POLITICS

CANADA’S motto is “peace, order, good government”. Few would dispute that the country has succeeded in maintaining the first two under the Liberal administration that has held power since 1993. But the Liberals are widely deemed to have failed on the last, and on Monday November 28th they paid the price: the government was defeated in a confidence vote. Following a winter campaign, which promises to be bitter in more ways than one, an election will be held on January 23rd.

The Liberals have been losing support among voters ever since the revelation, in 2003, of the so-called “sponsorship” scandal. In 1995, voters in Quebec narrowly rejected a referendum on secession from Canada. In the following years, the Liberal government, under then prime minister Jean Chrétien, spent money on advertisements in the majority-francophone province promoting Canadian unity. Some of the money found its way to advertising firms with links to the Liberals, and thence back into party coffers. Mr Chrétien’s successor as prime minister, Paul Martin, asked a judge, John Gomery, to look into the accusations. His commission reported this month that money had indeed gone criminally missing, but explicitly exonerated Mr Martin. Nonetheless, the Liberals now seem tired and faintly corrupt in voters’ eyes.

But will this usher in a government led by the main opposition party, the Conservatives? The odds are surprisingly long. The current Conservative Party is the result of a recent merger between the western-based Canadian Alliance, which resembles America’s Republicans in its social and fiscal conservatism, and the ideologically softer Progressive Conservative Party. Led by the Alliance’s Stephen Harper, the new Conservatives seem more right-wing than many Canadians are comfortable with. Mr Harper’s opposition to gay marriage and reservations about abortion—both of which are espoused by the Liberal government—make him easy to portray as out-of-touch with tolerant Canadian values.

Mr Martin did just that at the last election, in June of last year, which helped his party win the largest share of seats. However, the Liberal Party lost its majority in that poll, largely thanks to the then-emerging sponsorship scandal. It has since limped along in a minority government. It scraped through a confidence vote earlier this year, thanks only to the support of the left-wing New Democratic Party (NDP), which demanded various spending increases. After Judge Gomery reported, the NDP bolted, leaving the government to fall on Monday.

Now Canadians will face an unusually acrimonious campaign. Ugly language has already been flung around, with Mr Harper saying that the Liberals were involved in “organised crime” in the sponsorship scandal. Meanwhile, the Liberals have suggested that Mr Harper and his party have a “hidden” right-wing agenda.

One area the Conservatives will seek to exploit is government spending. Mr Martin, known for his careful stewardship of Canada’s public finances as finance minister under Mr Chrétien, has gone on a bit of a spending spree in the run-up to what he knew would be an early election. On November 14th, the government promised C$39 billion ($33 billion) in new tax cuts and spending over the next five years. Mr Harper accused Mr Martin of promising over a billion dollars a day in order to hold on to power.

Despite the Liberals’ woes, the Conservatives currently sit on too narrow a base to expect an easy win in the election. Their stronghold is Alberta. The energy-rich western province has a testy relationship with the federal government. Though it has control over its extensive natural gas and oil deposits, it fears that the government might try to take charge of these, or move further to redistribute Alberta’s wealth to the rest of Canada.

Though the Conservatives do well from the west’s sense of alienation from Ottawa, the federal capital, beyond the region they are weak. They lag the Liberals in Ontario, by far the most populous province, and have no seats at all in Quebec, the next biggest prize. Despite the sleaze scandal and a ruling party that looks weak, the opposition party has gained surprisingly little in the polls since the last election—not unlike America.

But Canada differs from its southern neighbour in a big respect. The two big parties must compete with the NDP across the country. And, more significantly for Canada’s future, these three parties must contend with the Bloc Québécois, the national party advocating “sovereignty”—independence—for Quebec. Gilles Duceppe, the Bloc’s leader, promises that voters in his province will pass “harsh judgment” on the Liberals for a scandal which, after all, misused funds designed to promote Canadian unity in Quebec. And not only is the federal government unpopular, but the provincial one, run by the Liberals, has failed to impress. This combination of forces will probably strengthen the Bloc’s hold on Quebec’s delegation in Ottawa in the January election.

Opinion polls suggest that support for independence has been growing in Quebec since the 1995 referendum. But much of this support looks fragile—many people say paradoxically that they favour independence but do not want to see a referendum soon: in other words, they are for it in theory, but against in practice. The Parti Québécois, the provincial counterpart to the federal Bloc, has promised a referendum as soon as possible should it gain control of the province in the future. Given the ambivalence of Quebeckers, any such vote could go either way. But there is no doubt that the sleaze scandal has hurt the Liberal—and federal—cause in sometimes fickle Quebec.

