Another bad day on Wall St. CNN's Money reports:

Dow slumps 250 points as AIG bailout adds to fears about the financial markets. WaMu, Goldman and Morgan Stanley tumble.

Reports tonight are emerging that the Feds may bail out AIG by providing up to $85 billion in a bridge loan.

Doesn't that mean we, the taxpayers, ultimately are going to foot the bill? Adding that to what we will have to pay for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, that's a huge sum of money.

The reason apparently is that AIG is just too big to fail.

Thoughts?

How much is 500 points?

The 504-point fall is the Dow's sixth-largest point drop ever and was the biggest loss for the Dow since the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

What's next?

Even as investors digested the historic news surrounding Lehman and Merrill Lynch, some were raising concerns about how it could spill over into other parts of the economy. There will be renewed pressure on the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates tomorrow at its scheduled meeting, economists said.

More...

Gustav is now a Hurricane. Is anyone reading in harm's way?

Do you think it will have an effect on the Republican convention?

The great Gene Upshaw, a great football player and leader of the NFL Players Association, has passed away:

Gene Upshaw, the Hall of Fame guard who during a quarter century as union head helped get NFL players free agency and the riches that came with it, has died. He was 63. Upshaw died Wednesday night at his home near California’s Lake Tahoe, of pancreatic cancer, which was diagnosed only last Sunday, the NFL Players Association said Thursday. His wife Terri and sons Eugene Jr., Justin and Daniel were by his side.

“Few people in the history of the National Football League have played the game as well as Gene and then had another career in football with so much positive impact on the structure and competitiveness of the entire league as Gene,” former NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue said.

RIP, Gene Upshaw.

Mike Lupica writes:

There was a time, because this is still a country of running and jumping, when the Olympics didn't really start until track and field did. . . . There was a time when the men's 100 was the glamour event of the Summer Olympics the way the men's downhill is the glamour men's event in winter. But that all changed 20 years ago when we all came to the stadium the first weekend in Seoul, the place crawling with security, lousy with security, as many guards awatching the stands that year as there were watching the track, where Carl Lewis would go up against Ben Johnson of Canada.

Lupica argues that the Ghost of Ben Johnson hangs over the phenomenal freak of nature Usain Bolt, who won the 100 meter dash in Beijing in otherworldly fashion. I hope not. I have no idea if "Lightning" Bolt is juiced but I have never seen an athlete I would suspect less. More . . .

Matt Yglesias writes about where you can hold the Olympics without feeling like a moral hypocrite:

With Russia beating up on Georgia at the very same time as the Olympics are underway in Beijing, it’s perhaps inevitable that the conversation has now turned to the propriety of Russia hosting the 2014 winter games while under the rule of a “bad actor” regime. This, combined with the boomlet earlier this year for the idea of boycotting the Beijing games, makes me wonder if it wouldn’t be better to adopt a policy of trying to award the Olympics only to unimportant countries.

Well, that sounds nice and all, but of course it will not work, because at bottom, the Olympics are a big commercial enterprise. Whoever ponies up the money, gets the games. And yes, lots of times out and out bribery of IOC officials is involved. I was struck by this part of Matt's piece though:

From the "If it ain't broke ..." department:

The U.S. Postal Service has ended a decades-old tradition in which mail was delivered to [Sutton Island, Maine] by a private ferry service and left in a specially marked trash can on the dock for recipients to pick up. Postal Service higher-ups got wind of the practice used to serve those living in the island's 25 or so seasonal homes and decided it had to be halted for security reasons. ...

Shea Howell, who lives in Detroit, Mich., during the winter, said residents will now have to make the 2-mile ocean journey to the post office in Northeast Harbor. "That can mean a three-hour trip out of your day just to get the mail," she said.... Howell said having mail service is important, especially for older residents who stay on the island for several months at a time and rely on deliveries to pay bills, stay in touch with loved ones and even receive essential medications.

Security issues apparently don't trouble UPS or FedEx, which will continue to deposit deliveries in the trash can.

I still haven't gotten my iPhone. Apple stores have been sold out since Friday and I got mad at AT&T when it didn't come through with my phone 7 days after I paid for it so I canceled the order. The current shortage may last a month:

Apple stores are reporting serious shortages of the device, an inventory slip-up that might last for a month, Computerworld reported. Barely a quarter of Apple's retail stores have iPhones to sell, but only nine stores have all three versions available. Only 18 stores currently have the 16 gigabit black model in stock and 26 stores have the white model with the same storage capacity. AT&T is also reporting a severe shortage with all 1,200 retail stores nearly out of the iPhone altogether.

But, I did get a gift of a brand new iPod touch. It's the latest iPod and has a much bigger video screen, wifi, internet and e-mail and all the calendar, contacts, etc features. The only thing it doesn't have is the phone. (And, you need to be able to connect to a wi-fi network.) [More...]

The Division of Motor Vehicles in North Carolina issued 10,000 license plates that began with WTF before someone spoiled the fun by complaining.

DMV officials got word of the plates last July when a 60-year-old technology teacher from Fayetteville complained about the plate after her teenage grandchildren clued her in.

The DMV actually featured a WTF license plate on its website. According to the linked story, "[o]fficials are trying to remove the plate from the site." Trying? Maybe DMV should call the technology teacher's grandkids to ask for help.

Now that the DMV has been clued in, it's offering all WTF plate recipients a chance to trade in their plates for a less expressive combination of letters. It's also inviting "anyone who has an issue with their plate" to "contact their local DMV office to request a new one." (The linked story helpfully links to a slideshow of 20 internet acronyms someone thinks parents should know.)

Melissa McEwan has a nice post about Tom Colicchio, now of Top Chef fame (he was a famous chef before that of course). Some highlights from the article:

Of our final three, Richard had the most experience, the most imagination, and by far the most technical proficiency. He had consistently wowed us during the season, and frankly, this was his competition to lose. . . . My sense is that Richard lacked that last little bit of grit that causes one to hang in there, no matter what. Call it the "Hillary" factor.

Hillary as a positive role model? Who'da thunk it? More . . .