Friday's Links: Spittin' Science Rhymes

* The sounds of science.

* Bad Lip Reading at the inauguration.

* And you thought your relatives were bad…

* The Star Wars Sequel Debacle Simulatron.

* The Onion wants to make the Huffington Post cry.

* What happens in Las Vegas politics should stay there.

* Meanwhile, Baratunde Thurston calls out The Wall Street Journal.

* Feminism is a word that makes some men lose their f-ing minds.

* Surprisingly interesting discussion about Churchill's role in UK intellectual property laws.

* Sascha Cohen talks American History with Tig Notaro, Kyle Dunnigan and David Huntsberger.

Tags: Daily Links, Evolution, Feminism, History, Huffington Post, Inauguration, Las Vegas, Republicans, Sascha Cohen, Science & Technology, Star Wars, Tig Notaro, United Kingdom, Wall Street Journal, Winston Churchill, Women's Rights

Americans Ready to Push GOP Off Fiscal Cliff

Provided it's a non-metaphorical cliff and everyone can watch Mitch McConnell attempt to fly.

Such are the results of a new NBC/WSJ poll, which asked what single word or short phrase people would use to describe the Republican Party.

Sixty-five percent of the responses were negative, 17% percent were positive. For Democrats, 35% of the responses were positive, while 37% percent were negative, marking another year in which Democrats won the title of America's least despised political party.

Our word-cloud illustrates the GOP image carnage. Go ahead and enlarge it if you want to try to commune with the low-standards-having American who said "smart."

Tags: NBC, Polls, Republicans, Wall Street Journal

The Black Helicopters Are Coming for Paul Ryan's Abs

From last week's positive jobs report to today's Labor Department release announcing that initial claims for unemployment benefits decline to 339,000 — the lowest level since early 2008 — the economy has shown steady signs of improvement. This week's op-ed pages provide an explanation. Our consumer spending is now driven entirely by conservatives buying 1) conspiracy theories, 2) glamour shots of Paul Ryan.

For proof, consider the three best opinion pieces published this week…

Read More »

Tags: Dick Morris, Jack Welch, Media, Wall Street Journal, WorldNetDaily

WSJ: Don't Say Mitt Romney Lies, Because Hitler

Though Barack Obama hasn't overtly called Mitt Romney a liar for his most recent transformation from a severely conservative caterpillar to a centrist butterfly, his campaign has been adamant in pointing out Romney's inconsistencies. And the Wall Street Journal op-ed page will have none of it, because you know who else called people liars?

The Obama campaign's resurrection of "liar" as a political tool is odious because it has such a repellent pedigree. It dates to the sleazy world of fascist and totalitarian propaganda in the 1930s. It was part of the milieu of stooges, show trials and dupes. These were people willing to say anything to defeat their opposition. Denouncing people as liars was at the center of it. The idea was never to elevate political debate but to debauch it.

To keep things straight, it's important to remember a few guidelines for how the WSJ editorial page sees the world. Actual racism is non-existent, but accusations of racism are known as playing the race card. Actual lies are part and parcel of the democratic process, but accusations of lying make you Hitler.

On the bright side, Politifact is the least threatening version of the Gestapo the world has ever seen.

Photo by Heinrich Hoffmann/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

Tags: Adolf Hitler, Barack Obama, Nazis, Wall Street Journal

Newt Gingrich Thinks He Should Be President of Everything

Newt Gingrich wants to bring change to America. The problem is, he hasn’t changed since 1970.

According to a Wall Street Journal profile of Newt as a young history professor, he's had the same infuriatingly high levels of "ambition and intellectual grandeur for at least 42 years…

A year into his first full-time teaching job, Newt Gingrich applied to be college president, submitting with his application a paper titled "Some Projections on West Georgia College's Next Thirty Years."

Mel Steely, a history professor who played a role in Mr. Gingrich's hiring in 1970, said the bid drew "a chuckle" from administrators. The following year, Mr. Gingrich applied to be chairman of the history department. That wasn't greeted so kindly, Mr. Steely said…

"We weren't going to make Newt our chairman, but he liked the idea of competing for almost anything," said Mr. Steely… "He figured 'I'm capable of doing this,' and it didn't bother him so much that it offended anybody."

So what if Newt thought he should be college president after he had taught for a year and hadn't even finished his dissertation. He's an "ideas" man, not a "good ideas" man.

And why stop at president of a college or the United States? Newt helped his wife Callista write a book about a patriotic elephant — he could be a zookeeper! Newt went on a cruise through the Greek islands — he could be Aristotle! Newt performed well at the debates — he could beat Barack Obama!

Ha, just kidding.

Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images News/Getty Images

Tags: Education, Newt Gingrich, Primaries, Republicans, Wall Street Journal