Shit, was that entertaining! Joe Biden did exactly what he was supposed to do during last night's vice presidential debate: buck up a bunch of Democrats still demoralized by Barack Obama's living no-show during last week's inaugural presidential faceoff.

But wait! The Conservative Talking Point Mechanical Production and Dissemination Mainframe (aka Ziggy) won't be denied! Biden wasn't absolutely fucking awesome, like almost everyone at last night's Mercury-sponsored viewing party thought. No, he was a mean, cranky, condescending bully who kept calling out the big lies uttered by the little social-services-gutting pip sitting beside him. (Hint: That's why Biden was awesome.) Oh, and hey look: The Oregon senator who shall not be named!

Europe hasn't collapsed into continent-wrecking, widow-making armed conflict for several decades, despite its worst economy since jackboots and black helmets were all the rage, and, so, the European Union has been awarded this year's Nobel Peace Prize.

Arrests have been made in the shooting of a 14-year-old Pakistani girl targeted by an elite Taliban kill squad because she was promoting "western thinking."

A Mexican teenager was found dead after a Border Patrol agent opened fire at a group of people throwing rocks over the creepy border fence. Afterward, Israel and Palestine threatened to sue the United States for copyright infringement.

A digital "day of infamy"—a catastrophic cyber attack on the United States akin to Pearl Harbor—could be headed to a grocer's freezer near you, warns Leon Panetta, the national defense secretary.

Ooh! A fancy banquet! Philadelphia's police union is raising money for a lieutenant fired for punching a woman during a parade. (The woman, by the way, isn't being prosecuted.)

Pot legalization ballot measures in three states, including Oregon, have been met with silence, so far, from federal Department of Justice officials—prompting the prohibitionists who spent decades running national drug policy into the ground to get louder and louder with their own opposition.

Is anyone missing a softball-size eyeball?

The fight against coal trains dirtily snaking their way through the Northwest on the way to delivering their cargo, eventually, to China is picking up a difficult-to-ignore ally that even Governor Kitzhaber says "definitely increases the pressure": Indian tribes.

A pack of hooligans reportedly throwing bottles (more on this later) showed up around SE Hawthorne and Cesar Chavez last night and smashed windows at four banks and a Walgreens (those villains of convenience!) before scattering.

AND FINALLY! LET'S APPLAUD LAST NIGHT'S DEBATE MODERATOR, MARTHA RADDATZ, FOR BEING NEITHER A SIMP NOR A WIMP. AND THEN LET'S WATCH AS THE SUPER DIVERSE WHITE HOUSE PRESS CORPS MARVELS AT HER CASUAL INTEREST IN HIPHOP.