I agree with you, this isn't just about bailing out a bunch of rich Wall Street bankers. This crash will effect everyone. I also agree that many, perhaps most, people who are against this plan probably don't understand the full implications of this crash.

On the other hand . . . . from what I understand the $700 billion figure is arbitrary. Once we go in for $700B, will that be it? Or will we be on the hook for another trillion or so later? I have heard guestimates that there is as much as $1.5 trillion in bad loans out there, and with other bad investments elsewhere -- at this point even $1.5 trillion could be a low figure.

I worry that we could be throwing money into an endless hole here. It is possible for the government to own a part of the stock market, but if we end up owning the whole thing, then what?

The horrifying thing is that no one really knows. No one knows if this plan is going to save anything, or just delay the Big Crash by a few months or years. It might be better for us to amputate the whole leg, here and now, than cut it off piece by piece.

Yes, I know letting the market go would really suck. But if we have to take our medicine, maybe we should just take the whole thing right now, instead of extending the agony.

Sarah Palin isn't just a slap in the face for feminists. She is a slap in the face for anyone who is competent at his or her job.

I am neither a woman nor a dyed-in-wool feminist, but I work every day and am capable of performing the duties in my job description. I know what I am doing and don't put people at risk by trying to do things I am not qualified to do.

I feel sorry for anyone who is in over her head not by choice. I cannot feel sympathy for someone who freely accepted a position she is not competent to hold. If somebody came to me and said, "Do you want to be the Chief of Neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins?" I would say hell no, I'm not qualified. Taking a job you are unqualified for because it will further your own career is blind ambition. Such people need to be run out of town on a rail before they kill us all.

We already have a president who took the job out of blind ambition. I'm not sure we could survive another.

You really think Palin is going to win the debate on Thursday? She can't even handle a single informal question from a voter about Pakistan without McCain having to ride to the rescue.

Palin, I think, is smart, but she is mainly street smart. She thinks with her gut and is not capable of sophisticated analysis.

Biden can roll her up with a simple strategy. Force her to analyze. There is no need to be combative. Just ask her to give opinions on international law, on the budget, on social matters.

Say things like, "Oh, so Alaska shares a maritime border with Russia? When maritime disputes come up, how do you mediate them?" Or, "You say community organizers don't have 'executive experience' that would qualify them for political leadership. As president or vice president, what relationship do you intend to have with community organizers?"

The more she has to analyze, the more trouble she will get into. This should be a cakewalk for Biden. All he has to do is ask her questions.

Very soon, I'll be buying all the commercial paper on the market for a dollar. The offer's on the table -- every bad loan in America for a buck.

I'm just waiting for Secretary Paulson to knock on my door.

She pays the rent by being a babbling idiot. It just doesn't get any better than that.

I guess I can see the logic of a film whose point is revulsion. I can see the point, but that won't make me even think about seeing the movie.

Art can have its own logical cosmos, one in which art is incomplete if it fails to examine life in all its horrible extremes. But I think this is destructive. Just because I know shit exists doesn't mean I have to rub my face in it and eat it. Artists get carried away with themselves -- they think if a person logically understands something (say, the Holocaust), the person does not really understand it until he has experienced it.

But I'm not going to experience torture so I can "know" what torture is. That is not knowledge, it is masochism.

Living has horrors enough. If I miss some of the horrors of life I'd prefer to say I am lucky, rather than going out and experiencing them all myself.

I am astonished that the banking industry, who is, let's see .... 100% responsible for the mess we're in, has the nerve to oppose measures to allow judges to decrease mortgage debt in bankruptcy.

And I am almost as amazed that members of Congress backed off this issue so easily. You mean to tell me that after all this mess, bank lobbyists still have pull in D.C.? Right now, I'd I'd rather be a chemical industry lobbyist in Bhopal, India than a bank lobbyist in Washington How can these guys still have any pull?

Why didn't Congress tell the bankers if they didn't go along with the bankruptcy reform, they'd make sure the FDIC came up short? We're talking $700 billion to bail their pathetic behinds out and they won't budge on bankruptcy reform.

My God.

Who runs this country anyway?