QuickNews, Thursday, December 17.

Forget Saudi. America's oil future is Canada. (Business Insider) * Lego's comeback. (Daily Telegraph)

Iggy: The Stranger Within (Ron Graham, Walrus) * Will 2010 be "year of the angry white man"? (CSM)

 

 

 

MOMENT OF TRUTH IN COPENHAGEN

1. CHINA POISED TO VETO ANY DEAL | Beijing may kill any chance of agreement. China has been signalling for days its antipathy to a possible deal it sees favoring the West. If Copenhagen wasn't the glorified trade show it is, Beijing would long ago have been cajoled into helping forge a new regime it can live with. Without China's signature, Copenhagen will amount to a mere testing of the waters. And maybe that's a prerequisite to the real talks next year. For those of you keeping score at home, Reuters highlights the likeliest Copenhagen outcomes.

The German chancellor has been a forceful adovcate of an ambitous Kyoto II.

2. LOOKING AHEAD | A two-tier process will emerge over the next few months. Ahead of next year's real, bet-the-Earth talks, the rich nations will agree in backroom deals to a set of ambitious, binding emissions-reduction targets. And the poorer ones will align on less challenging and non-binding "guidelines," or a mere "blueprint." One has heard "blueprint" a lot this week. In the months ahead, conciliatory leaders will emerge to informally head each faction. I'm betting it will be the re-elected Angela Merkel for the advanced economies. (Gordon Brown is a lame duck; Sarko is mercurial). Among the poorer nations, a working group of, say, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mexico, Chile and South Africa might help bring less-advantaged nations to an agreement.

2. FINANCIAL BREAKTHROUGH AT CLIMATE TALKS | Agreement on $22-billion fund for poor nations. Yesterday, Japan alone pledged a stunning $19 billion to help less-advantage nations with reforestation and other projects to curb global warming. Europe already is in for $10.6 billion. U.S. will help raise $100 billion between now and 2020 from variety of domestic and foreign sources. Money won't bring the likes of China around to tougher reduction targets. But the funding does show Western goodwill going into next year's final negotiations on Kyoto II. Recall the Japanese also picked up most of the tab for the Persian Gulf War.

Demonstrators in Copenhagen. 

3. PITY OBAMA AT THESE TALKS | Rare among the world leaders in the Danish capital today, Obama's hands are tied. Most of his peers, heading rich and poor nations alike, lead parliamentary majorities (Angela Merkel) or ruling coalitions (Stephen Harper) that can impose a Kyoto II that they agreed on next year. Same obviously goes for the many dictators. Obama, by contrast, must have any treaty he agrees to ratified by the Senate. That's the same Senate that was highly unlikely to ratify the original Kyoto, so that the pro-Kyoto Clinton didn't even bother asking. And the same Senate that effectively killed Woodrow Wilson's League of Nations, which was toothless without the U.S. as a member. Given the collective sway of today's GOP and blue-dog Democrats, getting Senate passage of next year's formalized replacement for Kyoto will be very tough sledding. 

4. HARPER ARRIVES WITH NOTHING TO CONTRIBUTE | Pretty much nada. We do hold some kind of record with the demonstrators who give out the Fossil of the Day awards. Our emissions-reductions targets fall short of other advanced nations. And earlier this week we began seeking special dispensation for the Athabasca tar sands eco-disaster. Here's how we've been holding our heads up in Scandinavia. Whenever asked why we're even there, Canadian officials point out that when asked about Canadian obstructionism, the chief U.N. climate-change negotiator hastened to say Canada is playing a "constructive" role. What the heck was he supposed to say? Until this things is over, and certain causes are well and truly lost, everyone's playing a constructive role. What's faintly amusing is that the government has talked itself into believing it is being constructive. (Cartoon: H/T The Progressive Rambler.)

 A Greenpeace activist trots past the Danish parliament.

5. RABBLE | Much silliness on parade. And I'm not talking about the over-caffienated protesters. To understand why some nations, conspicuously the U.S., hold the U.N. General Assembly in contempt, observe the nonsense when the Assemby goes on a road trip. Among the scores of world leaders in Copenhagen, there have been the predicatable, irrelevant anti-Israel tirades from the Iranian delegation. We've had Hugo Chavez's paranoic rants about "Western imperialis," And the topper, Robert Mugabe scolding rich countries that "burp and belch" out greenhouse gases while expecting poor countries like his to join in repairing the damage. Like Polanski and Pinochet, the genocidal Mugabe should have been hand-cuffed while there was the chance and led off to the nearby Hague for trial as a war criminal. (See Sarah Lawson's review of Douglas Rogers' The Last Resort: A Memoir of Zimbabwe.)

RECORD NUMBER OF AMERICANS WITHOUT HEALTH INSURANCE | CDC says almost 20% of U.S. population - or almost 60 million Americans - went without health insurance at some point since January 2008. Crisis is compounded in U.S. system since insurance usually is tied to jobs, and 15 million Americans are unemployed during the current epic recession. Millions more are "under-employed" in low-paying part-time jobs without health and other benefits. Another 45 million people lacked insurance when the recession began. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's report comes as Congress debates Obama's top domestic initiative of reforming the $2.5-trillion healthcare system, including mandatory universal health insurance.

 
   
Central bankers Mark Carney of Canada and Ben Bernanke of the U.S. Federal Reserve Board.  
  
TALE OF TWO ECONOMIES | Canada risks housing boom, U.S. remains mired in slump. Mark Carney, governor of Bank of Canada, is now likely to begin raising rates a little earlier than forecast, by next spring. Record housing prices across Canada are a sign economy might start over-heating (!) Good for him in spotting even a hint of an emerging housing bubble. Speaking of Ben Bernanke, who didn't spot the unprecedented U.S. housing bubble that tipped the world into its worst recession since the Dirty Thirties, he by contrast is expected to keep Fed's key rate at record low of 0.25% until late next year, maybe into 2011. Why is obvious: persistent high unemployment and sluggish consumer spending means the U.S. economy still needs Fed's assistance. Time's Person of the Year? Okay, I grant Bernanke, a stumbler at the outset, eventually was helpful in restoring financial-markets stability beginning late last year. But equally so was Hank Paulsen, and for that matter, George W. Bush, who championed the unpopular but very necessary $700-billion bank bailout package. Time appears to be honoring the arsonist who returned to help douse the flames. Greenspan, the guy with the matches and bucket of mid-grade gas, also was a Time Firebug Person of the Year. I would have chosen Madoff. Not only the spectacular size of his Ponzi scheme ($60-odd billion) but the 20-some-years' duration.

U.S. HOUSE APPROVES MINI-STIMULUS | More aid to states, curb teacher layoffs. Garners not one GOP vote. And plenty of deficit-shy Dems vote against bill's extension of jobless benefits, among other salves to a wounded nation. Man, these folks don't get it. A walk through the ocean of their collective economic intelligence would scarcely get your feet wet. The bill will likely will die next year in the Senate, which is even more averse to spending when the economy's on its back. Well, people get the government they deserve. The chattering class is working from Mitch McConnell's talking points on the deficit spectre, Out in the real world, 15 million Americans are out of work, and the real jobless rate - including people who've given up looking, is 17.5%. Apparently those folks aren't writing their elected officials, or throwing plaster replicas of the Milan Duomo at perma-tanned John Boehner.

PETE ROSE NOW A SHOO-IN FOR HALL OF FAME | Tiger Woods is AP's athlete of the decade. Followed by Lance Armstrong, who gets a pass on his performance-enhancing drug use, and Roger Federer, who proves that nice guys finish third. Reuters columnist argues at least the Woods scandal will teach deep-pocket sponsors not to hitch their wagons to celebrities. And I am a monkey's uncle.  

AFGHAN DETAINEE WHISTLEBLOWER'S RIPOSTE | Richard Colvin returns fire against Tory slurs. Never thought I'd agree with Norman Spector on anything, but he makes sense calling for a public inquiry. Yesterday, seven Tory MPs shut down a subcommittee probing the Canadian Forces' detainee-handover practices to Afghan National Army torturers, forcing its cancellation. Hmm. Earlier this week, "Environment Minister" Jim Prentice watered all over developing-world delegates who boycotted a Copenhagen-summit meeting, accusing them of impeding progress on talks. No one will ever accuse Team Harper of having a sense of irony.

