sliced bread #2

Some look at things that are, and ask why. I dream of things that never were and ask why not.

Monday, February 27, 2006

politicizing the judiciary

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something to keep in mind during today's confirmation hearing for Justice Rothstein...

[Judges] don't make promises in exchange for public support. By and large, they don't casually swap votes or game the system to help one side or another. Their rulings aren't about personal or political ideologies. Instead, most judges — particularly at the Supreme Court level, where there are two highly meritorious sides in every appeal — meticulously attend to the letter of the law. They are heavily influenced by powerful precedent and their colleagues' reasoning. And in the end, judges become judges because they love to read and think, not because they dream of refashioning national policy.

In short, as hard as some may try to run these confirmations like any other election, a long-standing public tradition of respect for the courts and the rule of law will prevent us from allowing anyone to "Swift boat" our justices.

Make no mistake about it: This country is not well served by efforts to blacken Supreme Court nominees. Reducing any individual to a sentence lifted from a footnote in a decades-old memo is unfair, and it is even more so when such filaments of evidence are used to predict a future voting pattern. Pressing our judges through the machinery that makes political sausage is unfair; it devalues the work they do, and it could over time change our instinctive understanding of that work, making us believe that it is mere politics.

— Dahlia Lithwick, Los Angeles Times (2005/12/28)
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Friday, February 24, 2006

ruminating

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it would be presumptuous to start thinking about having to make a choice about job offers i don't have yet... just as it would be presumptuous to start making 5- and 10-year career plans before finishing law school (or even 2nd year)... the day after yet another job interview, i can't help but wish i could turn off the obsessive-compulsive personality disorder...

When decisions involve a lot of complex factors, thinking deeply about them can produce worse outcomes than decisions made simply after "sleeping on it," according to research published last week in Science.

Volunteers asked to make judgments about the quality of different cars based on four criteria were more likely to choose the best car if they did think deeply about it, compared with those who did not put much effort into thinking about the decision. But volunteers provided with 12 criteria about the cars fared worse when they thought deeply about their decision, compared with volunteers who were given the same information, were deliberately distracted by other things, and then were asked to make a judgment call.

Ap Dijksterhuis and colleagues at the University of Amsterdam said over-thinking complex decisions seems to produce dissatisfaction with the final answer, compared with simple gut responses. They hypothesized that the reason people do not make good decisions by thinking deeply in complex situations is because multiple evaluations of an issue can produce inconsistent conclusions. Additionally, people really can take into account only a limited number of things and, when presented with too much information, they focus on the wrong things.

"We tend to inflate the importance of some attributes at the expense of others, leading to worse choices," the scientists wrote. They later added that it "should benefit the individual to think consciously about simple matters and to delegate thinking about more complex matters to the unconscious."

-- Shankar Vedantam, Washington Post (2006/02/20)
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Wednesday, February 22, 2006

tinkering with the Supreme Court

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The Conservative government has announced that the next judge appointed to the Supreme Court of Canada will be questioned by a public Parliamentary hearing. Although Conservatives promised a free vote in the House of Commons on the appointment of new Supreme Court justices during the election campaign, they will now appoint an ad hoc parliamentary committee to question the new appointee. Many legal scholars and jurists – including former Chief Justices Bora Laskin and Antonio Lamer and current Chief Justice Beverly McLachlin – have long maintained that publicly cross-examining judicial nominees could lead to a U.S.-style appointments process which will politicize the bench. Although the next nominee will come from the shortlist of independent candidates put forth by legal experts, Justice Minister Vic Toews and Prime Minister Stephen Harper have made it no secret that they wish to appoint judges who are more favourable to the social conservative viewpoint in the future.

In a speech entitled "Abuse of the Charter by the Supreme Court”, Mr. Toews, who has repeatedly shown a lack of respect for Canada’s highest judicial body when the court’s decisions do not coincide with his own views, said: "The lessons that should not be lost on those who want to see specific policies implemented in the country is that it is not enough to gain a majority of the votes in Parliament, social policy in this country requires the approval of the judiciary it is for that reason that my party has been so adamant that the process for appointing judges needs to be opened up."

Similarly, during the election campaign Prime Minister Harper told reporters: "The reality is that we will have for some time to come a Liberal senate, a Liberal civil service, at least senior levels have been appointed by the Liberals, and courts that have been appointed by the Liberals. So these are obviously checks on the power of a Conservative government."

