At Home in Hespeler

I apologize, but some times life and blogging are a bad pairing. Anything happen while I was away from my computer?

My mother came to the end of, as Ronald Reagan put it,  “the journey that will lead… into the sunset of my life.” Alzheimer’s is a nasty disease. It robs the memory first of friends, then of loved ones. It continues on to every aspect of your life, until you don’t know who you are. By journeys end your body relies on muscle memory to breathe and eat. Eventually, too, that gives way. Mom could no longer swallow, and passed away into the sunset a couple of weeks ago.

Respects may be paid with a donation to the Alzheimer’s Society, if any so chooses.

Sad news often is accompanied by some measure of it’s opposite number. So it is in this case that a band I have been working on putting together for the last year played it’s first show a couple of weeks ago. If you’ve never done it you have no way of knowing how much time is involved in getting something like this going. It’s taken a pile of my creative energy, especially the last few weeks before we played.

And finally, if this were a normal year I would be signing off for the month of July. I’m not sure I’ve done it every year, but it’s been close. Because things were so light in June, I may post the occasional thing this month, including some pictures I have ready in the hopper.  But otherwise I will be taking the usual July hiatus. Hey, if Mark Steyn can do it.

Regular blogging will resume in August.

Blog Administration alzheimer's, Mark Steyn, Mom, Ronald Reagan

it should be SteynTV.

The SunTV website has a page for recomending personalities for the new conservative news channel.

Who better than Mark Steyn? It doesn’t have to be a regular daily show, just a weekly appearance ala Dennis Miller on Bill O’Reilly’s show.

What’s needed is a campaign to get Steyn on the new channel. Click the link, let SunTV know you want to see SteynTV.

Mark Steyn Mark Steyn, SUNTV

that you subject yourself to hatred and contempt, is it still hate speech?

Dear Ms. Coulter,

I understand that you have been invited by University of Ottawa Campus Conservatives to speak at the University of Ottawa this coming Tuesday. We are, of course, always delighted to welcome speakers on our campus and hope that they will contribute positively to the meaningful exchange of ideas that is the hallmark of a great university campus. We have a great respect for freedom of expression in Canada, as well as on our campus, and view it as a fundamental freedom, as recognized by our Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. I would, however, like to inform you, or perhaps remind you, that our domestic laws, both provincial and federal, delineate freedom of expression (or “free speech”) in a manner that is somewhat different than the approach taken in the United States. I therefore encourage you to educate yourself, if need be, as to what is acceptable in Canada and to do so before your planned visit here. You will realize that Canadian law puts reasonable limits on the freedom of expression. For example, promoting hatred against any identifiable group would not only be considered inappropriate, but could in fact lead to criminal charges. Outside of the criminal realm, Canadian defamation laws also limit freedom of expression and may differ somewhat from those to which you are accustomed. I therefore ask you, while you are a guest on our campus, to weigh your words with respect and civility in mind. There is a strong tradition in Canada, including at this University, of restraint, respect and consideration in expressing even provocative and controversial opinions and urge you to respect that Canadian tradition while on our campus. Hopefully, you will understand and agree that what may, at first glance, seem like unnecessary restrictions to freedom of expression do, in fact, lead not only to a more civilized discussion, but to a more meaningful, reasoned and intelligent one as well.

I hope you will enjoy your stay in our beautiful country, city and campus.

Sincerely,

François Houle
Vice-recteur aux études / Vice-President Academic and Provost
Université d’Ottawa / University of Ottawa
550, rue Cumberland Street
Ottawa (ON) K1N 6N5
téléphone / telephone : 613 562-5737
télécopieur / fax : 613 562-5103

As Blazing Cat Fur say’s, “Maybe it sounded better in the original German?” Well they did master the concept of pre-crime.

Original h/t to Five Feet of Fury.

free speech Ann Coulter, François Houle, Kathy Shaidle, Mark Steyn

J. Edgar Hoover had a file too. Here’s a hard and fast rule of 1930-60’s America, don’t piss of J. Edgar or you’ll find yourself with a file. Fast forward to Canada, 2009, and discover another bureaucrat who keeps files: Canadian Human Rights commissioner Jennifer Lynch:

Please, please, look. We have experienced 16 months of invective hurled at us, and at any time when anybody has tried to speak up and correct misinformation, gross distortions, caricaturizations,[sic] then the very next day there’s been some full-frontal assault through the blogs, through mainstream media. I have a file. I’m sure I have 1,200, certainly several hundred of these things.