PELOSI ON NON-WARPATH | Funding for Afghan mission will have to come from GOP votes. Which will happen, if pro-Afghan-war McCain has his way. Abdicating leadership, Pelosi says it will be Obama's job to sell the Afghan mission funding. This enables Sen Jon Kyl (R-Az) to deny obvious truth of GOP obstructionism, saying: "It seems to me that we've been more supportive of the president on some issues than his own party." Well, one issue. If only there was a Dem brain trust, to create and maintain a united front. But where would they get the brains? From a Rottweiler breeder.

BANK OF AMERICA GETS NEW CEO | No outsiders willing to take the job. Insider Brian Moynihan (shown) gets the nod to run U.S.'s largest bank. Previous experience fixing problems in retail, other units. Celebrity CEOs stayed away in droves because of pay cap applied to bailed-out banks. So this will be a test if the presumably peanut-sized compensation for Moynihan will result in BofA slipping under the waves - which the current orthodoxy on pay-for-performance would dictate. Heaven help the excessive-pay crowd if Moynihan presides over a stunning turnaround, which I would not bet against. Insiders typically make better CEOs. BofA's in much better shape than that other Wall Street basket case, Citigroup. And BofA's geographic and product diversity eclipses its N.A. rivals.

LAUGH OR CRY? | A book 99 years overdue is returned to New Bedford Public Library. The Massachusetts library says the fine comes to $361.35 - a penny a day since 1910 - but decides not to impose it. My big question: Did anyone read the book while it was signed out all that time? The volume in question is, Facts I Ought to Know About the Government of My Country.  

QUOTE OF THE DAY | "There was no progress overnight in consultations on how to consult." -an unidentified official at Copenhagen tells Reuters this morning that this is not the end. This is not the beginning of the end. This is not even the beginning of the beginning. (With apologies to Churchill.)

 

 
  
Courtesy The New Yorker, Dec. 14 edition.

Please consider joining me as an elf this holiday season by participating in the Toronto Star's Santa Claus Fund, a century-old Toronto tradition. The Star uses donations to assemble and distribute gift boxes to thousands of less-financially advantaged children throughout the GTA. Each box contains a book, clothing and a toy. You can read all about it, including first-hand accounts of Toronto families in need, at http://www.thestar.com/santaclausfund. I'm counting on your kindness to help put smiles on thousands of young faces this December 25th! Many thanks, David  

QuickNews, Tuesday, Dec. 8.

The week ahead, Dec. 7-13. * Blame Teddy Roosevelt for Pearl Harbor. (NYT).

Did the "prosperity gospel" of modern American Christianity cause the Crash? (Atlantic)

 UPBEAT START TO HISTORIC CLIMATE-CHANGE SUMMIT

 
 
Greenpeace activists unfurl a banner on the facade of Parliament's West Block in Ottawa. The message is directed at Stephen Harper, prime minister, and Michael Ignatieff, the Liberal official opposition leader. In recent weeks, Greenpeace has rappelled the parliament buildings in London and Paris as well to display climate-change messages. In Copenhagen, one of many stylized globes throughout the city marking history's biggest climate summit, with more than 15,000 participants from 192 nations. The 12-day summit began yesterday.   

BROWN UPS THE CLIMATE-CHANGE ANTE | British PM sets bar higher for EU. Tells Guardian yesterday EU should pledge to cut emissions by 30%, not planned target of 20%, by 2020 from 1990 levels. Gordon Brown, who weeks ago was among first heads of state to say he would go to Copenhagen at a time when the talks seemed doomed, is still in the lead to be the political hero of this historic event. Obama, who conferred with Al Gore at WH yesterday and has a mini eco-summit at WH scheduled for Wednesday, is not far behind. His EPA yesterday declared greenhouse gas emissions a threat to human life, thereby giving itself the authority to monitor emissions, regardless of whether a climate bill now stalled in the U.S. Senate is passed or not. Bill Clinton urges Copenhagen participants to emphasize the upside of curbing climate change. Echoes Obama theme since last year's presidential campaign that green-tech jobs and investment will define 21st century. Clinton, whose post-presidency has largely been occupied with raising awareness and funds for climate-change progress, says global warming needs to be sold as an economic opportunity, not "a dose of castor oil you have to swallow." Spirits high in the Danish capital for the opening day kick-off. What a difference U.S. leadership makes. Canada, major CO2 emitter, effectively AWOL. Jim Prentice, environment minister, says Ottawa's widely condemned resistence to meaningful emission-reduction targets won't be changed by Copenhagen "hype." Globe says Canada in "climate doghouse." Twas ever thus, but no longer our dirty little secret. Canada yesterday awarded a "Fossil of the Day" by coalition of more than 450 eco-NGOs for its laggardness. Since our position is unlikely to change for the duration of the summit, we may end up bringing home 12 of these "trophies." Here's the official U.N. Climate Change Conference site for breaking news, calendar of events and more.

 
Richard Colvin, former Canadian diplomat, testifying to a Commons committee on Afghan detainee transfer practices, and the warnings he made to Ottawa about them. Right, Peter MacKay, defense minister, who responded to Colvin's testimony by mauling Colvin in Commons debate. Public-opinion polls a few days later found Canadians believed Colvin over the Tories by a 2-to-1 margin. 

RESIGN | 23 former Canadian ambassadors protest Tories' attack on Richard Colvin. Former Afghan diplomat exposed Harper government complicity in handing over detainees to Afghan National Army globally notorious for torture. Tories' instant reaction was attempt to discredit Colvin, rather than explain what Ottawa knew and when it knew it. In their letter, the 23 former ambassdors worry Colvin's fate will discourage candid reporting to Ottawa from foreign postings. Well, yes. Former senior foreign service officers rarely speak out in unison like this, but Defense Minister Peter MacKay's public vilifcation of Colvin prompted them to. "[MacKay] savaged [Colvin] in public, and ridiculed him. And that's not the way to treat a guy who's doing his job," said Paul Durand, former Canadian ambassador to the Organization of American States, Chile and Costa Rica. "He is not a whistleblower. He was hauled before a parliamentary committee and had to state the truth." It's MacKay, on whose watch the dubious 2006-era detainee handovers occurred, whose credibility is in tatters. He should resign until a public inquiry determines what exactly Canada knew about the real or likely fate of detainees it handed over to an Afghan army widely known to torture detainees for sport. Globe editorial on Tories' falsehoods.

 
Student supporters of opposition leader Mirhossein Mousavi hold red roses during protests in central Tehran. Foreign press was ordered not to cover the event, and cellphone network and newspapers were shut down by ruling regime. (Photo: Reuters.)

IRAN'S DOMESTIC INSTABILITY | Regime forced to suppress still more student protests. In latest of several demos, at Tehran University and several other colleges, thuggish police beat up protesters yesterday while state shut down cellphone network so activists still angry over flawed June 12 re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad can't communicate with fellow democracy advocates in other cities. Modesty requires the West to approach Iran realizing we know little about Iranian internal conditions. Having said that, waiting out an unstable status quo is an attractive alternative to external bullying that would almost certainly awaken national-unity sentiments that would trump growing internal dissent.

RUSSIAN NIGHTCLUB TRAGEDY DRAWS PUTIN'S IRE | PM excoriates local officials. These include fire marshalls whom, Putin hints, might have been on the take in failing to inspect frequently enough the Perm nightclub where 118 patrons died over the weekend. Putin also faulted the local hospital, which had insufficient supplies to treat the fire victims. With Putin and Medvedev around it's almost tough for outsiders to criticize Russia, since this pair does such a good job of that itself. Medvedev last month, in a high-profile speech to Duma, ripped the nation's cumbersome bureaucracy and rampant corruption, and Russian business sector's sloth in innovation. Another case where external pressure is adviseable in minor doses only, as Russia appears to be entering a period of self-criticism. China for now is a different story: euphoric over strong GDP growth, Beijing is convinced China can do no wrong. So stronger words with Beijing are appropriate within limits, especially as China finally seems intent on joining larger world community. Incidentally, not one BBC, NPR or other radio report of the Perm disaster that I heard failed to mention "Russia's notoriously lax fire regulations." Lax they might be. But it was only six years ago that 100 people died in a horrific fire that destroyed The Station nightclub in West Warwick, R.I., preceded three days earlier, on Feb. 17, 2003, by a stampede at Chicago's E2 dance floor that killed 21 people as more than 1,500 patrons attempted to escape the over-crowded facility after a pepper-spray incident. In both cases, safety protections and regulatory inspections were inadequate and club owners went to prison. 

