This might be a topic more suited to the BTD Forum, but I'm too lazy to go over there. I've been thinking about one-hit wonders. A mix-tape may be in the offing, but I'm not sure.

Anyway, I'm trying to decide what I think is the best one-hit wonder song. I don't mean the most popular or biggest selling. I'm speaking in terms of merit. I mean, VH1's all-time one-hit wonder was "The Macarena," and that's just too dumb to be worth further discussion. My current favorite might be the Sanford-Townsend Band's "Smoke From a Distant Fire." Man, I love that song! (Yes, I'll concede it might be stretching the definition of "hit." But it's very good.)

But I'm also thinking that the best one-hit wonder song may be "The Boys are Back in Town" by Thin Lizzy. Now, they would probably dispute the label, and Thin Lizzy did have minor hits with "Whiskey in the Jar" and "Jailbreak." But "The Boys are Back in Town" was a megahit, and Thin Lizzy's career never really recovered when they couldn't catch lightning again. (I watched the "Behind the Music" on them.) There can't be any denying the merit of it as a rock song, though. It might not quite be the perfect rock-and-roll song, but it wouldn't get laughed out of the discussion.

Still, I would be interested in your submissions. I'm probably forgetting something great (I think my runner-up is a-ha's "Take On Me.") To reiterate, what I'm looking for is the kind of song that would be great no matter who performed it, and it just happens that the artist never did anything else. Quibbles over definitions welcome. Also welcome are discussions over whether the fact that the artist zeroed out for the rest of a career creates a bias that the song is better because it stands alone. For example, if, say, the Rolling Stones had done "The Boys are Back in Town," would it be considered one of their best, or just another, oh, I don't know, maybe "Can't You Hear Me Knocking?" -- a very good song, but not an all-time classic? Thanks for your help.

Seeing as I can't seem to come up with any content on my own, I thought I would beg someone else to do it for me. So, it's time for another rousing edition of "Buy, Sell, or Hold." This week's topics were provided by the multi-talented, multi-blogging PG of Half the Sins of Mankind and De Novo. Thanks, PG!

Anderson Cooper

Buy. The thing that the author of the linked piece -- and a lot of other people who cover the media -- misses is that Anderson Cooper might not want to be the next Dan Rather. A move to the anchor chair isn't necessarily a life sentence. This all reminds me of the way people fretted over Craig Kilborn when he was on "SportsCenter." Oh, boo-hoo, they lamented: Kilborn doesn't act like Bob Ley or even Dan Patrick, or another fairly staid long-time sports reporter. But Kilborn didn't want to be a sports anchor forever. He wanted to use "SportsCenter" as a jumping off point, first to Comedy Central, then CBS, then movies. As for Cooper, CNN has always been different than the broadcast networks anyway, in that it runs "news" 24 hours a day. Its whole founding philosophy is that people don't (or shouldn't) have to wait until 6:00 to be "anchored" to the news; they could get news whenever they wanted. And that freed CNN to present news in a different way (even if they haven't always lived up to that). Anyway, Cooper seems capable of being a jack-of-all-trades for CNN, and I expect him to anchor some, to do some field reporting, etc. -- basically, to do whatever he wants. So no, I don't expect Cooper to sit behind a desk and read me the news for the next thirty years. But I still say "buy" because I don't think that's what he wants, either.

Bras as smuggling device

Hold. Really, did you expect me to say anything other than "hold" when we're talking about things that go in bras?

California

Hold. The story says that a lot of people are moving out of California, largely due to crazy-high housing prices. Well, that still leaves a lot of people in California. Plus, I think housing prices will eventually have to deflate a bit, and people will come back. Also, are there a lot of vacant houses littering California? Even if the reverse-Joads in the linked article can't afford to live there, doesn't free-market economics say that it's better that a good goes to the party who values it more? I can't afford a Jaguar, but no one is writing weepy stories about it. Anyway, enough ranting. Plenty of loons will always want to move to California. Hold until housing prices fall, and then buy.

