With a third war against a Muslim country now started albeit with a modicum of support from other Muslim countries that has no obvious endgame, oil pressing through $100 a barrel, and Japan’s week long catastrophe raising all sorts of questions about the impact on the global economy, commodity producing countries are increasingly in the market’s crosshairs.

Time to start thinking about exiting the Canadian dollar (and other commodity currencies like the Australian dollar) at these parity levels and getting exposure to the US dollar.

In 1906 a pygmy from the Congo, Ota Benga, was put in a cage in the Bronx Zoo with monkeys in an exhibit about evolution that from all accounts seemed pretty normal at the time.

How come today we seem to care what happens to people rebelling against autocratic leaders, in Libya, Tunisa, and other far away places?

One argument is that globalisation, the bane of many on the left, expands what one historian called the 'moral circle'.

When we trade with each other, we end up caring as well, as uneven as that process may be.

Snipe and Reeds in Stream

New York Times -- The Age of Possibility  

Vox -- African Poverty: Falling Faster ... Than You Think   

The difference between the big leagues and all the other leagues is that in the bigs the only expectation is excellence, there is no other standard. Excellence is a state of mind. Error is hated. There are no excuses. You own the outcome. Anything less than excellence is not acceptable. You know the line in the song, 'If I can make it there, (New York) I'll make it anywhere'.