OBAMA WATCH | President says he'll be candid about Afghan conflict in his Nobel speech Thursday. Not that he was likely to ignore the elephant in the parlor in Oslo acceptance speech for Nobel Peace Prize, but it's been done before. On employment front, despite encouraging jobs report last Friday showing first decline in unemployment rate since beginning of U.S. recession in December 2007, Obama in speech today will outline additional proposed job-creation stimuli. These will include tax breaks for businesses that hire, and redeploying estimated $200-billion surplus from bank-bailout funds to finance job-creation projects. (Photo: Obama greets workers at Nestle Purina Pet Care plant in Allentown, Pa. on Friday.)

U.S. MEDICARE EXPANDED? | Senate Dems mull lowering Medicare eligibility to 55. Stunning move is response to GOP canard that seniors would suffer big reduction in benefits under proposed reforms. (Any losses would be minor, and many seniors would see increased benefits.) Dems also twisting "public option" all out of shape, contemplating Rube Goldberg idea of having a government agency merely monitor a public option that would be operated by private insurers. So the costly middleman and costly profit margins would remain, and the public option's appeal as the major device for lowering healthcare costs would, in this iteration, be a failure. But if Dem public-option holdouts like conservative Blanche Lincoln (Ark.) are to be won over, these are the kinds of sops to blockheads we're going to see. Atul Gawande, New Yorker contributor and surgeon, on how the Senate bill would contain spiralling healthcare costs. (This is the same Gawande who earlier this year wrote of wide disparities in medical costs among cities and regions for same-quality care, which was must-reading in the West Wing and Congress.)

ATHABASCA AND CARCINOGENS | Alberta water scientist discovers dangerous levels of toxins in Athabasca River. Faults Ottawa for under-funding federal monitoring. Enraged Alberta government accuses him of spreading mistruths, says its own monitoring is comprehensive and finds only tolerable levels of toxins in tar-sands effluent.

TODAY'S HEADLINES | Hunger and family homelessness on the rise in U.S. cities... Struggling Japan unveils $81 billion (U.S.) additional stimulus to head off double-dip recession...Toronto building permits up a stunning 42% in October, up 18% nationwide...Harper makes it official: Toronto, not Muskoka, to host G-20 next June 26-27. Second G-20 summit next year will be in Seoul. Doubly good news for Muskoka. It won't briefly be shut down to tourists, and instead will become refuge for Hogtowners fleeing security, protesters and entourages of 20 heads of state.. Scotiabank profit nearly triples. BNS is the last of our Big Five banking oligopoly members to report, on a spectacularly good year considering the global meltdown...Conrad Black's lawyers make last-ditch pitch today to U.S. Supreme Court to drop fraud charges...Possible foretaste of post-U.S.-occupation Iraq in string of Baghdad car bombs that kill 121 people...Resurgence in popularity of vinyl records and turntables... "New hottie outs tomcatting Tiger Woods" (I just like the tab Boston Herald's headline). And Orlando neighbors report that Elin Nordegren is no longer in the building. Counting the minutes before someone suggests Mrs. Mark Sandford as a roomie, or Mrs. John Ensign - no wait, don't think she's moved out yet...

QUOTE OF THE DAY | "Nature never did betray / the heart that loved her." -William Wordsworth, Tintern Abbey.

Courtesy, The New Yorker, Nov. 30 edition.  

Please consider joining me as an elf this holiday season by participating in the Toronto Star's Santa Claus Fund, a century-old Toronto tradition. The Star uses donations to assemble and distribute gift boxes to thousands of less-financially advantaged children throughout the GTA. Each box contains a book, clothing and a toy. You can read all about it, including first-hand accounts of Toronto families in need, at http://www.thestar.com/santaclausfund. I'm counting on your kindness to help put smiles on thousands of young faces this December 25th! Many thanks, David   

 

 

Dec. 7, 1941, a day that will live in infamy...

The Axis powers made two fatal mistakes in December 1941, both involving the United States. The Empire of Japan's surprise attack on Pearl Harbor - widely described by Americans as a "sneak attack" in the days after, as if the lack of warning was as evil as the attack itself - effectively ended Imperial Japan and its grandiose "East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere." And Adolph Hitler later that week witlessly chose for Germany to declare war on America, thereby dooming the "Thousand Years Reich."

It wasn't that the American tanks and planes were better, or the ability and fighting spirit of American soldiers superior. It was that America had fighting ability in such tremendous abundance. "They just keep coming," a German commander sighed after fending off a U.S. assault quickly followed by yet another American assault. America also had by far the best of the wartime leaders on either side in Franklin Roosevelt, whose missteps were minor and rare, and whose strategic genius was unsurpassed. Within mere months of the attack on Pearl, the Japanese were on their heels; within a year, they were in full retreat, made to surrender one stolen territory after another. As gruelling as those Allied victories seemed at the time, in retrospect it was no contest from the moment the Axis grotesquely blundered in pulling the Americans' tail.

Dec. 7, 1941: The battleship U.S.S. Arizona quickly sinks, killing all 1,100 personnel aboard.

Left to right, battleships U.S.S. West Virginia (damaged), U.S.S. Tennessee (severely damaged) and U.S.S. Arizona (sunk).

The wreckage of destroyers U.S.S. Downes (left) and U.S.S. Cassin.

The U.S.S. Shaw takes direct hits from Japanese warplanes.

 

Rhode Island's leading paper reports the incomprehensible news.
  
 

U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt, Dec. 8, 1941, addresses the U.S. Congress, asking for a declaration of war against the Empire of Japan. To FDR's left is his son, a member of the U.S. armed forces. "No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people, in their righteous might, will win through to absolute victory...With confidence in our armed forces, with the unbounding determination of our people, we will gain the ultimate triumph."

The mistake of the "War to End All Wars" of 1914-19, it seemed to Roosevelt, was that the Germans, having negotiated peace in a stalemated conflict in which no Allied forces set foot in Germany, did not believe they had lost, or understand why their government had surrendered. And so war came again, just two decades later. For Roosevelt, "absolute victory" meant that the United States would settle for nothing less than the occupation of its enemies' homelands. Horror would fall from the skies on German and Japanese cities/ And after the victory was secured, American troops would for years patrol the streets of Hamburg and Yokohama. There would be no doubt about having lost, or the price the Axis would pay for unleashing the dogs of war.

And thus ended, finally, centuries of conflict among the major European nations. In the Pacific, there soon would be a civil war to fight on the Korean peninsula, and later another civil war in Southeast Asia. But in Asia, too, there would be no more great-power conquering of other great-power territories. A new term, "cold war," would define the subsequent era in which two superpowers would hold sway over their "spheres of influence" but in the absence of mass armed conflict.

 

On behalf of the Allied powers, General Douglas MacArthur, commander of U.S. forces in the Pacific, accepts terms of surrender signed by the Japanese defense minister aboard the U.S.S. Missouri, anchored in Tokyo Bay, Sept. 2, 1945. MacArthur, in the foreground, is standing at the microphone.
 

Memorial to the U.S. liberators of Iwo Jima, at Arlington National Cemetary.

 

Memorial in Hawaii honouring the 1,100 naval personnel killed in the Japanese destruction of the U.S.S. Arizona, located on the site where the battleship sank.

Archival photographs: U.S. Department of Defense.

QuickNews, Monday, Dec. 7.

The week ahead, Dec. 7-13. * Bank of America, the latest bankster outrage (New Yorker).

Obama and Afghanistan: Too clever by half (Frank Rich, NYT). * Pearl Harbor remembered (pictorial).

MAKING HISTORY IN COPENHAGEN

A climate-change demonstrator near London's Millennium Wheel on Saturday.

  

Nepal's entire cabinet met Friday at the Gorakshep base camp region of Mount Everest on Friday, with a message to save the Himalayas ahead of the Copenhagen climate talks beginning today.

CLIMATE SUMMIT | History's biggest climate summit starts today in Copenhagen. More than 15,000 participants from 192 nations have gathered in the Danish capital to agree on curbs on greenhouse gas emissions, and to raise billions of dollars in aid and clean technology assistance for poor countries. Heads of state of scores of countries will arrive next week, late in the 12-day summit, in tough negotiations to replace the Kyoto Protocol of 1997. South Africa is latest to commit to greenhouse gas reductions, following China and India last week, and Obama's pledge the week before of a 17% reduction from 2005 levels by 2020. Paul Krugman (NYT): Maybe I'm naive, but I'm optimistic about Copenhagen. NYT editorial: Beyond Copenhagen.

