When MSNBC rolled out its new slogan "Lean Forward" last year, it was a transparent attempt to beat Fox News at its own game. (That game, for the record: news as partisan propaganda.) This is the only idea that MSNBC has. You can be sure of it, because Jeff Zucker denies it.

Pop music thingamajig Lady Gaga made two music videos for her song "Judas," one set to debut tonight during American Idol and another tonight on E! News Daily. Well, one of those (most likely the shorter Idol version) found its way onto the internet this morning. Enjoy!

Kate Middleton's sister usurps Prince Harry as "royal sibling most likely to dance on a banquette." Jesse James hints that Sandra Bullock wasn't that great in bed. Marie Osmond remarries her ex-husband. Thursday gossip knows how to party.

The Associated Press has huffily declined to cover tonight's Fox News Channel GOP "debate" in South Carolina on the grounds that Fox won't let it take photographs during the debate—only before and after. But it does cover presidential addresses under precisely the same conditions.

Three hipness reporters from the hipness desk of hipness arbiter The Washington Post drop an investigative bombshell today: while politicians were politicking, and lobbyists were lobbying, and tourists were touristing, and go-goers were go-going, something sinister was happening in Washington. It was becoming young—and hip.

This young matinee idol gets a kick out of showing his costars naked pics of himself. This secretly lesbian duo has a film role together. And this American Idol is a terror to work with. Yup, never meet your idols.

It's baby-name time! The Social Security Administration has released the top baby names of 2010. People still love naming their kids after popular movie and TV shows!

Aveda makes its money by selling expensive beauty products to touchy-feely yuppies, like you. And if there's one thing yuppies like you love, it's rationalizing your purchase of an expensive beauty product by telling yourself that it's helping some good cause, somehow. And if that good cause is kind of bullshit... eh, you still got the beauty product.

It's a damn shame, really, that we don't use swords any more on a large scale. Because the process of turning liquid fire into a deadly bronze? That's something that should be taught in every shop class, forever, the end. [BBC2 via Buzzfeed]

Often, kids these days are pessimistic; they don't think they have the power to change anything. But one plucky group of teens is standing up for themselves, by suing the U.S. government for not protecting the earth. Whoa, citizens!

White House photographer Pete Souza's great picture from the Situation Room during the raid on Osama bin Laden's "hideout" left us all wondering: "but what does it all mean?" Speaking to reporters in Rome today, Hillary Clinton answered questions about the photograph, saying she has "no idea" what was going on when the picture was taken.

After sending tanks into the city of Deraa to "restore security, serenity and stability," the Syrian government is proud of itself for starting to pull out today. Oh, but they're just cracking down on other areas instead.

Yesterday, the Miniatur Wunderland in Hamburg, Germany, opened its model Knuffingen Airport — officially the world's largest model airport — after six years of construction time and over $5 million in costs. Impressive.

Orange County, California, GOP official Marilyn Davenport — who last month sent around an email with a family photo depicting President Obama as a chimpanzee — was censured yesterday by her colleagues in a 12-2 vote, which basically means nothing. State law says her racist emailing ways are not enough to get her shitcanned, so they went with a wrist slap that's most likely a Tea Party™ badge of honor, anyway. Orange County GOP honcho Scott Baugh told the OC Register:

There's been a theory circulating for some time now around the scientific and semen-loving communities, which proposes that that man-made substance can reduce depression. A sex columnist at Popular Science's website decided to investigate if the claims might be true — and good news, ladies-and-certain-gentlemen: It just might!

A 17-year-old boy who threw eggs at Justin Bieber during a Sydney concert was arrested. He was charged with "breaking and entering, trespassing and malicious damage," because he had broken into the arena via the roof. [Yahoo]

The old cliche about dogs and mailmen is no myth. Dogs really do attack postal carriers — 2,863 of them last year alone. Ryan Bradford, a mailman from San Diego, has taken pictures of every growling, snarling, slobbering beast on his route. As Ryan explains, "The mailman/dog relationship is no lie. It's like they can smell it on you, a scent that triggers their hunting instinct." These encounters had to be pretty terrifying at the time, but — forgive me employees of the USPS — they're also kind of hilarious. [ryancbradford.com]

OsamaBreak™. Back to the royal wedding for a moment, shall we? Remember Princess Beatrice's ridiculous hat? Sure you do. It was on the fast-track to becoming the next great meme. Cats were jumping out of it, it was lording over Mordor — we were just getting cooking! Now it's all "fake death photo" this and that. (Though kudos to the visionary Photoshopper who dared to collide the two worlds in the mash-up above.)

We'll never know for certain what Martin Luther King, Jr. would have said about the killing of Osama bin Laden — but luckily, we still have the 14th Dalai Lama to turn to for spiritually elevated words of pacifism and tolerance in these rootin' tootin' times. So what are those words? Well, that Bin Laden kind of had it coming.

Stephen Colbert used the Report tonight to draw attention to the storms that devastated the South last week. One problem: All the weather talk made Colbert have to pee, but he couldn't find the key to the bathroom. So he set out to find it—and bumped into both David Letterman and Katie Couric in the process.