Globe runs MUN president story

The Globe is reporting what has been rumoured for months, namely that the Premier nixed the nominee to replace Axel Meisen as president of Memorial University.

There are denials - sort of - from the powers that be.

Elizabeth Matthews, who is Mr. Williams's director of communications, said provincial legislation allows the Premier to have the opportunity for input, and the government doesn't apologize for having an interest in who takes on the job. “It would definitely be fair to say that he would ultimately have an interest when the names are brought forward,” she told The Globe earlier this week.

She also denied suggestions that the Premier has interfered in the process. “He can't have interfered because no names have been brought forward yet,” she said.

One minor problem with that bit: it's not correct. The Memorial University Act gives certain power to the Lieutenant Governor in Council - that is the entire cabinet - not just to the Premier.

51. There shall be a president of the university who shall be appointed by the board in consultation with the senate and with the approval of the Lieutenant-Governor in Council.

As for the rest, it's a bit of verbal gymnastics that doesn't get to the point one way or the other. Any of a number of people on the senate could have, informally and unofficially, notified the Premier's Office of the name or names under consideration, there by giving plenty of opportunity for the Premier to have his say even though "no names have been brought forward yet" officially.

All deniable.

The Globe makes an increasingly common comparison, one that seems to be finding favour with the 8th:

The current situation harks back to former days in Newfoundland when politics did play a direct role in the leadership of Memorial, which gained university status in 1950 and has long been regarded as a key institution for the province. In 1966, Premier Joey Smallwood picked Lord Stephen Taylor to lead the university. Changes to the university's governance structure in the 1970s eliminated such direct appointments, but still require that the selection of the president be approved by the lieutenant-governor-in-council – essentially the premier and cabinet.

Those who have taken part in recent presidential searches say that approval has been a formality. “The recommendation was not questioned,” said Chris Sharpe, a geography professor who was a member of the committee that chose the last president.

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Accountants question government budget reporting

The Certified General Accountants Association of Canada said on Friday it is time for greater transparency around the budget process in Canada.

“The entire budget process needs to be more transparent. It’s become far too difficult for Canadians to make sense of the practice and to fully understand how their tax dollars are being spent,” said CGAAC president and chief executive officer Anthony Ariganello in a news release.

The CGA association questioned whether the surprise surpluses were actual surprises or part of a deliberate political strategy.

“You have to wonder whether these surpluses have allowed governments to be much less disciplined in their budgetary spending,” Ariganello noted. “The use of any federal surplus should be decided within the budgetary process, not as a consequence of poor planning.”

While Ariganello was referring specifically to the federal government, successive provincial budgets in Newfoundland and Labrador have followed the pattern to which the CGA president referred.

In the most recent budget news releases and comments by the finance minister referred to a projected surplus, but the budget documents tabled in the legislature forecast a $1.2 billion shortfall.  As well, the financial results for 2007 have been presented as yielding a surplus while the government actually borrowed $88 million to cover all financial transactions. 

That was the second straight year of provincial deficits, despite public claims of surpluses. Even Bond Papers was fooled (note the reference to record surpluses), until a thorough check of the documents revealed the real picture.

The chart shows total borrowing requirements from provincial government budgets between 2004 and 2008.

At the same time public sector spending has grown at a rate well beyond the annual rate of inflation.

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Humber Valley Resorts - new business plan

Flip to Crazy about Newfoundland and you'll find some interesting information on Humber Valley Resorts, the high-end real estate development started by former Indy publisher Brian Dobbin.

A major reorganization and refinancing effort has been underway since late last year. This is the first hint of the new initiatives aimed at stemming losses reported in the last two fiscal years and becoming profitable.

The post comes - apparently - from an e-mail sent to owners of existing chalets by the new Newfound NV chief executive officer Jayne McGivern following her first visit to the property.

Key initial points
* Newfound wants to retain the operation of the resort within the company
* The primary focus will be to build high-end chalets
* Tennis courts will be added [Update: Dan from Crazy advises by e-mail he made an error on the swimming pool mentioned in the original. He's adjusted his own post accordingly]
* Focus on completion of the road system, cycle paths and verge landscaping
* Reduce the property sales activity - to create a more controlled build plan

There are some other interesting developments, though, including this:

As a postscript - Jayne McGiven [sic] also met Tom Marshall the provisional [sic] finance minister and local MHA representative [sic], and apparently made it clear that the company would not continue to fund the only tourism flights from Europe, and reinforced that if tourism is to succeed the provisional government [sic] needs to take a much more active role. I also hear that her suggested solution is the resumption of the London to St Johns route. (Not that great for Western Newfoundland in my opinion). [Emphasis added]

There were hints of this publicly already. The Telegram reported in early June on Newfound NV's annual report for 2007.

