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December 26, 2006

That didn't impress me much

You will find my year-ending feature, "The Year in Bad Ideas," over at Macleans.ca. I think it's kinda fun. Part I — Joe Volpe through weeing on the National War Memorial — is up. Part II — the NDP's Afghanistan non-postition through Bob Rae's naked ass — is still to come now up too.

Merry Christmas and all that, by the way.

Posted by Chris Selley at 12:01 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

December 20, 2006

New and improved

Maybe I'm overthinking, but I wouldn't use an image of two fictional male characters, portrayed by actors who are both now dead, to illustrate a story about how Canadians are now living longer.

But that's just me.

Posted by Chris Selley at 09:27 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

December 18, 2006

Not so bad

Ben's the institution; Ben's the Canadian International Museum of Chrome and Formica; Ben's the place to eat greasy food of questionable pedigree during the wee, drunken hours, perhaps after a night at the late, great Madhatter? No issue here. Good times.

Ben's the place to get good smoked meat? Pshaw, I say. Double pshaw, even. The texture wasn't nearly enough like meat for my taste, quite frankly. It was almost like a thick, hot, slimy, mustard-covered coldcut. Still on the right side of gross, but certainly not in the same league as Schwartz's or The Main, where the product speaks much better of the cow whence it came.

That said, it's always sad to see somewhere like Ben's shut down. But so far, at least, it seems to me that the attrition among Montreal's venerable institutions has been roughly merit-based. The much-lamented Warshaw, for instance, was a truly baffling combination of a bad grocery store with an okay place to buy rattan furnishings and throw rugs. It was good for a few laughs, mind you. If I ever see a big stack of Spalding bacon again -- the funniest bacon I've ever seen, and probably the cheapest -- I'll think of that weird, skanky supermarket. And next time I have a greasy, mustardy, only somewhat pleasant taste in my mouth, I might think of Ben's.

I'll miss Fattouch more.

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December 17, 2006

At least they don't have to call it "ice hockey"

One has to wonder if the New York Times wouldn't be better off ignoring the NHL completely than giving it the sort of lip service you tend to find in the "Sunday Shootout". Today's isn't actually all that bad -- there's an interesting analysis of declining scoring this year, and news that Czech hockey has done away with the second assist -- but then there's this:

It has been a tough couple of weeks for the Dallas Stars. On Dec. 6, their inspirational 40-year-old forward, Joe Nieuwendyk, retired because of a bad back. And on Thursday, Mike Modano, their longtime marquee star, was placed on the injured reserve list.

Nothing against Nieuwendyk, but even he is not inspirational enough to inspire the Dallas Stars while playing for the Florida Panthers.

Posted by Chris Selley at 06:50 PM | Comments (0)

December 12, 2006

Schmarter

As an amateur constitutional lawyer, I have to wonder whether a law denying someone a driver's license because he or she doesn't have a high school diploma might not some day come up against a Charter challenge. And lose -- like, badly.

I invite any professional lawyers to weigh in on that subject, but in the meantime I'd like to thank a certain Paul from Vancouver for making my day. The Globe article featured this baffling passage:

But he [McGuinty] admits few students will lose their driver's licence under the new law -- amendments to the bill mean only teens who end up in truancy court could have their licence taken away.

Paul's comment was exactly what was running through my head at the time: "What in the hell is truancy court?"

Posted by Chris Selley at 11:46 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack

December 11, 2006

Pinochetonomics

The National Post's editorial board says, and I paraphrase: Let's think twice before we condemn murderous right-wing dictators.

Posted by Chris Selley at 09:24 PM | Comments (28) | TrackBack

What not to eat

"To bring in legislation to allow the sale and distribution of raw milk would be tantamount to manslaughter and taking Ontario back to the Dark Ages."

That's one of my quotes of the year thus far, courtesy of the Globe and Mail and one Dr. Murray McQuigge.

Over at Macleans.ca, I have attempted to explain, or at least recap for your amusement, Ontarians' (and Canadians' in general) remarkably adversarial relationship with food.

(It has recently been suggested to me that I'm "difficult to find" on the Maclean's website. I still think this shows remarkable lack of resourcefulness on the part of certain other bloggers, but I'm adding a link on the right to National Affairs, which is where I'm contributing. (UPDATE Dec 12: Link fixed. Sorry.))

Posted by Chris Selley at 08:56 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

December 09, 2006

Maddenfreude

I am not surprised to learn that MADD isn't exactly the best run charity out there. And, it makes me happy.

Posted by Chris Selley at 10:30 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

December 07, 2006

If it ain't broke...

Over at Macleans.ca, I have taken a shot at a few questions that don't get asked much amidst all our hand-wringing about dual citizens in Lebanon, in Stornoway, and everywhere in between: Why do we have dual citizenship in the first place? What effect has it had on Canadian society? What might happen if we got rid of it?

