Categories for Musings

I super hate Hotmail right now

I’ve had an account since the dawn of time.  A few days ago, with zero warning, years of accumulated emails to my Hotmail account simply disappeared.  And new ones aren’t sticking around much beyond a few days, either.

Anyone know what gives? (And, no, telling me to switch everything over to Gmail isn’t particularly helpful.)

 

 


Andre Marin/LSUC update

As some of you will recall, Andre Marin and his crew in the Office of the Ontario Ombudsman – which still blocks me, an Ontario taxpayer, from access – made a complaint about me late last year to the Law Society of Upper Canada.

I didn’t ever write about the antics of Marin and his devotees – here and here and here – as a lawyer or a legal expert. I was writing as a citizen. The Marin crew know that, of course. But their objective is to shut me up – using taxpayer-funded resources, too.

Marin et al. were given months to assemble their complaint; I was given just days to respond. Despite that, I put together a 40-page response to their complaint over the holidays. In it, I’ve requested a full public hearing, to which the media and the public would be invited. Several free speech organizations have expressed interest in attending, as well.

This fight is going to be long and expensive. If you can help out in any way, please use the donate button to the left.

In the meantime, below is one of the things I had to say to the Law Society. I’d be interested in your thoughts. (But keep it civil – remember, Andre Marin and his crew are watching.)

Quote from letter to LSUC: “I sometimes receive criticisms about things I have written, or which others have written, on my web site. I review each complaint carefully, and take action. In this case, I never received a complaint – not one – from Mr. Marin or any other person about my web site. Instead, I only received a copy of Mr. Marin’s May 8, 2015 email to all of his staff from an anonymous member of that same staff. In it, he dismisses me and he goes on to actually encourage the staff at the Office of the Ombudsman to “feel free” to use a search engine to read all of the comments I and others had made. I fail to understand how the Office of the Ombudsman can now claim I have hurt the legal profession and the administration of justice when Mr. Marin himself was actively encouraging all of his staff to “feel free” to read what I and others had written. Either they objected to my web site, or they did not. But they cannot encourage their staff to “feel free” to read it on May 8 and then – just three days later – make a complaint about it to the Law Society of Upper Canada. That makes no sense.”


MarinEmail-791x1024 (1)


Help my friend Laura Miller

Laura is a great friend of ours, and is fighting back against an outrageous and disgusting campaign against her being waged by the OPP – the Ontario Political Police.

Background is here: the absurdity of the charges, the conduct of the OPP, and why the discredited OPP are going after Laura, here. (Read it.)

Now, you can help her out with this fundraising campaign. One hundred per cent of the monies raised go to her legal defence – being mounted by another great friend, Clay Ruby.

She will prevail in the end – but it’s going to be expensive. Please help out – all donations all gratefully accepted, once again, here.


Behold the future

Justin Trudeau is probably the first politician I can think of who knows this stuff already. 

Also, I’ll bet you are reading this on a Smart Phone. 

Ms. Kocar said her first attempts at market research began with trips to Starbucks stores and nail salons, where she would find [social media] users and ask them what they did and did not like about the app. She got lots of information, but wanted more. Hence, the focus group. 

Teenagers being teenagers, the room was full of angst and contradictions. They love Instagram, the photo-sharing app, but are terrified their posts will be ignored or mocked. They feel less pressure on Snapchat, the disappearing-message service, but say Snapchat can be annoying because disappearing messages make it hard to follow a continuing conversation. They do not like advertisements but also do not like to pay for things.

At one point a questioner asked the group when they were least likely to be online. “When I’m in the shower,” a girl responded. Nobody laughed, because it was barely an exaggeration. About three-quarters of United States teenagers have access to a mobile phone, according to a recent survey by the Pew Research Center. Most go online daily and about a quarter of them use the Internet “almost constantly.”


Winter is coming, except when it isn’t

Good Lord. 

Look, pal, we are all sorry you had to take time out from rolling around naked in piles of money to type up a too-long, too-self-involved, too-boring blog post about YOUR ALL-CAPS LATEST BOOK TITLE. But we are confident your agent will now know how to make full and frequent use of the resulting pathos to squeeze out yet more kajillions out of the wallets of your increasingly-desperate publishers/producers for yet another instalment in the crypto-racist Schwarzeneggar-meets-Lord-of-the-Rings paean to rape. 

So carry on as you were. You were planning to anyway.