Overall, Canada would seem to be doing well: its public finances are sound, its people enjoy one of the highest standards of living in the world, and its economy is roaring—it grew by a better-than-expected 3.6% on an annual basis in the third quarter, according to figures released on Wednesday. But Canadians are grumpy. They worry about government ethics, but they fret even more about things like the state of their health-care system. The Liberals have a 12-year run in government behind them. They are likely—but not guaranteed—to convince Canadians to give them yet another chance. But a majority in the House of Commons may again elude them.

- from The Economist



ROCK & ROLL

Billy F. Gibbons, the lead guitarist of the Texas trio ZZ Top, prefers to sleep on the floor when he stays in a hotel. Before he dozes off, he listens on his laptop to old radio programs, such as “The Saint” or “The Whistler.” “These antiquated sounds can pull me out of my head,” Gibbons explained the other afternoon, while catching his breath, as he put it, in a dark corner of the bar at the Rihga Royal hotel, in midtown.

Gibbons drinks beer through a straw, to keep the suds from getting in his beard, a double-barrelled two-footer that, along with a pair of Ray-Bans and an African cap that resembles a full head of stubby dreadlocks, leaves little room for evidence of a face. As a prop—one of rock’s least dispensable—the beard also obscures the presence of a fairly keen mind, which instead must reveal itself in ornate remarks about souped-up automobiles, vintage guitars, and life on the road: his pillars of wisdom. For example, here is his answer to the question “Who was that?” after he’d talked for a while on his cell phone: “Elwood Francis, our guitar technician, took a brief absence from the tour in order to escort his wife to China, where they successfully adopted a baby girl named Joshi. In his absence, his post was attended by a talented technician named Sammy Sanchez, who introduced me to a guitar called the Turbo Diddly, which is made from an old wooden cigar box. It has what you call a resonator, and it sounds like a bad recording from 1949. The guy who makes it, Kurt Schoen, is a pilot for UPS.”

Gibbons collects and customizes cars and guitars. He and his mates in ZZ Top, Dusty Hill (who has a beard, too) and Frank Beard (who does not), share an obsession with gear, as they call it, which Gibbons has chronicled in a new picture book called “Rock + Roll Gearhead.” He was in town, after two gigs with the band, to promote it. “It’s been a pretty packed day, dude,” he said.

Gibbons had an appointment to videotape a guitar lesson for a music magazine. He had decided, however, that it could wait. “It is not to my liking, per se,” he said. A straw apparently helps beer go down quick. Gibbons made frequent trips to the bathroom, trotting through the bar, a slight figure with a little paunch, leaving double takes in his wake. A TV was showing footage of a tornado. Once, in Kentucky, Gibbons recalled, “a tornado preceded our arrival and passed us by. It so happened that there was a bra-and-panty factory in town, and the tornado tore it up. We were greeted by the sight of bras and panties hanging from trees for five miles.”

Gibbons wanted to see an early Leo Fender Telecaster prototype known as No. 0009, which Dan Courtenay, the owner of Chelsea Guitars, on West Twenty-third Street, had in his shop. He summoned his entourage—his tour manager and his fiancée, Gilligan Stillwater—and they pushed off from the Rihga in a town car driven by a man with a long waxed mustache. Stillwater, who had known Gibbons for twenty years and had decided finally to marry him, because, she said, “I got tired and slowed down,” was amazed to see a woman riding a bicycle, wearing a dress but no helmet. “That’s New York, Miss Gilligan,” the driver said.

Gibbons strode into the guitar shop like a brigadier general. Dan Courtenay dug out various old underappreciated models. “Too much fun in here, bro,” Gibbons said. Finally, Courtenay brought out the old Fender. “Number nine,” Gibbons said, with feeling. He and Courtenay admired how the bobbin for the second pickup had been cut with a carpet knife. The paint on the body, metallic and red, was car paint, possibly from a Studebaker plant. This confluence pleased Gibbons. He gathered everyone for a series of photographs, with him at the center, holding No. 0009.

