ONE ON ONE with Joe Biden.

WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG? Designing packs of robots to hunt down uncooperative humans. I suppose the first customer will actually be the IRS . . .

MORE CAMPAIGN THUGGISHNESS:

State and local officials are investigating if state and law-enforcement computer systems were illegally accessed when they were tapped for personal information about “Joe the Plumber.” . . .

Public records requested by The Dispatch disclose that information on Wurzelbacher’s driver’s license or his sport-utility vehicle was pulled from the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles database three times shortly after the debate.

Information on Wurzelbacher was accessed by accounts assigned to the office of Ohio Attorney General Nancy H. Rogers, the Cuyahoga County Child Support Enforcement Agency and the Toledo Police Department.

It has not been determined who checked on Wurzelbacher, or why.

I think the “why” is pretty clear. Reader Bruce Penning emails: “They told me that if George W. Bush were re-elected, ordinary citizens would have their private records accessed. And they were right!”

Meanwhile, Joe is “scared for America.”

UPDATE: Or maybe I just have a suspicious mind: “It could very well be thuggish, but it could also be quite innocent.”

J.D. JOHANNES is back in Iraq. And it’s different: “I was here in the bloody days of the begining of the surge in 2007, when what is the reality now, was a mere potentiallity. (My documentary Baghdad Surge was shot in West Rashid in the Spring/Summer of 2007.) As I watched the soccer match I could not believe what I was seeing. Rather than complain about the violence or mortars or killings, the players wanted grass–grass to play on.”

ANN ALTHOUSE comments on George Packer. “Packer, I demand an abject confession of your self-isolation and rancidity.”

A TRAILER FOR the new season of Lost.

REASON TV HAS MORE ON SAVING SOCIAL SECURITY:

WANT TO BE AN INTERN AT REASON MAGAZINE? Here’s how to apply.

THIRTEEN FEWER VOTES: “Thirteen campaign workers for Barack Obama yesterday yanked their voter registrations and ballots in Ohio after being warned by a prosecutor that temporary residents can’t vote in the battleground state.”

READER DANIEL RUWE EMAILS:

I’m a student at Thomas More College, a liberal arts college in Northern Kentucky. Walking through the faculty/staff parking lot today, I did an impromptu count of the bumper stickers supporting both candidates. Result: McCain and Obama, tied at three. Granted, maybe there were lots of Obama stickers but I just missed them, and maybe all the McCain stickers belonged to the staff (as opposed to faculty), but still, how many other colleges can there be where this is true? Just thought I’d mention it.

Actually, in my faculty-staff parking garage the numbers seem about even, too, though what’s more striking is how few cars have any political bumper stickers — far fewer than 2004. That seems to be a general phenomenon, as far as I can tell.

VIDEO: Fred Thompson and Jeri Thompson on the elections.

HAVING FUN with Bill Ayers and Bill O’Reilly.

X-PRIZE UPDATE: Armadillo Aerospace won the $350,000 Level One prize yesterday, and is competing for the million dollar prize today. The webcast is here.

Here are some video highlights from yesterday.

IN THE MAIL: Gene Stone’s The 12-Step Bush Recovery Program: A Lifesaving Guide to Shaking Off the Horrors of the Last Eight Years, with Practical Advice on Relapse, Remission, and Recounts. This book is a joke, but . . . My sense is that a lot of people will need help getting over Bush Derangement Syndrome, and that as Bush fades from view some have managed to replace it with Palin Derangement Syndrome. Offering a market for a sequel!

MICHAEL S. MALONE: Editing Their Way to Oblivion: Journalism Sacrificed For Power and Pensions:

The traditional media is playing a very, very dangerous game. With its readers, with the Constitution, and with its own fate.

The sheer bias in the print and television coverage of this election campaign is not just bewildering, but appalling. And over the last few months I’ve found myself slowly moving from shaking my head at the obvious one-sided reporting, to actually shouting at the screen of my television and my laptop computer.

But worst of all, for the last couple weeks, I’ve begun — for the first time in my adult life — to be embarrassed to admit what I do for a living. A few days ago, when asked by a new acquaintance what I did for a living, I replied that I was “a writer”, because I couldn’t bring myself to admit to a stranger that I’m a journalist. . . . But in the last few days, even Democrats, who have been gloating over the pass – no, make that shameless support – they’ve gotten from the press, are starting to get uncomfortable as they realize that no one wins in the long run when we don’t have a free and fair press. I was one of the first people in the traditional media to call for the firing of Dan Rather – not because of his phony story, but because he refused to admit his mistake – but, bless him, even Gunga Dan thinks the media is one-sided in this election.

Read the whole thing. I’m getting email from journalists that suggests quite a few feel like Malone does.

THE BLOGOSPHERE EXPLAINED: “What Mr. Pundit likely does not understand is that without exception, anytime a reader purports to attack you for not blogging about X, his real beef is that you are blogging about Y, and the reader would really like you to shut up about Y.” Actually, I do understand that. . . .

CHERRIES DIVINE: Cherries can reduce bodyfat in rats.

A PROMISING NEW OBESITY DRUG: If it works, the market will be huge.

I WAS TELLING STUDENTS THE OTHER DAY that bankruptcy law is a good specialty for tough economic times. Did I say “good?” I meant “really, really, amazingly good!” “Fees could reach a record $1.4 billion for lawyers, accountants and other professionals working on the Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. bankruptcy, the largest in U.S. history.”

I’M SHOCKED, SHOCKED:

The Miami trial of a Venezuelan entrepreneur who grew rich doing business with President Hugo Chávez’s populist administration has exposed how some top government officials have profited from a corrosive web of corruption in the oil-rich country.

Kickbacks, bribes and secret payoffs have become a feature in the socialist administration, which had claimed a break from the past but instead has seen several officials implicated in multimillion-dollar corruption schemes, according to testimony and conversations taped by the FBI. The trial has also revealed the Chávez government’s determination to funnel state funds to its allies in Latin America and the lengths it will go to to keep the aid secret.

Corruption among socialists? But they’re for the people! Right?

ELDERLY JEWS MORE LIKELY TO SUPPORT OBAMA THAN YOUNGER JEWS: “So it turns out, at least based on this poll, that things are exactly as past elections would have predicted. Older Jews are more liberal than are younger Jews, so they vote in greater numbers for the more liberal candidate.”

POPULAR MECHANICS: 5 Top Retro Eco-Supercars: Best Fuel Sippers of the Past 34 Years.

HECK, WHY NOT? BAILOUTS ALL AROUND! Bailouts for ethanol producers?

DOING SOMETHING ABOUT NUT ALLERGIES? “I hope severe food allergies go the way of Small Pox, Consumption, and Polio.” Me, too.

TRANSATLANTIC POLITICS: Gazprom courts Romania for South Stream ahead of elections.