More Packers Drama

Via SportsPickle.com:

Don Majkowski Demands to be Reinstated as Packers Quarterback

Former Green Bay Packers starting quarterback Don Majkowski has entered in a bitter dispute with his former organization, admitting he is “guilty of retiring too early” 12 years ago, while demanding he be reinstated as the team’s starter or given the opportunity to play elsewhere.

“I was mentally drained after the 1996 season,” says Majkowski. “I couldn’t commit myself fully at that time to coming back, so I stepped away. That’s the kind of guy I am. I have to be able to promise that I’m going to give my all.”

But before long, Majkowski started to have second thoughts.

“I guess it was nine or 10 years later, I called up Packers GM Ted Thompson and told him I was thinking of coming back. That would have been 2005 or 2006, I guess,” said Majkowski. “But he just sighed and said it was too late. That the team had moved on to Brett Favre and had even drafted this Aaron Rodgers kid to follow in place of Favre. I couldn’t believe he wasn’t even open to considering my return after all I’ve done for the franchise.”

Hat tip to the non-blogging Mark for emailing that to me.

Oil prices tumble in biggest weekly drop ever

As the price of oil drops dramatically, some analysts wonder if the bubble is bursting

NEW YORK (AP) -- A stunning sell-off dragged oil prices to their biggest weekly drop ever and gas prices at the pump slipped by the more than they have at any point since February, giving consumers a rare breather in a year of record fuel prices.

… Light, sweet crude for August delivery fell 41 cents Friday to settle at $128.88 on the New York Mercantile Exchange -- well below its trading record of more than $147 a week earlier.

Good work everybody, but this is a big slowdown from the last three days – light, sweet crude fell $15 in three days Tuesday through Thursday. This is no time to slack off - we're trying to create sort of an echo chamber of despair, here. An earthquake-like buzz informing the investment world that it's time to get out of oil.

Had to highlight this paragraph:

Some analysts said a nationwide average of $4 or even lower could be in the offing -- almost unthinkable in a summer when there has seemed to be no relief at the pump -- although they cautioned that there is no guarantee prices will stay low.

“Almost unthinkable?” Not only is that editorializing in what’s supposed to be a news story, it’s the exact kind of thinking that got us into this mess in the first place. It’s not “unthinkable” that prices will come down, it’s unthinkable that they won’t!

Traders! Speculators! Protect yourselves – sell those futures! Sell now, while you’ve still got profits to count!

Have Lefties always been so warmongering?

Owen points out this comment left on this Fraley post. Fraley’s calling for repeal of the Minimum Markup Law. Scot, from One Wisconsin Now, says he has other solutions for higher gas prices: gouging the oil companies and bitching about Bush and Cheney, mainly.

Not sure how bitching about Bush and Cheney will help, but whatever.

It’s this part that caught my attention:

Possible solutions —

…If you’re going to try and grab middle east oil by invading a country, like, have a plan to win. Because the failure of Bush and company to use the greatest military personnel in the world effectively is tragic and only encourages enemies who wish to do us harm.

Now I admit, invading a country and grabbing their oil would help. Two or three countries would be better.

It would place more oil deposits under U.S. control, thus giving us more control over world supply. Also, having all that revenue flow to us instead of to terrorphile Middle Eastern nations would stop “encouraging enemies who wish to do us harm,” because they wouldn’t have nearly the financial resources they do now. They’d have to go get a job.

In short, it's a great idea. But…wow, I thought One Wisconsin Now was one of these liberal, peacenik, flowers-and-bong-hits hippie groups. I had no idea they were so pro-war. They’re more aggressive than the neo-cons, even.

Re: Pop goes the bubble!

Who Let the Bears Out!

Or at least that is what I hope to be singing.

Is the run on oil coming to an end? Hard to say, back in June oil made a similar move from the mid to upper 130s back to the low 120s, but it immediately proceeded to zoom right back up to new record prices. Recent moves are more significant than those June moves but such moves do happen.

A number of factors are reported to be in play. First off repeated news hinting at economic slowdown here, reports came out that oil inventories were up when traders expected them to be down, and the same for gasoline inventories which are reported at the upper end of average levels for the current time. Another factor, increased pressure to extract more energy resources from the USA. I do not think it coincidence CL took a hit the day Preisdent Bush came out and forcefully called for more domestic oil production.