MONTREAL MASSACRE REMEMBERED | Ceremonies across Canada honour the fallen. Twenty years ago yesterday, Dec. 6, 1989, gunman Marc Lepine murdered 14 women engineering students at Ecole Polytechnique, saying he wanted to kill "all the feminists." The deranged killer injured dozens more. Today, woman enrolment in engineering schools still lags the rough gender parity since achieved across N.A. in law, medicine, business and other professions once dominated by men. Photo: The sign held by the young girl in the photo says, "Never again!" Christinne Muschi, Reuters.

U.S. NOBEL LAUREATES URGE GENDER EQUALITY | Women winners of Nobel science award call for more flexible workplace regimes in academe and private sector to accommodate both career and child-bearing aspirations of promising women scientists.

PLIGHT OF AFGHAN WOMEN | Worst treatment of women of almost any nation, says human-rights group. Discrimination has grown even worse under Karzai than the cruelly abusive Taliban regime that came before.

OPEL TO BE RE-CAST IN MAGNA'S IMAGE | Practices of Canadian auto-parts maker to be emulated. New Opel-Vauxhall boss, appointed by GM last week, aims to delegate responsibility down to plant and plant-floor level, strategy by which Toronto-based Magna has flourished in its 52 years.

Playful Jewish visitors in Venice in the current high-water season, when the water level is 130 cm. (4 ft.) above normal. Photo: Michele Crosera, Reuters.

LUXURY SHOPPERS AWOL | Saks, Neiman Marcus, Bergdorf's all report big drop in November sales. Analyst says the "aspirational" buyer has disappeared. Only bargain hunters are in evidence heading into crucial holiday season, when retailers make the bulk of their annual sales.

Bolivian president Evo Morales practices on the weekend prior to a football match with foreign media.

LANDSLIDE VICTORY FOR BOLIVIA'S MORALES | President plans nationalization of industry. Morales, first aboriginal president and a Hugo Chavez ally, convinced that solution to nation's chronic poverty is to nationalize those few key industries not already owned by the state. He will be following the example of Chavez, who over the weekend nationalized much of Venezuela's financial sector, having already expropriated foreign-owned oil and gas assets over past year.

GG ON THE ROAD | Michaelle Jean to spend most of the week in Central America. Her tour begins with two-day swing through Mexico. Next stops: Costa Rica and Guatemala. Photo: The Canadian Governor- General arrives yesterday at the Mexico City international airport.

DON'T BOTHER REPORTING UFOS | Britain closes military UFO reporting office. After investigating tens of thousands of sightings that proved to be natural occurances, U.K. decides to save the $75,000 (U.S.) cost of probing reported extra-terrestial sightings, following U.S. example dating to 1969. Canada, however, continues to follow up citizen reports of "queer sights in the Northern Lights," as poet Robert Service had it.

QUOTE OF THE DAY | "It is possible that blondes also prefer gentlemen." -Mamie Van Doren, American singer.

 

 

Courtesy The New Yorker, Nov. 23 edition.

 

Please consider joining me as an elf this holiday season by participating in the Toronto Star's Santa Claus Fund, a century-old Toronto tradition. The Star uses donations to assemble and distribute gift boxes to thousands of less-financially advantaged children throughout the GTA. Each box contains a book, clothing and a toy. You can read all about it, including first-hand accounts of Toronto families in need, at http://www.thestar.com/santaclausfund. I'm counting on your kindness to help put smiles on thousands of young faces this December 25th! Many thanks, David   

 

 

Just saying...

BBC overnight had an informative discussion with two Muslim activists, from Canada and Britain, who work on quelling violence in the Muslim world. The Canadian (sorry, I don't have the names) mentioned how Pakistanis wear their religion on their sleeve; while Indonesians, while devout, are much more inclined to regard faith as a personal affair. I can relate, since there's a similar contrast between the U.S. and Canada, where faith and invocations of the Almighty, whoever you conceive him, her or it to be, are not on. Again, a private affair.

We heard a great deal in this hour-long broadcast about deprivation, and the Canadian was especially exercised about counter-productive U.S. interference in Pakistan. It was at about this point that the presenter, who was a kindred spirit throughout, inquired about the rumoured lack of literacy and numeracy teaching in the madrasahs. "Oh yes, that's true, they've made a complete hash of education in Pakistan," the Canadian quickly said. "They don't have the resources." He then launched into a long dissertation on how, with more resources, the teachers and their students could more ably spread the message of peace throughout that tortured country, where civil disorder has been a way of life since Pakistan's creation after breaking away from India. Pakistan was, after all, founded as an Islamic - which is to say, religious and not secular - society. Like Israel, at roughly the same time, and whose existence has also been a chronically troubled one.  

The topic of literacy and numeracy was left hanging; none of the three commentators returned to it. I thought, hold on, aren't these the same societies, notably in the Middle East, whose animus toward the West is fueled largely by resentment at the West's comparative success? Its relative power and accomplishments, along with, of course, a lingering (and largely valid) anger with former colonialists?

But what are they doing about it? I'm not a scholar of Islam or other religions that predominate in developing-world nations. But if your population cannot read and write, and is engaged constantly in tribal, religious and inter-nation warfare (Pakistan vs. India over the Kashmir, for instance), where does a Linus Pauling or Stephen Hawking or Bill Gates find intellectual sustenance in that kind of society? A society in which the main business of life is to get around without being shot at, and one's knowledge of the world is in large degree limited to passages from the Koran?

If I'd been required to get by on Bible stories - which are fables, of course - without having also learned about the solar system, the laws of gravity, geometry, the principals of wind and string instruments, and how to write a weekly one-page composition in Grade 2, and all the while be worried about whether I was going to make it home from school safely...

We are taught to respect other societies. And I believe that to be fundamental to a much more peaceful 21st century than the last. At the same time, it's awfully difficult to imagine significant social progress ever in communities that wilfully shut themselves off from the basics of knowledge, the accumulated discoveries - in art, the sciences, governance and commerce - that have brought some nations further along the path to civility and prosperity than others. Societies that have put their guns away, and don't fire off AK-47s into the sky to celebrate weddings.

We will be asked in this new century, as a moral imperative, to help lift developing-world nations from deprivation while being assiduously respectful of local ways of life. Not an easy line to walk. It means accepting a second-class status for women, to start with, and I'd be inclined to get off the train right there save that I have hope that can change. But brutal methods of punishment for minor crimes, working with people who cannot read an instruction manual or perform a simple mathematical calculation, whose worldview is wholly informed by religious teachings and not also by the discoveries of Copernicus, Newton, Alexander Fleming and Madame Curie...

I don't think we're helping if our fear of patronizing leads us to ignore such massive obstacles to progress as the law in some developing nations that an adulterous wife - and only the husband's word on that is needed - can be executed. Or that the elemental building blocks of education as we know it in the West can continue to be dispensed with.

I confess I don't know how you square this circle, of respect for a way of life among others, elements of which one finds deeply repugnant or, in the case of education (or basic law and order) a prohibitive obstacle to progress. I just know it's going to be an intensely frustrating enterprise, if we're really to take up our duty as world citizens to help the least among us if they don't take an interest in algebra or writing a letter home in their own hand.

Obama's change of Copenhagen plans.

The big overnight news was, but shouldn't have been, Obama's abrupt change of heart in deciding to attend the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen when it matters, on the final day of intense negotiations, rather than the day before he's to receive his Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo this Thursday, Dec. 10.

From the start, this looked tacky. It came off as, "I'll be nearby in Norway anyway, so I'll drop by for some face time at the climate-change summit early in the 12-day proceedings, when delegates of NGOs are discussing the global-warming impact of plastic packaging and melting glaciers atop Bolivian mountain peaks. And skip the part at the end where 190 nations decide whether to commit to meaningful emissions cuts that will be a tough sell back home."

Why yesterday's about-face?

The WH was busy yesterday lowering expectations, mindful of Barack and Michelle Obama's last appearance in the Danish capital, which ended with Chicago being eliminating in the first round of the Olympics bidding won by Rio. The response back home was that Obama "lost" the Olympics, which is ludicrous since Rio was the frontrunner all along; the IOC was rightly determined the Games at last have their first South American venue.

