A few days ago the B.C. government announced a new $10,000 bonus for new home buyers. Not only is this a stupid waste of money that could have been diverted to many more important things, it may not actually do anything to improve affordability as housing prices will surely go up accordingly. Even Cameron Muir, who is generally wrong about everything, is probably correct when he says "That should induce additional sales activity, as well as later on we’ll likely see housing starts rebound as a result of that demand . . ." It's reminds me of when the federal government allowed people to carry 30, then 35, then 40 year mortgages in order to help people afford a home. This back-fired and caused housing prices to sky-rocket even further than the already were.
All this time I've been taking the political debates in Canada for granted. No matter how bad they might be, they're actually not half bad compared to the debates in the US. Last night's Obama/Clinton debate on ABC was one of the worst. Crooks and Liars has a great video highlighting some of the worst moments of the debate.
"Well, I think Bush is probably the worst president in the history of the United States," says Trump:
Obviously it is no secret that many people share his opinions and so no surprises here, but I think it's a good sign that an interview like this is being shown on mainstream CNN news from a public figure like Trump (who isn't the Dixie Chicks and isn't Michael Moore).
First Muslim elected to Congress. First question out of Glenn Beck's mouth during his interview: "Prove to me that you are not, uh, oh, uh, working with our enemies":
I have followed electoral-vote.com for the past two presidential elections, and now I noticed that they have predictions for the upcoming midterm elections as well. So far things bode well for the Democrats with a predicted 50-49 (1 tie) for the Senate and 226-205 (4 ties) for the House of Representatives.
There was an interesting article on digg recently, it is an essay by King Abdullah of Jordan in November 1947 for an American audience called "As The Arabs See The Jews." It's a great read if you know nothing about the why there is (and always has been) conflict in the middle east and terrorism. Or even if you do know some of the history, it is a great refresher. Personally I know most of the history just after World War I with regards to the Balfour Declaration, and some prior to that from reading Paris 1919. A big question I have after reading this article is why Palestine had no control over the immigrants coming in? Were they all arriving in boats on the shore and claiming refugee status? Or was the Palestine area still under British control at the time?
For more information I recommend checking out the comments at the digg article itself (as there is no comment section on the article). There are actually some interesting comments there (not always the case at digg.com).
I can't believe the number of newspapers that published an article about Condoleeza Rice and Peter McKay being an item or not being an item. I'm not sure who is stupider, the media, or the readers who clearly love to eat up their crap. Most likely it started by a bunch of bloggers joking around, posting pictures of the two holding hands, etc... and the mass media jumped on. Colbert sure ripped in the media last night on this issue making fun of both the media for writing articles about how others were writing about it, and the gossip readers, by pretending to be one himself in his usual way.
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