GA Russell

The Ticats have signed Kenton Keith. I guess this means that they have given up on Jesse Lumsden, who gets injured far too often for a running back. http://www.globesports.com/servlet/story/R...tsFootball/home

I forgot to mention a few things about the Sask-BC game last night. The Riders are still in first place (tied), but they have now lost four of their last six games. With the onset of autumn, the Saskatchewan winds were kicking up. I love those games played in Regina when its windy! It's not uncommon for kicking records to be set with the wind at your back, and for punts to go straight up in the air and come down at the scrimmage line when you've got the wind in your face. There was a bad call against the Riders which was replayed on the scoreboard. A few fans behind the BC bench started throwing beer cans and coins at the players. Wally Buono briefly took his team away from the bench area. This sort of thing can get ugly quickly if the ushers don't handle the situation immediately. I didn't know there was any ballpark left in North America that allows beverage cans in the stands. http://www.globesports.com/servlet/story/R...lobeSports/home ***** Montreal Alouettes 40....Edmonton Eskimos 4 http://www.globesports.com/servlet/story/R...lobeSports/home http://www.sportsnetwork.com/merge/tsnform...aspx?id=4181065 The Eskimos didn't show up. This may have been the worst performance by any team this year. Ricky Ray was eventually lifted for Jason Maas.

Here you go, paps! http://www.organissimo.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=46561

I haven't paid attention to Australian rules football all season, but I check tonight and see that my favorite team, the Hawthorn Hawks, is going to play in the Grand Final this Saturday against the Geelong Cats! I assume that the game will begin at Friday night 9:00 pm pacific time (12 midnight Saturday morning eastern time), and will be carried at the link cited above. Any thoughts, Kenny? http://www.realfooty.com.au/

Calgary Stampeders 34....Toronto Argonauts 4 http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/sto...ory/GlobeSports http://www.sportsnetwork.com/merge/tsnform...aspx?id=4180891 http://slam.canoe.ca/Slam/Football/CFL/Gam...6827331-cp.html Pretty grim. I listened to the Argos broadcast of the game, and the announcers commented on the idea that the first place Als are now the fifth best team in the league. I attended my first CFL game in 1976, and I believe that the Western Division has been superior to the Eastern every year since then. The Stamps are in good shape. They are now tied for first with the Riders, and they have coming up two games against the Ticats and one more against the Argos. The Stamps were my pre-season pick to win the Grey Cup, but of course pre-season analyses aren't worth too much in the CFL, the way things change so much over the course of the year. For example, I liked them because of their QB tandem of Burris and Dickenson. Well, that's over! ***** British Columbia Lions 27....Saskatchewan Roughriders 21 http://www.globesports.com/servlet/story/R...tsFootball/home Great game, but with a huge number of turnovers. Michael Bishop was pulled late in the first quarter in favor of Darian Durant, who is now back from his rib injury. Paul McCallum kicked six field goals, one short of the team record set twice by Lui Passaglia. This time out, the Riders lost centre Jeremy O'Day to an MCL injury. That gives them 21 serious injuries, the same number as the points they scored tonight. ***** If the Eskimos win Sunday, they will move into a tie for first place with the Riders and the Stampeders.

Winnipeg Blue Bombers 25....Hamilton Tiger-Cats 23 http://www.sportsnetwork.com/merge/tsnform...aspx?id=4180680 http://www.globesports.com/servlet/story/R...lobeSports/home The Ticats would have tied it with less than a minute to go with a short field goal, and they blew it with a bad snap from centre. The Ticats have now lost 10 games this season. A team can make the playoffs at 8-10, but I would say never at 7-11 since the crossover began. So one more loss for the Ticats and that will be it. ***** Doug Flutie, Pinball Clemons, Mike Pringle et al. are being inducted into the Hall of Fame this weekend. http://64.246.64.33/merge/tsnform.aspx?c=s...aspx?id=4180771 http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/sto...ory/GlobeSports http://slam.canoe.ca/Slam/Football/CFL/New...6820526-cp.html

