Deregulator: Alive since '85!

The Butch Davis Era, Year Two If you read my post from earlier in this season, I was hopeful but not fully confident the football Tar Heels would have a successful year. (I said the games vs. Virginia and NC State were locks, and they lost both. Games vs. UConn and Notre Dame were wins, and I wasn't counting on either.) Any objective observer would think the team made dramatic improvements this year, going from 4-8 in 2007 to 8-5 in 2008 (including the 31-30 loss to West Virginia in the Meineke Car Care Bowl). Going into the season, I thought a 6-6 record and a bowl game were possible, so I should be elated, right? After all, WVU was a preseason Top 10 team. And (like last year), had the Heels not lost a few close ones, they could have had double-digit wins. That said, expectations for this group became too high, especially after they trounced two Big East teams early in the season, entered the second half of the year 5-1 and would have won the ACC Coastal had they beaten Maryland ...

Back again Time to fire up Deregulator again. I'm in a state of suspended animation, as it were. The Rocky Mountain News is for sale , and given a) the state of the newspaper industry and b) the state of the economy, the chances of the paper remaining in business aren't good. Our owners, EW Scripps Co., will let the staff know Jan. 15 if a buyer has been found. And if not, what happens then. To some degree, I'm whistling past the graveyard. I'm not actively seeking other jobs but have let people know that I may be within a few weeks. This blog may be very active soon, as I may have a lot more time on my hands than I'd prefer.

John McCain is getting creamed on health care because his plan is too good If I were designing a comprehensive medical insurance system from the ground up, John McCain's proposal offers a good model. He ends most of bias in the tax code favoring employer-provided coverage over the individual market. Employers could continue to deduct medical costs from payroll taxes; otherwise, medical benefits provided by employers would not be exempt from income taxes. By eliminating this distortion, the theory goes (and I buy this), individuals would pay more of the true costs of their medical benefits. This should encourage them to seek out policies that are tailored to their needs, reducing the overall medical costs. With a wide array of coverage options, it should be simple for people who now aren't insured because they can't afford coverage to buy a bare-bones policy. As the ranks of the uninsured shrank, the cost-shifting that takes place when medical providers offer services to peo...

The people have spoken, the bastards From Bloomberg News.

"Crap sandwiches as far as the eye can see" In his LA Times column , Jonah Goldberg pretty much nails it. There's also solid commentary at the No Left Turns blog and some interesting back-and-forth from mostly free-market types at Infinite Monkeys . Here's what The Rocky had to say Monday. My take, midday Tuesday: The House is not the Senate. The minority has no right to claim any power there. Republicans should have taken what they could get in negotiations with the House Dems (and in some ways, they were able to improve the oversight and remove some of the most egregious left-wing giveaways) and then send the bill to the Senate, where a single senator can improve the aroma of a very stinky pile of legislation. And for crying out loud, grow up! If you're so offended by insults from the likes of Nancy Pelosi and Barney Frank that you can't do you duty, get another job.

Carolina chameleons Young, talented teams will surprise you. In good and bad ways. This year's gridiron Tar Heels are 3-1 on the field and 2-2 in surprises. They have played better than expected on the road and have disappointed at home. They could easily be 4-0 had they avoided 14 penalties and three huge turnovers in a 20-17 home loss last week to Va. Tech. This week they needed two interceptions in the final minutes (including an incredible pick in their own end zone by Tremaine Goddard in the closing seconds) to beat Miami 28-24 on the road. Next week they play undefeated, nationally ranked UConn at Chapel Hill. And then unranked but always good for headlines Notre Dame, also at Kenan. UVa's a sure win on the 18th. Three good weeks and they're bowl eligible with NC State (another certain victory) and four question marks to go. The schedule is turning out to be tougher than expected. Maryland and Ga. Tech and BC are decent teams. Dook, for crying out loud, is 3-1. (They ...

A fairly straightforward (and sobering) explanation of the financial crisis Here. Another thought, that my boss mentioned yesterday, is that owning stock right now may not be such a bad idea after all. Even during the Depression, if you owned a piece of a company that stayed in business, you owned an actual asset that will maintain some value as long as the business is viable. And will recover value when the economy evenutally bounces back. Cash or bonds (government or corporate) may not be worth much more than paper or pixels. It may be a rough ride.

