JACK LAIL: Getting schooled in “street politics.” “I’m getting first hand experience at a lobbying effort by progressives aimed at one of the Associated Press’ top Washington journalists. . . . I suspect this effort will continue at some level beyond the election in early November.” It’s as if one of the candidates is a disciple of Saul Alinsky.

VIDEO: Who’s responsible for the Fannie and Freddie mess? (Via Ace).

USEFUL SKILLS FOR BOYS. And usefully-inclined girls.

HMM: “I have no way of judging whether the Wall Street bailout is a necessary evil or an impending disaster. But we’re in this mess, ultimately, because our political elites thought it was good social policy to encourage banks to give mortgages to uncreditworthy people.”

TRYING TO SAVE THE OBAMA CAMPAIGN FROM JOE BIDEN. Or maybe vice versa. They told me when John McCain named Sarah Palin as his running mate that we’d be embarrassed by repeated gaffes from an unqualified Vice-Presidential candidate. And they were right!

Plus, an “I told you so.”

SO IF YOU’RE REALLY WORRIED ABOUT THE ECONOMY, there’s always this book on dumpster diving. Plus, Living Well on Practically Nothing.

A REPORT FROM NASA’S PRESS CONFERENCE on the state of the Sun.

TRUST THE GOVERNMENT WITH YOUR DATA? “A former foreign service officer at the State Department pleaded guilty on Monday to illegally reading the private passport files of three presidential candidates as well as those of actors, athletes and media figures. The former employee, Lawrence C. Yontz, looked through the files of nearly 200 people as a result of his ‘idle curiosity,’ prosecutors and his lawyer said in a filing in federal court here. The plea grows out of the State Department’s revelation six months ago that a number of employees and contractors with access to its internal passport database improperly peered into the files of three senators running for president: John McCain, Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton.”

Was it really just “idle curiosity?”

DAVE KOPEL: FactCheck.org Flubs Obama Gun Fact-Check. “The September 22, 2008, FactCheck on the NRA criticism of Obama is marred by the omission of crucial facts, one-sided and misleading presentations of issues, and thinly-concealed political advocacy. . . . Much of FactCheck’s critique of the NRA is the mere recitation of vague platitudes by Obama claiming that he supports of the Second Amendment.”

DRILL HERE, DRILL NOW: Democrats to let offshore drilling ban expire.

HOW BADLY WILL THE CURRENT ECONOMIC TURMOIL impact clean-technology startups?

TIGERHAWK ON the Senate, the hearings, and the bailout.

UPDATE: A column on the situation from Jerry Pournelle. “What will be done must be decided by the most unpopular Administration in nearly a century in connection with the most unpopular Congress in history; and everyone involved in finding a remedy was in one way or another a part of creating the mess. . . . One thing is certain: the people who must pay for this debacle will largely be those who took out sensible loans and have kept up their mortgage payments; those who did nothing wrong, but will be handed the bill.”

HMM: No Palin Hacking Indictment. But the DOJ says the investigation is “ongoing.” I don’t know why they would take a case to the grand jury this fast.

UPDATE: Orin Kerr explains. “The prosecutors are taking the case to the grand jury now because they need to nail down the testimony of Kernell’s roommates.”

CHARLIE MARTIN IS dissecting the Palin rumor mill. Notice how the press in general isn’t as interested in exploring or debunking these as it was with the Obama rumors? Martin: “In my new and unexpected role as the Pajamas Media answer to Hedda Hopper, I’ve spent a lot of time looking at the rumors about Sarah Palin that have appeared in the weeks since John McCain announced her nomination. (The new list is up to 91 and still growing.) Its given me a whole new insight into rumors and how the press responds to them. It seems to be very predictable — and very artificial.”

FROM BRIAN WANG, a roundup on Breeder Reactors, Uranium from Phosphate and Near Term Thorium usage.

SOME SPACE POLICY ADVICE for the next President.

IT’S A BOOKSTORE! IT’S A CABLE CHANNEL! Amazon offers video on demand. They’re offering a lot of new shows before they air, for free.

I used to think that I wouldn’t watch TV online, but I’ve been watching PJTV, so now I know better.

THERE GOES THE U.M.W. ENDORSEMENT: Biden: ‘No coal plants here in America’. “He supports clean coal for China, but not for the United States.”

Plus, Obama vs. Biden on the AIG bailout. It’s a gaffe-a-palooza!

UPDATE: Roger Simon: Is Joe Biden trying to sabotage Obama?

HUNTER CAMOUFLAGE based on how deer eyes actually work.

ARE OLDER BRAINS less able to feel rewards?

GRAND ROUNDS IS UP, and the medical-blog carnival is celebrating its fifth anniversary.

ROBERT RUBIN: Don’t blame deregulation for the financial meltdown. Congress, on the other hand . . . .

Meanwhile, reader Stan Brown emails: “I’m watching the Senate hearing and listening to the senators question Paulson, Cox and Bernanke. The markets continue to fall as investors also listen. Clearly, if experience in the Senate leads to the performance we are watching today, experience is seriously overrated. These senators are frightening.” I feel that way every time I watch a Senate hearing. Where do we get these people?

UPDATE: It’s Jennifer Rubin quoting Robert Rubin. Scroll down. Ed Cone says that Robert Rubin is engaged in “legacy maintenance.” But if so, that still undermines the “It was Bush deregulation” talking point, doesn’t it?

And on the Senate hearings, a hedge-fund reader emails:

I’ve been watching these kinds of hearings for far longer than I care to say, and to be honest, this is the best effort I’ve ever seen by the senators.

I’ve seen cringe-inducing tirades, outright lies, and pie-in-the-sky fantasies from that panel in the past. Today, they were sober and honest, with a minimum of grandstanding.

It’s a measure of how seriously they view their own positions, and the gravity of what they’re being asked to do.

Stocks fell because the markets now must discount their doing the right thing and NOT socializing the losses.

Hmm.

MICKEY KAUS on the new Honda Fit: “So has Honda screwed up the Fit? Car and Driver’s posted a debate on the subject. My reading: Yes, they have. The new Fit has 10 cup holders, but the steering “has lost on-center feel.” Nothing is as important as “on-center feel”! And CD’s colloquy includes several cues (e.g., ‘This is a great car for people who are coming from larger vehicles’) that experienced readers will recognize as secret distress codes.”

JOHN MCCAIN OWNS three electric vehicles.

JOE BIDEN REMEMBERS Franklin Roosevelt’s televised addresses to the nation in 1929. “As Reason’s Jesse Walker footnotes it: ‘And if you owned an experimental TV set in 1929, you would have seen him. And you would have said to yourself, “Who is that guy? What happened to President Hoover?”‘”

And if Sarah Palin had said something like this, it would be getting much more attention.

UPDATE: He’s Quayle-Tastic! Plus, Felix the Cat.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Jim Meigs emails:

Re your post on Biden’s Roosevelt gaffe:

Interestingly, Herbert Hoover actually did appear on TV, in an experimental AT&T transmission from Washington to New York in 1927. He was secretary of commerce at the time, and became the first public official to be televised.

If you wanted to see Roosevelt on TV you would have had to wait until 1939 when he gave a televised address from the 1939 World’s Fair–marking both the first television appearance by a current president, and the advent of regular TV broadcasting in the US.

Well, Hoover was an engineer.