If San Diego wins in Pittsburgh, is your 'subsequent' pick San Diego over Carolina? SD would get Baltimore at home, assume they win - Carolina won in San Diego on the last play of the game, week one. One thing about NON-BCS football is that despite the open playoff system, the television audience usually gets a matchup with story value, since we don't have seven games to squeeze out of the series, like the NBA.

The story matchups win their share. What were the odds that Denver would lose the last two, and San Diego win, to set up a final game for the division title?

However the best story Superbowl matchup would be San Diego and New York, Eli Manning had a chance to be a Charger. The Mannings and San Diego are the story, (see the commercial with Peyton in SD fending off snitty hotel employees).

Anyway Eli dissed the Spanos pretty badly, as their draft pick, and Rivers is sure to say something about it, both on and off the field.

I can't think of better story game out there.

No mention of the writers who called this thing in the first place. Writers like Doug Noland at Prudent Bear, and Bob Prechter, at Elliottwave deserve our attention. I don't really care what the mainstream media is telling me about Fannie and Freddie, I can get my arms around that problem.

Financial journalism is as sorry as media reporting in general. Fannie and Freddie were the toxic waste dump, they were not the loan originating institution. My neighbor bought Fannie stock years ago, thinking the government would back the shares. So much for the homily about socializing risk, and privatizing profits.

The real news is how the government treated shareholders, mortgage holders, and tax payers, in very arbitrary, and capricious ways. What I suggest to those who ask, is that this was one more gigantic mistake, in a mistake prone administration, which is also corrupt and fraud ridden, the second reason rising out of the first cause.

The economic crisis was a fraud. That said the effects of their largesse are very real. The credit bubble is real, and the Fed has mistakenly adopted the mantra of supporting the reflation of the credit bubble, while rising interest rates would stimulate the economy to a far greater degree.

In the short run lower Consumer lending rates will help the economy, GSE status for one or more Credit Card companies, that should be the big story of 2009. Either way the spread between Fed rates and MasterCard lending rates needs to narrow.

didn't Houston beat Tennessee? and didn't the Colts beat Tennessee? and didn't the Colts beat Houston twice? and didn't the Colts beat the Steelers? and didn't the Steelers beat the Ravens? twice, and didn't the Giants and the Eagles both beat the Steelers. And didn't the Chargers beat the Colts? So maybe the Chargers deserve a better seed, is what I am saying, instead of what they have.

So maybe the NFL needs the BCS system?

Was it Madden who called this matchup a divisional rivalry? These teams know each other pretty well. Colts won the game in San Diego earlier this year. If it comes down to a field goal the edge goes to Vinateri, but wait, didn't Naeding just kick a 57 yarder?

That gives the Chargers some hope, but Naeding seldom drives the kickoff into the end zone, and the Colts have a decent return game. Watch how many times the Colts start a series outside the 30 or the 40 yard line. You simply cannot give Manning that kind of field position.

Next year the Bolts need a kickoff specialist. This game will a lot closer than it needs to be. Forecast for rain. That might actually favor the Chargers passing game, they have (3) viable TE's.

Colts D did not gell late this year.

Norv may have a few faults, but unlike Marty S, his playbook won't be on the third iteration. Chargers may have a few surprises.

And being a one point home dog, thats your motivational speech. Bolts by 7.

it's a eight point spread, whew, and LT's Horned Frogs won their bowl game. And Jay Cutler looked like an extra from My Private Idaho in his last interview. Can he handle the taunts? Checking ticket stubs in their bus station backfield.

Of course Norv might spot em a quarter, or even the first half. If the Broncos score two special teams touchdowns they can cover that number.

In the first place it will take years for these projects to be implemented, and in many cases there is no room to expand highways and bridges because the land along the right of ways is now heavily populated, and property values are still relatively high. The real problem is getting consumers going, and that will require lower consumer lending rates, and lower small business lending rates, not just lower interbank lending rates.

Like a lot of the bailout money, none of it is real, the money isn't real, it has to be pulled out of thin air in the first place. At this point these promises mean nothing and they are being bandied about as though they will have some immediate effect. The most likely immediate effect will be to the states who divert these funds to their own general fund, to keep their bureaucracies going. Years from now people will ask, what happened to that money. Quien Sabe?

Sarah Palin did it, now all sorts of glamourous candidates with style, a catchy theme, and some zingy one liners to go with their eye liner, will run. What is Mrs. Al Franken doing?