The Supreme Court is an independent judicial body and judges should be selected based on the over-riding principle of merit and not on the political leanings of the government of the day. Liberals (myself included) are highly skeptical of a hearing process that could become politicized and impinge on the dignity of the Supreme Court. This ad hoc hearing is and will be nothing but a political sideshow – if the goal is truly to make the judicial appointment process more transparent, then Parliament should examine the various options and develop a thoughtful and measured approach that achieves this goal while ensuring "supreme confidence" in the independence and dignity of the judiciary.

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Monday, February 20, 2006

putting your money where your mouth is

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Slate.com has a series of interesting articles about the political, economic, and social complexities that underlie charitable giving. They just published their annual report of the 60 largest American charitable contributions. Daniel Akst recently discussed how to get the most "bang" for each charitable buck. In the wake of the tsunami, Daniel Gross addressed whether charity was a zero-sum game. In 1997, Steven E. Landsburg suggested that your "charity portfolio" should not be diversified: "You can puff yourself up with thank-you notes from a dozen organizations, or you can be truly charitable by concentrating your efforts where you believe they will do the most good." In 2002, Daniel Zalewski and James Surowiecki discussed Dave Eggers' first novel, You Shall Know Our Velocity, which made Daniel wonder "if sentiment and intimate human contact should play a more central role in gift-giving."

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Sunday, February 19, 2006

the religion of liberalism

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[It is probably true] that [the editors of Jyllands-Posten] have nothing against Muhammad or the doctrines of Islam . . . and that [they] have no interest (positive or negative) in them at all, except as the possible occasions of controversy. This is what it means today to put self-censorship "on the agenda": the particular object of that censorship — be it opinions about a religion, a movie, the furniture in a friend's house, your wife's new dress, whatever — is a matter of indifference. What is important is not the content of what is expressed but that it be expressed. What is important is that you let it all hang out. [We may think ourselves] as being neutral with respect to religion, but in fact [we] are adherents of the religion of letting it all hang out, the religion we call liberalism.

The first tenet of the liberal religion is that everything (at least in the realm of expression and ideas) is to be permitted, but nothing is to be taken seriously. What religious beliefs are owed — and this is a word that appears again and again in the recent debate — is "respect"; nothing less, nothing more. The thing about respect is that it doesn't cost you anything; its generosity is barely skin-deep and is in fact a form of condescension: I respect you; now don't bother me. This was certainly the message conveyed by Rich Oppel, editor of The Austin (Tex.) American-Statesman, who explained his decision to reprint one of the cartoons thusly: "It is one thing to respect other people's faith and religion, but it goes beyond where I would go to accept their taboos."

Such beliefs are equally and indifferently authorized as ideas people are perfectly free to believe, but they are equally and indifferently disallowed as ideas that might serve as a basis for action or public policy. Strongly held faiths are exhibits in liberalism's museum; we appreciate them, and we congratulate ourselves for affording them a space, but should one of them ask of us more than we are prepared to give — ask for deference rather than mere respect — it will be met with the barrage of platitudinous arguments that for the last week have filled the pages of every newspaper in the country.

The editors who have run the cartoons [do not do so] in an effort to further some religious or political vision; they do it gratuitously, almost accidentally. Concerned only to stand up for an abstract principle — free speech — they seize on whatever content happens to come their way and use it as an example of what the principle should be protecting. The fact that for others the content may be life itself is beside their point.

[But] this is itself a morality — the morality of a withdrawal from morality in any strong, insistent form. The relativizing of ideologies and religions belongs to the liberal theology, and would hardly be persuasive to a Muslim. The belief in the therapeutic and redemptive force of dialogue depends on the assumption (central to liberalism's theology) that, after all, no idea is worth fighting over to the death and that we can always reach a position of accommodation if only we will sit down and talk it out. A firm adherent of a comprehensive religion doesn't want dialogue about his beliefs; he wants those beliefs to prevail. Dialogue is not a tenet in his creed, and invoking it is unlikely to do anything but further persuade him that you have missed the point — as, indeed, you are pledged to do, so long as liberalism is the name of your faith.

— Stanley Fish, New York Times (2006/02/12)
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Friday, February 17, 2006

think you've had a bad day?

