Monday, December 31, 2007

Something non-political..

When I was a kid I spent every summer at a sleepaway camp in the US, and I met a guy there named Dan Meth. We haven't talked since the early 90's, but I recently found out he's become a relatively successful artist & illustrator. He's done editorial cartoons and newspaper comic strips, but he's best known as one of the biggest "internet artists". I think a few of his cartoons were the top viewed videos on YouTube for a while, which I guess is no small feat. Anyways, here's something of his that I kinda liked...he calls it the Smart-Ass Guide to New York City. It's not the most creative thing in the world (even I could've probably come up with better NYC stereotypes), but it's still pretty entertaining.


Other notable/funny alumni from my childhood camp:

-Nick Bernstein, VP of late night at NBC (dude is 30 years old and Jay Leno's boss)

-Ryan Erenhouse, former chief of staff to Sen. Jim Jeffords, who immediately quit politics and became a lobbyist when Jeffords left the Republican party

-Nina Gordon, lead singer of the band "Veruca Salt"

[Insert your own clever title here involving a pun with the word "caucus"]

Christopher Hitchens on why the Iowa caucuses, and caucuses in general, are bullshit.

Also, when did Paul Krugman start writing columns for Slate?

Obams

Stuff to read:

Andrew Sullivan made a decent case for an Obama presidency recently for an Atlantic Magazine cover story. But there's a column by Reza Aslan in yesterday's Washington Post that makes an equally decent case against it.

Saturday, December 22, 2007

A Do-Gooder


Hey, check out what I was sent by one of my family's adopted nieces. Xochi is perhaps one of the strongest women I've ever met. She's as tough as nails, as sweet as cantelope and, boy, is she ever charming. Here's a bit about what a do-gooder she is. Four stars!

Friday, December 21, 2007

Five Year Olds

I take exception to this site's 5-year-old-fighting-capacity algorithms. They vastly underestimate my steely-eyed determination in the face of swarming children. 21! Hah! I'll have piledrived 21 five year olds before I break a sweat.

The Horse Race

Marc Ambinder on the 5 possible paths to the Republican nomination.

Ron Paul is a Dangerous Extremist

On race:

We don't think a child of 13 should be held responsible as a man of 23. That's true for most people, but black males age 13 who have been raised on the streets and who have joined criminal gangs are as big, strong, tough, scary and culpable as any adult and should be treated as such.

On sexual harassment:


Why don't they quit once the so-called harassment starts? Obviously the morals of the harasser cannot be defended, but how can the harassee escape some responsibility for the problem? Seeking protection under civil rights legislation is hardily acceptable.

On health insurance for AIDS victims:


The individual suffering from AIDS certainly is a victim -- frequently a victim of his own lifestyle -- but this same individual victimizes innocent citizens by forcing them to pay for his care.

Enlightened, no? Via the American Prospect.

Thursday, December 20, 2007

Planet Unicorn heyyyy



Woah... it was totally just coincidence that I posted 2 things with unicorns today. Weird.

Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay

Hahah.... this is going to be hilarious:



UPDATE: I'm even more excited after discovering that this is one of the poster they have been using:

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Urban Design Ideas

Green Roof Architecture

Germany


Japan


Vancouver


That last one will be right underneath my office windows.
This Web Urbanist website has lots of other cool stuff. Take a look.

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Top 5 Exotic Vacation Spots

(1) Yemen






(more...)

(2) Faroe Islands






(more...)

(3) Papua New Guinea




(more...)

(4) Turkey







(more...)

(5) Greenland





(more...)

Top 5 Lists

I like top 5 lists. So to try to start a chain of top 5 lists, I'm going to get the ball rolling. Here are my top 5 blogs:

(1) Matt Yglesias
(2) Talking Points Memo
(3) Glenn Greenwald
(4) Andrew Sullivan (Who I largely disagree with, but who has an entertaining blog)
(5) Crooks and Liars

Because I'm a Fan


Here's a nice little tutorial on some of the films of Cary Grant.

Weirdo Quote Gathering

Okay, so for my comment on Mike's recent post on Huckabee/Romney, I tried searching for some quotes from old movies about the "inepitude" of men and the "silliness" of women, which--in certain decades--were super common in romantic comedies (especially those starring Katherine Hepburn, Rosalind Russell and Doris Day). I was unsuccessful on that front, however, I discovered a world I'd heretofore considered more marginal: that of the internet quote compilation.

