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 
 
 

QuickNews, Friday, Nov. 27.

New feature: The Week Ahead, current events calendar for Nov. 23-29.

Click here for latest Jargon Watch.

 
A carousel is among the features of Frankfurt's Christmas Market. Photo: Michael Probst, AP. 

T.O. STORES APING U.S. "BLACK FRIDAY" SALES SPREE | Deep discounts and longer hours. Local retailers determined to stem defections of Canadian bargain-hunters shuffling off to Buffalo.

AFGHAN SCANDAL | Witnesses on detainee scandal offer riot of contraditions. Defiant blowhard Hillier calls accusations he knew of detainees' fate "ludicrous." Yet testimony of government's cover-up witnesses shows he must have known, since our local diplomats, more thin on the ground than military C.O.s, were aware since 2006 of Afghan National Army's reputation for torture, along with Red Cross, whose concerns about hand-overs are revealed in one of whistleblower Colvin's reports to Ottawa.

Harper embarks yesterday for Commonwealth Heads of Government summit in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago. PMO told to brace for climate-change concerns from imperiled Commonwealth island nations - including the host country - if ocean levels rise as predicted. Photo: Sean Kilpatrick, CP. 

HARPER VOLTE-FACE | PM will attend Copenhagen climate-change summit, after all. Has been bad-mouthing it for weeks. But one day after Obama adds his name to world leaders attending, Harper says "critical mass" of leaders merits his presence. Eco-activist says PM merely "doesn't want to look like a weenie."

SUPPLY OF CANADIAN DOCS ON THE RISE | Ratio of docs to population finally improving. Result of big jump in med-school enrolments earlier this decade. Also physicians deferring retirement for want of replacements to care for their patient load. Progress is significant, but farming and remote communities remain underserved by caregivers, specialists in particular. And eventual retirement of over-65 docs will create a gap that the newest generation of physicians might not be able to quickly fill.

 
Dubai, booming Persian Gulf emirate when world oil prices were soaring, celebrated with spectacular new office towers and offshore, palm-shaped resort (right). With the sharp drop in oil prices, developer of "The Palm" now can't make its debt payments. 

"DUBAI INC." FLIRTING WITH INSOLVENCY | Debt moratorium rocks global financial markets. Dubai World, major sovereign wealth fund, seeks six-month moratorium on making debt payments. Closely related enterprises in oil-rich Persian Gulf emirate suffering from plunge in world oil prices and may all be in trouble. Lack of transparency rattles European and other banks with loans extended to giant Dubai firms, whose true state of financial health is unknown.

IAEA CHIEF DUMPS ON IRAN | ElBaradei washes hands of Tehran's reneging and trickery. Retiring IAEA chief ElBaradei, a Nobel Peace Price laureate retiring in three days, has had it with Iranian games. So even have China and Russia. For the first time yesterday they joined other nations in threatening tougher sanctions if Tehran doesn't come clean about exact nature of its nuclear assets and ambitions.

GIRDING FOR TOUGH TIMES | Big layoffs announced by Bombardier and Rogers. Bombardier, hard-hit by aviation downturn, keen to hold onto engineering talent so it may consider federally subsidized working sharing program it has previously rejected. Rogers to cut 3% of workforce to maintain or lower wireless prices while offering more features, now that rivals Bell and Telus have broken its Canadian iPhone monopoly. And all three incumbents are facing new competition from upstart wireless entrants next year.   

CHEAPO VINO | World seems to be drowning its sorrows in bargain-priced wine. Globe reports on price downshift among recession-weary tipplers. Bad news for many New World wine producers focused on upscale product. Ontario might be an exception. Output of its boutique wineries is premium priced. But province's biggest wineries - Jackson-Triggs, Andres, Hillenbrand - have never shed their gronk heritage and offer VQA and jug wine side by side.

CHINA BLUES | Emerging economic superpower facing protectionist backlash. EU complains Beijing has used its enormous stimulus package to over-expand capacity, and already is dumping below-cost goods onto world market at a loss. This is only partly sour grapes. China continues its stubborn refusal to let currency rise to its natural level, effectively stealing jobs from other nations. And Beijing is compelled to run factories flat out to curb rioting and violence that has occurred at those few Chinese factories that have closed or trimmed production in response to global slump.

CEO OF THE YEAR? | Globe and Mail settles on Fiat boss Sergio Marchionne. Lavish profile of putative Chrysler saviour in paper's Report on Business Magazine today. If the Globe had to pick the CEO of a foreign company as "Canada's" CEO of the year, and it had to be in the profit-challenged auto sector, the only serious candidate would be Ford's turnaround CEO Alan Mullaly. So why Marchionne? Because he spent most of his career in Toronto, and because Eric Reguly, author of the piece, is Rome-based Globe correspondent with special access to the prickly Marchionne. Not the usual criteria for such picks. I might have held off until we see a coherent reclamation plan for Chrysler. Fortune was closer to the mark in lavishing Steve Jobs with "CEO of the Decade" honours, though devoting most of its Nov. 23 editon to one topic was a bit over the top.

MAMMOGRAM DEBATE | Folks taking sides on merit of procedure, and Pap smears too. Efficacy of mammograms, as described in NYT timeline, has long been questioned. Indeed, by detecting cancers that will not become problematic in the life of a patient, but are treated nonetheless, procedure is a cause of needless trauma and spiralling health care costs. Then again, advocates are speaking up about how they are alive today only because of a cancer detected at age 32. No easy answers on this one.

THE "8 TO 8" DIET | Body clock - more accurately, organ clocks - are set by food intake not brain. Salk Institute researcher says midnight snacks and 3 a.m. repasts throw liver and other organs out of whack. 