Since late 2007, the company has reorganized, reduced losses and introduced a new management team to further develop properties in Newfoundland and the Caribbean, estimated in the company annual report to have a value of US$227 million.

The annual report describes the efforts made at turning around the company's fortunes:

As mentioned in my statement last year, we have been addressing the construction issues and although some still remain we did achieve our aim of accelerating the construction program during 2007 and we are making healthy margins on new build.

During the year, we carried out significant construction work on over 60 chalets resulting in an increase in revenue in local currency from construction and furnishings of 66% to US$ 21.3 million. We have nearly completed the construction backlog inherited at the time of the Newfound acquisition in 2006 and, subject to suitable funding being in place, it is hoped that all of the remaining outstanding contracts will be started during 2008.

In 2007, the first full year of operation of the 18 hole golf course, we won four prestigious awards including Golf Magazine (golf.com) Best New International Course 2007 and ScoreGolf Magazine's Best Canadian New Golf Course 2007. The credit for this must go to our Golf manager and his team.

We have recently signed an agreement with Monarch Airlines to run a weekly Boeing 757 from Gatwick to Deer Lake to cover both the summer and winter seasons, thus supporting the expected increase in vacation traffic. Although the charter at present makes a financial loss until such time as vacation numbers increase, it is an important part of both the operations at Humber Valley Resort and its future development.

Notice that there is no reference in the annual report to finding financial subsidies for the charter flights. In fact, the last statement suggests the current losses will be rectified once vacation numbers increase.

The idea of government paying for or subsidizing flights was first hinted at publicly by Brian Dobbin in his farewell column in the last issue of the Indy.

Humber Valley Resort showed a lot of people how good our tourism product can be to international markets, but it is now controlled by a mostly non-Newfoundland group of shareholders who see it only as an asset amongst others. While a private company we invested over $15 million just in marketing our tourism product internationally and providing air service from Europe. I know of no other international developer in the world who paid for weekly overseas flights for four years. Although I remain a shareholder in the company, I don’t expect our board will accept that kind of capital expenditure in the future on something they rightfully see as the province’s job. [Emphasis added]

Commercial air service, including international service, is available to Newfoundland and Labrador from London via several carriers. Air Canada discontinued year-round service between St. John's (YYT) and Gatwick in 2006 due to reportedly low traffic volume. It announced at the time it planned to introduce summer-only service in 2007.

Following the Air Canada announcement, Newfound's charter carrier at the time - Astraeus - began competing with Air Canada on the summer service run in 2007.

Both carriers subsequently withdrew from the St. John's to Gatwick run, although the provincial government only attacked Air Canada. The provincial transportation minister John Hickey offered a convoluted - and often incorrect - version of events.

The idea of the province having some financial involvement in the flights is a new twist though. In comments made to CBC in December, Newfound Group president Jeremy White referred to a request for the provincial government to lobby Air Canada to restore the direct Gatwick-St. John's flight. He also said government had offered to help defray some of the marketing costs for Humber Valley.

No representative from Newfound NV is listed in the provincial lobbyist register, as of 25 July 2008.

Humber Valley general manager Paul Shelley is a former provincial tourism minister. [Update: Dan from Crazy reports by e-mail that Paul Shelley is "long gone" from Humber Valley. He's now in St. John's but still with Newfound NV.]

Brian Dobbin, still the major shareholder in Newfound NV according to the 2007 annual report, sits on the provincially-appointed Ireland business partnership board.

Between 2006 and 2008, the provincial government was the "anchor advertiser" at the Independent, Dobbin's weekly newspaper, according to comments by editor Ryan Cleary.

In summer 2007, the Indy featured a front page story on Astraeus and its weekly service. The piece attracted considerable criticism:

This week, Cleary himself has shown the folly behind this thinking; has demonstrated that independent ownership does not guarantee editorial independence. The main story on page one of this week’s Independent (July 20) is what journalists indelicately call a “suck piece”. It takes up more than a third of page one, then turns to a massive two page spread inside. And nowhere in the article does Cleary disclose to whom he is sucking up.

