Dec. 20: The best column I have ever seen in the irving press…
…..is by Gwynne Dyer on the op ed page. It’s one of the best I have seen in any press. And, in dealing with Melson Mandela, it is far superior…
2013
The Corruption Inevitable in Right Wing Culture
From Le Monde, a look into how Louisiana parlays prison into profits resulting in an ‘incarceration dependency’ and the abuse of the imprisoned. The number of people in US prisons…
Huffington Post: Could Canada be wavering on the Trans-Pacific Partnership?
Could Canada be wavering in its strong stand against U.S. domination in the Trans-Pacific Partnership? We’ll be keeping up the pressure in 2014 to fight hard for our digital future.…
Uganda passes its Anti-Homosexuality Bill
Uganda has passed its Anti-Homosexuality Bill 2009. A Parliamentary spokesperson, Helen Kawesa, has confirmed it. The bill now goes to Ugandan President Yowari Museveni, for a signature. Museveni previously said…
Blunt Warnings, Ignored
“We as a species have never experienced 400 parts per million of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. We’ve never been on a planet with no Arctic ice, and we will…
Dollarocracy: U.S. Congressmen Refuse to Address Keystone XL Southern Half Spill Concerns
What’s the U.S. congressional response to the safety issues with the 485-mile southern half of TransCanada‘s Keystone XL pipeline raised by Public Citizen‘s Texas office? Mostly what Simon & Garfunkel…
Forestry in BC – few inspections, low consequences
Friday, December 20, 2013 We’ve reviewed the Ministry of Forest, Lands and Natural Resource Operations Compliance and Enforcement Annual Reports from 1998 to 2012. And what we've found raises a…
Toronto needs a mayor: the John and Nick show, plus Nick on John
John Tory and his chief advisor, Nick Kouvalis, were together at the City Hall press party last night. Nick was telling everyone that he is working for John, and that…
Supreme Court strikes down Canada’s prostitution laws
A few weeks ago I did a “mini-cruise” to Amsterdam. We spent two nights on a ferry (which was really a small cruise ship) and had about 6 hours to…
Your Daily Digital Digest for Friday, December 20, 2013
Your news links for today: Copyright Collectives Gone Mad: How the ERCC Spent Dollars to Earn Pennies (Michael Geist) Thursday Thinkpiece: Geist on Fair Dealing and Fair Use (Slaw) Copyright’s…
More detailed summary of Bedford 2013 SCC 72
The three impugned provisions, primarily concerned with preventing public nuisance as well as the exploitation of prostitutes, do not pass Charter muster: they infringe the s. 7 rights of prostitutes…
PMO: Anger Betrayal Deception; Oil
Our lying Prime Minister felt betrayed and angry, and … deceived? The scheme only became public after a CTV news report on the evening of May 14. The next morning,…
Harper and His Movement Were No Friends to Mandela
Of all the hypocrisies revealed by Stephen Harper, perhaps none are so morally offensive as his sudden, solemn respect for Nelson Mandela. We will never know how Harper would reconcile…
Canada v Bedford 2013 SCC 72
The Supreme Court of Canada has unanimously struck down the country's major prostitution laws, saying that bans on street soliciting, brothels and people living off the avails of prostitution are…
Toronto needs a mayor: but it isn’t this clown
You want bobbleheads? These two strongly resemble bobbleheads.
Peak Oil, Check. Peak Gas, Check. Peak Food? What?
Food may run out long before the oil does. A study by scientists at the University of Nebraska warns of “abrupt plateaus or declines” in industrial agricultural production. As much…
The Lottery of Modern Life
Robert Reich asks, “what will it take for us to get back to being a decent society?” While he’s speaking of his United States homeland, he could easily be speaking…
Avoiding the next financial train wreck
(Part 6 in a series)Back in 2006, into 2007, too-big-to-fail superbanks, complacent governments and boosterish business media ignored the few economists who predicted there would be a financial crisis. Today,…
140 Law – Legal Headlines for Friday, December 20, 2013
Here are the leading legal headlines from Wise Law on Twitter for Friday, December 20, 2013: How Long Can Cloud Servers Hold Off Hackers? Not as Long as You Think…
Kiss-off for Kitimat.
Surprise, surprise: The jewel of Canada’s beautiful Pacific Coast is now to be a commercial port for supertankers carrying tar sands bitumen to the Orient. Did you think the exercise…