Tonight, at 8 p.m., 11 children selected by lottery from the 50 districts of the post-apocalyptic nation of The United States of America will battle to the death on live television, in a competition that combines the erotic violence of vampires making love in a pool of blood with the danger and unpredictability of reciting rote letter patterns from memory. It's the final round of the Scripps National Spelling Bee!

The Scripps National Spelling Bee reaches its dramatic conclusion tonight as a group of nine middle schoolers meet in the nation's harbor (National Harbor, Maryland, or, as it is consistently and vaguely identified on the Scripps website, "near Washington, D.C.") to brawl to the death until only one remains.

Sarah Palin recently "favorited" an Ann Coulter tweet that linked to a picture of a sign about "The blood of Jesus against Obama," our "Taliban Muslim illegally elected President USA: Hussein." This might be awkward if she runs for president!

Squawk Box anchor Becky Quick — we forget which dismissively sexist finance-bimbo sobriquet CNBC viewers have awarded her — recently married the show's executive producer, Matthew Quayle. Why is this not a problem?

Today just got a whole lot more awesome as the coolest man alive, David Bowie, writes in the Mail on Sunday that he's putting together a CD compilation of his own favorite songs. Unlike the many "ChangesBowie" best-of CDs, this one is not full of his hits. Instead, he writes, "For this CD compilation I've selected 12 of my songs that I don't seem to tire of. Few of them are well known, but many of them are still sung at my concerts. Usually by me." He goes on to list them, and explains the process behind the creation of each one, after the jump.