Editor’s note: Each Friday, our internet-savvy friends over at BuzzFeed curate a post for us that’s filled with links to some of their favorite items on the web that week. Enjoy!
The biggest news story of the week: A mentally unstable political dissident opened fire on Democratic Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona on Saturday before shooting another 20 people, killing a federal judge and a 9-year-old girl among others. Only moments after the shooter was identified, an anonymous tipster provided us with exclusive screenshots from Loughner’s MySpace profile. Many covering the story raised the issue of how sensational rhetoric can influence the actions of unstable, paranoid people. In fact, searches for the terms “rhetoric” and “vitriol” became such a talking point that they were among the top Googled terms of the week. Sarah Palin’s now infamous “crosshairs” flyer quickly became the key example of violent symbolism used by a GOP candidate. Days later, Palin addressed her critics, saying that she was unjustly blamed. In celebrity news, Stephanie Seymour caused quite a ruckus when she was seen kissing her 18-year-old son on the lips. We’ve also got a must-see aging timeline of Stephen Colbert (the years have been good to him). There’s a new Simpsons-themed porn parody featuring a pretty good Homer impression; Tom Hanks’ son Chet Haze raps with about as much cred as you might expect; and we rounded up 15 songs that you probably didn’t know were covers in the first place.