The oldest brother was in town this weekend after a whirlwind tour of eastern Canada. He arrived late Friday night, so we just had a few drinks and then all hit the hay. We still haven’t explained what happened at 6 in the morning: two thunderous explosions just outside our door; we couldn’t see what it was, but it was loud enough to wake us, scare the cats, send birds scattering and create a plume of smoke in the air. We’re blaming it on the empty hole in the ground across the street, which we’ve now named the Thunder Pit.

Saturday was more eventful. We walked down King Street and had some breakfast, then walked a little further to the distillery district. He likes exploring new neighbourhoods, and this one wasn’t really even there when he lived here. We poked around for a bit, checking out the amazing stuff in the Sandra Ainsley Gallery, Brush and Sound Designs. Had we not just stuffed ourselves silly we would’ve stopped at a patio and had a drink. We left there and walked back down the Esplanade, then walked up Yonge a bit to the Irish Embassy (after all, we weren’t going to stay full forever) for a pint.

The Toronto Street Festival is on this weekend, so we poked around the acts a bit on the way back up Yonge. Nothing too impressive. ‘Sides, I was boiling hot and needed a frozen hot chocolate. We relaxed a while at home before going up to Yonge & Eglinton (where we were caught in yet more Street festival crowds) and walking over to 7 Numbers…Mmmmmm, sexy duck. We stuffed ourselves silly, then 4/5 of us went to the Bow & Arrow for a few drinks. When we got home my wife and brother decided to watch Friday The 13th on TV; because I’d gotten up at 7 in the morning to go for a run, I was knackered. I went to sleep.

Today was low-key: no explosions, the most ridiculous movie ever made, brunch at the Duke of York, a bit of frisbee in Ramsden Park, and then my brother had to take off for his flight. My wife and I sat exhausted on the couch and absorbed a few more episodes of Six Feet Under (season 2).

It was good to have him here. Living on opposite sides of the ocean we don’t see each other that much, but I think we were at least able to give him some relaxation (and good food!) at the end of his long trip.

Rage on, ThunderPit. Rage on.

Considering I used to live not 5 minutes away from the Corner House, it seems odd that I’d never eaten there. But leave it to Summerlicious to get my ass out to the obvious places.

I trekked there with T-Bone, DJ Duarte and Tony T for today, and had a spiffy lunch. Carrot & ginger soup, cornish hen and chocolate tart with a blueberry compote. All were quite good (as were the courses everyone else got), and well worth the price. With no drinks (I still have to work this afternoon, you understand) it wasn’t much more than I’d spend on Indian lunch buffet.

And then, as if we needed more decadence, we stopped at JS Bonbons on the way home. Mmmmmm…chai tea…

3 down, 1 to go. Bymark is up next.

Pleasant surprise: I went down to the Ministry Of Transportation office today at lunch. I figured that if I was lucky it would be 20 minutes to walk down, an hour waiting in line, 5 minutes renewing my license and 5 minutes to take the subway back, making for a 1.5 hour lunch. So I was shocked and awed when the renewal only took 2 to3 minutes. No foolin’! There was no lineup, she punched the form, ran my credit card through, got me to sign 3 things, told me to stand against the white wall and wait for the flash. I did, she handed my my temporary license and I was on my way. I had so much time left that I walked back.

It took me longer to order a chicken sandwich from Wendy’s than to renew my driver’s license. Who says a Liberal government is always inefficient??!?

From NME

THE DARKNESS’ FRANKIE POULLAIN has admitted the group get “sick to the back teeth of each other”.

The band, who have spent some of this year working on their second album, will headline this weekend’s T In The Park and Oxegen festivals.

Frankie told Radio 1 that the band’s time together doesn’t come without its troubles.

He said: “There could be some cracks appearing, but without the friction there is no spark. You can’t create a spark without friction.

“The thing is you sacrifice, you bite your lip for the common good, the more noble goal, and that’s what we’re all focused on. So we’re all focused on the same objective. Okay yeah, of course there’s fights and everything. We get sick to the back teeth of each other.”

