It's been a long weekend of eyebrow-lifting reports, likely the perceptual hangovers from the holiday, combined with the come-and-go effects of our ongoing intersection with the Bizarro Universe.

Steely-eyed readers with exceptional powers of recall will remember these odd and unpredictable effects on life in this universe first began because of -- or resulted in -- Willard Romney's selection of Paul Ryan to be his Veep-runner in this marathon presidential race.

Head of Monitoring at the Truly Vast Array of Radio Dishes, Optical Telescopes, and the Koole-Lukking Instrumentation Cluster at Imposing Institute, Dr. Oliver Sudden, said, "We've been keeping an eye on Bizarro outbreaks over the weekend, and there's been a rise in dumbfounding events -- although there's nothing quite like Americans having a long holiday during a full moon, either, to kick things up a notch."

This is getting to be a serial adventure with this guy, like Harry Potter -- but way heavier at the nightmare end of things.

So far, Paul Ryan's running his campaign as Veep wannabe about like he does a marathon:  running his own course, running his mouth, and running out his clock on his own sense of time and timing.  For someone who considers himself so fleet of foot, he's certainly being footloose with the truth, getting so often tripped up by it and tangled all around in it.

Lyin' Ryan, in his latest poleaxing of the truth,  shaved more than an hour off his marathon time.  Despite impressions he's let stand to the contrary, he's run only one marathon, and clocked more than 4 hours finishing, versus that "2 hour and 50-something" he's stated.

We've had to low-crawl on our stomachs and chests all week, under razor wire and raking machine gun fire, but we've finally made it, safe:  The Weekend.

Relax, enjoy your coffee, no rush.  There'll be little mention of politics here today, save for a quick thanks to the cosmos for the Tampa-tantrum finally ending.  (Yes, now that you ask, I will have a little something in my coffee, after all.  Whooo-ah.)

OK, one more nudge at the Republican fright-fest just ended:  It is testament to the power of lies and foolish nonsense that the Mississippi River river ran backwards for 24 hours -- even though Tampa was relatively far away!

Of course, to play fair, that gathering was backward before it was begun.  (And, yes, of course, purists, Hurricane Isaac had something to do with that, too.)

Catching up with the rest of the week:

The older the echo, the louder the cry.

And then, there were the waves and waves of echoing cries crashing out in torrents from the tightly-choreographed GOP amateur hour and presidential auditions in Tampa, where everyone's dance steps are painstakingly mapped out in lockstep, on the planks of that sprawling, unbrawling floor.

It is an unusual Tampa-tantrum, this gathering, but one bearing many old echoes.

Peculiar, it was, not having George W. Bush, the previous Republican occupier of the White House, slide on by to cut some conversational brush with us, and remind us how fine those eight years were.  But, the taint of epic disaster lingers among those echoes, so -- please:  No reason to drop by.