I Didn't Mean For It To Be THAT Interesting

When I titled my last blog "an interesting week" I was referring to my personal experiences, but you could certainly say it was an apt, if understated, description of what happened on Wall Street last week.

I said a few months ago that I thought we'd bottom out around late September/early October. This is not quite what I meant. I did at least put in the caveat that "another financial or international crisis between now and then and all bets are off." I'm pretty sure this qualifies.

I have been meaning to blog about my thoughts on it since late last week, but I keep finding that I don't quite know enough to put together a coherent overall opinion together. And it's one of those where everytime I find out a new piece of information it just leads me to 2 new questions.

One issue I can speak to a little bit is the specific bailout of AIG. A lot of people have wondered why the government seems to be picking and choosing who it is going to let fail. Why was Lehman brothers allowed to go bust but not AIG? Well, to put things simply, you flat out cannot allow an insurance company to just "fail". I got some up close and personal experience in this while working for Kemper Insurance until they went bankrupt in 2002. When people invest money in a particular company or investment bank, it is with the understanding that the reason you are going to expect higher returns than you can get from a CD or T-Bill is that there is some element of risk involved. So, in a sense, by getting into the market you've signed up for that (even if you didn't know that you did when you got in). Insurance is exactly the opposite. You are not ever expecting to profit from an insurance deal. Instead, you are paying someone so that you can project your future more accurately and not have to contemplate all the "what ifs" of potential catastrophes that could befall you. If you just let an insurance company fail you remove that safety net and now you have thousands of companies (many of whom paid tens of millions in premiums) left completely uncovered. So not only would they need to immediately dump additional untold amounts of cash into new insurance during a time when they can least afford to, but in the interim they are left completely exposed and subject to unlimited liability. It's not hard to see how this could lead to a domino effect of potentially hundreds of companies (from the biggest to the smallest) becoming insolvent in short order. That is why when an insurance company goes bankrupt what you usually see is the state or federal regulators come in and "wind up" the business (meaning they don't write any new policies but honor all the existing ones by paying claims using whatever is left in the coffers, then selling assets, and then finally having the taxpayers foot the bill). Now, that didn't exactly happen with AIG, largely because it is unprecedented for an insurance company this large to go under. So what happened instead was a loan at a high interest rate, which is backed by ~80% ownership of the company. In theory, this means that AIG is not finished, IF they can pay back the loan. Former AIG CEO Hank Greenberg doesn't think it's going to happen though. He believes that the only feasible way AIG is going to be able to make their loan payments is to begin selling off their assets. If this continues, eventually you reach a point where you have sold off too many of the vital parts of the company and you will no longer be able to continue profitably even if you manage to pay off the loan. So he believes the government is in effect basically making AIG wind themselves down instead of having the government do it. Personally, I think that since the only real alternative is that the regulators would already be in shutting it down he should feel lucky they got the deal they did. If AIG can prove to potential investors that its troubles are now behind them, they should be able to attract new loans that will allow them to trade the high government loans for more favorable terms and that should allow them to continue. What is perhaps most extraordinary about the AIG situation is that even though its financial products division accounted for only a fraction of its overall revenues, it was able to write enough of these complicated derivatives to destroy the firm. That is some extremely poor risk management. Nevertheless, the remainder of the company has been well-run and profitable and thus I still give them a 50-50 shot of pulling out of this.

