tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2888651312434234861Sat, 28 Jan 2012 14:10:13 +0000Imperial CanadaReadingTreatiesReligous SchoolsImperial Canada -- Part IMedicine Hat ConvictionsPublic EducationMusingsPublic Lands and Land ClaimsFarewell Conradfood fashionGolf CoursesNewfoundlandLaw Life LessonsLawCivil LibertiesFirst Step into the Abysshttp://rjmjanes.blogspot.com/noreply@blogger.com (Robert Janes)Blogger144125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2888651312434234861.post-2840920138001195445Sun, 26 Jun 2011 13:52:00 +00002011-06-26T07:25:29.292-07:00The New York Times has run a disturbing article about the potential for the shale gas explosion being a bit of a fizzle. If you want to get an idea of how important this question is bear in mind that shale gas is presently projected to provide 38% of North America's natural gas needs 2035, up from 13% now. This number is even more impressive when one considers that this is in the context of http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ThoughtsFromTheWesternEdge/~3/Cj9U7ClZTRQ/questions-about-shale-gas-viability.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Robert Janes)1http://rjmjanes.blogspot.com/2011/06/questions-about-shale-gas-viability.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2888651312434234861.post-3850902518808686103Sun, 26 Jun 2011 01:08:00 +00002011-06-25T19:43:16.089-07:00Now now everybody, step away from the panic button.To read the papers and listen to the news over the last week and half one would get the impression that it is either a sign of the Apocalypse or at least the end of western civilization that a group of young people rioted in Vancouver after the Canucks completed their choke in game seven of the Stanley Cup playoffs. To listen to various http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ThoughtsFromTheWesternEdge/~3/7w1MTb9p-As/that-was-riot.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Robert Janes)0http://rjmjanes.blogspot.com/2011/06/that-was-riot.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2888651312434234861.post-3213740634394512869Mon, 13 Jun 2011 13:13:00 +00002011-06-13T06:22:58.705-07:00Neil Reynolds, one of the Globe's stable of conservative columnists recently commented on the aesthetics of wind power generation in Ontario. He is on to something here.Wind generation differs from most other forms of power generation (other than 1960's nuclear) in that that infrastructure is not situated in distant locations out of sight of the consumers of the power. Even nuclear plants in http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ThoughtsFromTheWesternEdge/~3/DIZekASEWu8/aesthetics-of-power-generation.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Robert Janes)0http://rjmjanes.blogspot.com/2011/06/aesthetics-of-power-generation.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2888651312434234861.post-8659054222505322193Sat, 28 May 2011 15:39:00 +00002011-05-28T08:42:05.284-07:00It will be many years before the results of the last election are fully understood but I have no doubt that that election will be viewed as a watershed election in Canadian history. The simple story is that this election marked the death of the Liberal Party as it has been known for close to a century. While there may be a re-birth of the Liberal Party in some form over the next decade the http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ThoughtsFromTheWesternEdge/~3/Hg7PXoP4L4U/liberal-turning-point.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Robert Janes)0http://rjmjanes.blogspot.com/2011/05/liberal-turning-point.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2888651312434234861.post-95416603116940460Wed, 25 May 2011 07:39:00 +00002011-05-25T00:46:48.275-07:00MusingsA friend of mine recently asked me to write a short story about an experience. Another friend suggested to me that telling a story was no different than doing the thing.So is a telling a story no different than doing? In other words, can the telling of a story of experience be the experience itself?For me the telling of a story is other than experience. Experience belongs to the world and to http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ThoughtsFromTheWesternEdge/~3/-wtfeVoOP60/thousand-and-one-nights.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Robert Janes)0http://rjmjanes.blogspot.com/2011/05/thousand-and-one-nights.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2888651312434234861.post-5156883105997763366Thu, 19 May 2011 13:13:00 +00002011-05-19T06:30:08.444-07:00Yesterday's appointment of three still smelling losers to the Senate was a little reminder that there is still a need for Senate reform in Canada.Actually reforming the Senate in any serious way is a massively difficult project under the Constitution given the amending formula's high hurdle for achieving any such change. That being said however, I think there is a way to do that would be http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ThoughtsFromTheWesternEdge/~3/AQmMni4fmEk/senate-reform-in-canada.