September 2007
You are currently browsing the articles from Jay Currie written in the month of September 2007.
The stock markets closed Friday afternoon with the loonie at an all-time high.
The dollar was up 0.21 of a cent, at 97.04 cents US, from Thursday’s close. ctv
We are very close to parity with the US dollar and any number of chin-pullers are being written about what this portends for the glorious Canadian economy.
Part of the reason are energy prices, another part are interest rates and the wobbliness of sub-prime credit. But mainly it is the knock on effect of governments, Liberal and Conservative, deciding that government spending deficits are unacceptable and taxation is a bane to be reduced not increased.
This is not yet fiscal conservatism; rather it is a bi-partisan rejection of tax and spend. It is not enough yet. And it won’t be until Finance drops the idiocy of referencing program spending to GDP and begins to actually limit, if not reduce, spending. But the reality seems to be that Canada’s fiscal house is in order.
One of the tasks in the next election will be to vote against any party which is unwilling to commit to keeping it that way.
Written by jay on September 15th, 2007 with no comments.
Read more articles on Canadian Politics.
It’s always possible for the US to get a killer storm during hurricane season. Even a weak season like this one. BUT SANTA CLAUS ISN’T COMING, EARTH-CRUNCHY DIRTBAGS! Because even if we get a bad storm or two, on the whole the season will be an even bigger letdown than Live Earth.
I love it. This is just the tip of the iceberg, too, because the rest of the global warming fantasy is going to collapse just like the storm hysteria.
Cry in your tabouli, losers. This is what you get for rooting for other people’s misfortunes. hog on ice
I fear Hog on Ice is just not hip to the post-normal sciencething and puts up a chart which shows that September 10th is the huge peak day for hurricane and tropical storm activity. Which is hardly fair to the Kyotoists.
Meanwhile, Steve McIntyre and his band of old fashioned normal scientists, accountants, computer nerds, econometricians and engineers are having great fun now that they have the “code” that massaged much of the North American climate warming data at NASA and elsewhere. All manner of discontinuities, fudges, re-normalizations, dropped data sets and other bits of numeric entertainments are emerging as they plow through the data and scrutinize the algorithms. ClimateAudit is pretty hardcore and very technical which is just the sort of scrutiny the post-normal scientists really, really need.
Written by jay on September 13th, 2007 with no comments.
Read more articles on "Global Warming".
Spengler, the Asia Times Cassandra writes:
Iran is dying a slow demographic death, I have shown in earlier essays, and the rapid exhaustion of its oil-exporting capacity threatens to plunge the country into profound crisis during the next five years. That is why I believe that Iran will roll the dice on nuclear-arms acquisition, choosing flight forward rather than surrender to Western demands. If a united West (with at least the tacit support of Russia) puts a knife to Tehran’s throat, however, it is still possible that someone like Rafsanjani might emerge as Iran’s Mikhail Gorbachev, and give up the country’s nuclear ambitions. asia times
He cites a number of signs pointing to war, or at least serious bombardment, of Iran.
At this point, with the loony left in the US in full spate on Iraq - suggesting a four star general is betraying his nation is not winning any converts - Bush has little to lose. And, hey, would he care at this instant in his remarkably feckless Presidency?
There is little doubt that a combined strike of Israeli and American air power could destroy a good deal of the Iranian nuclear capacity. And a well targeted attack on the single gasoline refinery Iran has could devastate its economy.
And then what.
If Iraq has proven one thing it is that the “and then what” question needs to be answered before you embark on the easy part, namely full scale air and possibly land war.
It is just possible that the Iranian middle classes would be delighted to be liberated from their current Islamic overlords; but that is a relatively small fraction of the Iranian population and, out in the thousands of villages and small towns, the lure of the authority of an Islamic state run by certified Shi’ite clerics seems to remain strong.
It is possible that the americans have learned the key lesson of Iraq and actually have a plan in case the flowers for the invading troops turn out to be IEDs. If this was any but the Bush administration I would be sure of it.
But I am not. And that way lies disaster.
Written by jay on September 11th, 2007 with no comments.
Read more articles on International and Terror and US Politics and religion.
I should also note that Osama is not a Truther since he sounds pretty sure he’s responsible for 9/11. Someone should ask him about WTC 7.IMAO
Written by jay on September 8th, 2007 with 1 comment.
Read more articles on Uncategorized.
Steve Jobs tries to make it right
When you drop your product price by a third two months after it is launched you are going to have some annoyed early adopters. Steve needs those early adopters. So he’s giving them a store credit of $100.00. Which costs Apple, what, $60.00 with admin.
This is smart.
Written by jay on September 7th, 2007 with 1 comment.
Read more articles on tech.
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