There seem literally thousands of sites devoted to collecting quotations from notable people, literature, movies, etc. And all have their own bent. The absolute strangest lists I found were all on about.com (a waste of internet space if you ask me). Check these guys out: "Q. What do others have to say about marital rape?". Yes, what DO others have to say on this topic? A burning question. And a topic we can all relate to.

I'll leave you with my personal (and unsubstantiated) favourite. I wonder what the context was. I guess you had to be there.

"But if you can't rape your wife, who can you rape?"
--Senator Bob Wilson, Democrat, California, 1979

5 Reasons Liberals Shouldn't Support Ron Paul

For some odd reason, many liberal-minded people seem to have taken in by Ron Paul's campaign. Which, if you only listen to his anti-war, isolationist foreign policy and pro-civil liberites viewpoints, sounds like a refreshing change to the Bush administration. Here is why liberals shouldn't support him:

(1) He opposes all forms of gun control, reading the second amendment so broadly as to not allow for any form of restriction on any form firearm whatsoever.

(2) He supports legislation defining life as beginning at conception. This would outlaw all abortions under any circumstances at any stage of pregnancy, as well as many forms of birth control such as Plan B and IUDs.

(3) Repealing of all "pre-emeptive" environmental regulations. No more environmental law. Environmental law would be dealt with by private civil actions by private property owners against polluters. In other words, back to turn-of-the-century environmental standards. No private property? No environmental rights whatsoever. There was a reason environmental regulations came into effect, and that was because dealing with environmental actions in tort law proved completely ineffective in every way. Not the least of which is the fact that environmental problems (such as climate change) are dispersed among many property holders and the damage is incalculable with respect to the property interest.

(4) Abolishing the Department of Education

(5) Withdrawl from the UN and every other international treaty and obligation.

This guy makes Mitt Romney look so normal...

What Really Matters, according to Mike Huckabee.

Contrast that with Romney on Meet The Press this weekend insisting that he is running for PRESIDENT, not "pastor in chief". Of course it's all politically motivated (as is everything with Romney), but when it comes to Republicans, I think we're all safer with the "politically-caculating" kind than the "crazy evangelical who doesn't give a fuck" kind.

Ironically, Mitt's Mormonism will (in my opinion) make him less likely to do anything too crazy if elected because he knows that most people think he's already crazy enough for believing Jesus is coming to Missouri sometime soon. (It's too bad Missouri's a guaranteed red state, because if he won the nomination then it would be the best campaign stop ever.)

And I'm not even going to mention This.

One more thing: Why are all the pundits saying that when Huckabee flames out (which I really hope won't happen but probably will), Thompson will be the one who may get the all-important last minute rise in the polls? FRED THOMPSON? Are you kidding me?!? I'm mystified as to why John McCain hasn't made a full comeback yet.

Aahhhhh, Republicans. I love them so much.

Monday, December 17, 2007

Yes! George Michael!


When you were younger, did you ever imagine what a satirical "Reality" tv show about you and your friends would look like? Watch this.

Sunday, December 16, 2007

Wah.

I'm so sad. I posted a long comment yesterday with lots of links. I spent a lot of time on it. And now it's gone. Does anyone know how to recover it?

Get this

I just recently heard this 2004 release from El-P and the Blue Series Continuum, an improvisational jazz group led by pianist Matthew Shipp, at the Wicked Cafe. Yes, I should have checked in with El-P, the dude who created Def Jux and an innovator in the (East Coast) underground hip-hop scene, much sooner. I guess I got distracted. Anyway, I'm back and this album rocks my socks. It's pseudo-avant-jazz (really, its sort of cool jazz with a kicky beat and some excited improvisations), and El-P's contribution is understated (I like that). Check it out at the Thirsty Ear website.

Worth a Minute of Everyone's Time



If you're not from the U.S. and you don't have a ZIP, use "47401."

Saturday, December 15, 2007

Oil Spill Along Whale Migratory Highway



To see the progress of the discovery and cleanup of Robson Bight, check out the Living Ocean's site.

This is a disaster. But many would have you forget it even happened. And by "many," by no means am I forgetting Canada's "New Government," who are working hard to sh*t on the incredible resources this country has been gifted; land, natural resources and abundant wildlife. No worries, Stephen Harper, we'll get rid of the whales soon enough. If your plans to send tankers down the Inside Passage despite a long-respected moratorium don't work, perhaps we can adjust the international laws on poaching to do it. Or maybe we'll just flood the country with the scum that comes out of those beloved Alberta oil sands of yours, parch the Earth of its water, nutrients and life, then drive our dune-buggies to the nearest Timmy Ho-ho's for some creulers.