He added: “We all have our little faults. Justin is trumping all the time, or farting, or whatever you call it in this country. Ed whinges all the time. I’m perhaps a little too cynical for my own good. Dan is a bit of a martyr. But that’s what creates the band, it’s the chemistry, so I think it’s a good thing.”

I was playing Damien Jurado‘s latest Where Shall You Take Me? for t-bone before we left for dinner last night, and she quite liked it. I explained to her that this album was to Damien Jurado what Nebraska was to Bruce Springsteen, quiet and beautiful. She claimed to hate The Boss – for which, apart from 2 albums, I can’t blame her – but when I played Nebraska for her she seemed to at least tolerate it.

If you haven’t heard either album, go have a listen. Especially Nebraska; it’s so bleak and hopeful at the same time. The tiny bit of optimism, of something good coming through mirrored his own career; apart from the crap he put out for most of his career, Bruce managed to quietly slide out a masterpiece.

from Globetechnology
Music industry study decries downloads
By JACK KAPICA

The battle over whether downloading free songs from the Internet is hurting the music industry continued Tuesday, with the release of another survey showing that the practice is discouraging music sales.

Almost 30 per cent of those who responded to a survey conducted by Toronto-based market-research company Pollara Inc. said downloading, file sharing and burning were the main reasons that their purchases had declined.

Conversely, Pollara reported that 52 per cent of music “consumers” who don’t download had purchased music in the past month.

Only 35 per cent of those who were active downloaders had purchased music in the month prior to the survey.

The survey was commissioned by the Canadian Recording Industry Association, which has been claiming for several years that trading music files on-line has been hurting sales.

The survey “negates arguments to the contrary that peer-to-peer activity is just sampling and those people go out and buy the music later from a legitimate source,” CRIA president Brian Robertson said in a statement.

CRIA blamed the hardware that makes compact disks — CD burners — and the file-sharing network Kazaa for lost sales. Mr. Robertson said that the use of CD burners to copy music has grown from 18 per cent in late 2001 to 35 per cent today.

Almost half of the survey respondents who download free music told Pollara that all of the music they burned to CD came from file sharing networks like Kazaa.

The Pollara study also says that the number of people who admitted using Kazaa in the previous month had more than tripled, from 8 per cent to 26 per cent, and that they typically download between 20 and 100 songs a month.

Taken at face value, Pollara states, this amounts to an average of 180-million tracks per month.

CRIA estimates its retail sales losses at more than $465-million since 1999, as well as industry layoffs of more than 25 per cent throughout the past year.

Mr. Robertson said this spells doom for the music industry.

“It is unlikely that the music industry can continue to develop new artists and promote established artists, if these activities persist,” he said. “Canada’s artists and producers must be protected in the digital environment and in order to do so, swift reform to chronically outdated copyright law is absolutely imperative.”

Two recent court cases have increased the rift between the music industry and music buyers.

In March, the Federal Court of Canada ruled that the downloading described in the survey is lawful for Canadians who download for personal, non-commercial purposes and burn music on to CDs. The court reasoned that Canadians are already paying for their music through a levy placed on blank CDs, a levy that the music industry demanded the government institute.

The copyright board of Canada, which administers the act, agreed with the court, and went further to say that it has already recognized the increased downloading and burning activity by expanding the scope of the levy.

The ruling was a blow to CRIA, which had been seeking to identify 29 people, who allowed their music files to be copied by other Internet users, to prosecute them under the Copyright Act.

Last week, the Supreme Court ruled that Internet service providers who supplied the network along which music files were transferred were not legally liable for how their subscribers used the Internet.

The suit had been brought by the Society of Canadian Composers, Authors and Music Publishers (SOCAN). Although SOCAN lost the case, CRIA lawyer Richard Pfohl issued a statement praising the decision because it “confirms that music rights holders in Canada need to be paid for music transmitted on the Internet from outside the country and calls for modernization of Canada’s antiquated Copyright Act.”

CRIA had intervened in the case on the issue of internationally transmitted music.

The current Pollara study surveyed 1,200 people 12 years of age and older by telephone between March 12 and April 5. The survey has a margin of error of 2.5 per cent, 95 out of 100 times.