In other words, there is a blatant hidden agenda.

Cleary and photographer Paul Daly took a round trip to London, thanks to free tickets from Astraeus Airlines. In return, Cleary lectures us that the flight was less than one-third full, and that the airline does not have a “bottomless pit of money.” The headlines exhorts us to “Use it or lose it.”

Actually, Cleary didn’t need to accept the free tickets to write this piece. He could have secured the essential information from a face-to-face or phone interview. But no matter – I don’t begrudge a reporter a freebie here and there, as long as there is full disclosure.

Nowhere in the body of the article does Cleary bring himself to say the tickets were free. You have to read the photo caption to discover that “the airline provided the paper with two round trip tickets.”

Update: 'ullo, 'ullo. What's all this then? An eagle-eyed reader has noted that the provincial government's tourism statistics report for 2007 claims there's been an increase in commercial airline travel by the infamous "non-resident" visitor to the province and that air capacity has gone up likewise.

The number of non-resident air visitors reached an estimated 81,100 to
the end of April 2008, an increase of 5.0% over the same period last
year.

...

Air capacity has increased significantly to Newfoundland and Labrador
for the summer of 2008 compared to the summer of 2007 with the
exception of international/overseas outbound direct. Not including the
Newfoundland to London, UK flights, there has been an overall increase
in air access of 6.9% flights (23 additional flights per week) and
14.3% or 3,353 seats per week

That "non-resident" visitor thing is such a joke. It's like you sleeping in another part of the house when the in-laws come to visit and then claiming that in addition to the endless string of visiors from out-of-province, your living room had a few "non-resident visitors.

Tourists are tourists. Visitors are visitors. The provincial government need to find another term for what they describe, and what is a legitimately business activity. But, they need to separate it from the real tourism statistics more clearly than they do. That way, the public can see - transparently - what kind of impact the tourism advertising budget is having on the market.

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Hat tip to Gary Kelly for the link to the Crazy post. Humber Valley has potential. It will be interesting to see how it grows, hopefully without public subsidies.

Sound advice, thus far ignored

Non-renewable resource revenue should be invested, at least in part, according to several economists and economic experts.

"You don't want extraction commodities to be the sole provider of prosperity," says Brett Gartner, an economist with the Canada West Foundation. "The risk is that when things are going well, the whole push to innovate and to diversify the economy gets forgotten, crowded out by all the money being made off resources."

The provincial government has thus far expressly refused to consider even a small investment fund of the type common in other places where non-renewable resources are a major or the major source of economic activity. 

In Norway and Alberta, a portion of government resource revenues is invested, thereby generating additional revenue for the future.

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Related:

Create wealth fund: OECD

Investing non-renewable revenues

Exports up. Dollar, oil, down: EDC forecast

Export Development Canada forecast Thursday at Canadian exports will rise by 4.2% based on high energy prices.

EDC is also predicting the Canadian dollar will drop to between US$0.94 and US$0.97 cents in early 2009.

“While EDC recognizes that global supply and demand for crude is tight, we sees signs that a large price correction is on the horizon”, Mr. Hall continued.  “On the demand front, growth expectations are likely to moderate as the global slowdown spreads and oil price subsidies in emerging markets are scaled back.  On the supply front, the Energy Information Administration is already forecasting a doubling of OPEC surplus capacity, to 4 million barrels per day in 2009, and non-OPEC supply gains of 1 million barrels per day.”

The forecasted correction:  crude below US$100 per barrel before the end of 2008 and averaging US$84 per barrel in 2009.

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End the gas price fraud

In the past week, crude oil prices have dropped roughly 15%, from US$147 per barrel to somewhere around US$125.

In St. John's today, gasoline prices dropped 6.5%.  That's after an increase last week.

Promoters of the scheme  - none of them economists evidently - will claim it has benefits.  It's hard to see how, considering that asa  result of government interfering in the marketplace, local consumers are being screwed.  "Regulation" is a sham the actually prevents the marketplace from working properly to deliver benefits to consumers. 

It's long overdue for government to end the fraud of "regulation".

Pay George Murphy to keep track of prices as useful information for consumers, if need be, but scrap the charade foisted on the province by people like Doc O'Keefe.

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So force feeding seals would be okay?