Thursday, December 13, 2007

Why You Should Fire Your Stock Broker

This one is a good read and has been circulating the blogosphere for a few days now. The gist of it is that the entire industry that has developed around the secondary securities market is a fraud (i.e. stock brokers, investment advisors, etc). This is because of something called Efficient Market Hypothesis. The theory goes that no one can beat the market average by picking stocks because security prices already fully reflect their potential future value. So no particular stock broker or advisor has any additional insight as to the potential value of a security that is not already incorporated into its current price.

So those shows like Mad Money, where Jim Cramer yells a lot and looks really red while he is telling people how to pick stocks - they are full of shit. In fact, if you actually go back and look at the performance of their stock picks, they fall well below the average performance of the market. They just try to make you think they can pick stocks so that you are convinced they should handle your money. Which they do by moving it around to accumulate transaction fees and commissions.

So the point that I got out of all that is that if I ever have money to invest, park it in a broadly indexed fund for the minimum possible transaction fee and then leave it there.

Why Voluntary Environmental Regulation Doesn't Work

... and cap-and-trade systems do. Because there is no incentive to create new technology to address environmental problems under a voluntary system. Under a cap-and-trade system, technological innovation is promoted because companies are motivated to create new technologies that will result in lower compliance costs than buying permits to pollute:



Via Ezra Klein, who has a great blog that you should read.

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

More Meat = More Cancer

"A new medical study links high consumption of red and processed meats to an increased risk of different forms of cancer. Health experts already knew red meat increased the risk of colon cancer. Now researchers have found an increased risk for a number of other cancers, as well."

The basic lesson here: the more meat you eat (no pun), the higher your chances for various types of cancer, especially colon cancer.

It's not hard to not eat meat.

Energy Optimization

To contrast with Mike Huckabee's idiocy on energy policy, a good idea:

Pepco is about to start sending personal e-mail messages to Jonathan and Lauren Schwabish every few hours that could determine when they do the dishes, wash the baby's clothes or turn on the air conditioner.

The couple will learn when the price of electricity for their old Capitol Hill home will spike the next day because Washington's winter chill or its steamy summer is nudging up the demand for power.

If they wait to turn on the washing machine or they turn off the air conditioner when the sun beats down, they'll be rewarded with a credit on their utility bill that could reach hundreds of dollars a year. Other D.C. residents have agreed to pay rates eight times the average if they use their appliances at peak times but rates well below it at off-peak hours, as part of a pilot program starting next month.

"Lexus lanes" are coming to the electricity grid. Energy conservation programs that died when the power market switched from regulation to competition are back, but with new technology and aggressive demands from government regulators facing anger over rising prices.

Just as long-awaited high-occupancy toll lanes will charge drivers a fee to travel at rush hours, electricity customers will pay more when the grid is congested and less when it's not. If the strategies succeed, customers will not only slash their bills but also reduce pollution from coal-fired generating plants.

And within a few years, energy experts predict that Washingtonians will live like the cartoon Jetsons, their homes powered by computer chips that shut down washing machines and dishwashers when electricity prices soar.


I've thought this was a good idea since 2004 when my final project at Waterloo was the exact device mentioned in that last paragraph. Right now, this type of idea is most plausible in deregulated markets like California and Ontario where electricity price is established through a wholesale market on an hourly basis. If customers decrease the system demand load at peak times, then not only do those customers save money, but all other customers do as well. This is because the least expensive generation units are used for baseline loads, and more expensive ones for peak loads. If demand is flattened over the course of a day, then there is less need for those more expensive units to respond to peaking demand. In many jurisdictions, those units also tend to be the higher polluting units, like coal burning plants. So its a win-win situation.

There are a few issues that need ironing out in these types of plans. First, the retail energy markets needs to become "efficient". That is, sufficient information must be relayed to consumers to be able to incorporate the real costs of energy into their decision making. This plan is using emails a day in advance. Ideally, an automated decision making mechanism would be better. Software should be designed that can take into account energy prices and demand forecasts for the next day, and optimize a house's energy consumption so that energy is used at low-peak, low-price times.

In the absence of an automated system, it remains to be seen how elastic energy consumption is. How much do consumers react to price signals in the energy market? To what extent do consumers actually change energy consumption behavior in order to incorporate pricing information?

