Is it any consolation to Rush Limbaugh that Donovan McNabb tossed an interception and completed only 9 of 23 passes for a trifling 64 yards against the hapless Giants? Probably not. The Eagles’ quarterback again proved feckless, but at least he was out on a field playing games. Limbaugh, for his part, never saw the light of day; his hours were consumed by endless 12-step meetings punctuated by quick breaks to slurp down plastic bowls of unsweetened Jello and supervised visits to the bathroom.

Truth be told, many of us are guilty of Monday morning quarterbacking, especially when we’ve frittered away our kid’s lunch money on a weekend of unproductive gambling. Inside the beltway, the stakes are being raised on who outed CIA operative Valerie Plame. The White House office pool has most staffers betting on one of three sources. The heavy favorite at 5:2 is political advisor Karl Rove who has a firm grip on Bush’s puppet strings. Dick Cheney’s sinister grimace places him a close second while the three spot is taken by National Security Council senior director Elliott Abrams. Abrams plead guilty of lying to Congress during the Iran-Contra hearings but resurfaced in Washington after being pardoned by Bush One. If it turns out Abrams is the culprit, being pardoned by Bush Two would make him the greatest long shot of all time.

A mere glance at your retirement account is reminder enough that the stock market is fraught with risk. Some analysts worry that the mania of the 90’s may be back, pushing the market to unduly elevated levels. Evidence of euphoria abounds as Moody’s raised their rating of Russian sovereign debt to investment grade despite two defaults in the last 12 years. Junk bonds have handily outperformed Treasuries this year while companies with the worst prospects have watched their stocks soar past more steady performers. Since the market bottom last October, the S&P 500 is up 30% while the more labile Nasdaq has jumped 70%. After such a big run, investors might be inclined to buy a little downside protection, especially if it was available dirt-cheap. But with such giddiness pervading Wall Street, the thought of insurance seems superfluous.

If I may digress: In 1972 a couple of eggheads came up with a model for pricing options. It was important enough work to land them, years later, a Nobel Prize. So pay attention. What this model tells us is that once all else is known, the two main drivers of an option’s price are time and volatility of its underlying asset. Unless you’re Einstein or Salvador Dali, the clock on your wall operates at a fixed rate and thus you are left, at any given moment, to focus on volatility. The CBOE Volatility Index currently reads 16.42, versus 39.69 a year ago and is at its lowest level since 1997. This means puts are a dime a dozen. But a put/call ratio of .64 (half of where it was a year ago) means that no one’s buying. Imagine your broker rock climbing without a rope.

Or driving his jeep through a crocodile-infested river, or cleaning a toilet bowl without gloves or any other ridiculous activity shown on television with the rejoinder, “ don’t try this at home.” As if anyone would be stupid enough to try. Well, apparently some people are. Given the Siegfried and Roy debacle I didn’t expect to read that a pet tiger attacked Antoine Yates in his Harlem apartment. I was dumbstruck by the fatal shooting spree in which two Tennessee boys said they were mimicking the video game “Grand Theft Auto III”. And after Demi Moore reduced Bruce Willis from a leading action star to a balding oddity I certainly didn’t foresee Ashton Kutcher risking his looks on matrimony. What surprised me the most, however, was the announcement that Willis will give away the bride during the Valentine’s Day ceremony. This serves to remind us all that in Hollywood you never lose your wife; you only lose your turn.