Certificatiable
Rachel started off with the sad but unsurprising information that James von Brunn, the white supremacist and all-around scumball who opened fire at the Holocaust Memorial Museum, was a “birther.”

Birthers subscribe to the theory that President Obama can’t possibly have been born in the United States, what with his being a charismatic world-traveling nonwhite Kenyan, secret Muslim, probable freemason, and definite Bavarian Illuminatus.

Their loonbag ranting was really funny right up until Wednesday.

Joan Walsh of Salon.com dropped in to discuss the unfortunate seepage of this bananacakes movement into something approaching the Republican mainstream and suggest that it’s time for sensible elected Republicans to tell Rush Limbaugh to roll his own birth certificate into a nice, tight ball and stick it in a very safe place.

Excuse me, birthers? Could you get a wooden spoon to bite down on, take some deep breaths, and listen for a minute?

If a mysterious sect of evil beings were clever enough to get an impostor in to take over the country, do you really think they’d pick a black guy with the middle name Hussein? The very details that would tip off good, bedrock Americans like yourselves to his scary Muslim foreignness?

The guy the Evils finally get in will be named Jake American Football Smith, and he will have eyes bluer than the summer sky and an impeccable Kansas birth certificate.

As a Godless subversive cultural relativist sex-positive liberal intellectual, I can personally guarantee you that there are at least three of those guys in the hopper right now. So start eyeballing each other and give Obama a freaking break for a few minutes so he can fix the economy.

Lest we forget one of the good guys in this scenario, the Washington, D.C. chapter of the American Jewish Committee has established a memorial fund for the family of Stephen Johns, who died in the line of duty trying to stop von Brunn.

Moment of Geek
Aww, yeah! Rachel reported that the periodic table is getting a new element. Number 112 is a blend of zinc and lead atoms and, just like that one person in college you lusted after for months before you finally got a date, is highly unstable and splits immediately.

That’s a pretty good Moment of Geek, but Rachel missed the Movement of Supergeek: There is already a push to name the new element “Kryptonite.” Yes, please.

Decision 1388
Rachel and the excellent Richard Engel of NBC News brought us up-to-date on Iran’s dramatic election season.

There’s a large block of young urban voters who are excited about political change and a new, more open form of diplomacy. Unfortunately, rumors abound that Moussavi, their charismatic favorite, is a secret Christian who was actually born in Murfreesboro, Tennessee.

One More Thing:
Oh, for crying out loud.

No thank you, Mr. Pipes. I like my villains like I like my Milk Duds: only in movie theaters and quickly polished off.

Ms. Information
In the best recession news ever, Rachel reported that Al Quaeda’s Afghanistan branch is broke. Al Quaeda, I have something in my pocket for you, but it isn’t spare change.

Rachel also filled us in on the entirety of the GOP’s new energy plan.

Chapter 1: I drink your milkshake.

Chapter 2: And then I try to convince you to store nuclear waste in your blender.

Scary Music Strategy Fail
Rachel gave us the heartening news that “O Fortuna”-induced insanity seems to be curable.

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D – Rhode Island) of the Senate Judiciary Committee and the Intelligence Committee dropped in to talk about the possibility of holding terrorists in American supermax prisons with the, um, other terrorists that are already there.

He and Rachel also chatted about the likely direction of the impending revelations about our government’s torture program. Don’t miss watching her try to control herself when she asks whether “chain of command” issues will come up.

Relocation, Relocation, Relocation
Several Uighurs, Muslim Chinese minorities who had not committed any crimes and were essentially being kept in Guantanamo because we didn’t know what else to do with them, have at last been released.

Four took a very well earned relocation to Bermuda today, and the remaining 13 are going to the archipelago of Palau.

While rolling some gorgeous b-roll footage, Rachel chatted by phone with Palau’s President, Johnson Toribiong.

Best political turn of phrase: When Rachel asked if there was any objection to the plan, Toribiong replied, “The people who read newspapers are for it.”

I think President Toribiong is going to do just fine.