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November 30, 2005

So good it just has to be fattening

Oh dear, Jason Kenney — look what you did:

MP Jason Kenney held a news conference in which he complained — incorrectly — that Martin speechwriter Scott Feschuk had insulted ethnic minorities. Feschuk had written a humorous note on the Liberal party website referring to "socially awkward Omni subscribers."

Kenney thought Feschuk was talking about viewers of Omni TV, a multicultural channel based in Toronto. In fact, he was actually referring to now-defunct Omni magazine, a science and technology publication long cherished by nerds.

Feschuk quotes Kenney as follows:

(Feschuk) said that Omni subscribers were socially awkward people who believe in UFOs. Scott's a funny guy, and I'm sure he'll say it was just a joke, but I think it's a joke in bad humour. What's he saying? That people from ethnic minorities who are the television viewers of Omni are paranoid, are abnormal, are ungrounded in reality? What's he saying?... I think he has to explain himself, and so does the prime minister.

(What, no call for Paul Martin's resignation? I suppose it would be a bit moot these days.) You know that feeling you get when you see someone who's just a little, you know, much, inadvertently bringing himself down a few pegs? That's the feeling I got reading about Kenney's little episode there. Nothing against the guy personally, but election grandstanding is always tiresome, and it's always fun to see the grandstanders get a metaphorical pie in the face. I suggest enjoying this moment of levity while it lasts.

(And hey, what's with all the negativity about Feschuk's campaign blog anyway? Partisan harrumphing is one thing, but some people seem to find it somehow… inappropriate. I don't see how, and I think it's pretty funny to boot.)

(Cross-posted to the Shotgun.)

Posted by Chris Selley at 05:13 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

November 28, 2005

Unconditional surrender

Did I hear this right? Is Buick's new slogan actually "Built to Change Your Mind"? Perhaps I'm being cynical, but this sounds to me like an admission that the product is terrible, or was until very recently, and an invitation to drop 30-odd grand to live as a motoring guinea pig.

More distressing for GM than any one slogan, I'd say, is that other than the Rendezvous (which I'm told practically invented the term "crossover"), I had never heard of any of Buick's other models: the Allure, which doesn't; the Lucerne, which provides a new (better? even less practical?) level of sophistication; the Rainier, which is a GM product starting at $50,000; and the Terraza, which I thought was a type of Mexican flooring.

If it weren't for that $35 discount waiting for me on my Visa card I wouldn't even consider a General Motors product. And hey, what the hell? They don't even make the Aztek anymore!

[UPDATE December 3. From the back page of the October/November issue of The Beaver, which somehow found its way into my bathroom reading rack, another gem of a Buick catchphrase: they would have us know that the 2006 Buick Lucerne is, ahem, "The next chapter in the evolution of change."]

Posted by Chris Selley at 11:15 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

Hold nose; mark X

I'd like Stephen Harper to be our next Prime Minister, given (and I cannot stress this proviso enough) the realistic choices, all two of them, currently on offer, but the Conservative candidate in my riding has no chance. And that's not pessimism — it's fact. The Liberal incumbent, Sarmite Bulte, stands a reasonable chance of losing, but if she does lose it's definitely going to be to the NDP candidate. A Conservative vote in Parkdale—High Park is pretty much wasted, as far as I can see, since it squanders a real opportunity to influence the balance of power in the House of Commons.

At first blush it seems like people in my situation should vote NDP, in that fewer seats for the Liberals is a good thing for the Conservatives (to say nothing of the fact that I'd rather support just about anyone, and most anything, than Paul Martin). On the other hand, a seat that switches from Liberal to NDP could end up a wash if Paul Martin and Jack Layton end up swinging some kind of coalition. But if that's the case then it won't much matter who I voted for, right?

Wikipedia's extensive entry about tactical voting quotes Labour MP Anne Begg as follows:

Tactical voting is fine in theory and as an intellectual discussion in the drawing room or living rooms around the country, but when you actually get to polling day and you have to vote against your principles, then it is much harder to do.

I'm willing to entertain arguments that tactical voting is just voodoo, but not along those lines — the only way I could vote my conscience on January 23rd would be to set my ballot on fire. If anyone wants to talk me down from Jack Layton's ledge, I'm all ears.

(Cross-posted at the Shotgun, where I'm sure you'll find more interesting comments than here.)

Posted by Chris Selley at 10:01 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

Legal substitution

An interesting situation occurred near the end of tonight's Leafs-Panthers tilt. Joe Bowen claimed not to have read anything about it anywhere in the "various dispatches from the league," which is probably because it's in the rulebook:

Any team that is in violation of this Rule [icing] shall not be permitted to make any player substitutions prior to the ensuing face-off. However, a team in violation of this Rule shall be permitted to make a player substitution in order to replace a goaltender who had been substituted for an extra attacker.

Referees Devorski and Walsh didn't look too sure about it, I have to say, but they eventually made the right call. It's a mystery to me why the league would bother with such a proviso, but so is much of what the NHL does.

Posted by Chris Selley at 09:33 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 27, 2005

Utterly, utterly hopeless

From yesterday's National Post:

The riding of Toronto-Danforth is problematic for the Conservatives. The riding association is in disarray; an annual general meeting is being held this weekend to elect a new board of directors.

Yes, please. I suggest this new board's first action should be to put as much distance between it and "regional organizer" Georganne Burke as possible. As Kevin Libin pointed out on the Shotgun, this woman, whoever she is, actually went and asked Rachel Marsden to consider running. Rachel freaking Marsden!

She did so "after a former candidate in the last election suggested she would be a good fit." Rachel Marsden. A good fit. For Toronto Danforth, the spiritual home of the Harper is Scarians. The mind absolutely boggles, as it does when faced with the official explanation that, in the end, Marsden was deemed too "high-profile" for the job. One wonders when "high-profile" became a negative characteristic in a political candidate, but then again one must admit that Stephen Harper embodies that spirit rather nicely.

Rachel Marsden. We are through the looking glass here, people. I wonder who else the Conservatives have up their sleeves?

Posted by Chris Selley at 06:15 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

Aid and comfort

Loosely related to this post, for interest's sake, here are seven of the G8 countries and the net official development assistance (ODA) they provided to China in 2003. Russia is excluded because it isn't a donor nation. (If anyone can explain that Italian figure to me, or why these OECD figures for ODA bear absolutely no resemblance to those of CIDA and the UK's DFID, for instance (they seem to be vastly lower across the board), I'm all ears.)

Country	Net ODA (USD millions)	Per capita	ppm of GDP
Canada	$28.44	$0.90	33.2
France	$74.29	$1.24	41.3
Germany	$152.18	$1.84	63.41
Italy	($19.57)	($0.34)	N/A
Japan	$759.72	$5.95	176.68
UK	$47.39	$0.80	26.3
USA	$25.63	$0.09	2.35

Posted by Chris Selley at 04:09 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 25, 2005

It was a hell of a campaign

Why, Stephen Harper, why? Why can't you realize how terribly you're going to come off in this "organized crime" fiasco? Can you not see, in your mind's eye, millions of earnest Canadian heads nodding soberly along with Paul Martin as he says, apparently without the slightest hint of shame:

This is not the first time Mr. Harper has made statements such as this in the shadow of an election campaign. Canadians deserve better. They want to see a national debate. They do not want to see a repetition of the kinds of acts and activities that we have seen during question period in the House of Commons over the course of the last year and a half.

See? Look at what you did, Stephen Harper: Martin just won that battle. It's not fair that he did. Believe me — I understand that. But taking your first big stand of the campaign on a piddling little thing like this is just so crazily, bewilderingly stupid. No one cares if you meant "organized crime" like the mafia and the Hell's Angels or whether you just meant crime that's organized. Not one single person cares, on either side of the great political divide. All you've done is appear vindictive, obsessed, weird and out of touch to a crucial portion of the electorate that was just looking for a reason not to vote for you. Was it worth it for that C-list zinger like that? I sure hope so.

[UPDATE November 25: It suddenly occurs to me that this isn't even the first time in this parliament that "organized crime" has been misinterpreted in the House of Commons. I suggest the words be banned, since our elected officials clearly aren't capable of playing nice with them.]

Posted by Chris Selley at 11:22 PM | Comments (13) | TrackBack

November 24, 2005

Pampered

Gadzukes — more hazing!

During its investigation the league [the OHA] was able to confirm there had been: under-age drinking at a non-sanctioned team [the Port Hope Predators] party; a team-building paint-ball event in which rookies were isolated; a 'Kangaroo Court' incident where players were made to ride a stationary bike naked while they were paddled with hockey sticks and a 'Hot Box' where players on a bus were made to strip naked and forced into the bus washroom to dress into their clothes.

Recent precedent suggests that the last two items listed above should not have been allowed to happen. If the coach knew about them then he deserves his suspension because he's clearly a very silly man, lacking in self-preservationist skills. If he didn't know then he should sue the league, as I'm surprised the Spitfires' Moe Mantha hasn't done by now, and I imagine he'd have a case. He has only slightly more control over what his players do on stationary bikes and in bus washrooms when he's not around than he does over what they drink at parties that have nothing to do with the team.

And I'm sorry, if you can't isolate the rookies and pelt them mercilessly with paintballs anymore then we might as well all give up and grow vaginas, because organized sport is pretty much done. I myself have been guilty of assault by paintball — about 18 months ago I organized what one wag described as "the best PG-13 bachelor party" he'd ever attended. Little did we know that we had in fact hazed the poor groom. I'm amazed we're still on speaking terms.

