VATICAN – Pope Benedict XVI has gotten a big boost in his work for potential canonization due to attention-diverting incidents around the planet, sources say.

“Every night, the Pope has prayed that something would happen that would take people’s minds off the fact he protected pedophile priests,” said the source. “And now, look around, it’s truly a miracle.”

After several weeks of non-stop news regarding Catholic priests molesting children and the Catholic Church hiding the truth, there has been a literal explosion of big news around the world, including:

LOUISIANA – Emboldened by their protests against the United States government, several Tea Party organizations made their way to Louisiana this morning in an effort to stop the massive Gulf oil spill by shouting slogans at it.

“Don’t Tread on me!” shouted one protester near the marshlands along Louisiana’s southern coast.

“GET A BRAIN! MORANS,” read one sign.

Flavia has a post that makes me laugh. She recently went to see a Shakespeare comedy produced by a regional theater company, who staged it in modern dress, worked to keep the piece "accessible and appealing," and used some good, old-fashioned slapstick. In short, the production was straight out of the standard Shakespearean-performance playbook: faithful to the text but using costumes and set as an interpretive gloss.

Ezra Klein recently tried to answer the question "Why is Goldman Sachs full of Ivy Leaguers?" by interviewing a Harvard/Goldman alum. (h/t to a righteously repulsed DougJ).

WASHINGTON – The Republican National Committee came forward today with a one-page document showcasing its new platform for the remainder of the year.

The new platform is based on illegal immigration and keeping medical expenses down. From the document:

Almost a year ago, NBC reported on the rise of hate groups throughout the U.S.:

The Southern Poverty Law Center has been tracking hate groups for almost 30 years. In its spring 2009 Intelligence Report, they found that 926 hate groups are currently operating in the U.S., an all-time high. These groups include the Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazis, racist skinheads and Black separatists.

Freedom of the press has declined for the eighth year in a row, according to Freedom House’s annual report. And while the media has focused on the lack of media freedoms in such places as China and Venezuela, they’ve virtually ignored the U.S. position – No. 24 (PDF).

And following in the footsteps of the Bush Administration, the Obama Administration seems intent on making the media less free.

I truly enjoy Twitter. I find it a great place to locate new readers, a place to meet a wide variety of people, and a place to be creative.

Honestly, for a person like me who considers the Internet his own personal comedy routine, Twitter is just perfect. I tend not to deal much with writers’ block, anyway, and Twitter lets me just hurl things against the wall and see what sticks.

The Senate Republicans folded on their filibuster today. This morning The Hill ran an article with this headline:

Over the past few decades, the Republican brand has become a somewhat-confused morass of ideologies and beliefs, with the party losing large blocks of voters on several different issues. Recently, the decision by the State of Arizona to treat all Mexican and Latin people as potential criminals has crippled the Republican National Committee with the Mexican community, for instance.

If you harbor any doubt about the racist undercurrent driving right-wing immigration concerns, listen to Rush Limbaugh. Limbaugh knows his audience, and when he discussed Arizona's immigration law on Monday, he gave them the red meat, or rather the black-and-brown meat, that they were looking for:

Having grown tired of sending links about my book to friends, I decided to set up a facebook fan page for my book, How Bill O'Reilly Saved Christmas and Other Right-Wing Persecution Fantasies, where I can collect relevent links, pictures, events, rants, and Republican concern trolls.

In America, the weekends are for many things – spending time with family, enjoying outdoor activities and sports and just relaxing. It’s also the determined time for Republicans to Concern Troll the brains out of their Democratic opposition.

For those on the outs. let me allow Wise Geek to give an example of concern trolling:

Eugene Delgaudio, the Republican District Supervisor in Sterling, Virginia, is a man that works hard to spread homophobia and keep many rights away from gay and lesbian Americans.

If there’s one thing we can say for sure, it’s this: Those Gizmodo guys will get a much worse punishment for having that iPhone than anyone at Goldman Sachs will get for bilking their investors.

–WKW

Crossposted at William K. Wolfrum Chronicles

Possibly the funniest thing I've ever seen--no further commentary necessary.

Over at the American Chronicle, they’ve made a discovery of galactic proportions – they have discovered that space aliens live amongst us!

From the American Chronicle:

Brazil is a land of paradoxes. One one side of the coin, the nation will fight resolutely for its citizens with HIV/AIDS. On the other, a judge will announce that gay men have no business playing soccer.

But recently, Brazilian Health Minister Jose Temporao gave some advice to uptight Brazilians that Americans should heed – dance more, and have sex more.

Some conservatives have accused President Obama of timing the Goldman Sachs lawsuit to make it easier to pass Wall Street Reform. It's not true, but the conservatives' anger at the alleged tactic is a sign of what a good idea that tactic is. It's the right general thing to do, and Obama should do a lot more of it.