Thoughts at Large:

• Who’d have thought that banking – a business where you collect money from everyone else — would be the worst business in America.

• Remember the good old days when a 300-point market swing was not a biweekly event?

• I just checked again — make that 778.

• In terms of risk, it would be safer for everyone to move their savings from the stock market to Foxwoods.

• How about an E-ZPass that lets you renew your registration by driving by the DMV?

• CEO’s and superstar athletes are the only folks I know who make millions when batting .160.

• I just don’t think God meant for us to build houses on stilts on beaches.

• If this were 1740, half of Wall Street would be in stocks in the public square.

• Meg Ryan, who is back to trashing ex Dennis Quaid for having cheated … and “made” her then cheat with Russell Crowe … needs to move on.

• And is it just me or do women air far more dirty laundry than men?

• Even though the print is half-blurry, I sometimes refuse to use magnifiers because I’m not ready to admit defeat.

• Can’t they make a hot water heater that doesn’t flood the furnace room when it breaks?

• Sarah Palin has accomplished a lot in her life, but picking her for vice-president is like putting a youth football star in the NFL.

• While boarding a nine-seat commuter plane from Martha’s Vineyard to New Bedford, I saw huge private jets that seat 20-plus and asked the pilot about them. Often, he said, they carry only one passenger. He added: “Usually, it’s a woman and a dog.”

• I’m thinking it’s ironic when Rush Limbaugh of all people mocks Obama for being too full of himself.

• Come on, even if you like Rush, you can’t tell me he’s modest.

• The home run race is not as interesting without steroids.

• You don’t see it on TV because of commercials, but at Gillette Stadium, the cheerleaders get almost as much time on the Jumbotron as the players.

• PETA now wants Ben and Jerry’s to spare cows and use human breast milk. Udderly ridiculous.

• If Bill Clinton isn’t on the McCain campaign payroll, he should be.

• I knew gas prices were high, but now I read people are playing less Keno so they can fill their tanks. That’s bad.

• It’s been so long I can’t be sure, but I have this vague memory that once, houses actually increased in value.

• Don’t you love the McDonald’s off the Mass Pike west of Worcester that still has the golden arches?

• I hear Johnny Depp may play Tonto in a Lone Ranger movie opposite George Clooney. If the movie is updated for our times, Tonto will be a casino tycoon and the Lone Ranger his pit boss.

• I’m still waiting to be cast opposite Clooney in a big-screen thriller about a columnist who does lists like this one.

• But if that happens, I’ll definitely make my subsequent project an indie film to maintain my street cred.

• So is Lindsay Lohan gay or not?

• And if not — is this what it’s come to — that you pretend to be gay as a career move?

• I’m waiting for a photo in US magazine of six male senators lined up at the next bailout news conference in identical charcoal gray suits with a reader survey underneath on who wore it best.

• I guess if you flipped the Ritz on its side and floated it into the Caribbean you’d have a cruise ship.

• To borrow a phrase, the McCain campaign’s muzzling of Sarah Palin is the soft bigotry of low expectations.

• At this point, I think we all need to do our bit for the state budget and play the slots at Twin River and Newport Grand.

• In a presidential campaign, I think the phrase “I’m setting politics aside,” means “I’m not setting politics aside.”

• Is it a bad sign that I see lots of lawyers now advertising bankruptcy services?

• As much as extremist Muslims don’t like us, Iraq’s Sunni-Shiite mess is a reminder that many of them don’t like each other even more.

• There are a thousand great Paul Newman lines to remember him by, but I’d pick this one from Hud since it doesn’t get the airtime it deserves: “The only question I ever ask any woman is, ‘What time is your husband coming home?’ ”

• Finally, let’s end with a prescient question from a financial analyst: “Is this the beginning of the end or the end of the beginning?”

mpatinkin@projo.com