Twelve-hundred files. On whom? may we ask. Bloggers who speak ill of your institution? Ezra Levant? Mark Steyn? No doubt all of the above, but here’s a question for you Jennifer, do you have a file on Warren Kinsella, defender of the HRC’s? But of course, they’re her files, and she being a mere public servant, none of my business.

Of course, Ms. Lynch says so much more, including defending her job:

I’m a public servant responsible for giving effect to the principle that ‘individuals should have the right equal to others to make for themselves a life they are able and wish to have,’ and I’m going to do it.

I always like to pull out the old UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights which, when people like Jennifer Lynch want to debate these things always seems like a good place to start. Oh, and speaking of starting, here’s something from the second paragraph of the Preamble, you don’t get much more basic human rights than that which appears in the preamble of the Universal Declaration of Human rights:

…the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief

I searched in vain, by the way, for any reference to the “right equal to others to make for themselves a life they are able and wish to have,” whatever that actually means.

At the end of the day, that’s what this fight is about, everybody’s right to speak and think freely, without intimidation from some government lackey, whether in the form of hauling your sorry self before a tribunal, or just keeping a file on you.

Jacobian Piece of Impertinence, free speech, freedom for the individual is the only truly progressive policy, human rights, pimply minions of bureaucracy Ezra Levant, free speech, Hoover, HRC, Human Rights Commisions, J. Edgar Hoover, Jennifer Lynch, Mark Steyn, UN, Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Warren Kinsella

For almost ten years now if you find yourself sitting next to me at a social function, and make some passing comment about being able to afford a cottage when you retire, or what with the prices of houses what kind of house will your kids be able to buy? you would quickly discover I have a theory. It’s not an optimistic theory, it’s not a pleasant thought, but, I lost nothing when the stock market declined last year because I had an idea what was coming (although, it came three years earlier than expected).

The theory? As Mark Steyn says, “lets start with demographics, because everything does.” I argue that the greatest amount of wealth is getting set to retire, that is, the possessors of that wealth will retire.  Which means that instead of investing in stock markets, they will invest in bonds. When wealth leaves the stock market, the market contracts. Contract fast enough and it will crash. Forensic economists will sort through the rubble, but don’t be surprised if that’s partly what happened last year. Furthermore, housing prices will drop, says the theory, as these people get out of all those homes built from the 60’s to now, and move to condos, apartments and those retirement cottages. The single family home: who wants one? and those that do will find two on the market for every buyer.  Especially true of those mammoth McMansions that have predominately been built the last twenty years.

It is with some trepidation that I note, the experts (who always seem to be wrong) are starting to catch up to me. Bloomberg today has an article on just such a demographic depression, and quotes Harry Dent, author of The Great Depression Ahead:

What you can’t see in the most recent housing numbers is the least-visible driver of home prices today: demographics.

Baby Boomers

The baby-boomer generation, the largest in American history, will be buying fewer single-family homes.

The U.S. is experiencing a 40-year generational peak in consumer spending, one that will lead to “the first and last Depression of our lifetimes,” author Harry Dent predicts in his book “The Great Depression Ahead” (Free Press, 2008).

Although we may not be headed for a 1930s-style Depression, there’s plenty of evidence to suggest that boomers are dumping their four- and five-bedroom suburban homes for two- and three- bedroom condominiums.

It’s also unlikely that the “Generation X,” born between 1965 and 1976 (or more derisively called “baby busters”), will bid up home prices. They are only 44 million strong, not as wealthy and even more in debt from college loans.

The baby boomers are reorganizing their finances after a rocky decade in stocks. They aren’t buying as many second homes and vacation properties in warmer climates.

