Wise Law Blog

The Newest Leaf

2010-02-04T22:36:00.006-05:00

As our regular readers will know, here at Wise Law Blog, we'll occasionally segue from our usual law talk with a post on one of our other two major concerns, the Toronto Maple Leafs and music.

I'm not sure this video of the newest Leaf, Dion Phaneuf, will be the ultimate marriage of those two satellite interests, but it scores high for oddity value, if nothing else.

He might not give great interviews, but apparently, Mr. Phaneuf can be the life of the party, once in a while:

- Garry J. Wise, Toronto

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Quoteworthy

2010-01-30T02:43:00.004-05:00

New York Times' Linda Greenhouse, commenting on the U.S. Supreme Court's "exaltation of corporate speech" in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission:

...the Roberts court has lost its virginity.

- Garry J. Wise, Toronto

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Karlheinz Schreiber Trial Begins

2010-01-18T12:22:00.003-05:00

CBC reports that the trial of former Brian Mulroney associate, Karlheinz Schreiber, has commenced in Germany.

The trial has begun in Germany for Karlheinz Schreiber, a German-Canadian businessman accused of tax evasion for his role in a 1990s political financing scandal.

More on the history of Mr. Schreiber and his dealings with the former Prime Minister here.

- Garry J. Wise, Toronto

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Harper's Judicial Tides

2010-01-18T11:52:00.002-05:00

Lawyers Weekly makes an interesting observation - One third of federal judges now appointed by Harper government:

The Conservatives will have appointed one-third of the country’s federal judges by the time they celebrate their fourth anniversary in office this month.

...Prime Minister Stephen Harper has already had a major impact on the judiciary’s top echelons, despite leading a minority government. He has appointed two Supreme Court of Canada judges, as well as at least eight provincial chief, or associate chief, justices.

- Garry J. Wise, Toronto

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Learning the "Power of the Internet" (the Hard Way III)

2010-01-18T06:00:00.008-05:00

Another hapless Tweetor learns an important life lesson:

Some things, you just don't say online:

When heavy snowfall threatened to scupper Paul Chambers's travel plans, he decided to vent his frustrations on Twitter by tapping out a comment to amuse his friends. "Robin Hood airport is closed," he wrote. "You've got a week and a bit to get your shit together, otherwise I'm blowing the airport sky high!!"

Unfortunately for Mr Chambers, the police didn't see the funny side. A week after posting the message on the social networking site, he was arrested under the Terrorism Act and questioned for almost seven hours by detectives who interpreted his post as a security threat. After he was released on bail, he was suspended from work pending an internal investigation, and has, he says, been banned from the Doncaster airport for life. "I would never have thought, in a thousand years, that any of this would have happened because of a Twitter post," said Mr Chambers, 26. "I'm the most mild-mannered guy you could imagine."

More Learning the Power of the Internet (The Hard Way): Part I and Part 2.

And a similar, but perhaps more sinister, episode on Facebook leads to charges in Malaysia.

- Garry J. Wise, Toronto

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Law Firm E-Security Concerns To Heat Up After Trojan Email Attack?

2010-01-15T03:30:00.005-05:00

Legal professionals who utilize Web 2.0 and the Cloud have long been wary of the general perils of inadequate online security.

This Law.com report of a targeted trojan email attack on a Los Angeles law firm, however, obviously ups the ante and raises genuine concern about the safety of confidential client date housed by law firms in the face of sophisticated attempts to breach security walls:

A Los Angeles law firm that recently filed a $2.2 billion copyright infringement suit against the People's Republic of China said that it has become the target of cyberattacks originating in China. The e-mails sent to Gipson Hoffman & Pancione came the same week that Google declared that it would stop complying with Chinese censorship requirements for the Internet following reports that several of its computer systems had drawn cyberattacks believed to originate in China.