However, there is still concern about the fragile nature of the main oil producers. Reports on an oil pipeline bombing in Nigeria suspended the drop (however today oil futures are up a bit to sideways). In addition, there are concerns about demand outstripping supply, even if there is enough oil in the ground for many years it is not getting easier to extract it.

A lot of blame is going around. Speculators are right now the favorite scapegoat but why should that be? Speculators do not care about the direction of the price, they only care about guessing the direction. If a trader expects the market to fall they change trading strategies and they still earn money from their trades.

Here are a couple of sites to keep your finger on the oil market:
INO
The New York Mercantile Exchange
Gas Buddy (local gas prices)
and for analysis & insight: Seeking Alpha's energy sector section.

I find gasoline does peg closely to oil and it does go down as quickly as it goes up! Right now in the Valley the Gas Buddy site is showing gasoline selling in a range of $3.92/gallon-->$4.07/gallon with all reports currently under $4.00/gallon. This morning this was not the case. Gasoline pricing does lag oil pricing but it does follow in both directions.

The Vikings tampering with Favre?

I knew it. They're a bunch of cheaters.

The rivalry between the Green Bay Packers and the Minnesota Vikings just got a lot hotter.

A National Football League source said Wednesday night that the Packers had filed a tampering charge with the league against the Vikings in connection with alleged contact with Brett Favre.

Sounds like it might be time to start planning the invasion. I already figure to be in St. Paul the first week of September...although I'd hope we could get things moving faster than that.

Figures, one of the three Wisconsin bloggers going to the Republican National Convention that week is a Cowboys fan. You can almost smell the conspiracy.

The source said the Packers had provided evidence and information about the alleged contact. At this point, investigators for the league will look into the matter and decide what, if anything, to do. The source added that the Packers feel the case against the Vikings is strong.

Allegations of tampering are touchy subjects among professional sports franchises, and the penalties can include the loss of draft choices and fines.

Yes! Take their draft choices!

Unless they're going to trade them all to us! Then don't!

It's working!

Just two days ago, I postulated that if we all started wailing and gnashing our teeth over the "falling price of oil," speculators would get nervous and start to sell off, which would actually bring about falling prices of oil.

Well, despite a total lack of cooperation on (as far as I can tell) any other blogs, it seems to be working.

NEW YORK - Oil prices fell below $130 a barrel for the first time in more than a month Thursday, as a dramatic slide entered a third day along with a sharp sell-off in natural gas.

The declines accelerated amid growing concerns about the weakening U.S. economy.

So the price of oil is down in part because of the economy, but we’re worried about the economy in large part because of energy costs. Go figure.

Back to the prices:

Light, sweet crude for August delivery dropped $5.31 to settle at $129.29 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Prices have fallen more than $15 in just the past three days.

Natural gas futures for August delivery fell more than 8 percent Thursday, marking their biggest one-day drop in nearly a year, according to Nathan Golz, researcher at Wachovia Securities in St. Louis. Prices for the key heating, cooking and power generation fuel have tumbled more than 20 percent since their peak before the Fourth of July, and are now trading at their lowest point since April.

A number of market observers say there was nothing supporting the run up in natural gas prices, which peaked in early July, and that this week's sell-off of oil has only helped speed the declines.

By the way, I love the phrase "light, sweet crude." How'd they come up with that, exactly? Guys in overalls carrying oversized wrenches with grease all over their faces sipping small glasses of thick black oil and saying "fine bouquet on this, I'd say. Nice and light." "Mm, yes, a bit sweet, too."

Anyway, back to work, people! Remember, the key is to spread panic. Make people believe the price of oil and other energy sources is falling, and falling fast, so you'd better get out now!

Cost of Government Day

Over at Marketplace of Ideas, Steve Prestegard noticed that today is Cost of Government Day – the “day our earnings finally match federal, state and local government spending.”

An attentive reader will remember – and Steve points out – that Tax Freedom Day was way back in April: that was the day when our earnings finally added up to all the taxes we pay.

But wait a minute: if we finished paying all the taxes in April, shouldn’t we have finished paying all the spending back then, too? At least in the same general vicinity, if not on the same day?

