AS OPPOSED TO THE USUAL CLOWN SHOW: “When things are serious enough, people want their leaders to be serious.”

YOU SAY YOU WANT A revolution? More here.

FACTCHECK.ORG: Obama’s Social Security Whopper. “He tells Social Security recipients their money would now be in the stock market under McCain’s plan. False.”

Scaring old people about Social Security. A new kind of politics? Seems pretty familiar to me . . . And, the latest problems notwithstanding, I’d still rather have my Social Security money in the stock market, so count this as a lie that would make me happier about McCain if it were true!

SARAH PALIN as Princess Diana with a rifle? Well, I like the rifle part, anyway . . . .

ERIC POSNER: “The legalists in American law schools rage at the Bush administration for claiming constitutional authority to wage the war on terrorism rather than going to Congress but are indifferent when the Bush administration cites, as authority to address the current financial crisis, a statute enacted by Congress seventy years ago and a judge-made doctrine that permits agencies to interpret ambiguous statutes expansively. Is it really so difficult to see that these two cases are the same from the perspective of the rule-of-law values that the rule of law is supposed to advance: public debate and authorization of policy by a representative body for the purpose of addressing events that it is actually aware of? I say that you have to approve of both or neither.”

Plus, an I-told-you-so from Gordon Smith.

UPDATE: A cheerful perspective on economic developments: “These are very good times for me, selling bottled alcohol at the retail level.” It’s all what you invest in, I guess . . . .

HERE’S THE PROPOSED BAILOUT LEGISLATION, and Fabius Maximus isn’t that happy with this provision:

Sec. 8. Review.

Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.

Such provisions aren’t unprecedented, and have long been included in federal legislation where there’s concern that litigation might gum things up. They’re generally upheld by courts, though not so much where the claims are constitutional in nature. That’s not to say that it’s a good idea here, necessarily, just that it’s not some sort of unprecedented power-grab in and of itself.

UPDATE: Comments from David Zaring.

Has Treasury been delegated an unconstitutionally broad amount of power? This question always gets asked, and the answer to it is always no. . . . It’s that “without limitation” language – suggesting that the powers granted to Treasury are examples, rather than limited authorizations, that might give a nondelegation afficianado a little pause. You know, can Treasury take this new sovereign wealth fund and buy anything it likes? Isn’t that unconstitutionally broad? Maybe so …. but your first presumption is that broad grants of power haven’t been held to be unconstitutionally broad since 1935. I think this easily passes muster.

I agree, though I wish I didn’t. But read the whole thing.

PEOPLE ARE ABANDONING THEIR LANDLINES for cellphones. I’ll be one of the last to do that — for one thing, we need a landline for the podcasts. But I also value the greater clarity and reliability of landlines over cell service. They’re better in an emergency, and they’re better for a phone conversation that lasts more than 90 seconds.

That said, if I were still in the move-every-year phase of my 20s, I wouldn’t bother with a landline. Setting up phone service is one of the hassles of moving, and a cell number that stays the same makes it easier to stay in touch with your friends anyway.

NANOTECHNOLOGY UPDATE: New tool for nanotechnology shows nanoscale changes as they happen.

IN THE MAIL: David Ignatius’ Body of Lies: A Novel. Despite the title, it’s not actually about media coverage in the 2008 election . . . .

YOUTUBE CENSORSHIP IN BRITAIN: Clearly, you can’t count on Google to champion free speech.

THOUGHTS ON POLITICIANS, Social Security, and raising the retirement age.

Plus, from Slate: Why is Obama editing his position on Social Security now? Also, “a drastic edit of his position on Internet privacy.”

UPDATE: Pension deficit disorder.

WHY THE SURGE worked.

HMM: Paulson to Stephanopoulos: Foreign Firms will be included in the Bailout. He means the U.S. operations of foreign-owned financial companies, though.

UPDATE: A financial-crisis Q&A from The Wall Street Journal.

ANOTHER UPDATE: “Almost Armageddon.”

ARNOLD KLING: “Without low-down-payment mortgages, you don’t get the housing bubble. The CEO of Freddie Mac, Richard Syron, got sacked. Good. Barney Frank, Syron’s chief sponsor, kept his job, and continues to push the idea of Freddie and Fannie taking their ‘profits’ and using them to fund low-down-payment mortgages. I’m sorry to keep harping on Congressman Frank. He didn’t cause the whole crisis, or if he did he didn’t mean to. It’s just that markets learn from their mistakes, and he doesn’t.”

And read this post, too.

THANKS FOR ALL THOSE “HOW ‘BOUT THEM VOLS” EMAILS. Yeah, yesterday sucked. But a bigger blow is that my friend Doug Weinstein — whose blood has always run deep orange — didn’t even bother to go to the game. He’s mad about high ticket prices, fan exploitation, and commercialization, and says he’s given up on Tennessee football because it’s like a pro team now, and he doesn’t care much about pro teams. This is more or less like the Pope becoming an agnostic.

UPDATE: This is how bad it’s gotten . . . .

SEBASTIAN MALLABY doesn’t approve of the bailout plan. “The plan is being marketed under false pretenses. Supporters have invoked the shining success of the Resolution Trust Corporation as justification and precedent. But the RTC, which was created in 1989 to clean up the wreckage of the savings-and-loan crisis, bears little resemblance to what is being contemplated now. The RTC collected and eventually sold off loans made by thrifts that had gone bust. The administration proposes to buy up bad loans before the lenders go bust. This difference raises several questions. . . . Taking bad loans off the shoulders of the banks seems like a merciful rescue; ordering banks to raise capital or buying equity stakes in them sounds like big-government meddling. But we are in the midst of a crisis, and it shouldn’t matter how things sound. The Treasury plan outlined on Friday involves vast risks to taxpayers, huge complexity and no guarantee of success. There are better ways forward.”

DANIEL GROSS WANTS more subprime loans, now!

SO THERE: Obama’s “Got A Problem” If He Tries to Take Biden’s Guns.

Funny, Biden’s NRA “F” rating kept me from realizing what a bitter gun-clinger he actually is . . . .

OBAMA’S DEMOCRAT PROBLEM:

You just knew that when Joe O’Connell, former head of the local AFL-CIO, got on stage here with John McCain and Sarah Palin things were not going smoothly for the Obama campaign among union voters.

“I am a lifelong Democrat, an intelligent Democrat, who is supporting John McCain,” O’Connell said last week as a crowd of 7,000 waved “Another Democrat for John McCain” signs and roared its approval.

I had no idea that racism was so rampant within the Democratic Party.