With a couple of exceptions, I've been gone from dagblog for several months. I've rarely posted. I've barely commented. Heck, I've even stopped visiting the site on a regular basis.

I have a number of legitimate excuses - and some not-so legitimate excuses - for my time away. I did a lot of wedding planning. I picked up online poker again. I broke a wrist. I got married and had a minimoon. I fell behind work at my paying day job. Fantasy football started.

So, have you heard about President Obama winning the Nobel Prize? If you'd suggested this to me yesterday, I wouldn't have believed it, let alone been able to put forth an argument for it, so I won't pretend it made intuitive sense when I woke up this morning.

UNITED STATES - In a stunning announcement today, U.S. President Barack Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his diplomatic efforts. Immediately following the announcements, Conservatives throughout the United States lost cohesion and exploded, much like the Agent Smith character did at the end of the Matrix.

“I was sitting next to Jonah Goldberg and Bill Kristol having breakfast,” said an unnamed source. “We heard the news and I looked over to them and all I saw were pixels floating into space.”

I can say unequivocally that I love Dr. Strangelove.  Kubrick is almost universally renowned as an auteur, but Dr. Strangelove stands out for many reasons, not the least of which were the fantastic contributions of George C. Scott and the multiple personalites of Peter Sellers.  Even the opening and closing credits are memorable.

One of Drudge Report's headlines today is "Sarkozy first to admit: Iran working on nukes." (The original was, of course, all-caps; I'll spare you.) It links to a Jerusalem Post article that reads in part:

French President Nicolas Sarkozy maintained that the Islamic republic was still working on a nuclear weapons program.

As the post-election protests by reformists simmers in the background, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has openly defied Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, setting the stage for a major political battle among the conservatives who hold power.

Happy Canada Day, everyone. Snap quiz, if you're up to it:
1. Exactly what are we celebrating the anniversary of?
2. Who gets top billing as "Father of Confederation?"
3. Name one other.
4. Where exactly is the Canada-U.S. border (I mean the long straight part)?
5. Why did Canadians decide they wanted a country anyway?
6. What's the national anthem? Fairly easy one.
7. What's the flag? Ditto.
8. What's the national sport? What, another gimme?
9. How many provinces are there? Territories?

BREAKING: Having issued a number of bellicose threats in recent weeks, the government of North Korea has run dangerously low on epithets and histrionic adjectives. Though North Korea is the world's leading producer of hyperbole, the prolific output of the government controlled Central News Agency has outstripped their supply. Analysts fear that without wrathful verbiage, North Korea will resort to military force and patriotic parades.

From the official Korean Central News Agency:

"If the U.S. imperialists start another war, the army and people of Korea will ... wipe out the aggressors on the globe once and for all."

A week ago, in response to U.S. threats to inspect cargo coming to and from North Korea, the same news agency vowed that North Korea would treat such actions as a declaration of war of promised a "100 or 1,000-fold retaliation with merciless military strike."

The Kang Nam, a two-thousand ton North Korean freighter, is powering towards Southeast Asia. An eight-thousand ton American destroyer, the John S. McCain, trails behind it. As the two-ship mobile standoff crawls along the east coast of Asia, telephones have been ringing in Washington, Seoul, and Tokyo, as the leaders of the U.S., South Korea, and Japan scramble for a strategy to confront North Korea's weapons smuggling operations.

Follow the tragic experiences of an Iranian student on twitter as the protests in Tehran unfold: http://twitter.com/change_for_iran. I'll display the latest tweets on the right panel of this page. Here are some samples of recent tweets in chronological order:

For those of us who, like Mir Hosein Mousavi, are wondering what happened to our projected landslide green revolution, Josh Marshall links to an interesting Guardian article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jun/13/iranian-election

Last week, in response to Deadman's salute to Obama's Cairo speech, I wrote:

At least they're not using tanks this time...

When I read about yesterday's Taliban attack on the provincial headquarters of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), I raised my eyebrows. Why the ISI? It's not an easy target, and in fact the attack was repelled by guards. Nor would a successful attack have been an effective way to create instability. The ISI is not filled with sympathetic targets whose deaths would arouse the nation.

I took a walking tour of Westminster, London the other day. It was just drizzly enough to make you open an umbrella and at least windy enough to invert the umbrella once opened. English weather likes to tease visitors. The moment you think it's about to pour, it changes it's mind and goes all sunny. But as soon as you're ready to declare the rain past, it grays up and drizzles all over again.

There have been many sober pronouncements lately about the end American hegemony, both on this blog and elsewhere. Some have reacted with despondence, others with glee. It may be that the end is nigh--it has to end sometime--but we should keep in mind that the forecasters of doom emerge from their caves during every period of hardship.

Sri Lanka stands on the edge of a massacre. After 26 years of civil war, the Sri Lankan army has ousted ethnic Tamil separatists from vast territories they once controlled and trapped the remaining fighters on a 6-square mile strip of beach. With the fighters are an estimated 60,000 human hostages.

No, I am not referring to bankers. I'm speaking of the International Criminal Court's indictment of Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir on war crimes charges. Bashir is a force of evil in the world. His leadership has directly contributed to the suffering, murder, and genocide of millions. He deserves the most severe penalties we can in good conscience apply.