Amen. No, it's not BS. The government definitely did. I just don't think that it played a significant role in what was ultimately, for a while, an extremely profitable industry. Guy Why not BS? I'd really like to know. Chuck, Jim and Bruce, I read on Digg late last night that Larry Kudlow made the same point I was making about this govt coercion on CNBC's Morning Joe Show yesterday. As I see it, this was simply a case of a politican (Clinton) paying back a constituency without whose help he wouldn't have been elected (the blacks). As far as I know, this has been going on since the days of Andrew Jackson. I see it as politics as usual rather than some sinister racial deal. I suspect, though, that the problem in this case was that not only were the blacks able to take advantage of the new easier credit standards, but also speculators and house flippers; thereby significantly increasing the number of people who obtained loans who shouldn't have. I see another factor that I haven't heard any of the talking heads talk about, but one which I have been railing about for two decades. A huge number of Americans were looking at their homes as an investment. And with the consistent increase in real estate values since ca. 1945, people came to see the investment as one that couldn't lose. So they would agree to any price. I have heard commentators this week say that people bought "too much house" as if they were being extravagant. In fact, I think that the value of modest homes has been far too high. As I see it, a home is a consumer good, not an investment. And anybody who thinks that an investment is a can't-lose proposition is a fool.

Fred Williams Week 13 preview http://www.sportsnetwork.com/merge/tsnform...aspx?id=4180515

Ron "The Little General" Lancaster has died. The first CFL game I attended was in Hamilton in August of 1976, with the Ticats hosting the Roughriders. Lancaster was the Riders' quarterback. He went on to win the Schenley Award that year, as well as lead the Riders to the Grey Cup game and a last minute loss to the Rough Riders (the last Grey Cup Ottawa has won). I had the pleasure of meeting him, I think it was at the 1984 Hall of Fame induction game in Hamilton, when Jake Gaudaur, Terry Evanshen and Joe Kapp were inducted. Real nice guy. As I recall, he was analyzing the CBC games with Leo Cahill at that time. I saw those telecasts at sports bars on occassion, and really enjoyed them. As a coach, he was one of the biggest surprises ever for me. He coached the Riders to two terrible last place finishes and was fired. I figured that was the end of his coaching career. But about fifteen years later, I was surprised that his old friend and pass receiver Hugh Campbell hired him to coach the Eskimos, and he led them to a Grey Cup win. He then moved on to Hamilton and led the Ticats to a Grey Cup win. He was one of the greatest personas in the history of the Canadian league, and I'm sure that everyone will miss him. RIP http://www.sportsnetwork.com/merge/tsnform...aspx?id=4180380 http://www.globesports.com/servlet/story/R...lobeSports/home http://slam.canoe.ca/Slam/Football/CFL/Ham...6804261-cp.html

Here is a link to a page with links to videos of Whitfield's greatest hits: http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-...0,4963677.story

