And they could fall for them again in 50+ days. It's a poor reflection of our electorate if that happens.

McCain has taken the undisputed lead in using outright lies, intentionally misleading statements, and loose innuendo in this election cycle. I do not remember the lies being this bad 4 years ago, which also reached a new crescendo in modern politics.

Will McCain win? It's possible, it's a rather scary thought, and it should not be discounted.

Our one consolation if he wins is that he has a tendency to piss off his own party all the time and I am sure that personality trait of his will show up once he's comfortably in the Oval Office.

I believe Obama can win it, though.

Look at it this way, you by yourself will not start a panic. A bank run is a crisis that a bank's depositors as a whole have and will not be affected by your individual choice to leave unless you blare on this blog: "OMG!!! WASHINGTON MUTUAL IS FALLING APART AND EVERYBODY MUST LEAVE IT RIGHT NOW!!!" and that message is picked up by Google News, Bloomberg, etc., creating a situation akin to UAL's share price implosion last week. In other words, the chances of you by yourself starting a panic are zero to zilch.

Whether or not a mass depositor panic is going to occur at WaMu should not factor into your individual decision to leave one bit; it will occur whether you do anything or not because of forces outside of your or any other individual depositor's control. Do only what you think is best for you and your money. Do not do what the rest of the WaMu depositor herd is doing: not thinking WaMu is the best place for their money but engaging in the "wait and see" game. That just invites becoming a victim of a panic.

Also, considering how fast banks of all colors fall apart, assuming that a white knight will appear fast enough to gobble up WaMu's branches to save your deposit from FDIC limbo is playing Russian roulette with your money.

I'm getting sick about hearing about the views of so-called "Small Town America." Those towns are dying, the vast majority of Americans live in cities and suburbs, not small towns. The only small towns that have a chance of surviving in the next few decades are those with an economic base that depend on tourism and/or a solid resource extraction industry.

The idea and ideals of "Small Town America" does not represent any real portion of America no matter what politicians try to tell us. America -- like every other civilized country before and contemporary with us -- is represented by its cities. "Small Town America" is only a romantic vision of America created by the elites in America's cities and the faster people realize it, the better.

And it was a stroke of genius. When I first heard that he said those words, I immediately knew that he would be attacked for saying something "sexist." But the McCain campaign totally overreacted and essentially hit the final nail into the "sexist" argument re Palin (Carly Fiorna didn't get the memo, apparently). Now "lipstick" is one of the jokes of the campaign -- along with the Bridge to Nowhere -- and I doubt the sexist argument can be used very effectively on anybody outside of the 40% of those who were going to vote for McCain/Palin anyways.

If the Boards of these companies choose not to take part in the bailout only because their precious executives won't be able to get their 8-figure annual pay, they would have to deal with extremely upset shareholders.

Oh, it's really a shame that Mr. William Lerach, Esq., is sitting in a jail somewhere. The country needs his demagogic clarity in times like this.

I do not think the passionate people are unaware that they will be affected by a collapsing financial industry, probably to a great degree. I think people here -- as well as 70%+ of the country -- don't want taxpayer money to help those financial institutions and executives who made bad bets with our money to get away from this unscathed.

The titans of Wall Street should pay for what they did to our economy and the enormous amounts of risk they have put on our supposedly safe accounts.

Yes, the bailout should happen because ultimately it is all of our money being saved. Fine, I can swallow that. But I expect some of those high-flying financial executives to end up in the poor house or the big house because of this. I also expect the American taxpayer to own those companies that made these horrible debts with their customers' money. Call it socialism, fascism, corporatism, whatever ism you feel is appropriate, but it is apparent that these companies no longer deserve to be independent.