I like fiction as much as the next person, but I'm not going to read Going Rogue. I don't need to. You see, I know a little something about pathological liars. My bio-dad* is one.

Six months ago, I wrote a column decrying President Obama's compulsive bowing before foreign leaders and monarchs. After my editorial onslaught, the administration appeared to take note, and I thought that the matter resolved.

GQ Magazine's editors believe they know why Lou Dobbs left CNN: persecution.

I don't subscribe to cable or satellite television.  The reason for this is that I basically see no value in it.  Pay television doesn't really seem to offer me much.  For one thing, it's rife with advertising content.  Why do I have to watch ads constantly when I'm paying for the service?  Furthermore, much of the content available to basic cable subscribers is now available for free on the Internet.

I'm a freelancer and pay for my own health insurance. Since I'm (relatively) young and healthy, and since I rarely see a doctor more than once a year, I have a fairly inexpensive plan with a pretty high deductible.

Stupid question: If the House health care bill is adopted, shouldn't I opt for the cheapest plan that I can find?

In a unanimous resolution, the United Nations declared the Afghan presidential election to be "credible" and "legitimate" despite widespread fraud allegations and the withdrawal of President Karzai's opponent, Abdullah Abdullah. In a separate unanimous resolution, the U.N. declared Pope Benedict XVI to be "Jewish" and "possibly Buddhist" despite his Catholic baptism, confirmation, papal election, and long history of pro-Jesus sentiment.

(With today's GOP, I feel like this post - originally posted Sept. 2008 - never stops being topical.)

It's probably a fool's errand to make attempts at parsing the paranoid, hysterical rhetoric that's been flying around in the healthcare debate, but that's never stopped me before.  So, I'm watching the fun on C-SPAN this afternoon.  Listening to some of the "against" calls, I noticed something that I probably should have noticed before, which is this: The bizarre dichotomy of professing your undying love for the Constitution, while breathlessly spewing venom at the fundamental evil of the government.

One of the recent propaganda tactics of the right wing has been to appropriate the leftist language of discrimination and civil rights to argue that liberal elites are persecuting white Christian conservatives. The most extreme form of this tactic is the Nazi attack, according to which liberals are portrayed as Nazis or fascists in order to represent them as brutal oppressors of helpless conservative victims. Commentators on the right have revised history to represent fascism as a leftist movement. They have invented or exaggerated associations between Democrats and Nazis.

The US Senate has many rules not codified in the Constitution. The most famous of these rules is the fillibuster. As was made clear by the threat of the "nuclear option" when Democrats were threatening to fillibuster judicial appointments, these rules are more guidelines than hard and fast laws. They are usually followed, but they don't have to be.

Last night, Congressman Alan Grayson stood up on the floor of the House and read out the number of people who died from lack of health insurance in each Congressional district represented by a Republican. It was the latest in a steady stream of very public, sometimes over-the-top statements he’s made in an effort to shine the light on Republican obstructionism in order to help get healthcare reform passed.

“Marty Eisenstadt” poses for a photo with Sen. Joe Lieberman - moments before Lieberman and Blue Dog Dems invaded Sen. Ben Nelson’s office for some arm-twisting.

(Sometimes, it takes a hoaxer to uncover a real story. This is a true story as related to me by Eitan Gorlin.)

“My friends, I have always been open about my religious beliefs because I firmly adhere to the concept that what makes this nation great is freedom of religion. Whether you are a Scientologist, Mormon, Satanist, Christian, Muslim or Jew, you have the right to worship as you deem fit.

In his book, What's the Matter with Kansas, Thomas Frank documented the emergence of an angry populist movement in the prairielands. Christian fundamentalists and anti-abortion activists had exploited the anxiety of working class midwesterners by fabricating a persuasive myth of persecution. According to the myth, a tyrannical minority of liberal elites in control of the media and judiciary seek to repress the religious practices and traditions of "regular Americans" whom they despise and disdain.

You can find just about anything on the internet nowadays.  And I do mean everything, I found a website dedicated Charles In Charge trivia (www.cicoml.com/angelfire/79874984434), I found a social network for short guys who love tall women (www.giraffehunters.net), I even found a website that talks about former President Reagan like he was a good president (

KABUL - Proud citizens stood outside the home of Hamid Karzai this morning, cheering the re-election of the Afghanistan President after Afghan officials canceled Saturday’s run-off presidential vote following the withdrawal from the race of the last challenger, Abdullah Abdullah.

HOLLYWOOD - Ex-Governor of Alaska Sarah Palin took to her Facebook page again today, this time to refute allegations made by 5-year-old Timmy Johnson of Tupelo, Miss., who had made harsh comments about Palin yesterday.

“Timmy Johnson is an embarrassment to 5-year-olds everywhere,” wrote Palin. “He is an ignorant, selfish attention whore.”

Growing up in this great nation of ours, I was taught to have great pride in the freedoms America has bestowed upon its citizens. I learned of the brave Americans who heroically fought to acquire these freedoms, and today I still swell with pride thinking of the Americans that made the ultimate sacrifice to assure that all American citizens would live in the “Land of the Free.”