Face The Music

Heartfelt
Although Mr. Corzine had been a United States senator, governor of New Jersey, co-head of Goldman Sachs and a confidant of leaders in Washington and Wall Street, he was at heart a trader, willing to gamble for a rich payoff. (NYT, 12/11/2011)


Clarification that we will not see: 
In an earlier edition, the New York Times failed to note Corzine's political affiliation. He is a Democrat. We also failed to note that Goldman Sach's made the largest political contribution to President Obama's 2008 campaign from a private company. 


Faithful
In the case of Mr. Tebow, what seems to fuel many of his fans—and to drive many of his critics crazy—is not so much his evangelical faith itself but the equanimity and generosity that his faith inspires in him. Can he really mean it when he says that football isn't that important to him, that he cares more about transcendent things? (WSJ, 12/10/2011)


Here's a question for you: How would Tebow's critics react if he was a Muslim and stopped to pray several times each game? Not sure, but we suspect these same critics would be enormously supportive!


Dependency
But the Persian Gulf represents 16% of our imports, and Venezuela 9%. By far the largest, and growing, source of imports is Canada, which supplies about 25%; Mexico is second, at 11%. 


The main reason for Canada's large role is the expansion of output from its oil sands. Canada's oil sands now yield more output than Libya's total exports prior to its civil war. Current plans could double production to three million barrels per day by the beginning of the next decade. That would mean a higher share of our imports coming from our friendly neighbor and largest trading partner. 


But how much more oil the U.S. imports from Canada will depend upon whether sufficient transportation exists. And in response to the State Department's postponement of the decision on the Keystone XL pipeline last month, the Canadian government has indicated that it cannot be wholly dependent on the vagaries of U.S. politics. (Daniel Yergin, WSJ, 12/12/2011)


Nowhere is Liberal hypocrisy more evident than in the XL pipeline issue. They vehemently oppose a project that would make the U.S. LESS dependent on unfriendly countries and that would create MORE U.S. jobs.


Universal
The Durban pit-stop in the endless array of climate summits has just ended, and predictably it reaffirmed the United Nations' strong belief that the most important response to global warming is to secure a strong deal to cut carbon emissions. What is almost universally ignored, however, is that if we want to help real people overcome real problems we need to focus first on adaptation. (Bjorn Lomborg, WSJ, 12/12/2011)


Good article by Lomborg. Whether or not you believe that man is causing global warming, if you believe that it is happening the most important thing is to ADAPT TO IT. This is what prehistoric man did: "Getting colder and fewer mastodons to hunt? Well, we better move....."