You gotta laugh. No other reaction makes sense in a world gone mad. Not that this moment in time has any lock on being crowned The Age of Dementia. The most cursory study of past ages proves that humans have always been demented. Unfortunately, in this era, we just happen to benefit from instant, global communication that allows us to witness psychosis en masse. But forget the rest of the world’s lunacy for the next minute or two and aim your sights on the good old US of A. Nowhere on the planet has performance and achievement been more revered. Pick any walk of life — we choose to reward people who earn their stripes and walk that walk. When you want someone to clean your house, you check out Angie’s list and demand referrals. When you aspire to build a home, only an experienced architect and builder will do. Need life-saving surgery? Maybe a face job? You do a CIA number on any cat who wields a scalpel for a living. Universities hire the best coaches and teachers money can buy because alumni settle for nothing less than achievers with glittering dossiers. And try getting an academic or athletic scholarship at those universities without, as they say in poker, “the nuts.” If you happen to own or manage a company, you wade through dozens of resumes to find experience, competence, character and accomplishment. After all, it’s your money, your life. Need a plumber? No beginners need apply. You get the drift — you don’t hire anyone to do anything — anything —  unless that person can demonstrate beyond any doubt, that he/she has walked the walk. Yet, in 2008, you hired a person to hold the most important job in the world — a talking head with nary a scintilla of accomplishment, not a speck of experience and not a shred of achievement — no attainments, qualifications, credentials or contributions.  Matilda, if that ain’t screwball-city, nothing is. No woman lets anybody touch her hair without a “legendary” reputation for style and creativity. Yet women by the millions genuflected eagerly, if not adoringly, at nothing more than a masterful snow job, as BO (in awe of himself) lifted his haughty chin and cleverly talked and talked and talked the talk. And here you are, almost four years later, witness to the continued derangement of a nation. Nearly 50%, or perhaps more than 50% of Americans, will double down to worship a quintessential con man who has succeeded in a monumental pretense. And despite his stupendous failure, his subjects continue to grovel in ecstasy at his every lie, distortion and fraud.  Who are these subjects? Some of them are your friends. Golf buddies. Work associates. Family members. Church members. Book club members. The people next door. Pogo knows who they are. You have no explanation for the behavior of these people who routinely exercise common sense and discrimination when vetting a clown for Junior’s 6th birthday. You want to scream bloody murder at the utter senselessness. You want to rail at the moon. You want to get away from the madness, somewhere, anywhere, far, far away from the cuckoo’s nest. At the end of the day, however, all you can do is laugh. Because, despite the most stunning, incomprehensible achievements of mankind, humans have a major screw loose. Always have. Always will.

No one argues that anger commands the American landscape. Anger over race. Abortion. Foreign aid. War. Drugs. Bailouts. Corruption. Jobs. Religion. Gas prices. ObamaCare. Gay marriage. Yada yada. But any of these so-called issues pales by comparison to the single most destructive affliction on the planet — erectile dysfunction (ED). Evidently, if you believe in expert medical polling data, and why wouldn’t you, 60 percent, or approximately 70 million “members” of the U.S. male adult population, are ill-equipped to deliver the goods. At that astonishing level, no one can deny this misfortune is nothing less than a raging epidemic. So you must question: Why hasn’t ED dominated the GOP debates? Giving Michelle a pass, eight men were on the debate stage in the beginning. Do the math — at least five of them must have ED. The media organizations — all of them — missed a rich opportunity to probe this issue in the public interest — to learn more about which candidates can stand up to the challenge and be all they can be. As it is, we must applaud Lilly and Pfizer for spending hundreds of millions of advertising dollars annually and giving millions of apprehensive males the confidence to be ready at anytime and anyplace. And that includes none other than the Leader of the Free World. Of all people, he needs something he can count on. The ups and downs of his election are simply a rehearsal for the big show and all of his unpredictable highs and lows. But there’s something else the media missed. You missed it, too — until now. Like everyone else, you blamed Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, hedge funds, China, Iraq and out of control government spending for the country’s economic malaise. Not for a minute did you stop to realize that no economy can thrive when over half the adult male work force is besieged by and preoccupied with ED. What real man can be productive in a career when his very manhood, his very essence, is not all it should be? As you read this, men on Wall Street and Main Street, in coal mines and assembly lines, on oil fields and playing fields, at banks and breweries — and those in every other conceivable walk of life — are psychologically unfit to perform at a high level. Productivity plummets, and along with it, GDP. To make matters worse, ED drugs rob the average male of any significant mental acuity and ability to concentrate. This ineptitude clearly explains cultural decay, signaled by vulgarities like rap, piercing, tattoos and coarse language. However content the average ED male may be on the job, he is equally that useless. This malicious plague shows no signs of relenting as political candidates talk aimlessly about mundane issues like health care, immigration and contraception. Suddenly, you understand why nothing gets done in Congress and why your President requires a teleprompter to appear lucid. Invariably, reading requires low-level brain activity. Thinking is another matter altogether. Figures.

