What the H-E-Double-Hockey-Sticks is going on? Your editor just returned from a frantic/miserable week of "summer vacation," with nothing but occasional glances at theUSA Today to remind him of this American Politics/Collapse thing -- did you know America Loves Cake, and everyone is still unemployed, and the nation is melting?

What else? Oh, there was a mob war on the Metro, and Pakistan is washing away in the worst floods in a century, and even Moscow is on fire. At least our modern-day Marie Antoinette and one of the Obama daughters are rocking the Costa del Sol, while the rest of us eat actual garbage just to get the TB so we can demand a cot and three square meals a day at Nobama's Death Hospital.