Farewell to a Great Comedian: Harold Ramis

Infowars.com
February 24, 2014

69-year-old actor, writer and acclaimed director Harold Ramis passed away Monday after a drawn out battle with autoimmune disease.

Most notable for scripting cult classics like Caddyshack and Groundhog’s Day, and appearances in such films as Ghostbusters, Ramis leaves behind an incredible legacy of spreading happiness through film, helping make the world a better place with humor.

Infowars honors Ramis’ memory with one of our all-time favorite scenes from the film Ghostbusters.

This article was posted: Monday, February 24, 2014 at 1:13 pm

---

---

  Print this page.

---

---

Infowars

Farewell to a Great Comedian: Harold Ramis

After 22 years, Leno bids farewell to "Tonight"

Jay Leno is seen during the final taping of “Tonight Show with Jay Leno”, in Burbank, Calif., Thursday, Feb. 6, 2014. (Photo by Matt Sayles/Invision/AP)

Jay Leno is seen during the final taping of “Tonight Show with Jay Leno”, in Burbank, Calif., Thursday, Feb. 6, 2014. (Photo by Matt Sayles/Invision/AP)

Jay Leno is seen during the final taping of “Tonight Show with Jay Leno”, in Burbank, Calif., Thursday, Feb. 6, 2014. (Photo by Matt Sayles/Invision/AP)

Jay Leno is seen during the final taping of “Tonight Show with Jay Leno”, in Burbank, Calif., Thursday, Feb. 6, 2014. (Photo by Matt Sayles/Invision/AP)

Jay Leno, left, looks at cue cards during the final taping of “Tonight Show with Jay Leno”, in Burbank, Calif., Thursday, Feb. 6, 2014. (Photo by Matt Sayles/Invision/AP)

Jay Leno, right, and Billy Crystal are seen during the final taping of “Tonight Show with Jay Leno”, in Burbank, Calif., Thursday, Feb. 6, 2014. (Photo by Matt Sayles/Invision/AP)

Buy AP Photo Reprints

BURBANK, Calif. (AP) — Jay Leno has said goodbye to “The Tonight Show” before, but not like this. The comedian became tearful and choked up Thursday as he concluded what he called the “greatest 22 years of my life.”

“I am the luckiest guy in the world. This is tricky,” said the emotional Leno, stepping down for the second and presumably last time as host of TV’s venerable late-night program. Jimmy Fallon takes over “Tonight” in New York on Feb. 17.

Leno shared that he’d lost his mother the first year he became “Tonight” host, his dad the second and then his brother.

“And after that I was pretty much out of family. And the folks here became my family,” he said of the crew and staff of “Tonight.”

It was a tender finish to a farewell show that was mostly aiming for laughs, with traditional monologue jokes, clips from old shows and a wild assortment of celebrities helping to see Leno off.

Leno first departure came in 2009, when he was briefly replaced by Conan O’Brien but reclaimed the show after a messy transition and O’Brien’s lackluster ratings. In ’09, he was moving to a prime-time show on NBC; this time he’s out the door, and has said he’ll focus on comedy clubs and his beloved car collection.

Looking sharp in a black suit and bright blue tie, Leno was greeted by an ovation from the VIP audience. The typically self-contained comic betrayed a bit of nervousness, stumbling over a few lines in his monologue.

He didn’t trip over his opening line, though — a final dig at his employer.

“You’re very kind,” he told the audience. “I don’t like goodbyes. NBC does.”

Leno brought his show full circle with Billy Crystal, who was his first guest in May 1992 and his last guest Thursday. Crystal played ringmaster at one point, calling on Oprah Winfrey, Jack Black, Kim Kardashian, Carol Burnett and others for a musical tribute to Jay with a “Sound of Music” song parody.

“So long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, goodbye. If Fallon tanks, you’ll be back here next year,” sang Jack Black.

“The Big Bang Theory” star Jim Parson’s contribution: “We’ve watched you when we’re weary. Your great success is called the big chin theory.”

In a videotaped segment, celebrities offered career advice to Leno.

“Why would I give a (expletive) about what he does. He’s a grown man,” said Mark Wahlberg.

President Barack Obama, like other politicians a favorite target of Leno’s, struck back in his clip.

“Jay, you’ve made a whole lot of jokes about me over the years, but don’t worry, I’m not upset,” Obama said, adding that he was making Leno the U.S. ambassador to Antarctica. “Hope you have a warm coat, funnyman.”

Crystal sang Leno’s praises during the show, saying the late-night host made America feel a little better at bedtime and invoking his predecessor, Johnny Carson. Leno’s “Tonight” tenure was second in length only to Carson’s 30 years.

“You were handed the baton by one of the all-time greats. But once it was in your grasp, you ran the race,” Crystal said. He and Leno, longtime friends, reminisced about the old days, with Leno recalling how Crystal and other comedians visiting his town, Boston, stayed in Leno’s apartment.

“You’re calling it an apartment. I’m calling it a bomb site,” Crystal joked.

