Now's a good time to ask, what the heck happened with the defeat of the bailout bill on Capitol Hill on Monday?; Debate? What debate? Oh, there's a debate tonight. The Internet has bubbled up some ways to play along with Palin vs. Biden; Wow. The Obama campaign has released a gorgeous new iPhone app; Congress has okayed a bill that requires the government to regularly and accurately assess who in the U.S. has broadband access and who doesn't. If we may humbly advance an opinion: excellent!; and a good deal more. Honest.

I'm pleased to have played a small part in helping our friends at the Sunlight Foundation pull togetherthis nifty piece of 3-D (Dynamic, Data-Driven) journalism on the Wall Street bailout: a Google Motion Chart built on top of data from the nonpartisan, invaluable Center for Responsive Politics that lets you see just how big the big money from FIRE (Finance, Insurance and Real Estate) has grown in the last 20 years, and who gets it. Trust me, this is cool.

I wondered what the presidential candidates and other politicians were saying about the Federal Reserve's unprecedented interventions in the financial sector, including today's provision of $30 billion to guarantee JP Morgan Chase against the risks it will incur as it takes over Bear Stearns for pennies on the dollar (and inherits its subprime portfolio).

It's not that often, after all, that the government decides to socialize someone else's losses--I can't remember many manufacturing businesses or agricultural businesses that were deemed "too big to fail." So, while looking for their public statements from today, I also went online to follow the money trail a bit further.