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A giant octopus almost ate a submarine when the £75,000 craft invaded its territory. The 18-foot sea monster wrapped its tentacles around the remote-controlled sub's cable and hauled itself towards it, then grabbed the vehicle and tried to bite through its metal skin. The sub's amazed controllers used its thrusters to fire sand and grit from the seabed at the octopus, forcing it to let go. When they got the vehicle to the surface, they found two pieces of tentacle, each as thick as a man's arm, still attached to it.


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Thursday, February 16, 2006

when you're good to Patty

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When You're Good to Patty


Mock Trial 2006: Publicly Served
(to the tune of When You're Good to Mama)


Ask any of the donors to the school
The ones that put money in the pool
I love 'em all and all of them love me
Because the system works
The system called reciprocity...

Got a little motto
Always sees me through
When you're good to Patty
Patty's good to you.

There's a lot of favors
I'm prepared to do
You do one for Patty
Patty'll do one for you.

They say that life is tit for tat
And that's the way I live
I’ll beg on Bay Street’s doormat
For the dough they've got to give
Don't you know that this room
Needs a window too?
When you're good to Patty
Patty's good to you!

If you want recognition
An award named after you
Just cut us a donation
We'll give you your due

When we call alumni
Don’t want them to be shy
You put in for Patty
He'll put out for you

The firms atop the ladder
With lots of cash to spare
Helped their alma mater
Gave us a business chair

Let's all stroke together
Like the U of T crew
When you're strokin' Patty
Patty's strokin' you

So what's the one conclusion
I can bring this number to?
When you're good to Patty
Patty's good to you!

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Tuesday, February 14, 2006

perfect pick-up lines

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Has your time at law school made your social skills a little rusty? We’ve got you covered. The five all-time best, tried, tested, and true pick-up lines guaranteed to get that social lubricant flowing.
  1. I wish I was a car so I could hug your curves all night long.
  2. Wanna come sit on my lap and we’ll talk about the first thing that pops up?
  3. There must be Windex in your pants because I can see myself in them.
  4. (in the voice of a pirate) Pardon me, but would ya mind if I fired me cannon through your porthole?
  5. Excuse me. My friend over there is a little embarrassed. She’d like your phone number. She wants to know where she can get a hold of me in the morning.
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what do you get . . .

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. . . when you have an armed Dick hunting in the Bush for Quayle?

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Monday, February 13, 2006

Mock Trial: Publicly Served

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Do you know someone in law school? Have you ever heard them talk about how busy they are and how much studying they have to do ... and wonder how insane they must become after all that work? Have you ever asked if they did other things besides read? And why is it that they always manage to make things about "law"?

Every year, the cream of Osgoode's crop puts together a singing, dancing, and acting extravaganza -- Mock Trial! -- to celebrate (and poke fun at) life as a law student. Watch as the Osgoode Theatre Society players re-enact "first year" in 90 seconds; revisit your childhood through Dean Monahan's (er... Mr. Rogers') neighbourhood; see the hot cast of the O.C. -- I mean, O.Z.; salivate at the culinary exploits of our very own Iron Chef; and get ready to join me and our cast in some Dirty Dancin' in the aisle!

And to add to the shameless self-promotion, yours truly has songwriting, directing, acting, and dancing credits in this production. But more importantly, you get all this for a mere $15 ... and all proceeds go to charity! The show runs through February 15 to 17 at 8PM.

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Sunday, February 12, 2006

seasons

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There was a man who had four sons. He wanted his sons to learn not to judge things too quickly. So he sent them each on a quest, in turn, to go and look at a pear tree that was a great distance away. The first son went in the winter, the second in the spring, the third in summer, and the youngest son in the fall. When they had all gone and come back, he called them together to describe what they had seen.

The first son said that the tree was ugly, bent, and twisted. The second son said no it was covered with green buds and full of promise. The third son disagreed; he said it was laden with blossoms that smelled so sweet and looked so beautiful, it was the most graceful thing he had ever seen. The last son disagreed with all of them; he said it was ripe and drooping with fruit, full of life and fulfillment.





The man then explained to his sons that they were all right, because they had each seen but only one season in the tree's life. He told them that you cannot judge a tree, or a person, by only one season, and that the essence of who they are and the pleasure, joy, and love that come from that life can only be measured at the end, when all the seasons are up. If you give up when it's winter, you will miss the promise of your spring, the beauty of your summer, fulfillment of your fall.