Leno told how he was poised to make his network debut on Dean Martin’s show in 1974 when news came that President Richard Nixon had resigned in the Watergate scandal. Leno’s appearance didn’t happen.

“Making me the last guy screwed by Nixon,” Leno said.

Garth Brooks performed his touching song “The Dance” before Leno’s farewell remarks. “Now that I brought the room down,” Leno joked, he asked Brooks to lighten it up.

Another Brooks’ song, “Friends in Low Places,” closed out the show.

“It’s going to be difficult to not come in and do a show every day for our audience who has been so great to Jay,” lamented Debbie Vickers, Leno’s executive producer. “And also hard for this group of people (the staff) who have all been together for 22 years,” said Vickers, who worked on Johnny Carson’s “Tonight” before taking the top job with Leno.

Leno, 63, said he plans to continue playing comedy clubs, indulging his passion for cars and doing such TV work as comes his way — other than hosting on late-night.

“It’s been a wonderful job. This is the right time to leave,” he said last week, and make way for the next generation.

Fallon, 39, starts his “Tonight” Feb. 17, with NBC hoping he rides the promotional wave of its Winter Olympics coverage the next two weeks.

Closing his final show on Thursday, Leno gave a final shoutout. It was to his wife of more than 30 years, Mavis: “I’m coming home, honey!”

___

AP Entertainment Reporter Derrik J. Lang contributed to this report.

___

Online:

http://www.nbc.com

Associated Press

Copyright 2014 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Top Headlines

After 22 years, Leno bids farewell to "Tonight"

4of6 Farewell Mandela, hello New World Order, Susanne Posel 3Dec2013

Our New World Order Update:

Farewell AAA: Moody"s Downgrades The UK From AAA To Aa1

Tweet

Just the headline for now:

• MOODY’S DOWNGRADES UK’S GOVERNMENT BOND RATING TO Aa1 FROM AAA

Someone must have clued Moody’s on the fact that the UK is about to have its very own Goldman banker, which means consolidated debt/GDP will soon need four digits. In other news, every lawyer in the UK is now celebrating because come Monday Moody’s will be sued to smithereens.

Full report below:

Moody’s downgrades UK’s government bond rating to Aa1 from Aaa; outlook is now stable
 
London, 22 February 2013 — Moody’s Investors Service has today downgraded the domestic- and foreign-currency government bond ratings of the United Kingdom by one notch to Aa1 from Aaa. The outlook on the ratings is now stable.
 
The key interrelated drivers of today’s action are:
 
1. The continuing weakness in the UK’s medium-term growth outlook, with a period of sluggish growth which Moody’s now expects will extend into the second  half of the decade;
 
2. The challenges that subdued medium-term growth prospects pose to the government’s fiscal consolidation programme, which will now extend well into the next parliament;
 
3. And, as a consequence of the UK’s high and rising debt burden, a deterioration in the shock-absorption capacity of the government’s balance sheet, which is unlikely to reverse before 2016.
 
At the same time, Moody’s explains that the UK’s creditworthiness remains extremely high, rated at Aa1, because of the country’s significant credit strengths. These include (i) a highly competitive, well-diversified economy; (ii) a strong track record of fiscal consolidation and a robust institutional structure; and (iii) a favourable debt structure, with supportive domestic demand for government debt, the longest average maturity structure (15 years) among all highly rated sovereigns globally and the resulting reduced interest rate risk on UK debt.
 
The stable outlook on the UK’s Aa1 sovereign rating reflects Moody’s expectation that a combination of political will and medium-term fundamental underlying economic strengths will, in time, allow the government to implement its fiscal consolidation plan and reverse the UK’s debt trajectory. Moreover, although the UK’s economy has considerable risk exposure through trade and financial linkages to a potential escalation in the euro area sovereign debt crisis, its contagion risk is mitigated by the flexibility afforded by the UK’s independent monetary policy framework and sterling’s global reserve currency status.

In a related rating action, Moody’s has today also downgraded the ratings of the Bank of England to Aa1 from Aaa. The issuer’s P-1 rating is unaffected by this rating action. The rating outlook for this entity is now also stable.
 
RATINGS RATIONALE
 
The main driver underpinning Moody’s decision to downgrade the UK’s government bond rating to Aa1 is the increasing clarity that, despite considerable structural economic strengths, the UK’s economic growth will remain sluggish over the next few years due to the anticipated slow growth of the global economy and the drag on the UK economy from the ongoing domestic public- and private-sector deleveraging process. Moody’s says that the country’s current economic recovery has already proven to be significantly slower — and believes that it will likely remain so — compared with the recovery observed after previous recessions, such as those of the 1970s, early 1980s and early 1990s. Moreover, while the government’s recent Funding for Lending Scheme has the potential to support a surge in growth, Moody’s believes the risks to the growth outlook remain skewed to the downside.
 
