Phishers aren't just Nigerian schoolboys any more. They're getting reasonably sophisticated: Three factors almost hooked me: I actually am a CIBC (credit card) customer. Always delete any "security message" from a financial institution where you don't have an account. The URL (in dark blue text) looks like a genuine CIBC website (www.cibconline.cibc.com/...

14 July, 2012

Dave Carroll has a publicist. I'm going to say that again. Son of Maxwell Dave Carroll, the Nova Scotia folksinger who needed only $150 and some creative friends to turn a beef with a US airline into a mortifying (to the airline) viral video that drew nearly 12 million pageviews, now has his own publicist. Eliza Levy is a pleasant sounding young "assistant to the publicity team" at Media Connect, a division of Finn Partners of New York. She's handling PR for Carroll's newly published book, United Breaks Guitars: The Power of One Voice in the Age of Social Media, and his...

18 May, 2012

Our friend in New Brunswick has been channeling Pat Boone: Dear Aliant, It’s not me, it’s you. We’ve been through a lot together. Land lines and cell phones. Dial-up, high-speed, wireless Internet sticks and now, fibre-op. I’ve treated you well. Sent you hundreds of dollars every single month. Tried to keep the lines of communication open. We’ve talked and talked – never more than during my recent move to New Brunswick. In fact, we just got off the phone with one another, marking our tenth call related to my move from Nova Scotia. I called you just now because I was alarmed to receive...

07 May, 2012

I don't often agree with Leanne Hachey, the engaging but disturbingly right-wing Atlantic VP of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, but she scored a bullseye this week with her critique of the Dexter government's fake consultation on its much-criticized first-contract legislation. (Disclosure: Hachey and I are longtime friends and sparring partners.) Documents FOIPOPed by the CFIB demonstrated that the legislation was drafted before the consultation began, although the draft bill was never disclosed during the window-dressing sessions. The federation and other business groups spent tens of thousands of dollars opposing the bill only to discover what they suspected all along: it...

13 April, 2012

Contrarian readers know I have no affection for the Harper Government. There are, however, occasional advantages to having hard-assed right-wingers in unfettered control. The willingness to do obviously sensible but unpopular things—like getting rid of the penny—is one of them. The penny should have been killed decades ago. Taxpayers lose money on every one we mint. Consumers and storekeepers lose 492 million hours every year handling the all but worthless chips. (Yes, I made that number up, but it can't be far off.) But...

30 March, 2012

Sometimes the movies understand issues that reporters and editors seem incapable of grasping. Like the entrenched police habit of grossly inflating the value of illicit drugs they seize, values almost always reported as Received Truth. In The Guard,  John Michael McDonagh's hilarious comedy about the culture clash between an uptight FBI agent and a small town Irish cop, FBI Agent Wendell Everett, played by Don Cheadle, is briefing members of Ireland's Garda police force about a drug ship carrying $500 million worth of cocaine, when Sgt. Gerry Boyle, his small town Irish counterpart, played with impecable timing by Brendan Gleeson, interrupts. Wendell Everett: That's...

02 March, 2012

I bought a lot of books on line in the run-up to Christmas, and I was struck by how much quicker Amazon was able to get them to me than Chapters. When I tweeted this observation, a fellow tweep chided me — of all people — for not patronizing local bookstores. I like a nice bookstore as much as the next fellow. Who doesn't enjoy wandering through the stacks at J. W. Doull's, feeling the stairs creak underfoot, talking books with the marvellous staff he employs. But it's no accident that John Doull can no longer afford the rent in downtown...

02 February, 2012