Man, am I out of touch Billboard picks the top No. 1 single of each year, beginning in 1958. I'm not sure I could identify any of the ones selected in the past 20 years. (Maybe Santana's "Smooth," if you played it for me.)

Well, he is a lumberjack I knew this would happen as soon as Sarah Palin was picked. The Michael Palin for President Web site.

This Tar Heel team may actually be decent It's been a long time since I've been able to say that. Since Mack Brown was there, maybe. Even in 2001, when they had Julius Peppers and I think six or seven other starters on defense who were drafted into the NFL, I was never all that confident about them. (The offense really was uninspiring, even though Darian Durrant was a dynamic QB.) They looked pretty dang good vs. Rutgers. On the road, where they hadn't won in 20(!) games. They play Va. Tech Saturday at Chapel Hill. Tech's not as good as they've been in recent years, but they're expected to win the Coastal Division of the ACC. The Heels lost by only a touchdown to them in Blacksburg last year. Right now, it's the toughest game remaining on the schedule (though, to be sure, teams like Georgia Tech, Boston College and Maryland could improve as the season goes along). If somehow the Heels pull this one off, they could win a bunch more.

Palinmania 10,000 people queue up to see Sarah Palin at a facility that will hold 3,500. The post also notes that an appearance here in Colorado was overbooked. Here's a report from the Rocky's David Montero: Her appearance with John McCain in Colorado Springs a week ago drew 10,000 people on short notice. Her campaign had to scrap plans to serve a pancake breakfast during Palin's appearance Monday, saying the demand for tickets was so great there wasn't enough room for tables and chairs to accommodate 5,000 people. Look, I have no idea if she's prepared to be vice president, which is not to question whether she's qualified. (If Obama's qualified for the top of the ticket, she's certainly qualified for the No. 2 slot.) In her ABC interviews this past week, Charles Gibson actually threw her a few softballs on domestic policy, asking her where she'd cut spending and what she'd do about Social Security. She swung and missed, in my view. Decide for...

If it's not treason I have a Facebook page

So long, KCUV I leave the blog for a few months, and what happens? KCUV, Denver's best commercial radio station by far, leaves the airwaves. It was scoring about a 1 in the ratings, so I guess it was no surprise. Still, it was the only place I knew you could hear Robert Earl Keen and Clarence Gatemouth Brown. They sponsored Hot Tuna, Junior Brown and Duke Robillard gigs in Denver. Another reason to renew my XM subscription, I suppose.

I hate to say anything good about Coach K So I won't. But if you watch any cable sports, you're likely to see the Larry Linville lookalike on an advertisement for DePuy USA, maker of joint replacements, including the new hip he got a few years back. I'm a big fan of prosthetics (my ex's life is much improved, thanks to knee replacements). But what's really cool about this ad is that the older guitarist you see gyrating around the stage is the great Roy Gaines. Dude played with T-Bone Walker when Roy was 11 or 12. He's now in his 70s, and he still does this . Back in the day, I became a fan of Gaines thanks to Gary "the Wagman" Wagner at KLON. Bought a couple of CDs and then saw him live twice in Vegas at the Railhead. The shows were dynamite. Plus, he was signing CDs between sets and I got a chance to speak with him briefly. What a sweet guy. I know blues musicians don't make a lot of money, so I'm guessing the residuals he gets from these comm...

Ever wonder how those Nigerian scams work? Mary Baker at Dover Canyon (have I mentioned recently it's my favorite winery?) does too, and the matter got almost personal when someone attempted to entangle the winery in one of these scams. Read her fascinating account of it in the posts on her blog . Here's a taste: First, the scamster orders wine from the winery or retailer. But there's a problem. He lives out of the country. He knows this is inconvenient for you, so he'll ask a shipping firm he's used before to pick up your wine, and take care of all the export documentation. All you need to do is charge his credit card for the sale and the shipper's fees, and then wire the transportation fees to the shipper, as they are not set up to take credit cards. How easy is that? Cha-ching, cha-ching. Because the wine is being shipped overseas, the cost of shipping is high--maybe $200 a case. An order for 10 cases of wine would involve $2,000 in transport fees; a p...