"Sopranos" bus tour includes stop under the Pulaski Skyway where character Christopher Moltisanti breathed his last. Photo: David Goldman for The New York Times

 

HAD TO HAPPEN | NYC outfit offers bus tours of "Sopranos" greatest hits (pardon the pun). I fondly recall my honeymoon Circle Line ferry cruise around the island, the Cloisters, Rockefeller Church, the U.N. hugging the East River shoreline. Oh, to go back and see where Tony was almost garrotted in the Holland Tunnel while keeping bad company enroute to a Jersey strip club.

QUOTE OF THE DAY | "All celebrated people lose on close view." -Napoleon.

 
 

Courtesy The New Yorker, Nov. 2 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 
 

 

Unsung heroes.

Undated photo from Canadian Press.

This is Canadian journalist Amanda Lindhout, recently released by Somali kidnappers after 15 months' captivity in that lawless country. The native of Sylvan Lake, Alberta was touring refugee camps outside Mogadishu with Australian photographer Nigel Brennan and a Somali intepreter when they were kidnapped Aug. 23, 2008.

The kidnappers had no political agenda, they just wanted money. Amid the squalor Lindhout and Brennan were documenting with the assistance of their translator, the bandits demanded $1 million for themselves from Lindhout's family alone, imagining that all Canadians have that kind of money. After an horrific ordeal in which she was kept isolated and beaten and tortured, Lindhout, along with Brennan, finally were released recently after an undisclosed financial settlement.

These are the front-line journalists bringing us news of the world, often our starting point in taking humanitarian action ourselves, through places of worship, NGOs and groups we organize, and pressuring our leaders that attention must be paid and collective action taken.

In annual rankings of admired professions, journalists always appear at or near the bottom of the list. That would include Lindhout, whose day for 15 months consisted of "sitting on a floor in a corner, 24 hours a day."

"The [ransom] money wasn't coming quickly enough for these men, and they seemed to think if they beat me enough, then when I was able to speak with my mother [by phone every couple of months] I would be able to say the right thing to convince her to pay the ransom."

We have, among others, Alberta MP Bob Mills, who represents Lindhout's riding, and groups such as Reporters Without Borders to thank for Lindhout's renewed freedom.

Our daily preoccupation in North American newsrooms is with the waves of layoffs of journalists, of outsourcing, of bureau closings - of retreat from our calling of reporting the news from City Hall, the coroner's office, the courts, the ratepayers' meetings, the rank corruption of public officials in Kabul and Harare, the slaughter of innocents in Darfur, the progress of the Olympic flame as it makes its way across Canada (it arrived yesterday in Fredericton).

Even journalists, with traditional print and network TV audiences in long-term decline, and certainly the larger public think only occasionally of the danger to which their kindred spirits routinely subject themselves in covering news in places no longer so remote in our increasingly interconnected world. Events that matter to us more than ever, and will figure still more significantly in our lives and economies as this new century evolves. It is a century brimming with promise of eradicating suffering and injustice, economic and violent, as we learn more about our global community through the eyes of people as intrepid and brave as Amanda Lindhout and Nigel Brennan.

Many journalists do not survive encounters with bandits, state police, corrupt officials, warlords.

Since 1992, 763 journalists have been killed while doing their jobs. It seemed we might never again experience the peak of the 84 journalists who died in 1994 when the Balkans and parts of Africa were in upheaval. But a new peak of 109 journalists were killed on duty in 2007. The death toll so far this year is 66.

You might be surprised by the "beats" covered by the fallen. War coverage claimed the lives of 36% of the journalists killed since 1992, but political coverage accounted for the same percentage of journalist deaths. Followed by corruption (21%), human rights (15%), crime (14%), culture (9%), business (5%) and sports (3%).

Amanda Lindhout kept her wits about her by imaging herself jogging the sea wall in Stanley Park. "That would keep me going," she said. When I'm next in Stanley Park, I'll think of Lindhout, with gratitude - of all those journalists whose curiosity enriches our knowledge and gives us the tools to act in forging a better world based on their first-hand witness to the facts on the ground.

Related

George Packer (New Yorker), war correspondent, on toll wars have taken on journalists this decade.

QuickNews, Monday, Nov. 23.

CHINA MINE EXPLOSION | At least 92 dead in coal mine disaster in northeast China. Gas explosion on weekend claims scores of lives at Xinxing Coal Mine in Hegang, Heilongjiang province. (Photo below: Relatives of miners await news from mine officials. Aly Song, Reuters.)

 

CAPSIZED INDONESIAN FERRY CLAIMS 26 LIVES | Another 17 passengers still missing. Overloading is common in ferries serving Indonesia's thousands of islands. Ferry off Sumatra had 296 passengers and crew but capacity of only 273 people.

ROSY CANADIAN BANK FORECAST | Big Five will finish out year with strong 4Q numbers. Banks begin reporting this week. Their capital ratios are among world's best. Collectively, will come close to matching last year's profits. Loan losses expected to peak 1Q or 2Q of fiscal 2010. (Photo: "Centre ice," King and Bay Streets in Toronto, head office location of Canada's Big Five banks.)

ENCOURAGING U.S. ECONOMIC OUTLOOK | Economists upgrade forecast for 2010. Chicago Fed chief sees jobless rate peaking early next year, at 10.5%, a bit higher than current 10.2%. Small businesses, whose job creation usually leads employment recovery, are borrowing again. NYT reports Obama's stimulus package has done more good than it gets credit for - pushing U.S. GDP into positive territory by 3Q, for instance, less than half a year after his inauguration.  