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Saturday, February 11, 2006

Recall David Emerson

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an open letter to Stephen Harper and the new Government of Canada:

We the undersigned believe that David Emerson, elected as a Liberal Member of Parliament for the riding of Vancouver-Kingsway, should be immediately recalled and a by-election held so that the people of Vancouver-Kingsway and in general all Canadians can be represented by the party and candidate of their choice. David Emerson should immediately resign his current position in the Conservative Party and his cabinet position of Minister of International Trade. The people of Canada and in particular the people of Vancouver-Kingsway deserve proper democratic rights.

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Thursday, February 09, 2006

last-minute

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so i'm in Ottawa for the
Jessup tournament... i see the "613" area code on my cellphone, and i scratch my head thinking, "i don't know anyone in this city who could be calling me"... turns out it's the Federal Court of Appeal and they want to interview me for a clerkship position... foolishly, i suggest meeting them while i'm here instead of waiting next week as planned when the judges were coming to Toronto anyway...

so 10:30 bright and early tomorrow... jeepers!

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Monday, February 06, 2006

as the coats turn...

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An unelected lackey and a floor-crosser in Cabinet... so much for "change" in Ottawa...

Brian Brett from Salt Spring, Canada said it best in the
Globe and Mail about David Emerson crossing the floor: "The surprise betrayal of his party by Mr. Emerson and his constituents before the new government even begins puts the immediate lie to all Harper's promises of honour and integrity in government. This rush for power on both Harper's and Emerson's part is so astonishing it's hilarious. You can see the trail of slime leading straight into Rideau Hall where they were sworn in. One naturally wonders how seriously they will take those oaths made before the Governor-General and the people of Canada."

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a history of violence

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"Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results."
--
Albert Einstein

Ian Spears from the University of Guelph delivered a presentation at Saturday's conference on post-crisis state-building. His research interests have focused largely on problems and prospects for conflict and conflict resolution in African states. His earlier work concerned the difficulties in negotiating and implementing power-sharing agreements in the aftermath of civil wars. More recently, he has been considering the opposite approach, the possibility that secession or, more radically, the redrawing of Africa’s borders, might provide an alternative to conflict resolution. Quite bluntly, he put forward the idea that perhaps one of the best things the West can do in Africa is to just leave it alone -- that is, to let the various groups "sort things out" amongst themselves, as was the case in the history of Europe and North America. Controversial? No doubt. It also brought to mind something I wrote for one of my undergraduate courses:

Violence as an active social force is ever present in the history of modernization. But violence, in and of itself, is dispassionate and non-intentional. The use of violence, and the justification thereof, arises not out of causal necessity, but rather is driven by pronounced social and political agendas. When we examine the history of modernization in England and France, we recognize the inextricable part played by violence in the upheaval of the social order. At first glance, however, it seems that there is a certain incommensurability between the histories of these countries. Barrington Moore, Jr. argues that “the underlying social structure of France was fundamentally different and hence ruled out the kind of peaceful transformation – which, we have seen, was actually quite far from peaceful – that England experienced”. While I believe that Moore is correct in asserting that the conditions leading up to the French Revolution in some sense necessitated the use of violent force, I also argue that violence in general is inextricably linked to major revolutionary processes. I make no presumptive arguments about the degree and the direction to which violence is exercised, but I believe that it is just as important to consider the development of democracy and modernity in England with an eye toward its own violent history. The social and historical conditions may have differed in some aspects, but what is common between France and England is that revolution was born out of seemingly disparate factors that collectively resulted in general social malaise and dissatisfaction with the standing social order, providing the impetus and justification for the use of violence to bring about change.

[. . .]

To say that violence is necessary in one sense is not meant to serve as justification for its exercise. The forms and directions which violence takes are not guided by necessity. These are shaped by the social and historical realities in which violence operates. In England, the main impetus for violence, against the peasantry by the landed upper class during the enclosures and by the parliamentarians against the royalists during the Civil War, was the developing commercialism and capitalism. It was the landed upper class that appropriated violence to promote their commercial interests and, although another transformation would occur in the form of the Industrial Revolution that would render the nobility obsolete, it was they initially who set the stage for England’s entry into the modern era. In France, the nobility became the victims of the violence, as justified by the revolutionary ideologies of liberty, equality, and fraternity. The nobility represented what the revolutionaries believed to be the cause of France’s suffering: the inequality, undeserved obligation, and unwarranted privilege that defined the old order. These contrasts in the social and historical realities necessitated different ways of effecting change and transformation. The nobilities of England and France played very different roles and suffered very different fates in the modernization of their respective countries. The disparate histories of these two countries took them on different paths to modernity, but the violence which is inextricably linked to their transformations helped define the role of those elements of the old order in the creation of new social, political, and economic relationships.

