Thursday's Links: Dummies for Science

* A documentary about science and being not smart.

* Bo Obama has important duties too.

* Molly McAleer found this portrait of Bill Clinton and his favorite food.

* Why we took cocaine out of soda, from The Atlantic.

* Twelve drunk texts from history.

* Some idiot took his dog to the pound because "it was gay."

* A few days before his son Michael got married, Ronald Reagan sent him this letter of advice.

* Conan O'Brien's prop master shows us how to do the Super Bowl on the cheap.

* The best 30 Rock quotes. ps. If you DVR the finale tonight, be sure to add extra time–word is there's something worth watching in the tag.

Tags: Bo Obama, Cocaine, Conan O'Brien, Daily Links, Funny or Die, Hollywood, LGBT, Michael Reagan, Nancy Reagan, Ronald Reagan, Science & Technology, The Atlantic, White House

Wednesday Links: Jodie Foster Inspires Stuff

* Jodie Foster is an inspiration to everyone who is confusing.

* Yeah. There's an inauguration app.

* Bad Lip Reading is getting into sports.

* Martin Luther King was a righteous nerd.

* You'll watch this once, and then 20 more times today.

* David Brooks teaches and gets and lesson in humility.

* Recently discovered photographs of the Russian Revolution.

* Tim Heideker shows us how President Obama will get the flu.

* Each course of this week's Dinner Party is more amazing than the last.

Tags: Communism, Daily Links, David Brooks, Energy & Oil, Guns, Jodie Foster, LGBT, Martin Luther King, NRA, Russia, Sports, Star Trek, Texas, The Atlantic, Tim Heidecker

Debates Don't Matter vs. All Hail President Mitt Romney

Reading campaign coverage last week and today offers a very confusing lesson: 1) presidential debates don't matter, and 2) Mitt Romney's stellar debate performance is the greatest electoral coup since Dwight Eisenhower stuffed Adlai Stevenson into a gym locker.

You can see the media organizations straining so hard to let political scientists offer their conclusions about the relative importance of debates before bowing down before their one true God: the horse-race…

Read More »

Tags: Andrew Sullivan, CNN, Debates, Fox News, Media, Mitt Romney, MSNBC, The Atlantic

Quote Unquote: The Ignorance Market Plummets

Atlantic editor Ta-Nehisi Coates on Herman Cain's decision to leave the GOP race…

"I'm glad that's over… His racialist attacks on Obama were bad. But watching a guy bill himself as a 'real black man' repeatedly market[ing] ignorance is just too much for me. Racial essentialism is bad. It's worse when it's paired with stupidity."

It can't have been all bad, though, can it? I mean, there must have been one redeeming moment in there somewhere.

Like, how about that time he dropped out? That was kind of smart, don't you think?

Tags: Herman Cain, Primaries, Quote Unquote, Racism, Republicans, The Atlantic

John McCain's Campaign Enters the Spin Cycle

It's amazing how the Beltway politics/media merry-go-round feeds upon itself.

In just a few hours yesterday, the following vicious cycle occurred…

* In Monday morning's paper, The New York Times runs a story reporting on McCain campaign manager Rick Davis' consulting work for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which netted him $2 million.

* Davis and McCain spokesman Steve Schmidt hastily organize a conference call with political reporters, in which they accuse the Times of being "an organization that has made a decision to cast aside it's journalistic integrity to advocate for the defeat of John McCain."

* Blogger Ben Smith from Politico, who was in on the conference call, immediately writes a blog piece criticizing the McCain camp for several inaccurate statements made during the call.

* McCain spokesman Brian Rogers announces that Politico is also "in the tank" for Barack Obama.

* The New York Times writes an online news article about how the McCain camp "lashed out at The New York Times on Monday, accusing it of dropping its journalistic standards."

* Bill Keller, the executive editor of the Times, does an interview with Politico defending his paper.

* Hundreds of media sources, from The Wall Street Journal to The Atlantic to The Washington Post report on the brouhaha.

* Everyone takes a break and has lunch.

I'm not sure what happened after that because I got a really bad headache and had to lie down.

Tags: New York Times, Politico, The Atlantic, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post