AFGHAN QUAGMIRE | Two unnamed Karzai ministers target of embezzlement probe. Actually, almost all of Karzai's ministers are under suspicion, probably including the defense minister who impressed Globe and Mail's editorial board - in that paper's lead story this morning - with complaint that Obama is dragging his heels on more troops. CP has rather horrifying report on how Afghan detainee abuse has been routine for decades. Corrupt government, sadistic police force, army culturally allied with Taliban, and women treated even worse under Karzai than Taliban - this is what we're fighting and dying for in propping up Afghan government whose legitimacy is recognized by few locals or ISAF troop-contributing nations. Damned right Obama's thinking twice about more troops.

"PUBLIC OPTION" NOW CENTRE STAGE IN U.S. HEALTHCARE DEBATE | Dems win first Senate vote. But Saturday's 60-40 vote, with all Republicans opposed, is only "end of the beginning." Lieberman of Connecticut vows he will vote against a final Senate bill that includes the public option. But minus the new government-run "public option" insurer, reform largely amounts to a windfall for private insurers and Big Pharma. (Photo: Senators Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) debate healthcare reforms yesterday on "Meet the Press.")

FUTILITY OF MICROSOFT TRYING TO "BUY" NEWS | In talks with Murdoch to take WSJ off Google. Rumoured deal would have Murdoch demand Google drop WSJ, New York Post and other News Corp. properties, with Microsoft's rival Bing engine getting exclusive access. But "exclusive" content migrates within 30 seconds, by most estimates. I noticed last night, for instance, that Reuters carried a rewritten Sunday New York Post exclusive that Jamie Dimon is tipped as Geithner's replacement, and a detailed synopsis of a Sunday NYT editorial calling on Goldman Sachs to turn over its bonus pool to Treasury to retire national debt.

SWINE FLU PEAK? | CDC reports H1N1, like most outbreaks, shifting east to Mideast, Central Europe. May have peaked in North America, but flu levels still far higher than usual at this point in flu season. Vaccine continues to be in shorter supply in U.S. than Canada.

 

One of the estimated 14,000 to 25,000 vacant homes in once-flourishing Buffalo, N.Y.  

BLIGHT ON BUFFALO | Decay of Rust Belt city "a slow-moving Katrina," says local official. Former industrial powerhouse has lost half its population, or 300,000 people, since 1950. In some recession-hit neighbourhoods, only 20% of the houses are occupied.

CLIMATE-CHANGE COST | Experts say $28 trillion (U.S.) in property damage to port cities by 2050. That would be result of expected 0.5%-metre rise in ocean levels as Greenland ice pack melts.

WIKI EXODUS | Thousands of Wikipedia contributors are quitting. All of the most important, most easily researched topics have been done. And remaining contributors are alienated by accumulation of rules restricting new entries and editing/updating of existing ones.

McDONALD'S LOSING LUSTRE | U.S. same-store sales down in October. Recession has finally caught up with Golden Arches, victim of high unemployment that has curbed out-of-home meals. Also, its McCafe concept has not been the blockbuster it expected. In Canada and at its U.S. outlets, Tim Hortons acted quickly on the McCafe threat, matching Mickey D in ubiquity and diverse menu offerings.

Honda Insight and Ford Escape. Which would you choose for your motor trip from Toronto to the Laurentians? On poor sales of small cars: "This doesn't mean Americans don't want fuel economy," writes auto critic Jerry Flint. "It may mean that vehicles that were small, unappealing, underpowered and uncomfortable are still small, unappealing, underpowered and uncomfortable."

NOT SO FAST | Forbes columnist breaks with consensus that small cars are next battleground. Notes that among heaviest casualties of current auto slump have been small cars. Industry volume is down 27% to September. Meanwhile, Yaris sales are down 40%, Aveo down 30%, Accent down 40%, VW New Beetle down 50%, Scion 1C down 60%. Meanwhile, sales are off only 10% as a group for small crossover SUVs: Honda CR-V and Pilot, Toyota RAV 4 and Venza, Ford Escape, Chevy Equinox and Dodge Journey.  "Americans drive more than Europeans and Asians," writes Jerry Flint, auto writer since 1958. "And thus it's reasonable that we want cars to be more powerful and more comfortable since we spend a lot of time in them. Larger vehicles are as a rule safer than smaller ones (another important topic on which government candour is lacking). Large vehicles carry more people, groceries and vacation stuff. What good does it do to move people into subcompacts if that kills carpooling? Cars will get smaller. How well they sell is another question." Flint also notes the up to $10,000 (U.S.) higher cost for going from gasoline to hybrid version of same vehicle (you're buying a car with two engines, after all; only plug-ins are all-electric) - one reason Honda's Insight, its smallest hybrid, sold just 16,000 cars YTD, about half what Honda expected.  

SNOOKERED | Travel website names ROM "Crystal" among world's 10 ugliest buildings. Joins "Beehive" in Wellington, N.Z. and Paris' Center Georges Pompidou. ROM head William Thorsell sold board and donors on what turned out to be inferior knock-off of celebrity architect Daniel Libeskind's own recent addition to the Denver Art Museum, which actually is mostly glass. For engineering and cost reasons, ROM "Crystal" is just a few strips of glass on metal cladding that has the allure of a construction-site outbuilding. Libeskind is pictured below in Denver; his ROM monstrosity at Inright.

  

INDIA LABOUR WOES | "Social contract," strong unions and GDP slump bring rampant labour unrest. Has sometimes turned to violence as strikes up 48% over last year at factories attempting layoffs, which go against Indian culture. Foreign employers hit by labour disruptions this year include Nestle, Nokia, Honda and Hyundai Motor.

CANDY WAR | Nestle joins Hershey, Ferrero and Kraft in pondering takeover bid for Cadbury. Kraft bid is hostile but would have easiest time with regulators. Nestle might try to play white knight. But candy giant Nestle (Kit Kat, Aero, Coffee Crisp, Smarties) would be forced to shed some of its own and Cadbury's brands to satisfy EU anti-trust authorities, maybe Canadian and American, as well.