As for where the other $600 billion plus are going, I really don't have any specific thoughts yet. So instead I'll just post a couple of general thoughts and questions that have occurred to me:

• I think that by and large, Treasure Secretary Paulson has done a good job in explaining why this type of drastic action is required while still not panicking people. However, he's a bit naive in his request for the Congree to pass this as quickly as possible and to have absolutely no committee oversight to answer to. In an election year where just about nobody trusts the current administration anymore, going to the "trust me" well one more time seems a tad . . . optimistic. I understand that time is of the essence, but we have 3 branches of government for a reason. If we didn't want checks and balances, we'd just have a monarchy. Writing a $700 billion check seems exactly the right time to kick the tires and take a test drive instead of simply buying straight off of craigslist.
• When you start talking in terms of the hundreds of billions of dollars, what are the rules for rounding? If you decide that a particular company needs "~$50 million", do you just round up to $100 million?
• It's funny how 6 months ago everyone was watching the presidential race and no one was paying attention to Bush, and now no one is paying attention to the candidates. People are basically saying "I'm not nearly as concerned with what you would do if you were in there as I am with what the guy that's currently in there is doing." That's appropriate, I think.
• McCain can't have it both ways. You can't paint yourself as someone who is "anti government regulation" and then say that the reason this crisis happened is because we need better regulation. And I don't care how you paint it, saying "the fundamentals of our economy are strong" was a political gaffe no matter how you try to change the meaning of the word "fundamentals".
• Anyone who is in favor of this bailout must give up this whole "the Democrats are socialists" line forever. If you don't like a particular social program, say "I don't want the government involved in that" and not "the government should not be involved in that because it shouldn't be involved in anything because that's for socialists." If, however, you are against the bailout then by all means you can continue the "socialist" slander, but I'm going to call you an "anarchist" from now on..

Leaving for Vegas in a few hours, so wish me luck. I don't expect to win; I am just hoping to navigate around the isolated pockets of massive cash hemhorraging that I usually run into on at least 2-3 occasions per trip. With luck, I will also finish Hot, Flat, and Crowded, which is the phenomenal new book by Thomas Friedman (author of The World is Flat) on the plane ride over. I will have an extensive write-up on that (hopefully) next week sometime, but I'd highly advise anyone looking for a good non-fiction book to pick it up immediately.

And yes, it will involve me being preachy on climate change again. You have been warned.

An Interesting Week

For starters, I had a more personal interest in Hurricane Ike than most of the people up here considering I've got parents, an uncle, a brother, nephews and nieces in Houston. While it will still be quite a while before any true "normalcy" returns to the area fortunately everyone is safe with little to no damage to their homes. And also fortunately, there were two silver linings that came out of all this. There was a huge worry that the storm would devastate the pizza biz. Overall, the place has been doing decent but "decent" in the sense of a new business in its first year; meaning that they have been making enough to clear expenses and haven't had to dump any more money into it but they have yet to really turn a profit. The worry was that a potential couple weeks of being shut down could really turn the screws on them. They even stayed open late on Friday night before the storm hit to make some extra cash since everyone else closed early. Well, they finally got a stroke of luck. For some unexplainable reason they got power back on at the restaurant on Saturday night (even though everyone's house and most of the 3 million people in the Houston area still don't have it). So once again they are pretty much the business open and people have been flocking. As a consequence, they have pretty much sold out all of their food every day since then. This is good news for them not only because it means they will be able to make it through the storm relatively unscathed, but now there are a whole lot of people that have tried them that probably never would have and hopefully that will lead to more repeat business. That was one silver lining . . .

The second one has to do with the Cubs! When the hurricane hit, it forced the postponement of the Cubs-Astros series that was scheduled for that weekend in Houston. Imagine my surprise when I got on the net Saturday night to find out that they would be playing one of the make-up games on Sunday night in Milwaukee. Even though we already had people coming over for the Bears game on Sunday, I couldn't resist going. After all, the Cubs game that was supposed to be my last of the year was the one in Cincy that they blew in the 9th, and who wants to go out like that? Well, I'm certainly going out on a much, much better note as I got to witness Carlos Zambrano throw a no-hitter (the 257th ever thrown and the first in 36 years for the Cubs). The word for the entire night was surreal. Surreal to be in someone else's ballpark with nothing but Cubs fans. Surreal to hear the crowd cheering when it was announced that the normal "home" team (the Brewers) had lost. Surreal to see Cubs fans who, starting with about the 6th inning, just wanted to see the Cubs batting half of each inning get over as quickly as possible. And surreal to see such a dominating pitching performance that featured a grand total of 2 hard hit balls the entire game. I said a few years ago after witnessing Illinois come back from 13 points down to Arizona in the last 2 minutes to win that you watch sports your entire life in the hope that you get maybe 10 "moments" that are truly special and take your breath away. Where it seems perfectly natural to see people around you crying and strangers hugging each other and "perfect" is the only way to describe it. That was one such moment, and this was another. Not to be greedy, but I'm hoping to get another one around the end of October this year.