In all seriousness, Mantha's suspension was justified to some limited extent because of the serious discipline problems that plagued his team — the Steve Downie/Akim Aliu incident was far more disturbing, I think, than anything that went down on the team bus. We've seen no evidence of anything that bad in Port Hope, and yet the suspension is just as severe as that handed to Mantha.

In the end, I simply can't take anything seriously that produces a quote like this:

The investigation also focused on an allegation of diapering of players until they defecated but [OHA President] Mr. [Brett] Ladds noted that activity could not be "validated. We have left the issue open about the diapering. We are not satisfied we have found everything about that."

Funny, it sounds to me like everyone in this whole damn mess needs an extra-absorbent pair of Huggies

Posted by Chris Selley at 09:02 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 23, 2005

Let the grand experiment begin

Feel free to check out my inaugural post on the Shotgun. That's right. You heard me.

Posted by Chris Selley at 10:47 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 22, 2005

Cycling with the enemy

It is a perennial bone of contention among some conservative Canadians that our nation conducts so much trade and has such a functional relationship with China. "We give them all this aid," they yell. "We're in bed with the reds!" I don't find the phenomenon too pleasing myself, but for better or for worse the west's cozy arrangement with the world's largest economy, communist or not, is not soon going to change. It's certainly not specific to Canada, and using it as an indictment of Paul Martin, the Liberals or the Dominion itself is really, really lame.

This brief post has been brought to you by this:

Posted by Chris Selley at 11:40 PM | Comments (8) | TrackBack

Jane and Finch blues

Let no one accuse the Sunday Toronto Star of failing to cover an issue in depth. This week's was focused on the increasingly dire goings on up Jane and Finch way — students led out of Cardinal McGuigan High School in handcuffs, prompting absurd accusations of racism against police and school officials; and, of course, the shooting murder of Amon Beckles at his best friend's funeral. It was gripping brunchtime reading, I have to say — the sort of emotionally charged, street-level reporting the Star does very well, but absent the faint veneer of ridiculousness that sometimes colours it.

This, I think, sums up the shooting problem in a few short paragraphs. (It begins with a quote from Toronto Police Services Board member Hamlin Grange, who is black, speaking at a relocated Sunday service for the Seventh Day Adventist church outside which Beckles was murdered.)

"I am really tired. I'm tired of waking up every morning and opening the paper and listening to the radio and wondering, and saying… 'Oh, Lord, please don't let it be black.'"

The congregation burst into spontaneous and sustained applause.

"As the pastor said, this is the moment … We can no longer turn our backs on this."

Outside the auditorium, the pastor said even more: that it's time for people in the community to start offering information to the police — providing the names of those responsible for the violence.

"We are the only ones that can stop this from happening. People know and people need to talk. I am convinced of that."

Well, exactly. Those convinced that mandatory sentences and an overall "get tough on crime" attitude are going to solve this problem overlook one rather crucial point — the police can't catch these people. Whom you cannot catch, you cannot sentence, Confucious say, and if people don't start talking there's no reason to believe it will ever get better.

That's easier said than done, I realize. The pastor's comments are especially poignant considering Beckles may have been killed precisely because he knew who killed the friend whose funeral he was attending. If so, it won't be much comfort to potential squealers that Beckles wasn't cooperating to any satisfactory degree with police and it still may have earned him a bullet in the neck

This problem is highly localized, both in terms of geography and demography. It perplexes me greatly as a Torontonian, a Canadian, and a human being, but there is quite literally nothing I can do about it. These communities must take ownership of the problem and convince the young men with the information to spill their guts. Community leaders have come out of the woodwork all through this summer and autumn of gun to say just that, but there's been no appreciable improvement. The police and the government can help, for example, with money for witness protection, but at the end of the day it requires people to put their asses on the line.

It is ironic that the same community is so willing to take ownership of the 14 black Cardinal McGuigan students charged with sexually assaulting and harassing a female student who happens to be white, and in precisely the wrong way. These people have no idea what actually happened, but they're more than willing to make something up: "I don't think if it was a black (accuser), it would have reached that," offered the mother of "Jeffrey", one of the accused. "And take 14 white people out of school? I don't think so."

Golly, that's not very convincing at all, is it? I appreciate this woman's situation, but she is not helping. And whether or not little "Jeffrey" is guilty of anything, this sort of blame dispersing alternate universe mentality pervades the rest of the Star's cover story:

Windswept and anonymous, the corner [Keele and Finch] is a postcard of the ailments that plague Toronto's inner suburbs. Giant paved roads whiz with traffic, separating towering brick apartment buildings and small, desolate malls.
…
Added to the sprawl is crime and poverty. The median household income is $37,000, $18,000 below the city's average. Unemployment is high, education levels low, the teen pregnancy rate almost double the city's.

The area also claims many of the city's most rundown buildings. More than half of the people who live in them are visible minorities, many of them black.

Given the desperate conditions, it's no surprise that gunfire flashes around the neighbourhood. From early July to the end of October this year, there were four shootings in the area. Just last week, a man was shot on the residential streets southeast of the school.

As a result, the Jane-Finch area has become a hot spot of resentment toward the police.

Wait, stop the car — as a result of what, exactly? Did the Police make Keele and Finch windswept and anonymous? Does it keep the residents impoverished, unemployed and uneducated? Does it knock them up? It does not. Goodness knows the police are capable of bad decision making, but I've seen none in this case. What I've seen is a group of people who absolutely refuse to believe that 14 students who happen to be black might ritually harass another student who happens to be white, and that even if they did, the police would have reacted somehow differently had the colours been reversed. They don't know how, exactly, but they're mad as hell about it. It is sadly unsurprising that this same group is unable to identify and weed out the young men among them who are killing each other in all corners of Jane and Finch's windswept anonymity.

Posted by Chris Selley at 10:55 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

Wrong again

I've asked it before, and I'll ask it again: why the hell does the "independent voice of the new west", employer of many fine and respectable journalists, allow people like RightGirl to post on its blog? Nestruck's objection led me to this rotten onion of a post. It's not this that bothers me so much: "Black or white, young or old — if you live like an a**hole, you die like an a** hole. Don't go looking to the rest of us for pity." That's a little rough, but it's fair play, given that the vast majority of the victims of Toronto's gun violence — if you confine victimhood to those who absorb bullets, that is — are indeed unsavoury characters.

What makes it wholly inappropriate for a serious magazine's blog is the fun-loving tone:

Like something out of Six Feet Under, there was a shooting death at a gangland funeral in north Toronto on Friday. I can't help but giggle at the platitudes spewing forth from the media and the city officials. It's hilarious!

Yeah, um, no it isn't.

In the comments to the post, RightGirl offers the following bizarre defense: "I find it sad, not good. Sorry if that didn't come across." Sad giggles, were they? Sad, exclamatory hilarity? I find it amazing that she had the energy to mount such an absurd argument, considering that 24 hours later she still hasn't managed to go back and correctly identify the scene of the murder as a Seventh Day Adventist church, rather than a Baptist church. (But then, this is a woman who told Shotgun readers all about how the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints endorses polygamy, so she clearly has a bit of a blind spot when it comes to religion.)

And I'm not even going to get into the comments to the Shotgun thread in question, where apparently unironic use of "niggers" is just sitting there, noisily suctioning credibility out of the Western Standard brand like that little tube at the dentist. I fail to see what good this sort of nonsense does anyone, let alone this entirely worthwhile magazine's bottom line and future prospects.

[UPDATE November 22. In the comments, Western Standard publisher Ezra Levant offers his take, as follows:

I visit Tart Cider regularly and link to it occasionally. I read the above post and thought I would share my theory on the editorial strategy of The Shotgun blog.

I believe that our blog should have less editorial control than our printed magazine or our radio shows. That is a fact of the immediate, diffuse nature of the Internet, but it is also one of its appeals. It is free-wheeling. Opening up the comments, as we have done (almost uniquely in Canada; even Antonia Zerbisias audits hers before posting them) makes it even more so. In that way, I believe we are keeping true to the character of the blogosphere, and not merely grafting an appearance of a blog onto a staid, old media product.

Not only is our pool of commenters unlimited, but our roster of authorized bloggers is quite large, approaching fifty people. Clearly not all of our bloggers would make the cut in our print magazine, which is limited by space, budget and is a more careful, official expression of our magazine's editorial view.

What we do achieve on our blog is a larger marketplace of ideas, and one with low barriers to entry, and no transactional costs. Simply put, there is a minimal central controlling authority; editorial decisions are enforced by what libertarian economists would call "spontaneous order" -- the wisdom of the intellectual marketplace. Let me explain:

Many of our posts are too liberal or too conservative for me, or they use language that is too impolite. Sometimes they are even factually wrong. Not unfrequently, I am asked to delete a comment or even a blog post itself. Some of these requests come from loyal readers, or even other bloggers. Mark Steyn himself even criticized one of our bloggers quite vigorously.

My response in almost every case is the same: Let the market of ideas correct itself, without central planning by me or our editor, Kevin Libin. Let other Shotgun bloggers make rebuttal posts (as was done in the case of the Right Girl post by another blogger, CharLeBois). If a blogger doesn't, our commenters will.

That is how public debates should happen; not from central censorship, but through the negotiations of public debate. I myself have been corrected on some of my posts by commenters, as recently as last week. I take my lumps on the blog. I even welcome personal insults (such as those from Robert McClelland) as they are often rebutted by others but in any event speak volumes about the insulter's own intellectual strength.