Here's a speech Ron Paul gave on the floor of the US Congress July 16, 2002, six years ago, warning about the housing bubble, taxpayers bailing out investors and government interference in the marketplace. http://www.house.gov/paul/congrec/congrec2002/cr071602.htm Congressman Ron Paul U.S. House of Representatives July 16, 2002 Mr. Speaker, I rise to introduce the Free Housing Market Enhancement Act. This legislation restores a free market in housing by repealing special privileges for housing-related government sponsored enterprises (GSEs). These entities are the Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie), the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (Freddie), and the National Home Loan Bank Board (HLBB). According to the Congressional Budget Office, the housing-related GSEs received $13.6 billion worth of indirect federal subsidies in fiscal year 2000 alone. One of the major government privileges granted these GSEs is a line of credit to the United States Treasury. According to some estimates, the line of credit may be worth over $2 billion. This explicit promise by the Treasury to bail out these GSEs in times of economic difficulty helps them attract investors who are willing to settle for lower yields than they would demand in the absence of the subsidy. Thus, the line of credit distorts the allocation of capital. More importantly, the line of credit is a promise on behalf of the government to engage in a massive unconstitutional and immoral income transfer from working Americans to holders of GSE debt. The Free Housing Market Enhancement Act also repeals the explicit grant of legal authority given to the Federal Reserve to purchase the debt of housing-related GSEs. GSEs are the only institutions besides the United States Treasury granted explicit statutory authority to monetize their debt through the Federal Reserve. This provision gives the GSEs a source of liquidity unavailable to their competitors. Ironically, by transferring the risk of a widespread mortgage default, the government increases the likelihood of a painful crash in the housing market. This is because the special privileges of Fannie, Freddie, and HLBB have distorted the housing market by allowing them to attract capital they could not attract under pure market conditions. As a result, capital is diverted from its most productive use into housing. This reduces the efficacy of the entire market and thus reduces the standard of living of all Americans. However, despite the long-term damage to the economy inflicted by the government’s interference in the housing market, the government’s policies of diverting capital to other uses creates a short-term boom in housing. Like all artificially-created bubbles, the boom in housing prices cannot last forever. When housing prices fall, homeowners will experience difficulty as their equity is wiped out. Furthermore, the holders of the mortgage debt will also have a loss. These losses will be greater than they would have otherwise been had government policy not actively encouraged over-investment in housing. Perhaps the Federal Reserve can stave off the day of reckoning by purchasing GSE debt and pumping liquidity into the housing postponing the necessary market, but this cannot hold off the inevitable drop in the housing market forever. In fact, but painful market corrections will only deepen the inevitable fall. The more people invested in the market, the greater the effects across the economy when the bubble bursts. No less an authority than Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan has expressed concern that government subsidies provided to the GSEs make investors underestimate the risk of investing in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Mr. Speaker, it is time for Congress to act to remove taxpayer support from the housing GSEs before the bubble bursts and taxpayers are once again forced to bail out investors misled by foolish government interference in the market. I therefore hope my colleagues will stand up for American taxpayers and investors by cosponsoring the Free Housing Market Enhancement Act.

Carla Bley and her remarkable Big Band (sic) has a new album out called Appearing Nightly. It was recorded at concerts in Paris July 17 and 18, 2006. This is my third Carla Bey album. It reminds me somewhat of the first I got called Carla Bley Live! which was also a big band date recorded in concert in August of 1981. In fact, I recognize here a few chords which she used on the song Real Life Hits on that album. There are 5 songs, four of which were written by her. The set ends with I Hadn't Anyone Till You. The title track (Appearing Nightly at the Black Orchid) is 25 minutes long and is made up of four parts. The album features Gary Valentine on trombone, Lew Soloff on trumpet, Andy Sheppard on tenor sax and Wolfgang Puschnig on alto sax. Bley is on piano, Karen Mantler is on organ, Steve Swallow is on bass and Billy Drummond is on drums. The orchestra includes nine other musicians whom I am unfamiliar with, all apparently Europeans. I like this album. The band swings more than the 1981 band did, but not as much as a band famous for swinging does, like, say, Count Basie's. I think that it is the quality of the musicians that makes the album. Bley's arrangements are interesting, but her melodies not so much. I think the best track is the one standard. I get three or four big band albums a year, and I am glad that this is one of them. It's both interesting and fun.

Yes, Tom, that is the point I was making in post #23. People were assigning values to their assets which were not backed up by the facts.

So Greenspan holding interest rates way down year after year after year had absolutely NOTHING to do with it? Bruce, I'm always happy to blame the Fed for inflation and whatever else can be pinned on it, but I don't think that low interest rates are the cause of this problem. I think that low interest rates are good. Let's consider the sub-prime mortgages. Let's say that a low-income family is convinced that it would like to buy a home, and the govt is pressuring the banks to make loans to such a family. Let's say that the family is paying $1,000 in rent, and believes that it can afford a $1,200 mortgage payment. The bank is not as particular about whom it lends its money to as it used to be, so it agrees to make the loan. The family is concerned about the $1,200 a month payment. It isn't concerned about the price of the house. With interest rates at 5%, the price of the house is going to be higher than it would be at 10%, because the family is only going to agree to pay $1,200 regardless of what the interest rates are. The real estate developers and those wishing to sell their homes like to see a higher price for obvious reasons, but the low-income buyer doesn't care. He cares only about the monthly payment. So then the husband loses his job, and they cannot meet the $1,200 payment on only the wife's salary. So they default on the mortgage loan. They return to a $1,000. apartment. It seems to me that that is the nature of subprime loans. They are risky and shouldn't have been made in the first place. I don't see that to be the fault of Alan Greenspan's low interest rates.

