In news about phrases you loathe (the "fiscal clifff," if you need a reminder), the president and congressional leaders are apparently brewing up some kind of bipartisan compromise on taxes—extending the Bush tax cuts for everyone making $400,000 or less. But because life is terrible, and Congress is grumpy about working over the holidays, it will probably blow up.

The United States Senate, taking a break from harrumphing, did manage to approve an extension of a controversial program that allows the government to continue spying on its own citizens.

Another person was shoved to his death beneath a rumbling subway in New York City—the second such attack in less than a month.

Internet anonymity is increasingly impossible in China, where authorities are instituting even more vigorous controls over the country's use of the internet. The moves might be connected to a series of sex and money scandals in which humble Internet users managed to tar and out prominent political leaders.

I joked about the Gulf War yesterday, not realizing that would turn out to be the actual day that General "Stormin'" Norman Schwarzkoph would up and die. He was 78.

Guns! Every day! A man shot up a New Jersey police station, injuring three cops. He was killed when other officers returned fire.

Guns! Every day! That one racist sheriff in Phoenix wants to round up an armed posse of volunteers to guard schools. Because, yes, I'd want the kind of people who'd volunteer for this program to be in charge of guarding my children.

A homeless woman in Southern California, known for bunking down on the same bench every night for 10 years, was set on fire by a man who didn't know her and was reportedly experiencing a mental health crisis.

Why would anyone think it's weird that someone stuck a statue of a praying Adolf Hitler in the old Warsaw ghetto.

Don't eat raw eggs. Not one. Not 28. Especially not 28.