The seventh year of the new millennium is almost over. Like always, the Associated Press news writers have ranked the top ten stories for the year. Here they are, spiced up with a little Salyards sarcasm!

1. Seung-Hui Cho, age 23 killed 32 students and professors at Virginia Tech University. Of course, his handgun is to blame.

2. Bad, sub-prime mortgage loans caused large losses for banks and resulted in record foreclosures in the housing market. Apparently, gullible homebuyers didn’t read the hundreds of pages in the loan documents that the federal government had previously put in there to protect them, so we need more regulations and more documents for the next time that ignorant consumers and stupid bankers meet again.

3. The Iraq War continued, but with reduced violence in the later part of the year due to the “surge” of American troops and their deal making with rival forces. There may be light at the end of the tunnel here if the Democrats don’t raise the white flags after the next election.

4. Oil prices climbed to within pennies of $100 a barrel. Historically high gasoline prices were supposed to put pressure on consumer budgets, but Christmas shopping sales broke records in December. I’m not worried. If we use enough corn to make ethanol we can just buy our food from the Chinese!

5. Despite scares about lead and other tainted Chinese products, the US trade deficit with China ran at high levels again this year. What’s a little lead when you’re saving money!

6. Global Warming continued to be a “hot topic” as Al Gore won a Nobel Prize for his environmental activities, including his film, “An Inconvenient Truth.” Meanwhile, December’s heavy and frequent snows finally induced me to purchase a new snow blower. It was the environmentally sensitive thing for me to do. After all, even with this new pollution-emitting blower, my carbon footprint is still a lot less than Al Gore’s.

7. A bridge on I-35W collapsed during rush hour in downtown Minneapolis, focusing attention to the condition of the nation’s infrastructure. It was a miracle that only 13 people died, as the bridge fell nearly sixty feet into the Mississippi river. While Louisiana politicians wring their hands, Minnesotans will have their new bridge constructed before the end of 2008.

8. The beginning of the 2008 Presidential Campaign is now almost a year old. Most Americans are nearly ready to throw up, but we haven’t been able to determine if our queasy stomachs are do to the character of the candidates or the continuous nightly newscasts from Iowa.

9. The debate over illegal immigration continued in 2007, but there is little evidence that anything will change in the near future. There are too many votes at stake on both sides of the issue and besides; I can’t do without my Mexican landscaper.

10. Iran’s Nuclear Program got a lot of publicity this year. I’m not worried; the Israelis have a lot more to worry about than I do, and they have the military might to take care of this problem when necessary.

Last Monday night when the Vikings/Bears football game started to bore me, I went to bed. That’s when I noticed an ache in my belly. It got worse. Then it got worse than worse. When it became obvious that this wasn’t going to go away I drove to the emergency room around 1:30 a.m., got out of my truck, threw up in the parking lot, walked up to the door to the emergency room, threw up again on the snow outside the door, and walked into the building.

I’m one of the lucky ones. Emergency room physician Dr. Morales was genuinely sympathetic and caring. A really cool nurse named Andy shot me up with generous doses of morphine and humor to ease the pain, and a CT scan confirmed that my appendix had to come out as soon as possible. By 6:30 a.m. on Tuesday morning one of the world’s most experienced and competent surgeons, Dr. Suzanne Jelense removed what she described as a “very nasty, inflamed appendix.” I spent the next two days in the hospital getting some of the best health care that a human being can receive. Every person I encountered at Winona Health (from the receptionist, to nurses, to the housekeeping staff) treated me with friendliness, decency, and competence. Because of their care, because of some good luck, and because of the love and support of my friends, I was discharged a day early from the hospital and am doing fine.

A couple of thoughts occurred to me during my stay. First, I remember thinking about how Hillary Clinton and John Edwards want the Federal Government to run health care, and I was damn glad it hadn’t happened yet. The Feds can’t do anything right, and I can’t even imagine that the Feds could do health care correctly. But I know one thing for sure; if the Federal Government takes over health care and Hillary Clinton or John Edwards ever need to have surgery, neither one of them is going to check into a Government hospital! They’re going to use their substantial cash to stay in a private hospital with the best medical care, a hospital like I enjoyed this week in Winona, Minnesota.