Over the course of a year and a half, we have deleted less than a dozen comments, and perhaps only a single blog post, and generally only when the laws of defamation are grossly violated.

I do not agree with everything on our blog. And that is why it is so interesting, and generates such comments and responses, and 600,000 unique visits a month.

The contents of the Western Standard magazine meet the editorial standards of our editor, Kevin Libin. The Shotgun blog is a house of debate, where a wide spectrum of bloggers are invited to speak, and everyone is invited to heckle. The editorial standards are enforced through the market of ideas. In fact, this debate on Tart Cider is part of that intellectual iteration, which is why I welcome it.

I am not proud of every utterance on The Shotgun. I don't have to be; they are to the credit or shame of their own authors. But I am deeply proud of hosting Canada's largest and only free-wheeling group blog, with an open comments thread and a feather-light editorial touch. Maybe I ought to offer Chris Selley blogging authorization, too -- I certainly read his stuff enough, and think others should, too.

That's all fair enough, though I find it difficult to square Ezra's "marketplace of ideas" model with much of the unabashed idiocy one finds in some of the Shotgun's comment threads, which have added more misrepresentation and outright b-s to a hundred posts for every one they've clarified, and I still think it's remarkable that of all the weblogs out there, one run by a reputable news magazine has managed to become the go-to destination for (in Coyne's words) "western separatists, Bilderberg conspiracy theorists and various other cranks," to say nothing of liars, abuse-hurlers and unapologetic racists and bigots. It's certainly not what I'd aim for were I in their position, but hey, I'm not. I find the phenomenon more surprising than I do offensive.]

Posted by Chris Selley at 12:15 AM | Comments (15) | TrackBack

November 20, 2005

Do you have him in brown?

The "no white men" HR policy recently introduced by the Department of Public Works is absolutely outrageous, but it's not new. The National Post reports:

The Charter of Rights and Freedoms does allow some discrimination by government to aid groups it identifies as being disadvantaged, said Robb Macpherson, a labour lawyer with the firm McCarthy Tetrault.

However, that usually means implementing equity programs that promote the hiring of qualified people from those groups. The Public Works order appears to take the idea a step further, he said. "They are in effect cutting off a significant portion of the workforce from these opportunities," Mr. Macpherson said. "It sounds like a pretty extreme measure that they're contemplating."

I'm going to go ahead and disagree with Robb Macpherson. Organizations that enact "equity programs that promote the hiring of qualified people from those groups" aren't doing so in a bubble — every time they hire someone who isn't the best man or woman for the job they have disadvantaged another man or woman, and no amount of moist disclamatory verbiage can make it otherwise.

Like Macpherson, union president Nycole Turmel doesn't see it that way at all:

Ms. Turmel said a more effective strategy would be simply to encourage managers to consider members of the designated groups, and provide help to those people to find work in the federal government.

Same problem. Of course managers "consider members of the designated groups" — they'd be crucified if they didn't. It's exactly that sort of reasonable policy, in fact, that probably led to Public Works' current mess. They hired a whole series of people who were the most qualified candidates available to them, and lo and behold they were way off their equity targets. In the equality-obsessed bizarro world in which these people live, banning white males is the logical reparative measure. The only thing that's "extreme" in deputy minister David Marshall's directive is that it actually, for once, says what it means: racist hiring policies are fair game in Canada. I'll wager $20 million I don't have that we won't see this issue on the campaign trail.

[UPDATE November 22. The policy has been rescinded, with apologies from David Marshall. Going forward the department will somehow meet the equity targets of which it has fallen so desperately short without hiring a single less qualified minority candidate. Shhh — don't ask how. Back to sleep, boys and girls.]

Posted by Chris Selley at 11:24 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

At least they have a rich lexicon

In the middle of this deeply depressing article about the situation at Toronto's Cardinal McGuigan High School, you will find the single most darkly hilarious paragraph in Toronto Star history:

"There's a lot of name-calling going on," said one female student of the school, referring to teenage slang that casts some students as "freaks" or "brainers." In the warped logic of teenage slang, the latter term has evolved from meaning someone who is studious to someone who doles out oral sex.

Posted by Chris Selley at 10:59 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Up with the status quo

As I've said before, I happen to like Canada's abortion situation just the way it is. Abortion has always been with us, and it always will be. Every civilized nation permits it. Most civilized nations also put restrictions on it, but this simply provides an illusion of respectability — there is no moral difference between an abortion at six weeks and an abortion at six months. That's my position, at least, and I'm sticking to it for now.

Colby Cosh's Friday column addressed a very interesting poll commissioned by LifeCanada, which encapsulated the findings as follows: "Almost two-thirds of Canadian women support legal protection for unborn." That's a fair (if grammatically deficient) representation — 30 percent of respondents said the law should "protect human life" from conception, slightly fewer than the 33 percent who said from the point of birth. LifeCanada added up the combined 30 percent who believe the law should kick in at three or six months and added it to the 30, but again, I think those people need their own category — "delusional".

Would a fetus conceived July 1 no longer be eligible for termination on October 1, or 90 days from July 1? Do hours and minutes count? What if the mother didn't know exactly when conception occurred? She'd never know for sure whether she was having an abortion or committing murder! Come on. An abortion on day 89 is the same as an abortion on day 90 even if day 90 is the legal threshold — any reasonable person can see that. It only follows logically that an abortion on day 90 is the same as an abortion on day 2. Insert whatever numbers you please and it will still be the same act.

Cosh concludes:

I suspect that we are genuinely ashamed of our reproductive freedom, but that we secretly cherish it for our private purposes (or those of our wives, girlfriends, and daughters). And so we tell pollsters that we favour restrictions on abortion. But when a politician makes noises about doing something about it, we get scared.

Sounds right to me. In other words, most Canadians intrinsically share my view: that abortion is regrettable, always and obviously, and yet some people have always made that choice and some people always will. If we're going to keep abortion legal, and obviously we are, then the only appropriate people to make the call are the people who created the fetus.

That said, I support a requirement for honest counselling because it might cause more mothers to consider adoption. I support a requirement for parental consent because it's just common sense. (The irony of hard-line abortion rights folk claiming that abortion is a medical procedure just like any other while fighting against mandatory parental consent, which is required for every medical procedure except abortion, has always struck me as especially stark.)

Term limits are another matter entirely. For one thing, I'd have thought they would lead to more total abortions, as women would be forced to make a decision quicker — and a quicker decision, at least in my experience, usually errs on the easy side. But term limits are not primarily proposed as an abortion reduction measure anyway. Rather, they are the chief instrument in manufacturing respectability for abortion, and I want no part in such a grand national delusion no matter how much comfort it might give.

[UPDATE November 22. My responses to a couple of very trenchant comments on this post:

To Don,

Of course we could make one rule for fetuses of X age and another for X+1 day age. Lots of countries have. My argument was that setting day 90 as a limit wouldn't make an abortion at day 91 more or less moral than it was the day before the legislation passed. Aborting a fetus at day two is to aborting a fetus at day 240 as killing a baby at year 1 is to killing a child at year 8. Right? My eyes sure glaze over when people try to argue otherwise.

To Joe,

You and I were both blastocysts once, and we were both reasonably healthy babies the night before we were born once. Had either of us been aborted at any point along that continuum — or indeed murdered sometime between birth and today — the end result would have been exactly the same. No Chris. No Joe.

You're right that it instinctively seems ridiculous that those two entities have the same protection, but in my opinion that's simply because one looks more like a cuddly little baby than the other. Human beings are all afforded the exact same legal protection from the moment they burst forth from the womb — why is it any different for fetuses from the moment they burst forth from, uh, well, you see what I'm getting at.

Aborting a full-term fetus — murdering a baby, in other words, that happens still to be in the womb — might well be a crueler form of abortion than aborting a blastocyst that no one would ever say had a consciousness, in the same way that torturing someone to death is crueler than shooting him in the head. But cruelty isn't the point — death is the point, and unless we're willing to address that honestly I think I'd rather live without the freakshow that a national abortion debate would be.]

Posted by Chris Selley at 05:39 PM | Comments (13) | TrackBack

Stumbling through the dark

Just for squeaks and gigs, let's take a walk through the pundits' pre-season musings on the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Damien Cox (Toronto Star), on August 2, 2005:

Yessir, all of a sudden having $5.6 million committed to ancient goalie Ed Belfour for this season looks a lot more problematic, wouldn't you say?

If Belfour was a top five goalie, that would be one thing.

But he's not. And Bryan McCabe, at $3.5 million per season, isn't among the NHL's top 25 defenceman (sic).

Mats Sundin will return and count $6.3 million against the cap, but after 16 months doing many things, none of them involving skating, it remains totally unclear what quality of player the Leafs will be getting in their captain upon his return.
…
The scary part for Leaf fans, however, is that replacing Roberts and Nieuwendyk isn't going to be easy.

Even with the enormous pay cuts NHLers are taking compared to 2003-2004 salaries, reductions averaging about 40 per cent per player, the absence of significant cap space will make Ferguson's job of getting this Leaf team back to the post-season very, very difficult.

Damien Cox, on August 3, 2005:

The Leafs, without question, have been caught utterly flatfooted by the frenzy of activity over the past two weeks.