CARCASS PICKED CLEAN | Ciena to pay bargain $769 million (U.S.) for core Nortel assets. Former pipsqueak rival to Nortel beats out bid by Nokia Siemens for bankrupt Nortel's optical networking and carrier ethernet business. Nortel once had a market cap north of $200 billion (U.S.). This one is up there with the Avro Arrow as a Canadian industrial tragedy.

Kate Moss in promotion shot for her Topshop collection. 

KATE MOSS GIVES COMFORT TO "PRO-ANOREXIC" MOVEMENT | Being a waif trumps eating. Moss endorsement last week of anorexics' motto raises new questions about how widespread is anorexia. Incredibly, so-called "pro-anorexic" websites outnumber by 5 to 1 sites for recovering anorexics and healthy dieting.

FRAIL MAIL | U.S. Postal Service in crisis after posting $11.6 billion (U.S.) in losses 2007-09. Volume of mail carried fell 13% in fiscal 2009. USPS wants to cut employer pension contributions and drop cherished Saturday service, eliminated eons ago by much healthier Canada Post.

QUOTE OF THE DAY | "Let's make cars people want to make out in again." -Chrysler turnaround tagline, as announced at a presentation for analysts and the auto press earlier this month, reported in current Business Week. And couldn't be further from the truth, except for the gymnastically adept, since the "new Chrysler" is to be built around Fiat minicars.

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 

  

Most unnecessary photo of the week.

In a report on pap smears, CNN online assumes the position. Thanks for reminding us.

 

Bloodsuckers vs. Parasites.

Here's an interesting concept.

You're a cable company, and you don't pay for the product you sell. CTV and Global provide their signals to you free.

You're a commercial TV broadcaster, and you don't pay the cable guys to distribute your product to your audience. But alas, your main source of revenue, advertising, is falling. Your viewership has been declining for years.

So you each go to the CRTC, whining about how neither of you is paying a dime toward each other's costs.

You propose that the CRTC mandate that viewers pay a surcharge - say, $10 a month - to bolster the broadcasters' treasuries. So they can continue providing signals with which the cable guys bolster their treasuries.

That's what it comes down to. Government deciding how much you have to pay to watch "Desperate Housewives."

Never mind the cable guys pretending to be champions of the consumer by balking at paying CTV a fee for its signal. If they end up paying a fee, which is likely, they'll just pass it on to their subscribers, and retain the monopoly profits they effortless generate. And never mind the broadcasters crying poor. They don't pay distribution costs, as noted, the way Loblaw, Rona and Tim Hortons do. And the commercial broadcasters chronically under-invest in Canadian news and drama, filling prime time with U.S. "culture" like "60 Minutes" and Canadian knock-offs of "Dancing With the Stars."

But here's the stone in my shoe. The CRTC, traditionally one of the most industry-friendly "regulators" on the planet, will ultimately cave to the effort by the cable guys and the broadcasters to shake more change out of your pocket. It will, by law, force viewers to pay more for content.

There's another medium enduring exactly the same woes. It's called print.

Newspapers and magazines are also losing audience, and also starving for the advertising revenue that sustains their newsgathering operations. Except the percentage of Canadian content in your newspaper or Canadian magazine - local news, national news, even world news for those papers that employ Canadians as foreign correspondents - is in most cases much higher than on CTV or Global.

And newspapers and magazines have no regulator to force readers to pay for content. If publications raise their subscription and newsstand prices, many readers will quit them. Publications even give their content away online because every time they've tried to charge for it, again, readers quit them. And there's no higher, legal authority they can call on to ram their costs down your throats.

I guess this is where I'm a free-marketer. The market is telling broadcasters, and the cable guys who rely on them for "product," that their business model doesn't really work anymore. This will become steadily more apparent over the next few years as the revenue decline reaches crisis point.

But before it gets that bad, the CRTC will tax viewers to ensure the broadcasters' survival. That's not an option for newspapers and magazines.

So the question becomes, why are we forcing one group of media consumers to subsidize commercial broadcasters whose primary function is to pipeline U.S. culture into Canada? And not subsiziding Canadian newspapers and magazines that devote most of their efforts to employing Canadians to tell Canadian stories? The stories that CNN, Fox News and BBC Canada will never cover, except for that one day when B.C. slides into the Pacific.

Of course I'm biased, I work in print. And I hope we never have to ask the government to impose a tax on our audience. For now, at least, we'll just keep experimenting with new business models until we find one that works. In which the market, not the state, determines that we can exist in some form or another.

QuickNews, Monday, Nov. 16.

LEADERS ON TOUR | Harper in India, Obama in China. Harper acknowledges Canada's trade with emerging Indian economic superpower is embarrassingly tiny. "Between us, our combined GDP is well on the way to $4 trillion. Yet at the moment we are only doing $5 billion worth of business per year. Where we are today is not where we ought to be." Obama, in Iowa-style town hall in Shanghai, describes liberating wonders of the Internet, a hint at Beijing repression he'd rather not dwell on tomorrow in tete-et-tete with Chinese president Hu Jintao, where the topic will be the debilitating trade imbalance between the U.S. and China. Paul Krugman convincingly explains once again here how China's artificially depressed currency effectively steals jobs from rest of world. Meanwhile, China has detained activists to squelch criticism prior to Obama's arrival.

  
 
Harper hails India as "South Asian tiger" in address to Mumbai business audience. (Photo: Rafiq Maqbool, AP.) Obama town hall with students in Shanghai. (Saul Loeb, AFP.)

