead after Canadian bus crashes in New York

By macleans.ca - Friday, July 22, 2011 at 11:15 AM - 0 Comments

A Canadian tour bus collided with a tractor trailer in New York State on Friday, killing one and sending dozens to hospital. The bus, owned by Dunnville, Ont.’s Farr’s Coach Lines, was on the highway between Syracuse and Rochester when the accident happened. Some reports indicate the driver of the trailer was killed while at least 30 bus passengers were injured. A U.S. Soldier is said to have pulled victims from the burning wreck.

Postmedia

The Globe and Mail

Heat wave sweeps the country

By macleans.ca - Friday, July 22, 2011 at 11:11 AM - 0 Comments

Central and Eastern Canada continues to bear the brunt of the heat wave sweeping the country, CTV News reports. Environment Canada has issued heat and humidity warnings in the Montreal and Laval regions, where temperatures are anticipated to reach 31° C. Southern Ontario is also a target, in which—according to Environment Canada—a “sultry tropical air mass” has enveloped the region. Windsor, Ont. was the hottest place in Canada on Thursday, with a temperature of 39° C.

CTV News

Inflation pace cools in June

By macleans.ca - Friday, July 22, 2011 at 10:52 AM - 0 Comments

Rising gas and food prices have not increased the pace of inflation, The Globe and Mail reports. In fact, Statistics Canada confirmed that the annual inflation rate has actually decreased, from 3.7 per cent in May, to 3.1 per cent in June. The agency says lower prices for passenger vehicles and lower travel accommodation costs have contributed to the decline. Sources say the news will reduce pressure on the Bank of Canada to act on interest rates.

The Globe and Mail

Explosion rocks Oslo

By macleans.ca - Friday, July 22, 2011 at 10:50 AM - 0 Comments

The Norwegian capital of Oslo has been rocked by a large explosion that caused damages to the offices of Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg of the Labour Party, and other government buildings, as well as the offices of a tabloid newspaper VG. Stoltenberg was unharmed. Local media confirms that at least two people have died and 15 are injured. There were reports of shots later being fired at a Labour Party youth meeting by a man dressed as a police officer.

BBC News

Week in Pictures: July 18th – 24th 2011

By macleans.ca - Friday, July 22, 2011 at 10:43 AM - 2 Comments

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Week in Pictures: July 18th – 24th 2011

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Forever Marilyn

A man jokingly looks under the dress of a 26-foot tall statue of Marilyn Monroe in Chicago, IL on July 15, 2011. The sculpture "Forever Marilyn" by artist Seward Johnson, is based on a scene from the movie "Seven Year Itch" and will be on display until next spring. (REUTERS/Jim Young)

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Elwy Yost, Movie Host

By Jaime Weinman - Friday, July 22, 2011 at 10:01 AM - 5 Comments

Elwy Yost, host of Saturday Night at the Movies, has died at the age of 86. Read Christopher Bird’s excellent tribute to him in Torontoist. And go once again to TVO’s recently-launched Public Archive, where some of Yost’s interviews with classic movie people were posted (in the form of “Talking Film” half-hours) earlier this year.

I’ve said many times before that Yost’s work on Saturday Night at the Movies opened up a new world for me, especially the interviews. He didn’t just go for stars, though he interviewed them when he could; he looked for anyone who was directly involved with the movies or stars he was featuring. The first Saturday Night at the Movies I ever saw was a Marx Brothers double bill (Night at the Opera and Day at the Races) which my parents videotaped for me, a VHS tape I then wore to the bone, if VHS tapes had bones. During the interview segments, he talked mostly to people who had written for the Brothers: Nat Perrin, a writer on Duck Soup and The Big Store, and Irv Brecher, writer of two other Marx Brothers pictures. I didn’t even understand all they were talking about, but I did understand some of it – like Perrin’s controversial criticism of Duck Soup, which he didn’t think turned out that good – and I liked some of the anecdotes about what it was like to work with the Brothers.

