Almost forgot - Go Rays!!

The Rays just beat the crap out of the Red Sox. The Red part must be blood. lol

Tine Fey is going to make SNL relevent again on her own

Tina Fey is f*cking hilarious. Seriously. The original SNL crew was great, and the crew from about 1987 until 1997 or so was very funny, but since it has been generally underwhelming. Even those of you who watch religiously got to admit that you'd rather watch Chevy Chase, Gilda Radner, and John Belushi or Mike Myers, Chris Farley, and David Spade then the crew right now. Other than Tina Fey. She is an absolute riot. Her Palin act is going to single-handedly make me watch this weekend. And I don't mean like "if I'm home, I might watch" I mean "I am going to make it a point to be somewhere to watch".

I'm not a TV guy. I don't have TiVO. In fact, the only thing I watch on TV is sports, movies, THC (The History Channel - get your mind out of the gutter), and the comedy channel quasi-news shows (The Daily, Colbert, etc.) I saw Tina Fey with a flute in the Palin get-up, and I decided to make it a point to watch.

They, sort of, got it right

The Senate passed the bailout bill. Ok, well done, guys. They had to give away $110 billion to do it. Seriously. These idiots need to be bribed to save the economy of the United States. Yeah, yeah they don't actually get the money. They just give it to the companies that pay for the fine senator's next election campaign. Really.

Anyone remember the governor of Illinois who pardoned everyone of Death Row? Ruined his political career. But he probably saved at least one innocent man's life. According to the statistics, he probably saved more than that. (Same stats say that our President has signed the Death Warrants for DOZENS of innocent men in Texas. I call that murder. He's murdered more people than any of the people he killed.) But that governor didn't think about politics. He thought about how it would feel if he knew that he could save an innocent man's life and he refused to do it. Being an honest, caring human came before politics. Maybe all the pork would be unnecessary if more pols thought like the former governor of Illinois.

Go Rays!!

Did I mention that I am a sports fan. The Tampa Bay Rays are my baseball team. That has been almost a point of shame for years. They now have a playoff win!! I wasn't sure that would ever happen, but it has.

There is a tech angle to this, of course. I am sitting at work, watching the game as I write this, thanks to the internet streaming. Maybe the greatest invention of our lifetime for a sports fan. I could be in Tokyo right now watching the Rays in play in my hometown of St. Pete. I could be in Berlin, and still watch the Bucs on Sunday.

I would like to thank MLB. The baseball people have been smart enough to allow out-of-market internet streaming. VERY rarely does a large, old organization like MLB get credit for forward thinking, but in this case it has actually happened. Well done gentlemen.

Now, how long is it going to take the NFL to figure out that internet streaming will NOT drain the network viewers. The quality is too bad. Now, I realize that the quality will improve, and there are higher quality streams out there. But if the NFL doesn't authorize a stream, then the P2P streams will be the only ones out there, and the league will have no control over the content or anything else. The NFL is really good at making money, so they'll figure it out eventually.

Ok, we are governed by total fools....

So, let me get this straight. The United States of America can spend billions on a country full of people who hate us and don't want us there, and yet we cannot spend a couple months of money for Bush's windmill hunt on our own banks in our country? Are the banks at fault? Sure. But forget about who to blame for a couple minutes. Let's save the American economy first. If people broke the law, then prosecute them. Don't make all of us pay for their screw ups. Wait... Let me put it like this - We are ALL going to pay for them, but would you rather pay now, or let the economic system risk collapse to get revenge on a few guys who are rich anyway. Or, put yet another way, is America not worth $700 billion, but Iraq is worth way more?

As usual, the republicans have failed America miserably. Let me quote CNN.com

The measure, which is designed to get battered lending markets working normally again, needed 218 votes for passage. But it came up 13 votes short of that target, with a final vote of 228 to 205 against. Two-thirds of Democrats and one-third of Republicans voted for the measure.

In other words, some democrats failed the country, and most elephants did. Shocking. When, exactly, was the last time the republicans got something right? The Reagan administration? Unless you consider giving the VEEP's former employer multi-billion dollar, no-bid contacts the "right" thing to do. I know that is old news, but having worked in and around government agencies, I am aware of how wrong that is.

Everybody cross your fingers that the Senate version passes through the crew of idiots in the House. If it doesn't, not being able to get a loan may be the least of our concerns.