APOLOGIES | Britain and Australia apologize for deportation, mistreatment of "Home children." Practice begun in 19th century, extending into 1900s, saw thousands of British orphans, runaways and other troubled children sent to Canada, Australia and other existing and former U.K. colonies, where often they were abused and used as slaves, including on Canadian farms.

GM COMEBACK | Troubled giant's 3Q losses lower than expected. CEO Fritz Henderson vows GM to begin paying back loans from Washington, Ottawa and Queen's Park as early as December.

AFGHAN QUAGMIRE | Canadian military leader insists progress being made. Arrival of Obama's extra troops, mostly deployed in treacherous south where Canadian forces are, has enabled Canadians to focus on smaller region of Kandahar, establish more intimate and humanitarian relations with Afghan civilians.

 
P.R. BONANZA | Canada's space clown got vastly more media coverage than Afghan mission. Cirque de Soleil cofounder brags that media survey shows his stunt generated 23 times more international press attention than Canada's Afghan mission. In return for the $35-million (U.S.) cost of his space trip, Guy Laliberte figures he generated $592 million (Cdn.) worth of publicity. Guy's red clown nose was key, marketing expert says.

LOOSE GERMS | Canadian labs have poor control over viruses in storage. Auditor calls for enhanced monitoring of inventories of potentially harmful bacteria and other compounds at federal labs across the country.

HOMELESS | Nicolas Cage joins expected 2 million Americans who will lose homes to foreclosure. Actor's financial woes known for some time, he loses two New Orleans residences in auction. Between 2008 and hoped-for stabilization of U.S. housing market by next year, estimated two million American families will have lost their homes to foreclosure.

CANADIANS REJECTING WILDERNESS | Attendance down even at most famous parks. Parks Canada says even Banff, Jasper, Cabot Trail see decline in visitors. "The population of Canada has become very urban," says Gloria Keyes-Brady, a Parks Canada tourism specialist. "A few decades ago people would go camping with their parents. That is not the trend anymore." Not enough cellphone towers, is my guess, or WiFi connections.

QUOTE OF THE DAY | "We're entitled to it." -Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens, on why U.S. companies deserve first bids on Iraqi oil plays, arguing for compensation for unprovoked U.S. war of choice on sovereign Iraq that claimed more than 4,000 U.S. soldiers' lives. So the estimated 200,000 Iraqi civilians killed in this needless war, to what are they entitled?

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 

I solemnly swear...

The Globe recently, and usefully, ran some oaths of ethical conduct now taken by business students at Harvard, the Ivey school in London, Ont. and so on.

This is a topic ripe for ridicule, of course. But the initiative is worthwhile, no less than the introduction of mandatory ethics studies at MBA mills about which I wrote in my first book, on corporate ethics, back when the Earth was still cooling.

Have a read of these oaths, and the above-average commentary that follows. My only fault with them is length. Americans like to codify things; Brits prefer a principles-based approach. We're somewhere in between. The trouble with rules, as the Americans discover over and over, is that the imposition of one is immediate cause by some to find the invariably present loopholes.

That's why the succinct oaths work best. For caregivers, it's "First, do no harm." Sir William Osler embellished that a bit with the sage, "Treat the patient, not the disease." That is, spend the time to observe carefully the patient, his body language, attitudes, changes in mood from day to day.

And for all of us, of course, it's the Golden Rule, to be found in variations in all the founding documents of all major world religions, from the Koran to the Torah to the King James version of the Bible. You can't beat the Golden Rule as both a starting and end-point in decision-making. Would I want to be treated like this? That's the general principle, to which I'd add the more strategic "First, do no harm."

The epidemic of white-collar self-interested recklessnesses that accounts for the current tens of millions of unemployed around the world today began with the mortgage broker in Tulsa who talked a young family into financing a house they couldn't afford. Would you do that to yourself? And the banks that endangered each other and thus the entire global system by playing hot potato with $250-billion packages of those same sure-to-sour loans were either had not thought of, or didn't care to dwell on, the consequences. If the trader at Bank of America took seriously the admonition to "First, do no harm," she would have chosen differently than to fob off the toxic assets to Deutsche Bank, en route to HSBC and thence to Switzerland's UBS, which alone took more than $40-billion (U.S.) plus in writeoffs on mortgages issued to income-challenged buyers of new, $450,000 split-levels in Santa Barbara.

It's worth noting that such personal commitments to the highest ethical standards do, or should, apply to regulators, as well. No less than the bankers, or any group of businesspeople overcome by a fleeting euphoria, they give in to peer pressure and dicta from on high - from politicans and lobbyists - to let this particular outrage pass. And the next one. Until collateralized debt obligations - "weapons of mass wealth destruction," as Buffett calls them - become the new norm.

As far as I know, only Richard Clarke, the U.S. counter-terrorism chief in the Clinton and early Bush era, apologized to the American people, in his introductory remarks in Congressional testimony, for failing to anticipate the events of 9/11. ("We let you down. Your government failed you.")

We've yet to hear an apology from any banker over events triggering the worst downturn in 70 years, and the first truly global one. Or from any regulator - and pretty much every one of them failed, also, from the Federal Reserve Board to the Securities and Exchange Commission to the exotic regulator that had only Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to oversee, and managed to be so thoroughly "captured" by the regulated that it bungled as well. No apologies from the lobbyist-influenced Congressional oversight committees, either.

Maybe they're all waiting for someone to go first. Well, I have, as financial journalist who didn't see the epic catastrophe on the horizon, and warn about it. So Phil Gramm, Alan Greenspan, Chris Cox, Stan O'Neal, Chuck Prince, et al, anytime now. We already think the worst of you. An apology could only help your reputations.

QuickNews, Thursday, Nov. 5.

 
Yankees take World Series championship over Phillies in six games. Photo: Chang W. Lee, NYT.

