The Bailout Bill. I don’t need to provide a link to that. You know what I’m talking about and if you read this years from now you’ll still know. It’ll be remembered in history, I’m afraid.

Today feels a little bit like 9/11 to me. On that day, after watching the events unfold on television all morning I went out with my wife and 20 month old daughter. It was a beautiful day in Chicago. We walked to the playground just off Michigan Avenue, in the shadow of the Ritz-Carlton. The streets were quiet. The few people who were out acknowledged each other and the tragedy silently. At the playground I said hello to another dad there with his children and commented only on what a nice day it was. He agreed that it was beautiful weather. But everybody knew things had changed.

Today wasn’t like that. At my office, everyone I talked to was ambivalent if they had an opinion at all. I commented to a co-worker that the weather forecast was wrong. The clouds hadn’t broken all day. People know that things are bad but they are mostly concerned with how much all this government spending is going to ultimately cost them. Here’s some perspective on that.

Principled people of all stripes have argued that the bailout is wrong. A moral offense. I’m completely unconvinced. This is a good time set aside morals and principles and get some shit done. Others have argued, more convincingly, that it’s just a bad idea. I’m open to that. At this point, I’m hoping they are right.

P.S. When thinking of a title for this post “Econocalypse” just came to me. But I’m not the first one to use it!

John McCain, near the end of the first prez debate with Barack Obama:

So we have a long way to go in our intelligence services. We have to do a better job in human intelligence. And we’ve got to — to make sure that we have people who are trained interrogators so that we don’t ever torture a prisoner ever again.

McCain Sides With Bush On Torture Again, Supports Veto Of Anti-Waterboarding Bill

 John McCain’s Torture Tightrope

John McCain, Torture Enabler

McCain: Against Torture, But

McCain supports Bush veto of bill banning harsh interrogation tactics

Doesn’t want CIA limited to methods used by military

John McCain Supports Torture

From TPM:

Chuck Schumer namechecks Scylla and Charybdis. Which is both impressive (classical Greek literature!) and really lame. These guys are working on a solution to the banking crisis? Really?

Heard this song on shuffle today. My impressions of Radiohead have changed a great deal from when I was actively listening to them, mostly in the late 90’s. They sound much more conventional now. This is, no doubt, partly due to familiarity. It may even be a measure of how far they bent rock/pop convention so that it now includes them. They have been influential, in other words. But what really strikes me is Thom Yorke’s beautiful, beautiful voice. I don’t know how much notice his singing gets; most of the talk about Radiohead focusses on the arrangements and compositions. Those are good enough but it’s his voice that stands out for me.

Also, before there was Radiohead there was Can.

When John McCain’s captors say he wasn’t tortured I don’t believe them for a second. Maybe they didn’t torture by George Bush’s definition of the term which is to say, they didn’t cause organ failure or death. Still, this Al Jazeera video is interesting. It’s a shame the American media is so uninterested in the rest of the world. 

Recently I feel that every time I read something in Slate I get a little stupider and less happy. But there are exceptions! Anything by Dahlia Lithwick, for instance. I adore her. Now I adore her even more. Having sworn off Slate, I’d likely have never seen this if it weren’t for The Editors over at The Poor Man Institute. 

Sarah Palin has a great career as a right-wing radio talk show host in front of her. Personally, I wish her all the best in that endeavor. Just keep her away from my government.

UPDATE: The RNC, after McCain’s acceptance speech, is playing “Barracuda” by Heart. I’m going to predict now that this will be the theme song when Palin’s radio show goes into national syndication. I’m serious.

Ah, now I don’t have to write this post. James Fallows got it already.