You know who was the very first human on the planet to use humor to serious effect? The 20th-century folk hero Saul Alinsky, inventor of community organizing and father of the Quercus genus of shade trees. Before Alinsky, no one ever thought to mock one’s political foes — and after Alinsky, no one ever did again. MORE »

The life of a CIA intern: picking Leon Panetta’s nose, and spying on North Korea (using Google Earth Street View). [Spotted: DC Interns] MORE »

• Check out the latest hot erotica, Townhalls Gone Wild. Have your FEMA debit card ready! [DailyKos]
• R.I.P., Rupert Murdoch. We hardly knew ye. [Market Watch/Something Awful]
• The doorbell rings. Who could that be? you say to yourself. Oh, it’s a little Girl Scout, selling cookies. “Get lost kid. Already bought 10 boxes of them Thin Mints, from Walmart. And they were hella cheap too, because Walmart isn’t unionized.” The little girl starts to cry. Typical union guilt-trip trickery, you think to yourself. [Jeffrey Goldberg]
• “One could say that the way Obama was able to convince people that he really didn’t adhere to his own previously stated positions is much closer to the example of Adolph Hitler and Mein Kampf than it is to any part of the The Joker’s history.” Uh. We read RedState so you don’t have to. [RedState]
• In a shrewd political maneuver, Rep. Roy Blunt (R-MO) points out that he has a birth certificate, thus distancing himself from Barack Obama, forever. [TPM]

OH YES, HERE IS THAT THING YOU ALL SENT TO YOUR WONKETTE: Did you know you can make your own magical Kenyan Birth Certificate, for anybody, by going to a website? Yes You Can! Email your version to CNN racist Lou Dobbs. [Kenyan Birth Certificate Generator]

Hey everybody, some birthers are just wandering around various Senate and House office buildings, bothering the shit out of staffers and interns, and then twatting about it, on the Twitter. David Weigel, the Stephen Crane + Ernie Pyle × Martha Gellhorn of the Tea Party-Birthers Wars, has the whole collection of retardation, go look at it and laugh, for America. [Washington Independent]

• High-frequency trading? Goldman Sachs? Ball’s in your court, Taibbi. [Matt Yglesias]
• “You Want Context? Drudge Will Give You Context.” And brain herpes! [Weekly Standard]
• Joe Biden is such a golly liberal fascist, according to liberal fascist experts. [USA Today]
• The best part of RedState’s furry convention was when Liz Cheney gave everyone an enormous boner — as stiff as a starched collar! Who could resist doe-eyed Liz in that delicious panda bear suit? So soft. [RedState]
• Sean Hannity is now a Texas Kentucky Colonel. [Think Progress]
• CNN took one look at the ad Media Matters wanted to air and said, “What is this? You are not selling pills or automobiles? NO. This will not do. Air your facts on Fox.” [TPM]

Assuming the president is even human, can anybody verify from which woman’s birth canal he sprang, and where, and when? The answer is no, until Barack Obama produces 1) a valid long-form birth certificate with coffee stains to make it look “real” and also 2) a 47-year-old mucus plug. (Note: do not Google “mucus plug” until after lunch.) But in lieu of this evidence, we are left to wonder whether Barack Obama was born in Kenya at all if somebody dug up a birth certificate from South Australia that looks SUSPICIOUSLY like his Kenyan one. MORE »

Media Matters is, according to Lou Dobbs, “some kind of Mexican space alien, from Mexicans.” But the liberal organization best known for sending out emails about how Fox News isn’t liberal has finally done something kind of funny, by purchasing commercial time on orange-headed blubbermouth Lou Dobbs’ afternoon comedy hour, White Supremacy For Angry Dummies. MORE »

Heroic provider of truths Orly Taitz went on television’s MSNBC channel this afternoon to discuss her latest proof that Obama is black. Heavens to Betsy! This is too classic. It must be performance art — Arianna Huffington applying a heavy spray-tan and a Marilyn Monroe wig, channeling her days as a Republican congressman’s wife. “LEE-sten to me! LEE-sten LEE-sten, Tahm-ron!” Ha ha! NOW THE IMPORTANT PART: Time for a photo contest! MORE »

SMOKING GUN! California lawyer-dentist Orly Taitz has released the Real Birth Certificate of Barack Hussein Nobama II, from Kenya, given to her by a secret source who is now Target #1 of the CIA & the Hawaiian Hospitals Director (same thing). Anyway, Washington’s hardest-working man in birtherology, Dave Weigel, has already debunked the dickens out of this. Our favorite part: “It’s signed by ‘registrar E.F. Lavender.’ Earth Friendly Lavender is a kind of detergent, and government officials who use vanity initials on official documents are, to put it mildly, rare.” BULSHITT WHADDA U KNO WYGEL? [World Net Daily, Washington Independent]

And how do we know, for sure, that this video is satirical in nature? Maybe that “Funny or Die” website just spent all weekend searching the YouTubes for the most insane example of current Birther pop art. Hell, it’s how we find the comedy! [Funny or Die]