Today marks the last time you may email my email of many years, good old elal@isn.net, which replaced elal@sympatico.ca and another elal before that. Each became a spammers dream and all have now been entirely replaced by gmail accounts. I deleted three or four years worth of archives and felt so …

This may be old news elsewhere but if you kick at the leftovers from 2004 there is it - spring.  •  Something of a lesson in this for the Cult of the unDead when you think of it.

Apparently being next in line to being an living part of the constitution and as a result the greatest lotto winner of all time is not enough:  •  “Prince Charles has voiced his dislike of facing the media at a photo call during the Royals' annual skiing holiday at Klosters in Switzerland. As he …

Darren Barefoot has some very good observations on the limitations of audio blogging - which is quite incorrectly (he says priggily) called podcasting in the way that it would be incorrect to call the entire telephone system cellular. But he raises the spectre of another level of amateur awfulness …

Listening to this for the first time, I am struck how my Elton John, Queen and disco pre-teen pre-punk junior high self was as entirely immersed in what gay culture made it to Annapolis Valley, Nova Scotia AM radio. It does make one want to revisit the discography from Captain Fantastic... and …

The New York Times reports that it has found a plane that followed the path Maher Arar has alleged he was flown to Syria for interrogation:  •  “The discovery of the aircraft, in a database compiled from Federal Aviation Agency records, appears to corroborate part of the story Mr. Arar has told …

I just do not get this. I admit it. I understand law and ownership and stuff like that but this stuff I do not get:  •  “The deeper we get into the digital age, the more we will be defined not by our relationships with physical objects but with the data that we have accumulated in our journeys …

It's been over a year but still another day, another proceeding:  •  “Hollinger Inc. has filed a huge lawsuit against Conrad Black, his private companies and several of his former colleagues, demanding more than $635-million in damages and other claims. The suit, filed in Ontario Superior Court by …

The dust has settled a bit on Canada's announced changes to the Copyright Act and for all the it could have been worse talk, I fear that it might not. Michael Geist, the Todd Maffin of Canadian law, notes the following in relation to the fair use exceptions:  •  “The Act will include new …

The unbelievable linkfest that is the latest Red Ensign Standard is up again covering a broad range of topics and opinions thereupon...including some of yours and mine.

Yesterday's disasterous quake has been stated to have been 8.7. I have been in a 5.2 in Quebec in early November 1997 and that was frightening enough. If I understand the exponential aspect to the scale used, this one was something like 5000% more powerful though, thankfully ten times weaker than …

Wandering around even a smaller Borders shop in the southern land is a revelation and when the credit card has been paid down, or a near enough facsimilie thereof, it is a candy store. I walked around and gathered an armful, looked at it and realized I had proposed to myself the procurement of a …

In the UK today is called a bank holiday but here the banks were even open. Is there a country more keep to drop holidays than Canada? It is on all the evidence the best day to buy meat as the entire A&P meat section was on about 50% off and, so, it has been a day or roasting and braising and …

CBC radio news at noon just announced another tsunami scale quake and I did not even catch where.  •  Update: here is the CNN headline at 12:02 pm EST.

From the Beeb:  •  “  •  Pakistan clinch Bangalore victory Third Test, Bangalore, day five:  •  India 449 & 214 lost to Pakistan 570 & 261-2d by 168 runs  •  Pakistan bowled out India for 214 on the final day of the third Test in Bangalore to tie the series 1-1. Danish Kaneria dismissed Harbhajan …

There are places you hit the brakes. It can be a view but more often than not it is the question of what the heck was going on here. As you can see from these pictures, there are three great stone houses in a row on a rather quite back country road in Lewis County New York. The afternoon shadow …

This is when I want a better camera. This is also when I want to kick myself for not setting the camera I have to 3.2 pixels rather than 1.2. The day was so clear that the Adirondack mountain ridges to the east stood out clearly in layers. I was told you could see to Blue Mountain, which rises …

