Quotulatiousness

December 17, 2009

The Tiger Woods affair: the failure of the paparazzi

Filed under: Humour, Media, Sports — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 12:55

Kerry Howley says that the biggest disappointment of the whole convoluted Tiger Woods situation has been the embarassing performance of the paparazzi:

It’s not clear to me that the enduring interest in Tiger even needs explanation. For a while there, every time we looked away, a new woman emerged with an even better set of semi-sordid details. The story propelled itself forward. The gift kept on giving.

Since the above should make it clear that any cultural analysis of Tiger tends toward projection of one’s personal anxieties, I’ll refrain from using the universal “we.” I feel let down not by Woods, but by the paparazzi on whom we all depend to keep us abreast of these things. The man was with 11 women over how many years and not so much as a snapshot surfaces? Where were you, X17? Where were your swarming, flashing hordes, your ravenous stalkerazzi instincts? Does any photographer show up anywhere without a knowing tip-off from the entourage? My faith is broken.

Judiciary to “fight back” against draconian Tory laws

Filed under: Cancon, Law, Politics — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 09:03

It’s always nice when your secret opponents actually come out and say that they’re against you. Bob Tarantino shows how the Tories’ “draconian” penalties against criminals are opposed by the judiciary:

In the middle of an otherwise rote piece in a Toronto-area newspaper about how Stephen Harper is just too gosh-darn mean to criminals, there appeared this remarkable passage: “Judges are skilled at devising creative ways to fight back against laws they believe may skew the system. For example, Judge Cole said the elimination of two-for-one pre-trial credit has prompted judges to begin talking openly about forcing trials to be held more quickly. He said Canadian judges may also start compensating by intentionally lowering sentences: ‘That appears to have been the experience in other jurisdictions where Draconian sentencing policies have been forced upon the judiciary.’ ”

The passage is noteworthy for a number of reasons. Neither Justice Cole nor the newspaper’s justice reporter, both of whom can be assumed to have at least a glancing familiarity with the role of judges in our constitutional democracy, saw anything striking in characterizing the proper task of the judiciary as “fighting back” against laws they don’t like.

Nor do they find anything striking about a judge viewing duly enacted legislation as something being “forced upon” the judiciary — as if it were the judges who were being sent to jail.

And judges won’t just be “fighting back” against Parliament — in order to make good on the threat of handing down “intentionally” lower sentences, they will need to ignore case-law precedent. Evidently, neither Parliament nor the previous decisions of judges themselves will be allowed to stand in the way of the determination of certain members of the judiciary to treat convicted criminals lightly.

It’s no surprise that certain members of the judiciary think of themselves as being better able to determine what “appropriate” punishment might be . . . after all, within the statute and case law, that’s what they’re supposed to do. It’s the expansion of that notion that they know better and don’t feel they should be bound by the letter of the law. That’s several steps too far.

Maurice Strong rides again

Filed under: Cancon, Environment, Government, Politics — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 07:26

This time, he’s leading the charge to enable more mob intimidation of governments:

Maurice Strong, the self-confessed “world’s leading environmentalist,” recently wrote that “Our concept of ballot-box democracy may need to be modified.” This would be less of a concern if Mr. Strong had not also been instrumental in allowing NGOs inside the Rio/Kyoto/Copenhagen process.

Mr. Strong himself hasn’t been so prominent since the Iraqi oil-for-food fiasco, but he is involved in something called The Global Observatory, GO, an organization designed to act as “a catalyst, bridging the gap between those responsible for making the decisions at [Copenhagen] and the public.”

GO was set up by José Maria Figueres, a former President of Costa Rica. Exactly what Mr. Figueres has in mind when he talks about “bringing the public into negotiations” is clear from a clip available on YouTube, in which he frankly admits that the key to getting the “right” decisions is using NGOs to assemble mobs to pressure politicians. Mr. Figueres says that he’s not willing to leave the future of his children in the hands of the 1,500 negotiators at Copenhagen, so his plan was to set up a “tent” at the meeting in which there would be scientific experts (He mentions Mr. Hansen). If such scientists declared that, say, Costa Rica was “backtracking,” then GO would get on the phone to select NGOs, who could have a mob outside the presidential palace in 45 minutes. This would result in a call to the country’s environment minister in Copenhagen to change their position.

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