Voters in France give their highest marks to the Green Party there, says a poll done by Ipsos for Le Point. When asked how they would rate the performance of France’s political parties, 56 % of those polls ranked les Verts ‘Favourable’, the only party to receive such a rating from a majority of those polled.
Mind you, in the most recent elections held in France, in 2002, the Greens garnered just 4.5 per cent of the vote and elected three lawmakers.
Todd Hirsch, chief economist at the Canada West Foundation, argues that, if the Canadian government is looking escalate a trade war with the U.S., it could send a pretty sharp body blow to the Americans with a tariff on the very thing Americans are taxing Canadians with.
“Why not set an export tax on top of the US tariff? This would drive lumber prices up even higher and deliver a punishing blow to the pocket books of American consumers and homebuilders. The taxes collected could be redistributed back to the Canadian producers. In the mean time, the federal government could work aggressively to expand lumber exports to other markets like China, perhaps offering export credits or subsidies to spur on trade diversification.”
Here’s the latest scorecard for news programs in Canada as provided by the Bureau of Broadcast Measurement.
The following tables give the the rank of the show in the overall universe of television watching in Canada; the name of the show; and the average minute audience — an average which suggests that on any given minute during the following broadcasts over the week from August 8 to August 14, this was the number of Canadians who were watching.
National
4. CTV Evening News (M-F) (The combined viewership of dinner-hour newscasts of CTV affiliates): 1.29 million
17. Global: News at 5:30 (M-F) (The combined viewership of dinner-hour newscasts of Global affiliates): 932,000
20. CTV National News (daily): 870,000
22. CBC: The National (M-F): 834,000
25. CBC: Sunday Report (Sun): 727,000
27. CTV: Weekend News (Sat/Sun) (The combined viewership of dinner-hour newscasts of CTV affiliates): 702,000
29. Global: Global National (M-F): 672,000
Ontario
5. CTV Evening News (M-F) (The combined viewership of dinner-hour newscasts of CTV affiliates): 497,000
12. CTV National News (daily): 438,000
21. Global: News at 5:30 (M-F) (The combined viewership of dinner-hour newscasts of Global affiliates): 397,000
27. CTV: Weekend News (Sat/Sun) (The combined viewership of dinner-hour newscasts of CTV affiliates): 330,000
Toronto
10. CTV National News (daily): 250,000
17. CTV Evening News (M-F) (The combined viewership of dinner-hour newscasts of CTV affiliates): 234,000
24. Global: News at 5:30 (M-F) (The combined viewership of dinner-hour newscasts of Global affiliates): 198,000
25. CTV: Weekend News (Sat/Sun) (The combined viewership of dinner-hour newscasts of CTV affiliates): 191,000
Vancouver
1. Global: News Hour at 6 (daily): 196,000
4. Global: Global National (M-F): 167,000
9. Global: Early News at 5 (M-F): 135,000
23: CBC: The National (M-F): 90,000
29. Global: News Hour Final at 11 (Daily): 79,000
On a hot Friday in mid-August, the RCMP says that the L'affair Grewal is kaput. There will be no criminal investigation of either Conservative MP Gurmant Grewal or those senior Liberals he taped apparently offering him bribes to switch sides during the sweaty-palms days of the last confidence vote.
Tara Galishain knows a lot about finding stuff on the Web and wrote a couple of books for O'Reilly about making the most of Google and other Internet search sites.. Recently, Google unveiled a new (great) service: RSS feeds for your fave Google News search. Tara was, um, impressed:
My husband walked in as I was in the kitchen making lunch (hummus on rye and iced tea.) As I
moved around the room I did a Jules Feifferesque dance. Slow with a lot of sway-ey bendy stuff.
He watched me for a moment. “Are you all right?”
I tossed the hummus back in the fridge and pirouetted (slowly). “This is my happy dance with
lunch creation. It's a celebration of the fact that we haven't run out of hummus and the bread
isn't moldy yet. Oh, and that Google News is now offering RSS feeds.”
MP Bill Casey (Conservative – Cumberland-Colchester-Musquodoboit Valley) asked the federal government for some information about the construction of a new federal government building in Charlottetown, PEI. The feds were happy to provide it to him, provided he pay a bill of more than $20,000, the CBC reports.
Amazon.ca announced a new service that lets users search inside a variety of Canadian titles. I’ve used a similar service at the parent site and it’s a handy little tool for journalists trying to verify, perhaps, an author’s position on a given issue; to get quick short background on a topic and so on.
Some of the Canadian titles that Amazon.ca lets you search inside right now include Tree: A Life Story by David Suzuki and Wayne Grady and Fire and Ice: The United States, Canada, and the Myth of Converging Values by Michael Adams.
A tremendous initiative by a paper in Oregon: Local law enforcement officers grabbed the curbside trash of a suspect they were investigating — without a warrant or any judicial oversight. Some people — notably the editor of the local paper — thought that was wrong. So reporters from that paper went out and swiped the trash of the mayor, the police chief, and the local district attorney. Here's some excerpts from the story:
The news left a lot of Portlanders–including us–scratching our heads. Aren't there rules about this sort of thing? Aren't citizens protected from unreasonable search and seizure by the Fourth Amendment?
The Multnomah County District Attorney's Office doesn't think so. Prosecutor Mark McDonnell says that once you set your garbage out on the curb, it becomes public property.
“[The suspect] placed her garbage can out in the open, open to public view, in the public right of way,” McDonnell told Judge Jean Kerr Maurer earlier this month. “There were no signs on the garbage, 'Do not open. Do not trespass.' There was every indication…she had relinquished her privacy, possessory interest.”
Police Chief Mark Kroeker echoed this reasoning. “Most judges have the opinion that [once] trash is put out…it's trash, and abandoned in terms of privacy,” he [said].
In fact, it turns out that police officers throughout Oregon have been rummaging through people's trash for more than three decades. Portland drug cops conduct “garbage pulls” once or twice per month, says narcotics Sgt. Eric Schober.
[…snipped…]
After much debate, we resolved to turn the tables on three of our esteemed public officials. We embarked on an unauthorized sightseeing tour of their garbage, to make a point about how invasive a “garbage pull” really is–and to highlight the government's ongoing erosion of people's privacy.
[…snipped…]
After much debate, we resolved to turn the tables on three of our esteemed public officials. We embarked on an unauthorized sightseeing tour of their garbage, to make a point about how invasive a “garbage pull” really is–and to highlight the government's ongoing erosion of people's privacy.
Each, in his or her own way, has endorsed the notion that you abandon your privacy when you set your trash out on the curb. So we figured they wouldn't mind too much if we took a peek at theirs.
Boy, were we wrong . . .
[Read the full story]
Statistics Canada has just opened a re-vamped online media room. At first blush, it looks terrific.
Ipsos-Reid today reports:…
Calgary, AB – With same-sex marriage now established in law, a new Ipsos Reid poll shows that a majority (56%) of Albertans disapprove of the federal Civil Marriage Act (Bill C-38) that redefines marriage to include same-sex couples, and forces all levels of government to recognize same-sex marriages. And, despite vigorous public debate, court rulings, and now federal legislation, Albertan’s core attitudes remain in opposition to same-sex marriage