I pity the cultures which do no eat the reduction of tree juices.  •  We went over the other side yesterday to find the Golden Maple Shanty between Carthage and Lowville NY just south of Denmark. A stunning day of the bluest skies and there we were sitting up on the high plateau looped to the …

Canadian Channel  •  US Channel

I have written a lot about the case in Florida but only elsewhere. From a legal point of view it is not tremendously interesting as no law has been raised which is anywhere near borderline - hence the string of oral dismissals by judge after judge, panel after panel. What is particular is the …

First let me apologize to those of you who are being drawn by my references to cricket only to find absense of understanding. Google now ranks me number three for "cricket" + "update" (as opposed to "cricket update" in which case I am #1 beating the worst named URL "cricinfo.com") and that is …

All together now:  •  “Happy early birthday money to me. Happy early birthday money to me. Happy early birthday money. Happy early birthday. Happy early birthday money to me.”  •  What better way for to spend some cash from the in-laws that an fitba jersey with one of your nicknames already on it …

These are the best days off as far as I am concerned. Although we all should be reading The Master and the Margarita, that Russian surreal classic framed around the events of the first Easter and a one fanged cat in a suit, we also have to contend with all the pagan spring and fertility imagry …

Phase one of the mission has been accomplished:  •  “Received the borscht & jerky yesterday. Thanks! Jerky tastes great. I'll have to find a way to prepare the borscht though. No stove here. But I will soldier on and find a way to accomplish the mission. :) I'm actually curious to try it …

Having been embarassed for his failure to vote against the budget and leading the Conservative Party to nowhere in the convention, apparently Tory leader Stephen Harper thinks he has found a spine within his own corporeal form:  •  “Conservative Leader Stephen Harper said Thursday the party will …

I saw this on Metafilter - a gun that fires computer chips to track your movement as it also takes a photo of you. Time for you all to read my thesis on high-speed automated biometric surveillance cameras if you have any doubts about the reality of this stuff.  •  Remember: the robots will attack …

I said it was Tivo for your internet radio when it was in beta. Now its been released in 1.0. David should be very proud and tired. I am starting to play with my new toy.

For 23 months I have written here, posted photos mostly nicked from others all with the main goal of triggering a response from this blue flickering screen. I don't know many of you who read my words. Some of your write for your own fascinating photon tubes of wonderment but mostly you read, drawn …

Mike reminds me of a happier younger time in life when I would bicycle home for a late Saturday lunch and a little wrasslin' on the TV. I have mentioned Atlantic Grand Prix Wrestling before and provided a link to the story. Mike, however, has found a page with the bios of the wrestlers including …

Tractor demonstrations from Budapest from Lisa H.:  •  “There was a month long  •  strike here concerning EU grant distribution which had armies of farmers parking their tractors along the grand boulevard (Dozsa Gyorgy) towards Hero Square”  •  I love these so much I want to call her Lisa Lisa H …

The BBC wrote:  •  “...the report relates specifically to the bowler's action when delivering the doosra...”  •  The words I read ran down my spine as if someone had walked on my grave.  •  “Under the ICC's bowling review process, Harbhajan, who was also reported and cleared in 1998, will undergo …

Here is the surface the new unitarded nameless replacement players will play on in 2007. The vile experiment played out in Buffalo. Julia saw it all:  •  “...after the players started skating it was all "white" anyway. The one thing that needs to change is those darn orange face off areas. The …

This morning's ruling in the sad sad sad case of the family in Florida provides a great illustration in the distinction between the courts and the legislature. Over the weekend there was a great flurry and about 5 million US spent to get a bunch of people into a room to "save life" despite being …

More from the archives. These are from the PEI Ferry 19 years ago on the way to a cottage party with about twenty pals from Halifax.

