Deregulator: Alive since '85!

I'm attempting to post to Deregulator from my Facebook page. We'll see what happens ...

My friend Ben shares memories about our friend and mentor, and my former neighbor.

His 2008 in review . Two highlights: Barack Obama, having secured North and South America, flies to Germany without using an airplane and gives a major speech -- speaking English and German simultaneously -- to 200,000 mesmerized Germans, who immediately elect him chancellor, prompting France to surrender. and As the [financial] crisis worsens, an angry Congress, determined to get some answers, holds hearings and determines that whoever is responsible for this mess, it is definitely not Congress.

Spotted today, on an end cap in a Hobby Lobby. A big stack of those license-plate size items of wall art featuring the guv's one-liner about hockey moms and pit bulls. They were 50 percent off. No further comment.

OK, I have a personal stake here, because the newspaper I work for may fold in a few weeks. But this may be the year that a number of medium-size and larger cities lose their dailies, at least in the form of a paper-and-ink product delivered to the customers' front door. Name your reason for the demise of the daily -- Craigslist surely accelerated a trend that was well under way -- but there are plenty of reasons to be scared scatless when general-interest newspapers disappear. This op-ed from The Wall Street Journal sums up a lot about the challenges "citizen journalists" trying to cover local events will face, at least initially. Over at The Corner , Mark Krikorian has echoed these thoughts. There may be people who are passionate enough about local affairs (and who have lots of time on their hands) and are perfectly willing and capable of attending public hearings and reporting what happens. But before bloggers or other online-only media can replace newspapers, they...

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.