OF COURSE THEY DID NOT

STILL COLD

MILES OF TANKER CARS SITTING ALONG HWY 63 IN AUGUST OF 2013.
THEY AREN'T SITTING THERE NOW

Wednesday, 8:00 AM.  1 degree F, wind NE, light with stronger gusts.  The sky is partly cloudy, the humidity 74% and the barometer is rising, now at 30.11".  It is still cold but it will be tolerable if the wind doesn't pick up.
   The President of course did what he has threatened to do all along, he vetoed the XL Energy pipeline.  It is probably a dead issue as long as he and his coterie remain in office.  How awful...and how predictable.  It really defies any kind of economic or environmental logic.  But logic is not the point at all.  The point is political correctness.
   After the years of study and delay, the practical result of the veto is probably nil, as a spiderweb of other pipelines has gradually grown over those years that in effect handle much of the oil flow, and the balance is transported by new tanker cars and rail routes. Whether Canada now sends its crude to its own west coast via a new pipeline, refines it and sends it to Asia remains an unanswered question.
   Rail transportation of oil is far more dangerous than by pipeline, as is the cost, but oil is still going to get to the refineries and the marketplace, one way or the other (see Almanac post of August 28, 2013).
   One could hope that the President and the Democrats would yield to logic (to say nothing of job creation and patriotism) in the case of the pipeline,  but of course they did not.