Those of us who don’t like it when waitresses come over to us in restaurants to sing “Happy Birthday” should be able to sympathize. Congressman Paul Ryan‘s birthday is today, and yet he took time out of whatever decadent Bacchanalia he clearly had planned to stop by Fox News Sunday to talk politics and the economy with Chris Wallace. At the end of the interview, Wallace noted it was Ryan’s 42nd birthday, and then, inexplicably, one of Wallace’s crewpeople appeared on camera presenting Ryan with a birthday cake.

On Thursday, Rachel Maddow celebrated President Obama’s 50th birthday by going through a list of people bringing up the birth certificate controversy even after it was put to rest when the long-form version was released earlier this year. She aired a clip of Rush Limbaugh ragging on Obama about the birther story, and it was just assumed that the audio was recent, given Obama’s birthday this week and Limbaugh’s reference to the commander-in-chief turning another year older.

If you saw the terrific flashmob sequence in a recent episode of ABC’s Modern Family, be advised: the dancing-and-singing (especially the singing) flashmob talent does not–repeat NOT–extend to ABC News.

But give the worldwide staff at the news division their due props: they’ve got a great sense of humor. To celebrate World News anchor Diane Sawyer‘s birthday, New York producers and senior managers alerted Sawyer to imminent breaking news. To Sawyer’s immense credit, she smelled a rat right away: “you’re not going to punk me, are you?”

Happy Birthday, President Obama! Tomorrow, our 44th president turns 49, and Rush Limbaugh would really love to wish him many happy returns, sincerely. Actually, that’s not true: This morning, Limbaugh refused to send good wishes to the President, because he doesn’t believe tomorrow is his birthday, since “we haven’t seen any proof of that.”

With sagging poll numbers and an enormous health care debate on his hands (among a litany of other presidential responsibilities), Barack Obama found time yesterday to host celebrity supporters Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony yesterday in the oval office. According to GossipCop, the occasion for the visit was to celebrate Marc Anthony’s 41st birthday, and included a rousing rendition of “Happy Birthday” sung by the President and other attending Senators and Congressman.