Last year the student body at UWO Law voted in favour of changing the degree designation from LL.B. to J.D.  The Juris Doctor (J.D.) designation is more similar to the U.S., and is intended to indicate that graduates have previous education prior to law.

The transition does not indicate any change in the degree, graduate requirements, or admissions criteria.  Background on the process can be found on Law is Cool.

The University Senate approved a motion to change the title, which had three components:

1. Current students will have the option of choosing either the LL.B. or J.D.
2. Students starting in Sept. 2009 will be doing a J.D. degree
3. Graduates will have the option to convert their LL.B. to a J.D.

The header on the site has been updated to reflect the change.

Nearly two dozen podcasters gathered in downtown Toronto.  Many were meeting for the first time, though they had seen others online through their podcasts.

It was only a matter of time before people started taking out their podcasting equipment, and before you knew it there were impromptu shows all over the place.

One of the hot topics of discussion was the upcoming Podcamp in Toronto in February 2009.  Omar attended a previous Podcamp in 2007.

Attendees included Connie Crosby of the Crosby Consulting Group, Jim Miles and Kristina Lively of the Shadow and James Show, Brent Morris of the Closet Geek Show, Jay Moonah of Online Music Marketing,  Steve Saylor - “the Albino podcaster,” Sean McGaughey – “the Duct Tape guy,” Rob Lee of Unconventional Wisdom and Daniele Rossie of Stuttering is Cool.

Links to interviews will be posted as they become available.

Omar Ha-Redeye attended the Canadian Constitution Federation Conference’s 2nd Annual Law Conference Days Inn Downtown Toronto, from October 17 – 19, 2008.

The theme of the conference was Individual Freedom and the Common Good – Defining Human Rights in a Free Society.

Speakers included:

• Alan Borovoy, Canadian Civil Liberties Association
• Albert Koehl, Ecojustice
• David Frum, American Enterprise Institute
• Elizabeth Brubaker, Executive Director, Energy Probe Research Foundation
• Eugene Meehan, Q.C., Lang Michener LLP, Ottawa
• Eugene Meyer, President, Federalist Society
• Kent Roach, University of Toronto Law School
• Philippe Dufresne, Canadian Human Rights Commission
• Randy Barnett, Georgetown University
• Ran Hirschl, author of Towards Juristocracy
• Ramani Nadarajah, Canadian Environmental Law Association
• Tom Isaac, McCarthy Tetrault LLP, Vancouver

Although some valid concerns were noted in advance, overall the conference provided a reasonable debate over the issues.  Topics covered by the panels included:

Aboriginal Rights in the 21st Century: can equality and aboriginality be reconciled?
Protecting the environment through private property rights: is legislation the best solution?
Freedom of expression under attack: do human rights need to be redefined?
Judicial Activism in Canada: Myth or Reality?

The Canadian Constitution Federation Conference has previously come under criticism for advancing a far-right agenda in the realm of health care services.  Their current characterization of administrative tribunals as “Kangaroo Courts” is questionable under the Code of Ethics of many Canadian jurisdictions, and is not likely to create an open climate for serious review of concerns that may be raised.

A number of law students were also in attendance, including Daniel Simard of Law is Cool, Shane D’Souza, Ori Reuben, Jamil Sawani, Mohamed Al-Ghamdi, and many others.

A Conservative majority was averted, and considerable amounts of taxpayer money was spent just to gain a few more seats.

The political content in the sidebar will be taken down.

The Mature Student Club held a Puisine (“puny”) Denning at Molly Bloom’s.

The Pusine Dennings are intended to provide a venue where students can engage in conversation and interaction in a different environment than the major law school events, and end earlier in the evening.

Omar Ha-Redeye is the President of the Mature Students Club at UWO.

Jaclyn Greenberg of the withoutmyba.com has a collection of post-election links, and picked up on the lowest voter turnout in Canadian history.

She also really liked this quote on civic participation.

We do not say that a man who takes no interest in the business of government is a man who minds his own business; we say he has no business here at all.