I got a copy in the mail Saturday, but haven't had a chance to listen yet. I'll give it a spin sometime in the next week, and let you know what I think.

I think you're being silly by suggesting that the solution to the crisis is to turn to the Libertarians, the one group who would remove any and all regulation immediately. This problem was brought upon us in large part due to the wonderful Republican "free enterprise solution" of removing "unnecessary" regulation. Now that this has been discredited, I don't think you'll convince many (other than Berigan) that we should carry this approach even farther... Moose, let me make a couple of points regarding the bipartisan nature of the problem and the Libertarian view. 1) My understanding is that this this sub-prime lending mess was started by Bill Clinton. For political (not economic) reasons, his administration pressured the banks to lend money to the poor (read "blacks"), with the threat of penalties if they didn't. This continued under the Bush administration. The banks would not have made the loans in the first place if they had not been pressured to by the government. 2) The Libertarians oppose such government pressure regarding telling the banks how to do business. 3) The Libertarians oppose all govt/taxpayer bailouts of private corporations. 4) Think in terms of a business cycle. The Libertarians believe that if the market is allowed to do what it thinks is best, of course mistakes ("malinvestments") will be made. But without govt intervention, they will be soon corrected, and the cycle will be mild. Each time the govt intervenes, the correction is postponed and the malinvestments will continue, which will make the cycle more exaggerated, and the eventual resolution more painful. 5) In this case of the past sixteen years, there has been a great deal of corruption by both the bankers and the Congress. I don't believe that any theory will work well if all the parties involved are crooked. For example, I learned yesterday that Dem party hack Jamie Gorelick (I imagine that googling her will reveal what you may not know about her, such as her prohibitiing the 9/11 Commission from doing its job properly) has been with Fannie Mae since Clinton left office, and in that time she has been paid $26 million! There was another fellow from the Clinton budget office who has also been with Fannie Mae who has been paid a similar amount. I learned today that the Obama campaign has received $560,000 cash from Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Lehman Bros alone! This doesn't pass the smell test. I think the problem is clearly bipartisan. 6) One final point about the Libertarians. They are in favor of the free market theory, not capitalism per se. What we have here is the so-called "socialism for the rich, capitalism for the poor", where the poor have to pay for their mistakes, but the rich get tax-funded bailouts. Clearly the Libertarians are opposed to this. edit for typo

It looks like AIG is in a race with WaMu. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=206...refer=worldwide WaMu Rating Lowered to Junk by S&P on Mortgage Losses (Update4) By Ari Levy Sept. 15 (Bloomberg) --Washington Mutual, the biggest U.S. savings and loan, had its credit rating cut to junk by Standard & Poor's because of the deteriorating housing market. S&P reduced its rating on Seattle-based WaMu to BB- from BBB-, leaving it three levels below investment grade, the ratings firm said today in a statement. ``Increasing market turmoil and the related impact from managing its concentrated mortgage franchise in this troubled housing and credit cycle led to the downgrade,'' S&P wrote. S&P cut its rating on the subsidiary bank to BBB- from BBB. S&P followed similar announcements last week from Moody's Investors Service and Fitch Ratings. WaMu, which has reported $6.3 billion of losses in the last three quarters because of soured mortgages, said on Sept. 11 that it expects a third- quarter loan loss provision of $4.5 billion.....

