We hate reading the word "plunge" on the New York Times homepage unless it is underneath a picture of Michael Phelps wearing a Speedo the size of a Band-Aid. But that's what we're faced with now that the Dow closed down 508 points, plummeting still further past the 10,000 mark. This happened in spite of reassurances from Fed chair Ben Bernanke that he was prepared to lower interest rates. Bank of America stock, which started the day with bad news, lost about 25 percent, as did Morgan Stanley.

But never fear — some people have been having a good time! Executives at AIG (remember them, the guys we bailed out to the tune of $85 billion?) spent over a half million on hotel rooms, room service, and spa treatments during a corporate retreat last month, less than a week after the government saved their asses. The House Committee on Oversight and Government revealed this little splurge today and Republican representative Mark Souder called it an example of "unbridled greed." (Man, public servants don't get to go on corporate retreats or something?)

Well, we've learned a couple of things today. One, Tuesdays are not always better than Mondays, and two, that whole "Greatest Depression" thing? Greater for some than others.

Markets Plunge Despite Hint of Rate Cut [NYT]
After Bailout, AIG Execs Headed to California Resort [ABC News]

This month, Seventeen magazine interviewed Penn Badgley, better known as Dan from the Greatest Show of Our Time. In their piece, we learn that Penn's celebrity crush is Parker Posey. What? Setting aside the fact that his real-life girlfriend, Blake Lively, is also a celebrity, um, duh, Parker Posey would totally be on Team Blair! Anyway, we also learn that Penn loves Mean Girls and Friends. Hmmm, he sounds so un-tortured. This doesn't sound like Dan Humphrey at all! But wait, in the print edition of Seventeen, we get this gem:

What advice do you wish someone had given you growing up?
I wish I had known that vulnerability is universal for everyone, regardless of how cool or not cool they are. You have such a heightened awareness of yourself, so even small things seem life-changing — a bad day turns into, 'Oh my gosh, my life is over.' If I were still a teen, I would want to hear: 'It's okay. Take a deep breath and move on.'

Just right! (Emphasis theirs.) Now don't anybody go acting all surprised that we give such close reading to the print and online versions of a magazine like Seventeen. Would you expect any less of us?

Penn Badgley Answers 17 Juicy Questions! [Seventeen]

Every day (or close to it) until November 4, a series of writers and thinkers will discuss the election over instant messenger for nymag.com. Today, Katie Roiphe, the author, most recently, of Uncommon Arrangements, and Think Progress blogger Matthew Yglesias discuss Sarah Palin's latest attacks on Obama, what the silver lining of the financial meltdown might be, and why McCain will likely be declared the winner of tonight's debate.

K.R.: Given that the world is falling apart, it's kind of a slow news day. What do you think of Sarah Palin's latest attack on Obama?

M.Y.: She seems to be continuing in the pattern of audaciously making stuff up that she started with the "bridge to nowhere" nonsense … my guess is that people are going to be more interested in the whole world-is-falling-apart issue.

If you really, really think tonight's debate is going to matter, you might as well watch it in a bar where everybody's going to be paying attention. After the jump, a list of parties where you can catch the action.

Hey, remember when the people of New York gave billionaire makeup heir Ronald Lauder the power to temporarily alter laws at his whim? Neither do we. But it seems that because Lauder was the catalyst for implementing term limits in the first place, we need his consent to change the law again. Lauder had been reluctantly onboard with Mayor Bloomberg's proposal to run for a third term when he thought it would apply just this one time, but turned on the plan when he discovered it could become permanent. "I was opposed to even extending it once," he told the Times on Sunday. "For the love of this city, I will do it once, but that is it." You hear that, New York? We get one exception, and that's it. Lauder is putting his foot down. We guess we should be grateful.

Though he's been a hyperactive Obama supporter and get-out-the-vote activist, elfin Scotsman/future American Alan Cumming won't be able to vote next month. He's not a naturalized citizen yet. But it doesn't mean he hasn't marked voting day in his own special way in the past. Last night, while emceeing an Obama fund-raiser at the East Village studio of artist Gregory Colbert, Cumming told us about his One Crazy Night — Election 2004. We smell a classic in the making!

The doe-eyed scamp doesn't quite remember where the evening started, but Harvey Weinstein was definitely there. The trouble began when the Hollywood impresario got a disappointing phone call from a Kerry campaigner in Florida. "I remember thinking, Fuck, it's actually not gonna happen," Cumming recalls. Wearing a "Worst President Ever" T-shirt, Cumming and his partner (now husband), Graham Grant, "made this pact to each other that we'd go to every trashy gay bar we knew. I remember doing handstands at Splash. You know where the evening's going when you're doing handstands at Splash." Sounds like a normal night to us, but whatever!

The presidential race's recent turn toward character attacks surprises us about as much as Clay Aiken admitting he was gay: With the election now less than a month away and Obama maintaining a solid lead in the polls, the McCain campaign is deploying his long-reserved cards — Ayers, Rezko, and Wright. Obama is responding with the more substantive Keating Five scandal. And it’s in this friendly atmosphere that the candidates will meet tonight in Nashville for their second debate. It’s town-hall style, but with rigid rules: no follow-up questions from either the audience of uncommitted voters or moderator Tom Brokaw are allowed, and candidates are prohibited from asking each other direct questions or pulling an Al Gore or Rick Lazio and straying from their designated areas. But it’s clear McCain needs to do something dramatic to change the direction of this race.

Clint Eastwood, talking with Lillian Ross at one of those New Yorker things where you actually have to pay to hear people talk, kind of suggested he thought Palin did better than Biden in the debate. Candace Bushnell sold out her new book at a launch in Dallas, maybe because reading her makes the Dallas ladies feel all New York–y inside. Madonna mocked Palin during her show at the Meadowlands, and also mocked the sound of Palin's husband's snowmobile. True-life American Gangster Frank Lucas is touring the country with his son to preach "grades, not guns." Joe DiMaggio supposedly declined to have the Major Deegan Expressway renamed after him.

After reading Geoffrey Gray's profile of Governor Paterson in New York this week, you probably just wanted more of the lovable guv. And now it's official: You just might get it. Paterson gave an interview yesterday with the Huffington Post in which he confirmed what we already basically knew — that he's running for reelection in 2010.

"I'd like to run for reelection and serve as governor as a full term, have an actual transition period and a real inauguration," he said. "I see this as an immense challenge, and one that most people think is insurmountable with the number of people leaving New York state. And if in any way it would have been viewed that I did something to ameliorate the problems … and brought people back, I would think that would be a satisfaction that I carried with me for the rest of my life."

The governor enjoys a 64 percent approval rating, so he's in a good spot at the moment. Do you think we could get him reelected in a vote of hugs?

David Paterson Formally Declares Plans For Reelection [HuffPo]
Related: Governor Nice Guy [NYM]

On just its second day live, the Daily Beast has its first exclusive celebrity profile! Well, not exclusive. This morning the Website posted a feature on Jennifer Lopez by contributor Kevin Sessums, which had been previously killed by a fashion magazine because Lopez was not happy with the way her interviews went. The story nearly qualifies as a notch on our tally of the death of the celebrity profile, simply because it uses a hackneyed frame in which Sessums "discovers" that Lopez, who lives on the North Shore of Long Island and is rich, is just like F. Scott Fitzgerald's Gatsby. But in a way it's actually the reverse — it kind of represents the resurrection of the celebrity profile. If Brown's Website makes a habit of resuscitating killed profiles that somehow offended celebrities, she could have a real winning trend on her hands (provided she edits them, a bit). Because in Sessums's story, we actually learn things about Lopez.