The WH did say that recent encouraging signs of movement from China, #1 producer of greenhouse gas emissions, and India, #4, had prompted the reversal. Obama now thinks he might have a role to play in a summit climax that might after all be memorable.  

Funny thing, but the news out of Beijing and New Dehli last week was wall-to-wall negative, so far as I could tell - though admittedly I'm untutored in diplospeak. China pretty much declared itself to be leading the developing-world nations in resisting any significant progress. And sure enough India did follow Beijing's lead last week with a statement that it, too, believes the "rich" nations should shoulder most of the burden of emission reductions that could be a drag GDP growth. Thus the predicted stalemate that for weeks has threatened to make Copenhagen a non-event before the proceedings even began. You can see why Obama wouldn't want to be near the place. Then again, not a very constructive attitude from a champion of change on global warming.

So this is all about optics. Gordon Brown, in particular, has aggressively taken the lead among Western nations in pushing for genuine achievements out of Copenhagen. And Sarkozy gatecrashed the recent Commonwealth summit in Trinidad and Tobago just to convey his sense of urgency on climate change.

Meanwhile, Obama, whose progressive political base assumes he has climate change high on his agenda, was basically blowing off Copenhagen as a failed enterprise before it started. It likely would please GOP solons if Obama was a complete no-show at Copenhagen - remarkably, they're still in deep denial about the global-warming threat. But for those of us in the reality-based world, Obama's slight regard for the most important global climate-change event on the calendar this year was grating - and he has just decided to remove that thorn from his own paw.

There are risks, of course. The principal one is that Copenhagen will indeed be a bust, Obama or no Obama, and once again he'll return from Scandinavia empty handed (except for the Nobel, of course). But in the end the WH figuring was if the head of state of Burkino Faso was there and his counterpart from the U.S., the #2 greenhouse gas emitter, wasn't, where is this so-called U.S. leadership on global issues Obama's always on about?

QuickNews, Friday, Dec. 4.

Don't "reform" exec bonuses. Scrap them! (WSJ) * The week ahead, Nov. 30-Dec. 6.

Obama is having the best first year of any president since FDR. (Jacob Weisberg, Slate)

 THE HARPERS' EXCELLENT BEIJING ADVENTURE

 
    
  
   

Clockwise from top left: Stephen and Laureen Harper at the Great Wall of China at Badaling. (Photo: Sean Kilpatrick, CP.) Harper and Premier Wen Jiaboa inspect honour guard in welcoming ceremony. (Jason Lee, Reuters) Harper greeted by President Hu Jintao prior to their bilateral meeting. (Liu Jin, Reuters) Bilateral meeting in the Great Hall of the People. (Liu Jin) Harper and Premier Wen exchange toasts. (Sean Kilpatrick)
 
CHINA PAYOFF | After a cool welcome, Chinese shower Harper with goodies. Among them, preferential status for Canada-bound Chinese tourists, a big boost for a major, lagging Canadian industry; and codified assurances of less bureaucratic hassles for Canadian firms doing business in the Middle Kingdom. Harper was initially chastised, publicly, by Premier Wen Jiaboa for taking so long to make his first visit, and says local papers are full of similar chastisement. This is amusing, since stories in the local papers are all written by employees of Premier Jiaboa. Of course Chinese are miffed at Harper's hard line on China's abysmal human-rights record. But they showed how vital Canada is to Chinese interests with full-court charm offensive, including meets with Premier Wen, China's most popular leader, and President Hu Jintao, top leader, whom Harper has met before at world summits. Obama was criticized for no "takeaways" from his recent Beijing visit - unfairly so, I believe, since basic fence-mending was the WH goal. Harper by contrast will have a very productive four-day visit before heading to Seoul, having bagged several important deals, including technology exchanges. Canadian tourism industry hails Beijing deal.

SCRAP CHALK RIVER, BUILD A NEW REACTOR | Expert panel urges new world-class isotope facility. Chalk River, which supplied one-third of global medical isotopes, has long been a black eye for Canada with series of shutdowns, the latest confirming its utter unreliability. Panel created by Harper recommends building new, robust facility at admittedly high cost but re-establishing Canada's reliability, retaining and creating tech jobs, and making Canada a stronger player in nuclear and related high-tech medicine.

PARLIAMENT GREENLIGHTS HST | Many MPs are conveniently absent for the unpopular vote. Tories, Grits and Bloc-heads vote yes, only NDP nyet. (Guess what Layton will be running on in election expected next year.) Ontario and B.C. now have formal permission to proceed with harmonization of provincial sales tax and federal GST effective July 1. Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador harmonized years ago, to cut administrative costs and lift bureaucratic burden from local business.

POLL FINDS AMERICANS WANT PUBLIC HEALTH INSURER | 60% support "public option." Dems heavily favour, majority of independents do, only one-third of Republicans do in Thomson Reuters poll. Regardless of party alliegance, most respondents doubt successful passage of reform bill will provide better care or will lower costs in the short term.

HIGH STAKES IN COPENHAGEN | Climate-change expert rebukes resurgent denialists. Physicist Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, climate-change advisor to EU and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, reminds Reuters that scientists are in agreement on the threat - no small feat in academe. The issue now is political will. "It's like we're on the Titanic," says Schellnhuber, albeit with better navigation equipment. But "the problem is there are 192 captains on the ship," he said, referring to the nations in the climate-change talks next week in the Danish capital. "And that is a fatal situation." Schellnhuber with 25 fellow experts warned last month that global warming is occurring at a more rapid pace than expected. They said ocean levels could rise by up to two meters (6-1/2 ft) by 2100, a threat to coastal cities worldwide. They urged action to cap rising greenhouse gas emissions by 2015 to avoid the worst impact of climate change. Meanwhile, India further deflates Copenhagen expectations with statement yesterday that the world's second-largest country will reject any legally binding emissions-reduction scheme.

HE FEELS THEIR PAIN | Obama, prior to "jobs summit," acknowledges "desperation" of jobless. “Michelle and I have family members who are out of work. It hasn’t been that long since I was in some of the neighborhoods that are going through these tough times,” Obama said yesterday in interview with Detroit Free Press and USA Today. “And we know the desperation and difficulty that people are feeling." Obama downplayed likelihood of the "Son of Stimulus" second round of pump-priming that was much speculated on over the summer. But at WH summit yesterday with business, labour and community leaders the president discussed ideas including tax credits for firms that hire new workers; federal incentives for community banks extending credit to small businesses; ensuring the existing stimulus funds go to preserving the jobs of teachers, police and firefighters rather than tax cuts and other measures "that makes the governor look good"; and tax breaks for homeowners who better insulate their homes to save on energy costs in a "cash for caulkers" program to get contractors working again, modelled on the successful "cash for clunkers" scheme earlier this year. (Photo: Obama lighting the National Christmas Tree, a tradition that dates to 1923. -AFP.)

HOW NUANCED IS OBAMA'S AFGHAN STRATEGY? | Gen. McCrystal has to explain it to Afghans. The U.S. Afghan commander yesterday tells group of 11 top Afghan leaders the U.S. is not abandoning their nation, contrary to the notion they took away from Barack Obama's Tuesday evening speech on 30,000 additional troops for the Taliban fight. That's because Obama also said U.S. troops will start coming home in mid-2011, a concession to the war-weary home audience. But...Obama also said Tuesday that this departure goal is a flexible one, determined by success in subverting Taliban and political progress in corrupt Kabul. There will be more effective humanitarian assistance, Obama promised. But...it's also not an open-ended nation-building exercise, as Bush described Iraq. Confused yet? Punditocracy is. But actually it makes sense and is bluntly stated: We're here to serve U.S. interests only (killing off the last of al-Qaeda), with no grandiose ideas of "democratizing" your nation, among the justifications Bush used (and sort of meant, eventually) in Iraq. I still think the exercise is pointless. It turns on training an unreliable Afghan army and corrupt police who will use that training in civil wars and banditry after the U.S. and NATO depart. And Obama's just wrong that terrorism can't be fought at a distance. We're already doing so. The planning for 9/11 was largely done in Hamburg and at U.S. flight-training schools. Prior to Afghanistan, al-Qaeda called Sudan and then Yemen home. By now it has cells in about 60 nations. So "AfPak" is not the "central front in the war on terror." There isn't one. The central front is the coordinated effort by the world's intel agencies, national and community police to identify, monitor and, at the appropriate time, capture these murderous and not terribly bright "suiciders," as Bush called them. It's low-profile detective work, and it goes on now, at considerable expense. Why add to that cost with blood and treasure in the world's second-most lawless state, trailing only Somalia, according to the Brookings Institution? Having said all that, Obama on Tuesday cleverly laid out enough "exit strategies" to enable himself to declare "success" and quit Afghan at a time of his choosing. (Click on map to see the nation's crazy-quilt of ethnic groups.) My previous posts on quitting Afghanistan, here and here.

