The question “What is a crime” may sounds silly. After all, we all know that crimes are things that harm our interests. It would be a crime to steal my car, or to cut my leg. And yes, I consider it a crime if you eat my cookie without my expressed consent. But the court looks at crimes somewhat differently. In Canada, our codes of laws are two-fold: the first part is Civil Law, which, by the way, is not the same as Civil Law system (confused? Welcome to the…read more
(In case you’re just here to cram for your exam, you don’t really need to read this post. It’s mostly just nice-to-know things which can help you better understand the course contents.) Once upon a time, England was ruled by monarchs with actual authority, and actual works to do besides traveling around the world for honeymoon. The King traveled his lands, and one of his jobs was to resolve disputes for his people. But overtime, the number of disputes increased, while the number of king remained more or less the…read more
Formal logic, as you may have inferred from the name, is just like your regular logic except it’s dressed up in a suit. Ok I made that up. Formal logic is more like the name given to the process of logical deduction (feel free to google for a more refined definition). Let’s look at an example: If it rains, I will bring an umbrella. For the purpose of this example, we will assume that this statement is and always is true. (In real life I do forget to bring an…read more
One day, two young fish are swimming along. On their way they meet an older fish swimming in the opposite direction. The older fish, seeing the young fish, nods and says, “Morning boys, how’s the water today?” The young fish don’t respond and swim on, and then one of them looks at the other and asks, “What the hell is water?” Maybe the anecdote rings a bell. For those of you who are familiar with the late American writer David Foster Wallace, you may realize that it comes straight out of…read more