In response to a proposed European ban on seal products owing to the inhumane killing methods, Canadian sealers are considering penning the animals in cages and force feeding them boiled corn meal laced with fat, a practice to which EU legislators can turn a blind eye.

Relax.  They aren't. 

But they should given the Europeans' collective ability to wag their fingers at others while doing as they wish themselves.

Meanwhile, the French are leading a fight against fishing restrictions affecting EU countries.  Surprisingly, they'll be backed by the Spanish and Portugese.

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The price of freedom: Vimy + porn = one euro

A 30 something French couple was fined $500 euros after being found guilty of exhibitionism in France. 

They were also given a four month suspended jail sentence and ordered to pay one euro in compensation to the Canadian government.

The couple video recorded themselves having sex at the Vimy memorial to Canadian First World War dead and posted the video to an Internet site.

The memorial has become popular in France as a site for exhibitionism. Three cases were pending in January, 2008.

Samuel Cogez, a reporter with the local newspaper La Voix du Nord, told CBC that the memorial has been known "for years as a meeting place for all kinds of sexual encounters.

So the price of French freedom comes out to be about 15,000 Canadian lives in one war and a buck sixty Canadian 90 years later.

We'll have to keep that in mind the next time.

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Authentic: And he does snowploughs, too?

St. John's-based Newfoundland & Labrador Tourism commissioned artist Cam Mahy to paint a calm-inducing Newfoundland nature scene to get Torontonians thinking about an eastern getaway.

Hmmm.

With all the visual artists - photography or paint, for example - in Newfoundland and Labrador, is this the guy who painted the Gardiner billboard?

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I am my own electoral grandpa, the latest version

nottawa says he isn't making this up.

How could he. The truth is always stranger than fiction.

And who ever heard of voting in an election that hasn't been called, anyway?

Meanwhile, Paul Wells blogged it.

How long before the rest of the national media take notice of this embarrassment?

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Authentic

No sweat to tell the difference between a public relations professional who knows how to use the tools to do the job compared with well, the opposite.

On the opposite side, we have this ham-fisted piece of nonsense from the company doing advertising for the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador. Incidentally, the ham-fist is not the billboard on the Gardiner.

Then compare it to Joseph Thornley's personal pictures from a recent holiday in Prince Edward Island. Sure he used it as a means to talk about how easily he uploaded the great photos to his blog and to Flickr, but what he is telling is a simple story of someone who went to the Island, had a great time, took gorgeous pictures and then uploaded them to the Internet complete with geotags.

I uploaded about 100 pictures of the attractions and historic areas of Charlottetown, North Rustico Harbour (the epitome of a Canadian east coast village), the beaches and cliffs of Prince Edward Island Park (look for the picture of the fox that trotted right up to our car while holding a rabbit in its mouth) and, of course, Green Gables (if you’re the parent of a girl, you’ll know what that is.)

I uploaded photos from my flickr page directly to PlanetEye. It was simple. Took about 2 minutes for each batch of 20 to 25 pictures. And then the geotagging worked perfectly. I simply dragged and dropped my photos onto a map in the location where I’d taken them.

The difference between the two approaches is a simple word: authentic. Thornley's experience carries with it all the credibility of someone who has actually been there and done it. There's a story to be told here and the pictures are part of the whole thing.

Now theoretically, he could be working for the PEI tourism department or the software companies he mentions but nothing on the site would suggest he is. Ethically he'd be obliged to disclose such a connection and base don a number of factors, including the fact he doesn't comment on the issue, it's a reasonable assumption that he isn't. Note that one of Thornley's viewers chides him about the software developer.

Even after a suspicious mind has gone to that point and returned, you come back to the integrity and the sincerity of the post.

His last line, which will be seen by thousands in exactly the demographic Islanders are looking to hit, says it all:

If you’re interested in an unspoiled place for a summer vacation, take a look at Charlottetown on PlanetEye or at my Charlottetown photo set on Flickr .

A simple call to action - for you marketers out there - and the links are left in it so you can act, just as Thornley would have wanted.

Compare that to the other thing. There was a conventional media story in the billboard. The thing would have to be pitched and worked to get coverage.

A n Internet search turned up this story online, albeit in a media trade publication. There's another mention, again from a trade publication that focus es on the agency and not the client. The Telly had a picture on July 11. Notice this story appeared the very same day as the release, suggesting it was organized ahead of time.

There might be other stuff but it sure as heck isn't turning up online where the video and the story of the billboard had a chance to go truly viral.