- Garry J. Wise, Toronto

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Best Law Firm TV Ad Ever

2010-01-15T03:23:00.001-05:00

Via Overlawyered

- Garry J. Wise, Toronto

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U.S. Supreme Court Extends Camera Ban at California Gay Marriage Trial

2010-01-13T19:40:00.004-05:00

In a 5-4 ruling today, the U.S. Supreme Court has indefinitely extended the ban on videotaping the ongoing Proposition 8, same-sex marriage trial in California.

- Garry J. Wise, Toronto

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Frum's Torture Apologetics

2010-01-12T09:52:00.013-05:00

David Frum on John Yoo's recent appearance with Jon Stewart:

Yoo had come to the interview to elucidate a couple of simple points. The question he had been asked by the security arm of government was not, “How can we torture?” but “What can we do that isn’t torture?” Yoo is a lawyer, not an expert in interrogation. He did not recommend techniques. He tried to do something that the U.S. government had not done before: define the legal limit of the permissible.
Maybe that job should never have been assigned. Possibly Yoo’s answer was wrong. (Knowing John, he’d be more than usually open to that second possibility – few people in high government office can ever have had less ego than John Yoo.) But that’s the ground on which he has to be engaged, not in the angels-and-demons style of much of the media coverage … a style that has the incidental effect of recategorizing some of the most brutal enemies the United States has ever faced as pitiful victims.

Just a lawyer doing doing his job, of course - defining waterboarding as "the permissible." As if this were a novel question, never before considered.

For what it's worth, I'm hard-pressed to recall a single instance of anyone - liberal, conservative, blue, green or pink - who has ever, in any "style," categorized Osama bin Laden as a "victim."

See Mr. Frum's article, The Real John Yoo. More on John Yoo's legal "opinions" here.

- Garry J. Wise, Toronto

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US Supreme Court Blocks You Tube Airing of Gay Marriage Trial

2010-01-11T12:32:00.005-05:00

Trial begins today in the constitutional challenge to Califormia's ban on same-sex mariage.

The U.S. Supreme Court has today issued a temporary order staying a federal judge's ruling last week that permitted videotape of the hearings to be uploaded and broadcast via You Tube.

- Garry J. Wise, Toronto

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Twice the Punishment

2010-01-08T06:12:00.002-05:00

WSJ Law Blog wonders aloud:

How would the law punish Siamese twins if one of the twins committed murder without the other being involved?

- Garry J. Wise, Toronto

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Rick Mercer on the Harper Prorogue and Afghanistan

2010-01-06T07:56:00.006-05:00

Rick Mercer:

It is ironic that while our parliament has been suspended we are a nation at war. On New Year's Eve we greeted the news that five Canadians were killed in a single day with sadness but not surprise. We are at war because ostensibly we are helping bring democracy to Afghanistan. How the mission is progressing is open for debate but this much is certain – at present there is a parliament in Afghanistan that it is very much open for business. Canada has no such institution.

In Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai's government faces fierce opposition at every turn; many of his cabinet choices have been rejected in a secret ballot by the more than 200 parliamentarians that sit in the legislature. Simply closing parliament down and operating without their consent is not an option for Hamid Karzai; to do so would be blatantly undemocratic or at the very least downright Canadian...

(via Alison at Golloping Beaver)

- Garry J. Wise, Toronto

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France to Outlaw "Psychological" Domestic Violence?

2010-01-05T22:49:00.013-05:00

Is this Daily Mail story for real?

Married couples in France could end up with criminal records for insulting each other during arguments. Under a new law, France is to become the first country in the world to ban ' psychological violence' within marriage. The law would apply to cohabiting couples and to both men and women.

It would cover men who shout at their wives and women who hurl abuse at their husbands - although it was not clear last night if nagging would be viewed as breaking the law.

The law is expected to cover every kind of insult including repeated rude remarks about a partner's appearance, false allegations of infidelity and threats of physical violence.

One commenter at the article offers this personal insight:

Once a month my wife screams and yells for no good reason... would her natural cycle be used as a temporary insanity defense? The last thing I want to have to do is call on the police to help me with her moods but the law is the law I guess and maybe she does belong in jail.

Bizarre. More on the proposed psychological violence law is here from BBC.

