[via Yahoo]

“At that point, all five leaders shook hands and retreated into the Oval Office. It was exactly 9:29 a.m. One minute later, the New York Stock Exchange opened. The Dow was up 1,223 points at the open — an all-time record.” [NYT]

Angry lefty website Firedoglake fired off an angry email yesterday on behalf of Dan Choi, the anti-DADT activist who first came to attention when he came out on Rachel Maddow’s show a couple years back — while still in uniform.

Choi was later honorably discharged, but FDL says the Obama Administration is waging a “vindictive campaign” against him, including “seizing his veterans disability checks” through a collections agency, and this:

Dan currently faces up to 6 months in prison for protesting DADT in front of the White House. He will be the first person in nearly a century to be put on trial over an arcane law written for and last used to silence important women suffragists.

While we have a lot of respect for Choi — we were watching Rachel that night — we have somewhat less respect for Firedoglake. There’s an annoying tendency among Angry Lefties to hit the Outrage Button too often — we may read ThinkProgress and Media Matters daily, but we usually find ourself thinking twice (and checking sources) before running an item from them. So much shouting hurts our ears.

It’s far worse with Angry Righties, of course. But the louder they get, the more we’re amused.

So when the FDL email was brought to our attention, our strong instinct was — well, not to doubt it, but at least to confirm it before paying forward the anger. In particular, we were curious about the Lead Outrage — a century-old law being dusted off to burn Choi. That would be vindictive.

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John McCain is having a Bad Day:

Tea-party activists called McCain “out of touch” when the senator said he didn’t know about United Nations “Agenda 21.” One man described the initiative as a “takeover of the United States of America by taking over our farms.”

“First, our firearms, then our farms,” another man added.

Couple of things. First, we love the name “Agenda 21”. We can see a trailer featuring Matt Damon battling a conspiracy of nondescript men in fedoras terrorizing the world’s PowerPoint presentations.

Second: What the hell is Agenda 21?

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While we’re celebrating Blessed Events, meet Sophie Allouache and Penny Wong. Sophie’s due in December, and Penny’s delighted. “Like any expecting parents, the prospect of welcoming this child into our lives fills us both with joy,” she says.

And while Australia has yet to approve gay marriage, best wishes are being offered by such notables as Prime Minister Julia Gillard, Treasurer Wayne Swan, and even Deputy Opposition Leader Julie Bishop, although the NSW Christian Democrats leader would prefer they keep the news to themselves.

Why the high-profile attention? Seems Penny is Australia’s Finance Minister. And we’re having a very difficult time imagining similar news being greeted so gingerly here.

Finance Minister Penny Wong and partner are to have IVF baby [The Australian, via CheapBoy]

We received a Google+ invitation last night from a Stinquer, which was very kind, but since Google won’t yet allow Google+ participation from Google-managed domains like stinque.com, we had to decline.

We probably would have declined anyway, since Google+ also doesn’t allow pseudonyms, like “Nojo”. Instead we would have to use a Real Name, which takes all the fun out of it, unless we chose a real name like, oh, “Mike Lee”, which could be a lot of fun, especially since we’ve long said that Mike Lee is a Fucking Asshole, and we’re really looking forward to the defamation lawsuit.

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“A Fullerton man convicted earlier this year for twice ejaculating into a female coworker’s water bottle was ordered Monday to pay the woman more than $27,000 in restitution… The woman drank from the bottles both times, throwing the first one away after detecting an unusual taste.” [LAT, via Dodgerblue]