A telephone survey. I approve spending best at the municipal government level, approve of the legalization of prostitution for safety purposes, and have extraordinary confidence in the safety of the drugs we use in Canada as well as the legitimacy of paper currency. Who would pay for such a …

On good days hereabouts there is the phenomena as my afternoon of researching and law reading winds down to a bit of a slog when it is clear that Europe has had its dinner, got the kids to bed and turned on the computer. I usually notice it when Hungary and the Netherlands comment within minutes …

Sometimes I just do not want to post when it means scrolling a picture off the front page. But this is a blog and, so, the innanity must flow.  •  Amazing results this weekend during the NCAA mens basketball this weekend which makes it clearly one of the premier couch potato events. The loss by …

I don't know where I took this photo but it was about ten years ago. In a few weeks it will start to look like this again. Click for a greenfestasplosion.

In a few weeks, we will find ourselves in Boston with the morning available for one good activity. Any suggestions for six people in three generations from 5 to 75?

The Globe and Mail is describing it as the Alliance getting its clocks cleaned:  •  “The Conservatives first policy convention saw a motion to allow for recall of MPs crushed by a majority of delegates. Attempts to water down official bilingualism were booed off the floor. What were once bedrock …

As Scottish immigrants kids we got supplies in the mail regularly with Penguin biscuits, Beano annuals and other necessities including Action Man stuff. Being the 60s, it was critical that we had our WWII knowledge down pat so that we could maintain intellegent discourse upon Rat Patrol and other …

I will not say this kind of thing often so pay(-ish) attention (it is after all only me): the Tories did at least one smart thing this weekend:  •  “On Friday, one of Leader Stephen Harper's emissaries at the merger talks, Scott Reid, backed a resolution that would have allowed ridings with more …

Next weekend the Seaway opens and I may go find a spot to watch the ice breaker, lakers and salties.

The sun has yet to set on Montreal this Friday afternoon but the Tories meeting there are already getting all scratchy-face and hair-pully. From The Globular:  •  “The Conservative party was born last year after an agreement to give equal weight at conventions to all ridings across the country …

Well, not really as we usually let latecomers in with excuses and gifts. We love gifts.  •  Pick yer picks over here! Get in on the #1 result on Google for "hockey" + "pool" + "2005". Not really much of a claim to fame this year.

I like my job. I get to work with firemen, police, sewer builders and others I collectively call the Tonkas because there is big neato component to what they do. They do big. The other day I noticed this great, almost medieval, bit of book rack design in one of their buildings. Beefy.

It is just possible that King Ralph realized for a brief moment that he lives in a country and not just a province and that the people in his province are...Canadians, too:  •  “He said there was no point in continuing to say Alberta would use the clause, when all legal advice says it can't. The …

Sad to see the farmers of PEI suffering from the market glut and low prices for potatoes. Here are some acreage stats on the reality of the North American market from this agricultural consultancy firm:  •  “And speaking of potatoes...  •  Slight dip in US potato acreage since 2003This year, total …

Cardinal Fang Bertone asks the following question in relation to the book The Da Vinci Code:  •  “Asked about commentary that the book's success is "only further proof of the fact that anti-Catholicism is the last acceptable prejudice", the cardinal said: "It's the truth. There's a great …

The appeal period will have to run out before any decisions are made but this statement by the son of one of those lost in the Air India disaster is entirely correct:  •  “"This was not an aviation accident. This was not an in-flight accident," said Susheel Gupta, an Ottawa lawyer who was 12 when …

Sad to see the recent upsurge in co-opting of Marshall McLuhan as a pal of blogging. Like irony, McLuhan as icon is one of those things that gets bandied about and forced into uncomfortable alliances - apparently without much concern whether the words he wrote bear any relationship to the claims …

Since 1997 and for the ninth year in a row on the information superhighway...  •  The Rules  •  A. US College Basketball - CBS Sports should provide all you need.  •  “1. Name the final four teams in the mens NCAA championship. 5 points for each correct pick.  •  2. Ten points for the NCAA mens …

