EXTRACTING energy from the tides.

WELL, GOOD: Iran’s Oil Woes Threaten the Mullahs.

UNCLE SAM’S multi-trillion-dollar oil lockup. Meh. It’s not like the Federal government needs money or anything.

BURNING DOWN THE HOUSE: Everybody’s emailing me this video on the Housing Bubble.

A POX ON THEM ALL? “The House GOP wants to be heard, which seems fair. But even with a weekend to mull it over it seems they have two major hurdles to pass. First, do they have an idea that is better and remotely workable? . . . Second, in the real world you have to get others to go along and I see no one — not the Treasury, the White House, the Senate GOP, or the Democrats in either the House or Senate — showing the slightest interest in a radical transformation of the plan from a bailout to a private insurance pool. . . . And as for Harry Reid, he has not covered himself in glory as it becomes obvious what political blame game he is playing. Unfortunately for Reid, too many people saw and knew what was going on to keep up the pretense.”

If we could get a new Congress for $700 billion, it would be a bargain . . . .

TURNING ADULT CELLS INTO STEM CELLS made safer. Faster, please.

THE GERMANS ARE UNHAPPY about U.S. aid to domestic automakers.

BETTER ULTRACAPACITORS FOR ENERGY STORAGE, using nanotechnology.

TONIGHT’S DEBATE is on.

UPDATE: Michael Silence: “McCain flip flops, again.” Plus, more bad reviews from Mickey Kaus and Robert Wright.

TURNING THE BAILOUT INTO A MORTGAGE INSURANCE PLAN: MICHAEL BARONE on what the House Republicans want. And why.

IN THE MAIL: From Chris Edwards and Daniel Mitchell, Global Tax Revolution: The Rise of Tax Competition and the Battle to Defend It.

AND NOW FOR SOMETHING REALLY IMPORTANT: Jet Pack News! “Swiss daredevil Yves Rossy becomes first person to cross English Channel using jet-propelled wing strapped to his back.”

THOUGHTS ON JOE BIDEN and the value of experience.

HERE’S A LINK TO JUST THE JOHN HOWARD INTERVIEW SEGMENT from last night’s PJTV broadcast. It’s free to everybody.

It’s getting buzz in Australia. (Bumped).

PRESIDENT BUSH SIGNED the ADA Amendments of 2008. My colleague Alex Long has written about those. (Bumped).

INSTA-POLL: Following up on this item.

WASHINGTON POST: Four Pinocchios for Biden’s Tax Fabrication.

JUST CALL ME “MR. DIVERSITY:” Diverse web coalition asks McCain, Obama to alter debates.

An informal national coalition of internet pioneers and users with widely divergent political views will issue a letter Friday morning calling on John McCain and Barack Obama to open the remaining debates completely to the public domain.

As Lawrence Lessig, a law professor and letter-signer put it, “Copyright, in my view, is essential and important, in some places. This isn’t one.”

The letter, which was obtained exclusively by The Ticket tonight, will be signed by such disparate internet names as Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit.com, Craig Newmark of Craigslist, Markos Moulitsas of DailyKos.com and Arianna Huffington of HuffingtonPost.

It will also ask the two major candidates to insist on a new method of choosing debate questions.

Letter, and signers, at the link. And here’s Larry Lessig on it.

SMALLER BANKS ARE DOING FINE. I remember talking to someone who’d been on the board of a small S&L during the S&L crisis, and he remarked that luckily, “we were dumb enough to think that borrowing at 5% to lend at 10% was a good enough business to be in,” so that they’d missed all the high-flying deals that brought down bigger operations. Maybe there’s a larger lesson there?

HAROLD MAASS: Cash taps opened, WaMu closed.

WELL, THIS SEEMS LIKE NEWS:

The Wall Street Journal reports that a federal grand jury in Los Angeles is investigating the so-called “Friends of Angelo” loan program at Countrywide Financial, under which influential borrowers received preferential terms on home loans.

The reported borrowers under the program have included U.S. Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), former Fannie Mae Chief Executive Franklin Raines, and California state appeals court judge Richard Aldrich.

Stay tuned. More on the “Friends of Angelo” — really, it you put that in a novel it would seem ridiculously heavy-handed — in this article from Portfolio.com.

CBS INFIGHTING: “CBS News executives were red- faced yesterday trying to explain how David Letterman used unaired news footage of Sen. John McCain with Katie Couric to embarrass the Republican presidential candidate.”

BUCKEYE STATE OR BANANA REPUBLIC: Claims of electoral fraud in Ohio.

JAMES PETHOKOUKIS: How Paulson Just Picked the 2012 GOP Nominee. “Here is, I think, a pretty safe prediction: The Republican presidential nominee in the summer of 2012 will have come out against the Paulson-Bernanke bailout plan in the fall of 2008. Conservative rage against the $700 billion ‘rescue’ attempt, as President Bush terms it, has been stoked white hot by Newt Gingrich, Rush Limbaugh, and the powerful pundits of the right-wing blogosphere such as Michelle Malkin and Jonah Goldberg.”

Personally, I’m skeptical of the bailout plan, but willing to be convinced. Another case of me “lacking fire,” I guess. Oh, well, other people can be white-hot.

UPDATE: A reader named Eric emails: “I’m glad that while the financial world around falls apart, I can find a bit of respite and humor through your website. Here’s a toast to you from the deck of the Titanic!”

Thanks, Eric. Well, the people on the Titanic who stayed calm probably did better in the end, anyway.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Why is ACORN in line to get money?

And a reader named Matt writes:

Since when did Republicans stop believing in monetary policy? Yes, the plan is expensive…but the idea that allowing asset deflation on a massive scale is good for the economy in the short or long term because its “markets working their magic” isn’t just asinine; it’s been disproven. The Great Depression went from a correction to a Depression because the Federal Reserve applied a laissez-faire attitude to bank failures all across the country, thinking it would cleanse the bad, inefficient players from the market like any other market. Except it didn’t. All that’s different now is that no one keeps their money in banks anymore; it’s all tied up in pension funds, money market accounts, and 401(k)’s, so we need more than just the FDIC and the Fed now that we’ve been caught off-guard. This isn’t a failure of capitalism, nor is the rescue plan a form of socialism. Its monetary policy, the same kind every capitialist since Milton Friedman has articulated. Credit is not a market like any other. Credit is the lifeblood of capitalism, and America needs a transfusion.

Sorry. I’m a long-time reader, love the site, but the Republicans don’t realize the madness they’re advocating.

I favor cooler heads. Meanwhile, I note that the Wall Street guys give a lot of money to Democrats. I wonder if they feel they’re getting a return on their investment.

MORE: But is this a Martingale strategy?

And Hugh Hewitt thinks the House Republicans should chill a bit.

Plus, ‘Man, These Negotiations Could Use a Community Organizer Right About Now.’

Meanwhile, Jesse Walker notes: “At this point the dominant D.C. Democrats seem less interested in blocking the bailout than in attaching various add-ons to it. (Kinda like an ’emergency’ war appropriations bill.)”

EVEN MORE: Reader Nathan Branch writes:

So I’m sitting here watching Harry Reid on CNBC, and he slams “the interjection of Presidential politics into this process,” saying that it has been “harmful rather than helpful” and then goes on to say that they are moving forward with Senator Obama’s proposal in that it’s the best proposal, and one that keeps in mind the troubles on Main Street and not just Wall Street.

I’m watching this with my mouth just agape . . . if I were a Republican senator, I would walk away from the negotiation table. right. now.

The clown show is on overdrive this week, isn’t it?

BARNEY FRANK SLAMS MCAIN — but there’s some video.