Today on the Dish, we collected reax to the death of Kim Jong-Il, wondered if the tears were fake, and summoned the ronery song. We delved into the psychology of dictators, charted the dramatic divergence of North and South Korea, and Jim Pethokoukis flipped out. The Dish memorialized Hitch, virtues cohabit with sins, and our readers got to know one another (update here). Ron Paul took the lead in Iowa, he's a demographic dream for the GOP, and news pegs obscured campaign coverage. Gingrich fell fast, he went after the "judicial dictatorship," and even the Rasmussenites fear government passivity. 

Preemptive war made a comeback, the power of denial prevailed in Egypt, and Tahrir erupted once more. We checked in on the gay community in Uganda, and Syrian defectors were executed en masse.

The prison population dwindled in the US, the Freakonomics approach is flawed, and our peach fuzz is perfectly evolved. We sized up the ambitions of Andrew Cuomo, higher education met Moneyball, and health care price controls flopped. Biometric IDs keep things honest, girls are catching up with boys in math, and bikes can save us. In our AAA video, Andrew explained why he opposes criminalizing prejudice. 

Tweet of the day here, creepy ad watch here, MHB here, FOTD here, VFYW here, our year-end lamest GOP jokes contest here, brave highdeas (including emergency texting) here, and Kim Jong-Il looking at things here. 

— M.A.