Here is Hitachi's entry into the robot WARS!!! race and one that points out an actual use for the Segway concept. Why have all those chunky walking technology worries like nightmarish future soldier Honda's Asimo.  •  Hitachi had a press conference introducing them yesterday:  •  “Two wheel-based …

I was wondering when I would feel that we have entered a new phase, a post post 9/11 era. I sort of felt it when I read this this morning:  •  “The number of police officers patrolling the Halifax port is about to be cut by two-thirds, CBC News has learned. For several years, nine Halifax Regional …

Barriefield sits to the east of old downtown Kingston, just over the Cataraqui River, largely a collection of 1830s to 1860s cottages to the south of St. Marks Anglican. The plaque out front reads:  •  “This church, a fine example of the early style of Gothic Revival architecture, was built with …

If "flogging" is blogging for money, there must be degrees and a point of legitimacy:  •  not blogging about clients and work.blogging uncritically about things you hope will bring clients or work.putting ads up and then not blogging about it critically.putting ads up and posting positive things …

It must be the cats speaking to me through their mond control powers but these are some of the things thought when home alone:  •  “I am just gonna watch sports TV aaaaalllll night.  •  I can't believe I watched sports TV all night.  •  I bet I can make a meal out of mustard, cold rice and tuna …

Last week I wrote:  •  “I still wonder about (and this is an aspect of what I would call the illusion) the proposition about its massiveness as it relates participation. I do not think I can receive through the internet massively though I participate as a small part of hugeness of the flow into it …

This must have set the armory back a kopek or two! I had heard rumours for a few weeks that something was coming from the east but being a Maritimer you think perhaps smoked herring but never a Soviet army winter cap. From Castle Argghhhh! via redleg75 in that other St. Pete's.  •  We at the …

Is this the way the world begins to end? I am thinking central Europe and Manchuria circa 1935 as a comparator. This time, Myrick was there.

Boingers note but may possibly be missing the real point of AOL's terms and conditions for using AIM, its instant messaging service:  •  “Although you or the owner of the Content retain ownership of all right, title and interest in Content that you post to any AIM Product, AOL owns all right …

Should it be amazing that driving 9 hours round trip to drop off all the other humans in the house and return to just two cats (again) makes the house so quiet? Too bad March Madness has to wait until Thursday. At least I get a couple of days to wrap myself in Orange and scream at the TV...even in …

OK - I couldn't get up any interest for an all-hockey pool either. So we are going to go with a mixed sports pool this year. Have your picks in by Friday 18 March 2005 at 5 pm EST - that is this week.  •  The Rules  •  A. US College Basketball - CBS Sports should provide all you need.  •  “1. Name …

NYCO had the story first and the NYT has it this morning, the paper version with this sweet map which you can click for a larger version. The digital version of the paper has it here. I have said it before but one of the great things about the New York Times is its excellent mapping.  •  This is a …

Here are some incidental shorts of the downtown area that I was able to glean quickly from the winter's photo taking through Picasa. It is odd all of a sudden having an addiction to Picasa and gmaps and Google news and gmail. Have I been co-opted?

As is "I'm a gnu" as opposed to gmail. Except...nevermind.  •  Craig points out that Google News is now customizable. It can also be shared. I have added the word "beer" to provide me with easy fodder for the beer blog. For me "beer" now stands as a complete category of news along with "world" …

Thanks be to the Lord for committees of PR course grads. An airline goes under and they come out with this:  •  “"We deeply regret that this had to happen. The decision to cease operations was only taken after difficult deliberation," said Jetsgo president Michel Leblanc.”  •  Difficult …

Darren comments on the Moleskine notebook:  •  “Seth undersells the Moleskine notebook. Yes, it's a mark of snobbery and elitism, but what (as The Rebel Sell teaches us) isn't?”  •  His defence of the notebook is genuine and refers us to the inevitable but in this instance quite lovely blog on …

I have long thought that the internet was an elaborate toy which provides entertainments and jobs for the entertainers but essentially has not provide a form of service different from that which existed before, just a new format. Distance shopping existed well before e-commerce. Junk stores could …

Just saw this. Beauty.

