NICOLE GELINAS: Is There A Retirement Crisis? Yes, but it’s one that we can manage if we act now.

GLOBAL WARMING: NCDC data shows that the contiguous USA has not warmed in the past decade, summers are cooler, winters are getting colder. “In the middle of all those quotes being bandied about, I get an email from Burt Rutan (yes THAT Burt Rutan) with a PDF slideshow titled Winter Trends in the United States in the Last Decade citing NCDC’s ‘climate at a glance’ data. This is using the USHCN2 data, which we are told is the ‘best’, no pun intended. It had this interesting map of the USA for Winter Temperatures (December-February) by climate region on the first slide.”

UPDATE: Link was bad before. Fixed now. Sorry! Firefox 7 sometimes strips the http:// from URLs and I missed it this time.

HOW TO CHANGE a bathroom sink.

THIS IS ONLY A TEST: Cops Fear Emergency Alert Test Will Trigger Panic. “Cops are preparing for a blitz of panicked 911 calls during a nationwide test of the Emergency Alert System, blanketing every TV and radio station coast-to-coast, that experts fear could produce a Orson Welles-like fear frenzy. Boston and state police said they’re both staffing extra 911 dispatchers to answer calls at 2 p.m. Wednesday, when the 30-second alert from the Federal Communications Commission will interrupt regularly scheduled programming on all TV and radio stations in the United States and Puerto Rico. The alert will look and sound like past local announcements, but Federal Communications Commission officials said prep for the nationwide effort has already exposed problems in the 50-year-old system, including the incapability to support closed captioning and translations.”

#OCCUPYHOLLYWOOD: Lindsay Lohan Checks Into — And Out Of — Jail. “So much for that 30-day sentence. Lindsay Lohan was booked into Century Regional Detention Facility in Lynwood, Calif. on Sunday night at 8:48 p.m. PT to begin serving her fifth jail sentence, reports AP. And she was released at approximately 1:30 a.m., reports TMZ.”

FASTER, PLEASE: Microbiologists identify two molecules that kill lymphoma cells in mice.

FROM DUKE, an inside look at the Higher Education Bubble.

#OCCUPYHOLLYWOOD: WHY WOULD A CONSERVATIVE REPUBLICAN LIKE REP. LAMAR SMITH SPONSOR A BILL THAT LETS THE DOJ SHUT DOWN WEBSITES AT WILL? Possibly because he got a lot of money from Hollywood.

Sadly, this is not one of his email hoaxes.

THIS WEEK in the future.

FAUSTA WERTZ REPORTS on elections in Nicaragua and Guatemala.

WHO CAN AFFORD a Chevy Volt? “As a reminder, Chevy Volts get a tax incentive of $7,500, and cost about $41,000. Does a person who lives in a home big enough to suffer $800,000 worth of damage really deserve $7,500 worth of our tax money just to buy an electric powered a coal powered car?”

Hey, that puts me in mind of a good slogan: A Car For The 1%!

THE CARNIVAL OF SPACE IS UP!

PRESIDENT GOLDMAN SACHS: Wall Street has already made more money under Obama than it did in Bush’s two terms. “Behind this turnaround, in significant measure, are government policies.”

GOVT. FAIL: PIPELINES, TREES, AND DEMOSCLEROSIS. “In the old days, when the U.S. built things relatively quickly like Hoover Dam or the Golden Gate Bridge, someone actually got to make decisions. Today, I suspect the slightly authoritarian figures like Robert Moses or Frederick Law Olmstead would be arrested for their manner of public administration, or have their designs so slowed down and corrupted by ‘public input’ and review processes that we wouldn’t have Central Park. More likely we’d have 50 Zuccotti Parks scattered around New York City.”

What’s funny is that these innovations in legal process were championed by the same folks who — see, e.g., Rachel Maddow’s odd Hoover Dam bit — champion the idea of the government doing big things. Yet the end result of a government that focuses on process instead of product is a government that can’t do big things, and one in which the public has less faith. To pick an example from my neck of the woods, the TVA had its first dam filled within 18 months of the TVA Act’s passage. That could never happen today. Now arguably TVA built too many dams, but at least taxpayers who wondered where their money was going could see dams springing up all over. Now it goes into the pockets of lawyers and consultants and Environmental Impact Statement reviewers. Not surprisingly, that’s less impressive.

By the way, I highly recommend Jonathan Rauch’s Demosclerosis: The Silent Killer Of American Government, where the term was coined. More discussion of the phenomenon can also be found in this post, where I also praise Mancur Olson’s The Rise and Decline of Nations: Economic Growth, Stagflation, and Social Rigidities.

UPDATE: Reader Kevin Long writes:

I’m a civil engineer with a little over ten years in transportation design, and I’ve witnessed first hand the chaos the industry has fallen into. I worked with a private consultant for state and local transportation agencies, and the whole shovel-ready mess wrecked our long term plans by using up most of the available funding in short-term projects. The process now takes four to six years for even a small project to go through, so when everyone moved projects up to qualify for funding through ARRA, it left a gap where no new projects are expected for a few years. Not to mention, most of the ARRA projects required very little or no engineering (repaving roads or adding sidewalks, for example). I was among the last group of engineers and surveyors laid off from my company in June and have only found one temporary job since then, with almost all the companies in my area (Nashville) treading water or downsizing since then. (In my job search, I’ve been told more than once that people are not planning on adding staff until after next year’s election.) I’m now wondering if I should change disciplines in order to hedge my bets. Environmental engineering looks promising. If you’ve been regulated out of a job, I guess apply for a job with the regulators.

Ouch.

GOVERNMENT FAIL: Finding more flaws in HUD’s accounting of HOME program. “HUD’s attempt to demonstrate that success to Congress resulted in reports to lawmakers that, to judge by federal records and interviews with dozens of local housing agencies in charge of the projects, contain discrepancies and contradictions that suggest continuing problems with the program. . . . In recent weeks, local housing agencies have confirmed that about 75 construction projects drew and spent $40 million in HOME funds with little or nothing built. That is in addition to the nearly 700 potentially delayed projects The Post identified earlier this year.”

Shocking. If this were the private sector, this would be some sort of crime and scandal. But it’s the government, so whaddyagonnado?

I’VE ORDERED A KINDLE FIRE ALREADY. DOES THAT MATTER? Why Amazon Doesn’t Scare Apple (and B&N Scares No One).

HE CHOSE POORLY: Hotel Robber Foiled by Mixed Martial-Arts Experts.

NICK SCHULZ: Mad At The Market? Turn Your Ire Toward Washington.

ED DRISCOLL: The Worst Media Double Standard In Recent History.

AT AMAZON, pre-Black Friday deals on video games.

EUROZONE CRISIS: Now it’s Italy.

IN NEW YORK STATE, another Weiner problem.

#OCCUPYHOLLYWOOD: Occupy Wall Street’s greedy celebrity hypocrites.

JAMES PETHOKOUKIS: Romney just dramatically raised the stakes vs. Obama.