-Perides said 431 BCE

Blawg Review #181 by Diane Levin in MediationChannel.com covered a couple of interesting posts by Omar Ha-Redeye this week,

When mistakes happen, conflict resolution can produce apologies and reconciliation. Yet fear of civil litigation can stand in the way of disclosure and apology — although movements across a number of fields are pushing to change that. Slaw reports on “New Proposed Apology Legislation in Ontario” designed to promote accountability and patient safety, together with the speedy resolution of civil disputes, among other goals. With apologies for mistakes in mind, Richard Webb at the Health Care ADR Blog muses, “Do Doctors Confess Errors Only When Caught?”

Levin then offered her own apologies,

[Important update:To my embarrassment, I have discovered that I inadvertently overlooked the fact that today is Canadian Thanksgiving Day. I'd like to offer my sincerest apologies to my friends to the north. To correct this unfortunate oversight, I'm adding to this presentation of Blawg Review the following posts from these excellent Canadian law blogs: According to Michael Geist, "ISP Tax May Be The Next Big Culture Funding Fight". David Fraser, who publishes Canadian Privacy Law Blog, reports on "Calculating the cost of reading online privacy policies". Law is Cool, a law school blog and podcast, announces the good news that "Canada Has Its Own Voice on the International Scene". The Vancouver Law Librarian Blog considers "Legal In-sourcing", while Connie Crosby writing for Slaw.ca lets you know that "Your Seat is Waiting! New Business Conferences Starting Online Now". Finally, The Court has some thoughts on a provocative topic: "Privacy and investigative dumpster diving: R. v. Patrick". Happy Thanksgiving Day, Canada!]

In an unrelated entry in the same post, she also covers an interesting cognitive test:

Cognitive Daily, a cognitive psychology blog, shares the results of a recent survey it conducted about a popular illusion that depicts a dancer spinning. The illusion, created by Nobuyuki Kayahara, does not, contrary to popular belief, prove whether you’re right-brained or left-brained. What makes it so fascinating is that some people perceive her to spin clockwise, some counter-clockwise, and some are able to reverse the direction in which they see her spin. I find optical illusions useful in teaching negotiation or conflict resolution skills, since they remind us of the unreliability of our senses, and that it is always possible to see things differently, even when you and I find ourselves looking at precisely the same thing.

The illusion appears on your right — which way do you see her spin?

Even though nations share common goals of mutual prosperity, stability and peace, they way they see things are often different.  Understanding this, and mediating those differences by working with them, is probably the best approach to international politics.

Rajiv Shah, an Adjunct Assistant Professor at the Department of Communication at the University of Illinois at Chicago, picked up on a post on Slaw about Picasa‘s facial recognition software.

His academic focuses include camera surveillance and smart cameras.

Yesterday’s experiment with the world’s first live-blogging event from audio had mixed results.

Traffic from the (Canadian) Thanksgiving weekend resulted in a delay by about 45 min. after the event officially started, but it was still before the main speakers arrived.

One of the best features of the minimal lag time for the text conversion, usually within a minute or two from calling in the message.  There were absolutely no problems getting through to the line to the service.  Updates were made hours in advance to any mainstream media coverage, except possibly live television.

But the biggest limitation appeared to be accurately recognizing the voice message, despite efforts to speak slowly and clearly.  Specifically, names were frequently missed and dropped out entirely, especially if they were in any way unique.  Stéphane Dion and Jean Chrétien were obviously missed, even with (and perhaps because of) a French enunciation.

Situational factors also intervened.  There was no telephone reception in the main room, meaning real-time play-by-play developments could not be posted as planned.  A considerable amount of background noise, including the live pounding of dhol drummers easily drowned out attempts to call in.

The utility of this call in technique was still demonstrated.  Telephone reception is usually better than laptop reception would be anyways.  Most events will not have such an overwhelming amount of background noise, and a Bluetooth attachment would easily allow hands-free updates in frequent intervals.  Word recognition could use some work, but as long as names are avoided it generally seems to do a decent job.  Even this issue can be addressed by the option to attach a link to a voice file for each post, which would clarify any ambiguities present.

