Tuesday October 07, 2008
Ford's new key system helps parents curb their teenager's driving enthusiasm
The pedal won't go to the metal on the 2010 Ford Focus and that is likely to make the parents of many teenagers happy.Parents will be able to limit their children's top speed, the volume on the car stereo - but not the bass level - and even regulate the chirping of the seat-belt monitor with a new device that Ford Motor Co. plans to make standard equipment on all of its vehicles after it debut on the Focus next year.
'It's very complicated'
Few people outside Washington have probably ever heard of Neel Kashkari. But Mr. Kashkari has just been handed one of the biggest jobs on the planet - managing the U.S. government's $700-billion (U.S.) financial rescue package.
Economic storm touches down
Conservative Leader Stephen Harper walked a fine line last night amid plunging markets, reaching out to reassure spooked investors but warning of more turmoil if his opponents win.He told the Business News Network that he doesn't see any deficit in the near future, but stopped short of ruling out the longer-term potential to slide into the red.
'A lengthy recession'
Global leaders faced stark divisions over how to tackle the spiralling financial crisis yesterday as their governments tried to come to grips with another worldwide stock market plunge and a series of body blows to currencies from Australia to Iceland.
Economic storm touches down
Conservative Leader Stephen Harper's carefully scripted campaign stumbled yesterday as he struggled to walk a fine line amid plunging markets by reassuring spooked investors - but warning of more turmoil if his opponents win.
Report on Business 
Rogers braced to weather the storm
Ted Rogers says he began warning his top executives 18 months ago, not long before storm clouds began gathering over the stock market, that ''bad times are coming.''The chief executive officer of Rogers Communications Inc. told the heads of his wireless, cable and media divisions to start raising capital before the well ran dry, and to pull back on costly acquisitions.
Oil price drop tarnishes fortunes of oil sands
Canada's oil sands companies are facing a rough ride as crude prices continue to fall, putting a squeeze on high-cost producers around the world, and the crises in credit and equities markets make it difficult to finance expansions.
Sale of CI stake lets Sun Life look south
Sun Life Financial Inc. hastily approached Bank of Nova Scotia on Friday, hammering out a weekend deal to sell its stake in CI Financial Income Fund for $2.3-billion in cash, in order to jump on opportunities coming out of the credit crunch.
Emerging markets pounded in global rout
Investors fled to the safety of U.S. Treasuries and a handful of other trusted government bonds and gold yesterday, accelerating a commodity rout driven by the global credit freeze.
Washington finds a scapegoat
Had Richard Fuld entertained any doubts about why he was invited to testify before a congressional committee yesterday, they were quickly put to rest by John Mica, a blunt-speaking Republican congressman from Florida.
Globe Sports
Schenn sticking around
The Toronto Maple Leafs were given a 24-hour respite after an arduous stretch of five exhibition games in seven days, but interim general manager Cliff Fletcher put in a full day at the office.
Argos, Bombers in must-win situation
As must-wins go, the 15th game of the Toronto Argonauts' season fits the usual criteria, except for being a crisis.In the CFL, having only four wins in the first 14 games doesn't kill Toronto's playoff hopes, not when the Winnipeg Blue Bombers hold down second place in the East Division with only five wins.
Former CFL pivots turn Buffalo around
Danny Barrett was leaving the American football coaches convention in the winter of 2007 when he crossed paths with another former CFL quarterback with whom he'd briefly shaken hands when both were playing in Canada during the 1980s.
The C still has plenty of shine
A handful of NHL clubs will begin the 2008-09 season without a captain.Does this mean the time-honoured hockey tradition of displaying the C on a jersey has lost its lustre? Not according to coaches and managers, who believe having a captain or true leader is as important as ever.
O'Neal an exhibition centrepiece
Jermaine O'Neal talks a good exhibition game, but even his coach doesn't necessarily believe him.The Toronto Raptors will open their seven-game NBA exhibition schedule against the Cavaliers in Cleveland tonight. And while exhibition games are just that, there will be some onlookers curious about what O'Neal - the most significant trade acquisition in franchise history - brings when he takes the floor for the first time.
Globe Life
YOUR MORNING SMILE
My social life is so slow I thought I already was on the Do Not Call List.- Jerry Kitich, Hamilton
My Do Not Call List includes crisis junkies and late-night chatters
There's a lineup to get on the new Do Not Call List, which is supposed to free us forever from those ubiquitous it's-the-supper-hour-so-it-must-be-the-perfect-time-to-disturb-you telemarketers.
