Barack Hussein Obama II has finally released his birth certificate (PDF), in order to quiet demands for his official birth time from the nation's well-funded lobby of astrologers. "It's about time," said the victorious president of the American Federation of Astrologers. "Now we as a country can move on, secure in the knowledge of the innermost workings of our leader." READ MORE

It rather looks like it's time to turn off the Donald Trump channel. Although he's providing some delightful and much-needed levity in these rather frightening and oh-so-serious times, the fact remains that... HE'S BEHAVING QUITE TERRIBLY. And if it's in service of something, what could that possibly be? Not just the whole warring with the Times thing—which, there is no way the Times should have given him space to air his incorrect views without rebuttal—and freaking out all over, straight-up birther-style, but printing out Vanity Fair blog posts and mailing them to Graydon Carter? He's now a figurehead of a very, very small but very vocal group of paranoid conspiracy theorists, who spend all day leaving vaguely literate and rather sick comments on blogs and newspapers! That is their sole presence: angry blog comments! Is that something to which we need to pay attention?

Do you have a "long form" birth certificate? I certainly don't! The "hospital" in which I was "born" apparently "burned down." Now I will never be president, if the birther sympathizers get their way. Unfortunately, they probably won't, because even when they introduce legislation that requires a "long form" birth certificate to run for office, they are also forced to admit they don't know what one is. It's also worth noting that these legislators are attempting to put into law that a citizen who has ever had dual citizenship may not run for president. This is probably unconstitutional? Though who knows! Still, good luck getting a security clearance if you're a dual citizen—though the Justice Department defines dual citizens as regular old citizens of America for hiring purposes, and of course you'll do just fine getting elected governor of California if you're actually a stealthy servant of Vienna! Kenya, for the record, does not have dual citizenships.

I have a weird thing about the Tea Party type of people, in that, while I don't think the Jews are running black helicopters from NATO down the Mississippi nor do I think Obama is "sekret Muslin usurper President of Kenya," I do actually find it exciting that there are pissed-off bands of people in this country-and I don't believe they're all astroturfed and I do think a great deal of Tea Party members have come to the tea party organically and with some not-terrible complaints, particularly those about the disinvolvement of Americans from politics. The problem is so many of them go awry with the whole birther crowd, and also that, like many of us, they have few reliable sources of information and so they spend their days printing out copies of blog posts garned from the crazy-net. That's a shame, because a loud movement actually working towards the goal of a smaller, lest-wasteful, more accountable government would be awesome. And it's also a shame because the Tea Party associates, as demonstrated in today's Ben McGrath story in the New Yorker, are much closer to us than we think. They aren't some weird far-off critters: they are, actually, our families and our neighbors and our friends-of-friends, as McGrath shows. READ MORE

"We need to make Freemasonry more contemporary, to make it reflect 2010, not 1910-or 1810." That's Tom Sturgeon, newly installed Right Worshipful Grand Master for the Pennsylvania chapter of Freemasons, to the Times' Holly Brubach. And, since he's not talking about, say, marshaling a network of laser equipped satellites to work in connection with a fleet of telepathic dolphins to better secure control over an invisible matrix emanating from a golden pyramid hidden inside a mountain in Roswell, New Mexico, it's pretty disappointing. A Right Worshipful Grand Master opens his induction ceremony to the public, holds it in a convention center, and grants newspaper interviews about it? What kind of secret society is this guy running? No wonder everyone wants to believe Jay-Z is in a Satanic cult and the president is a Manchurian double agent for an Islamist sleeper cell. We need the mystery, the intrigue. Paranoia needs an outlet. READ MORE

The morning after the morning after Thanksgiving, every motorcycle and potted tree in Manhattan had been blown over. The streets were swirling pockets of trash. What a disaster! But the whirlwind that has been Thanksgiving will now die, as we face down the death of this heinous year. There are many varieties of disturbing Thanksgiving conversations; perhaps you had at least one of them. Maybe you've just endured one of my favorites, the Sudden Family Surprise Thanksgiving, in which strange secrets about family biology or ethnicity or religion are revealed. These become amusing over time. Perhaps you've had the awful I Realize I Am Old Thanksgiving, in which you realize that, for today's four-year-olds, Lindsay Lohan will be their Marilyn Monroe. But now more than ever, I think, the Horrifying Political Conversation Thanksgiving is far more stunning than discovering that your brother is adopted or that Grandma Christine was a Jew. (Mazel tov, by the way!) Perhaps you've just spent the week breaking bread with perfectly normal-seeming people who, after a few drinks or at least too much exposure to the coasts, have revealed themselves to be, basically, Orly Taitz. READ MORE