Quotes of the day

Sadly, much of the history written in the past 14 months had redounded to the salvation of parties who will be tempted to make the same mistake again.--Holman Jenkins

I have seen the motto, "In essentials unity; in nonessentials charity," and I have looked for its incarnation in men and churches without finding it, one reason being that Christians cannot agree on what is and what is not essential. Each one believes that his fragment of truth is essential and his neighbor’s unessential, and that brings us right back where we started. Unity among Christians will not, in my opinion, be achieved short of the Second Advent. There are too many factors working against it. But a greater degree of unity might be realized if we all approached the truth with deeper humility. No one knows everything, not saint nor scholar nor reformer nor theologian. Even Solomon in all his glory must have overlooked something.--A.W. Tozer

We must recognize Israel's achievements under difficult circumstances, even as we strive in a positive way to help Israel continue to improve its relations with its Arab populations, but we must not permit criticisms for improvement to stigmatize Israel. As I would have noted at Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, but which is appropriate at any time of the year, I offer an Al Het (a plea for forgiveness) for any words or deeds of mine that may have done so.--Jimmy Carter

Isn't that nice. Oh, in a not-at-all related story, Jimmy Carter's grandson is running for Congress in a Georgia district that has a significant (at least for Georgia) Jewish population. ... The only thing worse than no apology is a convenient apology. Funny, I didn't think I could like Jimmy Carter less, I guess I was wrong.--Patrick Archbold

Sometimes—like during the economic horror show we have just lived through this past year—I think the point is simply to endure.--Epicurean Dealmaker

Investors who seek triple-A debt are running out of options. Yet another top-rated class of debt is on the hit list now that Standard & Poor’s may downgrade covered bonds — a type of mortgage-backed security popular in Europe. Soon there will be little AAA debt left outside the world of government and quasi-government debt. That’s putting safety-oriented investors in a bind.--AGNES CRANE and UNA GALANI

... we don't like to buy stocks that have already rallied, and we don't like to sell stocks that have already fallen - our instinct is to do the opposite - buy low, sell high. So that's why I mentioned Newton's First Law of Motion to describe the big move in stocks this year. An object in motion tends to stay in motion - like the stock market since the march lows - until an outside force acts on it. I've been thinking that the outside force will be "reality" - the reality that things are not really getting better - that we (As a country) have pretty much spent all the money we have and all the money we borrowed already. The reality that unemployment overrides existing home sales in terms of importance in the economy, and that you can't tax and spend your way back to prosperity. Perhaps the outside force will be the eventual inevitable Federal Reserve interest rate hike needed to remove the massive fiscal stimulus that's been enacted.--Kid Dynamite