On another note, last Tuesday I finally finished War and Peace and a part of me wants to now list that accomplishment on my resume. My reaction? Well, it's one of those where I could easily spend about 3 hours talking to someone about it but I am almost at a loss to try to give a 2-minute version. Nevertheless, here are some of of the most frequent questions I've been asked about it:

Q: How long was it?
A: 1358 glorious pages

Q: How long did it take you to finish?
A: A little over 2 months

Q: Why would anyone read a book that long? What the hell is wrong with you?
A: I don't know. I like to think of it as reading 13 100-page books, then it doesn't seem so bad. Or you can view it like watching a season of Lost or Heroes (or whatever tv show you like). It would be pretty intimidating if someone said "here watch this, it's 16 hours long" but when it's spread out over 9 months it doesn't seem that long at all.

Q: So, uh, what's it about?
A: Well, it's about war and peace [rimshot]. Plot wise, it's about the Napoleonic wars in Europe from 1805 - 1813 as viewed (mainly) from the perspective of the Russian aristocracy. I haven't fact-checked him, but I believe most of the historical references to battles and such to be historically accurate. I believe this mainly due to the footnotes in the back which corroborate his accounts and just the fact that it was published in 1869 and Tolstoy was a former general in the Russian army. That would be like today someone publishing a historical fiction about WWII. You certainly could take liberties with the characters but it's doubtful you'd get critical acclaim if you completely changed the facts of the war. But, again, I haven't confirmed this (nor do I plan to).

Q: So what else is it about?
A: On the philosophical side of things, it's an exploration of what it means to have free will. Tolstoy says that the closer we are (time wise) to an event which has happened, the more we attribute it to the decisions and actions of a specific person or people. But the farther away we get, the more we are able to get the "big picture" and the more it looks like those actions were inevitable and can't be specifically attributed. For instance, look at the American Revolution. I'm sure at the time the cause of the war was attributed to the "shot heard round the world" at Lexington and Concord. But through the prism of history, we are now able to see that event as a culmination of tensions which had been rising for years and which surely would have boiled over somewhere else if they didn't happen there. I don't think anyone would argue that if that showdown hadn't occurred, there never would have been a war.

So, he takes this as his base and argues that we can never determine the true "cause" of anything, because every cause itself has another proximate cause and another and another until we are irretrievably far away from the event we are attempting to explain. This leads him to conclude, basically, that things "happen because they happen" (which is actually quite similar to the Buddhist expression "everything is as it should be.") This passage explains it pretty succinctly:

"It may seem to be a matter of indifference whether we understand the meaning of historical events this way or that; yet there is the same difference between a man who says that the people of the West moved on the East because Napoleon wished it, and a man who says that this happened because it had to happen, as there is between those who declared that the earth was stationary and that the planets moved round it, and those who admitted that they did not know what upheld the earth, but knew there were laws directing its movement and that of other planets. There is, and can be, no cause of an historical event except the one cause of all causes. But there are laws directing events, and some of these laws are known to us while we are conscious of others we cannot comprehend. The discovery of these laws is only possible when we have quite abandoned the attempt to find the cause in the will of some one man, just as the discovery of the laws of the motion of the planets was possible only when men abandoned the conception of the fixity of the earth."

