1. In the news section, GOLDY champions a hopeless proposal to create a state-run bank to handle funds raised in the marijuana business. Since Goldy has expressed very little opinion on the matter of the legalization of marijuana, it's fairly easy to deduce that it's not the marijuana that attracts him to this plan—he's drawn in by the fact that it's a lost cause. If you'll pardon the dangling preposition, from Darcy Burner's endless campaigns for any public office at all to a Hindenburgian quest for state funding for higher education, Goldy has never met a quixotic cause he did not start relentlessly humping the leg of. On a separate sheet of paper, propose a public program that is so wildly unlikely that Goldy could not help falling in love with it. (Examples: a proposal to ban all gun sales in the United States, a program to bestow upon every Democratic voter a red panda and a nice ham sandwich, a national Hug a Hygiene-Challenged Middle-Aged Blogger Day.) Send your proposal to Goldy and watch him fall for it hook, line, and sinker. Wasn't that fun?

2. DAN SAVAGE has written an overlong, self-important "review" of the introduction to Sarah Palin's new book about Christmas. In the introduction to his own latest book, American Savage, Savage writes "Very few people read introductions... It seems that most readers skip the introduction and go straight to the first chapter and start reading the actual book. So it doesn't matter what I say here." Do you think it's fair that Savage reviewed a part of the book that by his own admission doesn't even matter? Could you imagine the nightmare of bruised-ego Slog posts and Twitter bullying that would unfold were a Christian to review solely the introduction of Savage's book? Why does Savage seem to enjoy wallowing in his own hypocrisy like this? Does professional self-victimization pay off that well, after all?

3. Meanwhile, in the music section, a person named DANIELLE HENDERSON makes her Stranger-writing debut by proclaiming the importance of a self-titled album by the singer Beyoncé. A certain amount of hyperventilation over popular culture is to be expected from easily excitable writers with a word count and a nagging hyperbole addiction to feed, but the album was released last week, and the rest of the world has moved on. Wouldn't this piece have been better as a blog post to be scanned and forgotten immediately, rather than a mummified print piece that now feels as stale as a glowing Lawrence Welk profile? Why did The Stranger decide that anyone should care about this "news"? Can you even remember as far back as last week? Check your Twitter feed and see if you even relate to the person who wrote those posts anymore. How does that make you feel?