Here's a C-Span video from a year ago in which Ron Paul on the floor of the US Congress predicts what is happening today if the government doesn't get its spending under control.

http://money.cnn.com/2008/09/15/news/compa...index.htm?t=new September 15, 2008: 8:16 PM EDT NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The pressure on troubled insurer American International Group intensified Monday night as a credit rating agency downgraded the firm. Another cut could prove very costly to AIG, which is scrambling to raise much-needed capital. Fitch Rating downgraded AIG to A, from AA-, saying the company's ability to raise cash is "extremely limited" because of its plummeting stock price, widening yields on its debt, and difficult capital market conditions. The company could be required to post $10.5 billion of additional collateral if it is downgraded one notch by one of the other major rating agencies and $13.3 billion of collateral if downgraded by both, Fitch said in a statement, citing AIG's July 31 estimates. Standard & Poor's late Friday warned it might downgrade AIG, placing the company on CreditWatch negative. Hoping to avoid such downgrades, state and federal officials raced Monday to help the insurer gain access to much needed cash. Credit downgrades could doom its business...

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/09/14/bus...isis.php?page=1

Don Matthews has benched Kerry Joseph!!!! He'll be replaced by Cody Pickett (who?). Everybody knew that Matthews would make some changes, but who would have expected this? The Argos also signed Tim Strickland today. I had thought that his career was over. Maybe after this week it will be. http://slam.canoe.ca/Slam/Football/CFL/Tor...6772326-cp.html

A number of radio shows crossed over to TV in the early 50s, many with the radio cast. IMO the best were Dragnet and The Jack Benny Show. Through 1955, many of these shows ran on both radio and TV. The most famously disappointed radio cast was Gunsmoke's (William Conrad, Parley Baer, the guy who played Floyd the Barber, and Georgia Ellis). They all felt really bad that new actors were chosen for the TV series. In addition, the director of the radio Gunsmoke was not chosen to direct the TV show. I forget his name, something like Norman Connall. If I recall the years correctly, Have Gun Will Travel was a big hit on TV its first year, the 1958-59 season. It was decided to add it to radio for the next season, starring my favorite actor John Dehner, and directed by the guy who directed the Gunsmoke radio shows. It was the only show to move from TV to radio of that era. Decades later they made a radio series of The Twilight Zone. I have the entire set of radio shows. It was on for two years. The first year they used the TV scripts from the TV's first season, written by Gene Roddenberry and others. Honestly, they weren't very good. But the second year, they used their own scripts, written for the radio show, often by a woman named Ann Dowd. They were outstanding! The radio director was very proud of the fact that they were able to create shows that were superior to the TV shows. He felt that this proved that he should have gotten the Gunsmoke TV job. The second year of the radio Have Gun is my all-time favorite radio show. My second favorite is the western John Dehner did immediately before that called Frontier Gentleman. A couple of years ago I picked up at Best Buy the DVD set of the first TV season of Have Gun. I should have known that the scripts would seem just as mediocre on TV as they were on radio. The set was a real disappointment. After hearing Year #2 of the radio show, it's a mystery to me why the TV show was so popular when it hit the scene. (By the way, I remember my dad's aunt excusing herself to retire to her bedroom to listen to Gunsmoke and Have Gun Will Travel on the radio in 1960. That got me started on listening to radio shows. I was fortunate enough to listen each week to the last year, 1960-61, the radio Gunsmoke was broadcast.)

I think you people are being silly by treating this as a Repub/Dem partisan issue. The corruption on Wall Street and their bought and paid for politicians of both parties has been obvious for over a decade. The Libertarians/Misesians have been predicting this would happen since the 60s, at least. Ron Paul this spring even based his presidential campaign on the corruption of the Federal Reserve Board. And every media organization I am aware of treated him like a quack. That's nothing new - the only response the Libertarians/Misesians have ever received for their warnings has been derision. I think this meltdown is as good a reason as any to vote third party across the board this November. Let the liberals vote for the Green Party, and the conservatives vote for the Constitution and Libertarian Parties. What a change in Congress we would see then!

Happy Birthday gs!

Happy Birthday Dan!