By the time it was over, I not only knew more about the stars of the film, but what it was like to be a writer in Hollywood, what writers contributed, and the fact that screenwriters and directors even existed. Yost was quite good about this – he wasn’t an auteurist, focusing on the greatness of directors, and even did a segment where Pauline Kael and others attacked that whole idea. But he also wasn’t a star-ist like many movie hosts. (Some hosts will tell you only about the star and nobody else.) He would do segments on directors like John Ford and Ernst Lubitsch, producers like Darryl Zanuck, cinematographers, composers – an education not only on what these different people did but what, exactly, these people were like. This was helped, as I often say, by the use of long interview chunks, allowing the interviewees to reveal themselves at length. It’s very different from the segments TVO started doing after he left, where they would take very short interview clips and cut them together to comment on a theme of interest to film buffs or film students. That can still be educational about moviemaking, but not so much about movie people.

We have a somewhat personal relationship with classic movie hosts, even more than most hosts, I think – because people like Robert Osborne (who hopefully will recover from his upcoming operation) introduce things we may not have seen before, and put it in context for us; most of the people involved are dead, so they’re our link to a lost world. Yost was, for me and many other people who watched him on TVO, a link to a world that no longer exists, and his enthusiasm about that world made us enthusiastic too.

Here’s Yost doing an interview with DeWitt Bodeen, the writer of several of Val Lewton’s horror films, followed by critic Charles Champlin, who seemed to turn up as an Expert Witness in a lot of these segments. And here he is talking to Fox’s most prolific director of the ’30s and ’40s, Henry King (The Gunfighter, 12 O’Clock High).

Electronic discrimination in the skies

By Peter Nowak - Friday, July 22, 2011 at 9:37 AM - 38 Comments

Photo by airbusky/Flickr

If you’ve ever been on a plane, you’ve probably heard those announcements right before take-off and landing asking passengers to turn off all electronic devices. For kicks, I sometimes refuse to, just to hear what excuses flight staff come up with for why I should.

There’s the popular one, about how electronics with connection technologies–cellphones, laptops, iPads—can interfere with the plane’s navigational systems. If that were true, I don’t know why would-be terrorists would go through the trouble of smuggling in shoe bombs or explosives packed in liquid containers when all they would need to do to cause catastrophe is turn on their phone. Continue…

Murdoch’s maelstrom

By Richard Warnica - Friday, July 22, 2011 at 9:35 AM - 0 Comments

PA/AP

It was around the time the body turned up that the saga began to feel a little less Shakespearean and a little more film noir. The ever-evolving News of the World scandal was already epic in scope. It had claimed careers and tainted politicians. It had a movie star and a murdered child, and at its heart, of course, it had the king himself, Rupert Murdoch, clinging to his empire as the hordes—the shareholders, the police and the reporters—pecked away at its ever-more ragged borders. But with the death of Sean Hoare, one of the original whistleblowers in the whole affair, the News Corp. hacking scandal seemed to move in another direction.

Hoare was a one-time celebrity reporter at News of the World. He went public with allegations of widespread hacking at his old job as part of a New York Times investigation last year. He later promised more revelations to come. Instead, police found Hoare dead in his home on July 18. There is no suggestion that his death was criminal. Police were treating it as unexplained, but not suspicious, Agence France-Presse reported. But the moment seemed to push the hacking scandal into a slightly different realm, one where anything could happen and nothing would surprise.

The Guardian first revealed in early July that News of the World had illegally accessed the voice mails of Milly Dowler, a young murder victim. The scandal has rippled outward ever since. First the paper itself was shut down, then the head of its British parent company and former editor, Rebekah Brooks, a Murdoch favourite, resigned. Within weeks, two of England’s top police officials had stepped down over the affair, as had Les Hinton, the chief executive of Dow Jones, the News Corp. subsidiary that publishes the Wall Street Journal.

Continue…

What about the whole Communist thing?