- Garry J. Wise, Toronto

National Post's Barbara Kay opines that the proposed law is bound to be enforced against men only:

I pity the poor men of France if this bill passes. As it is, women for any number of reasons - custody battles, revenge for perceived or real insults, or just because it's an easy end to a difficult moment - falsely allege physical violence, which the police and courts routinely indulge without proof. Conversely physical violence against men for which there is proof is routinely ignored. If this bill passes, French women will have licence to assault men psychologically - "you're no man, you let your boss walk all over you;" "you call that lovemaking?" - with impunity, not that any real man, ironically enough, would dream of complaining to the police about such insults, however diminishing and painful they were. But women will hold the power to invoke the state's enormous punitive powers when they feel slighted. Or even when they don't, but have an axe to grind.
This is a Pandora's Box France will be very sorry she opened.

Her views are genenerally solid, but it appears that in her tangential commentary on the applicability of this law to emotional cruelty by parents, she has not fully considered the already sharp teeth of Canada's existing child welfare laws, which address emotional abuse of children.

- GJW

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Fox News or the 700 Club?

2010-01-04T10:04:00.002-05:00

You be the judge:

- Garry J. Wise, Toronto

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Canada's Top 100 CEO's Are Doing Just Fine

2010-01-03T19:26:00.007-05:00

Canadian Press reports that Canada's top 100 CEO's didn't have such a bad year in 2008:

Canada's 100 highest paid CEOs pocketed an of average $7.3 million in 2008, the same year Canadians were hard hit by the emergence of the worldwide recession, according to a new report by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives...