BUSINESS ROUND-UP | Judging from tepid "Black Friday" and November sales for leading retailers, from J.C. Penney to Abercrombie & Fitch, total 2009 holiday sales might be no improvement over dreadful 2008...Airbus's year-to-date sales eclipse those of Boeing...Leading U.S. luxury homebuilder Toll Brothers reports dismal 4Q...Toronto Dominion Bank and Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce each report much higher earnings, beating analysts' estimates, with sound balance sheets to finance U.S. expansion should they go on bargain-hunting trip in U.S. next year... Bank of America raises stunning $19.3 billion (U.S.) to shore up its weak balance sheet, comes closer to being able to retire borrowings from Uncle Sam...Messy creditor fight over true value of amusement parks as Six Flags languishes in bankruptcy court...Economist argues Russia is so corruption-ridden and bureaucratically sclerotic it should be dropped from BRIC, since it's not a rapidly growing economic superpower like Brazil, India and China.  

INGRATE BANK OF THE YEAR | My nominee: UBS AG. This is a coveted prize, as you know, fought over by many. But three weeks before year-end, I'm prepared to award it to Switzerland's largest bank, which also tops the cupidity ranks, having written off about $50 billion (U.S.) in toxic assets. UBS, Europe's biggest lender, would be dead save that Bern rescued it with Swiss taxpayer funds. Post-crisis, Swiss bank regulators now recognize the danger of the Swiss banking duopoly of UBS and Credit Suisse, which has assets several times larger than Switzerland's GDP. Which naturally has them fretting over the "Iceland syndrome," in which that nation's three hyperactive banks accumulated assets wildly in excess of Iceland's GDP, rendering the banks and Iceland itself insolvent when their toxic assets soured. UBS's response to Bern's understandable musing about reining in UBS and CS with stricter regulations - merely on par with those of the rest of the world - is a threat to relocate to another country. (Please God, not Canada). UBS also had to be threatened with lawsuits by Canada and the U.S. to surrender the names of tens of thousands of N.A. tax cheats. What spares UBS from the laughingstock/reckless-fatcat reputation of America's and Britain's most hapless big banks is only its comparatively remote location. But, trust me, if you think Citigroup and Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) made every mistake in the book and are churlish about taking their medicine, they've got nothing on the chutzpah of UBS. 

STAR TURNS IN GOOD CAUSES | McCartney, Wonder exhort us to see the bigger picture. Sir Paul, of course, is pushing "Meatless Mondays" - easily enough adopted by fellow Catholics who like McCartney went meatless on Fridays in childhood, he says. I think It's too easy to dismiss artists who step into the public arena, suspected of everything from naivete to reviving a faltering career with a dose of publicity. Besides, the vegan ex-Beatle has the facts on his side - that grazing is among the least efficient means of harvesting protein, and among the most environmentally harmful. Stevie Wonder, meanwhile, has been selected as the latest U.N. peace envoy, with a special mandate for raising awareness of issues affecting the estimated 650 million people with disabilities. "It is beyond my ability to fathom that 10% of the people of this world don't matter to the other 90% of the people in the world," Wonder said yesterday at the U.N. The Saginaw, Mich., native himself has been blind since early childhood. I hope this appointment brings more attention to Wonder's overlooked but brilliant mid-1990s album, Conversation Peace. Ban Ki-moon jokes he wants "Signed, Sealed, Delivered" as theme for next week's Copenhagen climate-change summit. Sorry, the song's been taken: It was the 2008 campaign theme selected by Wonder fan Michelle Obama. (Photo: Ban Ki-moon, U.S. secretary-general, and Stevie Wonder. Bebeto Matthews, AP)

QUOTE OF THE DAY | "I understand that the war is unpopular. It's a long way off, and there's the legacy of Iraq and Vietnam." -Richard Holbrooke, U.S. envoy to Afghanistan, at a conference yesterday on Obama's Afghan strategy. Taking no chances on lefties invoking Vietnam, the administration has co-opted them in using the "V" word itself at every opportunity - starting with Obama's Afghan speech Tuesday.

 

Courtesy, The New Yorker, Nov. 16 edition.  

Please consider joining me as an elf this holiday season by participating in the Toronto Star's Santa Claus Fund, a century-old Toronto tradition. The Star uses donations to assemble and distribute gift boxes to thousands of less-financially advantaged children throughout the GTA. Each box contains a book, clothing and a toy. You can read all about it, including first-hand accounts of Toronto families in need, at http://www.thestar.com/santaclausfund. I'm counting on your kindness to help put smiles on thousands of young faces this December 25th! Many thanks, David   
 
  
 
  

QuickNews, Tuesday, Dec. 1.

New feature: The week ahead, Nov. 30-Dec. 6. * Are we born with an urge to help?

An intimate Ella Fitzgerald, rediscovered * Jargon Watch is back!

   

Dubai's Emirates Towers carry a debt load of $59 billion (U.S.). How many more debt bombs are out there among emerging economies? Photo: Chris Jackson, Getty Images. 

THE NEXT DEBT CRISIS | Jitters over corporate debt coming due in emerging economies. There is an estimated $200 billion (U.S.) in corporate debt coming due this year and next in emerging economies, about half in Russia and the Emirates. But the contagion is much wider, covering most of the former Soviet republics, as well as formerly spendthrift companies in Turkey and the Baltics. Russia and Ukraine recently have allowed local big corporate borrowers to default. And "Dubai’s refusal to guarantee the debts of its investment arm, Dubai World, may set a precedent for other indebted governments to abandon companies that investors had in the past assumed enjoyed full state backing," the NYT reports. The burgeoning corporate debt of firms like Russia's troubled Rusal, world #1 aluminum maker, varies from 20% to 80% of national GDP. It's no wonder governments won't or can't stand behind it. This could be a replay of the so-called Third World debt crisis of the 1980s. Except that was government, or sovereign, debt and the IMF was able to step in. This is private-sector corporate debt held by bondholders and banks worldwide.

Using our troops as props. Harper's photo-op aboard HMCS Ville de Quebec last weekend offshore Trinidad in which he accused critics of his government's cloak-and-dagger handling of the Afghan detainees scandal of being unfaithful to Canadian soldiers. Our men and women in uniform are under suspicion only to the extent Harper has kept the orders they were given by Ottawa and field commanders under wraps.

HARPER STOOPS LOW ON DETAINEE CRISIS | Torys are pitbulls in detainees Commons debate. Government frontbenchers repeat earlier Harper lie that opposition is betraying rank-and-file soldiers in simply trying to determine why it took 18 months for Canadian Forces to change their detainee hand-over practices after learning of widespread detainee torture by Afghan National Army. Harper has stymied parliamentary inquiry. And more recently has so heavily redacted documents sought by inquiry as to make them useless. Milquetoast Iggy no match yesterday for Baird, who answered Grit's questions only with lies and bullying. It's actually the opposition that's on the soldiers' side, but hapless Grit leader can't seem to get that message across. In suspending last month the detainee inquiry he chaired for lack of government complaince in making documents available, erstwhile U.N. special war-crimes prosecutor and 28-year Canadian Forces veteran Peter Tinsley wrote that Canada's soldiers will “continue to live under a government-enforced dark cloud of unproven suspicion” as long as Harper withholds documents about what the likes of Rick Hillier and defence minister Peter MacKay knew and why were they so slow to act.

HOW SAFE ARE THE SKIES? | Airline safety inspectors cast doubt on Canadian airline safety. Citing horror stories of accidents and near-accidents, they testify that ever since Ottawa's decision to allow airlines to essentially self-regulate themselves, there's no way to know if they're in compliance with safety standards. Surprise government inspections are largely a thing of the past, while cost-cutting in a global industry that has been losing billions of dollars annually for several years is an everyday reality.