If handled properly.

And that's the catch.

This was a potentially hot new media story, completely with daily blog posts about the development, complete with amateur video done by the creators as they were doing it. Three weeks worth of material is stuff most blogs would kill for, especially stuff as compelling as that. When you combine the story inherent in the billboard production with the authentic flavour of a local artist hired to complete the work you have a truly delightful tale that tells itself.

And seriously, except in a world where agency self-stroking is the goal, the trade pubs that showed up in the search are useless to accomplishing the client goal of boosting the number of people who don't usually come this way headed to the farthest eastern airports in the country.

It's not like the record on this over the past couple of years has been anything to write home about, although plenty has been written and spoken at home about it.

Throwing more cash into tourism advertising isn't necessarily the way to go in a highly competitive market at a time when it's tough to get people to travel.

Being genuinely creative in your approach - being authentic - sure can make a difference. As the great advertising persuader put it, authenticity helps break through the wall of cynicism about advertising generally.

It's easy to talk about authenticity, but sometimes it's pretty obvious that some people don't get what the word means.

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That economics thing

Via John Gushue, a simple test of financial literacy from the freakonomics blog.

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Crude futures go lower

Light, sweet for August delivery hit $127.24 today, down almost $4.00, on the New York Mercantile Exchange, according to ctv.ca.

That's down $20 from the record high set last week.

Refined gasoline for August delivery hit US$3.124 per gallon.

bloomberg.com offers more detail.

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Adios Indy

The sides were too far apart, according to Geoff Meeker.

No new investor means the paper folds.

It will be interesting to see if anyone can find out what "too far apart" actually meant.

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A provincial government strategic planning session...

Captured in graphic form.

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This day in history

On this day 60 years ago, Newfoundlanders and Labradorians voted on the future of their country.

In a referendum held on June 3, 1948, they had rejected any continuation of commission government but, as there had been no clear majority for any of the three options, a run-off was set for July 22.

The winner was Confederation with Canada. The option carried a majority of votes - 52% to 48% - and a wide majority of the districts.

While there are those anti-Confederates who have tried consistently since 1946 to attack it, the national convention and the two referenda are something of which Newfoundlanders and Labradorians should be proud.

This was a truly democractic exercise in self-determination in which the fate of the country was placed, not in the hands of a few, but in the hands of the many. The issues were debated and widely discussed. The choices were clear and there were few restrictions on the campaigns. As it turned out, the first referendum showed an over-whelming preference for self-government.

The second referendum decided the form. In the event, voters settled for self-government through Confederation. It has been self-government, that is, government in which the people are responsible for controlling their own affairs, ever since. There are some who find that truth a tad inconvenient, but it remains a fact.

Responsible government returned to Newfoundland and Labrador in 1949 by popular vote. You don't need to argue about what happened after 1949 to celebrate what happened beforehand, culminating in the 1948 referenda.

Too bad Newfoundlanders and Labradorians don't know more about the events.

Even worse that Canadians elsewhere in the country know even less.

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We got cows?

Ronald Reagan used to blame them for global warming.

Remember?

Moos and methane?

No.

Okay, well, the point is made.

Not A perfect storm. 

Not even like the scene in Twister where one of the characters ends a cell phone call with the line: "I gotta go.  We got cows."

More like cow farts.

The consumer price index for June is expected to be up one half of one percent  to 2.9% with the core inflation rate being up about 0.1 per cent to sit at 1.6%.  That's well within expected targets by the Bank of Canada and certainly no cause for panic.

There is a need for vigilance and for prudent action, when necessary.  There are other countries where inflation is far worse. 

Mexico just boosted its bank rate to deal with its own inflation situation (5.25% for June year over year).  There's pressure for action in Britain (3.8% inflation) and in Venezuela, where inflation is running at around 31%, Hugo Chavez has decided it's time to stir up border troubles and spend billions on new submarines, tanks, aircraft and attack helicopters from Russia (15% inflation). 

To help understand the whole inflation issue, you need to have a grip on simple numbers and the words.

But a perfect storm?

Only if you start to believe what you see in McCain campaign ads.

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High gas prices Obama's fault

Well, at least that's what John McCain is saying.

It's going to be a long, hot - and very stupid - presidential campaign south of the border if this is any indication.

