all bets are off

or, your guess is as good as anyone's.

Good grief. The TSX blew over 15,000 for a couple of days - setting it up to be worth almost 25% more than Wall St. Is that historical? Hysterical maybe. It shaved off a bit today with oil dropping by over $5/bbl. And the dollar edged up on expectations of the BoC raising interest rates to counter inflation. Gird your loins. (and why did it take so long to acknowledge that inflation? We have been noticing it, and commenting on it for ages!)

I look forward to higher interest rates so that my savings will actually mean something. It will, hopefully, cool the RE market a bit more too. Not that I really pay much attention to that anymore anyhow.

Mining companies are receiving federal permission to use pristine lakes as tailings ponds now. At least 16 Canadian lakes are being used thusly at present, with more to come. Got waterfront?

This weather is taking its toll too on our food crops - especially the weather in the American Mid-West, where the Mississippi is inundating cities, towns and villages - not to mention all that corn.

Turns out that what is killing all the amphibians is a type of fungus that infiltrates their skin, leading to a horrid death. Many species are now extinct in the wild, and there has been a concerted effort to salvage as many as possible for captive breeding, and release back to wild habitats. 30% of species are now extinct in the wild, and 50% of the remainder are endangered. Canaries in the coal mine?

The US presidential race is particularly uninspiring. I don't think that Americans are ready for a "black" man and his wife to take up residence in the Whitey House. If Obama does win, expect him to be assassinated post haste - especially if he is reckless enough to have Billary Clinton as his VP.

What else?

The federal Liberals unveil their carbon tax plan today, and I have doubts about whether Canadians will swallow it in any forthcoming election, and we will probably have another paralyzed minority government which acts like a majority until the world ends in 2012 (no, I do not really think the world will end).

A complex crop circle showed up in England representing Pi to 9 digits. The aliens are warning us, or the hoaxers are getting more proficient.

Some guy on Vancouver Island has been making electric trucks for the past 5 years and selling them into the US. Transport Canada will not pass them for use on Canadian roads (not the Zenn Electric car either), but has approved an American manufacturer's more or less identical vehicle to be sold and used in Canada. What's with that?

The American military has been making raids across the Pakistan border, and Canadian soldiers are likely doing the same - in pursuit of "Taliban insurgents". I thought that they were after Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan. Oh, that's right, it's really about the gas pipeline into Pakistan and India. Whatever happened to the good old days with al Qaeda and the "Axis of Evil"? Got liberation and democracy?

My neighbour has not sold their press board mansion yet, and I doubt they will without taking a huge loss. Tough tofu, I say.

It's kind of a grab bag day because there is so much going on, I can't keep up. I can't even get my police helicopter surveillance video up. I feel like I am in the calm before the storm. How about you?