Just finished dinner at Verveine with my wife, t-bone and sugar shaddick. Not bad, not bad. Not as good as Crush, but I think it could be, in a non-Summerlicious capacity.

The cold pea puree: not stellar. The duck: very good. The dessert: basically a giant peanut butter cup. The ladies seemed to enjoy theirs. Port, merlot, coffee & Oban to finish up.

On another note, it’s been a long time since I’ve seen the afore-mentioned shaddick, and I talked to her more tonight than I ever had before. It’s easy to see why t-bone and stanzi are good friends with her. She’s good people.

A good night with good company. I need more nights like this.

From The Globe and Mail: Kerry opts for Edwards

Kerry opts for Edwards
Associated Press

Washington — U.S. Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry selected former rival John Edwards to be his running mate, telling supporters Tuesday that he can’t wait to see the freshman North Carolina senator going “toe-to-toe with Dick Cheney.”

“In the next 120 days and in the administration that follows, John Edwards and I will be fighting for the America we love,” Mr. Kerry said in an e-mail to supporters obtained by Associated Press. “We’ll be fighting to give the middle class a voice by providing good paying jobs and affordable health care. We’ll be fighting to make America energy independent. We’ll be fighting to build a strong military and lead strong alliances, so young Americans are never put in harm’s way because we insisted on going it alone.”

In selecting Mr. Edwards, Mr. Kerry rejected more seasoned politicians in hopes of injecting vigour and small-town appeal to the Democratic presidential ticket.

He offered Mr. Edwards the No. 2 spot on the Democratic ticket in a telephone call Tuesday morning, and the North Carolina senator accepted, said two senior Democrats familiar with the conversation.

Mr. Edwards was at his home in Georgetown when Kerry called, readying his two young children for summer camp. Mr. Kerry called from his Pittsburgh home.

He planned to announce his pick at a rally in Pittsburgh. Mr. Edwards will not be at the rally. Obsessed with secrecy, Mr. Kerry kept his decision to himself until the last possible minute, giving Edwards no time to get to Pittsburgh in time.

The newly minted ticket will meet up later Tuesday and begin a multistate tour, ending in Mr. Edwards’s home state.

They will be nominated at the Democratic National Convention in Boston, which begins July 26.

Mr. Kerry’s decision ended a search that began with about 25 candidates and a mandate to find a political soul mate who could “be ready at any moment” to assume the presidency. Kerry advisers said their boss had also signalled his interest in Representative Dick Gephardt of Missouri, Governor Tom Vilsack of Iowa, Senator Bob Graham of Florida, retired U.S. Army General Wesley Clark, Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana and Senator Joe Biden of Delaware.

Mr. Edwards was the last major candidate standing against Mr. Kerry in the Democratic presidential race. He emerged as a favourite second choice of Democratic voters, thanks to his youthful good looks, a self-assured manner and an upbeat, optimistic style. He saved his harshest criticism for U.S. President George W. Bush, whom he accused of creating “two Americas” — one for the privileged, another for everyone else.

Some Democrats were concerned that Mr. Edwards, whose only political credential was a single term in the Senate, lacked the experience in international affairs, particularly in wartime, to be a credible candidate to assume the presidency in the case of death, resignation or removal.

Indeed, Mr. Kerry privately complained to associates during the campaign that Mr. Edwards had not served long enough in the Senate — or politics for that matter — to deserve a shot at the presidency. Aides said he was won over by his private meetings with Mr. Edwards, his performance as a campaign surrogate since the primary fight ended and pressure from Democratic leaders who pushed Mr. Edwards as a vice-presidential pick.

Mr. Edwards seldom criticized Mr. Kerry or any of the other Democrats while running a generally positive campaign. The two had few major policy disagreements — both supported the decision to go to war in Iraq, for example, and both voted against the $87-billion package for Iraq and Afghanistan.

One division was over the North American Free Trade Agreement: Mr. Kerry voted for it, but Mr. Edwards campaigned against NAFTA, which the Senate approved before he was elected. Mr. Edwards made trade, jobs and the economy the centrepiece of his campaign, questioning Mr. Kerry’s vote on NAFTA but not pledging to seek its repeal.

