was a catastrophe, to be sure. Placing holders of unsecured debt in front of those holding secured debt was a victory for lobbyists and a defeat for anybody who thought that lenders bore some responsibility for the risk associated with the extension of credit.

The lack of regulation of home loan products is another well-chronicled cause of the present situation.

The supposed failure of the bailout, though -- excuse me for saying so, but the returns aren't in yet. Yes, the gub'mint is dithering about how to target the cash. And yes, the recipients are dithering about what to do with it. But the situation that had arisen was very real -- stories have abounded of how legitimate borrowers could not raise capital because otherwise willing lenders couldn't lay off their cash position. This is the system by which an economy expands and creates jobs.

Sorry if you don't like it -- I don't like everything about it, either. But to decry government intervention in a liquidity crisis is to fundamentally misunderstand the problem at best, and to play dice with millions of jobs at worst.

...do what you wanna do...

Is a helluva writer for my hometown paper. I didn't know until today that he's the president of the BBWAA, but I'm not surprised to see this happen under his stewardship. The new additions live and breathe baseball (not just stats) -- even moreso than many other members whose duties are split among several sports.

Top three stories:

1. Phelps. His quest for eight gold medals roped in more non-sports fans in my acquaintance than any other story. If the measure of "bigness" is the number of people following the story as it happened, this has to be number one.

2. The Chinese gymnasts. Same rationale, only with greater cultural significance. If someone had broken the story open to the extent that the Chinese government was forced to admit some of the girls were underage, this might have usurped Phelps.

3. Tiger. Different year, new legends, always news.

Under-reported

I'll go with the recent trend of major college football programs appointed open-ended heirs apparent, and how this may represent an end run around the requirement to interview minority candidates for job openings. The old-boy network going proactive.

Don't make trouble for Rahm Emanuel. Ton. Of. Bricks.

They hate him because he beat them. He beat the "get Clinton" cottage industry, the permanently installed special prosecutor, the salivating over sexual peccadilloes, the public "shaming" of the toothless impeachment, all of it.

The collateral damage from their efforts has been massive and enduring, of course. But that's on them.

To paraphrase Roger Ebert, a piece of writing isn't about what it's about, it's about how it's about it. This was joyous, celebratory, and funny. God forbid such attitudes would perish from Salon in the service of such self-serious offense by proxy.

And by that I mean, from what is known about the Obamas, what do you think their reaction to this would be? If you answered anything but "a good laugh", I submit you haven't been paying enough attention to their self-possession.

Here's another paraphrase -- as Rob Halford would say, I'm offended by your offendability.

He was in my Spanish class at UGA many years ago. I only remember him being called on once. I don't remember what he was supposed to say, but he ended up going with something that translated to "I dress myself" ("Yo me visto" as I now discover). Needless to say, we were all very impressed, and it's good to see he's done well for himself.

that the DNC chair is a fund-raising position, it can be said that Dean struggled. But then, the RNC has always had more money.

But the mere fact that Dean was not an insider, a longtime functionary, was a signal that the party as a whole had new energy, and the 50-state strategy has been a PR success. For the first time in memory, it was clear that Dems were taking the fight to the Republicans on a fundamental level. If you truly believe your ideas are better, you will of course fight for them everywhere. Dean has exhibited that kind of commitment.

Obama's very private trip to Hawaii last week cost well over $100,000 and was paid for out of campaign funds.

There's a corollary to the old political maxim of "important if true". It's called "unimportant even if true". If I could have earmarked my most recent $100 contribution to Obama's campaign for him to visit his dying grandmother, I would gladly have done so. I'm sure we can find 999 other small donors who would say the same thing.

I had a similar experience when my old company transitioned from offline accounting software to Oracle. Press TAB, wait 5 seconds, press TAB, wait 5 seconds. Five seconds doesn't seem like much, but it adds up and it's not enough time to work on something else. Infuriating and counter-productive.

I saw it as Betty's attempt to re-enter her relationship with Don on superior footing -- as George Costanza would say, she has so much hand now she's coming out of her gloves. The fact that she was already pregnant removed a serious obstacle.

Yeah, I'm sure you're right that it was Kate Smith. In my defense, I wasn't really paying attention. :)