Aside from media personnel using this for covering events, voice to blog applications can be used in meetings, conferences, or even emergent situations (“I need help ASAP for ____ Please contact me if available).  It’s definitely easier than trying to text or open a laptop for quick status updates, especially since the service provides a (free) local telephone number to call in to.

Text of posts that did manage to get posted are below, with some edits indicating where text was lost.

Friday, October 10, 2008 9:18 PM
“Summary of today’s talk, a vote for Harper is a vote for more lies.”
Friday, October 10, 2008 9:07 PM
“Finally got out. There was no reception in the building at all so I couldn’t update anything.”
Friday, October 10, 2008 7:46 PM
“[With} Andrew Cam[p]bell of the Ontario [Young Liberals] Liberal’s and talking about how incredibly packed this place is and what a wonderful turnout we have.”
Friday, October 10, 2008 7:43 PM
” [Jean Chrétien,] former Prime Minister of Canada has arrived to large applause by the crowd.”
Friday, October 10, 2008 7:37 PM
“Adam Isa [, a] leader [in] of the Somali community is also here[.]  [The atmosphere is] staff are exciting.  [Jean Chrétien and Stéphane Dion] are expected to arrive shortly.”
Friday, October 10, 2008 7:27 PM
“Just supposed to daily  area. [ran into ______, a Toronto] Lawyer, the [ in the Toronto area. The] mood is upbeat.”
Friday, October 10, 2008 7:20 PM
“Just land [ran] into Ryan [Singh} of the Ontario y[Y]oung Liberals right here in the street. So, [it] seams like every body is having hard time finding parking.”
Friday, October 10, 2008 7:16 PM
“There’s so many people here to see Deon [Dion] here today there’s not even [any] parking left, so we [will] have to find parking some where else.”
Friday, October 10, 2008 7:13 PM
“Arriving at saint un, Edmond Campion Secondary School about 45 mins after the event has started. Let['s] see what I can catch.”
Friday, October 10, 2008 6:36 PM
“Between the four accidents on the highway and long weekend traffic, it looks like I might be a little bit late.”
Friday, October 10, 2008 5:46 PM
“Shelley [Filling] up gas in kitchner. Vault [Vote] Liberal for cheaper gas.”
Friday, October 10, 2008 4:38 PM
“[...] The first micro blog in history to cover a political event live.”
Friday, October 10, 2008 4:37 PM
“I’m leaving London Ontario for Brampton while doing the first audible micro blog in history.”

Live-blogging is a strange beast.

That’s what Ivor Tossell’s headline said in yesterday’s Globe.

Live-blogging is definitely not something new, but it does seem to be catching on in Canada.

Tossell said,

It seems like every news organization that has something to prove (and there are none that don’t) has spontaneously taken up the practice of live-blogging. It might have something to do with election season, which has spread live blogs the way the fall weather gives everyone the same cold at once.

Live-blogs are actually micro-blogs, or short status updates that cover an event in frequent intervals.

Seeing how Omar Ha-Redeye’s face is currently plastered from coast-to-coast on television defining the basics of technology in politics, it might be wise to demonstrate aptitude one step ahead of the mainstream media.

Omar will be covering an event tonight, live-blogging using entirely new technology.  Well, the technology has been there for a while, but it hasn’t been used in this way ever before as far as we can tell.

Stéphane Dion is celebrating Canada’s multicultural heritage tonight in Brampton.  He will be introduced by Rt. Hon. Jean Chrétien, and accompanied by Andrew J. Kania, Ruby Dhalla, Omar Alghabra, Hon. Navdeep Bains, Bonnie Crombie, Hon. Albina Guarnieri, Hon. Gurbax Malhi and Paul Szabo.

He will call in updates using SpinVox, which will be coverted to text using Ping.fm and posted as a live-blog.  You can follow him on Twitter, or one of the many other social network services that support mirroring.

There will be a lof of activity on these sites in the next little while, but it will all be over in a few hours.