'Running out of time'

Let's see. In the last few days:

-- Fannie and Freddie became one with the Borg. (The Sun found a real Freddie and Fannie in the UK -- both feeling the crunch.)

-- Continued unemployment claims rose over 3.5 million for the first time since 2003.

-- The July trade deficit grew to more than $62.2 billion.

-- The venerable House of Lehman pre-announced almost $4 billion in losses, carved itself up and sold off pieces -- and seems to have trouble peddling the carcass for soup stock.

-- WaMu said it expected $4.5 billion in loss provisions for the quarter. (Not to look on the bleak side, but my hat is off to self-evident.org, which provides some perspective: "The largest bank failure in U.S. history was Continental Illinois National Bank and Trust Company. When it failed in May 1984, it had $41 billion in assets and $30 billion in total deposits. According to the FDIC press release, when IndyMac failed in July it had $32 billion in assets and $19 billion in deposits, making it the second-largest failure in history. Washington Mutual has $310 billion in assets and $182 billion in deposits. [Their market cap is now below $4 billion.] So think of WaMu as 10 IndyMacs.")

-- U.S casualties in Afghanistan rose to 113, already making this our deadliest year there since we invaded in 2001 to hunt for bin Laden. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Adm. Mike Mullen, told Congress: "I'm not convinced we are winning it in Afghanistan." But, he added, "I am convinced we can." He also added: "Frankly, we are running out of time."

And people are nattering about frickin' lipstick?

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Update: Gene Robinson nailed it Friday morning -- "As long as people are talking about barnyard beauty tips, they're not talking about substance. Any day spent arguing about meaningless ephemera is a small but significant victory for a campaign that has nothing to say."