TEPID RECOVERY | Meagre 0.1% Canadian GDP growth in 3Q ends official recession but by a whisker. Indeed, the inevitable readjustment of that initial figure in a few weeks' time - common practice in Canada and the U.S. - may have us still in negative territory. Economists were predicting a figure 10 times' higher, more like 1% GDP growth, and even that would fall far short of robust U.S. 2.8% 3Q GDP growth as it emerged from recession. Canada is trailing most industrial nations in strength of recovery, largely due to impact of soaring loonie, which continues to cripple our exporters. Some good news: both personal and corporate spending rose at decent rates in the July-September period. Globe's Tavia Grant has reasons to be upbeat about 4Q prospects.

AUTOMAKERS TO REPORT GOOD NEWS TODAY | Sales flat with last year, which is progress. Analysts seem agreed that worst of the four-year slump in U.S. vehicle sales is over. But also that no time soon will we see a return to the average annual volume of 16.5 million vehicles.  

IS U.S. HEALTHCARE REFORM DEBATE WORTH THE CANDLE? | Benefits fall short of promises. In Senate version of the bill hotly debated in this and future weeks, some all-important provisions are so diluted there's scant genuine reform. Two key provisions stand out: Until 2014, private insurers could continue to deny coverage or charge steeper premiums to those with pre-existing health conditions. And the promised ban on annual or lifetime caps on coverage, which is to take effect next year, is riddled with exemptions. That makes a "public option" new government insurer all the more imperative. But its fate is especially contentious. And as to the provisions most senators do agree on, "there's no power to really hold the [private] insurance companies accountable," consumer advocate Betty Ahrens, executive director of the Iowa Citizen Action Network, tells the NYT. "It's toothless." If it works out this way, the private insurers and Big Pharma, with upward of 50 million uninsured Americans forced to buy insurance and become part of the system, will reap one of the greatest windfalls in the history of commerce. It would have been that in any case, but now without patient protections.

PREVIEW | The Afghan-surge case Obama will make to Americans in tonight's TV address is here. This is what the U.S. president has told his defense staff and NATO allies. Which is, 34,000 more U.S. troops, bringing the total to more than 100,000. No timeline for withdrawal, but an assurance that U.S. troop commitment is not "open ended. And that commitment will be tied to Karzai's progress in cleaning up Kabul corruption and extending the central government's ambit beyond the capital. In other words, Karzai making nice with warlords and tribal elders. I promise not to say it again: Good luck with all that. What's not for public consumption is the cost, about $75 billion (U.S.) a year. Obama will be vague on that because Americans are not only war-weary but feel their nation is fiscally tapped out. I expect the gambit here is to put enough pressure on the Taliban, and crimp somewhat its mobility in the country, to the point where the enemy is willing to discuss a negotiated settlement. That has to be the endgame against this undefeatable foe; otherwise it's a decades' long stalemate. Harper got a heads-up last night from Biden, not Obama. Yes, yes, we've been fighting in Afghanistan's most dangerous region and we've been in the country for eight years fighting on America's behalf while the Dutch are on patrol duty up north. But, as the WH explained, Obama has only so much time for calling around. Why waste it on Harper when the PM has been immovable about not increasing our Afghan troop levels or staying later than early 2011? You'd only do it as a courtesy to a loyal ally that's given up 133 of its precious young men and women to a cause we share...Well, I'll leave it at that before blood starts spurting from my eyes.

PBS NEWSHOUR OVERHAUL | Flagship program will become more Web-oriented.

HABS, NOT LEAFS, ARE OUR NATIONAL TEAM | So we tell pollsters. No surprise, given Canadiens' illustrious history and the abundance of non-Montrealer devotees of the franchise. What I did find a tad encouraging as a lifelong Torontoian is that some three-quarters of those polled would bet on the Habs to win another Cup before the Leafs do. I was expecting maybe 90%. (Photo: Tara Walton, Toronto Star.)

AND THE WINNER IS... | Bad sex-scene writing award goes to Goncourt winner Littell. Jonathan Littell's The Kindly Ones captured France's prestigious Prix Goncourt in 2006 and now is honoured with this year's Literary Review Bad Sex in Fiction Award, founded in 1993 by Auberon Waugh, beating out Philip Roth, John Banville and Paul Theroux. The judges found "genius" in The Kindly Ones, but didn't take so kindly to lines such as "I came suddenly, a jolt that emptied my head like a spoon scraping the inside of a soft-boiled egg." I have no idea what that line means, but I'm just an innocent boy from Scarborough (who long hated soft-boiled eggs).

QUOTE OF THE DAY | "The fact that Canadians search twice as much as Americans, according to comScore data, is unbelievable. Canadians are [each] searching [an average] of 143 times a month - those aren't small differences or small changes, that's a pretty significant and quite powerful difference." -Jonathan Lister, country manager and managing director for Google Canada, on why Google Inc. is hiring across Canada. Canadians spend about one-third more time online than Americans, and Google's YouTube operation is more popular in Canada than any other nation. It's not that we don't have lives, you understand. It's that we're obliged to spend a third of them indoors. That's my theory.  

Please consider joining me as an elf this holiday season by participating in the Toronto Star's Santa Claus Fund, a century-old Toronto tradition. The Star uses donations to assemble and distribute gift boxes to thousands of less-financially advantaged children throughout the GTA. Each box contains a book, clothing and a toy. You can read all about it, including first-hand accounts of Toronto families in need, at http://www.thestar.com/santaclausfund. I'm counting on your kindness to help put smiles on thousands of young faces this December 25th! Many thanks, David 
 
 

QuickNews, Monday, Nov. 30.

New feature: The week ahead, Nov. 30-Dec. 6. * Photos of the Week.

Jargon Watch is back! * My very last Sarah Palin column, Nation editor vows. 

VICTOIRE! | Montreal Alouettes quarterback Anthony Calville (right) hoists the Grey Cup yesterday with teammate Anwar Stewart (left) after the Alouettes beat the Saskatchewan Roughriders in a thrilling 28-27 comeback to win the 97th Grey Cup championship in Calgary. (The Super Bowl, in case you're wondering, turns 42 next year.)

SWISS VOTERS' SLAP AT MUSLIMS | Large majority in vote banning mosque minarets. Vote seen as a victory by far-right groups across Europe, which, sadly, it is. Swiss government, which tried and failed to dissuade citizens from approving the ban, which was proposed by a far-right Swiss party spewing hate and untruths about Muslims, tried yesterday to reassure Switzerland's 400,000 Muslims that their religion is still respected. But it isn't, as the 57% vote approving the ban has made clear. Voters in 22 of 26 Swiss cantons approved the ban, which now will be inscribed in the Swiss constitution. Switzerland has only four minarets, which already had been prohibited from calling worshippers to prayer - their principal function. Not good enough for what appears to be a racist majority in this multicultural state of Swiss, Italians, Germans and French. Which bodes ill for similar discrimination against Muslims elsewhere in Europe. (Photo: Geneva mosque, AFP.)

HARPER CHASTISES UGANDA ON ANTI-GAY LAW | Bill would threaten gays with death. Execution of gays is among provisions of private member's bill with goverment approval making its way through Ugandan parliament. No one at recent Commonwealth Heads of Government summit in Trinidad and Tobago had the guts to openly call for Uganda's expulsion. Many nations have been expelled or suspended from the Commonwealth in the past. Meanwhile, Rwanda, with its shoddy human-rights record and no connection with Britain (it was colonized by the French and Belgians) was admitted to club over the weekend. Harper told journos he bravely took Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni aside to "indicate Canada's deep concern." You don't chastise and express concern with the likes of Museveni. You threaten to cut off Canada's $23.75-million in annual foreign aid to his country. Gordon Brown was similarly ineffectual in expressing deep disappointment.

SHAME ON HARPER | Harper lies in accusing opposition of attacking our Forces over detainees. In photo-op aboard frigate HMCS Quebec, patroling waters off Trinidad during Commonwealth summit, Harper says: "Let me just say this, living as we do, in a time when some in the political arena do not hesitate before throwing the most serious of allegations at our men and women in uniform based on the most flimsy of evidence, remember that Canadians from coast to coast to coast are proud of you and stand behind you, and I am proud of you, and I stand beside you." Let me just say this: No one has accused our rank-and-file troops of mistreating Afghan detainees. The accusation, for which the evidence is manifest and unassailable, is that Harper's government, senior defense mandarins and high-ranking commanders in the field knew they were committing Afghan detaineees to abuse, including torture, in letting our troops hand them over to the Afghan National Army. No one is making allegations against "our men and women in uniform," whom the opposition and everyday Canadians have consistently supported without reservation. This is the practised M.O. of our too often Nixonian PM: Discredit the messengers rather than facing the facts and solving the problem, by which in this case Canada has been earning an international black eye on the PM's watch.