Second, while it may seem exciting and romantic to have lived a hundred years ago, I realize how fortunate we are to live in this modern day. Depending upon whom you believe, the first appendectomy in the United States was performed either in 1885 by Dr. William West Grant in Davenport, Iowa, or in 1886 by Dr. Robert Hall at Roosevelt Hospital in New York City. The bottom line is that if you were a farmer living in a Nebraska sod hut in 1865 (or for that matter, a wealthy East Coast industrialist) and came down with appendicitis, you were a dead man. You would have lain on your bed until your appendix burst and would have died within hours. In my case, the obituary would have read: “Here Lies Don Salyards, Dead at Age 58”. Go to the cemetery and look at the ages of folks buried there. It was a rare person who lived to be 70 or 80 years old. The reason is simple; if you became ill, even with disorders that would be routinely treated today, you probably would have died back then. Many people never made it out of their childhood years in the 1800’s.

Three weeks ago, for the first time, I became a grandfather. Since the minute that Tad and Lisa told me that my grandson, Marek, was on the way, I’ve given a lot of thought about the cool things we will be able to do together. You know, stuff like fishing, wrestling around, and going to a water park. And when he’s a teenager, I’ll break his heart by making him a life-long Cubs fan, for which he will probably never forgive me. And, if the good Lord’s willing, if I take good care of myself, if we can keep the government out of health care, and if good people like the ones that work at Winona Health continue to perform like they do, all of those dreams just might come true!

Thursday, December 13, 2007 former U.S. Senator George Mitchell released the results of a 20-month long investigation into the use of steroids in major league baseball. The report indicated that usage of steroids has been widespread for at least a decade and has occurred in virtually every major league clubhouse. In addition to old names like Barry Bonds and Jason Giambi, dozens of new names surfaced, including future hall of fame pitcher Roger Clemens. Other notable names listed were Gary Sheffield, Miguel Tejada and David Justice. Mitchell recommended to baseball commissioner Bud Selig that none of these players should be punished. I think he’s right, and I’ll tell you why.

Like almost every situation in life, one needs only look at the “marginal benefits” vs. “marginal costs” of a typical major league baseball player over the past fifteen or twenty years to understand the essence of this baseball steroid story. In economics we teach that almost all human decisions are made at the “margin’. A rational person should engage in any activity where the extra (marginal) benefits exceed the extra (marginal) costs. However, if the additional costs exceed the additional benefits, the person should refuse to engage in that activity.

In that context, let’s examine the decision-making process of a talented major league baseball player over the past fifteen years who was considering the use of steroids or human growth hormone. The marginal benefits are the extension of his major league career, rapid healing from injuries, improved performance in hitting, fielding or pitching, and the higher salary that such improved performance demands. For Roger Clemens, the extension of his pitching career for two more years was worth an additional $60 million. There may also be the non-pecuniary rewards of increased stardom, fame, and a trip to the hall of fame.

What about the marginal costs of using these substances? Due to the fact that baseball team owners, the players union, and Commissioner Bud Selig have turned a blind-eye to performance enhancing substances for more than a decade, their have been virtually no league-imposed penalties for players that have used them. For most of those years, steroids weren’t illegal and there were no routine tests for the use of any substances as a condition of employment. In other words, the short-term marginal costs were zero. The most significant “marginal cost” to a player of using these substances was long-term, namely, an increase in long-run health risks and shortened life expectancy. But, heck, if coal miners are willing to shorten their lives to make an additional $10 an hour, can we blame a baseball player who will shorten his life expectancy by the same number of years to make an additional $50 million?

Over the past twenty years, for many baseball players, the substantial marginal benefits of using performance-enhancing substances far outweighed the almost negligible short-term marginal costs. Given the incentives to use the substances, without any meaningful sanctions, there is no reason to assume that anything other than widespread drug use would have occurred. I’m not saying that use of these substances is desirable or noble, but I certainly understand why it happened.

