McCain loses his self-made game of chicken

McCain to attend debate :: WRAL.com.
Dumb idea to even float the cancellation in the first place.

Personal growth in a time of hardship

The Succulent Wife’s Favorite Things: Why This Scary Economy is … Good For Us?.
Read it. I think we all have some thinking to do. One thing about the gas crunch in Asheville is that I’ve really had to think about whether it was necessary to take a petroleum-consuming vehicle a particular place or another. I’ve [...]

I wonder if the public will call a technical foul on McCain

Kinda reminds me of the 1993 NCAA Men’s Basketball National Championship.
Via kos.

Fuzzy math on the bailout

Bad News For The Bailout – Forbes.com

In fact, some of the most basic details, including the $700 billion figure Treasury would use to buy up bad debt, are fuzzy.
“It’s not based on any particular data point,” a Treasury spokeswoman told Forbes.com Tuesday. “We just wanted to choose a really large number.”
Our children’s futures over just [...]

How we got into this financial mess. At least 3 times.

Daily Kos: Three Times is Enemy Action.
We owe Mark Sumner (aka DevilsTower) a huge debt of gratitude for this piece. (No pun intended. Really.)

Visual representation of the bailout

Looks like it’s going to be this:

A very simple economic principle

Daily Kos: Bailout Principles – Senator Bernie Sanders.
If I am required to assume the risk of a bunch of irresponsible uber-rich jerks, I ought to get some of the payoff. Whether that happens under this bailout remains to be seen; however, I’m not optimistic on this one issue.