Nope. And that means all the borrowing, and shifting, and accounting gimmicks we moan and groan about every year add up to nearly a quarter of this nation's annual income.

That right there is far more worrisome than how much we actually pay in taxes. In fact, I wonder if we shouldn't be calculating the “actual” tax rate based on that.

So I’m getting spam emails in Russian lately…

…which has been kinda fun. I spent a year at the Army's language school in Monterey, CA, studying Russian. I was there in 1991 and 1992, during that failed coup that brought Yeltsin to prominence.

Yeah, thanks Boris. The Soviet Union fell, and then so did all our job security. Russian speakers were like gold coins during the Cold War.

Anyway, it’s been a very long time since I used any Russian, but it’s been fun trying to read those emails.

Pop goes the bubble?

Okay, our strategy might be working. Oil fell again today - that's over ten bucks down in two days.

NEW YORK - Oil prices settled sharply lower for the second time in a row Wednesday, leaving crude more than $10 cheaper in just two days of frenzied trading and prompting speculation that the hard-charging market may be running out of steam.

Light, sweet crude for August delivery fell $4.14 to settle at $134.60 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, after earlier sinking as low as $132. The drop follows a $6.44 sell-off Tuesday, crude's biggest since the Gulf War.

…Analysts are unsure whether the drop represents a long-term shift in sentiment or simply a brief correction to crude's monthslong bull run. But the dizzying decline is prompting market veterans to ask how much support remains for such high prices.

"It's a sign that maybe the bull market is losing strength," said Michael Lynch, president of Strategic Energy & Economic Research Inc.

…"I do expect this bubble to burst. Is this is it? It might be ... but I'm not ready to say so yet," analyst and trader Stephen Schork said.

Tell you what, if I were a trader, I’d sell off my oil interests pronto. I mean, maybe the price keeps falling, maybe it doesn’t, but this looks like a good time to sit back and count the profits you’ve made the last several months, instead of risking them all in what is an obviously volatile market.

In other words: Sell! Sell! Sell!

Unrelated Quote of the Week

Hughes is currently sitting in 7th place on the BBA Pro Tour Ratings.

Seventh, huh? That would be more impressive if there were more than 18 of us to begin with.

Do Facts Matter?

Excellent column by the brilliant Dr. Thomas Sowell on whether facts even matter any more in the political debate.

In an election campaign in which not only young liberals, but also some people who are neither young nor liberals, seem absolutely mesmerized by the skilled rhetoric of Barack Obama, facts have receded even further into the background than usual.

As the hypnotic mantra of "change" is repeated endlessly, few people even raise the question of whether what few specifics we hear represent any real change, much less a change for the better.

Read the whole thing.

Pop goes the bubble!

OMG, the oil bubble’s popping!

NEW YORK - Oil prices fell harder than they have in 17 years Tuesday, as fears that record fuel prices are spreading broad economic pain exacerbated the third big sell-off in just over a week.

Light, sweet crude plunged $6.44, or 4.4 percent, to settle at $138.74 a barrel in an extremely volatile session. Prices at one point plummeted more than $10 from the day's high.

Quick, sell, sell, sell! Sell now! Sell fast!

C'mon, people, unless you like four-dollar gallons of gas, let's get in the spirit. The bubble popped! Sell fast or you'll be ruined!

And then there were three (or maybe more!)

Hey Owen, Sean, you guys want some company?

This was in today's Baraboo News Republic:

A local writer is going to Minneapolis this September to cover the 2008 Republican National Convention.

Lance Burri, who has been writing at several online web logs for the past 4 years, found out Monday that he will receive special press credentials to cover the Convention as an independent blogger.

I haven't heard back yet about giving the keynote address, but I'm sure the invitation is in the mail.

It's true!

I'd heard that, whenever someone moved from Wisconsin to Minnesota, the average IQ of both states goes up.

Or was that Texas?

Maybe, but today I saw evidence that it is, in fact, Minnesota.

EDEN PRAIRIE, Minn. (AP) -- Like most in the football world, Minnesota Vikings coach Brad Childress has watched with interest as the Green Bay Packers and Brett Favre appear headed to a messy divorce.

While there has been some speculation that Favre would be a good fit to make one more title run with the Vikings, Childress says he remains committed to third-year quarterback Tarvaris Jackson.

