If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
Conventional wisdom is that this is the market at work. This is not the market at work. This is manipulation of a government system of open-ended mortgage insurance that is poorly supervised. What is going on here is a deluge of hot money from abroad that is creating an artificial, and potentially dangerous real estate bubble.
There are officially eight teams playing for the Stanley Cup in round two -- but with the exception of the Philadelphia Flyers I'm not sure what game they're playing. I just know that if Alexander Ovechkin isn't allowed on the ice, it can't possibly be hockey.
A recent Angus Reid poll indicated that only 35 per cent of Canadians said they'd root for the Vancouver Canucks. Count me among the 65 per cent of Canadians who have made the right call. Just because the Canucks are geographically situated in Canada, this doesn't mean they are -- or ever will be -- "Canada's Team."
Yes, this was a strange season to be a Canucks fan -- and I think it's going to be the best post-season ever. The Canucks kept racking up wins, but they weren't flashy, fun, wins. They were ugly, nail-biting, old-time New Jersey Devils one goal, frequently in extra time with a "lucky bounce" wins.
The Toronto Maple Leafs have fallen out of the NHL playoff race now for six years straight. So why do Canadians still love to hate a team that doesn't matter? Because even when they're not a factor in the playoff race, the damn media won't stop talking about... oops.
Walk around Vancouver, and it won't take you long to find somebody with a connection to Winnipeg. The link between the two cities -- and NHL teams -- is there. It was there on Thursday night, if you couldn't tell on television, when the Vancouver Canucks and the Winnipeg Jets faced off for the first time since 1996.
I remember reading, years ago, a rumour in the now defunct Frank Magazine claiming that one of the Canucks' top defense-men was traded because he was caught "banging the twine" with the goalie's wife. I have no idea if the rumour was true, but it made more sense than the official story in the papers.
I am a born and raised Vancouverite, but I have absolutely no emotional connection to it at all. So at every opportunity to leave Vancouver, I am a willing (and usually a leading) participant in the plans.
Too often, high-budget films with casts that read like an IMDB Top 200 forget to be the one thing that movies have to be -- enjoyable. Assembled casts don't always work. The New York Rangers have figured that out, after years of trying to buy every big name free agent in the NHL.
If you take the many media portrayals of the Occupy camps at face value, you might believe that they are (were) filthy dens of iniquity: disorganized, dangerous, unruly, smelly. While not an overnighter, I became a regular. Whenever I left Occupy, I was a nicer guy than when I had arrived.
While Health Canada refuses to authorize the selling of healthy e-cigarettes, Vancouver's Coastal Health Authority has begun to give out free crack pipes. No longer will crackheads have to stand outside and brave the elements!
The movement has now passed through the hype machine. While at first, it began slowly, it's grown in size, and now many read of the protests in the same way they read of the falling stock market, or the weather that's get colder everyday.
On Oct. 15 the #occupywallstreet protests will arrive at cities around the world and in one of the birthplaces of the movement in downtown Vancouver. ...
Walk around the inner-city of Vancouver, and the painful reality is clear. The parks are still strewn with needles; addicts are still lying on the sidewalks in drug-induced hazes; death is everywhere. I'm hoping to be proven wrong, but I suspect that in a decade, despite Insite's zealous staff working away, the problems will remain.
Following the riots that tore through the heart of Her Majesty's realm, Cameron came out swingin'. He told the world that England wouldn't tolerate this kind of behaviour. Now, if we could only get you this side of the pond to deal with the Vancouver riot, I'm sure things would move along a little quicker.
