Fight For Your Right To Sample: The Beastie Boys seminal album Paul’s Boutique probably couldn’t be made today, thanks to its liberal use of samples, says Matt Yglesias. And even today, one D.C. go-go band is going after the group for sampling four songs back in the ’80s. In a strange coincidence, the company Trouble Funk hired to sue the group did so the day before the Beastie’s MCA a.k.a. Adam Yauch died of cancer. Still, Trouble Funk’s leader, Big Tony Fisher, had kind words for MCA: “We toured with the Beastie Boys and I like ’em. They’re good cats. And they really admired the band. I’m so sorry to hear that.”  +2

Give It Up For Tourists: They may be annoying, but tourists dropped $6 billion in D.C. in 2011. And, it’s worth noting, “more than half of the city’s sales tax revenue is dependent on tourist spending.” We can forgive them for standing on the left side of the escalators, right? +2

To Catch A Thief: Step one: have a bike stolen. Step two: spot it for sale on Craigslist. Step three: make an appointment to see it. Step four: steal it back. Step five: win the Internet. +4

Fenty’s Loss, Our Loss: Of an Italian cycling competition, that is. Former mayor Adrian Fenty was in talks to bring a couple of legs of the Giro d’Italia to D.C. when he lost his election, which apparently killed the plan. “Robin Morton of g4 Productions, who was on the 2012 Giro d’Italia Working Group, said there were two main reasons that Washington was not chosen. The first one had been that city mayor Adrian Fenty was defeated in the fall of 2010. ‘He was the cycling advocate within the D.C. government. The new administration had many other issues to deal with; this was not a priority,’ Morton told Cyclingnews.” Viva D.C. -2

Monday’s Needle rating: 37 Today’s score: +6 Today’s Needle rating: 43