PINSTRIPES IN PARADISE | Yankees win 27th championship, after nine-year drought. Team solidifies its lead among N.A.'s big four professional sports in championships, having eclipsed les Canadiens some years ago. The Yankee talent doesn't end with Mariano Rivera (above, holding trophy), a future Hall-of-Famer, but he showed once again in this Phillies series why he's one of the best closers the game's ever seen.

U.S. RECOVERY PUSH CONTINUES | Congress and Fed promoting conditions for turnaround. Day after drubbing in special elections, Congressinal Dems brush setback off their shoulders and extend jobless benefits and homebuyer assistance program that has been putting a floor under plunging home valuations. Emergency business-as-usual at Fed, as well, which says recent GDP recovery - which comes earlier than expected, due to Obama stimulus, middle-class tax cuts, cash for clunkers and other jolts - not sufficient reason to start raising interest rates yet, as Australia alone has twice done in recent months.

G.O.P. SURGE AFTERMATH | Dems, long expecting Tuesday's reversals, carry on with reforms. NYT op-ed on why Dems should relax, and lively roundtable among Dems and Republicans on meaning, if any, from contests with low voter turnouts. Gail Collins, gem among NYT political columnists, has bang-on reality check here: "In Ohio, citizens marched to the polls on Tuesday and voted to allow gambling casinos in the state. This was obviously a message to President Obama that independent voters are not happy with the way the health care bill is going."

ANIMAL QUANDARY | Animals, for pets or meat. Americans spend about $40 billion (U.S.) a year on their pets. They also eat each year some 35 million cows, 150 million pigs, and nine billion birds. A New Yorker inquiry into the impulse for, and resistence to, vegetarianism.

GET A GRIP | We're over-reacting to flu-shot impatience, Globe's ace medical reporter, Andre Picard, asserts. U.S. also is running short of seasonal flu shots.

CHRYSLER'S BIG SHEW | After eight hours yesterday of extolling turnaround plan, Fiat-led company remains unconvincing it can survive. In short, the plan is to double volume (!) in two years, return to profitability in 2011 - something even the much healthier Ford isn't forecasting - and then do an IPO. And I'm the queen of Romania, as Dorothy Parker said. Sketchy implications for Brampton and Windsor here. 

MSM TURNAROUND | Murdoch, Time Warner and Viacom reporting better numbers. But, alas, improved fortunes are deriving from their Hollywood studios (20th-Century Fox, Warner Bros. and Paramount Pictures, respectively) and traditional network TV, not from print ops, which continue to languish in epic ad drought.

PROFITS BAROMETER | Bellwethers Toyota and Cisco see faster-than-expected turnarounds. Toyota, world's largest automaker, backs away a bit from earlier forecast of $2 billion (U.S.) in projected losses this year and next. Cisco signals tech-sector revival with strengthened order book.

LET'S GET SERIOUS | Kevin Page makes case for decent funding of Parliamentary budget office. It was a ballsy, prescient Page who this year alone served the public well with two major initiatives, disputing the Tories' over-optimistic projections of economic recovery, then exposing dubious uses of the federal stimulus program. Yet Page (left) is not assured of receiving his department's meagre $2.8-million budget. Here's one aspect of governance where the U.S. is far superior to us. Since its creation in 1974, the Congressional Budget Office - independent of the executive branch, as Page is autonomous of Harper - has vetted all proposed legislation for fiscal sanity. (It's currently costing the proposed healthcare reforms). With a budget this year of $44.1 million (U.S.) and a staff of 235 (to Page's 15 permanent staff), the CBO is the respected source, on both sides of the aisle, for honest accounting of government expenditure and efficacy of programs. Page is right: Dispense with his hopelessly under-resourced office, or fund it adequately to be a source of facts independent of the government.

ALBERTA BLUES | IEA next Tuesday will forecast global natural gas glut. International Energy Agency expects excess of supply to be of long duration. Alberta derives most of its resource royalties from gas, not oil.

IGGY WIMPS OUT AGAIN | Won't force his caucus to vote against killing the gun registry. Says he respects the views of Grits whose party created the registry but, hailing from rural districts, hate it as much as rural Tories. Reality is Iggy seeking to avoid yet another bout of caucus turmoil. There are principled cases to be made for and against a registry (you can tell where I stand), but Iggy won't be making one. Meanwhile, like most police chiefs, Toronto's William Blair, citing usefulness to police of registry, argues why dismantling it is a terrible idea.

 

IRAN DISSIDENTS | Anti-government protests take place alongside government-staged anti-U.S. celebrations (above) of 30th anniversary of Shah's ouster. As with dissidents' protests earlier this year over flawed elections, Wednesday's champions of free speech in Tehran are put down by police with tear gas and beatings. To repeat, this complex nation is not to be bullied over nukes or support of anti-Israel terrorist groups. That only unifies support for government, since attacks on it are perceived by Iranians as attacks on their country. By now there are getting to be too many Iranians deeply disatisfied with the status quo - the mullahs have for three decades failed to deliver anything approaching prosperity - that the wise course is patience as the theocracy gradually self destructs.

WE WANT MAGNA! | Protests erupt among European politicans and labour leaders over GM's volte face in deciding not to sell Opel-Vauxhall to Magna-led consortium. This won't change the decision, just make GM's effort to extract the same European government subsidies pledged to Magna all the more difficult, and ensure fractious labour relations at Opel and Vauxhall plants in five nations.

AFGHAN QUAGMIRE | It gets worse. UN evacuates hundreds of staff after last week's attacks. Meanwhile, Afghan policeman kills five British troops in Hellmand. Turns out he defected to Taliban. A key to our Western mission, recall, is arming and training an Afghan army and a police force. Then they turn the weapons we gave them on us and engage in local banditry, especially the notoriously corrupt police.  

