You know that right-winger in the cubicle next to yours? Well you can go ahead and steal that Swingline Stapler of his you’ve been oogling, because his head is about to explode when he opens his morning paper and learns just who won the Nobel Peace prize without even trying!

(CNN) — President Barack Obama made history again Friday, winning the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize for his “extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.”

Less than nine months into his presidency, Barack Obama has been awarded the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee recognized Obama’s efforts to solve complex global problems, including working toward a world free of nuclear weapons.

It’s gonna be sorta like the rapture today, with all the Right-wingers walking around without heads.

The not-at-all-misleading caption reads: “Joe Wilson apologizes after shouting at Obama as he talked about insuring illegals.” Not that it makes any difference, of course, but Barack Obama’s exact words were:

“There are also those who claim that our reform efforts would insure illegal immigrants… this too is false.”

Now, maybe I’m just a little dense here, but would it not have been more accurate to say that Obama was talking about not insuring illegals? It’s a fine distinction, to be sure, that which holds between doing something and not doing something. Consider, for instance, the practically trivial difference between “No, I have not been drinking” and “Why yes, officer, as a matter of fact, I have been drinking… heavily” or “there are not dead hookers buried in his back yard” and “there are dead hookers buried in his back yard.” But then again, maybe I’m just reading too much into it. After all, it’s not like Fox News is known for pushing misleading GOP propaganda as news, or anything.

The recent release, on compassionate grounds,  of Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi, the Libyan agent convicted of planting the bomb on Pan AM flight 103 that claimed the lives of 270 innocent men, women and children has created something of a diplomatic furor, with U.S. commentators and public officials loudly decrying the Scottish government’s decision. Read more »

Like most people, I don’t like to admit I’m wrong. Oh sure, I’ve made mistakes a-plenty in my lifetime, but it still smarts to admit to them. So it is with heavy heart that I admit, here before the world, that I was wrong about one of the most pressing issues of the day: health care reform.

You see, up to now I’ve been an enthusiastic proponent of a single-payer system of universal coverage, figuring that the poor deserved the same medical care as the rich, and that the current for-profit system was findamentally unworkable.

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For the past couple of days CNN has been intermittently running with the story of Capt. Michael Speicher, a Navy pilot who was the first American casualty of the “first,” 1991 Gulf War.  Speicher’s plane was shot down over Anbar province during a bombing raid, and the pilots remains were apparently discovered and buried by Bedouin tribesmen. Recently an Iraqi civilian informed US forces of the location of the remains, and a positive identification and repatriation soon followed.  One interesting footnote to the story, however remains largely unexplored. The CNN story notes:

He was originally listed as “Killed-in-Action/Body-Not-Recovered” in May 1991. That status changed in 2001 to “Missing in Action,” and then to “Missing/Captured” in 2002, based on sighting reports in Iraq. Those sightings have since been discredited.

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Did you know that everyone’s favorite metaphor for the self-destruction of the Republican party, Sarah Palin, isn’t exactly tops when it comes to finishing things she started? You probably suspected as much when she quit the governorship last week, explaining that doing anything else would mean she was a quitter (Huh?!?! WTF?!?!?) But yeah, Palin has a habit of leaving the crayons all over the playroom table without finishing her picture and leaving it to the other kids to clean up her mess.  The blog Swing State Project, for instance, notes that Sarah Palin quit the last thing she was doing before she was governess :

One other thought about Alaska that just about everyone in the tradmed seems to be missing. Sarah Palin did have a job in between being mayor of Wasilla and Alaska Governor: she was chair of Frank Murkowski’s Oil and Gas Commission. How long was she on this Commission? Less than a year… until she quit in January 2004 with a big public huff (leaving the Commission in the lurch with only one member), saying “the experience was taking the ‘oomph’ out of her passion for government service and she decided to quit rather than becoming bitter.”

And the Daily Kos adds:

Don’t forget that she also quit four different colleges en route to getting a degree in journalism. It seems that the one lesson Sarah Palin’s learned her whole life is that quitters always win.

Yaaay, quitters always win! I’m off to quit something right now!

(Via Daily Kos)

Serolf Divad never really quit enough stuff to be truly succesful.

Staying classy, Joyce Thomann, the president of the Maryland based Republican Women of Ann Arundel County posted an observation on that group’s website that has some people talking:

Obama and Hitler have a great deal in common in my view. Obama and Hitler use the ‘blitzkrieg’ method to overwhelm their enemies. FAST, CARPET BOMBING intent on destruction. Hitler’s blitzkrieg bombing destroyed many European cities – quickly and effectively. Obama is systematically destroying the American economy and with it AMERICA. First the banking/investment industry, next private enterprise (GM and Chrysler) and now HEALTH CARE. And he is working on grabbing more of the American economy with his environmental extremism!

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