Cubbie woes

Somebody put the whoa on the Chicago Cub baseball team. Down two games to none in a best of five series and going to the other guys' home. Jeesh...

Trying to find out the why of the credit crisis

Good article on the why of the banking crisis from the NYTimes here. In short: too much trust and too little verification. And guess who was heading one of the big investment firms asking the SEC for more latitude and less oversight? Current Secretary of the Tresury, Henry Paulson. That's the guy who wanted Congress to give him $700 billion to do with what he liked. Holy Cow...

Bailout aftershock

Well, I guess it really can't be an aftershock since we haven't had a bailout yet. More accurate would be a financial collapse aftershock. This from Kevin Drum:

UPDATE: And then there's this:

"A lot of those people will have to sell their homes, they're going to cut back on the private jets and the vacations. They may even have to take their kids out of private school," said [Robert] Frank. "It's a total reworking of their lifestyle."

...."It's going to be very hard psychologically for these people," Frank said. "I talked to one guy who had to give up his private jet recently. And he said of all the trials in his life, giving that up was the hardest thing he's ever done."

Anybody got a tissue? I think I may start crying.

He talks earlier in the blog of a growing number of people against the bailout and suggestions that would shore up the ailing world of finance without actually taking over a bunch of bad loans. Like, for instance, buying shares in the affected corporations. Interesting times we live in...

Earthquake and us

Our very own earthquake. Diane and I both woke to the bump and thud of something falling somewhere in the house and then just lay there and felt the rumble and the shake and the earth moving all around us. Diane said she was going to wait for the aftershock - guess I went back to sleep. They say it only lasted about 5 seconds but you know you can't believe everything you read or hear; for Diane and me it went on for at least a minute or two, maybe even more depending on whether you're on fast time or slow time.

Sex in High Places Sweeps Other News Off the Front Page

Are we surprised? No. Are we shocked? No. Are we learning anything new? Well, as a matter of fact, yes. 10k/night. Wow. But that's just hearsay. Are we appreciative of the break from the usual news stories? Be honest now. Okay, gotta admit that I for one am. Hillary and Barack and John (and what ever happened to George?) have been getting all the headlines recently. Time for a change. Sorry it had to be you, Elliott.

Here's Matt Cooper's early take on the affair (but it really isn't an affair as that would be something that is on going whereas this call girl thing is a horse of a different color, isn't it?). Matt Cooper - you remember he was part of the Valarie Plame affair as a reporter for the NY Times who was questioned before the grand jury - leads off with this:

Spitzer: Why is Prostitution Illegal Anyway?

Hmmm. Short article with a few comments. And it remains a good question that various groups/countries/governments have answered in different ways.

And then there is this headline from TIME:

More Sex Please, We're French

But wait, lookee here at one of the article's statistics:

20% of French men aged 18-24 years say they have no interest in sexual or romantic activity whatever.

Now that is hard to believe. I've heard some 50+ golfers say that they would rather play golf than have sex but never that they had no interest in it.

Interesting stuff and really a nice break from the usual. But now back to the more mundane.

New Gallery at Lakeview Website

As noted at our Lakeview News blog:

Gallery New at Website

Added a gallery to our website and put some pictures up in it this afternoon. This is something that I started to do a year ago but then put on the back burner because of the great amount of time it took to load the pictures using a dial up connection. Now, with the new broadband internet connection, that restraint has been overcome. Will be adding and changing the pictures over time. Enjoy and comment, too!

Reading the Online News

From WAPO

On the Iraq War

Possible outcomes as a result of the withdrawal of US forces are considered. Hey, people out there are saying that it's not going to be the end of the world when we leave, for us or the Iraqis. Likely outcome: separation of Iraq into three separate entities, Kurdish, Sunni and Shiite. So, lets get on with it.

On Presidential Politics

Latest poll shows "none-of-the-above" in front on the Republican side and Hilary Clinton with a sizable lead among the Democrats. Still too early.

On Sex

Republican senator shows up with wife, apologies for past behavior. And, I would imagine, especially those calls to DC Madam which showed that he at least liked to talk with someone at an escort service.

Time for breakfast and a perusal of the blogs and the sports. Eric and Jim at the golf course. Tuesday Men getting ready.

Men in Powerful Positions Tumbling

From Amazon.com, Description of Vonnegut's Jailbird:

Jailbird takes us into a fractured and comic, pure Vonnegut world of high crimes and misdemeanors in government...and in the heart. This wry tale follows bumbling bureaucrat Walter F. Starbuck from Harvard to the Nixon White House to the penitentary as Watergate's least known co-conspirator. But the humor turns dark when Vonnegut shines his spotlight on the cold hearts and calculated greed of the mighty, giving a razor-sharp edge to an unforgettable portrait of power and politics in our times.

Hmmm, appropos of nothing in particular.

One of the chief policy makers on the Iraq thing (read disaster), Paul Wolfowitz, is in the headlines not for any of the terrible things that have happened over in the Middle East but rather for sexual misconduct, or rather for substantially increasing the salary of someone with whom he is romantically involved. Hmmm.

One of the commentators on the human condition (or at least he has a radio show, and tv too), Don Imus, in trouble for the way he has described a group of very succesful college women, the Rutgers women's basketball team, which just finished second in the NCAA tournament. Back when I was young, youngsters heard a lot of "Watch your tongue" and "You'll get your mouth washed out with soap". Guess things are different nowadays. Well, maybe not: he's been taken out to the woodshed through the back door.

On the lighter side: Kurt Vonnegut's "so it goes" was picked up by Linda Ellerbee which is where I remember it - one of her early news shows. Now I see she titled one of her books with the phrase. Always liked her, a maverick, like Vonnegut.