Some of our gang — and the gang itself — have been kindly noticed in the #193 Blawg Review, penned by the delightfully quirky (but oh-so-percipient) Charon QC. Coming close on the heels of his exploration of blawgs and lust is his praise for much that is Canadian:

Another *lust* in my life is knowing what is going on – hence the Pageflakes project (Later). Canadian blogger Jordan Furlong’s Law21.ca blog is a treasure chest of gems. Regeneration, a recent post talks about regeneration and hope…

Another Canadian blog to satisfy lust for knowledge across the pond

Oddly, it’s still winter. And I can’t stop myself from gazing longingly down at the south, far south. So I’ve decided that this Friday, we’ll be flying down to Rio. It’s 27 degrees there at the moment and will be warmer tomorrow. I’d hoped to take you there via a webcam, but sadly I can only find working webcams there for traffic, so I’ll take you a bit further south to Santos, where there’s a webcam on the beach.

Anyhow, getting there so abruptly would cause us to miss out on half the fun — at least, it . . . [more]

♬When will my reflections show
Who I am inside?♬

Written by Matthew Wilder and David Zippel, recorded by Christina Aguilera.

We are at an important transition point – when one year ends and a fresh new one is about to begin. The point is an important legal, celestial and financial one – while the world isn’t much different following the crossing of the line from one year to the next, that crossing signifies the closing of a circle, the closing of financial books and the start of determining the passage of time for the consequences of events that . . . [more]

Chances are you got one for Christmas, if you’re into exchanging gifts at this time of year. And chances are pretty good that, if you did, you cracked it today if only for a look and a fondle. I’m talking about a book, of course, the favourite object of those of us in law who work the internet.

Now, some of you may want to mark the book as yours, if there isn’t already an inscriptions saying “to Hortense from Uncle Toby on the occasion of Christmas 2008,” or some such, on the flyleaf ((which, I’m only slightly . . . [more]

This is a response to Gary P. Rodrigues’ post, “Recognized as an authority.”

I think it has been a safe bet since its inception that Halsbury’s laws of Canada would be frequently cited in Canada. In fact, a simple Quicklaw-LexisNexis search of the phrase,”Halsbury’s Laws of Canada,” already (as of today) turns up four hits, including one decision of the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal.

But why Halsbury’s Laws of Canada? The obvious answer is that the good people of LexisNexis believed that Halsbury’s was a valuable trade-name in Canada. But apart from editing a great . . . [more]

I tried posting this as a comment to David’s last post, but it wouldn’t go through because of its length and number of links. Due to the pressing and important nature of the issue I decided to re-post it here.

Mr. Santa Claus is wanted for questioning for tax evasion, and nobody is quite sure why there are no export tariffs on his goods. Canada, the U.S., Russia, Denmark and Norway are all laying jurisdictional claim to Santa’s home, and sorting out the conflicting legal systems have proven to be a mess.

Human rights groups have protested that . . . [more]

1. Border crossings would delay his delivery. Imagine Santa explaining himself to a border guard/customs agent.

2. Reduces product liability risk for any defective toys.

3. Avoids scrutiny of privacy issues of the naughty/nice list.

4. Avoids pressure by toy lobbyists and sympathetic legislators.

5. Makes it easier to protect his trade-secrets for sleigh innovations, home entry techniques, and apparent mastery of space and time. . . . [more]

Bypassing any and all Parliamentary process, Prime Minister Stephen Harper has appointed Thomas Cromwell to the Supreme Court of Canada to fill the vacancy created by the retirement of Mr. Justice Bastarache. (See the CBC story.)

Those interested in Mr. Justice Cromwell’s professional details may consult The Thomas Cromwell Pages on Slaw.

Although there is serious criticism of the manner of the appointment — see, for example, Professor Peter Russell’s comments as reported in the Globe and Mail — there is unanimous agreement that Justice Cromwell is a very good choice for the top court position. . . . [more]

According to the CBC, these 18 have been named to the Senate by Prime Minister Stephen Harper:

• Former broadcaster Pamela Wallin
• Olympian Nancy Greene Raine
• CTV personality Mike Duffy
• Former N.L. MP Fabian Manning.
• N.S. lawyer Fred Dickson.
• Stephen Greene, former deputy chief of staff to N.S. Premier Rodney MacDonald.
• N.S. businessman Michael L. MacDonald.
• Long-time New Brunswick MLA and cabinet minister Percy Mockler.
• N.B. lawyer John D. Wallace.
• National chief of the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples Patrick Brazeau.
• Former Quebec MP and teacher Suzanne Fortin-Duplessis.
• Director of Via Rail Canada Leo Housakos.
• Former Quebec MNA Michel Rivard.
• Nicole

You know how every Christmas season the classics are shown on TV? Well that can hold for Blogs too. I throughly enjoyed preparing it a couple of years ago and intended on updating this year but the Christmas season has gotten in the way (I might be able to update it just before Christmas) but the classics are always worth repeating.

Santa in the Courts

Community Funding Corp. v. Newfoundland (Department of Government Services and Lands), 2004 NLTD 236, 243 NFLD & PEIR 255.

A very Christmasy case from NL, whereby Santa made a seasonal visit to a Bingo Hall

In the past two weeks, the New York Times reported that Microsoft has made a minor concession with European privacy authorities about how long it retains its log files. A committee of European privacy regulators had asked that these logs be kept for only six months. Microsoft’s response? Eighteen months.Yahoo used to keep them for thirteen months and just announced it will cut retention to 90 days. Google keeps them for nine.

The privacy implictions of these innocuous log files have been underestimated, particularly when you think about the fulsome picture of your private life that companies like Google may . . . [more]

It can’t be called Lexography, as it’s too close to lexicography, and Lexology has been taken, at least for commercial purposes. Please not Rechtographical Analysis. So what do people call the study of law that is not the practice of law? Legal Studies, perhaps, but it is a tepid choice. I think people mostly resort to specialties, such as legal history, legal theory, the philosophy of law, and the ‘law ands’: law and sociology, law and film, law and economics…

The study of law from non-legal or non-black-letter perspectives can usefully be divided into those that treat data derived from . . . [more]