Just beyond comprehension:

Greek neo-Nazi party Golden Dawn warned rivals and reformers Sunday that “the time for fear has come” after exit polls showed them securing their entry in parliament for the first time in nearly 40 years.

“The time for fear has come for those who betrayed this homeland,” Golden Dawn leader Nikos Michaloliakos told a news conference at an Athens hotel, flanked by menacing shaven-headed young men.

“We are coming,” the 55-year-old said as supporters threw firecrackers outside.

According to updated exit polls, the once-marginal party will end up winning over six percent of the vote and sending 19 deputies to the 300-seat parliament on a wave of immigration and crime fears, as well as anti-austerity anger.

A bad day in history. No two ways about it.

More from The Guardian.

Disgraced and once imprisoned government lobbyist Jack Abramoff was on 60 Minutes last night, and Wow!, he he was extraordinarily open about his own – and U.S. Congress members’ – corruption. Really, really open.

There was a lot of jaw-dropping stuff in the interview. One of the more potent moments:

But the “best way” to get a congressional office to do his bidding – he says – was to offer a staffer a job that could triple his salary.

Abramoff: When we would become friendly with an office and they were important to us, and the chief of staff was a competent person, I would say or my staff would say to him or her at some point, “You know, when you’re done working on the Hill, we’d very much like you to consider coming to work for us.” Now the moment I said that to them or any of our staff said that to ‘em, that was it. We owned them. And what does that mean? Every request from our office, every request of our clients, everything that we want, they’re gonna do. And not only that, they’re gonna think of things we can’t think of to do.

Wow! Do you know how many current members of Congress and lobbyists are at some stage of this exact relationship at this very moment? And how much they hate life right now? WOW!

Stomach-churning bonus:

Stahl: How many congressional offices did you actually own?

Abramoff: We probably had very strong influence in 100 offices at the time.

Ugh. This is a moment of crooked candor you don’t get to hear very often: It’s like a breath of fresh…putrid, rotting, fetid stool! Thank you, Jack Abramoff!

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Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader’s HOLIDAY SALE – 30% of all books – goes through December.

EAST WENATCHEE, Wash. – A teacher who vowed nearly 10 years ago not to cut his beard until Osama bin Laden was captured or proven dead said he cried Sunday night upon hearing of the terrorist’s death.

“I spent my first five minutes crying and then I couldn’t get it off fast enough,” said Gary Weddle, 50, who lives in East Wenatchee but teaches middle school science in Ephrata.

Weddle has wanted to cut his beard for years. His wife, Donita, has wanted him to cut it, too. But for Weddle a vow is a vow and so he hadn’t even trimmed it until Sunday night.

Ai yai yai. We don’t know about you, but it’s been a pretty exhausting last 20 hours or so. Here’s an Uncle John’s salute to our brave men and women in uniform, and to those on the civilian side, who work every day to make this world a safer, better place. Thank you from us, a job well done.

And here’s to everyone who lost someone on September 11, 2001. We sincerely hope this brought you a little bit of peace.

Hey, BRI fans, here’s a special shout out from Uncle John and Mrs. Uncle John to those of you who haven’t gotten around to voting yet today: Go on, vote—you’ll like it! It makes your breath smell better, aids digestion, takes the aches and pains out of your feet and legs, and makes people think you’re a bit more handsome and pretty than usual. It really, really does. So get on out there and fill out that ballot. It’s the goshdarned right thing to do.

Woo hoo. This one’s a doozy. Like we said in the last post, we love politics. Especially this kind.

Setup: British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, eight days out from an election in which Brown’s Labour Party is predicted to lose their majority for the first time since 1997, is out on the stump. He comes across one Mrs. Gillian Duffy, aged 65, on a Rochdale, England, street, who had just popped out for a loaf of bread.

He has a nice and seemingly substantive little chat with Mrs. Duffy, surrounded by reporters and cameras.

He says goodbye, and gets in his car…but his microphone is still on. And this conversation is soon played to the world:

Brown: That was a disaster. Well I just … should never have put me in that woman. Whose idea was that?

Aide: I don’t know, I didn’t see.

Brown: It was Sue [Nye] I think. It was just ridiculous.

Aide: I’m not sure if they [the media] will go with that.

Brown: They will go with that.

Aide: What did she say?

Brown: Oh everything, she was just a sort of bigoted woman. She said she used to be Labour. I mean it’s just ridiculous.

Oops!

Here’s the video:

Here’s Brown later being played a recording of a tape of the exchange on a radio show. Ouch.

And here’s news that Brown quickly made his way back to Mrs. Duffy’s home to apologize. But…it’s apparently too late:

We’re guessing that Mr. Brown will regret that one for a long, long time.