Thomas Glocer, Thomson Reuters Corp. $36.6 million.
-Ted Rogers, Rogers Communications Inc. $21.5 million.
-J. M. Lipton, Nova Chemicals Corp. $19.8 million.
-George Cope, BCE Inc. $19.6 million.
-Robert Brown, CAE Inc.$17.3 million.
-William Doyle, Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan $17 million.
-Hunter Harrison, Canadian National Railway Co. $13.4 million.
-Dominic D'Alessandro, Manulife Financial Corp. $13.3 million.
-Stephen Wetmore, Bell Aliant Regional Com. Income Fund $11.6 million.
-Serafino Iacono (co-chairman), Pacific Rubiales Energy Corp. $11.3 million.
-Miguel de la Campa (co-chairman), Pacific Rubiales Energy Corp. $11.3 million.
-Jeffrey Orr, Power Financial Corp. $11.3 million.
-Jean Claude Gandur, Addax Petroleum Corp. $11.2 million.
-Edmund Clark, Toronto-Dominion Bank $11.1 million.
-Tye Burt, Kinross Gold Corp. $11.1 million.
-Frank Stronach (Chairman), Magna International Inc. $10.8 million.
-Louis Vachon, National Bank of Canada $10.5 million.
-Randall Eresman, EnCana Corp. $10.3 million.
-Gordon Nixon, Royal Bank of Canada $9.6 million.
-Ron Brenneman, Petro-Canada $9.2 million
-Richard Waugh, Bank of Nova Scotia $9.2 million.
-Michael Wilson, Agrium Inc. $9.2 million.
-Gregory Wilkins, Barrick Gold Corp. $8.9 million.
-John A Manzoni, Talisman Energy Inc. $8.8 million.
-Allan Leighton, Loblaw Cos. Ltd./Weston $8.8 million.
-Kevin McArthur, Goldcorp Inc. $8.7 million.
-Craig H. Muhlhauser, Celestica Inc $8.7 million.
-Harold Kvisle, TransCanada Corp. $8.6 million.
-Eugene C. McBurney, (Chairman) GMP Corp. $8.3 million.
-Jim Shaw, Shaw Communications Inc. $8.2 million.
-Richard George, Suncor Energy Inc. $8 million.
-Pierre Beaudoin, Bombardier Inc.$7.8 million.
-Richard J. Harrington, Thomson Reuters Corp. $7.8 million.
-D.A. Loney, Great-West Lifeco Inc. $7.3 million.
-Pierre Peladeau, Quebecor Inc. $7 million.
-James Kinnear, Pengrowth Energy Trust $6.9 million.
-Darren Entwistle, TELUS Corp. $6.9 million.
-Stephen Snyder, TransAlta Corp. $6.9 million.
-Donald Stewart, Sun Life Financial Inc. $6.6 million.
-Robert A. Milton, ACE Aviation Holdings Inc. $6.6 million.
-Donald Lindsay, Teck Cominco Ltd. $6.5 million.
-Peter Munk, Barrick Gold Corp. $6.5 million.
-Patrick Daniel, Enbridge Inc. $6.5 million.
-William Downe, Bank of Montreal $6.4 million.
-Nancy Southern, Atco Ltd./Canadian Utilities Ltd. $6.3 million.
-Gerry McCaughey, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce $6.3 million.
-Jacques Lamarre, SNC-Lavalin Group Inc. $6.3 million.
-Charles Fischer, Nexen Inc. $6.2 million.
-Bruce Aitken, Methanex Corp. $5.9 million.
-Donald Walker, Magna International Inc.$5.9 million.
-Jurgen Schreiber, Shoppers Drug Mart Corp. $5.9 million.
-Edward M. Siegel Jr., Russel Metals Inc. $5.8 million.
-Siegfried Wolf, Magna International Inc. $5.7 million.
-David Goodman, Dundee Wealth $5.6 million.
-Mario Longhi, Gerdau Ameristeel Corp. $5.6 million.
-Ronald Pantin, Pacific Rubiales Energy Corp. $5.5 million.
-Allen Chan, Sino-Forest Corp. $5.3 million.
-Geoffrey T. Martin, CCL Industries $5.3 million.
-Sean Boyd, Agnico-Eagle Mines Ltd. $5.3 million.
-Scott Saxberg, Crescent Point Energy Trust $5.3 million.
-Ian Greenberg, Astral Media Inc. $5.3 million.
-Paul Desmarais Jr., Power Corp. of Canada $5.2 million.
-James Balsillie, Research in Motion Ltd. $5.2 million.
-Michael Lazaridis, Research in Motion Ltd. $5.2 million.
-Andre Desmarais, Power Corp. of Canada $5 million.
-Francois Coutu, Jean Coutu Group $4.9 million.
-Jay Hennick, FirstService Corp. $4.8 million.
-John Lau, Husky Energy Inc. $4.8 million.
-Frederic Green, Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd. $4.7 million.
-John Macken, Ivanhoe Mines Ltd. $4.7 million.
-Steve Laut, Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. $4.6 million.
-Peter R. Jones, HudBay Minerals Inc. $4.6 million.
-Gerald Grandey, Cameco Corp. $4.6 million.
- Marc Tellier, Yellow Pages Income Fund $4.6 million.
-Mayo M. Schmidt, Viterra Inc. $4.5 million.
-Marvin F. Romanow, Nexen Inc. $4.5 million.
-M.H. McCain, Maple Leaf Foods Inc. $4.4 million.
-Keith A. Carrigan, BFI Canada Ltd. $4.4 million.
-Alain Bedard, TransForce Inc. $4.3 million.
-Wm. Wells, Biovail Corp. $4.3 million.
-Gerald Schwartz, Onex Corp. $4.3 million.
-Raymond McFeetors, Great-West Lifeco Inc. $4.2 million.
-Ellis Jacob, Cineplex Galaxy Income Fund $4.1 million.
-Robert S Pritchard, Torstar Corp. $4.1 million.
-Michael Waites, Finning International Inc. $4.1 million.
-Stephen H. Sorenson, Uex Corp $4 million.
-B.H. March, Imperial Oil Ltd. $4 million.
-Charles Jeannes, Goldcorp Inc. $4 million.
-Luc Desjardins, Transcontinental Inc. $4 million.
-Stanley Marshall, Fortis Inc. $3.9 million.
-Peter Marrone, Yamana Gold Inc. $3.9 million.
-Marcel Coutu, Canadian Oil Sands Trust $3.7 million.
-Kevin Loughrey, Thompson Creek Metals Co. Inc.$ 3.7 million.
-Thomas Gauld, Canadian Tire Corp. $3.6 million.
-Brett Herman, TriStar Oil & Gas Ltd. $3.6 million.
-S. Defalco, MDS Inc. $3.5 million.
-W.P. Buckley, ShawCor Ltd. $3.5 million.
-D.L. Rogers, Sears Canada Inc. $3.5 million.
-Edward Sonshine, RioCan REIT $3.4 million.
-Rupert Duchesne, Groupe Aeroplan Inc. $3.2 million.

