Humpday Humor: Senator Caught Speaking Honestly

Senator Larry Campbell caught speaking honestly.  Live on tape from Ottawa...

Clipped from Andreas M. Antonopoulos educates Senate of Canada about Bitcoin

Should Using Your Visa Card Bring Suspicion Upon You?

Do you want your identity tied to all of your financial transactions?  

Andreas Antonopoulos turns the question around to ask if someone else's transaction should be tied to you?...

Clipped from Andreas M. Antonopoulos educates Senate of Canada about Bitcoin

The "Prince of Pot" is Set Free

Mark Emery, "the Prince of Pot" at his wedding in 2006

Photograph by: Jason Payne, The Province

After spending more than 4 years in a Louisiana jail a Canadian man is back home.

Marc Emery, the Prince of Pot, plead guilty to selling marijuana plant seeds from his Vancouver, B.C. based mail-order house.  Unfortunately for Mr. Emery his customers were in the U.S.

Story from The Province

Religious Freedom in Iraq?

Hundreds of Iraqi-Canadian's protested in Toronto this weekend.  Their cause: stop the mass-slaughter of Christians in Iraq.

image CBC

The CBC reports that ISIS has killed over 2,000 people over the last month in Mosul and Tikrit.

According to ISIS Christians in Iraq have three choices:

1. convert to Islam
2. be killed 
3. become a tax-paying citizen of their state  

Finally, over the last decade the Christian population in Iraq has dwindled from about 1 million under Saddam Hussein to 450,000 today.
  

Kids Short Recess Made Even Shorter

A former 15-minute break for recess will be eliminated for students in twelve British Columbia school districts.

“The school districts that have cancelled recess have done so because it is inconvenient to principals and management staff." 

-Jim Iker, B.C. Teachers’ Federation president

From the The Vancouver Sun 

Another Housing Bubble?!?!

It seems that bankers and home buyers the world over have already forgotten about last decade's housing bubble.  Loose lending standards, low down payment requirements and really cheap credit have contributed to another housing boom.

From The Sydney Morning Herald:

Nominal house prices have risen 29 per cent in Australia, 28 per cent in Canada and 61 per cent in Israel, form the first quarter of 2009 to now, according to Goldman Sachs.

We are talking about returns of 6%+ per year from housing during The Great Recession.

Let's remember what a house actually is, a depreciating asset that costs money to maintain.  It should not increase in value unless the land it sits on becomes more desirable.  Increased appeal of land is logical in some cases (i.e. an oil discovery) but land values should remain very stable over centuries.

Things like this shouldn't occur...  

Boom > Bust (from OfTwoMinds.com)

  
So what will be the conclusion to this most recent housing bubble?

Pot with Your Pizza?

A Vancouver pizzeria is serving a market need, pizza with a special topping: marijuana infused oil.

From the CBC:

Risling is fairly certain that no one else is Canada is operating a pot-zzeria. He said the idea came from a trip to Cambodia, where a pizzeria called Happy Pizza used a similar process to add THC to the pies.

U.S. Taxpayers Bailing Out Canadian Ruling Class

Did you feel a little lighter in the pockets after filing your 1040 this month?  U.S. taxpayers are another $37 million in debt thanks to the Canadian ruling class.  Back in December of 2012 the U.S. Pentagon announced a new contract for Canadian millionaires to perform work in Afghanistan for the Air Force.

UNITED STATES TRANSPORTATION COMMAND

            Canadian Commercial Corp., / Canadian Helicopters Ltd., Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, is being awarded a $37,103,792 option year modification for rotary wing aircraft, personnel, equipment, tools, material, maintenance and supervision necessary to perform passenger and cargo air transportation services.  Work will be performed in Afghanistan, and the option will start Dec. 1, 2012, to be completed by Nov. 30, 2013. 

Contract here

So who is the Canadian Commercial Corp.?  Their website describes their duties pretty clearly:

A Crown corporation of the Government of Canada, the Canadian Commercial Corporation (CCC) acts as Canada’s international contracting and procurement agency.   

CCC helps Canada live up to its responsibilities as an active partner in North America’s integrated defence industrial base. 

Every year, CCC manages an average of $1 billion in contracts for goods and services to be delivered by Canadian companies to the U.S. DoD and NASA. 
Over the past 55 years, Canada’s DPSA contracts have totalled more than $30 billion.

Did you vote to spend that $30 billion?