So, basically it is his position that absolutely everything is subject to and governed by physical laws; nothing is random. This is a concept that became more popular about 75 years later with Einstein's famous statement "God does not play dice with the universe." And since everything is subject to law and nothing is random, there is no room for free will. I may think that I am making a conscious decision to write these words, and you may think that you are making a conscious decision to read them, but in reality the "decision" is a product of all the neurons in your brain acting in a rigid, predictable way to determine what action you will take. You are not in control; you're just along for the ride. That's his theory anyway. Kind of a bummer huh? As a final note, I'd like to add that I actually do largely agree with him. Neverthless, I will continue to blame Bush for the Iraq War.

Q: So, was it worth reading?
A: Absolutely! For a book that's 140 years old, it is surprisingly easy to read (no doubt a good translation helps immensely). It has some beautifully fleshed out, 3 dimensional characters that you come to care about. It will also force you to think and puts old historical (and even more recent) events in a new context, even if you don't completely agree with his philosophical take. Ultimately though, probably the best thing I can say about it was that when I got to the end I wanted it to keep going. Of course, the bottom line is that you're either someone who is horrified at the thought of a 1000+ page book (in which case you will never, ever pick this thing up) or you are intrigued. If you are in the latter category, then I absolutely would recommend picking this up and can guarantee that you won't be sorry.

Q: So is it the best novel ever written?
A: I really don't know how to answer that question, mainly because my reading of "classic" literature is extremely limited. I can say this, though. I've never read any novel that I would definitively say is better, although I'd probably put Atlas Shrugged right up there with it.

That's all I'm gonna say for now, but rest assured that I do like talking about it so if you want to know anything more about it feel free to ask some questions in the comment section or the next time we get together for a beer!

I Palin(drome) I

So, finally getting around to writing my thoughts about McCain’s VP selection. Obviously, given a week plus to reflect my thoughts are not quite what they were, but that’s probably for the better.

My first reaction when I fired up Firefox and saw the headline was a kind of quizzical, head-tilting, confusion. My immediate thought was that it seemed like a desperate and transparent ploy to pull in disgruntled Hillary supporters. Apart from that though, I knew absolutely nothing about her so I was kind of at a loss. Fortunately, I’m people who knows people, and I was able to call out to Tim, the John’s Unnecessary Blog Offical Alaskan Correspondent (bet you didn’t know I had one of those?) for some local perspective. Here are some excerpts:

“Sarah seems cut out for being a mayor, but above that, she seems out of her league to me. Her campaigh for governor in 2006 was poorly managed, flew by the seat of its pants, and she frequently double-booked certain times of the day with appointments. I invited her to a telephone debate with other candidates for a rural Alaska audience, and her people cancelled the morning of the event.

People like her in Alaska because she is so different from the series of old white men who have governed this state since its birth 50 years ago. She was inaugurated in a stadium in Fairbanks, instead of the state capital in Juneau. Just to be different, and allow more of the common folk to attend. Her emphasis on ethics in government has been very well received, and 4 state lawmakers have been sent to prison since she took office, with more on the way. She gets the credit for that. She is scorned by the Alaska Republican Party for being a maverick and totally unwilling to suck up to the good ol’ boys club involving lawmakers, business leaders and the oil industry. That's how she got to be on the McCain radar screen a year or so ago.

She loves constitutions. Her answer to almost any political questions involves constitutionality. At times she does not seem to have an opinion of her own, just an ability to invoke the Alaska constitution.

But she's still embroiled in this scandal surrounding her firing of the Commission of Public Safety, evidently because he refused to fire a state trooper that is a bad man and was, by the way, once married to Sarah's sister Molly. I assume that situation has reached the rest of American now that Palin is in the national spotlight. A state legislature committee is trying to find evidence that could indict her, but Palin has lawyers saying that the investigators have no right to do so. Now some Big Republican lawyers will likely help her get out of this mess.

