I know Austin. He used to work at the company I work for. I think he has a young son and daughter named Jayden and Ashley, if it's the same person I'm thinking about. I know I've seen him somewhere.

I am a US citizen living abroad for the last few decades. There are many formats / news avenues / sources etc to stay in touch with the processes, machinations, psyche, developments, news etc of my Homeland. The more I read, the more convinced I am that Doonesbury consistently summarizes everything I need to know about the pulse, mentality, situation, condition etc. of the States. Cliff Notes in four squares. Thank you for getting to the core so directly and with such eloquence.

"Get back on board, damn it!" beats the pants off the lame assortment in the current Straw Poll. Gingrich, once the master of bombastic exclamation, is so far off his 90s game that he might as well retire and the rest of 'em should go home, too. They don't even measure up to his diminished standard.

Dealing with an Obama-basher from FOX, is the all-too-friendly myFacts dude experiencing some all-too-aptly Pinocchio-like nasal growth?

Love Austin, hate his ethics (or lack thereof).

I love the "optimized reality" notion. So far we've had climate denialism, birtherism and creationism. I guess we've got 9/11 truthism and maybe anti-vax-ism to come, but that leaves us a day short. Can't wait to see where it goes.

Help! I've been trying to contact myFACTS in order to validate my own prejudices and preconceptions, but I keep getting re-directed to Fox News. Is there a toll free number I can call?

I think today's strip was among your best! I have info to show that Wikipedia is in on it, with the "creative" writing about people and lies that tend to "stick". Example: Woodrow Wilson and wife were my grandparents Laurel and Hardy. I wouldn't lie to ya!

My daughter teaches in the South Bronx, and Donors Choose has been a blessing to her and her students. Kudos!

I wanted to vote in the 'favorite GOP catchphrase' Straw Poll, but was disappointed to find that "Can we drop the pious baloney?' -- Newt Gingrich is not one of the choices.

Today is only the second day of the myFACTS narrative, and I'm loving the concept already. You do your best work when you stay current and topical like this, GBT. Very cheeky! LOL.

"Home of Optimized Reality." I don't think I'll be able to stop smiling all day. One could cry oneself to sleep over this state of affairs, but you make it all bearable. Thank you, thank you, thank you. (And thanks to Paul Krugman for his column about Post-Truth Politics.)

I can see a place like myFacts existing, especially with people like Jeff Redfern rewriting reality to suit them. So, when Presidents and ex-Presidents use it, do they get a discount?

In the Flashback strip from 15 years ago today Mr. Butts describes Gingrich's career as "from obscure backbencher to grandiose powerbroker to  party embarrassment." Did Newt fall in love with "grandiose" back then and save it up, without ever looking the word up in the dictionary?

Has the bomb gone off yet? Today's 15 year Flashback harkens back to a simpler time when saxophone jazz serenaded Pennsylvania avenue, nicotine (and steroids) were still legit in baseball clubhouses, and we thought the Speaker had reached his despicable prime. The nineties were pretty rad.

Sorry Mark, Zonker should not be aged. He is that carefree, reckless delightfully irresponsible shadow we left behind in high school or college when we went out and got jobs and raised families. He is the part of us that we couldn't take with us but remember fondly, unchanged and forever youthful, beckoning us to put aside the bills and the invoices and come out and party. Leave him alone, Mark. We need him just the way he is.

Thanks for letting us know about donorschoice.org -- and for the matching gift. What a great service they provide. I'm going to check back often. And I guess I should thank the Chicago Tribune for not printing the strip. I missed Friday's paper, and if I hadn't seen the story and the strip on Romenesko, I wouldn't have known. So, again, thanks for the entertainment and the information.

Ha, I love myFacts! I already await guidance from this week's strips, for help in dinner-table arguments with my wife. We agree on climate change (not deniers), but I'll interpolate the methods for our own hot issues like evolution, Obama v. Romney, and the whole born-gay v. chose-gay question.

I thought I heard the wind blowing through the trees this morning but then I realized it was Daniel Patrick Moynihan, up in heaven, laughing along with me at today's "myfacts" strip.

Thanks for the donorschoose.org link, and the matching contribution. I found a school in my own county where children needed such basic supplies as notebooks, dividers, labels, and binders. And I never realized this before.