*Bobby Knight, head coach for men's basketball at Texas Tech and the longtime coach at Indiana University, gave the keynote luncheon address on Tuesday (Carl Icahn gave last year's). The short-tempered Knight didn't throw any chairs. But when an attendee began to ask a question after Knight pointed to someone else, the coach asked if the attendee had ever been a basketball referee given his poor eyesight.
* In a decidedly less lighthearted address the next day, Tom Ridge, former secretary of Homeland Security and governor of Pennsylvania, spoke to conference attendees on national security issues.
* Attendance at Moody's Investors Service's outlook on General Motors and Ford Motor Co. on Wednesday was markedly lower than the standing-room only crowd that packed into the Waldorf's Astor Room to hear Scott Sprinzen of Standard & Poor's on the same topic the previous day.
* "They've seen the movie too many times to not be concerned that something is going to happen." Fred Horton, managing director at buy-sider GSC Partners, on the reluctance of some investors to buy CDOs because of the spotty performance record from some of the first-generation deals.