Democracy in Iraq

Hold. I've said before that just buying time in Iraq is good for now. We can work out the details later, if we can just calm things down a little. It might be decades before we see a reasonably-well-functioning government in Iraq. I think it will happen, but it will take time. Maybe I'm optimistic, but I say "hold" for a while longer.

Ethics

Sell. The link PG sent me was about the Texas justice system, specifically with regard to the Tom DeLay trial. The idea is that Texas judges, elected on partisan tickets, are affected by campaign contributions and politics. Well, I don't see Texas changing its judicial selection system any time soon. So I think these concerns will linger, although I don't know enough detail to suggest there's a real problem. As for DeLay's ethics...no comment.

(Okay, an aside. Whenever I think of Tom DeLay, I hear Paul Winfield talking about Assistant District Attorney "Dee-lay-guardia" in Presumed Innocent. Maybe that's just me.)

France

Sell. To quote Admiral Painter, "This business will get out of control. It will get out of control and we'll be lucky to live through it." Yikes -- I just realized I may be more optimistic about the future of Iraq than the future of France. But it's really ugly over there. This is their Katrina: It's as if the French government had no plan to deal with an obviously simmering problem.

GOP

Hold. I'm not ready to make any sweeping pronouncements about the future based on the incumbent party winning two gubernatorial races. Pundits in 2001 said that Democratic wins in these same states boded ill for George Bush and Republicans in 2002, and that didn't happen. I think yesterday was an answer to any Kool-Aid-drinking right-winger who dreamed of a "permanent Republican majority," but I don't see it offering much more insight than that.

Holiday season

Buy. Oh, would that it were possible to buy stock in this concept! The holidays this year, like every year, will be longer, and more over-indulgent, than before, but not as much as next year. I say, "Hedonism now, hedonism tomorrow, hedonism forever!"

Intelligent Design

Sell. I think yesterday's school board election in Dover, Pennsylvania, is a sign of a trend. I know I just said that two elections don't make a trend. But those races weren't about the future of the GOP. This race was about the future of intelligent design as part of the science curriculum. With that stark choice before them, Dover voters rejected ID. I'm not trying to be partisan here at BTQ, so I won't say anything about how I feel about the election. But ID ain't science. And I won't accept that it is until ID proponents create awards for "Unintelligent Design" to rival the Darwin Awards. (Of course, they won't ever do that, because that would mean admitting God did something unintelligent, right?)

Jesus and Anne Rice

Buy. Rice's devotion certainly appears to be sincere. Even if these books don't sell as well as her vampire books, I'm sure they'll do well. The popularity of The Da Vinci Code shows that Biblical mysteries can sell, and I'm sure some of the Left Behind and Purpose-Driven Life crowds will take a peek, too. Maybe Rice and J.K. Rowling will take a cue from Alien vs. Predator or Freddy vs. Jason and do a book called Jesus vs. Harry Potter -- imagine how many books that would sell!

Did you see this in the news? Two Carolina Panthers cheerleaders were arrested this weekend after having sex in a bar bathroom. Team officials said they wouldn't discipline the cheerleaders because now every guy in America is a Panthers fan!

Seriously, two cheerleaders have sex and then go to jail? They must have gotten the idea from, I don't know, my favorite movie of all time! Not everyone is happy about it, though: Hugh Hefner is planning to sue the cheerleaders for copyright infringement!

The two cheerleaders are already getting tons of offers for interviews and media appearances. They're even negotiating to start a talk show:

Some members of Congress are reacting to the cheerleaders' story. They've been debating a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, but now it's been altered to read, "No gay marriage, except for hot cheerleaders!"

Actually, they might be facing serious legal trouble. In fact, Bill Clinton has decided to drop his Hurricane Katrina fundraising effort and start working on the cheerleaders' legal defense fund! Clinton made a statement that "throwing these two young cheerleaders in jail after having sex constitutes cool and unusual punishment!

Other celebrities are coming to the cheerleaders' defense, too. Martha Stewart said, "It would have been a lot more fun being at the bottom of the pyramid of my prison cheerleading squad with teammates like these!"

You know, the Panthers' cheerleading squad is known as the TopCats. That gave their lawyer an idea for a defense in court: They weren't having sex, they were cleaning themselves!