Gibbons decided to make a pit stop, before getting back in the car. He ran into El Quijote, a Spanish restaurant. Passing the bar on his way to the bathroom, it occurred to him that he might like another beer. The bartender opened a Corona, and then asked that Gibbons remove his hat.

Gibbons said, “Es mi pelo”—my hair. A joke, more or less. The bartender shrugged, took away the beer, and said, “Sorry, no service.”
Gibbons let it go. Out on the street, a semicircle of paparazzi had formed.
“Take off your shades, man!” one called out.
“No way, that’s his trademark,” another replied.
Gibbons kept the sunglasses on.

- from the New Yorker



TRAVEL

Why are laptops so dangerous?

Almost 22 million people are expected to travel on U.S. airlines during the Thanksgiving holiday period, and wait times at the airport may increase as a result. As usual, airlines are telling passengers they can save time if they remove laptop computers from their carry-on baggage before they get to security checkpoints. Why do computers get so much attention?

In theory, a laptop might contain a bomb or hide a weapon. The Transportation Security Administration requires that all laptops be taken out of carry-on bags and passed through scanners on their own. The rule allows screeners to get an unimpeded look at each computer, which might help them discern whether it contains hidden explosives. And removing a laptop also makes it easier for screeners to see whatever else is in the bag. Computers can be large and dense enough to conceal parts of a suitcase in an X-ray image. (A knife, for example, might slip through a scanner if it were tucked underneath a heavy laptop.)

No one worried too much about electronic devices in carry-on baggage until the 1989 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. The device that destroyed that plane—and killed 270 people—turned out to have been hidden inside a boom box.

After this incident, Congress briefly considered banning electronic devices in the cabin. Instead, the FAA asked airlines and airports to exercise more scrutiny over cell phones, radios, alarm clocks, computers, and other electronics. As a result, many travelers were asked to turn on their laptop computers at screening checkpoints, to prove that they functioned normally. (Some airports made powering up a computer mandatory; others required it only for travelers who were afraid to send their computers through the X-ray machine.) Laptops with dead batteries were sometimes taken to a special room and plugged in. By 1993, the process had become enough of a hassle that one company released a program called "Airport Shut Down"; it put your computer to sleep—rather than turning it off completely—in advance of the screening.

Security experts argued that these procedures were a waste of time, since you could easily hide a bomb inside a functioning computer. (Explosives could be packed into disk drives or internal cavities for additional hardware.) By the late '90s the practice had mostly disappeared, but the exact rules for screening laptops—and whether they needed to be taken out of the carry-on baggage—seemed to vary from place to place up until 9/11.

Since the end of 2001, the removal of laptops from carry-on baggage has been standard practice at U.S. airports. Initially, this practice led to a dramatic increase in reports of lost property, as passengers forgot their computers at security checkpoints. (In early 2002, Denver officials resorted to posting "Got laptop?" signs around the airport.)



LYRICS

GOIN’ OUT

When the days close on the memories that you’ve acquired
And your body cannot hold your soul inspired
You are here and not alone
Everybody has come home

There’s a bed made up upstairs
If you get tired

All the heaviness around you will get light
And your worry lifted up into the night
Left with nothing but pure love
Left with all you are made of
Can I stay around awhile
Is that all right?

Oh lives don’t end
Goin’ out to be brought back again
Our lives don’t end
- Sarah Harmer

"Powderfinger"

Look out, Mama,
there's a white boat
comin' up the river
With a big red beacon,
and a flag,
and a man on the rail
I think you'd better call John,
'Cause it don't
look like they're here
to deliver the mail
And it's less than a mile away
I hope they didn't come to stay
It's got numbers on the side
and a gun
And it's makin' big waves.

Daddy's gone,
my brother's out hunting
in the mountains
Big John's been drinking
since the river took Emmy-Lou
So the powers that be
left me here
to do the thinkin'
And I just turned twenty-two
I was wonderin' what to do
And the closer they got,
The more those feelings grew.

Daddy's rifle in my hand
felt reassurin'
He told me,
Red means run, son,
numbers add up to nothin'
But when the first shot
hit the docks I saw it comin'
Raised my rifle to my eye
Never stopped to wonder why.
Then I saw black,
And my face splashed in the sky.

Shelter me from the powder
and the finger
Cover me with the thought
that pulled the trigger
Think of me
as one you'd never figured
Would fade away so young
With so much left undone
Remember me to my love,
I know I'll miss her.
- Neil Young