Everyone knew the NDP, once in power, would have to put some water in its red wine. In fact, Darrell Dexter began the process long before winning the 2009 election, and most voters approve the moderating effect of incumbency. But there's a difference between moderating extreme views and abandoning core democratic principles as the Dexter Government has done in its embrace of the Civil Forfeiture Act. The act gives police and prosecutors a way around the presumption of innocence that has guided civilized countries for centuries. Simply put, it lets police set aside the bother of building a criminal case and proceed,...

30 June, 2011

The reliably sage Jim Meek comes a cropper this morning with a column plucking nits off Canada's medical marijuana policy. The occasional Herald columnist, Nova Scotia's best, professes shock that the number of Canadians with federal permission to smoke dope for medicinal purposes has swelled to 10,000. Well, that's 0.03 percent of Canada's population, or about the number who support Elvis for Prime Minister—not exactly a blown floodgate. Nor is the other number Meek decries, the 1,400 Canadians who received permission to grow the drug after Ottawa proved incompetent to deliver reliable quality. Along the way, Meek finds one grower who...

25 June, 2011

Halifax Regional Municipality has retreated, tail between legs, from its unconstitutional war on music festival posters. The lawyer who faced them down wants to make sure the tail stays put. just as the issue was going to trial, municipal prosecutors dropped charges against Evolve Festival organizer Jonas Colter, whom HRM police had  pursued with unseemly vigor for advertising the alternative music event on sidewalk utility poles. That's a relief for Colter, who was facing $4500 in fines, but a disappointment for lawyer Gordon Allen, who believed his bro bono had a strong case on free speech grounds. Allen hoped a court judgment would deter...

22 May, 2011

In a local triumph for social media, Donnie Calabrese got his computer back today, 145 days after it was scooped up in a CBRM Police investigation of someone else, and one day after Donnie wrote a Facebook post about his frustrated attempts to reclaim it. From Donnie's Facebook wall today: Dear Friends, Got a call from the police at 11am. Got my computer back at 12. This has been one of the greatest most uplifting experiences of my life. I have infinite confidence in the competence and fortitude of all of my friends. I thank everyone who shared this, got angry,...

17 May, 2011

Five months ago, Cape Breton Regional Police seized a computer belonging to Donnie Calabrese, a young self-employed musician, writer, events coordinator, and community volunteer. Here's his account of what followed, posted today on his Facebook page: On December 22, 2010 the police nabbed my computer. They were executing a search warrant on a case unrelated to me, in fact unrelated to anyone in my dwelling, and had to take all of our computers. Drag. The fellows who came to the house were regretful. My plight did not fall on deaf ears. "Yeah, this happens, we need to take all the...

16 May, 2011

Families wishing to board commercial aircraft in the US or Canada can choose between irradiating their children with x-rays, or submitting them to a full-body pat-down. Check out the latest viral example: The official TSA response? A video taken of one of our officers patting down a six year-old has attracted quite a bit of attention. Some folks are asking if the proper procedures were followed. Yes. TSA has reviewed the incident and the security officer in the video followed the current standard operating procedures. H/T: Daily Dish...

15 April, 2011

Elizabeth May and I have a long history. In the late 1970s, we worked together in a successful campaign to prevent spruce budworm spraying in Cape Breton. Thirty years later, we fought bitterly over her destructive campaign to delay cleanup of the Sydney Tar Ponds. May was the most prominent and media savvy member of a group that demanded a cleanup, but condemned every actual cleanup method. Her reckless exaggeration of environmental and health issues in Sydney did wonders for her profile and career, even as it devastated the working-class Cape Bretoners she purported to champion. It really is an...

01 April, 2011

TheAtlantic.com's tech columnist Alexis Madrigal marked the 135th anniversary of Alexander Graham Bell's US patent for the telephone by reproducing a doodle-like drawing of the device Bell submitted with his patent application: That's a fragment; see the whole diagram here. Madrigal found the image among Alexander Graham Bell Family Papers, which are stored at the Library of Congress and available online in a searchable database. Naturally, that set Contrarian searching for terms like "Telegraph House" (9 hits), "Beinn Bhreagh" (100), "Ross Ferry" and "Kempt Head" (zip and zip). A search for "Sydney" produced 47 hits, including this remarkable letter to...

09 March, 2011

Extreme Contrarian friend BT writes: I support execution for people who violate the parking ban. Humanely, of course. Deputize the plow drivers so they can haul the outlaws out of their beds on the spot and shoot them in the back of the head, Chinese-style. ("This ain't no feather-duster I'm packing.") Many Halifax drivers are smarter than coyotes, so after half a dozen or so shootings, the streets will be clear. Real clear, if you get my drift. More moderate Contrarian reader JS has paid three tickets for his son's lack of access to parking at night—the plates are still in Dad's...

08 March, 2011

Contrarian reader Jim Guild writes: In Montreal, which gets a shitload of snow (to use a complex meteorological term), I believe they still allow parking on one half of most residential streets. On odd-numbered days, drivers can park on the side of the street where odd-numbered houses are located; on even-numbered days they can park on the other side. This means that local residents don't have to rent parking for the winter, out-of-towners can visit overnight, Victor Syperek's buddies can still be designated drivers for their drinking friends, and the snow ploughs can still make the roads passable. Reader Gary Campbell...

06 March, 2011
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