TRIPLE-DOWN | Obama tomorrow will triple U.S. troop presence he inherited in Afghanistan. In 8 p.m. TV address, U.S. president will describe a graduated increase of about 35,000 troops, contingent on Karzai progress in reducing corruption. (Good luck with that.) Obama will also at least hint at an exit strategy. Many of Obama's fellow Dems on the Hill see another Vietnam looming, as do war weary everyday Americans, whose support for Afghan conflict has been waning for months.

CANADIAN TROOPS PREPARE FOR U.S. HANDOVER | Our troops ready Kandahar for U.S. troop arrival. In a strategy shift that began months ago, Canadian troops in Afghanistan's toughest neighbourhood have been experimenting with counter-insurgency methods much like those proposed by U.S. Gen. Stanley McChrystal. Thus more than a year before Canucks' scheduled combat withdrawal, to replaced by continuing humanitarian commitment in Afghanistan, American troops moving into the region will have as smooth a transition as possible to the new U.S. "COIN" (counter-insurgency) strategy of winning hearts and minds rather than kicking down villagers' doors in search of Taliban, which Canadians finally abandoned as counter-productive several months ago.

BACK-TO-WORK LEGISLATION FOR CN STRIKERS | Ottawa will act today. Rona Ambrose, labour minister, will argue that CN, one of the Big Six N.A. roads and the most profitable, must get back to work or the economy recovery will be stalled. (Photo: CN train at Tashereau yard, Montreal, on Saturday. CP.)

HOW WE LOST OSAMA | U.S. Senate committee fingers Rumsfeld, Tommy Franks and others in U.S. foregoing its chance to capture Osama bin Laden at Tora Bora in 2001. No revelations yet at Chairman John Kerry's committee, as testimony to date repeats facts long known - that Washington rejected on-the-ground calls for air and ground support to trap Al Qaeda leader. What Kerry must do, in service to the Republic, is surface emails and other "smoking guns" to confirm or disprove suspicions that Bush administration found it useful to have Osama at loose to justify unconstitutional actions Bush took as a permanent "wartime president."

U.A.E. ASSURANCES OVER DUBAI | U.A.E. says it will backstop Dubai losses. Move is timed to calm world markets ahead of this morning's opening bell on NYSE, where stocks plunged Friday on news that once oil-rich Dubai can't make payments on portion of emirate's total $80-billion (U.S.) debt. Global markets, after panic attack Thursday and, in U.S., in post-Thanksgiving trading, had already settled down by close of last week's trading, but the reassurance will be welcome. It would also appear that European banks are the most exposed to Dubai debt, with Credit Suisse leading the pack. EB had a heads-up on mounting Dubai woes here. (Photo: Dubai city centre. Steve Crisp , Reuters.)

OILPATCH SPLIT-UP | EnCana begins trading tomorrow as two firms. EnCana will be a natural gas play, one of N.A.'s largest producers. And spin-off Cenovus Energy Inc. will be a play on Alberta heavy oil projects. In preliminary trading since Nov. 2, Cenovus has been the more popular of the two, given the worldwide natural-gas glut of recent months. I think they both make good medium-term investments, as the gas market improves with more U.S. emphasis on gas-powered electric power generation, and a resumption in significant global investment in the oil sands that was interrupted by the recession. And to repeat from an earlier post, both smaller firms are now more vulnerable to hostile or friendly acquistion. Which means there also will be a takeover premium built into the stock of these two widely traded firms.

LOWDOWN FOR PICKUPS | Pickup-truck sales at a 17-year low in N.A. The bad news for Detroit is that this is one of the few sectors in which it retains dominance over imports, and pickup volume accounts for lofty 20%-plus of total Detroit profits. Why, because they're cheap to build but command $30,000 (U.S.) selling prices and lavish profit margins. The good news is that truck owners are among the most brand-loyal of vehicle buyers, and their ageing trucks are overdue for replacement once economy shows any serious signs of sustainable recovery. Even in these grim times, Ford's flagship F-150 pickup is still the single best-selling vehicle in the U.S. Lots of upside here, especially for Ford and for hybrid-fuel trucks. (Photo: Ford F-150, the smallest Ford pick-up and most popular vehicle in America.)

GOD BLESS GEORGE W. BUSH | His $5-billion (U.S.) AIDS-relief program working wonders in Vietnam and Africa. Bush got America's largest-ever health-related foreign aid program through a hostile GOP-controlled Congress, and it has already saved hundreds of thousands of lives in Africa. Vietnam is the only non-African nation in which the U.S. program has been rolled out, as goodwill outreach to a former enemy, although that rationale has never been formally stated. The local stigma against HIV-AIDS is even more powerful in Vietnam than Africa, where anti-AIDS efforts have been underway much longer, accentuating the virtue of the U.S. decision to extend the program in Southeast Asia. The current administration is committed to continuing the program, with modifications including to increase effectiveness. (Photo:Pham Huu Khoi, in advanced stages of AIDS, at the U.S.-financed Mai Hoa Center for HIV and AIDS patients, largely operated by U.S. caregivers, in the village of An Nhon Tay, about 60 km. northwest of Ho Chi Minh City. David Guttenfelder, AP.)

A CHINESE COMPANY TO WATCH | Lenovo is already #4 world PC maker. Acquired the also-also-ran PC division of IBM only a few years ago, and already has leveraged it into global leadership for Chinese firm. Lenovo is acquiring a firm with tech to better connect phone lines with PCs.

HOPE FOR CANWEST ASSETS, IF NOT COMPANY | Without debt, largely bankrupt firm is in surprisingly good shape. Full-year losses are ugly, at $1.7 billion for fiscal 2009, or total of $2.7 billion over past two years. When your losses are more than half your revenues ($2.9 billion last year), you've in a very deep hole. But 4Q newspaper publishing profit down only 20% from last year, before epic advertising drought began; and Global and cable channels swing from loss to $12 million profit. As time goes by it's becoming clearer than with someone other than founder's heir Leonard Asper at the helm, CanWest would have made it through the media downturn. Servicing its massive debt, bequeathed by founder Izzy but added to by Leonard, is firm's only major problem. Scuffle with partner Goldman Sachs over ownership of cable channels that came with part-Goldman-financed purchase of Alliance Atlantis, detailed in 4Q report, is true to form. Dating from tax lawyer Izzy's earliest days as an entrepreneur, CanWest will go from start to finish of its 35-year life mired in litigation. A good investing rule: Avoid lawsuit-happy firms. It's not the cost of the litigation, it's distracting from the basic business and speaks to the character of the firm. Conrad Black another obvious example, but they are rife in the Fortune 500 as well. A different story with RIM, which "patent trolls" regard as a pinata. You notice RIM tries to settle these nuisances ASAP and focus on new-product development, rather than spending a decade battling the parasites into submission in court.

QUOTE OF THE DAY | "Maybe it is healthier, but that should be the people's choice and not because a pop star thinks farting cows and pigs herald the end of mankind." -Liverpudlian Paul Nutall, European parliamentarian, on Paul McCartney's campaign to have carnivores give up one day's meat a week to cut greenhouse gas emissions from livestock. H/T Mike Kesterton, Globe and Mail.

Courtesy The New Yorker, Nov. 23 edition.

Please consider joining me as an elf this holiday season by participating in the Toronto Star's Santa Claus Fund, a century-old Toronto tradition. The Star uses donations to assemble and distribute gift boxes to thousands of less-financially advantaged children throughout the GTA. Each box contains a book, clothing and a toy. You can read all about it, including first-hand accounts of Toronto families in need, at http://www.thestar.com/santaclausfund. I'm counting on your kindness to help put smiles on thousands of young faces this December 25th! Many thanks, David 
 
 

The futility of Afghanistan (cont.)

On Tuesday, Obama will go on TV and announce he's sending another 30,000 or so troops to Afghanistan. That's three times' the estimated number of Taliban in the country. And as you see from the chart, the anti-Taliban forces already outnumber the Taliban by a bazillion to one. So, here's my big question: If we can't seem to kill this enemy with a sledgehammer, what good will an anvil do?