Childress tells The Associated Press that "it's been interesting to watch" the contentious interactions between the rival Packers and Favre.

But the coach also says he "can't waste a lot of energy" thinking about Favre becoming available. He also says he thinks Jackson is going to be a winning quarterback.

Childress, you'll remember, was an offensive coordinator for the Wisconsin Badgers before taking the Vikings job.

He wants us to believe that he’s “committed” to Jackson when they might have a shot at adding Brett Favre to that defense and that running game (If they’re willing to give up a dozen draft picks)?

I couldn’t even remember Tarvaris Jackson’s name before reading that story. Neither could anybody else who doesn't get paid to follow the Vikings.

If Childress thinks we're gonna believe that, he's been hanging around those Minnesotans too long.

The Wausau Herald is a little bit preoccupied with the Tavern League, it seems.

The Wausau Daily Herald published not one, not two, but three stories about the Wisconsin Tavern League and the proposed higher beer tax yesterday.

The two on the Tavern League were nearly identical: they’re big, they’re bad, they’re powerful, they’re flexing their muscles in state government.

Well, hey, you do that many 12-ounce curls, and carry those barrels in and out all day, you build some muscles, y'know?

I enjoyed this part of the story about the beer tax:

The last time the Legislature approved a hike to the beer tax was 1969. Several members of the current Legislature weren't even alive to see that hike take effect.

Yeah, they don't dare raise that tax while I'm around.

Today, as it did in 1969, Wisconsin levies a $2 tax on every 31-gallon barrel sold, or six-tenths of a cent per 12-ounce serving.

Compared with other Wisconsin taxes, the beer tax in minuscule.

For example, smokers in Wisconsin pay a $1.77 per-pack tax.

A beer drinker would have to down nearly 300 cold ones to pay as much as a single-pack smoker.

The beer tax is even smaller compared with the taxes drivers pay on gasoline.

Wisconsin's gas tax is 32.9 cents a gallon, so a person who fills up her car with 12 gallons pays about $3.95 in state taxes.

A drinker would have to consume more than 650 beers to pay as much tax as a driver does with just one fill-up.

So since we way over-tax for those things, we should way over-tax for other things, too?

Wisconsin has the third-lowest beer tax in the nation. Its neighboring states all have beer taxes two to three times higher. Only Wyoming and Missouri levy lower beer taxes.

Fine states, Wyoming and Missouri. I've always admired them.

Dale Knapp, research director of the Wisconsin Taxpayer's Alliance, said Wisconsin's low beer tax, probably can be attributed to the past strength of the state's brewing industry...

Low taxes and industrial strength...linked? Has he been talking to Barbara Lawton?

...and the role of drinking in Wisconsin life.

For example, South Carolina's beer tax, At 77 cents a gallon, is more than 12 times higher than Wisconsin.

Knapp said attitudes about drinking probably are different in the Southern state.

I'm no expert on South Carolina, but I did live there - at Ft. Jackson - for a few months. You couldn't buy alcohol at all on Sundays. Other than that, seemed like people drank as much as anyplace else.

In fact, that's true of all the places I've lived.

I understand that people want Wisconsin to be the absolute best in everything - #1 in every single category - but maybe just this once, just with this one tax, we could be satisfied somewhere lower in the rankings.

Re: The bright side of free trade

Stella Artois was the beer of the year one year I was overseas (the cheap one) I bought it, I drank it, I did not much care for it. The other beers I am not familiar with.

The Belgians in general have very different tastes in beer. Often times they sour the beer and put a lot of fruit juices into their brews. I had a belgian red last summer and it was poured into a wine glass and tasted a fair amount like one of those "Jolly Good" sodas.

When I brew I tightly control the yeast, but belgian brewers often times makes beer like people make sourdough bread, that is they let the wild yeast settle in and do the fermenting.

Stores specializing in micro-brews & imports will carry those lambic and exotic Belgian beers but they are very nichey.

Stella Artois, despite my distaste for it, should not do too badly in the general US market.

Odd Wisconsin News

Although nothing is stranger than the current episode of Days of our Favre, there are a few odd Wisconsin stories out there right now.