They were seemingly floored by the entire Owen Nolan mess, and then, after making a decent move by picking up Jeff O'Neill from the Carolina Hurricanes, found that addition overshadowed by the loss of veterans Gary Roberts and Joe Nieuwendyk to Florida.

Alexander Mogilny: 15GP, 5 G, 8 A, -3. $3.5 million.
Joe Nieuwendyk: 7 GP, 1 G, 2A, +1. $2.25 million.
Gary Roberts: 16 GP, 3 G, 3 A, E. $2.25 million.
TOTAL: 38 GP, 9 G, 13 A, -2. $8 million.

Jason Allison: 21 GP, 3 G, 18 A, -3. $1.5-4.5 million.
Eric Lindros: 21 GP, 10 G, 7 A, -1. $1.55 million.
Jeff O'Neill: 19 GP, 9 G, 9 A, -10. $1.5 million.
TOTAL: 61 GP, 22 G, 34 A, -14. 4. $4.55-9.05 million.

Michael Traikos (National Post), on August 5:

While it is still too early to determine whether Leafs general manager John Ferguson Jr., (sic) will be held accountable for allowing Gary Roberts and Nieuwendyk to sign with Florida, at least one agent claims the GM's gambles this week have not paid off.

"Nobody's going to convince me that Roberts and Nieuwendyk leaving were (sic) part of the plan," said the agent, who did not want to be identified. "So he didn't get started on the right foot."

According to one source, Nieuwendyk may have delivered the final blow to the Toronto Maple Leafs this off-season when he reportedly told the general manager: "The time for playing poker is over, John, and you just lost."

Toronto Maple Leafs: 21-12-7, 26 points, 6th place, Eastern Conference.
Florida Panthers: 6-11-4, 16 points, 15th place, Eastern Conference.

Mark Spector (National Post), on July 26:

Toronto is a very average team whose best players are in the twilight of their careers, with very little coming up through the farm system. With so little going for them at the moment, it would behoove Toronto to make good on this final advantage, buy out a (sic) Nolan, Belfour and McCabe, and get to work on landing a true superstar in the prime of his career.

Roy MacGregor (Globe and Mail), on October 5:

There is even a new Internet site — http://battleofalberta.blogspot.com — where rabid fans on both sides can exchange pleasantries, presumably typing with their knuckles.

Matt gave MacGregor a pass on that ridiculous drive-by, which was more than charitable of him. MacGregor's Globe and Mail has by far the least silly sports section in Canada, but still. There are fewer typos on Battle of Alberta total than there are in a single average day's Canadian newspaper output. Better to type with one's knuckles than to think with them, I always say.

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November 18, 2005

The column I'm glad I didn't write

The Winnipeg Sun's editor and columnist John Gleeson, on the grisly murder of Sault Ste-Marie's Sarah Positano:

Another irony is that it took a U.S. court to give the family of a Canadian murder victim a sense that the depths of their horror and heartbreak were felt and responsibly addressed.

The irony escapes me, I'm afraid — she was, after all, murdered in Ohio. But this is only the silliest of many silly arguments Gleeson makes in favour of capital punishment. Feature this:

When a person has demonstrated a propensity for killing -- an actual tendency to murder people -- capital punishment is the only sure way to prevent the killer from taking more innocent lives in the future.

Release him -- and in Canada, eventual release is virtually inevitable -- and he might kill again. Keep him locked up and he might kill a guard or another inmate while inside or escape prison and kill again.

He's right about the first part, of course, but I don't think his thinking is quite as deep here as he imagines. Killing someone is the only sure way to prevent him from doing anything. No one's arguing that a convicted killer sentenced to life in prison definitely won't kill again — a guard or fellow inmate in prison, or another innocent civilian upon release — but that doesn't even begin to answer the question of whether capital punishment can be morally justified. It evades the questions, in fact, of why our prisons are so terribly run and our life imprisonment sentences are so laughably weak. Institutional incompetence is a worse reason to kill another human being, I think, than pure sport.

Gleeson's argument is actually one of the more odious I've heard: "It's not primarily about retribution or deterrence. It's about self-preservation." Pre-emption, in other words. But that's one giant leap for criminal justice. Capital punishment is a sentence just like any other — it is meted out in proportion to the crime committed, not to crimes that might be committed in the future (or it's supposed to be, anyway). And given the rather astonishing number of convicts being released these days with big fat apology cheques, I'd say "irreversible" is currently out of proportion no matter what the crime.

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Surely not

If seasons two through three-so-far were as good as season one, I'd be plotting some sort of low-level terrorist action against Fox for even considering cancelling Arrested Development. They aren't as good — not nearly as good — though season three rebounded with two absolutely mint episodes (3.04 and 3.05) back-to-back last Sunday. It is still frustrating that we've made no progress on the television sucking forever and ever front, and I'm still wondering — if these network promotions guys are such great shakes, then why are they only capable of successfully promoting crap?

Posted by Chris Selley at 12:24 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

November 17, 2005

From the cradle of human rights...

BBC Five Live sent Matthew Pinsent to a gymnastics training centre in China and he found child abuse. And if they sent him to a restaurant, I imagine he'd find rice. Thank goodness gymnastics is so horribly boring in addition to being unbelievably creepy — every four years I feel complicit in some strange childhood-robbing ritual just watching the highlights.

Posted by Chris Selley at 07:03 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 15, 2005

So typical

Chris Zelkovich goes after Don Cherry on disingenuous grounds. Yes, again:

"Everybody loves fights," he [Cherry] said, for probably the 400th time. He then added, for probably the 800th time, "The fans love it." Apparently, the game's very existence rides on this issue.

But the fans do love it. Cherry's point, and quite frankly I wish I'd thought of it, was this: the sole justification for the shootout, which has never been part of the NHL game, is that the fans will like it; yet the fact that the fans like fighting, which has always been part of the NHL game, is considered inadmissible evidence by tut-tutting folk like Zelkovich. Does the league want to please the fans or doesn't it? And where does Mr Zelkovich stand on that?

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Best taggy-thing ever

Now this is a blogging tag-up deal I can get behind: One takes the fifth sentence of one's 23rd ever blog entry and uses it as the first sentence of a short fiction-type thinger. Thanks to Kate for tagging me.

Now, unfortunately, my 23rd post isn't really a post at all, and it doesn't even have five sentences. So I flipped a coin — heads would be the 22nd post, tails the 24th. It came up heads. Enjoy. (While I'm here, I hereby tag Messrs Deep Fried Gold, Nugget, Nestruck, Wells, and Urban Refugee.)

OPERATION NEPTUNE: FINAL REPORT (EXCERPTS)

Day 6 — 1825 hours
"They are placed in an orphanage."

I looked at Trang, confused. "You mean they have been placed in an orphanage?"

"Indeed," he said, picking the shrimp out of his Pad Thai. I had ordered shrimp at lunch myself, and they weren't sitting right. Avoid the shrimp in Ban Ting Rai.

"But why?"

Trang pushed his bowl away in disgust and folded his hands on the desk. "Because they have no parents."

I nodded in feigned agreement — Samuel and Eliza were no orphans — and just then a single bead of sweat rolled off the end of my nose. Trang followed it with his good eye until it landed on my right Birkenstock, and an almost imperceptible smirk curled one corner of his mouth. My God, I thought. That shrimp is coming out one way or the other.

"Where is this orphanage?" I asked, urgently.

"It is on Orphan Island."

"Really?"

"Yes, really."

"It's actually called Orphan Island?"

I was escorted out of Trang's quarters by one of his men. "I need a boat," I told him.

"No boats in Ban Ting Rai," he said.

He was lying. I had arrived by boat. These people were starting to piss me off.

Day 6 — 1850 hours
The guy at the internet café would have none of it. "One hour minimum to use WC!" he bellowed. Fine, I thought. It's like eleven Canadian cents. It'll cost more than that for the water to fill the hose he'll need to clean the place up once I'm done with these accursed shrimp.

Day 6 — 1852 hours
Jesus Christ, a squatter. Those kids are going to pay.

Day 7 — 0925 hours
Having slept little, I left Ban Ting Rai by outrigger canoe for Orphan Island. At last, the end of my mission was in sight. After paying the man with the canoe, I waded ashore and tried to blend in. I was spotted immediately. The Hawaiian print shirt had been a grave error.

"Why are you here?" asked a fat nun.

I was unprepared for this question and panicked. "I wish to purchase a child," I said. Damn, I thought. Now I'll have to kill her. But the fat nun only nodded and led me towards the unmistakable sound of orphans at hard, thankless work.

My eyes met Samuel's across the central courtyard. The children were building what appeared to be a crafts hut, for which Samuel was chopping two-by-fours to measure with his bare hands. No ordinary eleven-year-old was he. No ordinary orphanage was this.

My eyes darted to and fro — where was Eliza? Only one way to find out. Fingering the ivory handle of the antique Enfield revolver in my pocket, I approached the new crafts hut. It really was breathtaking. Samuel turned to face me, unarmed and supremely confident. There were these sharp little pebbles in my Birkenstocks.

At that moment, the man with the outrigger canoe sprinted past us, shrieking. An awkward silence ensued.

"You've come for my sister, I imagine," Samuel finally said, a very perceptible smirk curling one corner of his mouth. "What in the hell took you so long?" He cracked his knuckles and advanced, ready to wage our epic battle right there in front of the new crafts hut — man versus boy-machine. I reached for my Enfield and his eyes widened. His stance lost most of its supreme confidence. This was going to be easier than I thought.