I had a lecture in my public utilities regulation class by the director of customer care for BC Hydro, who was conducting trials with volunteers in Fort St. John in order to answer that very question. In BC, energy prices do not change hourly, but are set by the regulator at a rate sufficient to recoup the operating costs of providing service to customers. They are looking at a more simplistic version of the plan in that article whereby the first X amount of electricity used in a month is charged at a given rate, and then any electricity used beyond that amount is charged at a higher rate. They found consumers to be quite elastic. I think the average conservation by the participants was in the neighbourhood of 12%. Although, these were volunteers who tended to be more motivated to conserve than the average joe. This is called conservation driven rate-design, and it's something I think we should be doing much more of. Canada is one of the most inefficient consumers of energy in the world. All that is needed to help drive conservation is the economic insentive to do so.

The article raises a valid point about the burden this may place on fixed income consumers, like the elderly. This is the same question I put to the woman from BC Hydro and my prof. And I tend to agree with the response. Utilities regulators are fundamentally economic regulators. They have no expertise in social policy, and so should not be involved in implementing social policy. Energy consumption through rate design and protecting vulnerable consumers from high energy prices don't have to be mutually exclusive. But it would be simpler and more effective to just have something like an energy tax credit for low income and fixed income customers.

Down with Energy!

This Huckabee quote is classic. CBS News and Katie Couric asked all the presidential candidates if they thought climate change was overblown. Huckabee's response included this:

And we ought to declare that we will be free of energy consumption in this country within a decade, bold as that is.


HAHAHAHAHA! Very bold indeed!
Do you think he meant to say "free of fossil fuel energy consumption" or "free of carbon emitting energy consumption" or "free of non-renewable resourced energy consumption" or do you think he's just a fucking idiot who doesn't know what he's talking about?

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Second Degree?

Trial # 1 in the Pickton case is over, with the maximum sentence of life with the possibility of parole after 25 years (though he almost certainly will be designated a dangerous offender and never be released). Here is my question though.... how could the jury possibly have decided on second degree murder? The difference between first and second degree murder is that the former is premeditated. Try as I might, I can't imagine a scenario under which a person can, without premeditation, end up murdering six women at different times. WTF? Any help here? Someone lay it out for me....

Monday, December 10, 2007

I'm still here....

....Just been a bit too busy for posting shit.

But watch out, it's coming.




That's all.

Saturday, December 8, 2007

To be an American


As an American living in Canada, who has travelled some, who has lived and worked in Japan, who has spent less then three months living in the country of her birth over the course of the last five years, I am somewhat at a loss when confronted with the media image of my mother country. Is this the culture I grew up in? Was I ignorant? Did I miss something. Or is it that in the five years of my absence, the U.S. has asserted itself much more prominently as a god-fearing country--scratch that--as a Christian god-fearing county?

News headlines this week raising questions about a certain presidential candidate's religious background, about a certain other candidate's need to assert his Christian-hood and about the growing popularity of the latter's opponent based primarily on his sectarianism are disturbing, to say the least. But my disturbance is not natural or innate; no, it is only since expatriating that I wonder just how analogous to the American ideal such topics might be.

Growing up in Indiana, religion was everywhere. In my school, in my neighbourhood, on the news, at the mall, from the lips of my representatives--everywhere. "A church on every corner"; that was the Hoosier legacy. And growing up, I was struck by how many different kinds of religion there were. I was Quaker, my best friend Betsie was Christian Orthodox, I knew lots of Methodists, Lutherans and members of the United Church. I even remember being struck by how much real estate the Penticostals covered north and south of the state's capitol. Ha! I laugh now because, really, the variety of religion that I truly felt surrounded me was almost entirely limited to Protestant Christianity. I knew two and a half Jewish kids. One of the members of my Quaker meeting had at one time experimented with Islam. Oh, yeah, and it was rumoured that a girl at my high school was Ba'hai.

When I got to university, located right in the agnostic heart of Manhattan, I was roomed with a girl from Long Island, NY. She blew my mind. She didn't even know any Protestants. I remember her once asking--to my complete astonishment--if Protestants, like Catholics, were Christians too. Where she grew up, you were either Jewish (in varying degrees) or Catholic. Unless you operated a gas station; then you were probably Hindu or Sikh. She told me I was from the Bible Belt, and she told me she would never--ever!--go south of D.C., and maybe not even south of Jersey. But North Carolina is so beautiful, I insisted. "They'd probably lynch me," she explained; half-Jewish, half-Catholic herself, she was also the daughter of a single mom. Apparently, down south, they don't take kindly to her kind.