Size is a killer. (No, this isn’t about Cialis.) You remember a great company that for years attracted the best people, performed the best work, created the best products and delivered solid profits. That was before the company’s decision to dominate the market through dramatic expansion aimed at driving competitors into the dust. With this explosive growth came a top heavy bureaucracy, a commodity mentality and eventual disintegration. You also remember a dozen manufacturing companies staffed by craftsman who made superb products that became national brands. Those brands competed with each other, spawning retail growth, giving consumers excellent choices and returning solid profits. That was before a decision to roll up the companies into one massive, mediocre enchilada. Lost jobs, lost factories, lost quality, lost brands. Sayonara, baby. On an epic level, the lust for size and power resides in all government, especially the Federal Government. Government is like a supernatural leech that attaches itself to everything. The 1958 Sci-fi movie is today’s reality. The Federal Blob swells larger and larger. The larger it gets, the more ravenous it becomes, engulfing everything and everyone. But unlike private business, this worthless Blob will not die, despite the incompetence. Despite the bumbling, bungling, botching and stumbling. The Federal Blob is on permanent life support. And, you, my friend, are that support — or should you say — slave. There are 19 primary federal regulatory agencies. More than 50 agencies have a hand in federal regulatory policy. Together, these agencies enforce at least 150,000 pages of rules. Even a simpleton can understand the drill. Congress creates an agency. The Department of Education is a good example. The job of the agency is to regulate. People are hired as regulators. Today, there are over 5000 of these education regulators. These people make salaries by creating regulations and enforcing regulations. That means the department has to grow to support higher salaries; therefore, to grow and earn more income, the regulators desperately need to concoct new regulations. There’s absolutely no point in being a regulator unless you produce new regulations. At last report, the Department of Education is attempting to make ends meet with a $75,000,000,000+ budget.* Poor babies. Meanwhile, the other 18 agencies are hustling to grow their share of the regulatory pie. In fact, if The Blob’s regulatory operation were a business, it would rank among the 50 largest in revenues and third largest in number of employees. The regulators outnumber the people working for McDonald’s, Ford, Disney and Boeing combined. Yes , Matilda, the federal regulatory business is booming. Combined budgets are up 16% since 2008. Meanwhile, employment is up 13% (by 281,000) while private-sector jobs shrank by 5.6%. So it’s no surprise that regulatory production is way up, measured by the thousands of new rules The Federal Blob churns out. Evidently, Congress and enough brain-dead American people believe all of us need regulators to tell us how to run our businesses, what to eat, what not to eat, what light bulbs to use, what to teach our children, what doctors to see — because, truth be known, you’re too stupid to live successfully without this guidance. The Blob is swelling at a record rate and shows no sign of going on a diet. Where does that leave you? Satisfied? Supportive? Sensitive? How about — suffocated?

* The Department of Education is by far the Blob’s smallest cabinet-level department.