After she fired the guy who wouldn't fire her sister's ex husband (stick with me here), she hired a guy who sexually harassed an employee several years ago and was disciplined by his police department. Palin nor her people knew about that before they offered him the Commissioner job. That guy resigned two weeks after taking the job. Oops.

Biden should make her look silly in the VP debate. Or rather, SOUND silly. She will manage to look good, even when she is getting crushed in a debate.”

Thanks Tim, for the local perspective! I am quite confident that some of my readers will appreciate your point of view more than others.

My immediate sense was that this selection was a game-changer, though whether it was a 99-yard TD pass or an interception returned for a TD I wasn’t sure. And really I’m still not, though I think it has probably a slightly better chance of blowing up in McCain’s face then it does of working out.

From an election standpoint it’s completely irrelevant what someone who was already in the McCain camp on August 28th thinks about her (they’re generally ecstatic FWIW), just as it was completely irrelevant what an already-declared Obama supporter thought about Biden after that pick was made. The whole end game of the next 60 or so days is how each of these picks fares in picking up the undecided voters. And on that level I think she’s in for a very bumpy ride.

So, I will ask the question that everyone has been asking for the last 10 days, who the hell is this person and what does she stand for? Since her website automatically reroutes to John McCain’s and all that currently has is a transcript of her convention speech, I had to pull quotes from here. I know they will be out of context, but she’s not giving me a whole lot to go on at this point.

“I told Congress thanks, but no thanks, on that ‘Bridge to Nowhere.’ If our state wanted a bridge, I said, we'd build it ourselves.” – Convention speech

“I am pro-life and I believe that marriage should only be between and man and a woman.” – from her now re-routed http://www.palinforgovernor.com/ website

On a hypothetical if Roe v. Wade was overturned: “Under this hypothetical scenario, it would not be up to the governor to unilaterally ban anything. It would be up to the people of Alaska to discuss and decide how we would like our society to reflect our values.” – Anchorage Daily News 2006 gubernatorial profile

“I got rid of a few things in the governor's office that I didn't believe our citizens should have to pay for. That luxury jet [for personal use by the governor] was over the top. I put it on eBay. I also drive myself to work. And I thought we could muddle through without the governor's personal chef--although I've got to admit that sometimes my kids sure miss her. I came to office promising to control spending--by request if possible and by veto if necessary.” – Convention speech

“I am a conservative Republican, a firm believer in free market capitalism. A free market system allows all parties to compete, which ensures the best and most competitive project emerges, and ensures a fair, democratic process.” – Palin/Parnell campaign mailer, 2006

On whether or not she supported the Alaska Supreme Court's ruling that spousal benefits for state employees should be given to same-sex couples? “No, I believe spousal benefits are reserved for married citizens as defined in our constitution.” - Anchorage Daily News 2006 gubernatorial profile

“As Mayor and CEO of the booming city of Wasilla, my team invited investment and encouraged business growth by eliminating small business inventory taxes, eliminated personal property taxes, reduced real property tax mill levies every year I was in office, reduced fees, and built the infrastructure our businesses needed to grow and prosper.” -Palin/Parnell campaign mailer, 2006

On teaching creationism vs. evolution in school: “Teach both. You know, don't be afraid of information.... Healthy debate is so important and it's so valuable in our schools. I am a proponent of teaching both. And you know, I say this too as a daughter of a science teacher." Boston Globe, Aug 30 2008

On global warming: “A changing environment will affect Alaska more than any other state, because of our location. I'm not one though who would attribute it to being man-made.” - Q&A with newsmax.com Aug 29, 2008

Well, I’m not going to go point by point on these, as I think it’s probably pretty apparent to all readers of this space where I stand on most of these. However . . .

