Sunday

This really should have been written yesterday. I got hooked on watching the Ryder Cup golf matches all day yesterday and was as unproductive as a person can get on a weekend day. Hardly made it off the couch. And, fortunately, missed most of the Iowa and ND football losses.

Here's a little love to RevKev for his documented ride up Mt. Diablo. Personally, I go into training for a period of months before I try riding the mountains. But I'm old and less bold. (There's that adage that has application here: "You have old riders. And you have bold riders. But you don't have old, bold riders.")

This is a Sunday at SBs. Lousy music. Is eclectic part of their corporate mission statement?

For those into astronomy, we are at (or almost at) the autumnal equinox. I read the Wikipedia definition, and I still don't understand it. I know that it has to do with the position of the sun in relation to the Earth's equator, but the math befuddles me. Technically, I think that its the time that you're supposed to go from the searsucker sports coat to the camel hair or tweed.

This should be an interesting week for the politicians. The Federal bailout of the financial industry will be widely debated among the pundits and sages. Truthfully, it may be years before we know whether the action will be successful, or the costs. The shorts, hedge fund managers, and free market fundamentalists are p...ed off. Wreckless lenders, bankers, borrowers, investors, insurers, and regulators (all of whom except maybe the most naive of the borrowers should have known better) are getting a modified "do-over".

But Washington was caught in the unenviable position of the rock and the hard place. To do nothing would likely have accelerated a strong downturn, and immediate financial losses for most people on Main Street. But the action to step in and call this "time out" flies in the face of the free market. Lots of critics on either side. But while the academicians may want Uncle Sam to stay out of the way, Main Street has more voters, most of whom are crying, "uncle".

Obama will paint this as a Bush-inspired catastrophe. (Shocking!) McPalin will refer to the Clinton's and the Democratic-controlled Congress. (Equally shocking!) This Friday's debate is supposed to be on foreign policy, but I suspect that it will trend toward the economic mess as there are huge implications on the world's economy from the sub-prime black hole.

In much more-upbeat news, the Cubs clinched their division yesterday at Wrigley with a win over the Cards. My suspicion is that there were a few adult beverages consumed in the establishments around Wrigleyville last night. That would have been a good place to be.

Pretty quiet in Boston and IC. What's going on?

More later.

BCOT