It Begins

Every 4 years, an intrepid and little known bunch of Canadians begins a quest to obtain, against overwhelming odds and the opposition of the entire world, the greatest prize in the sporting world, the world cup of soccer.

Canada's first test in qualifying is a home and home series with Saint Vincent and the Grenadines (population ~120,000), with the away leg today and the home leg on the 20th.

Should Canada survive this test, we'll move on to a 4 team group, including Mexico, Honduras and likely Jamaica, out of which 2 will move on the final round of regional qualifying, a 6 team group from which the top 3 will automatically qualify, with the 4th place team facing a playoff with the 5th place team from South America. But we don't want to get ahead of ourselves, last time Canada went out feebly at the 4 team group stage, and we first need to beat St.V&G to even get that far.

Wikipedia article on the CONCACAF (Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football) qualifying group for the 2010 world cup.

Good luck team Canada - sooner or later (hopefully later), you're going to need it!

Carbon Tax vs. Cap and Trade

If you're interested in the relative merits of carbon taxes vs. cap and trade systems to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, you could do worse than go read this post at Economist's View, and follow the links and read the comments.

Short version (my opinion): Both are better than the status quo or most other regulatory approaches. From an economic point of view, there is little to choose between the two approaches in terms of efficiency. Cap and Trade is more complicated to set up (especially if yo want it to apply beyond large industrial emitters) but has the advantage of making it easier to target the level of emissions you want, while the carbon tax is simpler to get going but likely will need constant adjustment (upward, if B.C.'s small carbon tax is a sign of things to come) in order for it to have the required impact in terms of reduced emissions.