Rather than putting asterisks on the names and records of those who were identified in the Mitchell report, in my opinion it would be better to simply put an editorial asterisk on this “steroid era” of the colorful history of baseball. Hopefully, as the Mitchell report recommends, baseball will install an effective drug treatment and prevention program. Programs should also be targeted to young people in all sporting activities, informing them of the health consequences of performance-enhancing substances. Nevertheless, as long as the human race endures, people will attempt to find shortcuts to success.

By a narrow margin of 51 to 49 percent, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez was defeated in last Monday’s referendum vote that would have allowed him to run for re-election indefinitely while continuing to socialize the Venezuelan economy. How stupid is this! Mayor Daley and everyone else in Chicago know that you win elections by having people vote for you early and often, dead or alive.

To protect his public image, chain-smoking Presidential Candidate Barack Obama takes careful measures never to be photographed with a cigarette. It’s insightful to know that the same fellow who wants to put the Federal Government in charge of the U.S. medical system doesn’t have the wisdom or discipline to effectively manage his own health.

George Bush, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, and other prominent “free market” Republicans, are the architects of a subprime rate freeze, an absolutely unnecessary and unwise example of governmental intervention in our resilient economy. Apparently when Republicans have to choose between government intervention and votes for their candidates in the upcoming elections, it is easy for them to become Democrats.

Friday, Barry Bonds pleaded not guilty to perjury and obstruction of justice charges and won a legal decision that could clear the way for him to play one more season of Major League Baseball. If Bill Clinton can lie about sex without going to trial, Barry Bonds shouldn’t be locked up for lieing about steroids. The punishment should fit the crime. I think that Bonds should be sentenced to play next year as a designated hitter for the Minnesota Twins!

Yesterday I accompanied my wife to a shopping mall. She does the shopping while I observe the thousands of downtrodden, underpaid, depressed, obese, sub-prime mortgage-gouged, erectile-disfunctioned, botox-injected citizens of the United States of America. Shopping like maniacs, they jammed their carts with I-pods, 52-inch flat screen televisions, imported brass statues of the Hindu Gods, leather Green Bay Packer jackets, and lead-laden Chinese-made toys. Moreover, they seemed genuinely happy, enjoying the day with their families and getting ready for the Christmas season. Suddenly I realized that not a darned one of them was worried about melting glaciers, fuel economy, solar energy, the alternative minimum tax, or the rights of prisoners at Gitmo. God bless them all!

Just when I think that our culture has dropped to rock bottom, I encounter something that convinces me that the bar defining personal integrity and responsibility is being set lower and lower.  Take, for example, a new website called myexcusedabsence.com.  Yep, folks, this baby clearly establishes that we’re headed straight to hell in a hand basket!

For the low price of $19.95 you can receive access to several phony excuse notes to use in getting out of work.  Occasions for these customized phony absence notes include:

1.    The Doctor/Dentist Visit
2.    The Emergency Room Visit
3.    Jury Duty
4.    Funeral Attendance
5.    Medical Evaluation Visits

Using the website you can download bogus excuse notes as word documents.  They look real official and you can insert your name and the names of your physician, funeral director, county clerk, etc. and print them out on your home computer.  The cost to snooker your employer is only $19.95.   There is even a free vacation contest that you can enter on this website.  Wow, cool!  After you win the free vacation you can use one of the website’s fake notes to get the days off!

Of course, my excused absence.com has a written and verbal disclaimer stating that the site is “for entertainment purposes only.”  I suppose one of the slick lawyers they’ve hired has figured it will get them off the hook if any of their customers try to sue them when they get caught and fired.  By the way, if you shell out your $19.95 in the next few days you will get two bonus notes.  One bonus note is for taking an extra long weekend without charging your personal leave.   The other one is a “just can’t be bothered to get out of bed” note!  Gosh, I wonder how that works?

I’m going to make a premature New Year’s wish; that a year from now when I enter myexcusedabsence.com in my web browser, they’ll be out of business!