Friday's Links: Benny 16 Goes Out with a Jam

* The pope sings his way out, from Team Coco.

* Here are some robots that may kill you.

* Beautiful art made from old Soviet banknotes.

* Is our children gaming? Here's a five-year-old with a serious Angry Birds addiction.

* The New Yorker has cocktail ideas for your sequester party.

* What happens when white ad execs try to sell to African-Americans.

* Chris Matthews gets censored by Jimmy Kimmel.

* Sara Schaefer is sooo fancy, with her assistant and her Burger King lunches.

Tags: Chris Matthews, Daily Links, Jimmy Kimmel, Racism, Robots, Sequester, Soviet Union, The New Yorker

Sarah Palin "Almost" Pities Obama, and Other Post-Debate Quotes

Lots of people are talking about last night's presidential debate. Like, a lot of people! Almost as though this were an important thing. Anyway, here's my submission for the ten best…

"I've been watching presidential debates for quite a few years, but I have never seen one like this. It wasn’t a TKO, it was a knockout." - John Hinderaker

I'm not 100 percent clear on who John Hinderaker is, but he's been watching presidential debates for quite a few years, so I have no reason to doubt his expertise in these matters.

Hey, does anybody know if Sarah Palin has an opinion? I'll bet she does…

Read More »

Tags: Al Gore, Barack Obama, Bill Maher, Chris Matthews, Chuck Grassley, Debates, Lewis Black, Mitt Romney, MSNBC, Nerdiness, Quote Unquote, Rupert Murdoch, Sarah Palin

Is Chris Matthews Smarter than a Sarah Palin?

MSNBC's trash talkin' Chris Matthews recently had the opportunity to put his brain where his mouth is, and it was not pretty. Let's face it, in the looks department he's no Anderson Cooper. And as it turns out, in the brains department he's no Sarah Palin…

On at least four occasions, MSNBC's Chris Matthews mocked Sarah Palin for how he felt she'd do if she were ever on the hit television game show Jeopardy!.

In a delicious example of instant karma, the self-proclaimed brainiac got his chance to show America how smart he was in a special "Power Players" version of the show Monday, but came up quite short finishing dead last with the paltry sum of only $2,300.

For those that missed it, Matthews was matched up against CNN's Lizzie O'Leary and former Obama White House press secretary Robert Gibbs.

Of course, it would have been an even more delicious karmic victory if Matthews had actually lost to Palin. We can only imagine how humiliating his incorrect answers would've been next to hers.

When the following clue came up: "A U.S.D.C is one of these, charged with the jurisdiction of a specific region," Matthews answered, "U.S. attorney." Wow. OBVIOUSLY the answer is "What is District Court?"

Tags: Anderson Cooper, Chris Matthews, Judiciary, MSNBC, Sarah Palin

Christine O'Donnell Wants Chris Matthews to Apologize Because She Doesn't Know How to Understand Stuff

Christine O'Donnell is hopping mad! And not because somebody is asking her to expand upon one of her stated opinions this time.

It turns out a member of the lamestream media has said a thing. A thing which — to her ears — is as offensive as it is opportune for maybe getting her name in the news again…

What Christine O'Donnell thinks Chris Matthews said is that people who live in the Bible Belt have low IQs. Which would have been an awful, awful thing to say. And only partially correct.*

However, it just so happens that that is not what Chris Matthews said. What he actually said was…

"With the Baptists in South Carolina and across the Bible Belt that doesn't like Mormons, all you have to do in this race is reach a minimal level of IQ to be okay to run against a Mormon in the deep South. Just be good enough. And I think [Rick Perry] did that tonight. He was good enough. He didn’t make a fool of himself, and that’s all they want.”

See? He's not saying that people who live in the Bible Belt are stupid. He's saying they're bigoted.

Totally, totally different thing.

Update: Related…

Does anybody make fun of these people one-third as well as they make fun of themselves?

.

^{* Notice how Washington D.C. is at the very very bottom of that list? My suspicion is that's because that's where most states' voters send their dumbest outliers.}

Tags: Chris Matthews, Christianity, Christine O’Donnell, Debates, MSNBC, Religion, Twitter

My Favorite Election Night Moment: Michele Bachmann's Dead-Eyed Zombie Conversation with Chris Matthews

And, so, the Republicans take back the House of Representatives. That formerly august institution, which the Democrats have been running into the ground lo these many four years, is finally back under the charge of the Grand Old Party. This is a joyous occasion for many reasons, not the least of which is that now decent hardworking Americans no longer need to live in fear of the highest .02 percent of the nation economic elite having their tax breaks rolled back. But, also, it means that we, as a nation, will be treated to a lot more of Michele Bachmann.

Rep. Bachmann — who quite handily retained her seat last night — has not only made a name for herself these past few years as an outspoken advocate of weird things that come out of her head from time to time, but also as a standard-bearer for the grass roots tea party movement which was devised by high-ranking Republican politicians and libertarian billionaires last summer. But now, as a major player in the congressional majority party, we can expect so much more from her. And I like to think that this eerily zomborific interview with MSNBC's Chris Matthew from last night — the moment that most made me realize what we had just gotten ourselves into — is just the start of a lot more magic…

That is amazing. That stare is mesmerizing. She is a Terminator R-MN, plowing through journalists' questions with her undead gaze fixed tight on her mimeographed set of daily talking points. She is the future of humanity. One day, we will all be this horrible.

Tags: Chris Matthews, House of Representatives, Michele Bachmann, Midterms, Minnesota, MSNBC