April 11, 2003

Mortgage Tax Deduction: Renters $0, Middle Class $465 , Rich People $6,000 Kevin Drum aka CalPundit describes how the US mortgage tax deduction not only does not help people without mortgages but harms those buying homes or condos as it pushes up the prices of such properties. These facts are important for Canadians to realize because such a tax scheme may also occur in Canada because in a feeble gasp for votes the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party which is behind in the polls is proposing the phasing in a 50% mortgage tax deduction. Once in Ontario, Alberta and then other provinces will likely join. Thus Canadian renters won’t benefit and in fact the rising prices of housing will make it harder for them to ever become homeowners. People with modest homes and mortgages will receive a small break while those with a large mortgage on an expensive property will receive a much bigger break. For example: A young family with a modest income and a 7 per cent, $150,000 mortgage, for example, would save about $465 a year in taxes when the scheme was fully in place. But a millionaire, with a $1.5 million mortgage on a monster home in one of Toronto's toniest neighbourhoods, would see his taxes go down by close to $6,000. 9:56:44 PM

While Canada did not support the US invasion of Iraq it looks like we might help police the country afterwards as the Prime Minister Jean Chrétien offered to send RCMP officers to help restore order in Iraq. 9:45:51 PM

Rules of War Kenneth Anderson is a law professor at American University and a research fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University examines the rules of war and the ever-increasing efforts by non-governmental organizations to produce a utopian law of war. He argues this restricts the side that tries to obey the laws is usually the stronger side and results in the other side finding that war crimes against their own civilians are the best strategy against a powerful but scrupulous enemy.  As a result of stronger side is forced to take actions that often hurt civilians. For example: Amnesty International released a report last year on the actions of the Israeli Defense Forces in Jenin that signally failed even to mention the legal obligations of the Palestinian forces toward their own civilians. Human Rights Watch also issued an entire report on Jenin that raised only in a few sentences the fact that Palestinian fighters had situated themselves among civilians 9:32:57 PM

Toronto Maple Leafs Well that was a poor second half performance. 9:31:28 PM

US selects sites for Mars invasion. No UN approval expected Nasa has selected two landing sites for the two Mars landers to be launched this year. The sites are thought to once have contained water. Associated Press describes them as follows: One is a crater into which a now-dry river apparently once emptied, perhaps filling the basin with a brimming lake. The other is a plain rich in hematite, an iron mineral that typically forms in standing water. The sites, both near the equator in the southern hemisphere of Mars, are halfway around the planet from each other. They are each 60 miles to 120 miles long and roughly 12 miles wide. "They aren't the safest sites, they aren't the riskiest sites, they are the best sites," said Steve Squyres, a Cornell University geologist and principal investigator for the instruments the rovers carry. 9:13:41 PM