Finally, a coherent explanation of what happened to all our money. Thanks, Rachel! Via Feministing.

John McCain canceled on David Letterman at the last minute yesterday, ostensibly so he could rush down to D.C. and save the economy. Only it turned out he didn't rush down to D.C., but in fact sat down with Katie Couric for an interview. (And when he did eventually get to D.C., he didn't do much to help. According to Democrats, he actually tanked the whole process.) Letterman's rage is palpable in these first few minutes of his show.

Katie Couric seemed shocked by how little Sarah Palin knew about her own running mate in her one-on-one interview. Two examples: Palin didn't know the McCain campaign manager was still getting money from Freddie Mac, and she couldn't name one thing McCain had done for financial oversight in twenty-six years. And Couric asked her twice. Awkward!

The New York Times today has a story about a possible wind farm in New York. Because of rising gas prices and the high cost of being dependent on the Middle East for energy, we clearly have to develop our own energy here at home. But today's article points out some of the reasons wind hasn't saved us yet, despite the American Wind Energy Association and other advocacy groups' insistence that it's the answer:

Industry experts say offshore wind farms are rare in North America because of the difficulty of finding suitable locations, the cost of running transmission lines to shore, and the thicket of environmental regulations. Shipping lanes also need to be considered, as well as a shortage of equipment available to plant turbines in deep water. Nearby residents often object to offshore turbines because of aesthetic concerns, as was the case with the Jones Beach proposal, which also exceeded initial cost estimates.

Does anyone have wind turbines near them? What's it like? And what's wrong with nuclear power? Sure, there have been a couple of disasters, but assuming we can get on top of safety concerns, it seems like that has to be one of the better energys sources, right? MIT thinks so.

As you all probably know, this is Newsbloggers' last week. It's been great fun.

I'll be blogging about the election on AOL's ParentDish every Tuesday through November 4th. You can follow those posts here.

The first one is about the idea that Sarah Palin "has it all."

My goal is to write every post around this photo of Palin surrounded by Vikings.

That would be 13. Newsweek did a search of public records and discovered that in addition to Cindy's vanity-plated Lexus and McCain's Cadillac:

There's a 2005 Volkswagen convertible in the garage along with a 2001 Honda sedan. Otherwise, there's a 2007 half-ton Ford pickup truck, which might come in handy on the Sedona ranch; a vintage 1960 Willys Jeep; a 2008 Jeep Wrangler; a 2000 Lincoln; and a 2001 GMC SUV. The McCains also own three 2000 NEV Gem electric vehicles, which are bubble-shaped cars popular in retirement communities.

The Obama's have one car, a 2008 Ford Escape hybrid they bought last year to replace a gas-inefficient Chrysler 300C.

When the world is falling apart, it's time for a little escapism. And so we bring you the trashiest, lowest-brow trifle we could come up with: a list of the very worst celebrity baby names.

1. Tu Morrow (Rob Morrow)

You just know that this name came up during a drunken pre-conception conversation. The tragedy is, they never thought of a better one. We just hope the kid likes that song from Annie, because people will be serenading her with it forever.

There are those of us who work really hard and still fear being fired. Maybe we'll send an email to the wrong person by mistake, or get a fact wrong, or our company will just be downsized, and poof.

But why should we worry, when you can apparently be HORRIBLE at your job - and not just like misspelling a word horrible, but sitting back as the most powerful economy in the world, which happens to be in your care, crashes and burns horrible.

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson doesn't even seem sorry. He's just, all, "Yeah, guess I shouldn't have fought so hard against regulation. Give me $700 billion and I'll just give America socialized banking, m'kay?"

How crazy is this new Fine Living TV show, Whatever, Martha? In it, Alexis Stewart, joined by her friend Jennifer Koppelman Hutt, makes fun her mother's old shows. According to a New York Times article, Martha's hoping to use her daughter to win a younger group of fans.New York magazine has a big story about Alexis and what makes her tick (the writer's conclusion: rage).

The stigma around homeschooling is declining. A Gallup poll showed American disapproval of the practice has dropped from 73% in 1985 to 54% in 2001. But unschooling is still very taboo, and it's the topic of this article. An excerpt:

Our friends have no kids, but were curious about our decision not to send Benny to school. They're aware enough to know that homeschooling is no longer (and probably never was) just a bunch of Bible-thumping Seventh Day Adventists who teach their kids at home in order to avoid the heathens at public school. Our friends also understand that parents homeschool their kids in different ways and for different reasons.

Nonetheless, when I used the term "unschooling," they needed an explanation.

Hackers broke into Sarah Palin's Yahoo account and posted screenshots and personal emails, reports the AP.

Rick Davis, campaign manager for the McCain-Palin campaign, issued a statement about the hack: "This is a shocking invasion of the Governor's privacy and a violation of law. The matter has been turned over to the appropriate authorities and we hope that anyone in possession of these emails will destroy them. We will have no further comment."

And for real: why don't we hear more often about hackers being punished? Like TrainReq, who broke into Miley Cyrus's phone - he's still happily blogging away.

So what are the rules? LawForKids.org has a summary:

Check out this very thoughtful summary of the current vaccination debate. Here's her conclusion:

Not vaccinating your kids is sort of like not voting: it might not make much of a difference, but you're betting on most everyone else making a different choice, and the outcome is one everyone has to live with. So it's not surprising that some refer to non-vaccinating families as freeloaders (or, in Amanda Peet's more incendiary language, "parasites"). But unlike those who fail to vote, parents who opt out of vaccinating their children are doing so for the very best reasons: they love their children and want the best for them. The question is, how fair is it to "protect" your children from vaccines if it puts other kids at risk?

Read the whole article here, then voice your thoughts in comments.

This interview with performer and essayist Sandra Tsing Loh asks some hard questions about the American public school system. Even she's in the "media elite" (heh), she couldn't afford to send her children to private school, so she started looking really hard at the public schools in her L.A. neighborhood.

What she discovered was that they were nowhere near as bad as the local news and ignorant horror stories suggested. Loh wrote a book about how she became a convert to public school education, Mother on Fire: A True Motherf%#$@ Story About Parenting, and explains that if some rich families in every neighborhood would forgo the fancy private schools and pour resources into their corner P.S., it could go a long way to improving education for everyone.

Okay, just one more thought about Sarah Palin. According to TIME magazine, former Wasilla mayor John Stein said, "[Palin] asked the library how she could go about banning books. The librarian was aghast." That woman, Mary Ellen Baker, couldn't be reached for comment, but news reports from the time show that Palin had threatened to fire Baker for not giving "full support" to the mayor.

This book-banning thing is worrisome.

But why? What's the problem with banning books?