- Garry J. Wise, Toronto

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Video: If Only Life Was Really Like This...

2010-01-01T23:33:00.008-05:00

All you need is love...

May we earthlings inch just a little bit closer in 2010.

What a fantastic job done by the people who mixed this video.

(ht: KJR)

- Garry J. Wise, Toronto

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Our Most Tweeted Posts for 2009

2010-01-01T11:55:00.009-05:00

Via Topsy:

18tweets

Wise Law Blog: Texas Judge Uses Facebook, Explores Social Media Ethics for Judiciary, Lawyers

wiselaw.blogspot.com

15tweets

Wise Law Blog: e-Resources for Lawyers

wiselaw.blogspot.com

12tweets

Wise Law Blog: Law Professor "Outed" as Anonymous Blogger

wiselaw.blogspot.com

12tweets

Wise Law Blog: Washington Post's New Social Media Guidelines for Journalists

wiselaw.blogspot.com

8tweets

Wise Law Blog: Libel - In 140 Characters or Less

wiselaw.blogspot.com

7tweets

Wise Law Blog: 2009 Canada Blawg Awards

wiselaw.blogspot.com

6tweets

Wise Law Blog: Law Blogs, Free Speech and Professional Ethics

wiselaw.blogspot.com

5tweets

Wise Law Blog: Ontario Court Permits Twitter, Live-Blogging from O'Brien Hearing

wiselaw.blogspot.com

4tweets

Wise Law Blog: Ontario Drivers' Cell Phone Ban Likely in Effect in October

wiselaw.blogspot.com

- Garry J. Wise, Toronto

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140Law - December 31, 2009 Edition

2009-12-31T18:23:00.021-05:00

With the 'tens upon us in but a few short hours, allow me to thank all of our readers, RSS subscribers, Facebook friends, LinkedIn contacts and Twitter followers and list-makers for being with us here in 2009.

To those who've been kind enough to retweet and link to our articles this year, many thanks. Special greetings, as well to our fellow bloggers and many friends who receive our feeds via Progressive Bloggers, Liblogs, Blogging Canadians, Canada's Best Political Blogs and LiberalsOnline.

Your readership, comments and encouragement continue to make this fun.

My thanks, as always, to Rachel, Bill, Shashi, Stephen, Nicole, Ashallie, Saqib and Sami for in a great year at Wise Law Office.

What more to say in this, our final post of 2009 (barring something unforeseen)?

Happy new year to all.

To send off 2009 in style, here's a peek at the leading legal headlines we've posted at Twitter in the last few weeks:

Should a judge be on Facebook? - Toronto Star http://bit.ly/5NmXWM
U.S. Chamber's "Top Five Most Ridiculous Lawsuits of 2009" http://bit.ly/84qGlk
Can arbitration clauses stop a class action? - Financial Post http://bit.ly/76vtRr
Madoff Losses Not "Mutual Mistake" in Divorce Settlement http://bit.ly/5vGifb
Rove granted divorce in Texas (Mike Allen/The Politico) http://tinyurl.com/ykdw6mc
Vt. judge: Gay birth mom must give child to ex-partner http://bit.ly/6r2XbN
Lawyer's Misconduct Costs Him Any Share of $1.2 Million Fee http://bit.ly/8zf1at
The Recession Begins Flooding Into the Courts http://bit.ly/6HPbbL
Toronto museum named worst building of the 2000s http://bit.ly/6yWlcQ
India Official, 86, resigns over 3-woman sex tape http://bit.ly/8f0TSw
Ont. to pay $750,000 to ex-OLG boss in settlement - CTV News http://bit.ly/8rh57Z
A Letter to the Next Generation of Lawyers http://bit.ly/6yD6GQ
Your Boss and Your BlackBerry - New York Times (blog) http://bit.ly/5NrLey
McLachlin Court turns ten http://bit.ly/7QsT6S
“Law firm offers divorce vouchers for Christmas” http://bit.ly/7lJ68z
Top Ten legal ethics stories of 2009 http://bit.ly/4RWYaD
Judge Blasts U.S. Attorneys' Pursuit of High-Profile Defense Lawyer http://bit.ly/7hmS3b
Blagojevich Lawyer Floats Idea of Deposing Obama http://bit.ly/8NBETN
Prominent lawyer says legal aid boycott shouldn't punish accused - Toronto Star http://bit.ly/4URTP7
Why Live Tweeting Is a Terrible Idea http://bit.ly/7nZfKq
“The year’s 10 most infamous lawyers” http://bit.ly/6aHpUW
NYC named "Judicial Hellhole" in new ATRA report http://bit.ly/7lqCHc
Employees Have a Right to Privacy in E-Mail Sent from Work http://bit.ly/6DjryS
A Paid Escort Is a 'Date' Under Domestic Violence Act, N.J. Court Rules http://bit.ly/6hJkKQ
Breast Implants as Marital Property? http://bit.ly/8xIJa8
Justice Department in contempt of court for not taping Gitmo hearing http://bit.ly/4yV1xI
Why You Shouldn’t Take it Hard If a Judge Rejects Your Friend Request http://bit.ly/6Uy9D7
Lawyer's Vulgar Comments to Women May Draw a Three-Month Suspension http://bit.ly/4MQrjO
Lawyer Arrested After Bringing Gun Into Courthouse http://bit.ly/6TNVUd
Daughter Awarded $3 Million After Death of Mother Who Had Do-Not-Resuscitate Order http://bit.ly/6Gvm55

And finally, a nod to mediation blogger Victoria Pynchon's Ten New Year's (Dispute) Resolutions for 2010.

That's all folks. See you next year.

Have a great evening and be safe.

- Garry J. Wise, Toronto

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And the Award Goes To ...

2009-12-31T13:22:00.009-05:00

The 2009 CLawBies are now online.

We are honoured that Wise Law Blog was named as a runner up for Best Canadian Law Blog.

I'm also particularly pleased to see the mentions received by my OMG! Law Talk compadres, Michael Carabash and Omar Ha-Redeye, in the Legal Culture Award category.

Congratulations to all the winners and nominees.

- Garry J. Wise, Toronto

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The Obama Response to Cheney: 'We Don't Need to Beat Our Chests'

2009-12-31T05:31:00.008-05:00

Dan Pfeiffer, White House Communications Director, at The White House Blog:

To put it simply: this President is not interested in bellicose rhetoric, he is focused on action. Seven years of bellicose rhetoric failed to reduce the threat from al Qaeda and succeeded in dividing this country. And it seems strangely off-key now, at a time when our country is under attack, for the architect of those policies to be attacking the President....

President Obama doesn’t need to beat his chest to prove it, and – unlike the last Administration – we are not at war with a tactic (“terrorism”), we at war with something that is tangible: al Qaeda and its violent extremist allies.

Politico has Mr. Cheney's words of wisdom here.

And meanwhile, William and the Neocons clamour for a good, old-fashioned waterboarding:

This last question is key. In light of the reporting that Abdulmutallab has clammed up on the advice of his lawyers, will Obama now at least consider designating him an enemy combatant?

- Garry J. Wise, Toronto

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The 'Israelification' of Airports

2009-12-31T05:24:00.002-05:00

The Toronto Star contrasts Israeli and North American airport security:

"Do you know why Israelis are so calm? We have brutal terror attacks on our civilians and still, life in Israel is pretty good. The reason is that people trust their defence forces, their police, their response teams and the security agencies. They know they're doing a good job. You can't say the same thing about Americans and Canadians. They don't trust anybody," Sela said. "But they say, 'So far, so good'. Then if something happens, all hell breaks loose and you've spent eight hours in an airport. Which is ridiculous. Not justifiable.

