Laws for the Virtual Universe

Saturday, March 21st, 2009 Posted in Information Technology, Legal Explorations, Video Games, Virtual Worlds | 3 Comments »

What if virtual worlds, no matter their purposes, narratives, unique details, and other variations, could be linked?  What if they had borders between them, keeping the right stuff in its place, but in other ways being permeable? I am in the ...

Leadership Qualifications in a Democracy

Monday, October 13th, 2008 Posted in Humanities, Legal Explorations | 1 Comment »

Power to the people, right?  That's the rallying cry of democracy. A government of peers, the message of Gov. Sarah Palin, is not a new message.  Stephen Harper rode that message to the Prime Minister's Office here not long ago, his ...

Victoria venue to infringe civil liberties

Thursday, October 9th, 2008 Posted in Civil Liberties, Legal Explorations, Privacy | 2 Comments »

The Save-On Foods Memorial Centre in Victoria wants to take B.C.'s anti-smoking legislation a bit further.  Not only will they enforce the existing No Smoking laws, they will also prohibit the innocuous carrying of cigarettes by patrons on the premises. Let ...

Servamus – Fearing the Image of the Vancouver Police

Monday, June 9th, 2008 Posted in Civil Liberties, Humanities, Legal Explorations | 3 Comments »

Servamus. It is often said that in an armed law enforcement agency - be it military, paramilitary, or police - that exists within a democracy, the highest rank is civilian. That democratic hierarchy of rank is evident in the motto ...

Where are you, Bobby Kennedy? The Mindless Menace Continues

Thursday, June 5th, 2008 Posted in Humanities, Legal Explorations | 3 Comments »

I was listening to CBC Radio 2 tonight on my way home, and they played Senator Robert Kennedy's speech, "On the Mindless Menace of Violence," about the plague of violence that was making the United States sick, in his view. ...

Of Mortar and Wine: A Passover Lesson in Law

Tuesday, April 22nd, 2008 Posted in Humanities, Legal Explorations | No Comments »

Passover, the Jewish holiday that celebrates the Exodus from slavery in Egypt and the emergence of the Jewish People as a free nation under Mosaic Law, is now upon us. The tradition of the Passover seder, the traditional feast ...

What did Fairmont pay for my “protected” view?

Monday, March 17th, 2008 Posted in Humanities, Legal Explorations | No Comments »

I wrote in an earlier series of posts that laws exist as a combination of policy and imperative, operating either to curb antisocial behaviour that can damage the fabric of society or that can alter it. We have some laws, like ...

After the Shyster: The Mathematical Postscript

Friday, February 29th, 2008 Posted in Legal Explorations | No Comments »

In Shysters be Gone, part III, I proposed that law is composed of a policy goal combined with the strength of an imperative: Policy + Imperative = Law P + I = L If we have a law, and know the policy that ...

Shysters be Gone, part III

Thursday, February 21st, 2008 Posted in Business Law, Legal Explorations | 1 Comment »

In part II, I identified two types of antisocial behaviour which we attempt to prevent, restrain, correct, punish, etc., with law: “those which harm the integrity of society, potentially leading to its collapse; and those which alter the dynamic ...

Shysters be Gone! part II

Monday, February 11th, 2008 Posted in Business Law, Legal Explorations | 1 Comment »

We ended the first post in this series with the question, "Whence comes the ethical imperative, 'Don’t be a Shyster!'?" Now we will get into it: I would like to draw an ephemeral line between moral and ethical laws - just follow ...