ARNOLD KLING: The financial bailout isn’t as bad as Main Street thinks. It’s worse.

SPACE EXPLORATION IS ACTUALLY VERY CHEAP: “Roughly speaking, the widely publicized cost of the financial bailout … er, rescue package … is equal to seven Apollo programs, or 70 state-of-the-art atom-smashers.”

ASK DR. HELEN: Advice on what to do when political passion becomes obsessive and unhealthy.

NOT JUST AN AMERICAN PROBLEM (CONT’D): European and Asian markets plunge as bailouts in US, Europe fail to ease financial fears. And oil’s down to 90 bucks a barrel.

UPDATE: More on Europe’s problems, which seem quite severe. “Germany is now in the hot seat. The collapse of a rescue deal for Hypo Real Estate on Saturday threatens a €400bn (£311bn) bankruptcy that nearly matches the Lehman Brothers debacle for sheer scale.” The episode of schadenfreude over America’s “cowboy capitalism” problems was very short-lived, wasn’t it?

Plus this: “The European Central Bank – which raised rates into the teeth of the crisis in July – has played a shockingly destructive role in this enveloping slump. Its growth predictions this year have been, and still are, delusional. Neglecting its global role, it has vastly complicated the fire-fighting efforts of Washington.” And “a wild scramble for dollars” worldwide, suggesting that bad as things are here, investors have less faith in, well, everywhere else. Gulp.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Uh oh.

MICHAEL MOYNIHAN criticizes ignorant economic populism from both Biden and Palin. Yeah, one of my biggest disappointments with McCain’s campaign in general has been the tendency to lapse into lame lectures on “greed.” As the maneuvering around the bailout bill — and every other piece of spending legislation — demonstrates, our political class is even worse than Wall Street on the greed front, and produces far less of value.

THOUGHTS ON the O.J. Simpson conviction.

THE EXAMINER: Who gets the third degree, and who gets the pass?

ACADEME VS. H&R BLOCK: Tax Profs criticize Palin’s tax returns.

NEW SOLAR CYCLE not packing much punch.

PUNISHING DARPA for not spending all of its budget: “Congress just cut $130 million from Darpa’s budget for next year, citing “poor execution” of previous funded projects. Some in charge of the purse strings say the Pentagon’s premiere research agency wasn’t spending the cash it was given. The agency’s chief figures Darpa is being punished for holding its contractors accountable for their work.”

Not spending it all is the only unpardonable budgetary sin. No wonder Congress is so popular.

PERENNIALLY DISSATISFIED: I guess it was that oozing sense of entitlement.