News from France:

Beginning this evening at midnight (12 am September 16 – EBD) holding Muslim prayers in the streets of Paris will be prohibited. The announcement was made by France’s Interior Minister, Claude Gueant, in an interview published today by the daily Le Figaro, which noted that ‘use of force’ against those not complying with the regulation had not been ruled out.

Those who would cry “racism!” or call for greater accommodation surely know in their heart of hearts that if large groups of Christians had been blocking streets and sidewalks with mass prayers the practice would have been stopped years ago.
(h/t BCF)

This is the most brilliant thing I’ve seen in years!

I saw 6 ATMs in an alley killing a job. I think it was a hate crime.

Attack of the Trolls.

In this recent post Canadian blogger BC Blue re-reminds us of how the NDP’s Olivia Chow, the wife of dearly departed leader Jack Layton, was positively offended earlier this year when Richard Fadden, the head of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, brought up the possibility that Chinese nationals were possibly interfering in Canadian politics. Chow vigorously admonished our collective selves to shut the hell up for the good of the nation:

“Let us not give in to the politics of fear.”

Fear was front and centre on the NDP’s agenda earlier this week, though, when Conservative MP Bob Dechert was under suspicion over reports that he had e-flirted with a Chinese woman who worked for China’s state-run news agency. Interim NDP leader Nycole Turmel, evidently concerned about the peril of Chinese nationals possibly interfering in Canadian politics, insisted that Dechert resign:

“He should step down and there should be an investigation.”

An investigation? As in, an investigation about the possible intersection of foreign nationals and government employees? Well, boy oh boy, in the last 24 hours, do we ever have an investigation:

The federal government is calling in the RCMP and the Canada Border Services Agency to investigate allegations of fraud and bribery in a PEI immigration program that allowed hundreds of primarily Chinese nationals to buy their way into Canada….The federal Citizenship and Immigration Department referred the case to police late Wednesday after it received information from at least three former provincial public servants, including detailed allegations from one of them that, at a Marriott hotel suite in Hong Kong, would-be immigrant investors gave senior island bureaucrats cash-stuffed envelopes to have their applications approved.

A nation breathlessly awaits the NDP’s statement on the matter.

All around the world, the barrier wall in the West Bank remains an ongoing source of outrage to opponents of Israeli statehood. Student activists from Massachusetts to Arizona to Australia continue to protest against the wall that separates Israelis from Palestinians; people like American author and activist Kathleen Christison rail against the “separation wall” that “separates Palestinians from the Jewish population.” Queers against Israeli Apartheid (“We stand with Queers in Palestine“) make reference to the “apartheid wall,” with the word apartheid, they helpfully inform, “literally meaning separation.”
I bring all this up because two days ago the PLO’s Ambassador to the US had a few words of his own to say about Jewish/Palestinian separation:

The future independent Palestinian state will not include a Jewish minority, (Maen Areikat) told USA Today on Wednesday, adding that it was in the best interest of both peoples to “be separated…I believe, I still believe as a first step that we need to be totally separated.”

And they wouldn’t even need to build a wall.

… but what about Up – Down … and the obvious Canadian angle.

I can say one thing about Danielle, she sure knows how to articulate a critical market scenario in a way that compelled me to grab a phone and make a couple of moves. Danielle’s team has done overlays on the patterns that have developed lately in the markets in terms of the valuations, price, relative strengths and the main trends that have taken place. When compared with the Japanese experience, the deflationary cycle and the major inflection points that they’ve had for the last 30 years she sees that in the North American and Global Stock Markets began a Secular Bear Market in the late 90’s.
More importantly, while Danielle thinks the jury is still out she interprets the current market action as setting up for another huge downdraft like the one that swept through the markets in 2008-2009.
The good news is….