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Oh man. I wish I had written this piece! This so fits with my Panic at the Piggy Bank post from a few days ago.

Media Reassures Public That Total Economic Meltdown is Certain.

AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Cue up the old REM song, y’all. It’s the End of the World As We Know It! (But I Feel Fine…)

Okay, unless y’all ain’t been payin’ attention today, Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy and Merrill Lynch has been bought by the mammoth Bank of America. Lehman Brothers, for those of you like me who didn’t know who the heck they are and aren’t as financially savvy as the media thinks we should be, is a global financial services firm focusing on investment banking and services. It also had a finger in the pie of the subprime mortgage market, something that has been swallowing up and destroying long standing giant investment firms for the past year.

Truthfully, the Merrill Lynch buyout by BoA surprised even me. But I’m just a Average Jane when it comes to finances and investments so what the hell do I know?

But I do know crap when I see it. And the following article from Aaron Task at Yahoo! Finance basically pissed me off…

Top Economist: Americans Should Worry About Bank Deposits if Congress Doesn’t Act

Hey hey, great! Let’s scare the crap out of everybody! You’re money’s not safe in the bank! FDIC doesn’t have enough dough to cover all those assets!

First of all, Mr. Tasks article makes nothing clear so I’m going on some assumptions here. I’m ASSUMING that the $1 Trillion in assets mentioned is basically the total of every freakin’ bank and financial institution in this country. The FDIC fund has about $50 billion on standby to cover for failed institutions. Is Mr. Roubini, the economist starring in this piece of nonsense, basically implying that EVERY bank in this country is going to fail because FDIC doesn’t have $1 Trillion on standby?

If he is, he better rethink what he’s saying. Because, later in the article he recommends that folks who have bank accounts that exceed $100,000 should spread their money among different firms. I don’t refute that advice, as it’s something that is highly recommended anyway if you’ve got more than 100K in money in the bank. (Also you should talk to your customer service rep about account titling and joint account holders as there are ways to set up accounts to cover you for more than $100,000 limit). But if the implication here is that every bank is going to fail and the FDIC doesn’t have enough money to cover it, then why take the time to move funds around anyway? I’m gonna lose out either way, according to Mr. Roubini.

“The intent here isn’t to add to people’s anxieties…”

It’s not? Then what is your intent? I’m not saying that Americans shouldn’t be paying attention to this stuff, because we should be, but I’m so sick of “economists” and talking heads on television (ie, CNN) trying their damndest to scare the crap out of people.  The media wants so badly to see a run on the banks, the way customers lined up outside of IndyMac’s branches in California earlier this summer, that they’ll feed the fear however they can.

And it’s driving me nuts!

…can be found on this really cool ad for the 60th Primetime Emmys!

Man, this is like the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepperalbum. You’ll spend hours looking at this thing finding all your favorite stars. And then you’ll wonder why your other favorite stars are NOT in this grouping. (I’ve yet to find any of the cast of the Dukes of Hazzard on this thing…what do you mean if they were nominated or won an Emmy they’d probably be in this grouping? What’s that got to do with anything?)

But I did find many favorites, including James Garner, Stephen Colbert and Robert Culp.  Garner I spotted immediately, Colbert I spotted pretty quickly after that. It took me awhile to find Culp. (And it took even longer to find Bill Cosby!)

I had moments where I would say “Oh oh! I know who that is, that’s umm…yeah, whatshisface, he was on that show…ahh….yeah…”

Check it out and see how many of your favorite stars you can find!

Jerry Reed passed away today at the age of 71.

“A little four-piece band was jammin’ so I grabbed my guitar and I sat in, I showed ‘em what a band would sound like with a swingin’ little guitar man – show ‘em son!” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXPavJhDwBY

Jerry Reed and Chet Atkins –  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLqyNV1SMWE

Jerry Reed and Glen Campbell –  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvSsJAdEK7E

SONNN!

This was something I wanted to point out three years ago but either didn’t have the technology at the time to make the screen caps, didn’t have that particular season of the Dukes to make the caps or my laptop at the time was just a piece of crap and I couldn’t upload the darn things somewhere.

As you know, in 2005 Warner Brothers released the big screen version of the Dukes of Hazzard with Johnny Knoxville, Sean William Scott and Jessica Simpson. Also with Willie Nelson as Uncle Jesse, Burt Reynolds as Boss Hogg and M.C. Gainey as Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane.

Although Burt Reynolds’ connection to the Dukes is via working with James Best on some films back in the 1970′s, M.C. Gainey was the only actor in the 2005 movie who actually appeared on an episode of the original Dukes of Hazzard back in 1982.

Here he is from that episode (Bad Day in Hazzard), looking menacing as usual…

What’s interesting to note, and was the big deal I wanted to make three years ago, is the irony of all this. As he was in a few scenes with the original Rosco…

The best part tho’ is when Daisy gets the upper hand against him…

Heheheheh, you go girl!

Anyway, at the time of the ’05 movie I remember being a little put out that the Rosco in the film wasn’t a bumbling idiot but was a ruthless, evil, SOB.  Played by a guy who’s made his entire career by playing ruthless, evil, SOBs. I was especially put out when I read somewhere that Gainey said something about how the original Rosco was “cornball” or something like that. Well, duh! That was the whole idea! You were on the show, man, weren’t you paying attention back in ’82?!

I took the cornball remark as disparaging at the time (the whole thing about the movie seemed disparaging at the time). However, as I was putting this blog post together, I found the following statement by Gainey speaking of himself. He says…

“With a face like this, there aren’t a lot of lawyers or priest roles coming my way. I’ve gotta face that was meant for a mug shot and that’s what I’ve been doing for the past thirty years. If I play a cop, it’s always a racist cop, or a trigger-happy cop or a crooked cop – but by and large I play cowboys, bikers, and convicts.”

And not bumbling Sheriffs.  Gainey elaborated on that further in this interview done sometime around the time the Dukes movie came out. I wish I had seen this interview instead of the “cornball” comment three years ago, perhaps I wouldn’t have been feeling quite so critical.

Of course, after three years it’s all moonshine under the bridge right? Right. Still, I feel better having got this off my mind now. Better late than never. Heh!