- Garry J. Wise, Toronto

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On Succession Planning and Discrimination

2009-12-31T00:58:00.025-05:00

William Neuman of New York Times looks today at the retirement of McDonald's President and Chief Operating Officer, Ralph Alvarez, largely for medical reasons, after only three years as second-in-command at the international burger giant.

An 'expert' cited in the article, At McDonald’s, a Retirement Stirs Questions, is quite perturbed, apparently, by the company's succession planning processes:

Nell Minow, a founder of the Corporate Library, which rates the performance of boards, said “high turnover at the sub-C.E.O. level is always a risk factor.”
... But she also said that Mr. Alvarez’s chronic health condition, although not life-threatening, should have made the board wary of promoting him to such a position in the first place, given McDonald’s recent history.
“It’s an important part of the C.E.O. succession planning process that you have to have a very frank conversation about health issues,” Ms. Minow said. “Somebody was not asking the right questions there.

In other words, Ms. Minow is critical of the McDonald's board for the company's non-discriminatory promotion of Mr. Alvarez.

In Canada, those "right questions" about health and disability may well be unlawful to even ask.

Is Ms. Minow actually advocating a corporate culture in which potentially-disabled people simply need not apply for promotion to high executive positions?

(If so, I suppose we shouldn't even talk about women of child-rearing age).

What nonsense.

Once again, thank goodness for our Canadian human rights codes and tribunals.

- Garry J. Wise, Toronto

Update: January 1, 2010

Ms. Minow has responded with a comment to this post:

I appreciate the post, but you misunderstood my comment. I have disabled family members and my family has worked for and written about the rights of the disabled. This is not about disability; it is about the obligation of boards of directors to have a frank and candid conversation about elements related to succession planning for key corporate officers. I understand why that distinction may not have been clear from the brief excerpt of my comments included in the article, but before you assume the worst you might want to consider looking a bit further.

I'm not sure how responsive this comment is to the concerns raised in the initial post, but we very much appreciate the feedback.

- GJW

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Countdown's "Cacaphony of Crazy"

2009-12-30T06:37:00.007-05:00

MSNBC's Keith Olbermann reviews the year of Palin:

And for those following the Palin grandchild custody shenanigans currently playing out in Alaska, pleadings filed by Levi Johnston in support of his successful motion to open the process are here.

- Garry J. Wise, Toronto

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U.S. Appeal Court: Limits On Police Taser Use

2009-12-30T06:16:00.005-05:00

McClatchy reports:

A federal appeals court on Monday issued one of the most comprehensive rulings yet limiting police use of Tasers against low-level offenders who seem to pose little threat and may be mentally ill.
In a case out of San Diego County, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals criticized an officer who, without warning, shot an emotionally troubled man with a Taser when he was unarmed, yards away, and neither fleeing nor advancing on the officer.
...A three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit affirmed the trial judge's ruling on Monday, concluding that the level of force used by the officer was excessive.
McPherson could have waited for backup or tried to talk the man down, the judges said. If Bryan was mentally ill, as the officer contended, then there was even more reason to use "less intrusive means," the judges said.
"Officer McPherson's desire to quickly and decisively end an unusual and tense situation is understandable," Judge Kim McLane Wardlaw wrote for the court. "His chosen method for doing so violated Bryan's constitutional right to be free from excessive force."

- Garry J. Wise, Toronto

Update: December 31, 2009

Orin Kerr at Volokh walks readers through the appellate court's opinion, and not surprisingly, is critical. See Thoughts on Bryan v. McPherson, the New Ninth Circuit Taser Case

- G.J.W.

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Sinead's Hand

2009-12-29T17:24:00.004-05:00

This Irish offering on same-sex civil marriage is one of Andrew Sullivan's picks for ad of the year:

- Garry J. Wise, Toronto

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