Is there a bubble to burst in Calgary too?

The Calgary real estate market keeps on trucking up at an insane pace.

Average Calgary Real Estate Prices 1985-2007Where will it end? What comes to the US usually arrives in Canada several years later. We've been hearing about the "bloodbath" south of the border, with record numbers of homeowners defaulting on their mortgages and falling prices. Here is a plot of California 10 average home prices.

And here is a 1 year plot of California. Clearly not rising but not falling too far. Miami is also an interesting graph Here is Toronto 1985-Present

Consort Highschool Class of '97

I returned home to my home town to attend my 10 year class reunion at a nearby lake. It was great to catch up with everyone again. 20/27 classmates made it which was a pretty good turnout. I almost didn't make it back to my folks place that night due to a lapse in judgement wrt fuel but luckily Westview Cattle Co. was nearby to lend me enough fuel to get home. How embarrassing!

Incase you still believe what you see in the media...

The latest round of terror reports about the "new" Bin Laden video have been shown to be merely re-released footage recorded in Oct 2001 that was rebroadcast at least two times before (in 2002 & 2003).

"Even a senior Bush administration official admitted to Newsbuster, "Intelligence agencies have determined the video was previously aired as a portion of a longer show first on MBC TV (Middle East broadcast station) on April 17, 2002," and yet retractions to the supposition that the footage was new are nowhere to be seen in the media."

"Though some reports included the proviso that the tape could contain old footage, the importance and ceremony attached to the re-release of the Bin Laden tape over the weekend left the distinct impression that the footage was new and that it correlated with the alleged increase of "chatter" amongst terrorist organizations indicating that a new attack is imminent, a message that was again pushed by the U.S. government following the release of the National Intelligence Estimate yesterday."(See complete article)

What a bald-faced attempt to manipulate public fears just when support for the "War on Terror" is at it's lowest. They must really think people are dumb to accept this garbage at face value.

U.S. petroleum industry sounds the alarm

In todays Wall Street Journal the energy industry loudly sounds the alarm that oil supply will not reach demand in the very near future. Finally mainstream media is catching up to reality. Here are some excerpts:

• "The study's conclusions appear to be the first explicit acknowledgment by the petroleum industry that it alone cannot meet burgeoning global demand for oil, which may rise to as much as 120 million barrels a day by 2030 from about 84 million barrels a day currently, according to some projections. "
• "These conclusions follow hard on the heels of a medium-term outlook by the Paris-based International Energy Agency earlier this month, which suggested a supply squeeze will hit by 2012. But the fact that the American petroleum industry now is warning of a crunch could have an even greater impact on the debate over energy policy. "
• "Besides Mr. Raymond [former CEO of ExxonMobil], leaders of the study included David O'Reilly, chairman and CEO of Chevron Corp.; Andrew Gould, chairman and CEO of Schlumberger Ltd.; and Daniel Yergin, chairman of Cambridge Energy Research Associates. "

Now that the last two under-exploited regions (Iraq and Russia) are essentially out of reach from western companies, the future of the oil industry looks very bleak. Is it any wonder that oil giants like BP and Shell are messing around with biolfuels:

• "BP is building a $400 million plant in the UK with chemical giant DuPont and Associated British Foods to make bioethanol from wheat, and a demonstration plant to make second-generation biobutanol from sugar beets. The UK supermajor has also launched a $160 million venture with UK biofuels producer D1 Oils to become the world's biggest producer of jatropha oil -- a nonfood feedstock -- from which to make biodiesel."
  
• "While BP is going for vertical integration, Shell is tying up with biotech firms. It has built and run a demonstration scheme in Ottawa with Canada's Iogen Energy to turn straw into cellulosic ethanol using enzyme technology, and is hoping to begin construction of a commercial plant soon. Shell is also investing in biomass gasification, building a small demonstration plant in Germany with Choren Industries to produce biodiesel from woodchips." (Energy Intelligence Weekly)