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Robert Janes)0http://rjmjanes.blogspot.com/2011/05/senate-reform-in-canada.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2888651312434234861.post-868746309363985286Thu, 19 May 2011 13:11:00 +00002011-05-19T06:13:24.156-07:00After a somewhat extended absence (who does not get distracted from time to time) I have decided to revive my blog and get back to some non-work writing for a change. Thanks for tuning in ... (or not, as the case may be).http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ThoughtsFromTheWesternEdge/~3/QT9hi_-FuBA/reviving-blog.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Robert Janes)0http://rjmjanes.blogspot.com/2011/05/reviving-blog.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2888651312434234861.post-5790600890133208795Wed, 30 Jun 2010 13:41:00 +00002010-06-30T06:55:52.252-07:00The Federal government decided to scrap the mandatory long form of the census in favour of a mandatory short form and a voluntary long form. Of course, as any statistician will tell you a voluntary survey is largely useless due to the problems that come with selection error. That is, it is likely to be those who are specially motivated who will fill out the form and send it in while the http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ThoughtsFromTheWesternEdge/~3/7gxvoqDjarY/federal-government-implements-ignorance.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Robert Janes)3http://rjmjanes.blogspot.com/2010/06/federal-government-implements-ignorance.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2888651312434234861.post-2494356805080869388Tue, 29 Jun 2010 13:52:00 +00002010-06-29T07:13:56.032-07:00There is no topic after the abortion issue that gets tempers through the roof so quickly as the issue of gun control. In Canada we have had a lively and vociferous debate over the long gun registry for a few years now and I expect that there are more debates to come. In the United States the Supreme Court recently ruled that the Second Amendment applied to state and local laws thereby severely http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ThoughtsFromTheWesternEdge/~3/2vP-Ndas7yU/no-way-to-do-gun-control-debate.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Robert Janes)0http://rjmjanes.blogspot.com/2010/06/no-way-to-do-gun-control-debate.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2888651312434234861.post-1012393086124920829Mon, 15 Feb 2010 13:44:00 +00002010-02-15T06:11:03.288-08:00The decision of the Kahnawake band council to cast non-aboriginals off the reserve has been in the paper for the last few weeks and is likely to continue to cause smoke for the next little while (it will be interesting to see if the Council actually enforces the eviction order). There is a curious thing about this affair however, why have the Conservatives not used this event as one of their http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ThoughtsFromTheWesternEdge/~3/TkB-HMHwzBc/kahnawake-problem.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Robert Janes)8http://rjmjanes.blogspot.com/2010/02/kahnawake-problem.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2888651312434234861.post-6270058019819090034Wed, 10 Feb 2010 04:04:00 +00002010-02-09T20:13:58.748-08:00The Federal government has announced that it is seeking leave to appeal the decision of the British Columbia Court of Appeal that let the Insite safe injection site stay open. This is actually not that surprising a decision on the part of the Federal government since the rationale of the case strikes at the heart of substantial chunk of the body of federal law governing psycho-active drugs and http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ThoughtsFromTheWesternEdge/~3/HZXzqJcUjSY/insite-goes-to-supreme-court.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Robert Janes)1http://rjmjanes.blogspot.com/2010/02/insite-goes-to-supreme-court.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2888651312434234861.post-8793230822858950167Tue, 09 Feb 2010 13:18:00 +00002010-02-09T05:44:52.074-08:00John Gunter, a columnist for the National Post and former editor of the now defunct rag known as the Alberta Report, recently gave insight into what the Canadian Taxpayer crowd harken back to. In a column for the National Post (the home for many refugees from failed right wing rags) he evoked the happy taxtation levels of the Americans in 1776 as measure of what we should view as outrageous. Hehttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ThoughtsFromTheWesternEdge/~3/Cfcf9kF0VA0/john-gunter-back-to-1776.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Robert Janes)2http://rjmjanes.blogspot.com/2010/02/john-gunter-back-to-1776.