In an attempt to cause as much cognitive dissonance amongst viewers as possible, last night Saturday Night Live premiered its new half-hour, prime-time, Thursday evening version of Weekend Update starring former cast member Amy Poehler. (I was completely sober, and it still gave me a moment's pause to reflect on the nature of objective reality and the holographic nature of the universe.)

Anyway, the fake news stuff is pretty much just as funny — or not funny — as you'd expect it to be, but it did open with a sketch worth watching about how Congress did Joe Wilson wrong — which still ends with "Live from New York, it's Saturday Night" (???)…

"I don't know if you know this about me, but I'm not known for any other things. Nothing!"

Perfect.

These health care town hall meetings just keep getting angrier and angrier, what with the attacks on members of Congress (not to mention Michele Bachmann giving birth all over the place), so I'm almost afraid to read to the end of this story about yesterday's angry forum held by angry GOP Senators John McCain, Mitch McConnell and Kit Bond in Kansas City…

They blasted President Barack Obama’s vision of health care reform, calling it outlandishly expensive, and predicted it could lead to rationing and outsized budget deficits for years to come.

McCain, Bond and McConnell took turns pounding the Democratic plan.

Uh-oh! Sounds angry! I bet that made some members of the audience really angry! Everybody duck!

The tone of the hourlong session was subdued and the questions, including one from Mayor Mark Funkhouser, were not confrontational. The audience's only response was applause.

How the… what the… is John McCain secretly a unicorn made of ice cream? What other explanation is there?

[T]he GOP forum at Children’s Mercy was by invitation only. About 100 people — mostly medical professionals and small business owners — filled seats in the small auditorium, along with the media.

Well, I guess if you want to listen to the will of the people on contentious policies, you should pick your people pretty carefully.

This is weird and random, but I find it compelling for some reason…

I'm almost disinclined to provide you with the proper context. I think I preferred it as a non sequitur.

(via BuzzFeed)

Like about 33 percent of the people who comment on shoddily-written political humor blogs, I have pretty much no capacity for determining what is intended as satire and what is an actual earnest piece of journalism or opinion.

Therefore, I can only assume that Slate.com hacked into the president's Facebook account and published the results. And that, to me, seems like it might be some kind of treason. You should ashamed of yourself, Slate!

This was my particular favorite part…

It's funny because it's true (that sitting through Terminator: Salvation was painful to a degree that was in all likelyhood comparable to what it must feel like to have your fellow citizens get together to vote your rights away).

Former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich writes on Talking Points Memo…

In his CPAC speech this week, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell insisted that conservatives are more "interesting" and "fun" than liberals. Here's his proof: "who wants to hang out with guys like Paul Krugman and Robert Reich when you can be with Rush Limbaugh?"

Then the very first comment from destor23 knocks it out of the park…

Clearly, if I had to take Rush out to dinner or you and Krugman out to dinner, I'd pick you and Krugman.

And for the most frugal of reasons!

Yeah. What he said.

Today the beleagured Republican National Committee elects its new chairman, so last night GOP leaders gathered for a little group therapy…

The party’s outlook is grim, Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell implored, as he rolled off figure after figure of demographic groups Republicans lost badly in 2008, particularly blacks and Hispanics.

He lamented that the party is increasingly becoming a "regional party."

"That’s called a minority party," the Senate Minority Leader said, "and I didn’t sign up to be in the minority party."

Chairman hopeful Mike Duncan, for one, is confident the GOP can chip its way out of this lily-white sand trap…

Duncan defended the RNC, saying it has "50,000" on their "social network" (presumably, he means Facebook) — more than the Democrats, he contended.

Almost immediately after Duncan finished trying to convince the members of the party’s hip, social networking prowess, the lights in the room went out. The Republicans, literally, were in the dark.

It's funny because it's true! Know what else is true? Here's the RNC on Facebook: 52,991 members. DNC on Facebook: 35,197 members.

So when we start choosing our government by tallying Facebook popularity instead of votes, which should be any day now, the Republicans can stop pretending to care about blacks, Hispanics, women, Jews, Arab Americans, poor people, residents of New Orleans, etc., and get to work on issues that really matter to their constituents.

Like SuperPoking.