There are a lot of comedians in the U. S. Congress. Most of them try to hide it. Now, there is a genuine professional comedian who will be seated from the somewhat weird State of Minnesota.

The Minnesota Supreme Court ruled 5-0 today that Democrat Al Franken won the election to the Senate election by 312 votes. Republican incumbent Norm Coleman has conceded defeat. I guess Minnesotans needed a laugh. Isn't this the same state that elected a wrestler as governor?

Franken will be the 60th Democratic vote out of 100 Senators, preventing the possibility of any Republican filibuster. It’s going to be a long four years.

Franken trained for the Senate by working on Saturday Night Live. It must have been a hard job writing skits, because he has acknowledged using cocaine while working for the show. He says he no longer uses any illegal drugs.

I guess now he just makes a joke out of the Senate.

"Our earth is degenerate in these latter days. There are signs that the world is speedily coming to an end. Bribery and corruption are common."

Assyrian clay tablet, 2,800 B.C.

Thought to be the oldest surviving prediction of the end of the world.

Rumor is that Hal Lindsey wrote it.

PETA is mad at President Obama for swatting a fly. (pause here for loud laughter)

I don't think I need to say anything else. Either this is the funniest thing you've heard today or you need help.

Good tornado video by a complete idiot. Last words: I'm way too close.

THE NEEDLE AND THE DAMAGE DONE

A recent survey shows that 76% of Americans know someone personally who has been addicted to alcohol or drugs.

The Least Favorite Thing I read today:

"This was a 20-year partnership. My husband is a good man, though he did travel 20 weeks a year for work. I am a 47-year-old woman whose commitment to monogamy, at the very end, came unglued. This turn of events was a surprise. I don’t generally even enjoy men; I had an entirely manageable life and planned to go to my grave taking with me, as I do most nights to my bed, a glass of merlot and a good book. Cataclysmically changed, I disclosed everything. We cried, we rent our hair, we bewailed the fate of our children. And yet at the end of the day — literally during a five o’clock counseling appointment, as the golden late-afternoon sunlight spilled over the wall of Balinese masks — when given the final choice by our longtime family therapist, who stands in as our shaman, mother, or priest, I realized … no. Heart-shattering as this moment was — a gravestone sunk down on two decades of history — I would not be able to replace the romantic memory of my fellow transgressor with the more suitable image of my husband, which is what it would take in modern-therapy terms to knit our family’s domestic construct back together. In women’s-magazine parlance, I did not have the strength to 'work on' falling in love again in my marriage. And as Laura Kipnis railed in Against Love, and as everyone knows, Good relationships take work."

Sandra Tsing Loh

Favorite Thing I Read Today:

"We are not suggesting that finger length measurements could replace SAT tests."
-Dr Mark Brosnan
Head of the Department of Psychology at the University of Bath.

I know I'M relieved.