The thing about this new theme in Ontario politics is that it is never been said before. I am sure we can all say that the timing is part smokescreen and an opportunistic leap...but if the numbers are right - why not say it? If it is true, is it still unspeakable, is there a Canadian decorum that …

Sad that things have to end but this picture kinds of sums up how a depleted Arsenal side could not claw back in the second leg of the Champions League against Bayern Munich yesterday. Perhaps too little is being spent on players compared to Chelsea but that is kind of a nutty comparison given the …

Two since we packed all the stuff and the kids and the cats and hit the road to come here. Didn't get far as the trasnmission died in Moncton and I stayed in the Harry Potter room at Magnetic Hill. Eleven I got the gown and didn't quite give the Queen an oath. Fourteen since a good pal died in a …

Barszcz actually. Dehydrated Polish beet soup powder to Brian of the 10th Mountain Division in Baghdad. See we started talking about stuff and turns out he was in Belarus round about when I was in Poland. I came away liking the daily intake of the broth of boiled beets and he, well, no. So I …

Not that far from rocket house is spaceship house...or sombrero house...or mushroom house:  •  They are in the same neighbourhood - maybe it was oneupsmanship circa 1898:  •  “Her: The Smiths are building a rocket designed in the Turkish style into their house, Jim. What are we going to do? What …

The European Patent Office has it right - you cannot scoop up someone else's culture and claim an intellectual property interest in it:  •  “EPO initially granted the patent to the US Department of Agriculture and multinational WR Grace in 1995. But the Indian government successfully argued that …

I have said it before about my wee problem but if there is one small e-commerce operator on the whole internet I would encourage you all to visit, it is Premiershirts.net out of Oldham England. I have probably bought ten shirts and other stuff from Gary and have never been disappointed. He warns …

So how do you know whether you are a Conservative in Canada anymore? It appears they are ditching a large part of social policy as policy:  •  “...the party's national executive announced a plan that could keep what it calls "issues of moral conscience" from reaching the floor of a Conservative …

I am not one to say too much about service as everyone has bad days and others usually make up for it. Yet astute readers will recall that I spent hours last August stuck on a New Brunswick bog in a VIA rail train. For my delay I received a 50% credit - gladly offered and gladly taken. Very nice …

Here is another cheery story to warm the hearts of those who hear that 1960's Coca-cola ad about teaching the world to sing when they turn on the internet in the morning [from The Star]:  •  “Relying on a long list of legal precedents, the Post's lawyers brought a motion to have the lawsuit …

Reminded of the joys of refer spam and getting my first taste of comment spam and deleting a whack of Gmail email spam this morning...I wonder if anyone has actually gotten any brighter because of this medium? Even Wikipedia, that Mr. Rogers of apps, has been diluted with the falsifiers.

Portland is right. We need a new topic and I say make it cricket!  •  Taufeeq Umar, dismissed for 37  •  in Pakistan's 165-5 at stumps on day one  •  All we need are white linen suits, gin and a common beastial private school upbringing. Did we have any of that back in Truro?

Just like that. It stopped at 3:57 pm today. It's like a three-day storm breaking and the house getting quiet. I can actually see real referrals now like this one linking to my posting about the Canadian courts getting the point about anti-Roma hate crime. That referring site has my favorite Gen X …

I usually do not like "memes" or viral bloggy games and tests that never cumulate or provide us with sound statistical charts but I am too lazy to stick by my usual paper standards this morning. Why? Nils has a good post following on one of these themey-thingies called 5 Things I've Done That You …

It is odd to what degree the nerds of Boing Boing voice their shocking avariciousness. One would have thought that the interests of the creative parts of society would be best serves by their protection. Instead, we read this article on the need to devalue the property rights of the things of …