They also differed in some ways on how to approach some issues. Both called for rolling back the Bush tax cuts, but Mr. Kerry proposed eliminating the tax cuts for those who make more than $200,000 a year while Mr. Edwards set the ceiling at $240,000. Mr. Kerry voted against the ban on so-called “partial birth” abortion passed by Congress, but Mr. Edwards did not vote. A more clear-cut difference was Mr. Kerry’s opposition to the death penalty and Mr. Edwards’s support of it.

Mr. Kerry finished first and Mr. Edwards second in the Iowa caucuses in January, surprising front-runner Howard Dean and driving Mr. Gephardt, a regional favourite, out of the race. Mr. Dean finished second to Mr. Kerry in the New Hampshire primary, but the race quickly became a contest between Mr. Kerry and Mr. Edwards.

Yet Mr. Edwards could never muster enough momentum to overtake his Senate colleague. He won only a single state – his native South Carolina – during the competitive phase of the primary and ended his bid after the 10-state Super Tuesday elections on March 2.

Mr. Edwards, 51, was born in Seneca, S.C., and grew up in Robbins, N.C. His father was a mill worker, and he announced his presidential campaign from the factory, then closed, where his father had worked and where he had swept floors to earn money for college. He earned a bachelor’s degree from North Carolina State University in 1974 and a law degree from the University of North Carolina in 1977.

A Methodist, Edwards and his wife, Elizabeth, have three children: Cate, Emma Claire and Jack. Another son, Wade, died in a traffic accident at age 16 in 1996.

Mr. Edwards worked in private practice in Nashville and Raleigh, N.C., for nearly two decades, earning a fortune from medical malpractice and product liability judgments. Although he portrayed himself as a champion of ordinary people hurt by large corporations, the American Tort Reform Association described him as “a wealthy personal injury lawyer masquerading as a man of the regular people.”

From CBC News Tony Blair calls “Guantanamo an ‘anomaly’ that has to end”.

Guantanamo an ‘anomaly’ that has to end: Blair
Last Updated Tue, 06 Jul 2004 8:27:29

LONDON – The U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, has gone on nearly long enough for British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who said on Tuesday it has to end.

Blair has personally asked U.S. President George W. Bush to let go the four remaining Britons being held at the camp, a request Washington has been reluctant to grant.

“Guantanamo Bay is an anomaly that has at some point got to be brought to an end,” Blair told a parliamentary committee on Tuesday.

The United States insists that the four British citizens will remain behind bars at the U.S. naval base until the British government can guarantee the men will not pose a threat, either to Britain or elsewhere in the world.

The U.S. military set up the prison camp in January 2002 during the war in Afghanistan to hold suspected Taliban and al-Qaeda members.

Hundreds of detainees of various nationalities have been held there for months, now even years, without charge.

At least two Canadians have been held at the camp, Abdurahman Khadr, who is back in Canada, and his brother Omar, who is still at Guantanamo Bay.

Five Britons who spent up to two years at the prison camp were released to British officials in March. All were freed without charge.

London still wants four more released. Two of them, Moazzam Begg, 36 and Feroz Abbasi, 23, are expected to be among the first of the detainees to face a U.S. military commission.

Britain’s Attorney General Lord Goldsmith said last week he didn’t believe the commission would provide trial that would meet international standards for fairness.

Speaking to the House of Commons Liaison Committee on Tuesday, Blair said he didn’t believe the U.S. demands were unreasonable. “I hope we can resolve it reasonably soon,” he said.

Blair is under political pressure, both from opposition parties and from within his own Labour party ranks, to have the remaining Britons released. Some suggest his support for Bush’s wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have earned Blair little influence in Washington.

City Of God (imdb | rotten tomatoes | buy it) was as good as promised. When I first started watching it last night I thought, “There’s no way I’ll care about these characters.”

I was wrong.

I ended up caring, very much, what happened to them, how they fared, what they did, how the stories intertwined, how things fell apart and back together. It’s an incredible, brutal movie, well worth the two hours.