"I'm afraid the worm has turned, my boy," I chuckled.

And that's when the tsunami hit.

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November 14, 2005

Innumerates anonymous

In the Toronto Sun, Thane Burnett faithfully transcribes the Canadian Crime Victim Foundation's Joe Wamback:

"Do you realize a woman is twice as likely to be raped here in Canada than in the U.S.?" Joe asks, citing a UN report.

No, I did not realize that. But according to this report from the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (enormous PDF alert!), there is indeed a huge discrepancy between Canada and the US. For 1999, we see a rate of 78.23 rapes and attempted rapes per 100,000 population in Canada, and 32.05 for the United States (which is more or less the figure the CCVF website cites without reference).

Common sense says this simply cannot be true. It's not that the US rate should be higher or lower than Canada, necessarily, but simply that there shouldn't be a discrepancy of nearly 2.5 times between the two countries on a crime like rape (as opposed to a vastly higher rate of gun crime in the US, for instance, or of, uh, poutine-related assault in Canada, either of which would be pleasantly logical). Also suspicious: the only countries on the list faring worse than Canada are such gynocratic locales as the Seychelles, South Africa and Swaziland — all at around 122 per 100,000 — while the only other country even in the same ballpark is Australia, of all places, at 74.23.

Time for the reveal. 23,859, the number of rapes ostensibly committed in Canada in 1999, is actually the grand total of all varieties of sexual assault (per Statistics Canada). 89,110, the number of rapes ostensibly committed in the US in 1999, is in fact the number of "forcible rapes". The United Nations has provided the world with 2.3 megabytes of portable document comparing apples to oranges. That' s exactly the sort of thing I'd expect them to do.

Bigging up crime numbers, meanwhile, is exactly the sort of thing I'd expect crime victim organizations to do. I note that the CCVF devotes a large section of its website to a list of legal rights granted to Canadians accused of criminal acts; victims, they say, have none, which is a bit rich. I've always been suspicious of victims' rights outfits, though the CCVF's platform as outlined in Burnett's Sun article sounds very reasonable. I guess the question that's always nagged me is this: If the goal is more rights for victims, why is at least 80 percent of the movement's labour focused on taking rights away from criminals and accused criminals?

Posted by Chris Selley at 10:53 PM | Comments (14) | TrackBack

Offensive

The Sports sections of Canada continue to reflect not so good on the rest of the newspapers in which they reside. In the National Post, Howard Berger needs a fact checker:

Trade speculation flared up late in the week with whispers the Leafs were talking to Columbus about Allison, whose play has tailed off after a more-than-adequate start. Moving Allison's US$4.5-million contract (excluding bonuses) will not be an easy chore for general manager John Ferguson, if the rumors have any substance.

Good thing for JFJ Allison makes US$1.5 million excluding bonuses.

In the Toronto Sun, Lance Hornby is suffering from Belfour Delusion Syndrome:

But can they possibly go another five months and perhaps playoffs letting Ed Belfour clean up after everyone's mistakes?
…
He [Pat Quinn] singled out the defense for almost handing Saturday's game back to the Montreal Canadiens after a late tying goal and is worried what the confusion in front is doing to the psyche of Belfour, the Leafs' 40-year-old lifeline.

Ten of the 16 giveaways charged to the Leafs were traced to Belfour, Klee and McCabe.

In other words, when Belfour coughs up the puck it's because his defensemen have been emotionally abusing him. This relationship doesn't go both ways, for some reason — when Belfour left his net against Boston, realized he couldn't touch the puck without taking a penalty and then inexplicably didn't opt to take said penalty, resulting in a gimme goal against, that's just a freebie. Run along, Eddie — we all make mistakes. When Tim Connolly undresses Ken Klee, mind you, it's an assault on Belfour, never mind that Eddie was in terrible position and gave Connolly half the net to shoot at (or not "three inches" anyway, as Ken Fidlin laughably suggests, also in the Toronto Sun).

Hornby isn't through:

When reloading after the lockout, Ferguson was obviously counting on the likes of Klee, Khavanov, Berg and Belak to bridge the talent level so the likes of Kronwall and Carlo Colaiacovo could be eased into the lineup.

Does he mean the Marlies' lineup? Those four plus McCabe, Kaberle and Pilar would put Kronwall and Colaiacovo eighth and ninth on Pat Quinn's depth chart. The Leafs do not "lack depth on defense," as the papers delight in telling us. They have plenty of unspectacular depth, to the point that it's actually somewhat surprising Kronwall has established himself as a regular. The fact remains that on most other teams Aki Berg's ice time would go to Colaiacovo (or Andy Wozniewski for that matter, who seems to have vanished off the face of the earth).

No doubt insubstantial trade rumors have the Leafs adding Janne Niinimaa. That wouldn't help the situation vis-à-vis getting Colaiacovo and Kronwall adequate playing time, and it wouldn't help the Leafs' defensive play appreciably either unless Niinimaa is secretly a really excellent defense coach. He'd just be another log in the jam, another medium-name non-Canadian defenseman brought to Toronto on reputation alone as the latest sink for the disappointment of the Leaf Nation, which among many other feats of imbecility is capable of simultaneously demanding the veteran blue line presence of men it has never seen play hockey and kvetching that its beloved team never develops any of its own talent. In short, the Leafs don't need more veteran defensemen. They need to upgrade the ones they have — i.e., one in, one out. You might even be able to convince me that it would be a good move to ditch Berg for a draft pick and get Colaiacovo in the lineup immediately.

Wade Belak can't "bridge" any "talent level" outside beer league. He's a travesty of a troke of a forward, and a far better forward than he is a defenseman. Qualifying him at $850,000 won't go down as Ferguson's worst mistake, but it will definitely rank among the least explicable. Bryan McCabe is establishing himself as a bonafide number-one man, while Tomas Kaberle is a fine number-two, Ken Klee is a more-than-acceptable number-three and Alex Khavanov and Aki Berg are serviceable fifth/sixth defenseman for a playoff team. Kronwall shows great promise, and I personally believe Colaiacovo is ready to step up. In other words it is time to make a move, one that does not involve adding to the defensive depth chart.

One of the Leaf Nation's wildest fantasies is that all the other good teams are stocked with big-name defensemen right down to the number-7 slot. This is, of course, untrue. The sixth spot in Detroit is being split between Jamie Rivers, Jason Woolley and something called Brett Lebda. I am supposed to believe that Ottawa's Brian Pothier or Andrej Meszaros could magically transplant themselves to the Leafs and turn the great ship blue-and-white around, but that's silly. The Leafs' system, or lack thereof, would turn any of those defensemen into the same flawed hockey players that Berg and Khavanov are now. The key is that Ottawa's excellent defense corps has been carefully crafted from its number-one man (Chara) down to its limited minutes number-six (Pothier), with the dual intents of providing solid defensive play and developing Meszaros into a good blueliner. If Quinn doesn't think he can swing that with his current staff and/or with two rookies at a time, and the consensus is that both Kronwall and Colaiacovo are ready to step up, then what the Leafs have is a glut of young defensemen. I know it sounds weird, but there it is. And in the hands of a competent GM there's nothing better than that to have in the NHL, new or old, except maybe a coach who can wrap his mind around team defense.

Posted by Chris Selley at 10:09 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

Goalie. Sieve.

Perhaps it's inevitable for a team that's had rock-solid goaltending for almost the entirety of the last 12 years, but one of the most annoying golden tenets of the Leafs punditocracy is this: No Toronto Maple Leafs goaltender shall ever be said to have lost his team the game, or even to have come close, unless it is an attempt to suggest that the general manager of the moment should trade or buy out said goaltender, or that he should have done so long ago. Otherwise, the Toronto Maple Leafs goaltender shall be said, in the case of a Leafs win, to have single-handedly won his team yet another wholly undeserved victory, and in the case of a Leafs loss to have battled heroically in the face of the wholesale incompetence of his teammates, either of which shall in turn be used to suggest that the general manager of the moment be fired.

Still, one never really gets used to being told the sky is red. Says Ken Campbell today: "The Leafs were saved by Ed Belfour's goaltending…"

Ken Campbell is high. Belfour was terrible, again, and what's most amusing, Campbell admits it:

Once again, Belfour was equal parts brilliant and brutal, allowing two very stoppable goals and playing the puck like a live hand grenade, but was sharp in the first period when he kept what should have been a rout to a scoreless tie.

So sorry, but a goaltender cannot "save" his team while giving up two soft goals. He just can't. You can't save someone from a crisis that you yourself created — all you can do is salvage a little bit of redemption, and Belfour didn't even do that. What he did was bank one solid period and then put it in the tank. Despite Leafs fans' unfailing willingness to climb inside their goaltender's head for in search of forgiveness — he was screened, it was a rolling puck, why the hell did Berg put his stick out?, he was distracted by a flashbulb, that was goalie interference!, well maybe if we had a Canadian captain he wouldn't have to make those saves, etc. — the fact remains that Edward Belfour's job is to stop all the routine shots and a huge majority of the "unstoppable" ones. These days, it's not happening. I like Belfour, and I know he starts slow, but the facts are the facts.

The reason the Leafs are keeping their heads above water despite mediocre goaltending isn't the great riddle that the Toronto Star suggests it is. It's because they're a very talented team that has thus far been relatively healthy. Of course, the single most annoying golden tenet of the Leafs punditocracy is not to admit that, so expect more baffled befuddlement from Campbell, Cox & Co. as the Leafs soldier their way to yet another playoff berth.

