As we mark the Summer Solstice today, we wonder whether to celebrate the beginning of the lazy, hazy days of summer with its connotation of laid-back holidays with no worries, or to contemplate the unhappy fact that from this day forward, the steady decline in day length begins, culminating with the darkest day of the year at the Winter Solstice. Current news would seem to support either case with a slight penchant for the latter. Montrealers and Easterners, drop your hammers and saws - the Arks will not be needed here (for now). Please send all finished Arks to friends in Alberta and maybe they will remember us kindly as oil prices rise and supply declines. In the Middle East: both Lebanon and Iran have had their national votes, in relatively tranquil atmospheres, however the Iranian outcome is clouded with charges of tampering by the Mullahs and tension over the run-off, and there is unease over how the vote split in Lebanon, exacerbated by the death of George Hawi, the anti-Syrian politician who was killed by a bomb today. U.S. Secretary of State Rice scolded Syria saying "There is a context and an atmosphere of instability. Syria's activities are part of that context and a part of that atmosphere and they need to knock it off." [Interesting terminology for a Secretary of State, Sir Winston must be wincing!] Meantime, how many checked out Condi Rice's speech in Egypt? “For sixty years, my country, the United States, pursued stability at the expense of democracy in this region here in the Middle East, and we achieved neither.” How come she only mentioned the Middle East? Europe While revellers revel in Stonehenge traditions, others bemoan the events at last week's EU summit. On the other hand, speaking like a true economist, we would point to Tony Blair's suggestion that a deal on the budget was possible during his tenure as EU president, and that he was willing to give up Britain's lucrative rebate. In the U.S., we learn that George Bush's popularity is sliding downward (hard to do most evenings around the Wednesday Night table), the Democrats have blocked the vote on John Bolton as U.S. Ambassador, but the fight continues, and at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (PBS), there continues to be unsettling news about the role of the Chair in seeking "balanced" programming. Avid followers of the various trials of CEOs in the U.S. may not realize that Dennis Kozlowski, unlike his peers, faces incarceration in state rather than federal prison and this is a very, very scary prospect. We are fascinated by the recent findings that 'a series of studies ... indicate that people's general approach to social issues ... is influenced by genes'. Would that indicate that no matter how learned, Wednesday Night debates will not bring about any change in the participants' politics? Canada Canadian cities enjoyed a boost from the Mercer Human Resource Consulting 2005 Cost of Living Survey. The survey, which covers 144 cities in six continents, finds that Ottawa is the least expensive Canadian city (ranked 122) ) and Montreal is next (107). Taking into account the rankings in the companion study of the world's top 55 cities offering the best quality of life in which Ottawa ranks 20 (Montreal wasn't ranked - we don't know why), our much derided national capital is looking very good - now if we could just move Parliament somewhere else (why not give Toronto yet another reason to be dissed?). And the segue is Real estate Pundits continue their talk of the real estate bubble (see http://www.wednesday-night.com/realestate.asp

And you've decided to ask in a post which was started 12 years ago?