A few tidbits:

• Pasadena-based IndyMac becomes the second-largest bank to fail in US history.  Smells like 1929.  But don’t worry, it’s all in your head.

• Calitics friend Jackie Speier is forwarding her first piece of legislation, to set a national speed limit at 60 mph in urban areas and 65 mph on rural highways.  Slowing down to 60 mph or less significantly improves fuel efficiency.  Then again, so does not driving – as SoCal’s newest transit riders are learning.  But this is a tiny fix that could have an immediate impact on reducing gasoline use.

• Hey look, it’s Dianne Feinstein promoting a Republican-supported water bond that would build more dams (it’s a compromise measure, because some of the money earmarked for dams could go to groundwater storage and other water projects)!  Telling that Dave Cogdill immediately endorsed it while Da Don was cool.

Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata, D-Oakland, had a tepid response, calling on the governor to first authorize $872 million in unspent water funds and reach agreement on a $15.2 billion budget shortfall before seeking a water bond in the Capitol.

“I am open to doing a water bond,” Perata said in a statement. “First, however, the state should spend the bond money voters approved in 2006, and then, we must pass a responsible budget that can pay for the debt service on a new bond.”

Use this as an open thread.