You're going to get more out of McCain Obama, than this one King. Both teams coming off tough division matchups, they may hang flags on their belts. Out of division, out of conference, out of mind.

But I want to take real exception with what Edge James said, "AZ didn't beat nobody". He doesn't play on "THAT" side of the ball, that he knows what he's talking about. AZ has a shutemdown defense, or do you think Kurt Warner is the real deal?

Niners came back and upset Seattle, you are hunchy about Miami, so am I.

I once bought (several) rounds of drinks, and put down my credit card to cover the party. That was 1980, and I'm still trying to pay off that bill.

If I had any idea I could get it all back this week I might use New Orleans, only because Denver proved last year they can't put two together, and that was an emotional contest last week. A game they really lost. LT ran for 12 yards, talk about not playing anybody.

THe Fed was created because they didn't like JP Morgan setting interest rates. Now who sets them?

Scientists do not work in a vacuum, and are probably not much different than celebrity news anchors, who constantly slant the news without being aware they are doing it. Of course there are real pressures on research Scientists, where does the University gets most of its money? Beside that there is a subtle pressure on people who issue the news to avoid shouting fire in a movie theatre. Of course it benefits the major Pharmaceutical companies if the connection between vaccines and autism isn't proved for a few more years.

Look at the financial markets, who was telling you things were collapsing, certainly none of the expert academics, including the Fed Reserve Chief, Ben Bernanke. The truth is a difficult mistress to serve. Science and truth parted ways many years ago.

So do you believe me or your lieing eyes? I listened to one of the heads of a major pharmaceutical company tout a cure for Diabetes, which he predicts will affect 1/3 of all Americans in another generation. Why? (Round up the usual suspects, diet, exercise, and now plastic bottles). Can we trust science, hardly. Can we trust corporate America? When we tried to stop cigarettes they went overseas, and China has more to worry about that milk. The corporations always deny they are selling the things, in this case vaccines with mercury, but exactly where are all those old stocks, have they been recalled?

A book review a few years ago in the UCSD alumni magazine set off a similar debate. The author is a long time researcher, and she repeats the mantra, that scientific evidence does not support a direct relationship between autism and mercury in vaccines. (I would point out there is no direct relationship between cigarette smoking and cancer, only a strong correlation). She also repeated some of the older theories about autism, that it has psychological causes. One PHD added in a letter, that the trauma of being vaccinated may well do the psychological damage to the bond between mother and child. Are hostile parents responsible for the child's autism? Possibly

I no longer have the article, Offit may have been mentioned. The pachydrm like speed with which science proceeds to its conclusions grows ever more difficult to endure, in a world in which change evolves nearly instantly. How do they get the right flu vaccine? (Sometimes they don't)

When the public awareness of the health risk in cigarettes was first proposed, there was no ready link between the two. Yet the campaign of guilt by association caused many people to quit smoking. It took a number of years before the death rate from lung cancer improved. We all knew it was bad for us. The campaign to raise awareness of the risks in early vaccine programs, and mercury poisoning in children is still forming, but as a program of social instruction, we get the message already. We are all supposedly half rational beings, as one other article today suggests, but doesn't that serve us well in many cases?

Did you ever see someone light a smoke, and say, well those guys still can't prove this causes cancer? I'm waiting for the final study. Somehow the social message forms, we get it, and science comes along later and sweeps up.

Steve Forbes weighed in on TV this AM, and his opinion is shared by some, who think Paulson is a tough negotiator, who might turn the government bailout, into a profitable program. The first obstacle is repealing the streets current insistence on mark to market pricing of these mortgages. The paper is worth a lot more than the street is willing to pay for it. ( I tend to agree with that, as a point of reference think of the mortgages as collateral, and the banks as the servicing agency.)

The original bill Congress submitted, some 700 pages, was laden with pork. Pay As You Go, morphed into Rip Off As You Go. The shameful Republicans have been replaced by the shameless Democrats. Only the GOP minority in Congress, and the usual right wing noise makers are against this thing, which should tell the American people something.

Clearly this sort of power amount to Executive Privilege for Cabinet members, which is not possible. On the other hand let this thing descend into committee rule and we may never see the other end. The plan right now is to hire some experts. Well there are bound to be a few who are politically acceptable. Stay tuned.

Colonel "Bat" Guano: I think you're some kind of deviated prevert. I think General Ripper found out about your preversion, and that you were organizing some kind of mutiny of preverts. Now MOVE!

I love those Strangelove quotes.