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November 11, 2005

Ouchy

Christopher Hitchens:

Nonintervention does not mean that nothing happens. It means that something else happens. Our policy in Darfur has not just failed to rescue a stricken black African population: It has actually assisted the Sudanese Islamists in completing their policy of racist murder. Thank heaven that we are tough enough to bear the shame of this, and strong enough to forgive ourselves.

We went to the Balkans and it worked, pretty much. We went to Somalia and it didn't. We made some noise about Rwanda, but failed to do anything significant. In Darfur, the noise itself was apparently sufficient. Canadians do not care about genocide when it happens in Africa. Fine. But let's admit it to ourselves. There's no absolution to be had from Paul Martin's jowls flapping in his own wind.

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November 10, 2005

The sign says "20 Minutes Maximum," punk

Speaking of not trusting the police, holy crap. That is some pretty sickening video. (Dawg has more, and more on the Ottawa po-po in general.)

Personally, I've never had anything but minor quibbles with cops. I spent a couple of winters a few years ago in Fernie, a very affecting hardscrabble British Columbia mining town-cum-mid-range resort of 5,000 residents that must have the largest per-capita RCMP detachment in Canada. A few of us were walking to a party one night, causing no fuss but having a few road pops, and got busted fair and square by an acne-scarred young Mountie. We poured out our Pilsners on the curb as ordered.

"What's in your knapsack," he asked me. (I swear his voice cracked as he did so.)

"More beer," said I.

"Pour it out."

I laughed. "Come on," I said. "I'm not doing that."

I think he'd assumed we were under 20, Australian, stupid, or all three. It's a fairly safe bet in Fernie. I'm not sure whether his request was technically above board, but it was certainly unreasonable, and we easily negotiated our way down to him following us to the party — it was only another block or so — and a promise of good behaviour. My lasting negative impression wasn't of the young policeman himself, who's probably a fine officer by now, but of the training that seemed to have instructed him to get the most humiliation he could out of the people he stopped, the law be damned.

(Actually, I guess I do have one major quibble: you wouldn't believe how many phone calls it takes to get the SPCUM out at 4:30am, even when your upstairs neighbour is beating down your front door with an axe. Hint: tell them he says he has a gun.)

You'll never entirely get rid of a culture of impunity in a profession that by definition wields more authority than everyone else on the street, but the outrage over incidents like that in the Ottawa Tim Horton's needs to be de-politicized. We don't know what Danny Gauthier said to Constables Henderson and Nesbitt, but we do know that there was no earthly reason for Constable Henderson to beat the living tar out of Danny Gauthier. The sooner cop-haters, cop-lovers, politicians and cops themselves can agree on that, the sooner we can get rid of ugly incidents like these.

[UPDATE November 14: Il continue. Dawg demolishes an indefensible Ottawa Citizen column.]

Posted by Chris Selley at 11:34 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

BoJo and MoSo

I've gone after a couple of Monte Solberg's more notably offside/silly posts in the past, but I don't think I've never adequately expressed how much I appreciate the fact that he's sticking his neck out there on a regular basis. This, for instance, isn't great writing, but it's a refreshingly cranky reaction to a ridiculous Liberal gambit:

Paul [Martin] was in the newspaper on the weekend saying that, you know, we really shouldn't have an election now because the Libs wouldn't have the chance to fix the drinking water problem on reserves.
…
… I think we owe it to the Prime Minister to give him the benefit of the doubt. I mean, have they really had enough time? As everyone knows you can't solve the drinking water problem in just twelve years. Study after study shows that it ALWAYS takes twelve years and five months to fix a drinking water problem on a reserve.

Last February Warren Kinsella famously predicted that Solberg's blog "won't last a year." He still has time to be right, of course, but any and all minor missteps thus far have blown over quickly. I sincerely hope that Canadians' manifest tolerance for politicians who are jewel thieves or borderline drug addicts is indicative of their tolerance for those who speak their minds. Ideally this would be accompanied by a similar tolerance from the media, who are well trained in the art of turning any politician's mind-speaking into a national scandal, however pathetic or short-lived.

British MP Boris Johnson, on whom regular readers will by now have noticed I have something of a non-sexual crush, needn't worry about such silliness. (His dismissal of one of his own personal mini-scandals as "an inverted pyramid of piffle" is one of my all-time favourite lines.) In fact, he has chosen this moment in his career(s), when he is widely being touted as one of David Cameron's lieutenants-in-waiting, to regale Telegraph readers with tales of his undergraduate buffoonery:

All I will say in my defence is that it was very late at night, I was about 19, in exceedingly high spirits, and apart from anything else, m'lud, I was plastered. Some events took place that might charitably be described as high jinks. I remember something to do with a bicycle, and dark deeds involving plastic cones.
…
At any rate the party ended up with a number of us crawling on all fours through the hedges of the botanical gardens, and trying to escape some police dogs. We were eventually rounded up and put in Oxford police station, about six to a cell.

This was a story about how Johnson doesn't trust the police, if you can believe it, and the ostensibly non-partisan pleasure he therefore took in Tony Blair's 90-day detention proposal being shot down in flames — My Life as a Toffee-Nosed 19-Year Old Post-Etonian Yob, basically, segueing into My Life as a Sharp-Tongued Tabloid-Hating Tory who Doesn't Like the Police. Canada is not ready for a politician such as Johnson, which is just as well since none are forthcoming, but it would certainly be nice if honest, forthright people with pasts just as imperfect as everybody else's could enter politics knowing they at least had a chance in hell of winning. Whether it's the media, the political parties or Canadians themselves standing in the way, I've never quite been sure.

Posted by Chris Selley at 10:19 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

Live and let live

Kate McMillan has a tremendous post this morning that beautifully articulates a suspicion I've always had (and thankfully never had to test) — that society's hysteria over child sexual abuse compounds victims' trauma:

If we want to help victims of sexual crimes regain normalcy, it's time that society and the justice system stop sending mixed messages. We claim there is no shame in being a victim of sexually based crime, then try the cases in courts that "protect" identities and ban publication of testimony. We applaud their courage, then use "fate worse than" hyperbole equating rape with murder, as though the truly courageous victim would have chosen death over submission.

We tell small children that the crime is "not their fault" — but that their lives are ruined and childhoods at an end, placing before them the additional hurdle of self-fulfilling prophecy.

It's a difficult sentiment for non-victims to express because we can't speak from experience to the horrors of sexual abuse. But it is undeniably true — and undeniably odd — that we hold child molesters in equal or lower esteem than we do murderers. The human brain is a hideous bitch goddess, capable of turning a simple act of illegal and/or unwanted physical contact into a crippling watershed event in its owner's life. I imagine that victims of strangers find it easier to overcome abuse than those abused by a parent or someone else in an innate position of trust, but as Kate says, in neither case does tabloid-fuelled hysteria help anyone.

We need to find some middle ground between "shut up and get on with your life" and "it's going to be a rough 80 years." The newspapers can help by toning down their coverage (the example Kate cites is an extreme one, but not by all that much). And we can all help, I think, by resisting the urge to fly into a rage over individual sexual abuse tragedies that really aren't any of our business to begin with.

Posted by Chris Selley at 09:22 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 09, 2005

Worst lede ever?

Who else? Al Strachan:

It was not a night without redemption for the Maple Leafs.

Amazingly, the article doesn't not get worse from there.

Posted by Chris Selley at 11:55 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

Guantanamo sunrise

Omar Khadr won't be executed if he's found guilty:

"He may have been 15 but he was trained to be a terrorist," said Donald Winder, a Utah lawyer who is representing the widow of Sgt. Speer and Sgt. Morris in a civil damage suit against the estate of Mr. Khadr's father. "I don't have a lot of sympathy for the kid."

Nor would I expect him to. But note his choice of words: Khadr was trained. Even the opposing lawyer acknowledges that Khadr didn't sign up. He didn't volunteer. He was born into a piece of shit family and was shipped off as an adolescent to train under Al Qaeda, with no reasonable opportunity to object.

None of this excuses what he did, assuming he did it, but it mitigates his guilt. Had Omar Khadr killed Sgt Speer in civilian circumstances in the United States or Canada it's safe to say that his age alone would have reduced his sentence to a punishment far less severe than he's already served. Needless to say, there are factors in play here beyond his age.

If he's found guilty, I'd like to see him sentenced to time served and sent home just in time to see his worthless mother thrown in jail for child abuse, as she should have been years ago. Let his apparently half-sane brother take care of him, or if necessary the nearest mental hospital. I have nothing but sympathy for the Speer and Morris families, and have no problem with their lawsuit, but by all reasonable standards Omar Khadr has suffered enough for his parents' sins.

Posted by Chris Selley at 10:40 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Journalism must stay 50 yards from science at all times

In today's Edmonton Sun, Mindelle Jacobs highlights a blood-boiling scientific undertaking: Child Deaths Resulting From Inflicted Injuries: Household Risk Factors and Perpetrator Characteristics. Jacobs summarizes it as follows:

Kids in single-parent homes are no more likely to die from inflicted injury than those growing up with both parents, according to a report in this month's issue of the journal Pediatrics.

The real danger to children comes from the boyfriends of the children's mothers, researchers found.

