Mashup of the year

This is so cool:



Taken from the homie Nate's site.

And yes, I know I've been slacking on the blogging. I resolve to improve my consistency in the New Year.

"Palestine"

I came across a great, uplifting opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal Europe (via Facebook) on the situation "on the ground" in the West Bank and Gaza. Of particular interest was this passage:

In June, the Washington Post's Jackson Diehl related how Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas had told him why he had turned down Ehud Olmert's offer last year to create a Palestinian state on 97% of the West Bank (with 3% of pre-1967 Israeli land being added to make up the shortfall). "In the West Bank we have a good reality," Abbas told Diehl. "The people are living a normal life," he added in a rare moment of candor to a Western journalist.

Nablus stock exchange head Ahmad Aweidah went further in explaining to me why there is no rush to declare statehood, saying ordinary Palestinians need the IDF to help protect them from Hamas, as their own security forces aren't ready to do so by themselves yet.

...makes me wonder how many of the keffiyeh-wearing "Free, Free Palestine!" crowd have actually visited -- or know anything about -- the region.

Charlie Black

My brother from another. His mixtape, "A Work In Progress", is dropping January 1st, 2010. Check back soon thereafter for the download link.

Update: This should have been posted a few weeks ago, but I forgot: Get the full mixtape here.

Even better

Apparently, harmonization of the Federal and Provincial sales taxes will lead to Ontario's Ministry of Revenue cutting more than 1,250 workers from its payroll (approximately 50% of its staff) as the move toward the HST will see collection of sales taxes become the responsibility of the Federal Government.

On a related note (which I've written about before), over the next 10 years in Ontario the proposed tax reform is expected to lead to the creation of 591,000 net new jobs.

Less government workers; more private sector jobs. I like.