IF YOU FAIL AS A CORPORATE CEO, THERE'S ALWAYS POLITICS | Fiorina's bid for the U.S. Senate. LA Times columnist lays into Carly, fired from Hewlett-Packard, later a McCain advisor, as underqualified to represent the Golden State in Washington. "The most cherished American credo is that anyone can grow up and run for high office. Carly Fiorina’s candidacy for the U.S. Senate, which she formally announced Wednesday, will put this notion to the test. Specifically: Can someone who has spent the last few years running from her checkered record as a big-business CEO, shown so little interest in politics that she consistently failed to vote and has at best a tenuous grasp of such major issues as healthcare reform prevail in a statewide California election?" It's a point worth making. Cheney hadn't bothered to vote for years, either, before veephood, and he too was a failed CEO (Halliburton).

BAGGED | Police nab couple who stole "up to" 1,000 pieces of luggage from Phoenix airport. Your Homeland Security dollars at work.

WHO KNEW? | Mickey Mouse has a darker side, to be revealed in video game released 2010. Desperate measures called for at Walt Disney Co., whose studio and theme parks are faltering.

QUOTE OF THE DAY | "He is too illiterate, unread, unlearned for his station and reputation." -John Adams, future second U.S. president, on then-president George Washington. The first father-son presidential team, of John and John Quincy Adams, turned out to be a failure, as did the second, G.H.W. and George W. Bush. A useful reminder that even the most revered U.S. statesmen have been found wanting, generally by folks who couldn't tell one end of an elephant from the other.  

 

Courtesy The New Yorker, Oct. 26 edition.

QuickNews, Wednesday, Nov. 4.

G.O.P. ELECTORAL SURGE A REBUKE TO OBAMA? NOT REALLY.

G.O.P. RECLAIMS GOVERNORS' MANSIONS IN RED VIRGINIA AND BLUE NEW JERSEY.

BUT ULTRA-CONSERVATIVES LOSE KEY NEW YORK CONGRESSIONAL RACE.

 

FLEETING SETBACK FOR WHITE HOUSE | Reform agenda will be assailed as too radical. But combination of low voter turnout, which always favours G.O.P.; continued strong popularity of Obama in both Virginia and New Jersey according to exit polls; and continued high U.S. public approval of both Obama and health-care reforms in national polling suggest yesterday's results hold less meaning than punditocracy will claim. A truism asserts itself: In rotten economy, no president has coattails. Then again, WH help in closely watched NY 23rd did force defeat of Limbaugh-Palin-Gingrich-backed candidate in solidly red Congressional district bordering Ontario, padding Dem majority in House. Dowd rips "narcissist" Rush.

STRONACH'S DREAM DIES | In reversal, GM will keep Opel-Vauxhall rather than sell to Magna. This was a deal I didn't think would get done, as you know, or was in Magna's best interests. Stronach-led consortium was erstwhile tool-and-die maker's bid to be first auto-parts maker to "graduate" to full-fledged automaker. GM has relied on Opel-engineered platforms for its bestselling Chevrolet Malibu and its Buick LaCrosse, and the forthcoming Chev Cruze compact on which its small-car progress is pinned. Aborted deal is likely a blessing for Stronach, 76, who was thankful to have lost earlier bid for future bankruptcy candidate Chrysler. GM Europe has lost more than $6 billion (U.S.) since 2000, $1.6 billion (U.S.) last year alone. Magna, with no expertise marketing cars, can now focus on cherry-picking rival auto-parts firms driven to the wall in epic global auto downturn. Opel's pro-Magna workers are angry at GM's volte face. So is Berlin, which heavily backed Magna in months'-long negotiations. 

BUFFETT'S BIG BET ON RAIL | Pays $26 billion (U.S.) for BNSF, U.S.'s largest railroad. Deal, Buffett's biggest ever, seen as vote of confidence in U.S. economy. It's certainly a vote on coal, of which BNSF is a leading shipper. Which says Warren thinks soaring demand by electric cars for coal-generated power - now accounting for half of U.S. electricity - will trump efforts to displace the prime climate-change culprit with alternative energy sources at least in medium term. Given Herculean task of that conversion, he's probably right. Still, 18% premium for Old Economy firm is, by Buffett's admission, rather exuberant. “I stretched on this one," Buffett said yesterday. “I went to the last nickel.” Recall that a rueful Buffett overpaid for his second-largest acquistion, General Re. NYT panel debates merits of deal here.

Latest addition to Berkshire Hathaway portfolio of 80-odd companies, running the gamut from See's Candies and the Buffalo News to Fruit of the Loom and Benjamin Moore paints, is Burlington Northern Santa Fe, largest of the four railroads that dominate the U.S. industry. Photo by Justin Sullivan, Getty Images.
 

AUDITOR GENERAL TEARS STRIP OFF HARPER | Ottawa ill-prepared for pandemics and other national emergencies, Sheila Fraser says in latest annual report. But A-G gives passing grades to federal eHealth initiative, which has fallen under suspicion after Ontario eHealth debacle.

OBITUARY | Claude Levi-Strauss, acclaimed anthopologist, dies at 100. His studies of indigenous-people's culture in Western Hemisphere redefined academics' methodology worldwide, and The Naked Man and other seminal books first popularized the study of man's origins and evolution. “People realize he is one of the great intellectual heroes of the 20th century,” Philippe Descola, chairman of anthropology at Collège de France, told NYT on centenary of Levi-Strauss' birth earlier this year, which was celebrated in at least 25 countries.

The young Claude Levi-Strauss during a Brazilian research project. Photo: Apic, Getty Images.
 

