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.

Having spent more time lately in the U.S., one thing has become abundantly clear - Caffeine-Free Diet Pepsi is the nastiest beverage ever created. If ever there was a product that proved that American ingenuity is dead, it's Caffeine-Free Diet Pepsi.

(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.)

You know what else sucks?

Republicans. Because they hold a minority opinion and lost an election (several elections, actually) but are holding policy hostage anyway.

Democrats. Because they are so scared to lose their majority that they’d rather hide under their desks than to do what they were elected to do (hint: LEAD).

Blue Dog Democrats: Because they’d rather make plays to increase their power base than do what they were elected to do (hint: LEAD).

“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.

Levi Johnston has some deep tweets.  Below is just a small collection of his tweets.  If you have not already, you need to follow him.

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 (

Hello dagsters. I'm happy to announce the marriage of one of our legendary founders, the man who puts the D in dagblog, the blogger with a thousand questions and inordinately large sunglasses: Deadman. He was married to the lovely Mrs. Deadman on Halloween night in Saratoga Springs, New York. There have been reports of widespread despair among eligible women across the nation.