FROM MCCAIN AND OBAMA:

JOINT STATEMENT OF SENATOR JOHN MCCAIN AND SENATOR BARACK OBAMA

For Immediate Release

Contact: Press Office

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

ARLINGTON, VA — Today, U.S. Senators John McCain and Barack Obama issued the following statement:

“The American people are facing a moment of economic crisis. No matter how this began, we all have a responsibility to work through it and restore confidence in our economy. The jobs, savings, and prosperity of the American people are at stake.

“Now is a time to come together — Democrats and Republicans — in a spirit of cooperation for the sake of the American people. The plan that has been submitted to Congress by the Bush Administration is flawed, but the effort to protect the American economy must not fail.

“This is a time to rise above politics for the good of the country. We cannot risk an economic catastrophe. Now is our chance to come together to prove that Washington is once again capable of leading this country.”

BEWARE THE SOLAR PANEL RUSTLERS:

Solar power, with its promise of emissions-free renewable energy, boasts a growing number of fans. Some of them, it turns out, are thieves. Just ask Glenda Hoffman, whose fury has not abated since 16 solar panels vanished from her roof in this sun-baked town in three separate burglaries in May, sometimes as she slept. She is ready if the criminals turn up again.

“I have a shotgun right next to the bed and a .22 under my pillow,” Ms. Hoffman said.

Police departments in California — the biggest market for solar power, with more than 33,000 installations — are seeing a rash of such burglaries, though nobody compiles overall statistics.

Rustlers? Get a rope.

READER TIM PADGETT calls attention to Howard Kurtz’s quotation of me saying “They told me when John McCain named Sarah Palin as his running mate that we’d be embarrassed by repeated gaffes from an unqualified vice-presidential candidate. And they were right!” Padgett says, “I think you’ve been Dowd-ified.”

I dunno. To me, the context — Joe Biden’s gaffes — seems clear, even if I was actually talking about a bunch of other Biden gaffes, too. But thanks to Insta-readers for keeping watch on this stuff.

PC WORLD: “The investigation into the hacking of Sarah Palin’s e-mail is far from over.”

ABOUT TIME: House ethics panel to investigate Rangel’s personal dealings. More here.

HMM: “Stanley Kurtz’s piece today describing what appears to be an attempt to cover-up the extent of Sen. Obama’s ties to William Ayers should have journalists salivating.”

And yet, they avert their eyes.

SOMETHING FOR JAMES LILEKS: Remembering the Fargo line of trucks.

ALCEE HASTINGS ON SARAH PALIN: “Anybody toting guns and stripping moose don’t care too much about what they do with Jews and blacks.”

SOMETIMES I FEEL, YOU KNOW, NOT SO FRESH: I’ve used a lot of scheduled posts this week, as I’ve been busy with family stuff necessitating a quick trip to Nashville. Sorry, but I can’t be at the computer all the time.

UPDATE: Reader Meredith Oyen emails: “I don’t know if you’ve just been at the computer late at night, or some of those scheduled posts were set for 2 or 3 in the morning on purpose, but as an expat I enthusiastically support late night posts. The US is not generally doing a lot of blogging at late afternoon China time.” Yeah, I actually started scheduling middle-of-the-night posts because some folks in the other hemisphere were unhappy with the slowness during those hours.

THE DODD PLAN: A Contract Clause problem? I don’t see one, though arguably it might involve a taking.

IS THERE ANYTHING IT CAN’T DO? Red wine compound protective against radiation. A well-stocked wine cellar could provide double protection, as you hide out in the basement and dose yourself regularly . . . .

MICHAEL MOORE AS THE TITANIC, with Karl Rove as the iceberg? Er, except that the Titanic was, you know, smaller than the iceberg . . . .

Plus, vote for your favorite movie President. I think I’d go for Gary Sinise as Harry Truman.

MCCAIN SUSPENDS CAMPAIGN to focus on the economy.

UPDATE: As Obama balks, what McCain should do. “Volunteer to let his VP nominee sit in for him against Obama on Friday.”

COMING NEXT, A SPECULATIVE BUBBLE IN REGULATION? Plus this on Sarbanes/Oxley: “SOX was sold as the way to prevent future market bubbles and crashes. Obviously, in addition to imposing huge costs, it utterly failed to deal, not only with some indefinite future, but with problems that were already brewing at the time SOX was enacted. Indeed, SOX may well have hurt by helping to make investors complacent. Enough is enough. Let’s try to think before we leap again off the regulatory cliff.”

QUESTION OF THE DAY: Whose side is Bill Clinton on?

CREDIT MARKETS starting to freeze up?

UPDATE: Or not.

CNN: Biden, Obama helped keep ‘Bridge to Nowhere’ alive. “Although Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden routinely mocks his Republican counterpart, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, for her onetime support of the infamous ‘Bridge to Nowhere,’ Biden and his running mate voted to keep the project alive twice.”

As with the subject of houses, I think it was a mistake for them to make an issue of this. Judging by the Biden staff’s response to CNN, so do they . . . .

UPDATE: Reader John Miller emails:

I think the most encouraging part of that report was that they printed the Biden staffer’s response verbatim.

It looks like the proverbial slipping of the mask. “Heel, doggie! Get back in line!”

Well, the media has been their bitch so far this election . . . .

ONCE AGAIN, it’s time for the America’s Future Foundation College Blogger Contest. Win valuable prizes! No, really, there are valuable prizes! $10,000 counts as valuable in my book, anyway.

PORKBUSTERS ON PATROL visits Mississippi.

IPHONE VS. GOOGLE PHONE. It’s certainly true that “Android” is a cool name.

MIKE PENCE ON THE BAILOUT PLAN: “I must tell you, there are those in the public debate who have said that we must act now. The last time I heard that, I was on a used-car lot.”

NICK CHAMBERS: Why Can’t the U.S. Have Toyota’s 40 MPG 4WD Minivan?

BRINGING CHICAGO-STYLE ELECTIONS to Ohio? I trust that the DOJ will look into this.

TAX CREDITS FOR PLUG-IN HYBRIDS pass the Senate.

JEFF GOLDSTEIN: Media tries to will the US into the age of Obamalot. “A free society cannot run this way. If information is power, those who control the information and its mainstream dissemination are in a position to act as the most important swing vote in any election.”