Famous Songs' First Words.

Ouch.

18/8

Only 42,000 hours of work left before I can retire.

"Monkey Gone to Heaven"
"This belongs in the mythological category. I'm less concerned with making sense than making the lyrics pop out of the speaker when people are listening to the music. Some of it is obvious enough to understand, but then 'If man is five, the devil is six, then God is seven,' and guess what? That rhymes with 'Monkey gone to heaven,' and it's all a little bit of a mixture of saying things that are real and relevant with a lot of Alice in Wonderland jibber-jabber and gobbledygook. This is a surreal work. I'm a surrealist. Songs can't just be 1 + 1 = 2, you know? 1 + 1 = bran muffin."

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Contestants at Keele Christmas Tree Farm in Newcastle, Staffordshire, England helped raise money for the United Kingdom veterans charity Help for Heroes by tossing 22-pound, six-foot-tall Christmas. The contest, which was inspired by similar events in Germany, judged contestants on height and distance.

The Cleveland police officer who fatally shot 12-year-old Tamir Rice had "no choice" but to fire his weapon, the cop's father said Monday. Surveillance video of the Nov. 22 shooting shows rookie officer Tim Loehmann shooting the boy just two seconds after stopping his patrol car outside of a city recreation center. Tamir had walked toward the car and reached into his waistband to pull out the black pellet gun, police said.

Loehmann's father said his son didn't know whether or not the gun was a fake, but decided he had to act. "I was right there and he went for the gun," Fred Loehmann recalled his son saying, according to Cleveland.com. "I had no choice."

I wasn't in Cleveland that day, so, maybe I shouldn't speculate. But I was present when the cop who didn't shoot me made his choice.

The next motherfucker who says "Black Friday" who isn't Donald Fagan is gonna get stabbed.

Kevin Drum talk term limits. He doesn't like em. I like em. But I dislike the hard cutoff of "two terms and your out!" I'd prefer something a little sexier.

So how about handicapping incumbents with an ever-increasing headwind:

votes = votes * log(50 - years_in_office) / log(50)

After 40 years, you only receive 60% of your raw vote total. Nobody will make it to 50 years.

Of course you can adjust those 50s to taste.

Plus, it will finally achieve what decades of school curricula have failed to do: link civics and algebra.

Benghazi was a lot like Whitewater, in that it never even made any sense. The Clintons are being accused of corruption so nefarious that they lost money on a land deal? What?

Of course Whitewater led to son of Whitewater, and third cousin 7 times removed from Whitewater, etc. Maybe that ultimately was the goal of the Benghazi Show.

The points of Benghazi!!!!™ include:

1. Rally The Base. Keep the rubes riled and donating.
2. Work The Refs. Keep the press distracted by the allegations so they won't be able to talk about anything the Dems might want to talk about.
3. Where There's Smoke There's FUD. Create Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt because as long as there are 'questions' and 'controversy' and someone says 'scandal' near 'Obama', a non-trivial number of people will assume there must be something to the allegations. That helps depress squishy Dem-leaning voters.
4. Digging In The Dirt. Having cover to launch a few Congressional investigations that could maybe turn up something real was a nice benefit, too. Never know where you might find another Lewinski. And they sound ominous even if they don't.

And since the press doesn't care about things that end with a whimper, the FUD will linger forever. 30 years from now, people will still believe all the GOP's lies and distortions.

The Dems might consider getting into this game sometime.