I absolutely do have to take her to task on the “Bridge to Nowhere” comments. It’s just a flat out lie. Now, we can go round and round (and probably will) about the when and the why she was for it and then against it. But the kicker that’s undisputed is: she kept the money. There is a great Simpsons episode where Ron Howard feels sorry for Homer and gives him some money. Homer shouts back “I don’t need your charity!” And then he folds the money and puts it in his pocket. That’s what Palin is doing here.

Anyway, setting that aside if we summarize her she can aptly be characterized as conservative, pro-life, pro-2nd amendment, for the teaching of creationism alongside evolution, against wasteful spending, for low taxes and free markets, against gay marriage, and isn’t convinced that climate change is man-made.

Now, again, setting aside whether or not you agree with those views personally or not, I just don’t see how a candidate with those positions helps you win over independents, as at least half of those are at odds with most independents think (abortion, climate change, and evolution in particular). The only way I can see it really working is if this now allows McCain to move a lot more towards the center since he believes that his base is now energized and loyal because of her. If that’s indeed what he’s doing, then that’s a gamble, but of course he likes gambling and prides himself in earning the “maverick” claim.

I’m not going to say a whole let else about all the “noise” being thrown around by both camps over the Palin storm. It’s certainly true that a lot of staunch left-wingers have spread some nasty unfounded rumors and there’s too much focus on her personal life, but at the same time the Republicans are trying to lump all queries about her, both legitimate and illegitimate, as “attacks”. Questioning whether or not her 5th child is really hers or not is out of bounds and irrelevant to an election. Campbell Brown grilling Tucker Bounds on Palin’s foreign policy experience is completely legitimate and should not have prompted McCain to cancel a CNN appearance. I will say this, however (and this is more of a commentary on American culture than anything else); if it was Barrack Obama instead that had a pregnant 17-year old daughter, this election would be over.

So, to somewhat wrap this up, while overall I don’t think it will turn out to be a great pick for McCain I do agree that Democrats underestimate her at their peril. Just as it was stupid for John Kerry to spout that “John McCain is a weak candidate” for the last 6 months, the instantaneous ridiculing of Palin by some on the left is completely counter-productive. Criticizing her by saying that her experience as mayor of a tiny town is worthless does not play well in small towns elsewhere in the U.S. (but then again criticizing community organizers doesn’t exactly play well in big cities). And Democrats should not get drawn into the debate about Obama’s overall experience versus hers. Even if they win that debate, the Republican response is “you’re right, she doesn’t have all that much experience. That’s why she’s at the bottom of our ticket and not the top.”

Oh, and because I just happened to read about it 10 minutes ago I want to add that the feigned outrage at Obama’s use of the term “lipstick on a pig” is just stupid.

4 States in 48 Hours

So before I get into the serious posts on tap for this week, I thought I’d start with something easy.

The theme for this past weekend was “Pack of Lies.” While that may sound negative, it’s really more comical than anything else.

