A bit tongue-in-cheek. But if you take some of the political designations with a grain of salt, it's not a bad point, from TPM Reader RS ...

I have been a mac user since 1985 because I'm a composer and Apple computer has always been the best platform for music, except for a brief period when Steven Jobs created the NeXT computer.

One thing that fascinates me is the way that Apple continues to maintain a cool/benevolent/almost counter-culture reputation, while actually being an incredibly aggressive, ruthless, arguably monopolistic company (the way they are cornering the music and phone businesses, and the way they so carefully guard applications on the iphone). Compare this to Microsoft, which has a more fascist ambiance around it.

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After we published our story about the new 'birther' informercial running in a number of local TV markets in the South, a reader wrote in to say: Hey, it's not funny. This is a deliberate and shameful effort to denigrate and erode people's belief in the legitimacy of Obama's presidency.

I was taken aback a bit at first. Because I agree. The mix of nihilism, know-nothingism and racism fueling the birther movement is shocking to behold. But as to funny or shameful, my only quibble is that I'm not sure we have to choose. And it turns out there's a third option.

You don't have to look to hard at the informercial to see that while it may be shameful and it may be funny, it pretty clearly looks like an effort to separate a lot of hyped-up birther rubes from their money, quite possibly to pad the wallets of those in the rube hyping business. First of all, the pitch in the informercial is that for a mere $30 you will receive a birther bumper sticker and your name added to a spam fax sent to the Justice Department and the 50 state attorneys general.

But that's not the only reason.

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Okay, just be warned. There's no politics or news in this post. But there was so much interest in last night's post about what computers our readers use, I thought I'd share some more information about browsers.

Be warned, only the geeks among you come any further.

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Laura Rozen has some of the tick tock on the President's apparently hastily planned announcement this morning on Iran's nuclear program.

Image number five from today's G20 Summit Slideshow ...

If you're not living in one of the eleven towns in the South where the new Obama 'birther' informercial is running, we've prepared this birthermercial highlight reel to bring you up to speed.

If you're still missing Second City TV from back in the old days, this may bring back some fond memories.

With Sen. Kyl pointing out that men have no interest in having insurance cover child birth, no doubt women will note that they have little interest in covering prostate and testicular cancer. And surely men will get back into the act and want to get out of under the cost of covering breast cancer, which very few men get. Indeed, you can see how everyone should probably insist on special customized insurance policies which cover the ailments they plan on getting and avoid paying for the ones they don't. As long as everyone plans well and makes good predictions everyone should be able to save a lot of money.

Paul Kirk sworn in as junior senator from Massachusetts.

Not our usual fare, but you can't ignore it when an unemployed man living on the dole makes one of the greatest archaeological finds in British history using a metal detector. Our slideshow of the 11 pounds of gold and nearly 6 pounds of silver artifacts, believed to be Anglo-Saxon war loot from the 7th century:

It had to happen. Birthers go on the air with their own late night 'birther' informercial in Texas.

MA judge rejects GOP big move to block Kirk appointment to Kennedy senate seat.

Sen. Kyl snarks to Sen. Stabenow that he doesn't care about maternity benefits since he's a man.

Stabenow snarks back in style.

See the video.

We now have three counter-terrorism arrests in different parts of the country (apparently in totally unconnected plots) in little more than a week.

In addition to the Zazi case, which has been percolating for a while now, men were arrested in Illinois and Texas earlier this week, each of whom allegedly attempted to detonate explosives in buildings. In both cases, they were dummy explosives provided by government informants, much like in the case of Newburgh Four back in May.

The new cases also show how different most of these stings are from the Zazi case, which had federal agents so spooked because he allegedly had not only the intent to commit a terrorist act but the training and means as well.

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Fox News had a breaking news report this morning that Nancy Pelosi was working on drafting her own health care reform bill -- a report that Pelosi's office immediately knocked down. TPMDC has more.

Obama's joint appearance with Sarkozy and Brown this morning. Watch.

The local coroner in Kentucky confirms to TPMmuckraker that the word "fed" was written on that dead census worker's chest, apparently using a felt tip marker.

White House Counsel Gregory Craig is out as pointman for closing Gitmo.

Greg Sargent catches one of those oddities that emerge from time to time in public opinion. In this case, nearly two-thirds of those surveyed in the new CBS/NYT poll think Republicans are opposing Obama on health care reform for political reasons -- but nearly two-thirds also think Democrats shouldn't pass reform without Republican support.

Senate Democrats fail to overturn White House deal with big pharma in drug prices in a Finance Committee vote. That and the day's other political news in the TPMDC Morning Roundup.