Study warns of the darker side of tanning
The tanning bed industry is failing to warn consumers about the potential health risks of artificial tanning and doesn't seem to prevent young teens from using them, despite warnings from Health Canada, according to a study released today by the Canadian Cancer Society.
Hey, Junior: It's cool (and safe) to pump iron
Most days, the parking lot outside the Twist Conditioning gym in North Vancouver is the sports equivalent of a Hollywood red carpet.Over the years, the gym's namesake has trained the likes of hockey stars Mark Messier, Pavel Bure and Markus Naslund and retired basketball star Hakeem Olajuwon.
Protecting the future of your RESPs
Registered education savings plans are all about helping kids get a post-secondary education. But it's the parents who buy them who are being taken to school by the plunging stock market.
Globe Review
Turning a blind eye on fate
Irony can be as cruel as intentions, as David Levine has discovered.At 81, his stature as the most highly regarded caricaturist in the world is secure, thanks to multiple, decades-spanning appearances in The New Yorker, Esquire, Playboy, Time, Vanity Fair (which includes a portfolio of some of his illustrations in its November issue) and, most famously, The New York Review of Books, with whom he has been associated virtually from its start in 1963.
The truth of Locklear's lonely, frightened face
Celebrity mug shots, many of them carefully curated on the Smoking Gun website, are rarely distressing to see. The stars in question invariably smirk, outright laugh or look so trashed that they end up looking far more human, and likeable, than they do in publicity stills.
The worst show on TV? Let me tell you ...
Today: Your questions answered.Q. Doyle, you were sounding a bit grim in yesterday's column. What's up with the gloom?A. Dude (can I call you dude?), I barely slept after watching the federal election leaders debate, then the U.S. vice-presidential candidates debate, because I am of a nervous disposition, I had a headache and, next, I happened to see the list of contestants on the upcoming Celebrity Apprentice. They include Claudia Jordan, who is a Deal or No Deal briefcase model, Canadian comedian-thingy Tom Green, Melissa Rivers, Joan Rivers and Andrew Dice Clay. That just iced it.
Polegato proves himself a superb, seductive Don
MOZART: DON GIOVANNICanadian Opera CompanyBrett Polegato, baritoneWilliam Lacey, conductorAt the Four Seasons Centre in Toronto on SundayThe Canadian Opera Company opened its fall season uncharacteristically with a Sunday matinee. The opera was the great Mozart-Da Ponte Don Giovanni in a revival of the COC's 2000 production. I had not seen that production, but if it was as good then as it is now, there was every reason to revive it.
Tucking in to an omnivore's smorgasbord of sound
POP MONTREALAt various venuesin Montreal on the weekendWhat event in the world, let alone in Canada, would bring hundreds of youthful indie-rock fans (and their parents) to an ornate church to sway and swoon to medleys of hits by 80-year-old maestro Burt Bacharach, and later the same night, find many of those same people lining up to view a vintage gay-sex movie in a skin-flick house where a live band matches ''money shots'' with double-entendre choices of 1950s chestnuts such as Sea of Love?
Editorials
Victory need not be total
The reported remarks of Britain's top commander in Afghanistan should not be taken as defeatism, but as an opportunity to clarify the West's war aims. It is important to be clear on what Brigadier Mark Carleton-Smith said. He did not say Britain, Canada, the United States and the rest of the NATO and non-NATO countries fighting in Afghanistan should withdraw, or that a secure Afghanistan is no longer vitally important to the West. He told the Sunday Times, ''We're not going to win this war. It's about reducing it to a manageable level of insurgency that's not a strategic threat and can be managed by the Afghan army.'' That is hardly a surprising statement after nearly seven years of fighting Taliban insurgents, with no end in sight.
It's the economy, now
With little more than a week to go in the federal election, the man likeliest to lead the next government has finally seen fit to address the most pressing issue facing the country. It is encouraging that Conservative Leader Stephen Harper has acknowledged the economic uncertainty that has Canadians fearing for their investments, jobs and homes. But it is curious that it took him this long.
The masses like the arts
In justifying the $45-million in cuts to grants for artists his government announced just before the election, Stephen Harper has repeatedly stressed his concern for the sensibilities of a notional everyman. He said last month that ''ordinary working people'' were unconcerned by the elimination of grants. He also complained that unchecked subsidies could encourage ''creators or producers who are entirely cut off from public need or public demand.''
Comment
How conservative are Canadians?
Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his team have expressed the desire to move Canada in an incrementally more conservative direction through successive Conservative governments. Although opinions and expectations differ on where exactly Mr. Harper is headed, in anticipating scenarios for the future it's valuable to consider the political orientations of the country he leads today. As of 2008, how conservative are Canadians - and where might they be nudged to the right?
Quebec's young Liberals thrown to the wolves
Marcos Simard turned 21 yesterday. A bright, engaging young man, he is dressed in a dark suit and patterned tie, chatting with a composure that belies his youth, in a room with one telephone, one computer and black-and-white pamphlets that look like they were run off on a stencil machine.
I could use a liquidity injection
Stephen Harper's reaction to the world financial meltdown reminds me of a cop at the scene of a monumental crack-up. ''Move it right along, folks. Nothing to see here.''
Beijing still wants to control this milk delivery
While the United States and now Europe are acting to rescue distressed financial institutions, it's interesting to note that Chinese authorities are offering a hand to companies caught in the contaminated milk scandal.
Obituaries
The 'Henry Kissinger of hockey' smoothed the way for Summit series
On ice, hockey player Aggie Kukulowicz was a giant of a man who punished his opponents with ease. Off ice, he was a gregarious man who made everyone feel like his best friend.
ROSS PURSE
Cyril Greenland of Toronto writes about Ross Purse, whose obituary appeared Sept. 26.In 1974, as a professor of social work at McMaster University, I was commissioned by Ross Purse, then managing director of the CNIB, to study and report on the needs of blind Canadians. Ross assured me that I would have a free hand and that there would be no restrictions on access to documents, staff nor to the release of our findings.
TED BRIGGS: 85
Ted Briggs, the last survivor of the Second World War sinking of British battle cruiser HMS Hood, died Saturday in a hospital. He was 85.In late May, 1941, he was one of only three seamen among the crew of more than 1,000 to survive the attack by the German battleship Bismarck in the Denmark Strait.
ALLEN KELLY: 105
Allen Kelly, who performed at every Miramichi Folk Song Festival since the event's inception 51 years ago, died Wednesday. He was 105.Theresa Holmes, his daughter, had been taking care of him for the last 18 years. She said he was always singing around the house. ''He would sing every day, right up to a couple months before he got sick. He was even playing his mouth organ.''
LAST WORDS
Dear, this is the hardest bloody part I've ever played.Eithne Dunne, actress, 1917-1988
Globe Real Estate
Developers struggle to secure financing
This summer, Michael Gold, developer of a much-hyped condo project in downtown Toronto, realized he was facing a problem.Just eight months after frenzied buyers lined up for days to buy units of the $450-million luxury skyscraper to be erected at the corner of Yonge and Bloor Streets, the global credit and U.S. subprime mortgage crises tightened their grip.
A real-estate gold mine loses lustre in nasty times
Add one more to the list of worthy initiatives bushwhacked by vengeful real-estate reality. Could there be a less auspicious time to launch a powerful new public corporation with a mandate to ''unlock value'' in city-owned real estate?
Possible property-tax spike in sight
A possible property-tax increase of between 2 and 4 per cent looms next year for Toronto residents, Mayor David Miller said yesterday, even with city departments and agencies told to hold the line on spending for 2009.
Mortgage discounts evaporate
The latest victims of the growing financial crisis could be the standard discount available to consumers on variable mortgages, and home equity loans at prime. In a move expected to be followed by other banks, all of which have been stung by higher funding costs, TD Canada Trust is raising rates on both types of loans, effective Oct. 7.
REIT watch*
Science
World mammals on the brink, study finds
The most exhaustive study every undertaken on the future of mammals, the broad family of animals to which humans belong, has found that more than a third of all marine species and a quarter of those living on land are at risk of extinction.
Education
HPV vaccine ruled out in Catholic school division
A Catholic school division in southern Alberta says it won't be offering the HPV vaccine that protects girls from a virus that causes cervical cancer.The Holy Spirit Catholic School Division in Lethbridge has rescinded a motion that would have allowed the vaccine to be given to Grade 5 girls.
