The Canadian House of Commons Ethics Committee delivered the best possible holiday gift to the people of Canada as it closed down for the House’s seasonal vacation at the end of this past week. For the moment at least, our peace and goodwill will not be further distracted by any more sordid revelations about Brian […]
If a diplomat is a man (or nowadays woman of course) who lies abroad for his or her country, what can a presidential press secretary in Washington DC possibly be? In any case, for a few moments this week it seemed that, as an article in the Nation proposed, former George W. Bush press secretary […]
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 2007 [UPDATED NOVEMBER 8]. The Canadian dollar touched somewhat more than $1.07 US in international money market trading yesterday – said to be its highest value since the late 19th century. (It has since gone as high as $1.10, and then back to the $1.07 range.) But that’s just the half of it. […]
Whatever else, the current generation of Montreal (and Vancouver?) Trudeaus have a keen sense of timing. (And timing, grandfather Pierre once pronounced, is everything in politics.) As the Edmonton Journal has explained: “Justin Trudeau became a father shortly after noon Thursday [October 18, 2007] when his wife Sophie Gregoire gave birth to … Xavier James […]
TORONTO, SEPTEMBER 11, 2007. “This year’s 9/11 video from Al Qaeda,” we learn from the New York Times, “seemed to be intended for the Americans the group attacked six years ago: it features English subtitles and an introduction by Osama bin Laden.” What we all know now that we didn’t quite know then is that […]
“Before 1914,” the historian John Lukacs wrote in his provocative 1984 book Outgrowing Democracy: A History of the United States in the Twentieth Century, “the most renowned international currency was the British pound, and the financial capital city of the world was London; by 1918 the dollar replaced the pound, and New York, London.” Rumours […]
The ho-hum quality of the 2007 annual meeting of the leaders of the United States, Mexico, and Canada – held this year “in a massive cedar log chateau” at Montebello, Quebec – was nicely summarized in headlines from the three leading US newspapers of record. According to the New York Times, e.g., there were “No […]
The summering partners of the counterweights editors up here in Canada have just emailed a bizarre new theory about the near-term future of American politics. They say they arrived at their propositions after a tough mid August 2007 evening, watching MSNBC TV. But, it turns out, no less than Newt Gingrich had already started the […]
Even in Canada the rising great mess in the Middle East is the focal point of the summer this year. And for Canadians especially it is not just Iraq – it’s Afghanistan and now Pakistan too. Meanwhile, Stephen Harper is on the road in the Western Hemisphere (Colombia, Chile, Barbados, and Haiti). And a somewhat […]
Friday, July 13, 2007 turns out an unlucky day for the fallen media baron Conrad Black, who used to be a Canadian citizen but gave that up to become a British lord. A US jury in Chicago has finally found him guilty on four of 13 white-collar-crime charges. That might sound not too bad, all […]