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2888651312434234861.post-7809696264534412464Mon, 08 Feb 2010 05:02:00 +00002010-02-07T21:14:32.879-08:00The Supreme Court of Canada has started doing an odd thing -- it has been finding that the Government has either broken its own laws or the constitution but then saying it will do nothing about it except leave it to the government to figure out how to address its own wrongdoing.In the Miningwatch case the Supreme Court of Canada restored an lower court decision that had been overturned by an http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ThoughtsFromTheWesternEdge/~3/JLQLqfFgsco/supreme-court-of-canada-cops-out.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Robert Janes)0http://rjmjanes.blogspot.com/2010/02/supreme-court-of-canada-cops-out.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2888651312434234861.post-5450547896697393894Wed, 13 Jan 2010 10:35:00 +00002010-01-13T02:48:12.491-08:00Last night I went to Massimo Capra's restaurant (in Toronto), Mistura. This was my second visit to this restaurant and, as was my experience on the first visit, I had a wonderful meal.I mainly note this because of the fact that I am normally fairly dubious about celebrity chefs like Capra. Capra writes in the Globe (not too time consuming) and also appears regularly on Restaurant Makeover where http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ThoughtsFromTheWesternEdge/~3/O138T2xSG0Q/beautiful-meal.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Robert Janes)2http://rjmjanes.blogspot.com/2010/01/beautiful-meal.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2888651312434234861.post-1722053531623852692Wed, 13 Jan 2010 09:40:00 +00002010-01-13T02:34:31.586-08:00The word is in the air that the present government again proposes to reform the Senate. The Government proposed to introduce Senate elections, which will commence as senators retire from the senate and their seats come open to be filled. There is no suggestion that the powers of the Senate will be reformed at the same time or that the distribution of seats within the Senate will be http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ThoughtsFromTheWesternEdge/~3/jCfSTOO6Wig/terrible-idea-of-senate-reform.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Robert Janes)1http://rjmjanes.blogspot.com/2010/01/terrible-idea-of-senate-reform.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2888651312434234861.post-6851653372291169001Sun, 10 Jan 2010 16:19:00 +00002010-01-10T08:31:41.788-08:00The BBC reports that an independent monitoring group headed by a retired, but widely respect general, recently confirmed that another religious terrorist group has laid down its arms as part of bringing decades of sectarian strife to an end.Oddly enough this reuslt was achieved not by maintaining the protagonists "no negotiations with terrorists" position but instead involved an intelligent use http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ThoughtsFromTheWesternEdge/~3/Vwp6SOb1a3Q/terrorists-lay-down-arms.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Robert Janes)0http://rjmjanes.blogspot.com/2010/01/terrorists-lay-down-arms.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2888651312434234861.post-1411364636537635233Sat, 02 Jan 2010 14:19:00 +00002010-01-02T07:19:16.441-08:00The British Columbia Court of Appeal has effectively called Victoria city council to task for magical thinking regarding homelessness. No-one who lives in Victoria or its surrounding municipalities can rationally believe that there is not a serious homelessness problem in Victoria. There are however different perspectives as to who suffers from this homelessness problem.At one side of the http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ThoughtsFromTheWesternEdge/~3/4Hi3mX4FqDg/homelessness-and-magical-thinking.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Robert Janes)5http://rjmjanes.blogspot.com/2010/01/homelessness-and-magical-thinking.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2888651312434234861.post-3800313696863650584Thu, 31 Dec 2009 13:24:00 +00002009-12-31T06:11:40.934-08:00The Globe and Mail regularly publishes commentary from Preston Manning, whose role in society is billed at as "president and CEO of the Manning Centre for Building Democracy." This billing, of course, is true enough, but completely deceptive. The reason Mr. Manning's drivel is regularly published is because his past role as founder and leader of the Reform Party. Or, even more accurately, becausehttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ThoughtsFromTheWesternEdge/~3/A14NgzLo1tU/preston-mannings-odd-concept-of-honesty.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Robert Janes)1http://rjmjanes.blogspot.com/2009/12/preston-mannings-odd-concept-of-honesty.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2888651312434234861.post-3859171820940984496Thu, 31 Dec 2009 13:10:00 +00002009-12-31T05:14:23.847-08:00yesterday we put away the bulbs, cast out the Christmas tree and packed away the scented candles. Today I go through the fridge and cupboards and cast out the various sweet temptations that are arrayed everywhere. It is all part of the wheezing and indigestion begone program. All of which brings to mind Ambrose Bierce's definition of the diaphram:DIAPHRAGM, n. A muscular partition separating http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ThoughtsFromTheWesternEdge/~3/4FwMRwgTQyk/farewell-christmas-stuff.