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Sunday, February 05, 2006

over-reaction?

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According to the Globe and Mail, whether or not you agree with decision by Jyllands-Posten to publish the cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed, the reaction in the Islamic world has been "far out of scale" to any offence given. In the Gaza Strip, Palestinian gunmen besieged the offices of the European Union. In Jakarta, Muslim activists protested outside the embassy of Denmark and burned a Danish flag. In Pakistan, mobs of students shouted, "Death to Denmark." Several governments have recalled their ambassadors or registered other diplomatic protests, while 17 Arab countries have called on Denmark's government to punish the newspaper.

The uproar underlines an alarming tendency in Islamic societies to lash out at the West at the slightest provocation. When a few simple drawings, however controversial, can trigger outrage from Cairo to Kuala Lumpur, it is clear that something is askew in the psyche of a civilization. To put it plainly, the Islamic world has a chip on its shoulder. It is commonplace in the Islamic countries to blame the West for nearly everything that goes wrong, from the Israeli occupation of the West Bank to the wealth gap between Muslim and Western countries. Anti-Americanism is rife, anti-Semitism all too common. When Iran's President called the Holocaust a myth, many people in Arab countries quietly nodded in agreement. Bernard Lewis, a British scholar of Islamic history, calls this "a twilight world of neurotic fantasies, conspiracy theories, scapegoating and so on."

In truth, most of the Islamic world's problems -- from economic stagnation to political paralysis, from the oppression of women to the poor level of education -- are homegrown. By and large, these societies have failed to come to grips with the modern world and as a result have fallen far behind much of the rest of the planet. Out of this failure to keep up springs a keen sense of grievance that does nothing to help them progress. As Prof. Lewis has written, "If the peoples of the Middle East continue on their present path, the suicide bomber may become a metaphor for the whole region, and there will be no escape from a downward spiral of hate and spite, rage and self-pity, poverty and oppression." But "if they can abandon grievance and victimhood, settle their differences, and join their talents, energies, and resources in a common creative endeavour, then they can once again make the Middle East, in modern times as it was in antiquity and in the Middle Ages, a major centre of civilization."

After the news that the Danish embassy was set on fire in Lebanon, I'm not sure if I would completely disagree. Two wrongs don't make a right. More importantly, as Fred Hiatt of the Washington Post put it, "Muslims (and anyone else) are well within their rights to protest the publication of the cartoons if they are offended. They show a basic misunderstanding, though, when they demand apologies from leaders of Denmark or other European countries. In many Muslim-majority countries, officials control most of the press and so are accountable for the ugly anti-Semitism that often appears in their newspapers. In [free democracies], the government cannot tell newspapers what to print or what not to print. [A free press] has the freedom to offend [but also has] a responsibility not to offend gratuitously."

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Saturday, February 04, 2006

CILSC 2006

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On February 3 and 4, the International Law Societies of Osgoode Hall Law School and the University of Toronto Faculty of Law co-hosted the 13th annual Canadian International Law Students’ Conference (CILSC). The Osgoode and U of T International Law Societies maintain two of the largest and most active student-run organizations in the Canadian legal community and they have been growing in relevance and importance over the years. The CILSC has grown to become a premiere event, featuring discussion on a wide range of international law topics and providing a forum for students, academics, practitioners, and leaders in the field of international law to exchange ideas in a collegial atmosphere. By all accounts, this year’s conference, titled “Contested Boundaries: International Law vs. National Reality,” was a resounding success.

Former United Nations Assistant Secretary-General Denis Halliday delivered the keynote address – “Domestic and International Implications of Current Military Action in Iraq” – on February 3. In his thought-provoking – and at some points controversial – presentation, Mr. Halliday spoke about the social costs of the history of economic sanctions in Iraq and denounced the U.S.-led invasion and occupation. He highlighted in particular the corruption involving the American administration and military contractors during the reconstruction efforts. He detailed the failures of the U.N. and its various organs, particularly the Security Council and the P-5 members, in upholding their mandate to promote international peace and security.