By Paul Wells - Friday, July 22, 2011 at 9:30 AM - 36 Comments

Sean Kilpatrick/CP

So John Baird went to China and everybody wrung their hands. What about human rights, minister? What about the Chinese people under the Communist jackboot?

“No more Stephen Harper vowing not to sell out human rights for ‘the almighty dollar,’ ” Rod Mickleburgh wrote in the Globe and Mail. “No more Jason Kenney lavishing praise on the Dalai Lama and private meetings between His Holiness and Mr. Harper.”

No indeed. Baird, Harper’s new foreign minister, tipped his hand in a Toronto speech before his three-day trip to China. “China is incredibly important to our future prosperity,” he said. “My government gets it and as Canada’s new minister of foreign affairs, I get it.”

Ah. And what about the whole Communist thing? “Even the best of friends can have legitimate differences of opinion,” the minister said.

Continue…

Rupert Murdoch, tabloids, and me

By Barbara Amiel - Friday, July 22, 2011 at 9:10 AM - 12 Comments

Paul Hackett/Reuters

What’s your favourite tabloid headline? How about “Kill an Argie and win a mini Metro” at the time of the 1982 Falklands War? That was a spoof of Rupert Murdoch’s tabloid Sun by Private Eye and can’t be outdone. But the Sun’s front-page “Bloody frogs scuttle our hols” at the time of a French workers’ ferry strike before the Chunnel train was built was legit. Horrid but brilliant.

I’ve been having a few tabloid moments, in the name of research of course. “Years of crash diets left me infertile, says reality TV star Chantelle Houghton,” photographed in this week’s Daily Mail. Name doesn’t ring bells? She’s 27. She drank up to eight 1.5-litre bottles of water a day to fill her stomach, and her periods once stopped for a year, in case you’re interested. At age 27 I never had more than one period a year and that didn’t interest even me, but then I wasn’t Channel 4’s first non-celebrity ex-reality-show star who was finding life after stardom “difficult.” Chantelle wants to help other women who may be drinking too much water, like gorgeous but aquaholic TV chef Nigella Lawson. See, you read that entire paragraph. It’s junk, but mesmerizing.

Since everyone is dissing tabloids in the wake of the great phone-hacking scandal, I might as well. After all, I have edited a tabloid (Toronto Sun), written for a tabloid (the National Enquirer), been the subject of tabloids ad nauseam, and worked for two of Mr. Murdoch’s London newspapers including the Sunday Times, now drawn into the scandal. This is more qualification than any hackette needs for an instant book.

Continue…

Playing footsie with Beijing

By Charlie Gillis - Friday, July 22, 2011 at 9:00 AM - 31 Comments

Andy Wong/AP

Birthday greetings are nice, but when you’re the governing party of a Western country that has styled itself as a defender of human rights, you might think twice about firing off happy returns to the authoritarian rulers of 1.3 billion people. The message is liable to get used in ways you never intended.

That’s what happened a couple of weeks back with a congratulatory letter the federal Conservatives sent the Communist Party of China, marking the organization’s 90th anniversary. State news agencies in China seized on the note, which was signed by Tory party president John Walsh and looked ahead optimistically to “future relations between the two parties,” as proof that political movements around the world are celebrating the birth of Chinese Communism.

Conservative party officials did not return calls for comment, but if they thought the gesture might slide by unnoticed, they were wrong. Dermod Travis, executive director of the Canada Tibet Committee (CTC), demanded that the party retract “the flattering, backslapping words,” and wondered aloud why the idea failed to set off alarms at Conservative headquarters. “Someone should be wise enough to appreciate that the [Communist] regime only maintains power through military oppression,” he said in a statement. “It doesn’t deserve congratulations, but rebuke.”

