BUSINESS
Dubai in deep water as ripples from debt crisis spread
From The [London] Times
November 27, 2009
Fears of a dangerous new phase in the economic crisis swept around the globe yesterday as traders responded to the shock announcement that a debt-laden Dubai state corporation was unable to meet its interest bill.
Shares plunged, weak currencies were battered and more than £14 billion was wiped from the value of British banks on fears that they would be left nursing new losses.
Nervous traders transferred the focus of their anxieties from the risk of companies failing to the risk of nation states defaulting. Investors owed money by Mexico, Russia and Greece saw the price of insuring themselves against default rocket.
Although the scale of Dubai’s debts is comparatively modest at $80 billion (£48 billion), the uncertainty spooked the markets, with no one sure who its creditors are. Several banks rushed out statements to reassure investors that their exposure was small.
SCIENCE
Climategate: five Aussie MPs lead the way by resigning in disgust over carbon tax
From The [London] Daily Telegraph
November 26th, 2009
By James Delingpole
Australia is leading the revolt
against Al Gore’s great big AGW conspiracy – just as the Aussie geologist and AGW sceptic Professor Ian Plimer predicted it would.
ABC news reports that five frontbenchers from Australia’s opposition Liberal party have resigned their portfolios rather than follow their leader Malcolm Turnbull in voting with Kevin Rudd’s Government on a new Emissions Trading Scheme.
The Liberal Party is in turmoil with the resignations of five frontbenchers from their portfolios this afternoon in protest against the emissions trading scheme.
Tony Abbott, Sophie Mirabella, Tony Smith and Senators Nick Minchin and Eric Abetz have all quit their portfolios because they cannot vote for the legislation.
Senate whip Stephen Parry has also relinquished his position.
The ETS is Australia’s version of America’s proposed Cap and Trade and the EU’s various carbon reduction schemes: a way of taxing business on its CO2 output. As Professor Plimer pointed out when I interviewed him in the summer, this threatens to cause enormous economic damage in Australia’s industrial and mining heartlands, not least because both are massively dependent on Australia’s vast reserves of coal. It is correspondingly extremely unpopular with Aussie’s outside the pinko, libtard metropolitan fleshpots.
SPORTS
No. 3 Texas wins a wild one, 49-39 over Texas A&M
By CHRIS DUNCAN, AP Sports Writer
Fri Nov 27, 12:38 am ET
COLLEGE STATION, Texas – Colt McCoy threw four touchdown passes and dashed 65 yards for another score, and No. 3 Texas overcame a huge game by Texas A&M quarterback Jerrod Johnson to wrap up an undefeated regular season with a 49-39 win over the Aggies on Thursday night.
In a splendid all-around performance that could boost his Heisman Trophy chances, McCoy racked up 479 yards of total offense for the Longhorns (12-0, 8-0 Big 12), who have only next week’s conference championship game against Nebraska standing between them and the BCS title game.
“We were fortunate to come out on top,” McCoy said. “I’m so thankful to get a win.”
For a while, it seemed as though Johnson would rally the Aggies (6-6, 3-5) to a gigantic upset, shattering McCoy’s Heisman hopes and opening the door for TCU and Cincinnati to vault into the national championship picture.
Jeff Fuller caught three touchdown passes from Johnson, the last with 7:10 left to cut Texas’ lead to 42-39. But Marquise Goodwin returned the ensuing kickoff 95 yards for a touchdown, and the Longhorns could finally breathe easy after A&M’s Randy Bullock missed a 23-yard field goal try with 3:05 remaining.
“It was tough. We expected that coming in,” McCoy said.
Meanwhile, Alabama needed a
clutch fourth-quarter drive to escape Iron Bowl LXXIV with a 26-21 win Friday. Crimson Tide tailback Mark Ingram’s Heisman Trophy chances probably got ground into grass stains sometime before he limped off in the fourth quarter with a hip pointer, but that didn’t matter, because a program with a pile of national titles and no Heisman Trophy winners has its eyes on an entirely different prize.
Maybe next year they’ll rechristen it the Profanity Bowl, because no game so far this season has inspired more swearing. Saban, interviewed while heading into the half tied 14-14, told Alabama’s radio network listeners that the Tide knew they would have to “survive a [you-know-what] storm.”
The folks inside the hollowed-out volcano that serves as BCS headquarters probably swore up their own [you-know-what] storm at about 3 p.m. Friday when Auburn used enough trick plays to fill an entire Boise State coaches’ clinic to take a 14-0 lead.
COMICS