PENDING AUTO BOOM? | Most automakers post U.S. sales gains in October. This despite end of "cash for clunkers" federal rebate scheme in August; a near-12% drop in automaker incentives from September; and 15 million Americans unemployed. Ridiculed in some quarters, Obama's "cash for clunkers" program not only jolted sales over the summer, but has got Americans back into buying mood or at least visiting showrooms. Yet the more robust October sales translate into annualized rate of a mere 10.5 million units, almost half the record level earlier this decade. Which suggests a huge upside potential in sales over next two to three years as pent-up demand grows. October results for all automakers here. 

Sergio Marchionne, Toronto-trained accountant who now heads both Fiat SpA and Chrysler, aims to dazzle industry analysts today at Chrysler's Auburn Hills, Mich. headquarters with long-awaited details of Chrysler turnaround plan. But there's no disguising fact that Fiat, which invested $0 to acquire its Chrysler stake and pledges not to inject a single euro in the crippled Chrysler, is using the #3 U.S.-based automaker as a mere sales agent for an ailing Fiat's second crack at the N.A. market for its own line-up, with little interest in (or available cash for) the costly task of rejuvenating Chrysler's models. 

GOOD LUCK WITH THAT | Fiat unveils five-year plan for Chrysler in Detroit today. Will replace slow-selling Chrysler models with more fuel-efficient Fiats. Also plans reintroducing Alfa Romeo to N.A. I still think real solution to Chrysler is to shoot it. This deal seems no less looney to me than it did in April (here and here) or May. Chrysler's 2009 volume will be half previous year's. Its market share has dived to 7.9% in October from 11.3% the year previous. In flat October for most makers, Chrysler sales plummeted 30%. As new operator, Fiat vows not to put a dime of its own into Chrysler - just as well, since "saviour" Fiat itself is losing a tonne of money. Crux for Chrysler is stale product line. Only newly engineered cars incorporate latest fuel efficiency and other must-have features - and a new model takes about four years to develop. Under Daimler ownership, Chrysler's engineering and R&D were gutted. When Chrysler next hits the wall, there won't be an encore to Canada/U.S. $12.5-billion (U.S.) bailout. The Fiats that Turin will sell in N.A. will be made in Europe or assembled in Mexico, so there are few American jobs being saved, much less created in this deal. The arrangment basically transforms Chrysler into a glorified distribution arm for Fiat's second effort to crack N.A. with Fiat-badged cars. And Fiat's models today are just as pug-ugly and breakdown-prone as the ones Americans rejected when Fiat was chased out of the N.A. market in the 1980s.

AND WE LOVED HER | Queen Mum loved Canada, author of new official bio says. Love affair began with first Canadian tour by a sitting monarch, King George VI, in 1939. That visit prompted Ontario officials to name country's first controlled-access road for the royal consort - and the Queen Elizabeth Way has been fondly known as the QEW ever since. (An impressive obelisk near foot of Humber River marks QEW's western terminus, and the first of about 15 visits to Toronto by the Queen Mother.) "Canada became her favourite country in the world after Britain," says William Shawcross, author of 1,120-page Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother: The Official Biography. For me, the Queen Mum is unforgettable for her response when asked if she would be sending her children to safe haven abroad at the dawn of the world war that came just months after she unveiled that obelisk. She said, in effect: I must be wherever the children are, and I cannot leave my husband. And the King is not leaving Great Britain under any circumstances. So we shall all be staying here no matter what comes.

Queen Elizabeth and King George VI at Toronto's Woodbine Race Course in May 1939. Courtesy Library and Archives Canada.

ODD CHOICE FOR OSCAR HOSTS | Steve Martin, 64, and Alec Baldwin, 51, get the nod. Yet Academy has been striving for younger TV audience for annual gala. LA Times speculates deciding factor was both men's starring roles in It's Complicated, in which they're dueling love interests for Meryl Streep. If either is touched by Oscar, it would be the first time since 1987 that an Oscar host has also been a nominee.

YUK | "Metrotextuals" new term for men who sign off text messages with a kiss (x). Practice of "bromantic" affection most prevalent among 18-24 year old males (75% in a T-Mobile survey), though 10% of men over 55 also have become metrotextuals. Strength of sentiment is expressed by multiple and upper-case "x"s. The mate girding to tap you for a quick 70 quid to cover a poker bet is apt to sign off with "XXX." Insurance worker Nick Kirkham, 25, says: "Apart from my boss or a work client, there's no one I wouldn't send a kiss on text to."

CELL USERS HUGELY DISTRACTED | Even a unicycling clown doesn't catch cell users' notice. "That cell phone really disrupts things," says Ira Hyman, psychology prof at Western Washington University, who wanted to chart distraction outside a laboratory setting. A student volunteer dressed in a clown suit unicycled for an hour across the campus's main square. In a report on passerby reaction, to be published in December in Applied Cognitive Psychology but already on the journal's website, only 25% of cellphone users reported noticing the unicycling clown, compared with 71% of cell-less people walking in pairs.

NOW THAT'S A ROOM WITH A VIEW | Space resort hotel on schedule to open in 2012. Galatic Suite Ltd. (www.galacticsuite.com), based in Barcelona, will charge $4.4 million (U.S.) for a three-night stay, including an 8-week training course on a tropical island. Guests will circle the Earth every 80 minutes. Nascent space tourism industry already includes Spaceport America of New Mexico and Richard Branson's space tours firm, Virgin Galactic, which charges a more modest $200,000 (U.S.) for an extra-terrestial ride.  

QUOTE OF THE DAY | "I've been married to one Marxist and one fascist, and neither would take the garbage out." -Lee Grant, U.S. actress.

Courtesy The New Yorker, Nov. 2 edition.