(See links at bottom for The Complete BozoGate Saga.)

Let us begin our journey with this Bombshell News from the New York Times:

“We were a big noisy family with a lot of backyard skits and carnivals,” said Ms. O’Donnell, whose mother, Carole, called her Chrissy the Pooh and whose father, Daniel, worked a series of small television roles before scoring his signature gig — playing Bozo the Clown.

That would be enough to overtake Bill Maher in the O’Donnell Revelation Sweepstakes, but rather than snicker at Celibabe’s upcoming campaign bio, My Dad Was a Bozo, we’ve been absorbed the past few hours with the disturbing suspicion that Dad’s signature gig cannot be verified.

And so, welcome to our first installment of In Search of Bozo.

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Our guest columnist this morning is Google’s new Latin translator, helping us finally understand what that dummy Lorem Ipsum text means.

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Google lateris nescis [Kottke]

Lorem Ipsum (background and real translation)

On becoming a Christian: “I was dabbling in witchcraft. I’ve dabbled in Buddhism. I would have become a Hare Krishna but I didn’t want to become a vegetarian. And that is honestly the reason why — because I’m Italian, I love meatballs.” [ThinkProgress]

“In an exclusive interview with CBN News, Delaware Republican Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell said God is keeping her in the race. She made the statement before she stopped doing interviews at the advice of Tea Party power broker Sarah Palin.” [Christian Broadcasting Network]

[McClatchy, via PourMeCoffee]

Now here it is, Rick’s Moment of Zen, with Pete Dominick, satellite-radio host:

Dominick: How is [Jon Stewart] a bigot?

Sanchez: I think he looks at the world through, his mom, who was a school teacher, and his dad, who was a physicist or something like that. Great, I’m so happy that he grew up in a suburban middle class New Jersey home with everything you could ever imagine.

Dominick: What group is he bigoted towards?

Sanchez: Everybody else who’s not like him. Look at his show, I mean, what does he surround himself with?

Well, there’s Wyatt, and Aasif, and Sam, and Larry, and Kristen, and— yes, Rick, you have more?

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An intestersting document making the blog rounds today (meaning I’ve seen it on  at least two sites) is a Pdf prepared by an organization call thirdway that aims to detail for taxpayers just how much of their tax bill goes toward paying for different Federal programs. The Pdf uses the example of an individual making $34,140 a year and paying $5,400 in Federal income taxes. The actual breakdown of that $5,400 is quite instructive and would likely help give the average citizen a much clearer picture of just what his tax dollar is funding. For instance, of that $5,400 these are the totals that go to funding various government programs:

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