Mr. Halliday further challenged us to regard our collective indifference to the world’s problems – and our democratic inaction – as complicity. He urged the students in particular to work towards the realization of the ideals enshrined in instrumental instruments such as the U.N. Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and to commit themselves to promoting the rule of law and the principles of non-violence.

On the second day of the conference, panel discussions addressed topics such as private and public international law dealing with trade, human rights, state-building and security, intellectual property and indigenous rights, international courts and tribunals, and the practice of international law. Tom Quiggin, a consultant to the RCMP for international affairs and a recognized expert on the subject of terrorism, delivered a presentation on international law and human rights. He spoke about the mission and threat of global terrorism and how human rights and the human security agenda are falling behind in the face of the security dilemma.

The other panels featured provocative discussions among many renowned speakers, including Dr. Gerald Caplan, a leading Canadian authority on genocide and genocide prevention; international trade expert Dr. Charles (Chuck) Gastle; Douglas Goold, President and CEO of the Canadian Institute for International Affairs; as well as renowned faculty from Osgoode and York, U of T, Guelph, and Dalhousie. There was a range of representation from governments and inter-governmental organizations, civil society associations, academic institutions, and the private sector.

The students who attended were able to gain a better perspective of the theoretical and practical issues that are facing the international community, the challenges and inherent tensions of the very concept of international law, and the complex interplay of “legal” and “extra-legal” frameworks in the international context. Furthermore, they gained a greater understanding of how they, as lawyers and activists, may respond to these various concerns. The challenge ahead is to take the lessons from this year’s conference and continue the discussions and the work on building the institutions and mechanisms that will protect and uphold international law and human rights – that is, to make international law the national reality for every country.

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Thursday, February 02, 2006

what is truth?

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"Truth is a kind of belief that has become a condition of life." --- Nietzsche, Will to Power


David Atkins has written a great parody of the Speech from the Presidential Throne. In addition, the brilliant minds at the Daily Show have once again taken to task America's mainstream media for its "velvet hands" approach to the Bush administration: watch the clip as the "fake" news show delivers the truth and investigates the [mis]information age, the art of the lying, and consequences. For me, this echoes my previous ramblings on deceit as the worst vice, albeit in a different context. In this age of doublethink and relative moralism, where up is down and two plus two equals five and torture isn't necessarily torture, "what is truth?" may not be a purely rhetorical question. Maybe Shakespeare was right: there is nothing good or bad; only thinking makes it so.

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Wednesday, February 01, 2006

kung hei fat choi

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A person born in the year of the Dog is honest, intelligent and straightforward. He has a deep sense of loyalty and a passion for justice and fair play. A Dog native is usually animated and attractive and will exude sex appeal. If you have a forthright Dog for a friend, you must know that when you are in trouble, all you have to do is dial. For no matter how much he or she complains, the Dog person cannot ignore a real call for help. Dogs can sometimes be a bit overwhelming, due in part to their attentive natures. They can march in and take control of a situation, even when it doesn’t involve them directly. This can lead people to think Dogs are nosy or gossipy, but in reality, he just means well. Money and status don’t matter to the Dog. He is more concerned with the welfare of his family and friends and will do whatever it takes to help them out of a tight squeeze or a rough spot. They are honest and trustworthy people. They make loyal friends and companions.

Those born in the year of the Dog are advised to take advantage of the repetition of their birth symbol in this New Year. Learn from lessons of the past, but put them behind you and forge ahead. Look for opportunities to turn dreams into reality but keep a close eye on finances. Dogs work best as a team, so encourage your companions to join with you in new possibilities. Your canine faithfulness will show in honesty and loyalty that will build new relationships and make old relationships stronger. Your bravery will be rewarded in many ways.

not only is the lunar New Year (and my Chinese Zodiac year) a reason to celebrate, but yesterday also marked the beginning of a new year in my relationship... i would have been the last person to think that i could have held on to something this long, what with my fickleness and demands for perfection... yet somehow, after all the challenges and difficulties, and also with many positive and happy memories, we've made it... it's been an interesting ride, and i'm looking forward to what the future brings...

kung hei fat choi
indeed!

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