With but a week left in October ...

It's Monday, October 24. Outside there are traces of frost on the pumpkin, or there would be if we had a pumpkin in the yard. There is frost on the one car that has yet to move today. The weather in northeastern Oklahoma is magnificent today, and promises to be so through the entire week with lows in the 30s and lower 40s, highs in the mid-50s to mid-60s. Quite remarkable ...

Unlike Florida where Hurricane Wilma paid a call this morning just south of Naples. Packing 125 mph winds, a moderate (10 ft.) storm surge and heavy rains, she's just about out of the state now. The good news is that she's moving fast as the same cold front that is giving us delightful weather in the country's heartland is muscling her out into the Atlantic.

Good riddance, we say. We also are saying our prayers for the Mexican victims of Wilma. She spent over a day just slowly throwing body punches to the resort areas of Cozumel and Cancun, her 115+ mph winds relentlessly stripping away many structures. Now authorities in Cancun are trying to control looting! Leaving us to wonder about divine targeting: Earlier the Big Easy and the Gulf casinos are destroyed or shut down. Now the Mexican Riviera. Could God be making a statement? And if He is, are we paying attention?

One small piece of good news: Since Wilma left Cancun with a right-angle turn to the east (and isn't that strange in itself?), the Gulf oil platforms were spared. That's dropped today's price per barrel down to below $60. That will affect the pump prices in a positive way, for a change, making everyone happy except for the editorial staff of the New York Times, who today proffer the idea (again) that federal gasoline TAXES should be RAISED! So predictable. Americans aren't suffering enough yet to really embrace the social change advocated by the Times. (Editor's Query: Is social change a euphemism for socialism?)

The bird flu is discovered in England. It's obviously traveling faster than birds can fly, so it must be getting help in some fashion, even if its the importation of foreign birds, like parrots.

Not flying so high are the Houston Astros who find themselves leaving Chicago behind two games to none after closer Brad Lidge gave up another big ninth inning homer last night. If Roy Oswalt doesn't get the job done in Game 3, expect this to be a very short series.

We haven't said much since the early hours of the Harriet Miers nomination, mostly because there is really little to say. She's not John Roberts, meaning her qualifications pale in comparison. It was an ill-advised nomination and barring a miracle it's hard to see how she can win Senate confirmation. The only question is whether the Miers affair is a strategic blunder or a strategic master-stroke engineered by the inscrutable Karl Rove designed to accomplish other arcane goals. As to that question, we don't care.

We do care as to how the financial markets are going to react today to the surprise announcement of a new Federal Reserve chairman. No link yet, but the word is that there will be a news conference at 12 noon EDT today (11 a.m. CDT). About an hour from now.

Also breaking is a report that three car bombs have exploded at the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad, which is where most of the foreign press bunk at night.

No disrespect to the press, but want to bet which story -- the new Fed chairman or the hotel blast -- will get the most attention in the next 24-48? Yet the Fed chairmanship probably will have more direct impact on living conditions in the world.

And you can take that prediction to the bank.