Did you know elections and vote-counting happen in places other than Minnesota? It’s true! Take, for example, India, where the monthlong (!) election just came to an end, and the results are coming in at this moment. Approximately a gigabyte of the country’s 700 million eligible voters went to the polls, which all used electronic voting machines, and the potential debacle seems to have gone off without any disasters, civil wars, coups, terrorism, piracy, PUMAs, or any discussion of gay marriage whatsoever. So, score one for Democracy! UPDATE: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Sonia & Rahul Gandhi’s Congress Party win big! MORE »

All this talk about the economy! Eh, Who cares, it’s finished, so how’s Hillary Clinton’s Dipolomatic Corps doing? She’s in Asia, you know! And oh, what a swell time she’s having, drinking tea with the Japanese royals, taking in Eastern culture, and most importantly, getting the hell out of Washington D.C. Best job in the world, and all she has to do is tell North Korea not to nuke anybody every few days. Here’s a clip from the Indonesian show Dahsyat, which is Indonesia’s version of TRL. Pick a random part of the video and watch for 30 seconds. The “Fun Part” comes at 4:30. [Daily Intel]

Here is Japan’s beloved finance minister, Shoichi “Slurry Joe” Nakagawa, performing his hilarious “drunken finance minister” routine at some G7 press conference. Now he must resign! That’s how they roll in Japan. [MarketWatch]

OMG WTF OCTOBER SURPRISE everybody!!! Barack Obama has a number of paternal relatives, many of whom he has met once or not at all, because they come from a secret Marxist madrassa in the foreign city of Kenya, Africa. One of his Kenyan relatives is an aunt whom he has actually met a couple of times! She came to his swearing-in in the Senate in 2004 and has been living in Boston for a while, although he hasn’t heard from her for about two years. MORE »

• The Department of Homeland Security just began its new $634 billion dollar satellite surveillance program, despite some Democrats prattling on about how this thing violates “civil liberties” and “the law” or some such. [Wall Street Journal]
• Obama’s new Mexican telenovela stars a little boy with cancer who can’t see a doctor because McCain wants him to have cancer, because that’s what Bush would have wanted. [Ben Smith]
• Your President Bush has the highest disapproval rating in history! It’s 70% and even Nixon wasn’t quite as hated. [Political Wire]
• Did you know despicable foreign fatcats from exotic Muslim lands are giving Barack Obama dozens and dozens of dollars?  [RedState]
• Sarah Palin wants you to know she has a gay friend! And still, she loves her! Joe Biden, on the other hand, has a black friend.  [The Caucus]

That Barack Obama is a such a compulsive prevaricator that he cannot admit he speaks an exotic foreign tongue until he’s hanging out with a bunch of reporters. Remember how he very unpatriotically admitted feeling “embarrassed” that he doesn’t speak a foreign language? Well that was just a bunch of lies because he does speak some language, one that many people have not even heard of. Is it Klingon? MORE »

He may be the underdog here at home, but he’s winning hearts and minds in the land of delicious beer. Hat tip to reader bitchincamaro. [Prague Post]

If The Foreigns could elect America’s next president, they would probably vote for Hillary Clinton because she hearts NAFTA and has an acceptably white middle name. A smattering of anecdotes from Belgian grocers and Chinese business owners proves this devastating new fact! (Sorry Barack Hussein Obama, you can still be president of Kenya and Germany.) MORE »