This maddening statement is the purest essence of what I've called statistical fatalism — the belief that our lives are controlled not by human actions but by phenomena — and it astonishes me how receptive people, especially people who are journalists, are to it. Compounding this weakness is the fact that authors of scientific studies are often all too willing to allow the media to cast their work in the most sensational possible light. Dr. Bernard Ewigman, co-author of the study, told Jacobs:

I believe that there's a certain attachment and biological bonding, if you will, from being biologically related to your child. A boyfriend come [sic] along and his interest is in the woman, not the child, typically. He may compete for her time with the child.

Sounds fairly reasonable, though insufficient grounds in most cases, you'd think, for murder. And indeed, the study found the following:

The majority of known perpetrators were male (94 of 132 [71.2%]). Forty-six (34.9%) were the child's father, and 32 (24.2%) were the boyfriend of the child's mother. The child's mother was the perpetrator for 26 (19.7%) cases.

In other words (from the Discussion section):

…it is important to note that although the relative risk is greater in households with unrelated adults, the most common male perpetrator of fatal inflicted injury was the child's biological father; nearly equal numbers of children were killed by their biological fathers as by other related and unrelated males, combined.

And yet, Ewigman tells Jacobs:

It is not single parenthood per se that puts a child at risk. It is the presence in the household of unrelated adults, usually a male boyfriend, that dramatically increases the risk.

Or, as the study states:

…it is the presence of adults (usually male) in the household who are unrelated to the child victim that accounts for the increased risk of fatal maltreatment in single-parent households…

Bullshit. What "accounts" for it is the same thing that "accounts" for all children killed by adults — defective human beings and the things they do. It isn't surprising that more men would kill children than women, because more men kill, period. Thus, is it isn't surprising that single-mother households with no male presence would see fewer child murders than those with males in the picture. Not very much about this study is very surprising at all, really, especially when you take into account the glaringly obvious fact, which Jacobs entirely neglects to mention, that the children in question were for the most part profoundly socio-economically disadvantaged (my additions):

When compared with controls, children who died as a result of inflicted injuries were more likely to be black [by a factor of 2.3]; born to young [younger than 25, by a factor of 2.8], unmarried [by a factor of 3.2], Medicaid-eligible [by a factor of 3] mothers with less than a high school education [by a factor of 2.1] and late or no prenatal care [none or first visit in the 5th-9th month, by a factor of 2.2]; reside in households with young siblings [by a factor of 3.5]; and have a prior report to child protective services [by a factor of 4.4 for the entire household and of 7.2 for the victim].

And even still, Jacobs has no problem offering healthy, educated, affluent women Dr. Ewigman's advice:

Before you leave your kids with them [boyfriends], watch them with your kids. How do they interact? Are they comfortable with kids? A lot of men really don't have a clue how to interact with a baby or a young child.

Got all that, Edmontonian single mothers on the dating scene? I imagine not, either because you had that level of common sense when you were nine or because you're 100 percent confident that you're not dating a potential murderer. This is an outrageously misleading article, and the sort of thing that you can only get away with, quite frankly, when men are the target.

As for Ewigman, it's possible that Jacobs simply picked and chose from his comments to her, neglecting to use his discussion of the myriad socioeconomic factors at play in child deaths that are obviously more important than gender, but given how often the media makes a hash of science I'd expect scientists to be a little more savvy by now. Unless they just want the publicity, of course — but that doesn't sound like something scientists would do.

Posted by Chris Selley at 10:18 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

Nuggetastic

"I was making potion," I hiccupped between sobs.

Another absolute gem of a post from the man with Canada's phattest — sorry, that's fattest — wallet.

Posted by Chris Selley at 05:15 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

November 08, 2005

Howler of the day

Norman Spector missed this one, so I'm going to go ahead and nominate Thomas Walkom in today's Star:

His [Omar Khadr's] late father, Ahmed Said, was close — probably too close — to terror maestro Osama Bin Laden.

Posted by Chris Selley at 11:01 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Principles, schminciples

Paul Jackson, conjurer:

[Preston] Manning did to Conservatism in Canada exactly what [former Prime Minister Margaret] Thatcher did to Conservatism in Britain — and [former President] Ronald Reagan to Conservatism in the U.S.

A minor quibble. More importantly, though it's hardly surprising to hear it coming from Jackson I am consistently amazed by ideas such as his about how Harper should go about becoming Prime Minister:

Mr. Justice John Gomery's AdScam inquiry alone contains enough sleaze to collapse the Martin government.

So that's what Harper's Conservatives must do — follow a a [sic] no-holds-barred strategy similar to the Republicans.

Promote their stands and point to new directions for the nation — and roll out an entire convoy of trucks overflowing with the garbage of the Chretien/Martin regimes.

Yeah, see, that's just not going to work. Harper's Federal Accountability Act, though apparently strong, isn't going to work. No strategy currently being employed by the Conservative Party of Canada is going to work. Quite simply, Harper needs to hire some people whose sole job is to convince Ontarians to vote for him, at any costs. If that means holding hands with Jack!, so be it. Enough is enough.

Ontarians have clearly demonstrated that they don't much care about government sleaze. They believe (pretty much correctly) that all governments are corrupt to a degree indistinguishable to them from what Gomery represents. Put simply, Ontarians love non-disastrous incumbents. Harper needs to set about becoming one. Hopefully he can gradually effect real change once he's installed at 24 Sussex, but he's certainly not going to do it from 541 Acacia. The choice is his.

Posted by Chris Selley at 09:16 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

November 07, 2005

I remember when people weren't insane. And I'm not even 30.

Over the weekend it occurred to me that we hadn't yet had a poppy controversy. You know the ones — some peon in some giant company decides that selling poppies on company property amounts to solicitation, or that house policy demands that equal time be given to anti-war flowers, or some such nonsense. They come like clockwork, every November 1-11, but this year, nothing.

Turns out the Legion was bringing it in-house. In a decision that my intellectual property lawyer friend assures me is above reproach, but that all normal people view as completely insane, prominent news aggregator Pierre Bourque has been told to remove the image of the poppy from his website or else. (Or else what? Who knows, but for some reason the image of the enraged old-timers chasing George Costanza down on their Rascals comes to mind.)

Colby Cosh says: I am certainly surprised to learn that "Remembrance" itself has become anyone's formal property. I won't pay for or wear [a poppy] ever again. And neither should you." Kathy Shaidle says: "The Canadian Legion can bite my lumpy butt." Good points both. Personally, I'm more confused than I am angry. I mean, ubiquity is one of the Legion's stated goals for the poppy. "Who should wear a poppy?" is, ostensibly, a frequently asked question, and the Legion's response is "everyone as it is at this time of year that we honour the memory of the far too many Canadians who gave their lives in the defence of freedom."

So we wear our poppies every year, to show, in Mr Bourque's words, "our deep appreciation and respect for the Canadian men and women who gave their all on foreign battlefields and recognizing their monumental sacrifice so that we can today enjoy the freedoms that we all enjoy." But we can't put an image of the poppy on a website. Somehow, that's completely, utterly different. I am amazed that this decision hasn't yet been reversed, and even more so at Bob Butt's pugnacious tone in dealing with this:

As it is not in the public domain and because it is a registered trademark of the Legion the organization is taking every step it can to protect it (and I do mean every step)… Sorry, I know your heart and many others are in the right place. Unfortunately we have to protect this image or lose its use as a symbol of Remembrance.

It is to laugh, and derisively at that. I note that the poppy is good enough for use on novelty license plates in eight provinces and one territory. It's good enough, if I may quote from the Legion's trademark, for the following:

Clothing, namely, berets, blazers, neckties, jackets, bow ties, golf jackets, winter jackets, shell jackets, parkas, golf/baseball caps, hats, T-shirts, winter caps, pants, shirts and sweaters; insignia and accessories, namely arm bands, beret crests, blazer crests, shirt crests, sports crests, activity crests, numerals, blazer buttons, crested plaques, banners, lapel badges, medals, sports badges, trophies, award ribbons, decals and bumper stickers; books and pamphlets, printing mats and stereos, guest registers, posters, recipe books and song books; jewellery, namely, cuff links, tie bars, tie tacks, lockets, lighters, brooches, pendants, key chains, charm bracelets, charms, rings, sweater guards, watches, earrings, money clips, jewel boxes, watch fobs, clocks and watches; luggage, namely, sports bags, tote bags, suiter bags, weekender bags, clutch purses, luggage tags, folder and underarm portfolios, credit card holders and wallets; branch seals, certificates, ash trays, matches, match books, records, coffee spoons, coasters, place mats, cigarette holders, cigarette cases, cigarette boxes, tobacco pouches, gavels, tankards, pipe and lighter sets, pens, pencils, table lighters, playing cards, letter openers, Christmas cards, spoon racks, pipe racks, smoker's stands, memo holders, shaving kits, gavel bells, silver-plated dessert sets, wine goblets, bonbon dishes, coffee sets, golf balls, table napkins and serviettes; beer steins and travel mugs, envelopes; tulip bulbs; calendars and flags; periodical publications; break open lottery tickets

Can't you hear The Last Post wafting on the breeze, oh so faintly, over the melancholic rustling of leaves? I know I can. I won't take off my poppy, nor will I post one here in protest, simply because Mr Butt obviously doesn't represent the views of the majority of veterans. Mr Butt is just a jerk, and no one should pay him any mind. If the Legion actually wants to sue someone for displaying the poppy, which is precisely what they ask of Canadians every year, it'll be a fine opportunity to wrest control of one of our proudest symbols back from a few complete lunatics. Somehow, though, I don't think it's going to come to that.