My brother and I got into Champaign at about 6:00 on Friday night, and decided to head out to dinner with some friends of his from U of I as well as my friends Eric and Bickham. We decided to go to Boston’s which, just for clarification, has nothing to do with the city or the band. The entire dinner can only be described with a single word: debacle. It began with the drink orders. After asking the waitress what beverages they served, two people ordered Boulevard: Sunset Wheat. The waitress returned with beers that were most definitely not Boulevard: Sunset Wheat. When this was brought to her attention, she got this extremely confused look on her face (this would be a recurring theme) and went back to check. She returned to confirm that yes, we were in fact correct that it was not Sunset Wheat because they did not have and have never had Sunset Wheat. At this point we probably should have inquired how she had managed to believe she had filled an order with something they did not currently and had never had, but we’re fairly easy going and we like beer so we just said it was fine. Then our food came and, well, pretty much everything was wrong: the turkey-bacon wrap arrived without bacon, the Mexican-tortilla salad arrived without tortillas, and apparently the waitress decided that I could stand to skip a meal or two as my food did not arrive at all. After finally straightening this out, we attempted to order a 2nd round of drinks. We had all ordered large beers, but instead we were brought small beers. The waitress explained that they were out of large glasses. She offered this explanation in willfull ignorance of the fact that we all had empty large glasses in front of us from our first round. If from that amount of information you can figure out a solution, you are officially one step ahead of the Boston’s wait staff. But again, we are easy going so we didn’t worry about it too much. So we just asked for the check. Now, this being a college town and all, and us being with several college students, we had asked for separate checks. I realize that can be somewhat complicated, so I will grant that a little confusion is understandable. However, out of the 8 checks presented to us exactly 1 was correct. That’s not even a good batting average. The most common mistake was that even though there had been no large beer glasses we were still being asked to pay large beer prices. We pointed this out to the waitress, who of course apologized and ran off to correct the problems. 20 minutes later she returned and now 3 of the remaining 7 were correct (so at least she was getting better). She then proceeded to disappear again to once more attempt to correct the problem. Sensing that this might be a while, I excused myself to go to the bathroom, go home, have kids, raise a family, and retire to Florida. When I returned, they finally seemed to have gotten everyones' bills correct; except for the fact that they never brought me one. Well, you can call it a moral failing on my part, but I simply didn’t have the strength to sit their for another lifetime while they figured out the complicated trigonometry of what to charge me for bow-tie pasta and two beers. So we left. This trip to Boston’s collectively represented the first pack of lies.

The rest of the evening went fairly smoothly. We went to a party in Urbana where the older of us were ridiculed for having been to Woodstock and voting for Dukakis while we talked about how in our day the Quad was only a line and we had to ferment our own beer in buckets. We were a bit disappointed that all the parties started breaking up at around 1:45. Apparently, these crazy kids today just don't know how to party late anymore.

The next morning we awoke to do some tailgating before the Illinois-Eastern Illinois game. We picked up some beer on our way to the parking lot. I noted a new type of Old Style that I had never seen before: “Old Style Lite Gold”. Intrigued, we decided to purchase it and give it a try. It only took about half a beer for us to realize that this beer tasted more watery than usual, even for a Lite beer. We then realized, upon closer inspection of the case, that the flowery writing did not in fact say “Lite”, it said “LA”, which stood for “low alcohol.” This was the second pack of lies (actually, “case of lies” is probably more accurate). We cursed our misfortune, drank a few anyway, and headed into the game.

After witnessing the first half of what eventually turned out to be an Illinois rout (47-14), we headed off to Cincinnati. Arriving about 40 minutes before gametime, we checked into our hotel. We were informed that if we were willing to accept a smoking room, they were offering free breakfast. Since neither of us are all that sensitive to smoke, and I actually had a couple of cigars with me anyway, we decided to go for it. However, when we got to our room we discovered that we now had also been downgraded from 2 double beds to 1. This was the third pack of lies and was not going to work. After a call to the front desk we had our room switched, shotgunned a few beers, and headed off to the Cubs game at Cincinnati’s Great American Ballpark. I would highly recommend anyone who enjoys baseball to visit this stadium and, if you do, to sit in the upper deck (preferably as close to behind home plate as you can get). We were directly behind home plate and from that vantage point you look out across the Ohio river and directly at the hills that are the start of the Appalachians. At sunset, on a beautiful summer/early autumn night like it was Saturday it is the perfect atmosphere to watch baseball in (well, as close to perfect as you can get outside of Wrigley). Unless of course, you get vertigo easily, as the upper deck is quite high. It is very strange to always be looking down on the ball no matter how high it is hit. It was also great that Cubs fans outnumbered Reds fans by about 2-1. I’ve been to a number of Cubs road games where Cubs fans have tried to get the “let’s go Cubbies” chant going, only to have it booed down (and rightfully so). But here there was just simply not enough Reds fans to do anything about it. We completely took the park over, and it was awesome, especially since we got to witness Soriano hit 3 HRs and the Cubs cruise to a relatively easy 14-9 victory. As we exited, some impromptu “Go Cubs Go” singing broke out, and we headed back to the hotel to have a few more drinks and get some sleep.

