The grassroots net neutrality advocates are becoming increasingly organized. Case in point is the coalition SaveOurNet.ca hosting an open forum tomorrow evening in Toronto called Protecting Canada’s Open Internet:

SaveOurNet.ca: Protecting Canada’s Open Internet

An open forum for Toronto’s tech/web/media communities hosted by:

Matt Thompson, SavetheInternet.com and SaveOurNet.ca
Steve Anderson, SaveOurNet.ca and The Campaign for Democratic Media
Mark Kuznicki, Remarkk.com, Open Community Evangelist, TorCamp

Date/Time: Tuesday, June 24th, 6:00pm
Location: Fionn MacCool’s, 181 University Avenue @ Adelaide, Toronto
Snacks will be provided, cash bar
Your donation/sponsorship to help cover costs can be made by purchasing special tickets above.

There have been so many mythical quotations attributed to Bill Gates over the years, that it’s helpful to have a journalist actually separate myth from reality.

As Bill Gates moves on to the next stage in his career, Nancy Weil has done us all a favour by gathering the quotes together. . . . [more]

Slaw has a bevy of excellent columnists, and so I never have to draw your attention to The Column from the main column of the front page: you check it out each week religiously. But I’m going to make an exception today because Steve Matthews’ column this week is something different. He’s done a tutorial on how to use Yahoo! Pipes that’s a must read, and I don’t want to let even a single reader slip by unedified. And just to make certain the tutorial does its work, I’ve made a PDF file out of it that you can download . . . [more]

Yahoo Pipes is a tool that we’ve covered a few times here on Slaw. And having fielded a few questions myself on its use for RSS feed mixing, I thought it might be nice to demonstrate how simple the process is with a tutorial.

What you’ll find below is pretty granular in detail, with way too many screen captures. But if you like the KISS principle (a.k.a. Keep It Simple for Steve), a little hand-holding never hurts. So… go over to Yahoo Pipes, create an account, click on the big blue Create A Pipe, and let’s get . . . [more]

The Times has continued its excellent series with a whole bunch of new cases: . . . [more]

One of the unfortunate things about the web is that glitches happen.

Remember the picture of Truman holding a paper announcing the election of President Dewey?

The National Post let out an alternative story which was still on its website an hour after the decision.

Since it will doubtless be taken down, here is the story of what would have happened in a parallel universe, where the SCC had sat nine judges on Tuesday.

Supreme Court rules in favour of BCE bondholders

Sean Silcoff, Financial Post Published: Friday, June 20, 2008

Reuters File

OTTAWA — The Supreme Court of . . . [more]

The Court has spoken, and it has said that BCE won.

This is all that is said:

The appeals from the judgments of the Court of Appeal of Quebec (Montréal), Numbers 500-09-018525-089 and 500-09-018527-085, dated May 21, 2008, heard on June 17, 2008, are allowed with costs throughout. The decision of
the Court of Appeal is set aside and the trial judge’s approval of the plan of arrangement is affirmed.

The cross-appeals from the judgments of the Court of Appeal of Quebec (Montréal), Numbers 500-09-018524-082 and 500-09-018526-087, dated May 21, 2008, heard on June 17, 2008, are dismissed with

The Canadian government announced this week that it is restoring parts of the Court Challenges Program abolished in 2006.

The Program provided funding to minority, women’s and other disadvantaged groups to launch “test court cases” challenging laws that may violate equality rights under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The government is only reestablishing the official languages minority component of the program, under the name Program to Support Linguistic Rights.

However, funding has not been restored for Charter challenges by other groups such as ethnic minorities, gays and lesbians or people with disabilities.

The new program will . . . [more]

Northwestern University now offers incoming students a two-year law degree, the first so-called “elite” faculty of law to do so. Students start in the summer they are admitted and then take the next four semesters, carrying a somewhat heavier course load. It’s not clear whether the hurry-up plan will cost students more. At the moment, students in the snail’s-pace plan pay the astonishing sum of $42,672 per year.

Inside Higher Ed has the story, and details of the program and the law school’s other curriculum reforms are available on the law school website. . . . [more]

“One thing leads to another” again, starting with Hypertextopia, an online writing environment built by Jeremy Ashkenas. The idea is one of a number that have tried to capitalize on the ability of html and the web to allow a network of non-linear linkages. Essentially, you construct a “story” using text or pictures and link either to major elements as your story advances or to “shards” of one sort or another that strike off in parenthetical directions — all of which is better explained, unsurprisingly, in the short movie provided on the site.

Take a wander through the Grand . . . [more]

Following the adventures which took place in the Halifax region that started a week ago today (on Friday the 13th), I became interested in the legalities of a mandatory evacuation order. Emergencies in Canada are covered by the Emergencies Act, R.S.C. 1985, c.22 4th Supp. Provincial acts apply as well, in Nova Scotia the Emergency Management Act, S.N.S. 1990, c.8. Each act, delegates power to the R.C.M.P. or police as the case might be, to implement the measures specified under the act, including evacuation orders. What I’m not clear on, is that neither act I’ve looked at, Federal or N.S. . . . [more]

The Commission on Legal Empowerment of the Poor has released its second report in as many weeks. Volume 1, “Making the Law Work for Everyone” [PDF], the Commission’s main report, was released on June 3, and is also available in French, Spanish and Arabic. Volume 2, “Working Group Reports” [PDF] was released recently.

The Commission is a cooperative venture by prominent politicians and lawyers from dozens of countries around the world — Canada is a charter member — and is “hosted” by the United Nations Development Programme. Lloyd Axworthy, a former Minister of Foreign . . . [more]