One of the major cases before the Canadian “Human Rights Commissions” has concluded and awarded a win for free speech. While the outcome is gratifying the fact still remains that the Canadian government still believes it just and correct to regulate speech, which I (and many others) posit should be free and unfettered despite its message or content.

This has been one of the few “political” topics followed by vdov.net but I believe it has been an appropriate topic. For a little more background on the Canadian “Human Rights Commissions” vis a vis free speech you can see this previous article. Any debate and/or comments on the topic are always appreciated.

I was having some fun with taking pictures around the house with my new lens, so I thought I’d share. Besides, this may be the only reasonable way to up my posting on vdov, especially since I don’t think anyone pays attention to my gallery (but I will add the images there, too: shollen.vdov.net …visit sometime). (more…)

This story is both scientifically interesting and hilarious in some places; you should continue reading it. I’ve divided it into several parts, as it is fairly long. It involves science, scientific politics, and gracious insults. Most importantly, it discusses how my lab at Brown University has shown strong evidence for the existence of Cooper pairs in insulators. In case some readers are backlogged on their scientific jargon (do they have RSS feeds for that?), I’ll describe what I mean. (more…)

I am sure that the vdov authorship remembers our old, Canadian pal who ever so politely and succinctly let us know that “…hate is illegal in Canada.” The sacrifice of free speech at the altar of “not being offended” has now come to fruition in our good Nation to the North.

For those not closely following (anything in Canada) the dust up over free speech in Canada I will provide a couple basics. Several individuals including Ezra Levant and Mark Steyn have been hauled before provincial “Human Rights Commissions” to be tried for things they have said or written that may have offended individuals or groups. The idea being that what these individuals wrote or said was “hate speech” that disenfranchises people.

My general view is that all speech should be free, naturally. I take the “sticks and stones” approach with the caveat of speech that incites immediate violence. I am very much in line with standard American legal thinking. By placing restriction on forms of speech considered “offensive” or “hateful” a broad and completely subjective stifling of speech can occur which I find completely unacceptable. The point of all of this being that the current “trail” of Mark Steyn for his writings provides an excellent example of the farcical nature of limiting some forms of speech “for the greater good.” Andrew Coyne has been liveblogging the trial of Mark Steyn. The whole process is not only ridiculous from the standpoint of truly free speech it crosses into the realm of self parody because the Human Rights Council itself seems completely unable to justify or conduct itself in any kind of competent legal framework.

I am hoping that folks around here will take a crack at this one. It’s at least worth some discussion.