By-election predictions
Here. Given how wrong polls are nowadays, you’d be a fool to make definitive predictions anymore. That’s why Eric Grenier, no fool, can now be seen applying qualifiers to every…
July 2013
Doing the math on a living wage
Via David Atkins at Hullabaloo, here’s an article about a business student named Arnobio Morelix who studied McDonald’s annual reports and investors’ data sets and crunched some numbers. He wanted…
Scientists work to solve mystery of dying bees
Bees are endlessly intriguing, and incredibly useful to us – and not just for honey and wax. If bees disappeared, it would be difficult, if not impossible, to grow much…
Failing properly to wear seatbelt absolute or strict
R. v. Wilson, 2013 ONCA 503 allows leave to determine if failing to wear a seatbelt properly is absolute or strict liability : In my view, it is a question…
Raising Gable Ends Alone
It’s more physically demanding than raising kids alone, yet no less fraught with peril. I’m just documenting my morning of partial success on my studio construction. I was ecstatic to…
Heroin ad from 1902: "not addictive like morphine, does not cause constipation and is ten times less toxic than codeine"??
An ad from 1902 — the good old days when men were men — and they realized heroin was better than morphine for those lingering coughs…
Parliamentarians and the yoke of party discipline
A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of attending a screening of Whipped, a documentary on party discipline by former BC legislature reporter Sean Holman. You can now stream…
PRISM: Not Authorized
Does it drive you crazy how laws don’t apply to the anointed ones? Multiple Obama anointed officials leaked official thoughts to the media anonymously. No one in the Main Stream…
Shift Happens
* Here in Northern Ontario our lovely boreal summer is in full swing. The blueberries are starting to ripen, the ethereal call of the loons drifts up to our windows…
Lunatic on Sun News Network set with Anita
This is what the excitement of live TV is all about, folks!
A submission to the National Energy Board.
Submission A51494: Commenting on Enbridge Pipelines Inc. Line 9B Reversal and Line 9 Capacity Expansion Project. According to the National Energy Board’s stated purpose, it is to promote safety and…
Lac-Mégantic: A Social and Ecological Tragedy
Québec has just experienced the most brutal ecological catastrophe of its history. On July 6, 2013, a train loaded with 72 cars carrying crude oil derailed during the night. It…
Moses and Ten Commandments
Did this really happen or is it one of those religious myths? There is no historical proof that Moses and Abraham existed.
What I’m Doing Today: Reading Page Proofs!
The page proofs for my new short story collection, Desire Lines: Stories of Love and Geography have arrived from Oberon Press! Very interesting to go over the text after several…
Admission of inappropriate expert evidence may be harmless
R. v. Granada, 2013 ABCA 273 points out that expert evidence may be inadmissible but still not prejudicial. Generally expert evidence is excluded because it will be given too much…
Bradley Manning: A hero or a traitor
I believe that all Bradley Manning did was to expose the atrocities committed by the Americans in Iraq. He is a whistle-blower. Instead of making accountable and punish those who…
Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Thomas Walkom points out that while Stephen Harper managed to push the world in the wrong direction over the past few years, he…
140 Law – Legal Headlines for Wednesday, July 31, 2013
Here are the leading legal headlines from Wise Law on Twitter for Wednesday, July 31, 2013: Ex-client presumed dead after breaking into La. law firm and ‘shooting everything,’ partner says…