At my own crummy Web-Site I’ve said everything I can bear to say right now about the Stupidest Phony Wingnut Tantrum Disguised as a “Controversy” Perhaps Ever, you know, that bullshit about how the Jihadist Swimming Pool of Jihad is going to pollute what people who don’t actually know anything about the place think of [...]

The ability for the United States to project power abroad – to protect its national security interests – is broken

Howard Dean, who once stood for some decent principles, tells us that those who want to build a Muslim center in New York City should be looking for a “compromise” that would place the center somewhere that didn’t cause a controversy. So long, Howard.

General Motors, the venerable American auto manufacturer which fell into bankruptcy and received substantial support from the US government, filed the initial papers for an IPO today, which will begin the process of allowing the Treasury Department to recoup some of its investment.

The debate over the housing finance crisis takes place along the backdrop of 300,000 foreclosures a month and no credible plan to arrest that. It’s like arguing about where to build the bedroom in the renovation of a two-story house while it’s on fire. Policymakers haven’t done the job, simply put. And the only one thinking creatively about solutions to the crisis, or at least solutions to the intersecting jobs crisis, is PIMCO bond investor Bill Gross.

I guess the only question this chronology leaves is whether or not Sen. Chris Dodd D-CT) is acting at the behest of his future employers, the banks, the White House, or both.

The President is falling for the familiar trap that Social Security faces problems due to an “aging population.” That just misreads life expectancy statistics. Most of the changes in life expectancy can be attributed to reductions in infant mortality and deaths at a young age. Life expectancy for those who have reached the age of 65 is basically the same. So it’s just not the case that massively more people are collecting Social Security than before. And that certainly shouldn’t precipitate any calls for raising the retirement age to 70.

The US Chamber of Commerce has apparently spent too much time watching Mad Men: in a blog post this morning, Chamber blogger Brad Peck called women’s fight for pay equity to be nothing more than a “fetish for money,” and said women complaining about their pay should focus instead on “choosing the right partner at home.” The Chamber’s Peck also approvingly quoted a post that asked, “Should government force gym-man to share his beautiful babes with couch-potato man?”

It’s a good thing for the White House that future voters in the 12-to-16-year-old age group wasn’t polled by Gallup.

Truly, it is a post-irony world for thee but not for me.