Guess what your Barack Obama picked up in South America? Oh nothing, just a tae kwon do black belt given to him by South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, also a black belt. Barry posed for exactly one (1) photo in which he curled his fingers into a loose ball and raised his arm in a vague forward gesture, and now what, we’re just supposed to suddenly find him qualified to teach our kids martial arts after school?? Someone please award the belt posthumously to Ronald Reagan. [Top of the Ticket]

• Meet Harry Reid & the Senate’s Health Care Bill: $849 billion, 2,074 pages, no insurance for abortions or illegal immigrants, other characteristics, etc. [CNN]
• Despite really maxing out every copy editor’s patience with the word “contentious,” Hamid Karzai was sworn-in for another five-year term as President of Afghanistan.  [New York Times]
• Eric Holder took questions from 9/11 families about KSM’s trip to New York. [Washington Post]
• Obama wants to do a free-trade deal with South Korea. Give it a week after this thing goes through that “SKaFTA” is not the name of some 16-year-old’s Bouncing Souls cover band. [WSJ]
• Quarantining people isn’t doing much to stop swine flu from killing us all to death. [AP]
• Ireland will not be granted that Fifa World Cup playoff rematch, no matter how unfair the Irish justice minister thinks that handball thing was. [Guardian]

• Koreas North and South had their first actual battle in seven years. It lasted two minutes, which is understandable given it had been seven years. [New York Times]
• Nidal Hasan gave some PowerPoint presentation a year and a half ago about how Muslims in the US Army should not be fighting Muslims in other armies. At the time everyone thought this was weird. [Washington Post]
• Hasan also became pen pals with a Yemeni-based al Qaeda sympathizer, and this too people knew about a year ago but did not think was that weird because there was no indication within their correspondence that he was going to eventually murder anyone. [Reuters]
• The DC sniper will be executed today in Virginia. His lawyers say he is mentally ill and should just be given life in prison though. [WSJ]
• At the last minute, Hurricane Ida decided to go as Tropical Storm Ida during its visit to the Gulf Coast states. [AP]
• Google is installing free wireless in 47 American airports. They’re calling this a “holiday gift.” Orwell had a different word for it. [CNN]

• The FBI is doing that thing again where it suggests that everyone to get the seriously get the fuck away from any hotels or stadiums, while at the same time claiming that there have been no “specific” threats against specific places like “stadiums” and “hotels.” [CNN]
• South Korea has finally OK’ed the sale of the iPhone, the North Korea of Apple products. [Wall Street Journal]
• Obama has impressed his new U.N. friends by doing the mature thing and admitting that maybe, yes, fine, the U.S. isn’t completely uninvolved in polluting the Earth. And yeah, we’re all super committed to not doing this anymore, mmhmm. [Los Angeles Times]
• Obama’s deal with The Pharmaceuticals—in which America would save like $80 billion on drugs in the next decade—is hated by every single person ever, plus Chuck Grassley, on principle. [New York Times]
• The “Tom DeLay episode” of Dancing With the Stars was the show’s least popular season-opener ever, except for its first season, back when no one even knew what it was and Tom DeLay was still a common street thug yet to be touched by the redemptive power of dance. [Washington Post]

Today, the National Assembly of South Korea showed the U.S. Congress how to throw down over impeachment. Screw quiet resolutions and votes and stupid gold braids on judges robes and shit - the Korea rabble-rousers stormed the podium like they were auditioning for LOTR or something, complete with body surfing, flying bodies, ear-pinching and an woman beating a man with a phone. Are you paying attention, Congressman Wexler? [Raw Story]

South Korea’s Commerce Ministry, obviously awash in tax revenues, announced yesterday its intention to build not one but two robot theme parks. The plan to allow people to “interact with robots and test new products,” and, presumably, to allow the threat of a vast robot army to scare the crap out of Kim Jong Il. This is how it starts, people. You’ve been warned. [Yahoo News]

North and South Korea are close to finally ending their 57-year-old war. Of course the US will refuse to sign the peace treaty until Kim Jong Il officially gives up all of his nuclear ambitions, a goal we’ve assigned China to take care of. Also, if possible, can a “winner” be declared? It’s kinda depressing when wars end in 50-year stalemates! [WP]

President Bush Junior screwed up even more than normal during brief remarks at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Sydney. Foreign journalists were, as usual, horrified and amused by the bumbling and buffoonery. MORE »

• Jean Schmidt afraid that after losing her seat in the House, she’ll also be forced to relinquish the title of most moronic elected official from Ohio. [Talking Points Memo]

• For Dick Cheney, a day without waterboarding is like a day without air. [MoJo Blog]
• New Bob Corker campaign ad being “checked” by Tennessee television stations. The ad won’t be aired unless it meets a minimum threshold of racist content. [Wizbang Politics]
• White House spokesman freely admits Iraq policy is driven by political concerns, MSM finds it too obvious to report. [Media Matters]
• Iraqi Insurgents For Lamont to begin airing campaign ads. [The Carpetbagger Report]
• South Korean panic over North Korean nuclear ambitions being assuaged by copious amounts of life-affirming sex. [Outside the Beltway]
• Roll Call steals our idea, improves it by using research tools other than Google. [TPM Muckraker]
• The Swiss cheese memory of Dennis Hastert strikes again as he replaces “forgotten” facts with made up ones. [Think Progress]

• White House proposes that new, stricter sanctions on North Korea include weapons, Louis Vuitton Fall/Winter collection. [WP, NYT]

• “Axis of evil” still only 33% invaded. [WP]
• How the hell did they get that bomb anyway? [LAT]
• Papers publish polls. Probable voters pretty pissed at GOP. [WP, NYT, USAT]
• Democrats need to gain 15 seats to take control of the House, Republicans admit they plan to lose between 7 and 30. [WP]
• Hispanic population in US largely unregistered, those who do vote are open to pandering. [WSJ]
• South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon to become new UN Secretary General. [NYT]
• Google buys YouTube for $1.65 billion, a price that was buoyed by the cute cat videos you uploaded last week. [NYT]

• Katherine Harris pulls the crazy train into the station for maintenance. Get well soon Katy!

• Stop Tim Russert whilst he’s walking and he will cut your effin jacobs off!
• God pardons Ken Lay.
• Joe Lieberman’s not sure who he is anymore, but he’s running for something
• American competitiveness slips again. We’re losing ground to the Koreans in nattiness of street mobs. ‘Tis of thee.
• The president can’t get his mind off his trip to Graceland, Larry King can’t get his off marginally relevant World War II era anecdotes.
• Apparently, the sodomy squadron has been napping on the job, because they needed Vanity Fair to tell them the Watergategate parties were
  all about the ass-fucking.