ERIC POSNER on the Treasury’s Plan B. “As the financial system collapses, the banks are increasingly becoming ventriloquist’s dummies for the government. “

MORE REGISTRANTS THAN VOTERS in Indianapolis? Somebody call John Fund!

An electoral system we can’t trust is a recipe for disaster.

Meanwhile, we have this from Connecticut:

It’s been six months since a group of University of Connecticut journalism students, using public databases, discovered that more than 8,500 dead people remained on Connecticut voting rolls whose names could have been fraudulently used to cast votes in elections.

Plus, more on voter fraud in Nevada, and Missouri. If Baptists were doing what ACORN has been doing, the press would be all over it, 24/7 . . . .

FREE TO NON-SUBSCRIBERS: Bill Whittle on “rights.” And here’s the low-rez Flash version.

PJTV: Here’s a free Flash version of my PJTV segment last night on PorkBusters, the bailout bill, and the economy. Guests are Rob “N.Z. Bear” Neppell, Andy Roth of the Club for Growth, and Bill Allison of the Sunlight Foundation.

SNORTING SAWDUST with the toaster on high.

YOU CAN’T MAKE THIS STUFF UP: Revisiting Red Dawn, and seeing the Americans as the bad guys.

UPDATE: Reader Glenn Perreira emails: “You know that postulate, the one where if you placed a million monkeys in a room for a million years, one of them would eventually type out Hamlet? I think the rest of them would be banging out film reviews…” Heh.

THE CAMPAIGN IN A NUTSHELL: “Sen. John McCain’s plan to help people avoid foreclosure drew praise from liberals for tackling the problem’s source, while conservatives called it a government subsidy of irresponsible lenders and borrowers.”

UPDATE: Jeff Goldstein: “This race would be far more interesting with a conservative on the ticket.”

EUROPEAN MARKETS recover lost ground. Let’s hope this trend crosses the Atlantic . . . .

BIOFUELS GOOD, FOOD-BASED BIOFUELS BAD: U.N. Says Biofuel Subsidies Raise Food Bill and Hunger. Indeed.

ROGER SIMON: Why the press is covering for Obama.

THANK YOU, GLOWING JELLYFISH: Three Chemists Win Nobel Prize.

Plus, another Japanese / American Nobel collaboration in Physics.

“SLOW DEATH:” It’s not just a Flamin’ Groovies song at the L.A. Times.

Plus, you shouldn’t question people’s patriotism, but you can charge them with treason!

BIDEN, MCCAIN, WHATEVER. I guess this guy is part of the “not a dime’s worth of difference” crowd, but still . . . .

OIL PRICES HIT a 2008 low.

WORST DEBATE EVER? “The debate was bad in ways that debates are often bad. The ultra-badness comes from being bad now.” The guy who cuts my hair — who’s pretty nonpolitical, generally — watched last night’s debate and opined, “They’re both idiots.”

THE ACORN DOES NOT FALL FAR FROM THE TREE: Kansas City Officials Find Hundreds of Bogus Registrations. “Charlene Davis, co-director of the election board in Jackson County, where Kansas City is, said the fraudulent registration forms came from the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN. She said they were bogging down work Wednesday, the final day Missourians could register to vote.”

AN INTERACTIVE HISTORY of The Titanic.

SO THE PJTV SHOW on the bailout bill and pork went pretty well. If you subscribe you can see it here — I’d hoped there would be a low-rez Flash version that I could link, but there isn’t one now, at least. Here’s another screenshot. As you can see above, the quality from my basement HD webcam is pretty good.

UPDATE: Reader George Pepper writes:

“As you can see above, the quality from my basement HD webcam is pretty good.”

I’ll say. You have a Furman PL series power conditioner/rack light in the top of that 4U SKB rack in the background. Not sure what the other three devices are, but it’s pretty impressive to be able to make that stuff out in a screen shot. If you really want the best protection and cleanest power, you might think about a Furman AR-1215 A.C. Line Voltage Regulator. No lights, but much better filtration for “noisy” A.C. and it’s still only 1U. I use them for all of my racks. Has an input voltage LED meter too, plus an extreme voltage shutdown for lightning strikes and the like. I know you have massive backup battery systems though, so you might not need them. Every time I plug one of my $3K racks in at a gig, however, I never know what I’m going to be getting, especially if I’m running off of a generator.

What are those monitors? They look like Tannoys, but not the model I use.

Yeah, I’ve got major filtration at the start of the power chain. The other items are an Alesis dual-channel compressor, a Behringer headphone distribution amp, and an ART monitor amp. The monitors are Alesis Point Sevens — nice little near-field monitors, especially for podcast production. The box under the monitor is an M-Audio Pre-USB audio interface box.

YOUR MEDIA AT WORK: That’s the over-under, break-open, breech-loading 12 gauge sort of rifle. “These are the people who presume to set the gun control policy for this country.”

UPDATE: From the comments: “Looks like one of them long range assault sniper shotguns to me.”

THEY TOLD ME THAT IF GEORGE W. BUSH WERE RE-ELECTED, people would be barred from institutions of learning because of their race. And they were right! Arizona, Arizona State & Nebraska Law Schools Accused of Discrimination Against White Applicants.

MAYBE THESE ARE BETTER THAN THEY SOUND: Blueberry Banana Beet Chocolate Chip Pancakes.

WHAT WOULD NOZICK DO? Richard Epstein on the bailout. (Via Volokh).

REX HAMMOCK: “I think both candidates failed miserably at the debate. They tried to ignore the elephant in the room — the crashing economy — and deflect the questions with standard bullet points gleaned from months of focus groups.”

MCCAIN & OBAMA agree to open the debates: “A bi-partisan political group stumping for open political debates has scored a point or two, at least symbolically. Both presidential candidates are endorsing the group’s call for greater audience involvement and availability of the debate footage.”

ACTUALLY, THIS IS ALWAYS GOOD ADVICE: Be prepared for six months to two years of unemployment. As for the rest, I’d say it’s kind of overheated. I certainly hope it is!

Regardless, keeping debt low and savings up is always good advice, and it’s only better advice now.