"Messiahs," James Ceaser writes in the new issue of the Claremont Review of Books, "have very little margin for error." And so Barack Obama, halo tarnished and askew, is looking pretty haggard right now, e

I know, I know: It's cheating to stick up a Colbert clip and call it a blog. But in this case, Colbert does the nation a service explaining why the low unemployment rate is a bogus statistic.

Just in case you forgot:

But $500 billion later, experts worry about the impact on the world's biggest economy, already facing a crippling housing crisis.

"The short-term economic consequences of the war have been manageable and modest. But the long-term consequences will be substantial," said Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody's Economy.com.

Much of the problem, economists say, is that every month of combat adds more than $10 billion to a U.S. debt that now tops $9 trillion.

There are reasonable regulations, and then there is this: In Louisiana, it's illegal to arrange two or more different types of flowers without a state florist license. Silly, right? In Virginia, it's illegal to sell Sangria, a mixture of wine, brandy and fruit. Ridiculous. But wait, there's more!

Remember the 1970s? I was young enough that my memories of that decade are kind of hazy. But I'm guessing it looked something like this:

Gasoline prices, which for months lagged behind the big run-up in the price of oil, are suddenly rising quickly, with some experts saying they could approach $4 a gallon by spring. Diesel is hitting new records daily, and oil settled at a record high of $100.88 a barrel on Tuesday.