Posted by Chris Selley at 10:21 PM | Comments (10) | TrackBack

November 06, 2005

Gross misrepresentation

Toronto Sun "Hall of Famer" George Gross uncorks a howler, under the unfortunate title of "Stats don't lie":

Going into last night's contest, the Leafs have not shown stats that will make anyone believe they are a serious Stanley Cup contender. The best category for the Buds as a team is the power play percentage, in which they were ranked second in the league. However, if you remove their blowout win over the Atlanta Thrashers from the mix, the Leafs would be out of the top 10. The penalty kill was also doing well, ranked sixth.

In other words: Leafs' blowout wins don't count; the other 29 teams' blowout wins do. Seems fair.

There's more:

In the forward lines, eight forwards (Nik Antropov, Wade Belak, Marius Czerkawski, Tie Domi, Chad Kilger, Nathan Perrott, Alexei Ponikarovsky and Clarke Wilm) had combined for a grand total of 18 points and are a collective minus 17 (NOT [! –ed.] including Belak's minus-9 accrued mostly on defence and with only Antropov being a plus.) That is almost three full lines of players, five of whom dressed every night in Sundin's absence and four of whom will continue to do so now that he is back.

The plus/minus issue is real — the Leafs have piss-poor five-on-five numbers — but Antropov, Czerkawski and Perrott have only played 15 games between them. I mean, my goodness gracious, as of this morning, R.J. Umberger, Chris Therien, Brian Savage, Turner Stevenson, Branko Radivojevic, Patrick Sharp, Donald Brashear and Jeff Carter had combined for just 13 points — and these Flyers think they're going to win the Cup? Not if George Gross has anything to say about it.

Posted by Chris Selley at 03:57 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

November 05, 2005

Game-winning no goal

Ken Campbell spots a statistical irregularity that only the NHL could have come up with:

According to the NHL, the Senators have 58 goals in 12 games, which would put them on pace to score 396 this season, seventh highest in league history. But the league has awarded the Senators a goal for each game they won in a shootout. Curious how the NHL doesn't count shootout goals in individual stats, but does in team scoring.

Well, they count one goal per shootout in team scoring, but anyway — it's not "curious". It's absolutely retarded, and even the NHL should be able to see it. Calling a shootout resolution to a 2-2 tie a 3-2 win is fine, I suppose — it's the easiest way to go about it — but that third goal is only actually "a goal" in the case of a 1-0 shootout win. It could be three goals. It could be eleven goals. It has absolutely no business being tallied up in the GF column, just like it has no business in individual players' G or GWG columns. I think this is one oddity that might not last the season.

Campbell asks, bewilderingly: "It wouldn't have anything to do with contract negotiations, would it?" (Pause for passing tumbleweed.) He's not suggesting that the logical approach would be to count every single shootout goal in players' stats, is he?

Posted by Chris Selley at 04:47 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

November 04, 2005

"Columnist"

Link Byfield:

For months, the separatists have been topping the Quebec polls. A younger generation is coming on side, and sovereignty itself is polling "near 50%."

Funny thing about quotation marks — they're useless if your readers don't know what they're quoting. In this case, even if you'd been living under a rock, they'd also be highly suspicious. Of course support for sovereignty — i.e., a concept more radical than that which drew the same percentage support in 1995 — isn't polling anywhere near 50 percent. I can't even be arsed to look up whatever poll it was that found that 49-point-something percent of Quebecers support some laboriously adjectivized version of sovereignty.

I also liked this:

When Liberal Premier Jean Charest calls an election in 2007, it looks like the Parti Quebecois will return to power under its hip, homosexual, cocaine-snorting leader-in-waiting, Andre Boisclair.

Last time I took a Byfield to task for stating a fact I got hollered at, so I won't bother saying what I think of Byfield the Younger's tone in that sentence. I'll just say that in no way, shape or form do I consider André Boisclair hip.

(You can ask Link's dad all about it one month from today aboard the ms Westerdam — not much time left! Say, when does the "female star power" arrive?)

Posted by Chris Selley at 05:32 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 03, 2005

Crackup

In late June I pointed out what appeared to be the beginning of a crackdown against polygamy in Arizona and Utah (or at least against the many illegal activities associated with polygamy). Unfortunately, it isn't taking:

…the twin towns… continue to defy the law, the authorities and dissidents say: … women are still being removed from their husbands and assigned to other men, and girls under 18 are ordered to become brides of older men on a day's notice, all despite the presence of full-time outside law enforcement.

DeLoy Bateman, a high school science teacher here who left the church several years ago, says his daughter's marriage was recently broken up by church leaders. She was ordered to become the bride of her father-in-law, a man twice her age, Mr. Bateman says.

"This just makes me want to cry," said Mr. Bateman, a lifelong resident of Colorado City. "They tore up this marriage and ordered her to have sex with this older man. I've lost my daughter and her children to this church. I have to stand outside on the sidewalk and beg if I want to see my grandchildren."

Given that these people have a sort of subsistence-farming, salt-of-the-earth quality about them, I found this nugget of information particularly interesting:

About a third of the residents are on food stamps, and the welfare rate is one of the highest in the West. The followers, who account for most of the twin towns' 8,000 people, justify taking public money with a term used by [Joseph] Smith's own followers: "bleeding the beast" — that is, taking from a government under which the early Mormons were often persecuted.

I've had very little luck drumming up any negative sentiment towards polygamists, so I'm willing to change tack. The spectre of rampant child abuse being apparently insufficient to rouse Canadians from their blissfully tolerant slumber, I propose some good old-fashioned tax rage. Try this on for size:

The practice reportedly spread quickly as it gained acceptance among the FLDS faithful, which happened to coincide with the explosive growth of state and federal assistance programs. Multiple wives, who were married in church, but not in the eyes of the law, began applying for state assistance [i.e., as single mothers –ed.]. Food Stamps and federal programs like WIC, which provide nutritional assistance to low-income women and children, were also tapped. So were healthcare dollars through Arizona's AHCCCS program, which provides most of the medical insurance for residents in Colorado City AZ. Last year over 4,000 residents were enrolled, reportedly costing the state about $8 million a year.

Nifty! And though there have been fewer specific allegations of such activity in BC (it would be unseemly to suggest that a somnambulist press is to blame), it doesn't take much to connect the dots. From the August 14, 2004 National Post:

…Mr. [Warren] Jeffs, who is subject to investigations in two states for tax and welfare fraud, will cash a B.C. government cheque for nearly $500,000. The cheque is for Bountiful school this fall. Last year, it received $460,826 in government grants.

Education Minister Tom Christensen has said he's heard complaints about the school, but has no evidence that would cause him to stop funding the school.

Bear in mind that among the allegations against Jeffs that don't involve him sodomizing his five-year-old nephew during Sunday School, you will find funnelling money away from schools for his own purposes. From May 28, 2005's Arizona Republic:

The court decision comes three days after Arizona investigators served a search warrant on the Colorado City Unified School District, where authorities say Jeffs' followers raided the public treasury for personal gain.

School funds have been used to buy a small airplane, a four-wheel-drive pickup truck and a Ford Excursion, according to investigators, who seized financial records and computers during the search.

The district's superintendent, business manager and assistant business manager, all members of the sect, gave away school vehicles and school property to the church-controlled city government, according to state investigators.

They also allege that school officials allowed church members the free use of school equipment, wrote checks to city police officers for travel expenses and spent up to $900,000 on miscellaneous expenses since 2000.

And BC just hands him a cheque. Live and let live. Tra-la-freaking-la.

Look, I don't know what's going on in Bountiful any more than anyone else, but it's the same church, with the same leader, that's running scared in the US. There's no logical reason to believe that the same things aren't happening here. So for the sweet love of criminy, would someone in the BC Attorney General's Office please sprout some testicles and find out once and for all?

Posted by Chris Selley at 10:49 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

November 02, 2005

Taxi for one

I got a somewhat extraordinary cab ride home tonight from a very passionate man of Caribbean extraction who goaded me into an animated discussion about Canada's political future. "I'm a liberal," he said, "but I've had enough of this nonsense."

I concurred enthusiastically, suggesting that Stephen Harper is a fine option for someone looking for a slightly less terrible Prime Minister. No dice, to say the very least. Iraq is something of a sticking point for this fellow, it turns out — something of a huge goddamn sticking point — and the idea that Mr Harper would have had our boys dying for Iraq's freedom was a non-starter with him. We were more or less in front of my place when I suggested that even though I doubted the war's motives we could at least take comfort that Iraq is now better off, but I got the impression he would have slammed on the brakes no matter what our coordinates.

I'm not suggesting that Iraq is Harper's chief stumbling block or anything, but I was intrigued to meet The Problem face to face. Here's an intelligent, blue-collar guy, outraged by Liberal perfidy, fed up with the crime in his (which is my new) neighbourhood — grist for the Conservative mill, in other words — and he's not even willing to consider voting for Harper & Co. Assuming there are more like him, this is a group that needs some serious wooing.

Mostly, though, I was heartened to stumble across a debate like this by accident. It happens far too infrequently in Canada, and it's the sort of thing, in the hands of people more sober than myself, that might lead us gradually out of the political wilderness in which we now find ourselves.

Posted by Chris Selley at 11:26 PM | Comments (20) | TrackBack

Ow, my heartstrings!

Gary Roberts, you old softy:

"It was an emotional decision to leave Toronto. I knew I had to leave to work somewhere for market value."

Posted by Chris Selley at 05:01 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack