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Vancouver tells junkies to shoot up indoors

Another only in Vancouver story. Police are receiving flak from the city's uber-liberal denizens after announcing plans to begin arresting drug users who shoot up in public places, in an effort to clean up the down-and-out Downtown Eastside, where an estimated 30 percent of residents are injection drug users and 35 percent are HIV-positive.

One doctor who treats the city's addicts told CBC that open drug use has become deeply ingrained in the culture of Vancouver's addicts.

Another person with close ties to the neighbourhood and its woes regaled the press with a story of a community volunteer who once stumbled upon one heckler of an addict -- as if that is hard to do: "The woman was stretched out on the steps and she was shooting a needle into her neck. When the volunteer complained, she lashed out at her -- how dare she interfere with her when she just managed to get this needle in the right position to inject?"   

Posted by Sebastian / Vancouver / November 30, 2005 /

Rethinking same-sex marriage

On day one of the national election campaign, Conservative leader Stephen Harper vowed to reopen the debate on same-sex marriage, or as the Toronto Star so cleverly puts it in this headline, "Harper tackles same-sex." He said he will challenge the redefinition of marriage if he become prime minister after the January 23 election, attempting to overturn the summer ruling that paved the way for marriage equality.

Belinda Stronach, the fabulously wealthy MP who left the Conservatives for the Liberals last year, said of Harper's comments: "I think it's just plain wrong. How can one class of citizen be more equal than another? Honestly, I think voters have moved past this issue. Parliament already dealt with that." 

Posted by Sebastian / Election 2006 / Gay Marriage / November 30, 2005 /

Controversy follows Harvard prof's bid for Parliament

I wasn't going to go on and on about Michael Ignatieff, the Harvard intellectual who has announced plans to run for Canadian Parliament, but I've been getting a fair amount of email about him so I'll expand a bit on my post from Monday. To start, I will just tell you that he still cannot spell "Ottowa" correctly. So while this could have been rectified with a few keystrokes before anyone else found out about it, my little find has been immortalized in the blogosphere as more and more people mention this minor little fact on their sites.

Ignatieff has lived outside Canada since graduating from the University of Toronto 30 years ago, so it is no surprise he has attracted a lot of criticism for ditching academia and suddenly proclaiming his candidacy for federal office.

There is widespread speculation that he is being groomed to take over Paul Martin's job as leader of the Liberal Party. But that aspiration will depend on the will of voters in Etobicoke--Lakeshore, his would-be district (also known as a riding in Canadian English) on the western end of Toronto. Many contend he unfairly received his party's nomination for the riding, where local candidates who had filed nomination papers on-time claim they were locked out of the race. And in fact, party officials acknowledged Tuesday they used a little known "electoral urgency" policy in declaring the race, which allows only 24 hours for nominations to be filed. 

And a further setback materialized on Sunday when protestors gathered in Etobicoke to voice concern over his comments about Ukrainians -- who make up a significant chunk of the area -- in his book "Blood and Belonging." He has spent the past two days trying to reach out to Ukrainians in the city who feel he has belittled them in his literary and academic life.

While the damage may be done, the general election that began yesterday will drag on until January 23 -- one of the longest in history (Canadians don't get the 2-3 years of posturing and campaigning that Americans endure) -- giving voters just enough time to assess Ignatieff's motivations, and deconstruct any spin from the Liberal's well-oiled political machine.

The Globe and Mail succinctly summed up his debut on the stump: "Michael Ignatieff slid from the velvet daggers of academe into the rude pikestaffs of partisan politics yesterday, forced to defend himself ... against accusations of trashing Ukrainians in print."

Posted by Sebastian / Election 2006 / Ignatieff / November 30, 2005 /

God, I love finding errors

Some things are too funny to make up. Consider the screen shot below, taken minutes ago from cbc.ca. Although the page title at the very top reads, "Chow quitting council in bid for Commons seat," the content itself is, how do you say, rather different? The page is headlined, "Jeffrey had to 'sleep in his own excrement': sister."

About ten seconds after I called CBC on their mistake, they fixed the page. 

 

Posted by Sebastian / Election 2006 / November 29, 2005 /

Third time's a charm

Olivia Chow, a Toronto City Councillor, has tried really hard to join her husband, Jack Layton, the head of the New Democratic Party, in Ottawa. She has failed twice to get elected to the House of Commons, but this week announced she would quit her post in Toronto and try again at federal office.

She is hoping to oust a Liberal from her district, which includes much of downtown Toronto. Her last shot at a seat in Ottawa failed by a mere 805 votes in 2004. She blamed downtown condo owners -- i.e., new residents who have been part of the city's residential boom -- for being her downfall.

"I don't want to second-guess residents in downtown Toronto," she said, but "some residents had just moved in to condominiums and were not as familiar with my record." 

Posted by Sebastian / Election 2006 / November 29, 2005 /

Guilty plea in landmark HIV assault case

A 32-year-old HIV-positive Newfoundland woman has pleaded guilty to an aggravated assault charge after having unprotected sex with a 22-year-old Canadian soldier without informing him of her status. She was well-known on an Ontario base, where, according to the Star, "tales of sexual escapades surfaced from soldiers who said they saw a woman wandering through the residences wearing only a pink G-string and knee-high boots."

Posted by Sebastian / AIDS / November 29, 2005 /

Canadian government collapses

For the second time in 19 months, Canadians will head to the polls to elect new leaders after the standing government collapsed by a no-confidence vote of 177-133 Monday night. It is the first time in the history of the country that a straight no-confidence motion has passed. In the past, governments have been forced to fold after failing to win approval for their federal budgets, for instance.

Conservative leader Stephen Harper led the effort to bring down the government and told Parliament, "This is not just the end of a tired, directionless scandal-plagued government, it’s the start of a bright new future for this great country."

Posted by Sebastian / Canada / Election 2006 / November 29, 2005 /

Peeing in the plane

I've had some pretty bad flights, but never so bad that I considered peeing in the aisle of an Airbus, as one United passenger did this week.

Flight crew said the passenger appeared drunk upon departure from Orlando on a Friday night flight, and later lit a cigarette while the flight was airborne en route to Washington's Dulles Airport. After arguing with a flight attendant who asked him to put out his smoke, he urinated in the jet's aisle. No word if it was in first class or economy. The flight made an unplanned stop in Charlotte to find the man a place at the local jail.     

Posted by Sebastian / Aviation / November 29, 2005 /

Harvard prof to run for Canadian Parliament

Michael Ignatieff, the professor at Harvard who earlier this year said he would leave Boston to teach at the University of Toronto, has announced plans to run for Canadian Parliament, representing the Etobicoke section of Toronto on the Liberal Party ticket. Some might consider it a bad sign that Ignatieff, who has lived outside Canada for about 30 years, has "Ottawa" misspelled on his Harvard web site at least twice:



But never mind the minor errors (probably made by some unenlightened American underling, right?). The prominent journalist-turned-intellectual, who has been called Canada's "sexiest cerebral man," was long believed to be shopping for a district in which to run for Parliament, and found one last week in Etobicoke (where people only go to shop at IKEA). Ignatieff will run in the western Toronto borough following news that the current MP, Jean Augustine, will not be seeking re-election.

Earlier this year, Ignatieff's lawyer, Michael Levine, said that musings about a potential run were "pure, unadulterated conjecture." Jeffrey Simpson of the Globe and Mail provided a fine explanation of the challenges facing Ignatieff's candidacy as those rumours began to get more press a few weeks ago: "Mr. Ignatieff's name would mean nothing on the streets of most Toronto ridings. His long career as a public intellectual in Britain and, more recently, in the United States speaks well for the contribution he could make to Canadian public life. But public intellectuals are known by only a minority of the voting public. To which might be added the fact that Mr. Ignatieff hasn't been around much these past three decades."

RELATED
• Ignatieff bid for Toronto riding sparks protest
• Where, oh where, will the Grits plant Ignatieff?

Posted by Sebastian / Election 2006 / Ignatieff / November 28, 2005 /

How far would you travel for sex?

A prominent businessman from Edmundston, the New Brunswick border town where yours truly survived scarring lessons in the French language nearly every day for nine years growing up, is being held in jail in Upstate New York charged with crossing the border to have sex with a minor. If convicted, he faces 30 years in federal prison.

Normand Corno, 49, allegedly travelled 400 miles to Massena, N.Y. to have a sexual rendez-vous with a 13-year-old girl. Though details of the crime were not immediately being released, it is speculated that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers may have posed as a young girl on the Internet and lured the man to New York.

Posted by Sebastian / New Brunswick / November 28, 2005 /

Canadian government set to fall on Monday

The short-lived administration of Paul Martin is expected to fall on Monday, triggering a federal election around the holidays that may or may not change the makeup of the House of Commons. (I'm not sure if he looks so awful in this photo because he's possibly on the verge of being out of a job or because he's wearing that jacket).

Unlike in the U.S., where you need to wait four years to get a new head of government, the process in Canada can take just a few weeks. The tenor of the expected election is already heated. On Friday, Stephen Harper, the leader of the Conservative Party, accused Liberals of being connected with organized crime through the AdScam scandal. The PM has now threatened legal action against Harper unless he apologizes.

"Lawyers acting on behalf of the party have informed Mr. Harper in writing of our intention to defend the party vigorously against any false smears such as those he uttered yesterday," a spokesman for Martin said Friday.

Posted by Sebastian / Canada / Election 2006 / November 28, 2005 /

Can a kiss be fatal?

A 15-year-old in Quebec has proven that yes, a kiss can be fatal -- if one's suitor has lips laced with peanut butter and you're allergic to peanuts. After being kissed by her boyfriend, who had just eaten peanut butter, the girl had to be given a shot of adrenalin but did not recover after three days in the hospital.

Posted by Sebastian / Etceteras / November 28, 2005 /

Kid's playhouses for the superrich

In one of the towns I grew up in, we had a playhouse on our property. It a was simple, cute, downscaled version of a Victorian home. It was essentially a one room house, with a loft above and a cute but tired porch out front. It did not cost millions to build, unlike the playhouses featured in an AP story.

"If you think of a house and all the amenities it has, that's what they request now in their playhouses," said Michelle Pollak, president of the design firm for La Petite Maison Playhouses in Denver. "They function as a small home but they're for their kids."

One couple in Connecticut has built a multimillion-dollar "entertainment barn" for their grand kids"equipped with a half-court basketball gym, an arcade, a movie theater with oversized leather seats and a miniature bowling alley. It also has a stage with Broadway-style lighting, a dance studio, a French country style kitchen and a large dining area...The playhouse boasts two rooms -- each with eight bunk beds, a suite and three bathrooms on the top floor of the barn."

Posted by Sebastian / Real Estate / November 28, 2005 /

Get this woman a man!

Few pundits in contemporary media have proven to be as polarizing as Maureen Dowd. Two weeks ago, The New York Times Magazine ran her million-word (or close) rant on the plight of the modern woman and the difficulty in finding men who are not intimidated by successful women. In one letter-response to the magazine, a reader asks, "Will someone please marry Maureen? Using her bully pulpit at The Times, she has managed to spin her inability to find a suitable mate into a national crisis."

Posted by Sebastian / Media / November 28, 2005 /

HIV as a robbery weapon

In a repeat of a performance seen earlier this year in Vancouver, a man held up a Banana Republic store in San Francisco this month, using as his weapon a syringe he claimed was filled with HIV-positive blood. He was caught by police when he returned to the store a few days later (To shop?).

Posted by Sebastian / AIDS / November 28, 2005 /

Happy (U.S.) Thanksgiving

Enjoy the long weekend, everyone! Things I am thankful for this year include no snow in Boston, but plenty outside of Vancouver at Grouse Mountain, pictured here a couple days ago. You can see the flat plain of the city stretching out at the foot of the mountain and across Burrard Inlet.

"You've probably heard that we can ski within sight of downtown Vancouver and be on the water catching a spring salmon, all in the space of 30 minutes," columnist Dennis Boyd once wrote. "It's true-as long as your skis have quick-release bindings. Otherwise, it might take up to 45 minutes."



Posted by Sebastian / Vancouver / November 24, 2005 /

'Taking the good with the bad'

Over at the Boston Real Estate Blog, John Keith unearthed a gem of a quote about Monday's shooting in the South End:

"The South End is still a diverse neighborhood," Barbara Spears, an agent at South End Realty told the Boston Herald. " You have to take the good with the bad."

Wow! I'm really left wondering -- what exactly does she mean?

Posted by Sebastian / Boston / November 23, 2005 /

Just because: Two great photos, unrelated, but not

In the first, Conservative leader Stephen Harper avoids Prime Minister Paul Martin like British Columbia bird flu. They seem focused on different things, don't you think? In the second, Ottawa Police on the prowl for criminal activity. No connection, yet strikingly related....



Posted by Sebastian / Canada / November 22, 2005 /

CIA jets in Canada

Canada is launching an investigation into reports that at least six CIA jets, allegedly being used to transport terror suspects, landed in Canada in the past six months.

Posted by Sebastian / Canada / November 22, 2005 /

Private health care encroaching

Canada's first private primary care health centre opened in Vancouver this week to protests -- and to cheers. For a $1,200 initiation and a $2,3000 annual charge, patients get fast-tracked access to services in what many worry is the first step in an inevitable rollback of the country's overburdened health system.

"Canada is becoming increasingly embarrassed on a global stage for its waiting lists," the doctor who runs the clinic said. "It's just an unacceptable situation for most people and we believe the solution to it is long-term primary health care renewal."

Posted by Sebastian / Canada / Vancouver / November 22, 2005 /

MP will fight for gay marriage ban in Canada

It will be an uphill, if not impossible battle, but Member of Parliament Pat O'Brien has formed a group in Canada to repeal the nation's recent same-sex marriage legalization. He is a former Liberal who quit his party last summer after he could not support the legislation his party proposed and eventually passed. "This issue's not over in the minds of millions of Canadians," he said.

O'Brien plans to raise money to help support candidates who oppose marriage for same-sex couples; a federal reelection campaign could begin Monday following a vote of no-confidence in the Liberal government. He has allied himself with former Alberta MP Grant Hill, who left Ottawa and "has returned to practising medicine, making news recently when he reiterated his belief that homosexuals spread disease."

The leader of the Conservative Party, Stephen Harper, has said he wants to put the matter to a free vote if he becomes prime minister in the next election. A reversal on marriage would require the government to invoke the controversial notwithstanding clause, which has never been used by the federal government. The provision, which has no parallel in the U.S., allows the government to override portions of the country's bill of rights for up to five years.

Posted by Sebastian / Canada / Gay Marriage / November 22, 2005 /

Time for a Conservative upgrade

Liberals in Canada rant relentlessly about their Conservative opponents, calling them out-of-touch folks stuck in the glory days of the past. Well, now we have photographic evidence. Just look at the gargantuan size of deputy party leader Peter MacKay's mobile phone, from today's Post. I can't help but ask, "Would you like some phone with that antenna?"

Normally, I'd cut the guy some slack, considering his very public split from Conservative-turned-Liberal Belinda "Billions" Stronach, but that was six months ago. It's time to move on.

Can someone in Ottawa please get this man a phone built sometime after the Trudeau administration? In the meantime, he's not doing much to undo his party's outdated image.

Posted by Sebastian / Canada / November 21, 2005 /

Gay pol calls Canadian Conservative leader dinosaur

Things are getting ugly in Canada now that the government is on the verge of collapse following threats by Conservatives to proceed with a no-confidence vote this week.

Scott Brison, the impeccably styled member of the prime minister's cabinet best known for recently announcing his engagement to his boyfriend, took on Conservative Party leader Stephen Harper during a speech in Toronto last week, essentially calling him anti-gay, anti-bilingualism, anti-multiculturalism, and anti-publicly funded healthcare. Brison suggested that if Harper has his way, same-sex marriage legislation will be repealed in Canada during the next Conservative-led government. Bloggers are going nuts over his comments.

The Canadian Press called Brison's comments a "harbinger of the mudslinging that could shape this winter's expected federal election."

Posted by Sebastian / Canada / Scott Brison / November 21, 2005 /

Little Italian about Little Italy

As in many cities, "Toronto's 'Little Italy' and 'Greektown' became much more successful as brand names after all the Italians and Greeks moved away," according to a new study out in the National Post.

Posted by Sebastian / Toronto / November 21, 2005 /

Canadian beats American to become Vancouver mayor

After what has been described as an "acrimonious" race to lead the biggest city in the Canadian West, the campaign for Vancouver mayor ended Saturday with Sam Sullivan being declared winner, beating his opponent, Jim Green, by a slim margin of 61,000 to 57,000 votes. CBC described Green as "a tough-talking, opera-loving, former antipoverty activist from the United States." He came to the city as a Vietnam War draft dodger.

Sullivan, a longtime city councillor, has been a quadriplegic since a skiing accident 26 years ago. He is the first disabled person to lead a major city in Canada.

The race began with a field of 20 candidates months ago when Mayor Larry Campbell, the former coroner who inspired the popular TV show "Da Vinci's Inquest," was appointed to the Canadian Senate.

Posted by Sebastian / Vancouver / November 21, 2005 /

Look ma, New York noticed us

Was anyone else as shocked as I was that the New York Times "Vows" column, typically reserved for the upper-crust of New York society not only featured a (gasp!) Boston couple this weekend but (get the paper bag out) a gay one. I know. I'm still hyperventilating. John Finley IV and Stan McGee were married last weekend in Chestnut Hill by Sen. Jarret Barrios.



"My parents were far more upset that Stan was a Hilary Clinton-supporting Democrat than they were about us," Finley told the paper. "I remember them asking Stan a lot of 'coming out' type questions: 'Maybe you didn't have a good Republican experience? Have you told your parents how you feel?'"

Posted by Sebastian / Boston / Gay Marriage / November 21, 2005 /

Whole Foods ordered to close in Boston

The upmarket chain Whole Paycheck Foods has been ordered by the Massachusetts Attorney General to remain closed on Thanksgiving Day in accordance with the state's infamous blue laws after a competitor learned of its plans to open for a few hours to help out last-minute shoppers.

Whole Foods had offered double pay to employees willing to work on the holiday, but after Shaw's heard about the move, they complained to the AG, calling the Whole Foods move anti-consumer and anti-competitive. It's hard not to think that maybe Shaw's just doesn't want to have to provide incentives for its workers, who already get few benefits, let alone double play.

"We believe that allowing Whole Foods to open on Thanksgiving Day will create an unlevel playing field for all other retail grocers," the Shaw's complaint said. "Besides disadvantaging competitors, a Whole Foods opening would harm consumers, due to lack of choice in the marketplace for consumers to shop and compare prices for the best deal." OK, sure.

Posted by Sebastian / Boston / November 21, 2005 /

I read that book, but...

No more excuses. Beginning next year, dot mobile will provide its U.K. subcribers with a bit of assistance in English literature by condensing some great works into succint text messages. The company says text-messaging will be re-invented as a valuable learning tool for students of English Literature.

An sample text message:

Lord of the Flies: NuclearWar-2boysRalph&PigyFormGrup2reviveOldCultr.
Jack-oposnLeadrTaksR'sSuportersAway. MystryBeastOnIslandCauzsPanicBt Simon FindsOutTisOnlyAParachute. Jtries2kilRbtR's savd ByShipDat c's emergncySmoke

Translation: Nuclear War – two boys, Ralph and Piggy form a group to revive the old culture. Jack – the leader of an opposing group – takes Ralph’s supporters away. A mystery beast on the island causes panic but Simon finds out it is only a parachute. Jack tries to kill Ralph but Ralph is saved by a ship that has seen the emergency smoke.

Posted by Sebastian / Books / November 19, 2005 /

A Canadian challenge to Israel's marriage laws

Two gay Israeli men, married in Toronto after Canada's during Gay Pride in 2003, are making history in their native country as they seek legal recognition of their union. 

"Toronto was our favourite place. Beautiful, clean, quiet, peaceful and very, very tolerant," Yaron Lahav, an El Al flight attendant, told the Star. "So when we learned it was possible to be married there, we aligned our work schedules to go as soon as we could. Two weeks later, we flew to Toronto and ran to city hall find out what to do."

The paper explains that "Marriage in Israel is no easy task even for straight couples, let alone gay, due to religious laws that deny permission for almost all but the most Orthodox Jewish weddings." However, a decades-old court ruling has forced the country to recognize marriages performed outside of Israel, with no questions asked. Lahav and his husband, Sefi Bar-Lev, believe that law is the key to their suit.

"The rule in Israel is that any marriage certificate issued abroad must be recognized by the Israeli clerk and the couple must be registered," the couple's lawyer says. "Our argument is that any registrar who refuses this obligation is the one breaking the law by contravening their basic right to equality."

Posted by Sebastian / Gay Marriage / Toronto / November 18, 2005 /

Canadian government likely to fall next week

A Canadian journalist recently emailed to vent his frustrations about the scandal-plagued government, and to remark on the silliness of it all. "Parliament is a big joke to me," he wrote. "It's like a bunch of kids playing tea house but becoming bitter and vicious." Ouch.

Indeed it sometimes appears that way, especially this week as efforts are underway in Ottawa by Conservatives to bring down the standing Liberal government. Leaders of the Conservative Party say they may force a vote of no-confidence in Paul Martin's administration next week, which could prompt a federal election by the holidays. Reuters is reporting today that the federal government will likely fall on November 28. If that happens, Martin would become the first prime minister since 1979 to be ousted by legislators.

Posted by Sebastian / Canada / November 18, 2005 /

Coop: 'I'm not interested in some blow-dried anchor's opinion'

For many people, watching Anderson Cooper is like news porn. On the Oprah Winfrey Show recently, he didn't miss a beat in criticizing his competition after Oprah praised him for representing a new breed of television reporting.

"I get changed by every story I do. I think you have no business doing this job if you're not willing to be changed by it. And there are these people who pretend to be like these crusty, hardened reporters, and I frankly am insulted by them and don't think they deserve to be in these places because...if you don't feel a story and don't understand the pain of what you're seeing, then you shouldn't be there."

"I believe in being relentlessly fair and relentlessly balanced. I don't believe in taking sides. It's very popular now to be a conservative reporter or a liberal reporter. I don't understand that. I'm not interested in some blow-dried anchor's opinion on things. It just doesn't interest me. But I think it's false to pretend you're not feeling things and it's false to be there and to pretend you're not there. You know, you are there, and you are smelling bodies and you're seeing this stuff. The least you can do is just acknowledge you're there."

Posted by Sebastian / Media / November 18, 2005 /

Talkin' about Andre

Believe it or not, I was at a bar in Boston last night when two separate people approached me to talk about Andre Boisclair. What a great drinking topic. My faith in gay men the world over has been restored!

Meanwhile, criticism of Andre, and worries over his rise to power, continue to mount. National leaders are fretting at his overwhelming popularity, worried that the Quebec separatism movement will gain significant ground under his leadership. Many are still in disbelief that he was even elected, because as the Star said today, it has been years since "a leadership candidate triumphed in the face of such a solid body of negative editorial advice."

Posted by Sebastian / Parti Quebecois / November 18, 2005 /

You Roch my world!

It's a bit shameful to admit, but one of my biggest guilty pleasures is singer Roch Voisine. The often rumoured-to-be-gay darling of Edmundston, New Brunswick, looks as strapping as ever on the cover of his latest album (below, left -- and, well, on his last album cover, too). I've been hooked on Roch since first seeing him perform in the early 1990s, when one of his first English-language songs, which he had clearly struggled to write, was mired in awkward syntax. But never mind. Who cares how well you write well when you're that hunky?

The real story about Roch surrounds his questionable sexuality. Rumours have swirled for years. Though he is married to a woman these days, he was the center of a scandal a few years back when Toronto television anchor Gord Martineau, in between on-air promos, lisped and called Voisine a "homo."



Posted by Sebastian / Music / New Brunswick / November 17, 2005 /

First case of daughters killing their mother in Canada

Most people use instant messaging to catch up with friends on the fly, but one teenage girl in Toronto "calmly chatted with a friend on the Internet while she and her younger sister were in the process of killing their mother," according to evidence presented in court yesterday. The girls had hoped to collect $200,000 in insurance money after the death of their mother. Instead, they face murder charges and a lifetime  in prison. From the Star:

"Is she trashed yet?" a female friend asks the Mississauga teenager on Jan. 18, 2003, in one of the excerpts from a disturbing Internet conversation that was read into court yesterday.

"Passing out ... like barely moving," the teen says, telling her that she had given her mother four Tylenol 3 pills as well as a bottle of vodka and wine.

"Oh my God," the friend asks. "How did you get her to take them?"

"She just takes them and forgets," the teen replies. "She's stupid. They have codeine in them and alcohol intensifies the effects."

"Good luck," the friend tells her. "Use gloves."

Posted by Sebastian / Toronto / November 17, 2005 /

Liberals blast Boisclair

Just one day after his election, Andre Boisclair has already been taking hits -- is that the wrong word to use for a former drug user? -- from Canadian government leaders who contend his past transgressions render him unfit for office. Quebec's premier, Jean Charest, "mused about whether Mr. Boisclair could ever have the moral authority to govern, considering he had admitted to using cocaine while serving in Cabinet," according to today's National Post.

Many say the radical element in the party could lead to an untimely downfall for the new leader, even though his reign just began. "I wish him good luck," said Heritage Minister Liza Frulla, a former Quebec provincial cabinet minister, "especially since his party is a party that disposes of its leaders like old Kleenex."

Given his admission of past drug use, "Could Mr. Boisclair become a minister of public security tomorrow morning? Could he be a justice minister in a government?" said Claude B?chard, Liberal Minister of Economic Development. "The answer is no. So in the end, could he become premier? It's the same answer."

While the media has hyped Boisclair's youth and his dynamic persona, many outspoken detractors are surfacing to remind people that "the charming young man is dedicated to breaking up Canada," as Maisonneuve points out.  

Posted by Sebastian / PQ Race / November 17, 2005 /

Busted in Boston

It's not every day that the Globe fronts with a juicy scoop. But reports of a meth lab in the city's Fort Point section, and "the discovery of the body of an admired local artist who apparently moved in a world of clandestine sex and drugs," is a delicious story for Boston's Boring Broadsheet.

Police found Kevin McCormack, 29, "clad in fetish gear, dead of a heart attack, surrounded by chains, wetsuits, and masks, as well as illicit drugs," in his apartment, where there was a "large room filled with tables, Bunsen burners, beakers, and vials marked flammable." Police say his is one of the biggest meth labs they've ever seen in Massachusetts, and drug enforcement officials are now charged with the delicate task of dismantling the lab and removing the highly volatile chemicals used to create meth.

Posted by Sebastian / Boston / November 17, 2005 /

Someday soon, a downtown without offices

While most cities in North America struggle to create livable downtowns with a good mix of business and residential spaces, Vancouver has always had both. But now the city has reached a point where there is such a high residential density in the business district that the city has placed a moratorium on residential development.

Some people fear residential space will one day overtake commercial space and prompt the beginning of large-scale reverse commutes to the suburbs, where office space is cheaper and land for commercial building is more plentiful. A real estate "expert" told the Globe and Mail, "the city has gone with what the developers want to build, and now realize that they have done it at the expense of downtown office space."

RELATED

• In West Vancouver, commonly described as Canada's wealthiest neighbourhood, affordable housing means under $1 million. 

This weekend's mayoral election in Vancouver pits two candidates with radically different visions for housing in the city. "Young, working couples -- even with well-paying jobs -- have difficulty today getting on to the first rung of Vancouver's real- estate ladder," the Vancouver Province says. "And surely it would be a disaster to turn the city into a ghetto for the super-rich."

Posted by Sebastian / Real Estate / Vancouver / November 16, 2005 /

'Boisclair crushes PQ rivals'

An unprecedented 76 percent of voters participated in the Parti Quebecois leadership race that last night ended with the telegenic and openly gay Andre Boisclair being declared winner after trouncing his top opponent nearly 2-to-1. The Globe and Mail's headline this morning said it all: "Boisclair crushes PQ rivals" while the Gazette of Montreal called his win "breathtaking."

Interestingly, the race to lead the Quebec sovereignty movement was never about Boisclair's homosexuality (in fact, two of the countries three biggest papers didn't even mention today that he's gay), but it never really focused on the issues facing Quebec, either.

At his victory rally in Quebec City last night, Boisclair, a former provincial politician and a Harvard grad vowed to push for an independent Quebec in the coming years. "Let us all work together to achieve the country of Quebec," he said. "More than ever, tonight everything becomes possible." Today the premier of Quebec, Jean Charest, offered Boisclair first dibs at running for the vacant National Assembly seat in the district that represents Montreal's Gay Village.

Maisonneuve magazine's MediaScout, a daily wrap-up of what's leading in the Canadian press, explains the Boisclair victory and the press coverage for laymen: "The votes have been tallied and the results are in: a coke-sniffing homosexual has been voted the new leader of the Parti Qu?b?cois thanks to a long-haired chihuahua and a bush by the name of Gilbert Laplante. Well, at least that's the impression a casual reader of today's papers might walk away with." 

Posted by Sebastian / PQ Race / November 16, 2005 /

Andre wins the race for Quebec

In an unsurprising victory that proved even gay former cocaine users can win political office, Andre Boisclair tonight won the Parti Quebecois leadership race with 54 percent of the votes and now faces the difficult task of leading his separatist party through the next provincial election and through any future referendums aimed at splitting Quebec from Canada.

The Canadian Press reports that Boisclair "rolled over his rivals to become leader of the Quebec sovereignty movement Tuesday, brushing aside criticism of his past cocaine use and doubts about his resolve in the face of crisis. A charming political dropout with a million-dollar smile, Boisclair easily beat the prim and proper Pauline Marois, a 56-year-old with vast cabinet experience."



Posted by Sebastian / PQ Race / November 15, 2005 /

Montreal, Vancouver biggest challenges to US supremacy

Vancouver and Montreal are the two Canadian cities best positioned to rival up-and-coming U.S. cities such as Phoenix and San Diego in attracting new worldwide talent, according to Fast Company magazine. Canada's number two and number three cities boast the "right mix of technology and tolerance to attract talent," the magazine says.

Since that t-word, tolerance, is thrown in the mix, you knew Richard Florida had to be involved somehow. Florida is most famous for hypothesizing that the strength of a city's economy is correlated with its friendliness to artists and to gay men and lesbians (the "creative class"). Both cities have a huge gay population, and both have thriving arts communities.

In today's most fun and revealing quote, one person told the Gazette that the mass exodus of anglophones from Montreal over the past three decades hasn't hurt the city's tolerance trajectory, or its focus on the arts. "I think it just created a better environment generally," the woman said, before taking a whack at Canada's largest city.

"The paranoid people left. They all went to Toronto."

Posted by Sebastian / Montreal / Vancouver / November 15, 2005 /

Site surprises

You may have noticed that my main web site is in the midst of a revamp. The best feature, I think, is on the homepage. Each time you visit the site, you'll be greeted by a different set of photographs. I'll let you in on a little secret: if you click on the photos, you'll be able to access the "backstory," a feature that was inspired by San Francisco magazine's Intersection column.  



Posted by Sebastian / SFGW / November 15, 2005 /

Everyone and everything is voting in Quebec

It seems the fine men and women of Quebec aren't the only ones voting in this week's Parti Quebecois leadership race, which wraps up tonight with a victory party in Quebec City. A long-haired Chihuahua named Pixelle Daoust and a houseplant named Gilbert Laplante (get it?) were also able to vote this week. No word on whether they voted for the openly gay Andre Boisclair or his opponent, the more matronly Pauline Marois (shown here).

"The system is riddled with potential fraudulent practices that are difficult to monitor," one source told the Globe and Mail, while the PQ's spokespeople say the voting procedures are "foolproof."

Posted by Sebastian / PQ Race / November 15, 2005 /

BBC: HIV-positive man 'cured' / Another charged with murder

A 25-year-old HIV-positive British man appears to now be 'cured' of HIV after repeated tests show his system free of the virus. Andrew Simpson says he is "one of the luckiest people alive," in what doctors are calling the "first well-documented" case of sero-reversal. Not everyone is convinced.

Across the Atlantic, in Hamilton, Ont., Johnson Aziga will stand trial for murder, making him the first HIV-positive person in Canada to be charged with murder after allegedly having unprotected sex and passing on the virus. Two Toronto women he is alleged to have had sex with have both died from AIDS-related complications.

Posted by Sebastian / AIDS / November 14, 2005 /

Hetracil

I'm usually up on my pharmaceuticals, but I think I was the last one on earth to hear about Hetracil: the new anti-effeminate.

Posted by Sebastian / Etceteras / November 14, 2005 /

BlackBerry to be spared?

Things haven't been looking good for the future of the BlackBerry in the United States after repeated patent-infringement rulings filed in U.S. courts against Research in Motion, the handheld's manufacturer, have been lost by the Canadian company. But now the U.S. Government has gotten involved and filed briefs in a Virginia court saying that if a shutdown of the BlackBerry service is ordered (which is seen as the best remedy by NTP Ltd., which is suing RIM), "it is imperative that some mechanism be incorporated that permits continuity of the federal government's use of BlackBerry devices." There are more than 200,000 government BlackBerry users. 

Speaking of CrackBerrys, I went out to dinner last week at a new Boston restaurant with the infamous BlackBerry addict (you know who you are!). We hadn't seen each other in ages, but he remains addicted to the little all-in-one. At the risk of being repetitive and unoriginal, I am going to republish below one of my favourite BlackBerry quotes that I often refer to when I am in the company of people unable to put theirs down:

"Fewer and fewer of us appear capable of doing what used to be called being in the moment," Christie Blatchford wrote in the Globe and Mail. "People now want to be in several moments simultaneously, with, I would argue, the result that they are properly in none."

"The essence of being in the moment means being caught up in the presentness of the present such that you are deaf and blind to everyone and everything else, including the nagging voice of past experience and the ringing alarm bell of future consequence. It is what makes for the best spontaneous gatherings, the most exciting love and the most remarkable memories -- those times when you give yourself over fully to the very taste of another mouth, the look of the slice of sky over your head, the feel of a summer's wind on your face, or even the chemistry of a particular party."

Posted by Sebastian / Technology / November 14, 2005 /

Voting begins in Quebec

Members of the Parti Quebecois began telephone voting on Sunday for their new party leader, who could one day hold the reins of the province and ultimately lead an independent nation of Quebec. Voting continues into Tuesday with Andre Boisclair and Pauline Marois believed to be the only viable candidates in a field of eight candidates.

The Gazette makes an obvious but interesting note about the significance of the vote: "The Parti Quebecois is about to make history by becoming the first major Quebec party to choose either a woman or an openly gay man as its leader. On the eve of the first of three days of voting by telephone by party members, all signs point to the latter."

"Boisclair, 39, has danced around questions over his cocaine use when he was in cabinet in the 1990s while Marois has run a charmless campaign that has failed to capitalize on Boisclair's troubles or to otherwise inspire Quebecers."

The Canadian Press, on the other hand, has a more tough-talking summary of the race and its implications: "The Parti Quebecois begins voting Sunday for a leader who is meant to have the courage and conviction to unite the fractious separatist movement, break up Canada and create an independent Quebec."

Posted by Sebastian / PQ Race / November 14, 2005 /

Only in Vancouver

A city councillor in Vancouver is proposing the city open a nonprofit brothel to protect the city's sex trade workers. Vancouver already allows for-profit sex shops ("body rub parlours") to operate after paying an annual licensing fee of $8,000, but the city is also notorious for the dangerous conditions other prostitutes face, especially in the rough-and-tumble Downtown Eastside neighbourhood. 

"Many people involved in survival sex are drug addicted, and it is a crime that we don't have treatment on demand," councillor Tom Louis said. "There would be many benefits of a brothel run on a break-even basis."

Posted by Sebastian / Vancouver / November 11, 2005 /

Advertisements that shouldn't be

Let's think about these three images for just a second. In the first, Aruba shows off its ironic advertising tagline, "Where happiness lives," which is now especially appropriate since the disappearance of U.S. high school student Natalee Holloway who went missing during her senior class trip (from the richest town in Alabama) to the Caribbean island. Though her story, a classic example of missing white woman syndrome, is no longer leading the day's newscasts, there is still action happening. The governor of Alabama is calling on Americans to boycott Aruba for what he considers a mishandling of the Holloway investigation.



In the second, Celine Dion shows off Bobbi Brown Bronzer gone awry. If there was ever a makeup equivalent of the Web site, Awful Plastic Surgery, the darling of Quebec would surely make the splash page.

In the third, a new Air Canada advertisement targeting the gay community leads me to wonder if the airline's market research told them that gay travelers will get sucked into an airline with the promise of big planes and a good ride.  

Posted by Sebastian / Etceteras / November 11, 2005 /

The politics of being gay

The forthright columnist Richard Burnett has an excellent (if a tad racy) piece on Andre Boisclair, whom he outed in Montreal's Hour newspaper in 1997. Burnett says the outing arose when Boisclair, who was then the provincial minister responsible for human rights, "reneged on his promise to give $20,000 to Montreal's cash-strapped anti-gaybashing support group Dire enfin la violence."

When Boisclair came out on his own, without the prodding of the press in 2000, he said, "I will not allow anyone to define my identity or group I belong to. I associate with my friends, my family and Quebec. Not with the gay community. I have never chosen to live in the [gay] community. And I'm not about to begin today." Wow! Them's fighting words! (He later said he would not utter such a comment today.)

The Hour piece focuses on what Burnett calls a "predilection on the part of the mainstream media to lasciviously report on the lives of gay public figures, or those perceived to be gay, when it suitably titillates straight readers." Among others, he mentions Scott Brison, who recently announced his engagement to his boyfriend.   

"What we are dealing with here, then, are the politics of being gay. In other words, if you're Ralph Klein and have a couple drinks, you're a (lovable) character. If you're Ren? L?vesque, you can kill a man while drunk driving and get away with it. But if you're gay, you're going to get raked over the coals."

"As for myself, would I vote for a gay, former coke-snorting politician? Frankly, I couldn't care less."

"But voting for a man who takes no pride in being gay?," Burnett writes, taking a direct hit at Boisclair, "I'd rather die."

Posted by Sebastian / PQ Race / November 10, 2005 /

After loss, some Mainers eye gay marriage ban

It was not 24 hours after Maine voters refused to repeal the state's new anti-discrimination law when opponents of the law said they would press forward despite their loss and attempt to ban gay marriage in the state.

"Now that the gay rights movement has prevailed, we will soon hear the call for gay marriage," said Michael Heath of the Christian Civic League of Maine. "We must work to see that this never happens."

Jesse Connolly of Maine Won't Discriminate called the marriage ban "another example of the Christian Civic League grasping at straws while trying to explain away their overwhelming defeat." Meanwhile, Paul Madore of the Maine Grassroots Coalition which worked with the Christian Coalition to promote the repeal, "blamed the collapse of his group's Lewiston base on the Catholic church's unwillingness to take a stand on the issue," according to the Bangor Daily News.

Posted by Sebastian / Maine / November 10, 2005 /

Canada's new Olympic outfits

It's a classic "Is it the clothes or is it the model?" conundrum. But either way, I like this Toronto Star shot from yesterday's unveiling of the Canadian line of officially licensed clothing for the 2006 Olympics in Turin.

The ho-hum and almost lifeless Hudson's Bay Company brand (aka the Bay, a 335-year-old  department store chain) paid $100 million for the privilege of outfitting Canada's Olympians through 2012, which includes the 2010 Vancouver games, and as with any commercial enterprise, they're hoping the stylish retro outfits they've created for athletes translate into big sales for the company. Consumer versions will soon be on sale.

"It will remain to be seen which item (takes off with the public),'' said Suzanne Timmins, fashion director at the Bay. "Right now, we've gotten some feedback on our trapper hat that everyone seems to love. That's the one people seem to be talking about the most.'' I have to agree -- I want one of these hats. Now.

Posted by Sebastian / Sports / November 10, 2005 /

Too sick for work, but not Florida

An embattled member of the Canadian Prime Minister's Cabinet is under fire for, well, not showing up for work. John Efford, a member of parliament from Newfoundland, has not appeared in Ottawa since spring, although he continues to draw a salary of $213,000. The press is quick to point out that while he claims to be too ill to travel to Ottawa, he is somehow fit enough to vacation in Florida this week. "He needed to get away from it all," his communications director said. "He needs to get his sugars under control." 

The Globe reports, "The minister, who has a reputation for a quick temper, is also a booster of Newfoundland and Labrador. During Ottawa winters, he wore a fur parka made from harp seals caught off Newfoundland and Labrador despite criticism from anti-fur activists."

Posted by Sebastian / Canada / November 10, 2005 /

Mainers endorse equal rights; Texans, well, they didn't

Mainers voted down a controversial repeal of the state's anti-discrimination laws,  percent to 45 percent, after numerous false starts by equal rights groups. Since 1995, voters have rejected three similar referendums. Maine is the last New England state to legally protect gay citizens from discrimination.

Texas voters, on the other hand, passed a constitutional ban on gay marriage by a clear vote of 77 percent to 23 percent. "I think Texans know that marriage is between a man and a woman, and children deserve both a mom and a dad," said one supporter of the ban. "They don't need a PhD or a degree in anything else to teach them that."

Posted by Sebastian / Maine / November 9, 2005 /

Ikea comes to Boston

Bostonians can finally get that screw-together sofa they've always wanted now that cheap chic IKEA has made its long-anticipated debut in the Hub. Today the Swedish retail giant's mammoth store opens in Stoughton, where excited shoppers have been lined up for days hoping to be the first ones through the door.

Police are bracing for a crush of shoppers that could bring traffic in the town to a complete standstill, as has happened worldwide when the warehouse-sized stores open. In Saudi Arabia, three people were killed in a stampede at a new store last year. In San Francisco a few years back, police were forced to manually direct traffic every day for three months when traffic lights were deemed useless in dealing with all the store-inspired congestion.

On balance, IKEA's opening is great news for the region's retail landscape. You see,  previously, people who wanted to buy $3 six-packs of wine glasses that break after a single use had to travel to Montreal or New Jersey (New Haven also opened recently) to get them. I personally still prefer to go to the Etobicoke IKEA (if only for the snob appeal) where I grew fond of buying mass quantities of $.50 votive holders and $1 paper-thin flower vases during college. As my BFF Julie can attest, no trip to Toronto is complete without a quick peek into the gargantuan store.    

Posted by Sebastian / Boston / November 9, 2005 /

Gastown booms

The most tired tourist attraction in Vancouver is absolutely the steam clock in Gastown. I snapped this shot of intrigued tourists peering into what was the world's first steam clock but that is probably now run on electricity, even though it belches steam on the hour. People relentlessly debate about whether it's steam-powered or electric, but the debate should really just focus on how lame an attraction it is.

But never mind the clock. The neighbourhood it's in, once the city's skid row, is not chock-full of tacky tourist shops and is poised for a renaissance. Up till now, "It's like Vancouverites have just written this area off," one resident tells the Globe and Mail. 

The paper explains, "Nightclub shootings, anti-poverty demonstrations in illegal squats and a disturbing number of homeless people and drug dealers. Those would be reasons to avoid the Gastown area of Vancouver. But the recent influx of media and film companies, as well as high-fashion purveyors, is starting to make Gastown a headquarters for artsy cool, too." 

Posted by Sebastian / Vancouver / November 9, 2005 /

Postcard from Fort Wayne

The other day I ended up, rather improbably, in Fort Wayne, Indiana, for a night. I have been to a number of hardscrabble, decaying, post-industrial wastelands (and I'm being an optimist here), but Fort Wayne truly takes the cake. Still, I was able to get this shot of city's most/only impressive civic building, the Allen County Courthouse. While the scene may look lush, it's only because I took great care to frame this shot in a flattering manner. Fort Wayne: I probably won't be back. 



Also this week in Indiana, members of a church opposed to homosexuality demonstrated at Indiana University then marched to a Bloomington gay-owned store where they burned a rainbow flag. "It's hard to get terribly upset about it," the storeowner said. "As a gay person, I've dealt with prejudice all my life. But it's kind of sad that there are people that have such a twisted view of what Christianity is about."

An hour north, the mayor of Indianapolis amended an executive order protecting gay and lesbian city workers to include transgendered employees as well.

Posted by Sebastian / Indiana / November 9, 2005 /

New Boston, with a touch of the old

Thirty-six percent of voters turned out Tuesday and reelected Thomas "Mumbles" Menino as mayor of Boston by a landslide. The inarticulate but popular Menino unsurprisingly defeated arch rival Maura Hennigan 68 percent to 32 percent. Voters also elected Sam Yoon to the Boston City Council, the first Asian American to lead the city, a transition which many hope will signal a new era for Boston -- one where people with names like Connoly, Flynn, O'Malley, and White (all of which happen to be names of the four losing candidates) don't dominate the landscape. Yoon's victory was made even more impressive by the fact that he received the second-highest vote tally of the eight council candidates (four citywide seats were up for grabs).

I can't help but point out that two of the four candidates endorsed by the GLBT newspaper Bay Windows (Patricia White and Matt O'Malley) lost, as did the South End district candidate, Susan Passoni, who was also endorsed by the paper.

Posted by Sebastian / Boston / November 9, 2005 /

What I did on my official trip: eat

It's hard to decide whether the biggest news of the royal visit to San Francisco this week was Camilla eating in front of photographers -- a rarity in royal life -- or the fact that Kimberly Guilfoyle Newsom, that large-lipped, on-again, off-again wife to Mayor Gavin Newsom was seen everywhere. One thing is certain: these shots of Camilla caught in the act are priceless. As one paper reports, "Members of the royal family, as a rule, avoid being photographed eating or drinking. Fearful of unflattering images, the most they'll risk is a neat nibble...Aides either neglected to tell the Duchess of Cornwall this, or she ignored the advice." 



Posted by Sebastian / San Francisco / November 8, 2005 /

The many challenge of Ambien-popping

Of the many important product warnings listed on the web site for Ambien, perhaps none is as important as the one unearthed in the New York Observer's Crime Blotter: Don't take the sedative while sitting in the comfort your car on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.

"So many people seem to be taking sleeping medications like Ambien that it sometimes seems that there?ns nobody left who can get a sound night?ns sleep without them. Not so the 30-year-old First Avenue and 94th Street resident who was in an R.E.M. state around 5 a.m. on Oct. 16. And he wasn?nt even in bed.

"He was sittingO?Nor rather slumpingO?Nbehind the wheel of his car, which was parked at the northwest corner of 90th Street and Second Avenue. Indeed, so sound was his sleep that he didn?nt wake up when a burglar entered the vehicle and removed his credit cards and the money from his pocket. And as if that weren?nt audacious enough, the crook also stole his speakers and the amplifier from the car?ns hatchback.

"Even though the driver didn?nt wake up, an eyewitness saw the crime go down and called the police. They arrested the suspectO?Na six-foot, 160-pound, 20-year-old maleO?Nand recovered the stolen property, which included $178 in cash, the victim?ns Visa card, two speakers valued at $200, a $200 Sony amplifier, a $100 cell phone and the car?ns keys."

Posted by Sebastian / Etceteras / November 8, 2005 /

Election Day

Tis the season for butterfly ballots and hanging chads! In Montreal on Sunday, the uber-dorky Mayor Tremblay was re-elected by a huge margin, but Monday he lashed out at residents since only one-third of them turned up at the polls to vote. (Montrealers, of course, have far more pressing things to do on Sunday voting days -- like recover from a long Saturday night at Le Stud, or spend a lazy afternoon smoking pack after pack of cigarettes en plein air.) The Montreal Mirror said,  "Election ?n05 probably go down as one of the more boring-ass exercises in participatory democracy."

For many U.S. voters, today is election day. In Boston, a rather anticlimactic mayoral race is on the ballot, as is a hot city council race. Will the same level of apathy seen in Montreal give the inartculate-but-somehow-convincing Thomas Menino a boost as he tries to outwit Maura Henningan? It's up to you.

In Maine, Question 1 asks residents if they approve of repealing the state's anti-discrimination laws that protect gay and lesbian residents. The Portland Press-Herald endorsed a "no" vote on the repeal, saying, "It is difficult for people who have not suffered discrimination to recognize its effect on others, but voters should try to see this civil rights law for what it is: a legal promise of basic rights extended to those who have been denied." If you know Tony Giampetruzzi, a writer for In Newsweekly in Boston and Portland, then you may recognize him in TV ad that features his dad.

Posted by Sebastian / Politics / November 8, 2005 /

Gawker on Coop

Everyone is reading the witty Gawker these days, so start studying up on it if you're not already among the millions who are addicted to the society blog. After the Boston Globe had the gall to call Anderson Cooper a "boyish metrosexual" yesterday, the NYC-based blog shot back and pointed out that's wrong on at least five syllables.

And among the amusing Gawker Stalker reports today, this gem: "Saw Barbara Walters on Sixth Avenue, looking not a day under 120...."

Posted by Sebastian / Blogs / November 8, 2005 /

Kissing California goodbye

For the first time in recent memory, San Francisco has more people leaving than arriving, and a fascinating piece in the Times looks at the trend. A shocking graphic shows that in 2001, thousands of people from across the Northeast -- especially from Boston -- landed in San Francisco, but today, the migration westward numbers only in the hundreds.  

"Far more Californians are staying - for the weather, the landscape, the culture and other reasons - than are moving, but it is also clear that California is losing some of its attraction," the piece says.

The Bay Area is not alone in hemorrhaging people. Boston, New York and Washington are all losing residents because of high costs, one economist tells the paper. "People are saying, 'Even though I have to take a 10 percent wage cut to go to Vegas or Phoenix, it's actually a wage increase,' " said Ross C. DeVol, the director of regional economics at the Milken Institute, a research group in Santa Monica, Calif. "They look at what housing costs here, and they're making decisions to go elsewhere."

Posted by Sebastian / San Francisco / November 8, 2005 /

An excess of taxes

In one of my favourite lines from the television series "Absolutely Fabulous," Edina says, "Why, oh why, do we pay taxes, hmmm?... I mean, why not just have