Wisconsin Woman Plants Dead Rat in Food
A woman accused of planting a dead lab rat in restaurant food and demanding $500,000 to keep quiet was charged Monday with one felony count of extortion. Debbie R. Miller, 41, of Appleton, also faces misdemeanor counts of disorderly conduct and resisting an officer.

Bee Crashes Copter
WISCONSIN RAPIDS, Wis. (AP) _ Wood County authorities said an Oklahoma man piloting a crop-dusting helicopter crashed after a bee got sucked into the cockpit and stung him.Deputy Ted Ashbeck said the chopper was only four feet off the ground, and the pilot was unhurt when the tail rotor smashed into the ground Friday.

Leinie's IQ Survey
Word is you score better after a 12 pack of Honey Weiss.

Good genes

Fraternal brother Mr. Pterodactyl on American Gladiators:

I loved this show in the 90s and I still love it now. I suppose I have the writers' strike to thank for it. The packaging is really cheesy, but the games look like a lot of fun.

Tonight, one of the contestants (there's always two men and two women competing) was introduced as having a former Olympic-class swimmer for a mother, a former major-league baseball player for a father, and an uncle who's a MLB hall of famer. Her name is Tatum Yount. I know who I'm rooting for.

Robin had a brother? Huh. MLB.com lists four Younts - one from the 1930s, one current (2007 only, no stats available), Robin, and Larry, who played in 1971. That would have to be him, right?

The bright side of free trade

U.S. beer drinkers could toast Anheuser takeover

NEW YORK (Reuters Life!) - Beer drinkers could reap some unexpected short-term benefits as Anheuser-Busch's "King of Beers" becomes a vassal in a much larger empire run by Belgium's InBev.

Once InBev's $52 billion takeover of Anheuser gets approved, it will be able to use Anheuser's far-reaching U.S. distribution network to sell its own beers, introducing brews such as Stella Artois, Hoegaarden, Leffe and Staropramen to drinkers across the United States.

That sounds positive. I mean, they're Belgian, right? That's almost German.

Has anybody ever had any of those beers? Are they any good?

Favre grants interview…

…to Greta Van Susteren, on Fox News. 9 pm tonight, from what I understand.

Somebody else watch it. I only have basic cable.

Fun Fact

On the day the next president is sworn in, Barack Obama will have been a U.S. Senator for approximately 73% of the time John McCain spent in a North Vietnamese prisoner of war camp.

So we're talking at home about Brett Favre...

...and whether he will - or whether he should come back, and one of my kids says "he's too old."

He's a few months younger than I am.

Packers to Favre: No Release

GREEN BAY, Wis. (AP) -- The last thing Green Bay Packers general manager Ted Thompson and coach Mike McCarthy want to do is engage in a public shouting match with Brett Favre, even after the three-time MVP put the team in a tough spot by changing his mind on retirement and demanding a release from his contract just weeks before training camp.

But by detailing Favre's dizzying decision-making process this offseason, Thompson and McCarthy hope Packers fans will understand why the team isn't necessarily tossing aside all its plans just because Favre recently decided he wants to play again.

Making their first public comments since Favre demanded his release this week, Thompson and McCarthy told The Associated Press on Saturday that the team had no plans to release Favre. They says Favre is welcome to rejoin the team, but he would be doing so without a defined role.

My thoughts:

First, neither this nor any other development in this story will ever in any way interfere with my hero worship of Brett Favre.

Second, I didn't want him to retire in the first place, so I'd be perfectly happy to see him playing in Green Bay again, although this would make the annual "will he or won't he retire" soap opera even more difficult.

Third, while Favre has broken most of the NFL records a quarterback can break, there are several up-and-coming guys currently playing who could threaten those records in four or five years. A stat-padding season or two would go down real good.

Fourth, this latest maneuver by the Packers makes it more likely that Favre will either play for them or that they will be able to make a trade.

Addendum to point #4: while the thought of Favre playing for the Vikings, Bears, or Cowboys causes my digestive system to seize up in ways I only thought possible after insulting the chef at an offshore Thai restaraunt, I also wonder whether any of those teams would make a deal in the Herschel Walker/Ricky Williams vein. Because that would be worth it.

On the other hand, Favre's return as the Green Bay Packers' starting QB (if, in fact, that's what happens) will nullify this fantastic column I wrote about his retirement. So that right there ought to put the brakes on all this.