Continue…

Mosquitoes are eating us alive

By Cigdem Iltan - Friday, July 22, 2011 at 9:00 AM - 13 Comments

Photographs by Cole Garside

There is a buzz in the air in Parkhill, Ont. It’s a picturesque town of about 1,700—that is, if you don’t count the mosquitoes. Nestled partway between Lake Huron and London in North Middlesex County, the town’s residents have spent the summer living through what reads like the plot to a B movie. In the time it takes to swat through clouds of mosquitoes on the path between the front door and the car door, it’s not uncommon for people to get 10 or 12 bites, North Middlesex Mayor Don Shipway says. “Kids can’t even go outside,” he told Maclean’s. “People are frustrated; it is going to be a health hazard if we don’t get it under control.”

The mosquitoes have always been bad in Parkhill, but this year is different. The numbers are staggering: less than 30 km away in Strathroy, a mosquito trap attracted 800 of the insects in four weeks. In the same time period in Parkhill, the same type of trap caught 51,000. “I’ve been involved in mosquito control for 10 years and it’s the worst I’ve ever seen it,” says Middlesex-London Health Unit vector-borne disease coordinator Jeremy Hogeveen.

Parkhill isn’t the only community with residents spending their summer covering themselves in DEET. Mosquito populations in parts of the Prairies have exploded this summer after heavy spring rainfall and flooding. The Edmonton Eskimos moved their practice inside last week after general manager Eric Tillman likened the roofless Commonwealth Stadium to the jungle. And in Regina, councillors voted to add $200,000 to the fight against the bugs this summer, bringing the city’s total mosquito suppression budget to $500,000. The latest count puts the number of mosquitoes in Saskatchewan’s capital at more than double the historical average.

Continue…

Is it Watergate across the pond?

By John Parisella - Thursday, July 21, 2011 at 6:29 PM - 0 Comments

The British phone hacking scandal is reminiscent of the Watergate scandal of the 1970s. Resignations, non-denial denials, arrests, inquiries by legislators, and firings are dominating the news in both Europe and America. Indeed, just like Watergate, the questions are, what did they (News Corp.) know? And when did they know it?

A parade of News Corp. officials have been before British parliamentarians in recent days, each armed with some of the best p.r. lines money can buy. But like Watergate, no one is taking responsibility. Was it a secret rogue operation that lasted years and involved bribery, payoffs, and character assassination? If so, the trouble should blow over. Yet, it has not blown over and probably will not.

Continue…

The summer strawberry showdown: local vs. Californian

By Jessica Allen - Thursday, July 21, 2011 at 5:33 PM - 32 Comments

I think my strawberry obsession has gone too far.  Let me explain: there’s a green grocer right at the end of my street in the west end of Toronto that sells the plastic packs of California berries side by side with the local pints. Continue…

Why being Rupert Murdoch means always having to say you’re sorry

By Emma Teitel - Thursday, July 21, 2011 at 4:40 PM - 3 Comments

Rupert Murdoch and his son James delivered an unbearable performance before a British parliamentary committee on Tuesday, not because of Rupert’s feigned modesty or his son’s mid-Atlantic accent (the kind that says I’ve attended every single prep school in the English speaking world), but because it was so hard to tell whether the beleaguered press baron’s long pauses were signs of deceit or dementia. Octogenarians, it turns out, make lousy villains.

The 80-year-old CEO of News Corporation appeared before the Culture, Media, and Sport Select Committee to to answer questions about the illegal phone hacking that took place at his now-defunct tabloid, News of the World. But Murdoch wasn’t going to own up to his misdeeds so easily: when asked by a committee member if he was personally responsible for phone the hacking, which included the breach of murder victim Milly Dowler’s voicemail, and of phones belonging to fallen soldiers’ families), the CEO responded with a resounding ‘no.’ It was the only forthright answer he gave the entire hearing, and it sent a very clear message about the extent of his remorse. “I feel that people I trusted—I don’t know who, on what level—have let me down, and I think they have behaved disgracefully, and it’s for them to pay.” Note the absent pronoun. In the land of the Queen, Murdoch neglected to use the royal ‘we’. Continue…