I enjoy Malcolm Gladwell's writing, and often feel I come away with fresh insights into the way the world works, as opposed to how it appears to work. But I will read Gladwell with more skepticism after reading a spectacular takedown in an unlikely blog called "Ask-a-Korean." If you have followed media coverage of the July 6 crash of Asiana Flight 214 at San Francisco Airport, you have doubtless heard speculation that Korea's culture of deference to authority, a culture deeply embedded in the Korean language, played a role in the crash. This theory owes much to Gladwell, who devoted a...

The provincial government has changed the Labour Standards Code to protect the jobs of parents who take time off because their child is critically ill or has fallen victim to a serious crime. The changes guarantee a parent's right to return to work at the same pay and working conditions after: up to 37 weeks if they have been caring for a critically ill child up to 104 weeks if their child has died as a result of a crime up to 52 weeks if a child has disappeared as a result of a crime. Who could possibly question measures to ease the suffering of...

Patrick Smith's Ask the Pilot blog adds an astounding data point to the accident, which killed at least two people and injured many more, some very seriously. [T]his was the first multiple-fatality crash involving a major airline in North America since November, 2001. The streak has ended, but it lasted nearly twelve years, with some 20,000 commercial jetliners taking off and landing safely in this country every single day — an astonishing run. Is it perverse to suggest that Saturday’s accident, awful as it was, serves to underscore just how safe commercial flying has become? [Emphasis added] 20,000 x 365 days x...

One month after the apparent death of chronic lobster poacher and trap vandal Philip Boudreau, the CBC continues to falsely identify him as a fisherman.     [Click images for full-sized image.] This is perplexing  The CBC's very capable reporters and editors know full well that Boudreau held no commercial or sport fishing license of any kind. They know his status as a non-fisherman is both a key fact, and a probable factor, in the events leading to his disappearance. Never discount the role of haste in deadline journalism. Toronto web editors who are not the primary reporters covering this story may have simply assumed that a...

On Wednesday, I questioned CBC reporter Phonse Jessome's reporting on the Philip Boudreau killing, and the broader media failure to probe allegations the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and the RCMP received many complaints about Boudreau's chronic lobster thievery and trap vandalism over the years, but did little or nothing. In an essay on the CBC's website, Jessome elaborates on his approach to the story (though he makes no overt reference to my criticism). Unfortunately, he sheds no light on why the CBC continues to skirt the DFO-RCMP angle....

On Monday, CBC reporter Phonse Jessome recounted sensational excerpts from what purported to be a confession by one of the fishermen accused of killing Philip Boudreau June 1. He supplemented his reporting with editorial comments that portrayed the killing as an unfathomable escalation of a feud over "fishing territory." Based on widely known but lightly reported facts, the escalation is not unfathomable. To portray it as arising out of a "feud" over “territory” is to adopt one side in highly contentious matter. Tuesday, while reporting a brief court appearance by the accused men, Jessome added more editorial commentary, stressing the trauma experienced by the Boudreau's family, portraying defense...

In case you missed it, CNN reporter Wolf Blitzer's attempt to enforce the journalistic requirement that survivors of natural disasters must thank God for the miracle of their escape (while avoiding mention of God's responsibility for the deaths and injuries of those who did not) backfired in Moore, Oklahoma, today yesterday, when survivor Rebecca Vitsmun politely declined to follow the script. [video link] Vitsmun had planned to ride out the tornado with her 19-month-old son Anders by huddling in the bathtub of their home, but 10 minutes before the storm hit, she panicked and fled with with the boy in the family...

Newfoundland has always had way better tourism ads than Nova Scotia (or pretty much anywhere else on the planet for that matter). Now it turns out they have way better children's hospital ads, too. (Stay with this at least until the music starts, about five minutes in. Hilarious.) [Video link]. H/T Calvert's own Jenn Power....

The Dexter Government's decision to make a retroactive grab for disgraced MLA Trevor Zinck's pension should not pass without comment. It is a cynical exercise in pre-election pandering to public hatred of politicians. The pandering ploy reflects badly on the government as a whole, but especially on the lawyers among its ranks, including Darrell Dexter and Graham Steele, both of whom certainly know better. The courts should be left to deal with Mr. Zinck according to the evidence as it may be adduced at trial, and the law as it existed at the time his of alleged crimes and misdemeanors. His...

As I said yesterday, I find the spectre of the hectoring free-marketeers at Sun News demanding government regulation to coerce consumers into buying their product hilarious. Contrarian reader Ritchie Simpson thinks I'm out to lunch: I mean really, Parker, what a scurrilous attack on Sun News, complete with quotation marks in the title to suggest that someone, supposedly [Sun News VP Kory] Teneycke, actually said that. I’m forced, in Eastlink’s basic package, to pay for all 3 major American networks, all other Canadian news channels, including the Ontario centric, slightly pinkish, tax gobbling, bureaucracy-bound CBC in several guises, two CTV channels,...