Greetings, fellow travelers!  Thanks to the Dag guys for giving me the opportunity to do some guest blogging at dagblog.com.

For my first post here, I wanted to offer a quick thought.

The Republican presidential hopeful John McCain let his frustration with the US economy boil over today. When asked in an interview about the challenges his campaign faces, McCain responded, "Look, it's no secret that the economy favors my opponent." Asked to elaborate, he replied, "This country is in crisis. Now is not the time to point fingers. But everybody knows that the economy caused this crisis, and I think everybody knows why it's doing it."

So, the market is down 555 points, almost 5 percent. Yet so far this is no October Black Monday, like when the market dropped 13 percent on October 28th, 1929 or when it dropped 22% on October 19, 1987. (Note: Things are moving fast, market down another 100 points since I started writing).

This is, in many ways, even worse - just another Gray Monday, where we get the continued, orderly drip-drip-drip of a market with no confidence, and no idea of where we are headed.

I spent the debate blogging as a 16-year-old, and I have to disagree with the assessment of a Biden win. The experience was, to be honest, very weird. Writing as SarahPalinGrrrrl in previous posts did not require me to get into her head. She and I maintained a respectful distance from one another. But during the live blogging, there was no time for that. I had to be SarahPalinGrrrrl. OMG. As a result, I listened to the debate the way a 16-year-old might have, or at least how I imagine that a 16-year-old might have.

Politico: John McCain is pulling out of Michigan, according to two Republicans, a stunning move a month away from Election Day that indicates the difficulty Republicans are having in finding blue states to put in play.

We just launched, and we're still working out kinks in the blog. The RSS feed on the main page was down, but it's back, baby. So get your DagBlog posts hot off the blog at http://dagblog.com/rss.

So yesterday I wrote about how the Senate was making the bailout plan bigger but not better in order to get reluctant legislators aboard.

Oh man, you have no idea. It makes me want to cry.

According to the WSJ, A bill that was originally 3 pages is now more than 400 pages. Among the useless 'sweeteners' tacked onto the plan:

OMG!!!! RU excited for sarah palin's debate? I SOOOO AM!!!! GOOOOO SARAH!!! she's going to kick that biden dude's WRINKLY OLD ASS!!! LOL!!! he totally looks like draco malfoy's evil dad in harry potter.

So now the Senate is going to try its hand at passing a bailout plan.

John McCain on the state of the economy

1/10 McCain: I don't believe we're headed into a recession. I believe the fundamentals of this economy are strong, and I believe they will remain strong.

Huzzah, the fundamentals are strong!

OK, I was wrong. Really wrong. I was sure politicians would approve this bailout bill, no matter how publicly unpopular it was. The short-term risks of not doing something seemed too enormous - a complete freeze of the credit markets and the subsequent collapse of the economic system that relies so heavily on that free flow of credit.

sarah palin is a total INSPIRATION to me!! i am SOOOOOOOO EXCITED that she could be our next vice president, maybe even our PRESIDENT!  for someone with her talent to be a vice president proves that anyone can make it in america. YAY SARAH!!!!!!!!! you go, GIRL!!!!!!

From Friday's debate:

This post is not about the horse race or who "won" the debate. This post is about the greatest problem facing America today, a greater problem than we have faced in many years. This post is about the economy. I'm sorry to say that neither of the candidates took the opportunity to address it in a serious manner.

We are facing the worst economic crisis since the 1980's. WaMu just set a record as the "Largest U.S. Bank Failure Ever." (Mazel-tov, WaMu.) Investment titans are on the knees, the ones that haven't gone under or been torn apart. Debt is at a historic high. Credit is tight. People are losing their houses and their jobs. Everyone is angry. Everyone is afraid.

OK, the market's up big. The bailout plan is about to be unveiled. What does it all mean? Here are my thoughts.

America is fortunate to have a choice between two men of honor this election year. In another election, the candidates might have tried to exploit the financial crisis for petty political gain. But not this year. John McCain has gone so far as to propose delaying the first debate with Barack Obama so that they can solve our crisis:

We've been told for so long that everything is OK with the economy. Nothing to see here, they've said. McCain calls the economy fundamentally strong; his economic adviser calls the American people a bunch of whiners; Greenspan says we are nearing the bottom of the housing meltdown; Barney Frank dismisses the problems at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as overstated.

So McCain wants to put politics aside in order to solve the economic crisis ...

Bah! Man, maybe I'm too cynical, but I can't even imagine a more political tactic.

McCain just gave a speech saying he wants to suspend his political campaign and postpone Friday's presidential debate until Congress agrees on legislation to solve this crisis.

That's just silly.