* Perhaps taking a cue from her most rogueish guest, Oprah Winfrey has decided she will no longer be shackled behind her talk show.

* The Senate takes up its version of the health care bill tomorrow morning. Harry Reid needs 60 votes just to proceed with debate, because the Republicans do not want to deal with this thing at all. If they filibuster, let us hope they forgo the phonebooks and pledge allegiance to the flag for twelve hours straight. (Eat your heart out, Todd Akin!)

* Said health care bill is 2,074 pages long. Tony Perkins and his fightin' evangelicals have released something called "The Manhattan Declaration," which manages to cover "the sanctity of life, traditional marriage and religious liberty" in just 4,700 words.

* President Obama will make a decision about Afghanistan troop levels after Thanksgiving, assuming he's not in a food coma.

Obviously, the biggest problem facing America today is that most male college professors, ACLU representatives and Democratic presidents have turned their back on the Biblical act of standing up to "pisseth," opting instead to sit down, probably so that they can more easily paint their toenails while peeing.

This guy knows what I'm talking about…

(via Pharyngula)

Oh my God! Look at this huge revelation from Ricky Hollywood's son's grandmother's brand new book…

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, Sen. John McCain's (R-AZ) vice presidential running mate, signals in her new book Going Rogue that she doesn't believe in evolution, panning it as theory that human beings "originated from fish that sprouted legs and crawled out of the sea."

Yes, and…?

Hang on. Did anybody — anybody! — actually think that Sarah Palin — the lady who attended the church with the witch hunter guy — might believe in evolution?

I'd be amazed if she believed in chemistry. Or math. (I mean, does it ever once mention algebra in the Bible? Shouldn't we be teaching the controversy about this?)

Here's an email response to an atheist organization in Florida that thought it had the same right to advertise as everyone else…

"If God doesn't exist, then why does the Constitution say 'In God We Trust'?"

Check and mate.

Choke on that unbeatable logic, you Devil-worshipping atheists!

What do you do when a guy in a robe with a beard and a thick foreign accent approaches you on the street? Well, what can you do?

You beat the shit out of him with a tire iron before he gets a chance to slam himself into whatever World Trade Center happens to be nearby…

The Rev. Alexios Marakis, visiting from Greece, had performed a blessing of a retired Greek priest in the West Shore area before accidentally exiting I-275 into downtown Monday evening, police said. Marakis followed cars into the Seaport Channelside Apartments on Twiggs Street and got out to ask for help…

[U.S. Marines reservist Jasen] Bruce grabbed a tire iron from the trunk, hit Marakis four times over the head and chased him about three blocks before pinning the priest, police said…

When officers arrived, police say, Bruce told them he heard the man say "Allahu Akbar" – Arabic for "God is great." "That's what they say before they blow you up," Bruce said, according to police.

What lesson are we, as a nation, to take away from this sad and disturbing story. Well, I think there's only one lesson we can take away from it.

The terrorists are infiltrating our Greek Orthodox Churches!

Update: As I'm sure you're all aware by now, no situation is content with simply being ridiculous nowadays. Nope. It all has to be super-idiotic-ridiculous on WTF steroids. All of it!

With that in mind, this American Hero who beat up the priest — Jasen Bruce (of the wrongly spelled first name) — appears to be some kind of erotic model [NSFW?].

Why is this relevant? It's not. But this is how the world works now. And — let's face facts — if you're going get beaten to within an inch of your life by some xenophobic maniac, it might as well be a super-hunky xenophobic maniac.

(Thanks for the tip, bose.)

Everyone be quiet! Quiet! Some guy who claims to represent the magic man who lives in the sky has something very important to say about some other people who claim to represent some other magic man who lives in the sky…

A chief spokesman for the pro-life, far-right organization, American Family Association, has called for the purging of Muslim soldiers from military ranks in the wake of the tragic killings at Fort Hood.

Really? Really?! This comes as a huge shock to me, given how much these Christian right groups have time and time again shown how much respect they have for equality, civil liberties and Constitutional ideals.

But, hey hey hey hey! Don't walk away under the impression that the AFA or its Director of Issues Analysis Bryan Fischer thinks that every single Muslim (technical) citizen of the United States is just bursting at the chance to kill a real (white) American…

"Of course, most U.S. Muslims don't shoot up their fellow soldiers. Fine."

See? Totally open-minded.

"As soon as Muslims give us a foolproof way to identify their jihadis from their moderates, we'll go back to allowing them to serve."

Thanks, Christians! How Christ-like you are.

"You tell us who the ones are that we have to worry about, prove you're right, and Muslims can once again serve. Until that day comes, we simply cannot afford the risk. You invent a jihadi-detector that works every time it's used, and we'll welcome you back with open arms."

"This is not Islamophobia, it is Islamo-realism."

I can't even Islamo-bring myself to Islamo-give an Islamo-real response to Islamo-this.

It's just way too Christ-arded.