I was further surprised to read a press release for Dent’s book, in which he predicts a decline almost exactly as I have through the years:

Harry Dent forecast the housing slowdown years before it occurred and sees the minor recession of 2008 as
the beginning of a greater stock crash and depression to unfold between 2009 and 2012, with the worst crash
for stocks and housing likely between late 2009 and mid 2011. Home prices will continue to decline into late
2008 and then will likely experience a minor rebound in early to mid 2009. However, rising inflation, interest
rates and a last commodity bubble will bring a final blow to stocks, the economy, housing, and even the greater
emerging market bubble in stocks overseas.

A time frame of 2009-2012, when those boomers start retiring en masse, is exactly what I have been saying. Houses will be sold to pay for retirement, and money that was in stocks will be taken out to safer environs. The followup generations, including mine, have no capacity to fill the void. A decline in stock and housing prices must occur under those circumstances.

I’m not hiding in a bunker, scared of the future, in fact I’m quite optimistic. But a sense of this is what I have been saying has pervaded my reading of much of the economic news the past six or nine months. No need to panic, but be aware, there is likely more bad coming down the pike in the next three years.

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Note: comments on this post are closed due to excessive spam.

Economic Fundamentalism 2009, 2012, baby boomers, demographic, depression, generation x, harry dent, housing prices, Mark Steyn, mcmansions, recession, stock market, stock market crash, the great depression ahead

Mark Steyn’s latest Maclean’s piece is about rocker Bono and his band U2’s decision to relocate business interests in the Netherlands.:

After playing the Obama inauguration a couple of months back, the pop star Bono flew back home to a rare barrage of hostile headlines. As you know, the global do-gooder wants us to send more of our money to Africa. So why is he sending his money to the Netherlands? From the Irish Times:

“Bono ‘Hurt’ By Criticism Of U2 Move To Netherlands To Cut Tax.”

As Steyn actually notes, U2 “… moved to the Netherlands a couple of years back, about 17 nanoseconds after the Irish finance minister removed the tax exemption on “artistic” income above 250,000 euros.” However, It’s only in the last few weeks that charities and NGOs and “justice groups” have decided to make an example of the unfortunate warbler.”

It’s only a story now, a couple of years later? Well everybody jump on my back, because I did this story back in the fall of 2006:

Gobsheit!

It’s an Irish term. Roughly translated gob means pile and sheit means excrement. As in you Pile of Sh*t. In common usage, it is preceded by the adjective fockin’. eg. “What are you doing with my wife, you fockin’ gobsheit?”

Which brings me to Bono, and his band of sullen men, U2:

After Ireland said it would scrap a break that lets musicians and artists avoid paying taxes on royalties, Bono and his fellow U2 band members this year moved their music publishing company to the Netherlands.

This would be the same Bono, of the same U2 that came to Canada to scold the Canadian government for not doing enough. Remember he was going to be Martin’s “biggest pain in the ass” if he didn’t follow through on his commitments.

The Dublin group, which Forbes estimates earned $110 million in 2005, will pay about 5% tax on their royalties, less than half the Irish rate.

The move is explained by U2 guitarist David Evans (The Edge) as a strictly business move:

“Our business is a very complex business,” Evans said Oct. 2 on the Dublin radio station Newstalk, breaking the band’s silence after weeks of public criticism. “Of course we’re trying to be tax-efficient. Who doesn’t want to be tax-efficient?”

Exactly! Tax efficient. That’s what I want to be too, except when I try, or when governments try on my behalf, busy body know it alls like Bono show up and spend the money on their own pet projects. They are, to paraphrase Mr. Evans, awfully tax efficient with my tax dollars.

I liked this line, however, from Jill Cassidy, presumably an ordinary citizen of Dublin:

“Among the wealthiest people, I suppose it’s the norm. In U2’s position, it does come across as quite hypocritical.”

Hypocritical indeed. Now, what was that poetic little Irish term?

Celebrities, Mark Steyn, The Media Following My Lead. Ireland, Irish Times, Maclean's, Mark Steyn, Netherlands, U2

Mark Steyn is back with more of what he does best. The follow up to America Alone, Steyn has a new book, Lights Out: Islam, Free Speech and the Twilight of the West.

An signed copy is available through the SteynStore. I’ll be grabbing my copy soon (memo to Mark: it would be easier to buy your stuff if you accepted PayPal).

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Update: Welcome readers of SteynOnline.

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