As you know, House Democrats recently passed a health care reform bill, despite fierce opposition from the GOP. Honestly, I don't know how they pulled it off when the Republicans were pulling out the big guns: Leis and babies. After all, who can forget that famous proverb, "If you spout non sequiturs about flower necklaces and awkwardly exploit your grandchildren by the river long enough, eventually you'll see the body of your enemy float by"?

Stephen Colbert's take can be found below.

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Congratulations, America, your House of Representatives stopped dithering and passed a health care reform bill — final tally, 220-215. Yay/boo. Now the focus shifts to the Senate, but they'll have a tough time surpassing the amount of crazy that went down in the House during Saturday's interminable debate.

Here is a child's treasury of health care debate hijinks, starting with an actual child courtesy of Rep. John Shadegg (R-AZ). See, Maddie wants patient choice. Maddie does not want her mom's taxes to go up. Maddie/Trig '44!

Oh, there's more.

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Now that the America's several-month-long honeymoon sexual intercourse session with Barack Obama is finally over and it's quietly weeping with the sheets pulled up under its chin while Obama watches basketball and clips his toenails in the other room, let's all grab some some keepsakes to remember this very special moment in our relationship with the President…

Stop the world! I wanna get a gun and shoot myself in the face…

A poll released Tuesday from Public Policy Polling shows just 24 percent of Republicans in North Carolina believe that President Obama was born in the United States, despite all evidence that he was indeed born in Hawaii. When factoring in both Democrat and Independent voters, that figure increases, but only to 54 percent.

That's not all. (I gonna need some extra grande-sized bullets)…

Of those who voted for McCain in North Carolina, only 89 percent agreed that Hawaii is part of the United States.

I don't know if you remember this — because it might not be true in your version of reality — but there used to be these things called "facts." And you could interpret them how you liked and form your own opinions about what those facts meant for the world, but you pretty much just accepted that the facts were real.

That's not the case anymore, obviously. Now, the word "fact" isn't really anything more than another synonym for the word "opinion." Completely interchangeable. You have your facts about where the president was born, who destroyed the World Trade Center and how old the Earth is, and I have mine.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a face to shoot.

Are you people still thinking up your birthday greetings for the president? Well, you'd better get typing, because Chuck Norris already beat you to the punch! (Get it??)

Chuck's message isn't quite as sexy as Marilyn cooing "Happy Birthday, Mr. President" to JFK, but it is a whole lot more red-blooded Americanier…

Dear Mr. President:

First, happy birthday. I do hope Aug. 4 is an enjoyable day for you and your family. Coincidentally, I also will be celebrating this week the birth of someone dear to me, my beloved wife, Gena, whose birthday is on Aug. 9.

Gosh. I wonder where Chuck could be headed with this.

Mr. President, as more and more people realize that you are refusing to release your original birth certificate, further questions will fuel the fires of debate or at least hinder the embers from ever being snuffed out. Questions like, "Does it really contain the Hawaiian physician's name?" Or "Does it disclose something other than his birth place that he wishes others not to see?"

[O]n July 23 in your prime time press conference, you said that your administration was more transparent than those of previous presidencies: "I think that we have provided much greater transparency than existed prior to our administration coming in." So again I ask, why not live out that transparency promise by posting your original birth certificate and end the division and debate?

Well, I have a birthday to plan, so I better get going.

Uh-huh, Chuck, sure. You have a "birthday" to plan.

And I guess we're just supposed to take your word on that?

It's not uncommon to find comments on this site that are critical of our (my mostly) choices to make fun of Republicans more often than Democrats.

Lots of times, these come from fervent libertarians with a vested interest in lumping the cowardly, moronic Democrats in with the willfully-stupid, calculatedly-prejudiced Republicans. Other times, they're from people who just get (justifiably?) annoyed that I've let my brain get infected with so many more liberal contagions than conservative ones.

Well, in my own defense, I offer you this piece of information, which depresses me almost as much as it doesn't surprise me one little iota…

Less than half of Republicans believe that Barack Obama was born in the United States of America, a new public opinion poll finds.

Only 42 percent of Republican respondents in a Research 2000 survey, conducted for the liberal website Daily Kos, said they thought Obama was a natural born citizen; 28 percent said they did not believe Obama was born in the United States; 30 percent said they were not sure.

When information like that keeps popping up in your Google Reader everyday, how is it even possible to be "fair" or "even-handed" or "not overtly ridiculing" to one whole side of the political spectrum?

This is what happens when a political party spends years and years and years carefully cultivating a loyal following based upon simplicity, ignorance and fear. It gets a simple-minded, ignorant and fearful base.

World, the GOP is right in the middle of one of the most spectacular implosion displays ever. How can you not appreciate this?