Really?!, I thought, is this what the rest of the country thinks about the South. I'm actually not from the South (she didn't know that), Indiana is only barely a member of the Bible Belt (a hard sell), and for myself, I hadn't been to worship in more than a year. But I felt somehow misunderstood. And gradually, after five years in the city of sin, I forgot about religion. It became a non-topic. None of my friends and no one I interacted with wanted anything to do with anything god-related. (Perhaps, that's what New York is for us agnostics and atheists, who make up a significant portion of the transplants that populate the city: an oasis for the ungodly.)

Flash-forward to my first interactions with Canadians, who make up a large percentage of the English teachers in Japan. Over and over, I heard that my country was all about God. God with a capital "G" (or, perhaps, the more apt capitol "G"). God in government, God in schools, God in the bedroom, God from the doctor, God for breakfast, God with dessert, God, God, God, God, God-God-God. The idea seemed ridiculous to me at first. None of my friends were even religious, I asserted. That point was moot.

And by the time I met the Canadian who would eventually bring me to live in his home country, I was feeling downright defensive about the subject. How dare "these people"--who, frankly, I'd never given a hoot about--characterize the place of my birth as this Christianity-obsessed haven for fanatics?! Who did they think they were telling me Americans were all a bunch of toe-the-line Christian Conservative sheep with nothing on their minds but God and fealty? Then he asked me, "Have you ever in your life heard a speech from a politician that didn't include the word 'God'?"

I was positively thunderstruck, agog. I had no words, no response. I couldn't believe that I'd never questioned this. In fact, I hadn't ever heard a speech absent of the word. God was in every speech. "In God we trust": it's even in the money. And to be honest, I think even at that time, I thought, well, who cares, that's who we are; it's part of our national identity.

But wait a minute. That's not who I am. That's not a part of my identity. Sorry, Mr. Bush, I don't trust in God; in fact, I don't even trust in money. Does that mean I'm not an American?

Now, I'm mad. Angry. Furious even. I've lived in Canada for more than two years now, through a national election, a party leadership campaign, several scandals and more, and never has religion come up. It's simply not part of the national dialogue. Ask anyone here whether they went to church last Sunday and the response most often is laughter. Laughter. Here, religion is first of all private and secondly little practiced.

In Canada, if a politician running for the office of prime minister vis a vis party leader were to be "accused" (yes, that is my word choice) of being a Muslim, and it was rumoured that he might prefer to be sworn in via the Koran, Canadians would think less of both the accusor and the news agency who reported the matter. It would be a non-topic. No one would care.

And if a politician, again running for the top office, were to go out of his way to profess his faith, most would think he was singing the dirge of his own political career. A death song no less startling than the fires of Waco. "What do I believe about Jesus Christ?" he asked himself in his speech. "I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the Savior of mankind." Who cares, most would think.

But in the U.S., such is not the case. In fact, it was the downward sliding polls indicating his pre-primary popularity was dissipating that compelled this Mormon to defend himself and his religious convictions. And why? Because hot on his heels is an Evangelical "angel" floating down from the heavens to nab the Christian Conservative vote--despite a muddied past. (Has a presidential candidate ever been labelled a "Rapist-sympathizer" before?) The Mormon, hedging his bet that the pulpits will be mega-phoning the Evangelical's "virtues" this Sunday, seems something of a clown from the vantage of the 49th parallel. Yet the spin he's generated from his speech tells of citizens who are "relieved" to hear that he's every bit as Christian as they are.

Said the Mormon:
Today, I wish to address a topic which I believe is fundamental to America's greatness: our religious liberty. I will also offer perspectives on how my own faith would inform my Presidency, if I were elected. ...

When I place my hand on the Bible and take the oath of office, that oath becomes my highest promise to God. If I am fortunate to become your President, I will serve no one religion, no one group, no one cause, and no one interest. A President must serve only the common cause of the people of the United States. ...

Americans do not respect believers of convenience. Americans tire of those who would jettison their beliefs, even to gain the world. ...

It is important to recognize that while differences in theology exist between the churches in America, we share a common creed of moral convictions.


I'll put aside the contradictions of "religious liberty" and faith-informed government, of an oath to God and serving no one religion/group/cause/interest because God's special interest groups and I don't seem to be on the same page. I'll even put aside the fact that of any of the candidates, the Mormon is perhaps most vulnerable to accusations of jettisoning his beliefs to gain political power. (Um...A woman's right to choose? Did someone have a change of heart because after years of perceiving women's terrible decision-making skills he decided that he'd couldn't trust a woman as far as he could throw her?)

But when did we decide that we as Americans were going to be members of a Christian state? I never voted for that proposition.