Sunday morning we awoke at 10:30 and headed down to claim our free breakfast at 10:45. Upon arriving at the restaurant we were informed that once again we had been given a pack of lies, because even though no one had informed us of this they stopped seating for breakfast at 10:30. After a bit of bitching and whining, they compromised and offered to give us free breakfast via room service, which we accepted. After breakfast and a quick shower, it was off to Kentucky and the Creationism museum.

We had both forgotten our cameras so we bought a disposable one and thus I don’t have any pictures that I can post yet, but I will. Let’s just say that it was pretty much what I expected it to be. Probably the most surprising thing was that it was less derogatory towards evolution than I thought it would be. A lot of the exhibits had side by side columns saying that this was what evolution theory said, and this was what creationism said. Of course, basically most of the way the creationists “prove” things is by saying “ok, well I think the thing that we can all agree on is that the Bible is 100% correct, so if we just follow that down . . .” And it’s like: whoa, whoa, whoa. It doesn’t matter if steps 2-100 are completely objective, step 1 is definitely not scientific. It may actually turn out to be correct, but it’s not a proof of anything because it’s not scientific. One of the most difficult things to do was to have to keep reminding myself that most other people there with us were taking this stuff completely seriously. I kept having to catch myself from pointing and laughing and instead just uttering a subdued “hey, look at this Joe.” I will pretty much let the pictures speak for themselves (since I can’t do them justice with my descriptions) but my personal favorite was the explanation for why there is no mention of dinosaurs in the Bible: the word “dinosaur” was not invented until 1841. Apparently, the concept that language comes from (“evolves” if you will) our need to explain our world, thoughts, and actions and not the other way around is yet another concept lost on the creationists. I will say, however, that one interesting take I wasn’t expecting is that they thought the idea and myths of dragons came from men fighting dinosaurs (of course, they don’t connect the dots and then explain why the word “dragon” doesn’t appear in the Bible either). So all in all, it was a good time, I’m glad I went, and I would recommend it to anyone passing through the Cincy area (particularly if you can get in free like we did). But I’m still categorizing it as the final “pack of lies”.

Not gonna say too much about the Sunday Cubs/Reds game. Our seats were worse and the Cubs blew the lead in the 9th to send a whole lot of Cubs fans back to their cars and to the expressways in a foul mood. We pulled back into Evanston at about 8:45 in time to see the 2nd half of the Bears surprising season-opening victory, so at least I got to go to bed happy (or at least happier).

So to recap: Boston’s – bad. Illini rout – good. Old Style LA Gold – bad. Great American Ballpark – good. Creationism Museum – fun but wrong. Cubs blowing a 9th inning lead – very bad. Bears beating Indianapolis on the road – very good.

Coming Soon . . .

OK, this post is the equivalent of the 30-second teaser they run for a movie that's still a year away from release. I have been intending to write several new blogs this week but for once I am actually quite busy at work and haven't had time to devote the attention I want to it. But I was sick to death of seeing my sophomoric text message spelling as a header and also didn't feel the need to pad the comment counter in the last post any further. In any case, coming soon to this space within the next week:

• My long-promised (but now largely irrelevant and completely usurped) take on the Palin selection.
• My thoughts on John McCain's speech tonight
• Thoughts on completing the marathon that is War and Peace (150 pages to go as of right now; might even finish tonight if I feel motivated)
• A recap of my road trip weekend which begins tomorrow and will include stops in Champaign to relive my college days Friday night and see the Illinois/Eastern Illinois game Saturday, two Cubs games in Cincinnati, a stop at the $23 million Creationism museum, and a mad dash back to Chicago to make the opening kickoff of the Bears game on Sunday night.

We now join our regularly scheduled political back-biting already in progress . . .