So’s you know:

House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D., Mass.) and his Senate counterpart, [The] Dodd of Connecticut, might not agree on all economic issues, but they did agree today on exactly where the U.S. economy is: in a recession.

“We are in a recession now that has an unusual cause. It is not your usual cyclical problem…This is a structurally caused recession,” Frank told reporters at a news conference.

[The] Dodd, also appearing at the news conference, had an even gloomier take. “This is the worst housing crisis in our lifetime. We are in a recession. People want to talk about ‘Are we?’ — we’re in one. The question is, how deep is this going to go? How long lasting will it be?”

He went on to say it doesn’t look pretty. “The underlying economic conditions in our country are not good for resolving this,” [The] Dodd said. “Almost every other recession we can talk about lasted eight months. When you’ve got deficits running as high as they are — The value of the dollar… inflation going up, unemployment going up, these are not great underlying economic circumstances to respond to the situation.”

Michael Moore is fat. Al Gore has a house. Barack Obama is Muslim.

… Update: I recently had a dream that I was in high school and the ghost of H. Rap Brown gave me an unexpected math test. I was sharpening my pencil, and my penis fell off and slithered away. It was very frightening! Barack Obama should denounce, reject, renounce, deject, pounce, deflect, trounce, and disrespect H. Rap Brown and Stokely Carmichael or stand convicted of witchy voodoo.