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Number 10 heads for number one

Via Neville Hobson, comes a link to Simon Dickson's post on the new look coming soon to the website of the Prime Minister's office in the United Kingdom.

number10.gov.uk will go from look like many other sites out there to looking like this, right.  There are slightly better quality photos available from the Downing Street Flickr space.

Yes, the Prime Minister's Office uses Flickr.  They use Twitter and the whole gamut of social media.

As you can see from Simon's description the site looks like a blog because they are using WordPress as the platform.  There's a rationale Simon offers, but frankly, anyone using the site will find that the blog approach to layout simply works more efficiently than most other designs when it comes to making the information readily accessible.

The current Number 10 site is good but it has a tendency to be an assault on the eyeballs.  The new version goes for images - like the official stills at Flickr - and in Number 10 TV which is the new centrepiece.  Simon notes that the new video component will not be youtube, although, here again Number 10 has been using the groundbreaking video site for a little over a year. 

On the right of the new layout are two columns of information, mostly conveyed in images, which take you off to other places if you are so inclined.

Compare this, for argument's sake, with any provincial government website.  That's the main government site and from there you can get to all sorts of places. The thing is depressingly out of date in both layout and content and there seems to be no move afoot to change things.  Aside:  it would be nice to be proven wrong on these things, you know. 

Other provincial government sites across the country are not significantly better, although as time passes, the gov.nl site is looking increasingly tired.  Try to find information on the community recreation develop program for example. 

After a considerable trek through the maze of clicks,  you wind up at a page with a single paragraph on it:

Designed to offset the cost of providing recreation and sport/active living programs and leisure services with the Community Recreation Committees in communities of less than 6000 people can apply for financial support. Application forms are available through regional offices.

There's no indication of how long the program's been around, who has gotten it in the past or any of the other sorts of information you might expect to find here either to help demonstrate accountability or to give a clue as to what sorts of projects get the cash.

But here's a poser for you:  which regional office are they talking about?  You see having a pdf here would be marvelously simple.  Better still they could have a form available to submit online.  But they want me to go to a regional office.

Okay.

The recreation division of the department of which recreation is a tiny bit doesn't have regional offices. Well, at least that's how it appears.  Maybe they meant the tourism regional offices.  Doesn't make much sense but maybe that's what they meant.

Try to find clear information on the website as to where those offices are.

Try the Sport Newfoundland and Labrador link on the department services and programs directory.  A logical choice but the link is dead.  It should be sportnl.ca, not sportnf.ca but nobody bothered to change the link.  (Another poser for you:  How long ago did the province's name change?) You'll find a form there for capital grants but there's no way of knowing  - from the website - if this is the same as the development grant where you started your search.

See the point?

The issue here is not one  of look.  It's really about providing information to people in a form and in a way which is most convenient for them.  Having election statistical reports available for view in the Legislative Library is nice but it the model of accountability left from an age when a quill pen was the height of modern technology. 

Accountability is not accomplished by having agencies issue plans which state that the officials responsible for sweeping the floors have established as their strategic goal to sweep floors and that they plan to do it by acquiring brooms and then applying them daily according to the standard broom employment manual recently issued for the amalgamated office of the chief sweeping officer. 

Transparency doesn't come from issuing a report in which the minister responsible for the CSO indicates his extreme pleasure at issuing a report on the strategic sweeping operations, which, incidentally, recounts in entirely  uninformative detail the fact that brooms were employed sometimes in one direction and sometimes in another in order to achieve the miracle of clean floors which have been brought to government buildings through the existence of the OCSO.

Openness is an attitude.

The attitude needs a behaviour to make it work.

The behaviour is simply providing information.

To see how dramatic and functional the changes can be, consider the rapid transformation of the  offshore board website.  To most people this site is not at the top of their bookmarks. But,  for the people interested in the offshore, they can now access relevant information in a much easier way than before.  They can do it when it suits their schedule.

The revamp of Number 10's website is a behaviour that tells you the attitude is there to be open and push information into the public domain.  We can argue another time whether what they release is useful or relevant.

It's one more people and more offices should emulate.

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Giant squid!

From Australia, dissecting one of the rarest of rare creatures.

WHAT has three hearts, blue blood, and a doughnut-shaped brain?

The answer is not the entire federal Conservative caucus although you are close.

Update: A wit working early this morning guessed a gaggle of Liberal leadership candidates. Again, very close, but the article wasn't assuming the doughnut was a jam filled centre.

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