And through all this, I've forgotten myself. I've forgotten that even when I was living and breathing Americana in practice, religion was not what ruled my day. God didn't inform my decisions. And which church I was member to did not determine my status amongst my peers. So, I ask again, is this the culture I grew up in? One of God and religious justifications? One of accusations against alternate faiths and of pulpiteering for candidates?

Perhaps. Perhaps America filled me with so much God that I couldn't see it for myself until I'd left, let it run its course and detoxified, like a dope addition or a virus. Maybe America is the new Catholic Church, and the Iraq War it's Crusade.

Or maybe it's just a sexy topic that gets headlines and feeds news agency and advertiser coffers. I'm not sure.

Waking up to these questions, I feel as if I'm closer to seeing the light. But see what I did just there: "Seeing the light." It's a Quaker phrase first, but no less an American one as well. Just like that favourite quote--"Free at last, free at last, Thank God Almighty, I'm free at last."--God is in the vocabulary of the American experience, a writer of its historical lexicon. Our freedom and liberty are inextricably tied to our religion. God made us free, we imply. It is perhaps impossible to explore what it is to be an American without using such phrases to describe who we are. Life, liberty, democracy, morality, God. Where are the lines?

So, no, you won't hear a speech by an American politician in which God is not present. It would be un-American.

Monday, December 3, 2007

After Escobar

The history, and absolute failure, of the War on Drugs.

From the Annals of Associate Compensation

I've always thought that this "lock-step" compensation strategy at law firms was pretty weird. If any law firm in town raises salaries, then every other firm must correspondingly raise their salaries to protect against the perception that they are of a lower "tier". However, as a soon-to-be young associate, I seem to be the prime beneficiary of the model.

And of course, no article about lawyers would be complete without a friendly jab:

Within their risk-averse, insular world, it’s a way of saying, “We’re in the top tier.” But it doesn’t necessarily make good business sense. Though partners at elite firms routinely pocket millions, law firms have never been run as efficiently as truly great companies. After all, they’re run by lawyers.

Sunday, December 2, 2007

Iowa

I was convinced for the longest time that the 2008 presidential race was going to be Clinton-Guiliani (possibly Romney). But I'm starting to see how events could unfold in favor of an Obama-Huckabee race. Which I think bodes well for the prospect of a less sleaze-ridden election than what has become the norm. Although, the fact that Huckabee arranged the early release of a convicted rapist, who subsequently raped and murdered again, for the petty reason that the rape victim was a distant relative of Bill Clinton ensures that such a race won't be completely sleaze-free.

Saturday, December 1, 2007

Bullshit and Fertilizer

Guess which one the World Bank is full of.

Morning Cup'a Joe

Apparently, the lower mainland's Integrated Homicide Investigation Team thinks that it's job is PR for the RCMP and not investigating homicides.

Also, a good article in the Toronto Star this morning about deficiencies in securities regulation enforcement. Topical for me, as I'm in the library studying for a securities regulation exam right now and I just attended a lecture by the director of litigation enforcement for the BC Securities Commission last week. I like this article because it addresses some legal nuances that journalist often overlook - like the differences between regulatory and criminal offenses, and the necessary divide in enforcement jurisdiction between regulators and law enforcement. I would have liked to have seen them dig a bit deeper into the reasons for the disparity in enforcement action between the SEC and the OSC. Are the reasons systemic to their respective statutory regimes that render enforcement easier or more effective in the US? Is the constitutional jurisprudence in the US such that there are fewer barriers to passing off evidence collected in regulatory investigations to criminal investigators? I know that criminal securities enforcement in New York went way up under former Attorney General Elliot Spitzer. What criminal enforcement measures did he implement to acheive those successes?

At any rate, this is the money quote for me:

If you did a cost-benefit economic model, Canada would be the place to go for white-collar crime. Your chance of detection is small and the consequences for getting caught are not high.

Regulatory offenses are designed to raise the cost non-compliance to a level where compliance becomes economically beneficial in comparison. If that is not happening, then the regulatory regime is not working.


And a little tidbit on congestion pricing. Seems like a great idea to me, as a city dweller. Less cars in the city and an increase in transit passengers that would bring in desperately needed funds to upgrade our transit system. Though it seems like it would be harder to implement in Vancouver where there are no major highways running into downtown that could act as a bottleneck to collect tolls. I guess you could charge at the bridges - Lion's Gate, Second Narrows, Port Mann, Knight Street, Oak Street and Arthur Laing.