75 days

It's bad enough that the new President is going to have to deal with a financial crisis, an energy crisis, a health care crisis, and a pair of wars. But on top of all that, the incoming administration is going to inherit a Pentagon that's a downright mess, Winslow Wheeler argues in the current Defense News....

And don't expect a big windfall from the outbreak of peace in Iraq, either. The $100 billion per year we're spending in Iraq and Afghanistan is liable to stay more or less. "Calls by both presidential candidates to shift troops from Iraq to Afghanistan actually would add costs to the Pentagon budget," the New York Times notes. "It is significantly more expensive to sustain each soldier in Afghanistan than in Iraq because of Afghanistan’s landlocked location and primitive road network."

[From Danger Room - Wired Blogs]

And still, let's not forget, 75 days left for the DOOFUS to screw up even more. Given his talent for screwing up, things could still get worse. If I were an R I wouldn't be too terribly upset by the prospect of ducking into the shadows for the next few years.

We are, here in the Empire, however, thoroughly sick of politics and plan to do nothing but think happy thoughts for the next four years, come what may, and maybe get back to trying to learn a little Unix at long last, or something equally useful, like trying to figure out where the hell everything went in Word 2007.