Still working through the cold and the books on the US Constitution and I was struck by a passage on what are called unenumerated rights. In the 1791 addition of the Bill of Rights to the US Constitution it says at Amendment 9:  •  “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not …

From the BBC:  •  “A California judge said in a preliminary ruling that bloggers should not have the same protection afforded to journalists under US law. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), representing the sites, said it was disappointed with the ruling. The case's outcome could be …

It's freedom night on my TV apparently. CBC plays A Bug's Life - yea, kill the grasshoppers - and then the less happily ended Braveheart - yea, kill the English...oops - and flip to PBS's Austin City Limits and it is the Polyphonic Spree (warning - the best and most appropriate use of introductory …

Being a Nova Scotian and Maritimer, it is with great personal pleasure watching the 1989 UN resolution that Syria withdraw from Lebanon being made effective through international and especially Saudi Arabian pressure. You see, Nova Scotia is Lebanese in that way that it is also Mi'kmaq, Black …

Earlier this week a blogger put his foot in his mouth and a very interesting conversation has been triggered. Ruks wrote the unfortunate sentence "Why do we need Rob?" asking why would you need a university summer course to discuss blogging and other new ideas in communication. Rob responded with …

I really must congratulate this virus which has become lodged in my corpus. Such a fine display and variety of symptoms. Such a canny sense of timing as to when to send on a fainting spell or launch an attempt to turn my lungs inside out. For not being a flu, you are a hell of a bug. At six days …

I would have posted this Christian Science Monitor article if only because it is by fellow Haligonian and Kings College alumnist and my brother's fellow Halifax Daily News guy, Tom Regan. Apart from my obvious suckiness and cronyistic motivations, it is an excellent observation of the bloggy …

Here is the real story in blogs for 2005 - not their importance but their sale to interests or operation for particular agenda. Consider this post today by Darren Broadfoot:  •  “One of the companies I'm involved with is looking for a particular kind of blogger for a new contract. Jeremy puts it …

The Star says:  •  “James Driskell has recovered his innocence. Now he's looking for accountability. The 46-year-old Winnipeg man spent more than 12 years in prison because forensic scientists made mistakes and witnesses lied. And for more than a decade, Manitoba prosecutors concealed evidence …

Could you earn a living finding the light in the glass at Clark's Ale House? Click.

This is nuts:  •  “A Wall Street buyout firm and a sports advisory company have offered to buy all 30 teams in the National Hockey League for roughly $3.5 billion US, according to reports. Bain Capital Partners LLC and Game Plan International made the joint proposal to NHL owners Tuesday in New …

Thinks:...don't say anything that can be misconstrued as reference to members  •  of family...don't say anything that...

I am surprised and not surprised by this fact:  •  “A study done for the Nova Scotia Department of Environment in 1998 showed that trash from Tim Hortons accounted for 47 per cent of fast-food litter and 22 per cent of all litter examined at 40 sites across the province.”

Home sick for another day, I am reading a book called On Reading the Constitution by Lawrence Tribe, an author recommended to me by a NYC lawyer recommended to me by a now blogging former-classmate of his as well as a collection of essays on the founding of the USA called To Begin The World Anew …

As good a game as you are going to see, Arsenal beats Sheffield United convincingly...well, at least on the penalties after 210 minutes over 2 games of 0-0 fitba.

While over in the States on the weekend, I picked up a copy of the Watertown Daily Times the excellent paper that is published out of our smaller neighbouring city in Jefferson Co., NY. As an artifact, it is especially interesting to read the "Northern New York" section on issues that are …

Every so often there are mini-waves among the blogs I read about the blogs I read. Ian writes about how lucky he is to be able to write whatever he feels like writing. Ben notes some voluminous bloggers including me - volume being one of my claims to fame in any number of areas of life. Rob has …