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Robert Janes)0http://rjmjanes.blogspot.com/2009/12/farewell-christmas-stuff.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2888651312434234861.post-6238886062685515632Fri, 25 Sep 2009 13:34:00 +00002009-09-25T06:48:34.652-07:00There were two articles in the Globe and Mail today bearing on the issue of democratic reform. The first of these (a cover story no less) speaks to legislation being drafted to address long delayed changes to the distribution of seats in the House of Commons. This re-allocation of seats will result in a move toward more even representation across Canada (that is, a regime which has something http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ThoughtsFromTheWesternEdge/~3/Ad-yUOesbT0/democratic-reform.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Robert Janes)7http://rjmjanes.blogspot.com/2009/09/democratic-reform.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2888651312434234861.post-8761546491411767035Thu, 24 Sep 2009 12:38:00 +00002009-09-24T06:14:21.168-07:00The British Columbia Supreme Court brought an end to the polygamy charges against the residents of Bountiful yesterday without a trial. As a result the courts have avoided dealing with the merits of the question of whether or not Canada's polygamy laws can withstand the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The decision (which can be found here) instead focuses on the question of whether or not the http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ThoughtsFromTheWesternEdge/~3/tpKGAFFgzSE/polygamy-case-ends-not-with-bang.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Robert Janes)0http://rjmjanes.blogspot.com/2009/09/polygamy-case-ends-not-with-bang.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2888651312434234861.post-6446615385661099645Sun, 09 Aug 2009 05:28:00 +00002009-08-08T23:00:59.879-07:00In its very last judgment the House of Lords again wrestled with the question of assisted suicide. The Court had earlier determined (in common with Canada) that the bar on assisted suicide was lawful but now had to deal with an ancillary question -- that is whether or not the Director of Public Prosecutions (the head of the English prosecution service) had to give some guidance as to when it http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ThoughtsFromTheWesternEdge/~3/btagN9zngzg/assisted-suicide-debate-continues.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Robert Janes)1http://rjmjanes.blogspot.com/2009/08/assisted-suicide-debate-continues.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2888651312434234861.post-4699866458575325868Sun, 09 Aug 2009 03:55:00 +00002009-08-08T21:43:48.615-07:00After an absence of several months I come back to my blog -- and so a revival. Now to comment on an end.For several hundred years the House of Lords has stood (in the guise of its Judicial Committee) as the highest court in the United Kingdom. Its alter ego, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council equally stood as the de facto highest court in the British Empire and Commonwealth (although http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ThoughtsFromTheWesternEdge/~3/_N_pw0P17N4/revival-and-end.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Robert Janes)1http://rjmjanes.blogspot.com/2009/08/revival-and-end.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2888651312434234861.post-3593428813352743822Wed, 11 Feb 2009 13:16:00 +00002009-02-11T05:29:24.818-08:00The teachers' union recently lost a battle with the provincial government over whether or not they could strike 'mid-contract' to protest political matters. This lost battle for the teachers may, however, be a good sign for their ongoing battle with the provincial over election oriented issue advertising. The court held that the right to strike can be limited despite the fact that it is an http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ThoughtsFromTheWesternEdge/~3/aWwSrvFoceQ/teachers-and-right-to-political-protest.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Robert Janes)0http://rjmjanes.blogspot.com/2009/02/teachers-and-right-to-political-protest.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2888651312434234861.post-3946746061276087278Tue, 10 Feb 2009 20:19:00 +00002009-02-10T12:28:17.443-08:00The British Columbia Supreme Court struck down British Columbia's fish farm regulatory regime yesterday holding that laws that manage things that are swimming in the oceans, have gills, have fins and defecate into the ocean amount to laws managing fisheries (even if the fish are in a large pen). The little difficulty that this posed for the Court is that the power to pass laws that are designed http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ThoughtsFromTheWesternEdge/~3/5uys8jt8zfc/fun-with-fish-farms.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Robert Janes)0http://rjmjanes.blogspot.com/2009/02/fun-with-fish-farms.html