The sluggish growth environment in turn poses an increasing challenge to the government’s fiscal consolidation efforts, which represents the second driver informing Moody’s one-notch downgrade of the UK’s sovereign rating. When Moody’s changed the outlook on the UK’s rating to negative in February 2012, the rating agency cited concerns over the increased uncertainty regarding the pace of fiscal consolidation due to materially weaker growth prospects, which contributed to higher than previously expected projections for the deficit, and consequently also an expected  ise in the debt burden. Moody’s now expects that the UK’s gross general government debt level will peak at just over 96% of GDP in 2016. The rating agency says that it would have expected it to peak at a higher level if the government had not reduced its debt stock by transferring funds from the Asset Purchase Facility — which will equal to roughly 3.7% of GDP in total — as announced in November 2012.
 
More specifically, projected tax revenue increases have been difficult to achieve in the UK due to the challenging economic environment. As a result, the weaker economic outturn has substantially slowed the anticipated pace of deficit and debt-to-GDP reduction, and is likely to continue to do so over the medium term. After it was elected in 2010, the government outlined a fiscal consolidation programme that would run through this parliament’s five-year term and place the net public-sector debt-to-GDP ratio on a declining trajectory by the 2015-16 financial year. (Although it was not one of the government’s targets, Moody’s had expected the UK’s gross general government debt — a key debt metric in the rating agency’s analysis — to start declining in the 2014-15 financial year.) Now, however, the government has announced that fiscal consolidation will extend into the next parliament, which necessarily makes their implementation less certain.
 
Taken together, the slower-than-expected recovery, the higher debt load and the policy uncertainties combine to form the third driver of today’s rating action — namely, the erosion of the shock-absorption capacity of the UK’s balance sheet. Moody’s believes that the mounting debt levels in a low-growth environment have impaired the sovereign’s ability to contain and quickly reverse the impact of adverse economic or financial shocks. For example, given the pace of deficit and debt reduction that Moody’s has observed since 2010, there is a risk that the UK government may not be able to reverse the debt trajectory before the next economic shock or cyclical downturn in the economy.
 
In summary, although the UK’s debt-servicing capacity remains very strong and very capable of withstanding further adverse economic and financial shocks, it does not at present possess the extraordinary resilience common to other Aaa-rated issuers.
 
RATIONALE FOR STABLE OUTLOOK
 
The stable outlook on the UK’s Aa1 sovereign rating partly reflects the strengths that underpin the Aa1 rating itself — the underlying economic strength and fiscal policy commitment which Moody’s expects will ultimately allow the UK government to reverse the debt trajectory. The stable outlook is also an indication of the fact that Moody’s does not expect further additional material deterioration in the UK’s economic prospects or additional material difficulties in implementing fiscal consolidation. It also reflects the greater capacity of the UK government compared with its euro area peers to absorb shocks resulting from any further escalation in the euro area sovereign debt crisis, given (1) the absence of the contingent liabilities from mutual support mechanisms that euro area members face; (2) the UK’s more limited trade dependence on the euro area; and (3) the policy flexibility that the UK derives from having its own national currency, which is a global reserve currency. Lastly, the UK also benefits from a considerably longer-than-average debt-maturity schedule, making the country’s debt-servicing costs less vulnerable to swings in interest rates.
 
WHAT COULD MOVE THE RATING UP/DOWN
 
As reflected by the stable rating outlook, Moody’s does not anticipate any movement in the rating over the next 12-18 months. However, downward pressure on the rating could arise if government policies were unable to stabilise and begin to ease the UK’s debt burden during the multi-year fiscal consolidation programme. Moody’s could also downgrade the UK’s government debt rating further in the event of an additional material deterioration in the country’s economic prospects or reduced political commitment to fiscal consolidation.
 
Conversely, Moody’s would consider changing the outlook on the UK’s rating to positive, and ultimately upgrading the rating back to Aaa, in the event of much more rapid economic growth and debt-to-GDP reduction than Moody’s is currently anticipating.
 
COUNTRY CEILINGS
 
The UK’s foreign- and local-currency bond and deposit ceilings remain unchanged at Aaa. The short-term foreign-currency bond and deposit ceilings remain Prime-1.
 
IMPACT ON OTHER RATINGS
 
Moody’s will assess the implications of this action for the debt obligations of other issuers which benefit from a guarantee from the UK sovereign, and will announce its conclusions shortly in accordance with EU regulatory requirements. Moody’s does not consider that the one-notch downgrade of the UK sovereign has any implications for the standalone strength of UK financial institutions, or for the systemic support uplift factored into certain UK financial institutions’ unguaranteed debt ratings.
 
PREVIOUS RATING ACTION

Moody’s previous action on the UK’s sovereign rating and the Bank of England was implemented on 13 February 2012, when the rating agency changed the outlook on both Aaa ratings to negative from stable. For the UK sovereign, the actions prior to that were Moody’s assignment of a Aaa rating to the UK’s government bonds in March 1978 and the assignment of a stable outlook in March 1997. For the Bank of England, the action prior to the one from February 2012 was the assignment of a Aaa rating and stable outlook in March 2010.

Zero Hedge

Farewell AAA: Moody"s Downgrades The UK From AAA To Aa1