The answers aren't as concrete as one might hope, but nor can anyone definitively blame any social phenomenon on dual citizenship. People like Andrew Coyne think it would be a bold symbolic gesture to say that being Canadian requires an exclusive commitment to this country, but as you'll see in the article, people who have studied it suggest the symbolism of dual citizenship - of multiple identities - is an integral part of the success story that is immigration in Canada.

As for Mr Dion, it isn't even clear to me that he is a French citizen in any technical sense - though he certainly hasn't denied it. If he is to be believed - and I think that he is - he has no French passport; he's never voted in France. Seems to me the only thing he has to renounce is his eligibility for French citizenship, and I'm not even sure that's possible. Dion's situation right now is exactly the same as British-born John Turner's was - well, except that Turner was a "dual citizen" (or dual citizen-eligible) Prime Minister, not just a dual citizen Liberal leader. And no one made a peep.

It's all very well to speculate about what positive, unquantifiable things abolishing dual citizenship might do. But to actually advocate that move - as Coyne has done - surely there's a burden to prove that it's actually causing a problem. If the Conservatives had just followed existing government policy and charged those it evacuated from Lebanon for the service, one has to wonder if we'd even be discussing this.

Posted by Chris Selley at 08:41 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Back to your tent of hate

Peter Worthington's still sure Maher Arar's guilty of something:

And the heat has been on the Mounties ever since Maher Arar was wrongfully accused of consorting with al Qaida terrorists on the basis of false RCMP allegations, and deported by the Americans to Syria where he claims he was tortured. As an aside, it's always been puzzling why Syria would torture someone the Americans think is an anti-American terrorist, but that's another story that's never been satisfactorily answered.

It's called extraordinary rendition. It's been going on for a while. But no, no, Syria is pure, ruthlessly logical, anti-American evil! If they're torturing someone then that person must be... what? A Lebanese democracy activist? The guy lived in Ottawa, for heaven's sake. Of all the things people have insinuated Maher Arar to be, or to have been, would a single one make him an enemy of the Syrian state?

But look at me getting all upset over nothing.

"A mistake was made in the Arar case," like Worthington says. "Big deal."

Posted by Chris Selley at 08:08 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

December 04, 2006

Bottled up rage

The Toronto Star filed one of its classic "Here, let us tell you how to live" editorials today, in an attempt to explain that not only does it make sense that Ontarians will soon have to return their wine bottles to the Beer Store, but we're horrible people for not having done it before:

But in the morning-after cleanup, too few revellers will ensure that their empty wine and liquor containers make it into recycling bins, where they belong.

To our shame, one-third of bottles purchased at government-owned liquor stores wind up in garbage dumps. Half of plastic containers and aluminum cans and 75 per cent of Tetra Pak wine boxes sold at these stores meet the same fate. With strong recycling programs in municipalities across Ontario, such environmental laziness is inexcusable.

I don't know anyone who doesn't put their wine bottles in the blue box. Not a single person. I suspect the one-third of bottles that don't get recycled come from apartment buildings, which have spotty recycling facilities if any.

But despite that, bottle deposits make sense to me. What no one has explained to me, and never will -- this is Dalton McGuinty's Ontario we're talking about -- is why I should have to collect those deposits from a third-party location. Or for that matter, why the province is paying -- I should say, why you and I and every other Ontaran are paying -- Brewers' Retail the equivalent of 10 cents per container up front to do all this.

As I pointed out in September, there is nothing special about Brewers' Retail's high-90s recovery rate on bottles. Quebec's supermarket- and convenience store-based system works just as well or better. So even if Ontario was going to stick with its alcohol retail status quo -- regular readers will know where I stand on that -- I'd have no problem whatsoever returning wine bottles whence I purchased them.

But why am I now being encouraged to traipse them miles out of my way -- in a gas-guzzling car, rest assured, or not at all -- to a separate location? How much more convenient a system could that $15 million have purchased? This is nothing but an optically advantageous alcohol tax that disproportionately punishes people who don't own cars, and it exists mostly to tacitly offset Brewers' Retail's longstanding grievance about how much beer the LCBO sells. It is, in a word, garbage.

All my wine bottles go in the blue box as it stands. As of February, they'll be going in there as a protest.

Posted by Chris Selley at 07:05 PM | Comments (13) | TrackBack

December 01, 2006

My 20

If you're interested in wry observations on the Liberal convention, along with the occasional incisive nugget, be sure to check out the Maclean's Campaign Blog. If you're interested in cutting-edge analysis of the Liberal convention, be sure to check out Maclean's National Affairs portal. You'll find me in both locations. I'm the one who looks tired.

Posted by Chris Selley at 10:07 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack