Did FDR Really Have Polio?

Read the whole article at io9:  A 2012 study published in the Journal of Medical Biography conducted a probability analysis based on Roosevelt's symptoms, with the outcome suggesting Roosevelt likely suffered from Guillain-Barre Syndrome instead of polio.

Physicians and scientists have struggled with the diagnosis of polio in the decades after Roosevelt's death, as Roosevelt's advanced age made him an unlikely candidate for the disease. Roosevelt also experienced paralysis in both legs, while polio usually affects only one side of the body. Polio does not often affect the intestinal tract, yet the events of August 9th left FDR without control of his bowels. The future president continued to experience pain and other sensations in his legs.

An FDR diagnosed with Guillain-Barre would have little to gain over one diagnosed with polio due to a deficit in possible treatments.

The Misdiagnosis that Saved Lives:

Roosevelt did not hide his diagnosis, forming a polio rehabilitation center Georgia before running for president.

While we will never truly know if Roosevelt suffered from polio, the attention Roosevelt brought to the illness ended the most rampant cause of death and paralysis in human history, a disease dating to Ancient Egypt. Not a bad outcome for a possible misdiagnosis.

Authoritarianism increased last year in Russia to levels unseen since the Soviet era

Authoritarianism increased last year in Russia to levels unseen since the Soviet era with a raft of harsh laws curbing political freedoms and harassment of opposition activists and critics, Human Rights Watch said on Thursday.

The crackdown coincided with the return of Vladimir Putin to the Kremlin and the appointment of his predecessor and protégé, Dmitry Medvedev, as prime minister.

Comments and links at HotAir.

Medical self-defense: why can I buy a gun to save myself, but not a kidney?

Tyler Cohen has links and more comments at Marginal Revolution:

Americans have historically put great weight on the right of self-defense which is one reason why many people support the 2nd Amendment, as the Supreme Court noted explicitly in District of Columbia v. Heller. But what about medical self-defense? John Robertson argues:

A person can buy a handgun for self-defense but cannot pay for an organ donation to save her life because of the National Organ Transplantation Act’s (NOTA) total ban on paying “valuable consideration” for an organ donation. This article analyzes whether the need for an organ transplant, and thus the paid organ donations that might make them possible, falls within the constitutional protection of the life and liberty clauses of the 5th and 14th amendments. If so, government would have to show more than a rational basis to uphold NOTA’s ban on paid donations.

Russian Family Isolated From Human Contact for 40 Years

Fascinating story of a family who ran into the wilderness in 1936 to escape religious persecution.  

As Suspected, OWS Was Populated by White Guys with Money

Researchers surveyed 729 people who participated in a May 1 rally last year and were involved in the “occupation” of Zuccotti Park in the fall of 2011, and found that they were more affluent, whiter, younger, much more highly educated, and more likely to be male than the average New Yorker.

Non-Hispanic whites constituted 62 percent of all respondents, though they make up only 33 percent of New York City residents. While only about a third of Americans hold bachelors’ degrees, 76 percent of respondents who had completed their education had a four-year college degree and 39 percent had graduate degrees. Among college graduates, more than a quarter went to top-ranked schools, which might help explain why the majority of graduates under 30 had some student debt. While 10 percent of participants were unemployed, 71 percent were employed in professional occupations. Eight percent were “blue collar.”

Sandwich generation: supporting both adult children and aging parents

"One thing I’ve learned is, your house is a revolving door.”

I've learned that, too.  Luckily, I really like all the kids and grandkids who circulate in an out of my house.

Brace Yourself for a Rat Infestation… EPA Bans D-Con

Links and details at Gateway Pundit.

Not The Onion: Zimbabwe has just $217 left in the bank

At CBS: “Last week when we paid civil servants there was $217 in government coffers,” Finance Minister Tendai Biti said, according to The Telegraph. “The government finances are in paralysis state at the present moment.”

That last admission was an understatement not because of his assessment of paralysis, but because he implied the problem is only a recent one.

The country that was once considered southern Africa’s “breadbasket” for its fertile lands and rich mineral deposits has been experiencing slow but certain ruin due to more than three decades of largely despotic rule by President Robert Mugabe.

105-year-old passes her driving test

The great-grandmother of 17 from Santa Barbara, who also holds the record for being the oldest person on Facebook, is not slowing down despite her advancing years.

She has been officially declared the oldest driver in California after passing her test to renew her license on Wednesday - which she described as a 'snap'.

Uranus takes a pounding more frequently than thought

Does there ever come a point in your life when Uranus isn't funny?

How Much Would A Death Star Really Cost?

Details at Transterrestrial Musings:

To the disappointment of thousands who signed the petition, the Obama administration recently informed us that it has, and will have no plans to build a Star-Wars-style death star. Now, there may indeed be good reasons to forgo this addition to the nation’s defense, but the first one listed, that it would cost 850 quadrillion dollars, was based on an extremely flawed estimate. Which isn’t surprising, because among the people doing the estimating, only one has any experience in aerospace engineering (and probably none in costing of such projects).

Yesterday was W.C. Fields' b'day: here's the Bank Dick car chase

A selection:

Never give a sucker an even break.

If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. Than quit. No use being a damn fool about it.

Horse sense is the good judgement which keeps people from betting on horses.

A rich man is nothing but a poor man with money.

There's not a man in America who at one time or another hasn't had a secret desire to boot a child in the ass.
- W. C. Fields (various attributions)

The funniest thing about comedy is that you never know why people laugh. I know what makes them laugh, but trying to get your hands on the why of it is like trying to pick an eel out of a tub of water.
- Fields (quoted in Anobile, A Flask of Fields)

Much of Fields's humor turned on his legendary alcoholism:

A woman drove me to drink, and I never even had the courtesy to thank her.

I always keep a stimulant handy in case I see a snake - which I also keep
handy.

That drink has made a new man of me... He'll have one, too.

Once, during Prohibition, I was forced to live for days on nothing but food and water.

I exercise strong self control. I never drink anything stronger than gin before breakfast.

His famous suggestion for an epitaph (June 1925):

Here lies W. C. Fields. I would rather be living in Philadelphia.

He was an isolated person. As a young man, he stretched out his hand to Beauty and Love and they thrust it away. Gradually he reduced reality to exclude all but his work, filling the gaps with alcohol, whose dim eyes transformed the world into a distant view of harmless shadows.
- Louise Brooks (1906-1985) (on W. C. Fields; quoted in Tynan, Show People)

Yesterday, 29 January, was the 133rd anniversary of the birth of American film actor and comedian W. C. Fields (1880-1946), born William Claude Duckenfield in Philadelphia. Fields ran away from home at the age of 11 and got his start in vaudeville as a juggler. He made his musical comedy debut on Broadway in 1906, moved on to the Ziegfeld Follies, and appeared in his first silent film in 1915. By 1930, he was a staple in Hollywood comedies, playing a series of drunken, misanthropic - and yet wistful - rascals who mirrored his own real-life persona. Fields is perhaps best remembered as starring opposite the inimitable - and bosomy - Mae West (1892-1980) in My Little Chickadee (1940), but it was in The Bank Dick of that same year that he gave his most classic performance. An excellent biography of W. C. Fields by James Curtis appeared in 2003. In one of his more celebrated remarks, Fields responded to the question of why he never drank water by noting that

"Fish f__k in water."

The famous car-chase scene from The Bank Dick:

"These are the times that try men's souls": Thomas Paine was born 281 years ago today

These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of men and women. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have the consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly; 'tis dearness only that gives everything its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as freedom would not be so highly rated.
- Thomas Paine (The Crisis, Introduction)

It is necessary to the happiness of man that he be mentally faithful to himself. Infidelity does not consist in believing, or in disbelieving. It consists in professing to believe what one does not believe.
- Paine (The Age of Reason, Pt. 1)

Persecution is not an original feature of any religion; but it is always the strongly marked feature of all law-religions, or religions established by law.
- Paine (The Rights of Man)

When, in countries that are called civilized, we see age going to the workhouse and youth to the gallows, something must be wrong in the system of government.
- Paine (The Rights of Man, Pt. 2)

Such a mongrel between pig and puppy, begotten by a wild boar on a bitch wolf, never before in any age of the world was suffered by the poltroonery of mankind, to run through such a career of mischief.
- John Adams (1735-1826) (of Tom Paine, letter, 1805)

Today is the 281st anniversary of the birth of Anglo-American political theorist and writer Thomas Paine (1732-1809). Born in Thetford, England, Paine emigrated to America in 1774 and supported himself by contributing to various contemporary periodicals. His pamphlet, Common Sense (1776), played a significant role in stirring up enthusiasm for independence from Britain, and subsequently, his series, The Crisis, publicized the American cause during the revolution. Returning to England in 1787, Paine wrote The Rights of Man (1791-1792) in defense of the French revolution, even urging the British to overthrow their own monarchy. Accused of treason and convicted in absentia, he fled to France but was eventually imprisoned there during the Reign of Terror and was only released by the efforts of the American minister, James Monroe.

Paine wrote The Age of Reason (1794-1796) in France in defense of his deistic beliefs but returned to the United States in 1802, where his extreme political and religious views led to his ostracism from public life. Sadly, he died in relative poverty in New York City.* English essayist G. K. Chesterton (1874-1936) wrote of him,

"Thomas Paine invented the name of the Age of Reason; and he was one of those sincere but curiously simple men who really did think that the age of reason was beginning, at about the time when it was really ending."

* N.B. In a somewhat bizarre note, the agrarian radical William Cobbett (1763-1835) exhumed Paine's bones several years after his death and brought them back to England with the intention of seeing them buried there. Apparently, however, the planned reburial never took place, and the final disposition of Thomas Paine's remains is still a mystery.

Thomas Paine:


via Ed's Quotation of the day, only available via email.  Leave your email address in the comments if you wish to be added to the list.

1699 illustrated book "The Art Of Swimming"

Go to Bibliodyssey and see the whole thing.

To cut the Nails of the Toes in the Water



"It is possible to perform actions in the Water, which one cannot do on Land; I my self have often brought my Great Toe to my Lips in the Water, which I could never do on Land, not on my bed. You must hold your knife in your right hand (if you are right-handed) and take up your left Leg, and lay the Foot on the right Knee; there you make take if from the left hand, and with the right cut your Nails without any danger. Thus you may also pick your Toes; and if this way has no other use or advantage, yet the dexterity of the management may serve to recommend it."

Man Got Replacement Candy 60 Years Later

It took him 60 years to collect on a complaint he sent to the Pearson’s Candy Co. in St. Paul.

Bell received a package of candy last week after sending an email reminding the company of an incident that occurred as a teen.

He was a 14-year-old living in Cold Spring when he found a twig in his nut roll. “I bit into it,” Bell said. It was 1952, and he decided to take action.

“I sent them a letter to obviously get some candy.”

He included the twig with his letter.

He received a letter from George E. Pearson, the son of one of the company’s founders. Pearson apologized for the twig, saying it came from one of the peanut vines. The letter was sent using a 3-cent stamp.

But Pearson failed to send candy. Bell filed the letter away.

“That was the end of the story,” Bell said.

Fast forward six decades to 2012; Bell and his wife, Joan, moved from Greenwald to St. Cloud, and he found the letter.

“No one saves as much as he does,” Joan Bell said. “You wouldn’t believe what he saves.”

Dave Bell sent an email in December to the company.

“It might still be in the mail,” he joked. “I wanted to remind them.”

More here, via Neatorama.

Most of What You Think You Know About Grammar is Wrong

As a grammar nazi, I'm not sure I buy this.  Discuss amongst yourselves.

Shocker: Federal Agencies Hit By Budget Cuts Object to Budget Cuts

At Reason, discussing a WaPo article:

Turns out that reducing planned spending might actually mean cutting out a program or two, and the folks who run those programs don't want that to happen. And neither do the private contractors and researchers who rely on public grants to fund their projects.

The odd geographic test for the "angle of the dangle" of men's penises in British films

At kottke, The Mull of Kintyre test:

The British Board of Film Classification was said to have an informal rule called the Mull of Kintyre test about the erectness of penises shown in films and videos. If a man's penis was at an angle greater than Scotland's Kintyre peninsula, you couldn't show it.





The BBFC would not permit the general release of a film or video if it depicted a phallus erect to the point that the angle it made from the vertical (the "angle of the dangle", as it was often known) was larger than that of the Mull of Kintyre, Argyll and Bute, on maps of Scotland.

The BBFC has denied the test was ever applied. Sometimes a Scottish peninsula is just a Scottish peninsula.

Decline In Printed Newspaper Leads To Puppy Poop Problems

SAN FRANCISCO (CBS/AP) — San Francisco’s animal control agency is relying on donated newspapers to solve pooping puppies problem.

It seems digital newspaper subscriptions and smartphones have cut the once abundant supplies of old newspapers.

Animal Care & Control has been relying on public contributions and San Francisco Chronicle (http://bit.ly/XLirUN) donations to line the cages of shelter puppies needing potty training.

Now, the San Francisco Public Library is donating old newspapers to make sure the shelter has a consistent paper stream.

Animal control will pick up the newspapers twice a month.

Agency supervisor Eric Zuercher says the arrangement with the library has solved a big problem, noting puppies are poop machines.

Arizona bill: felony charges for federal gun grabbers

Within days of opening its 51st Legislature, Arizona state lawmakers have begun considering HB 2291--a bill which declares any federal attempt to "ban or restrict ownership of a semi-automatic firearm... unenforceable" in the state.

Moreover, the bill also lists as "unenforceable" any federal ban on magazines for such weapons and categorizes any requirement for firearm registration as a non-starter as well.

As Wyoming, Texas, and Oklahoma have done, AZ H.B. 2291 threatens felony charges for federal gun grabbers who seek to enforce these measures.

The legislation focuses specifically on guns which are made and sold within the state of Arizona, therefore never falling under the purview of rules and regulations regarding interstate commerce. This means the Arizona statute would cover weapons made by Ruger Firearms (Prescott, AZ) and Spirit Arms (Scottsdale, AZ), among many others.

Video: Sea Foam Surprise in Australia

Related video below, and more information here.

Monday links

Dog Power and Dog Engines, with some sidelights on goat engines.  Sort of related: How did wolves evolve into dogs?

The Ten Strangest Firetrucks Ever Built.

10 Most Quotable Movies for Geeks (That Aren't Star Wars Films).

The Military’s Most Science-Fictional Projects.

Everything you've ever wanted to know about toe wrestling.

How did wolves evolve into dogs?

Long ago, some brazen wolves started hanging around human settlements, jump-starting events that ultimately led to today's domesticated dogs. Now geneticists say they have identified one of the key changes that turned wolves into the tame, tail-wagging creatures well-suited to living by our sides — the ability to digest carbohydrates with ease.

Comparing dog and wolf DNA, the authors pinpointed several changes in starch and sugar-processing genes that would have made early dogs better able to digest the scraps they scavenged from dumps in early farming villages, helping them to thrive as they gave up the independent life of the pack to entwine their lives with ours.

This means that at some point in dogs' evolutionary history, packs of wild canids struck up a mutually beneficial relationship with early humans, and learned to subsist on people food — stuff like wheat, barley, corn, rice, and potatoes. In exchange, man earned himself a loyal friend and fierce protector. 

More here.

Today is the feast day of St. Thomas Aquinas - some quotes and history

Ergo necesse est devenire ad aliquod primum movems, quod a nullo movetur; et hoc omnes intelligunt Deum.
- St. Thomas Aquinas (Summa Theologica, Pt. 1, qu. 2, art. 3)

(Therefore, it is necessary to arrive at a prime mover, put in motion by no other; and this everyone understands to be God.)

Si enim omnia mala impedirentur, multa bona deessent universo: non enim esset vita lionis, si non esset occisio animalium; nec esset patientia martyrum, si non esset persecutio tyrannorum.
- Id., qu. 22, art. 2

(If all evil were prevented, much good would be absent from the universe. A lion would cease to live if there were no slaying of animals, and there would be no patience of martyrs if there were no tyrannical persecution.)

Attributed to Aquinas, but unsourced:

Abuse does not rule out use.

Beware the man of one book.

Music is the exaltation of the mind derived from things eternal, bursting forth in sound.

The teachings of Thomas on the true meaning of liberty, which at this time is running into license, on the Divine origin of all authority, on laws and their force, on the paternal and just rule of princes, on obedience to the highest powers, on mutual charity one towards another - on all these and kindred subjects - have very great and invincible force to overturn those principles of the new order which are well known to be dangerous to the peaceful order of things and to public safety.
- Pope Leo XIII (reigned 1878-1903) (encyclical Aeterni Patris, 1879)

Today is the Roman Catholic feast day of St. Thomas Aquinas (ca. 1225-1274), the "Angelic Doctor" who became the greatest of the Church's medieval theologians and by the edict of Pope Leo XIII, Catholicism's "official" philosopher. Born in the family castle near Aquino, Italy - hence his name, originally Thomas of Aquino - Aquinas studied at Monte Cassino and Naples, entered the Dominican order, and became a pupil of the philosopher/saint Albertus Magnus. In his major work, the Summa Theologica (1267-1273), one of the bedrock texts of medieval scholasticism, he sought to reconcile Christian theology with the rationalism and natural philosophy of Aristotle and thus to show that faith and reason constitute two harmonious realms. In the world of Aquinas, everything is arranged in ascending order to God, the only necessary and self-sufficient being. Following a mystical experience in December 1273,
he noted,

"Everything I have written seems like straw by comparison with what I have seen and what has been revealed to me..."

and thereafter, he ceased teaching and writing. Fittingly, Thomas Aquinas is the patron saint of academics, booksellers, students, and theologians.)

A typical "holy card" illustration of St. Thomas Aquinas:

As Promised, Obama Energy Policy Bankrupts Coal Plant

Via Washington Examiner:

“The (Las Brisas Energy Center) is a victim of EPA’s concerted effort to stifle solid-fuel energy facilities in the U.S., including EPA’s carbon-permitting requirements and EPA’s New Source Performance Standards for new power plants.”

The Las Brisas power plant had been part of a larger Las Brisas Energy Center project planned for Corpus Christi’s Inner Harbor.Economists had projected that in the first 5 years of construction and operation the project would create as 1,300 direct and 2,600 indirect jobs. Now none of those jobs will exist.

Churchill on women in combat

Excerpt from a Strand magazine article in 1938:

We take the immunity of women from violence so much for granted that we do not perceive what inroads are being made upon it. These inroads come from opposite quarters. The first is the feminist movement, which claims equal rights for women, and in its course prides itself in stripping them of their privileges. Secondly, the mud-rush of barbarism which is breaking out in so many parts of the world owns no principle but that of lethal force. Thus we see both progressive and reactionary forces luring women nearer to danger, and exposing them to the retaliation of the enemy. . .

The part which our women played in winning the War was enshrined in the grant of them to vote which for so many years they had vainly sought to wrest from successive Governments by methods too often suggesting that they had not the civic sense to use the privilege rightly. It was the War which solved that problem, as it solved so many others in our internal affairs. . .

On the other hand, even in the last war there were many things that women could do apart from killing which added to the fighting power of the army. There were innumerable duties of all kinds behind the front which brought them ever nearer to the line and into danger. We must expect that this will continue to develop in a war for the future.

California lawmaker threatening Microsoft over … loss of Sacramento Kings?

Comments and links at HotAir:

As it turns out, Mickelson’s not the only sports entity looking at a Golden Gate exit. Forbes noted that one big beneficiary of Brown’s tax hike on high-end earners could be Seattle, which has been without a basketball team since 2008. Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer heads up a group bidding to purchase the Kings, who play in California’s capital Sacramento, and taxes are certainly part of that puzzle

How has California reacted to this example of free-market economics? Have they decided to lower taxes and broaden the tax base to make the business environment more inviting? Perhaps reduced the red tape that turns every expansion into a years-long project, which only takes weeks in other states? Not exactly. No, they’ve decided to go the “nice business ya have there — wouldn’t want anything to happen to it” route.

Muslims complain about Lego Jabba the Hut palace, which they say looks like a mosque

CSMonitor: The problem, apparently, is that the Jabba the Hut Lego palace looks like a mosque. And not just any mosque, but Istanbul’s great Hagia Sophia, and another mosque in Beirut, Jami al-Kabir.

I've been to the Hagia Sophia, and I don't see it, unless you think everything with a dome counts.  Not sure about the other one.

Hagia Sophia

I can't find any images of the Jami al-Kabir that look at all like the Lego set - here it is:

Judge rules EPA can’t mandate use of nonexistent biofuels

Daily Caller: A federal court delivered a serious blow to the Environmental Protection Agency’s renewable fuel agenda, ruling that the agency exceeded its authority by mandating refiners use cellulosic biofuels, which aren't commercially available.

The court sided with the country’s chief oil and gas lobby, the American Petroleum Institute, in striking down the 2012 EPA mandate that would have forced refineries to purchase more than $8 million in credits for 8.65 million of gallons of the cellulosic biofuel. 

Scam Complete: Obama Admin Takes A Page From Diocletian’s Book

Via ZeroHedge, from Simon Black of Sovereign Man blog  Early in the 4th century, Emperor Diocletian issued an infamous decree to control spiraling wages and prices in the rapidly deteriorating Roman Empire.

As part of his edict, Diocletian commanded that any merchant or customer caught violating the new price structures would be put to death.

This is an important lesson from history, and a trend that has been repeated numerous times. When nations are in terminal economic decline, governments will stop at nothing to keep the party going just a little bit longer.

I thought of Diocletian’s desperation a few days ago when I read about therecent sanctions imposed on US rating agency Egan-Jones. It’s a similar story–

For years, major rating agencies (S&P, Moody’s, and Fitch) have championed the outright fraud of our financial system by pinning pristine credit ratings on insolvent governments and their heavily inflated currencies.

In doing so, the rating agencies are effectively claiming that the greatest debtor that has ever existed in the history of the world is nearly ‘risk-free’.

Clearly this is a ridiculous assertion. With a debt level over 100% of GDP, the US is so broke that the government must borrow money just to pay interest on the money it’s already borrowed. They’ve lost over a trillion dollars a year since 2008, yet they still spend money on things like drones and body scanners. It’s crazy.

As with any good scam, the government must maintain public confidence. The moment someone says ‘the Emperor has no clothes,’ that shallow, fragile confidence will come crashing down and expose the scam. Dissent must be vigorously and swiftly pursued.

So when S&P finally downgraded the US one notch in August 2011, the SEC and Justice Department announced that S&P was under investigation, just two weeks later.

Egan-Jones, a smaller rating agency, has been even more aggressive, downgrading the US credit rating three times in 18 months. And while the federal government may not have imposed Diocletian’s death penalty, they are just as willing to squash dissent.

In a country that churns out thousands of pages of new regulations each week, it’s easy to find a reason to go after someone. As you read this letter, in fact, you are probably in violation of at least a dozen regulatory offenses.

In the case of Egan-Jones, the SEC brought administrative action against the agency within two weeks of their second downgrade. And a few days ago, the case was settled.

I’m sure you have already guessed the ending: Egan-Jones is banned from for the next 18 months from rating US government debt. They’ve effectively been silenced from telling the truth.

The lesson here is obvious. Just as in Roman times, bankrupt nations today will stop at nothing to keep up the scam just a little bit longer.

Excellent: Cthulhu in Love Perfume

BTW, does anyone read Lovecraft anymore?

"an amorphous mix of oppressive, piceous ritual incense, macerated kelp, sea salt, sticky dark ocean plants, and . . . mixed chocolates."

Let the smokers and obese die: when everyone else pays, withholding care based on behavior is inevitable

Faced with the high cost of caring for smokers and overeaters, experts say society must grapple with a blunt question: Instead of trying to penalize them and change their ways, why not just let these health sinners die?

Annual health care costs are roughly $96 billion for smokers and $147 billion for the obese, the government says. These costs accompany sometimes heroic attempts to prolong lives, including surgery, chemotherapy and other measures.

But despite these rescue attempts, smokers tend to die 10 years earlier on average, and the obese die five to 12 years prematurely, according to various researchers' estimates.

And attempts to curb smoking and unhealthy eating frequently lead to backlash: Witness the current legal tussle over New York City's first-of-its-kind limits on the size of sugary beverages and the vicious fight last year in California over a ballot proposal to add a $1-per-pack cigarette tax, which was ultimately defeated.

Iowa's Sen. Harkin Won't Seek Re-Election

WSJ: The 73-year-old Iowa Democrat told the Associated Press in an interview, "It's just time to step aside," because by the time he would finish a sixth term, he would be 81. Mr. Harkin said his decision also would allow a new generation of Democrats to seek higher office.

The announcement comes as a surprise, considering that the senator has $2.7 million in his campaign war chest, and was planning a fundraiser next month. Mr. Harkin played a lead role in urging the Senate's more liberal members to back the 2010 health-care bill.

15 Of The Funniest Texts From Dad

More here.

2013 Puppy Bowl Teams To Be Coached By Two Dogs From Same Litter

For the first time in its nine-year history, Animal Planet’s annual Puppy Bowl will feature a coaching matchup between puppies from the same litter, with two 14-week-old Bernese Mountain Dog brothers calling the plays for Puppy Bowl IX, sources confirmed Thursday.

Higher Ed Gamechanger? College Degree, No Class Time Required

University of Wisconsin to Offer a Bachelor's to Students Who Take Online Competency Tests About What They Know. 

Colleges and universities are rushing to offer free online classes known as "massive open online courses," or MOOCs. But so far, no one has figured out a way to stitch these classes together into a bachelor's degree.

Now, educators in Wisconsin are offering a possible solution by decoupling the learning part of education from student assessment and degree-granting.

via Geekpress.

'Stoner Mice' Eat Marijuana Evidence At Kansas Police Storage Facility

The three bags of marijuana at the police storage facility in Wichita had been torn open. Some was missing. At first blush, it seemed a clear case of evidence tampering.

More here: Dude, Where's My Cheese?

I don't know why libs keep forgetting that he just reads from the teleprompter: O's speechwriter proud of inaugural speech

Jon Favreau, director of speechwriting for the White House, acknowledged grappling with all these challenges. The speech, which Favreau said would probably be one of the last he will write in his current post, was praised as crisp, bold and assertive.

Feinstein Gun Control Bill to Exempt Government Officials

Weekly Standard has more detail. Via Instapundit, who asks whether this a Titles Of Nobility Clause violation.

Cat people, this one's for you: New Zealand want to ban cats

Because your cat “is actually a friendly neighborhood serial killer.”

An economist in New Zealand named Gareth Morgan has made the logical and quite correct case that his island nation should eliminate its cats in order to protect its endangered birds. He means “elimination” in the most humane way possible: Existing pets should be spayed and neutered and allowed to live out their lives, but no new cats should be allowed to be born or imported. He is not advocating that people poison feral cats, as a former researcher at the Smithsonian National Zoo was convicted of doing a few years ago. Nor does he say people should shoot them, as particularly avid birdwatchers have done. That would be really wrong.

via Instapundit.

Women look their worst at 3:30 on Wednesday afternoons

Well, it is hump day.  Perhaps they've been humping.

That Constitution thing keeps getting in his way: Obama's recess appointments to NLRB are unconstitutional, court says

Well, duh. We all knew that already, but having a court say it helps.

WASHINGTON -- In an embarrassing setback for President Barack Obama, a federal appeals court panel ruled that he violated the Constitution in making recess appointments last year, a decision that would effectively curtail a president's ability to bypass the Senate to fill administration vacancies.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit said that Obama did not have the power to make three recess appointments last year to the National Labor Relations Board because the Senate was officially in session -- and not in recess -- at the time. If the decision stands, it could invalidate hundreds of board decisions.

The court said the president could only fill vacancies with the recess appointment procedure if the openings arise when the Senate is in an official recess, which it defined as the break between sessions of Congress.

The ruling also threw into question Obama's recess appointment of Richard Cordray to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Cordray's appointment, also made at the same time, has been challenged in a separate case.

The White House had no immediate comment, but is expected to appeal the decision. The same issue is currently before several other federal appeals courts.

It appears Cyprus is going to default

So even if Europe has made its first big decision — to force Cyprus to default — it still faces many more. Should it amend the ESM treaty to make any restructuring easier? Should it impose a haircut on Cyprus’s uninsured depositors? And how can it structure the process to minimize the chances of a messy bank run, default, and possibly even exit from the euro? It’s easy to dismiss Cyprus as too small to worry about. But it’s still an important sovereign state. And if the EU missteps on Cyprus, that would bode very ill for any similar problems in bigger eurozone countries in the future.

Man Who Shot At Pit Bulls To Save Boy May Now Face Gun DC Charge

So, here's the set-up: An 11-year-old boy was riding a bike through his Washington, D.C. neighborhood when he encountered a trio of unleashed pit bulls. The pit bulls viciously attacked the boy, with the young man’s uncle later recalling that all three of the dogs were biting the boy’s limbs. A neighbor who witnessed the attack went home, retrieved a pistol, and fired at the dogs, striking one. The sound of gunfire alerted a police officer to the attack, and once on the scene the officer dispatched the other two dogs. Following the attack, the boy was taken to a local hospital and underwent surgery.

Due to the capitol’s extremely strict gun laws, the good deed may not go unpunished. Since the gun owner neighbor may have fired the weapon outside of his property line, he might have committed a crime.

A police spokesman would not say whether the gun was legally registered. Even if it was, using it on a D.C. street is illegal. But David Benowitz, a defense lawyer who handles D.C. gun cases, said prosecuting such a case could be problematic because the attack appeared to have occurred near the shooter’s property line.

In VA, Action Taken on Several Firearm-Related Bills in Senate and House Committees

Via the NRA.

Friday links

12 Historic Scientific Hoaxes.

Early Explosives, including cat and bird bombs, from a 16th century illustrated manuscript.

If Cooties Were Real, What Disease Would They Be?

22 Fictional Characters Whose Names You Don't Know.

'80s Tech Inventions That Never Really Took Off.

Artist Creates Castles from Icicles.

What would it cost to build a literal house of pancakes?

More detail here.

You'll Spend 43 Days On Hold In Your Lifetime

Your call is important to us....

Bad Lip Reading: Obama’s Inauguration

via

Jonah Goldberg on Hillary's Benghazi testimony, and why the lies matter

Read the whole thing here.

The lying, while outrageous, is incidental to the real offense, which is twofold. First, why did the administration lie? Well, it wanted to conceal its utter failure to prepare for terrorist attacks on Sept. 11 -- which is like being surprised by Christmas falling on Dec. 25. Also, the Obama administration, by which I mean the Obama campaign, was desperate to protect its hyped record of fighting terrorism. A "spontaneous" attack invited not by the administration's shortcomings but by some nutty video was just the ticket.

Indeed, on this score, Clinton was true to her word. While none of the murderers have been apprehended, the filmmaker is in jail, the picture of his arrest splashed across the globe.

Which brings us to the second part: the nature of the lie. Remember, not all lies are equally harmful. In this case, the U.S. government responded to the murder of four Americans by treating our constitutional rights as part of the problem. A former teacher of constitutional law, Obama was happy to watch the country argue new limits on free expression and the necessity of giving bloodthirsty savages and terrorists a heckler's veto on what Americans can do or say.

Clinton was in on that lie, and that makes all the difference in the world.

Dont Mess with Glock Girls: Gun safety video

Man who lost nose to cancer will grow a new one on his arm

Scientists are using the unnamed man’s bone marrow cells to grow a new nose on two nose-shaped scaffolds in the lab. Professor Alex Seifalian from University College London told Focus Magazine that an extra nose is being made “just in case someone drops one.”

Once the noses are fully grown, one of them will be implanted in the skin on the man’s arm, which will give the nose some skin.

The nose will remain on the man’s arm for about four to six weeks before it will be transferred to the patient’s face, at which point doctors will have to open the nostrils and bring in epithelial cells, which develop into mucus membranes.

A mold of the patient’s original nose was used in creating the new one.

Costly state energy policies to raise California power costs by 33 percent

Due to federal and state level policies that provide incentives for producers of renewable power and mandates that require 33 percent of its power come from renewable sources, like wind, solar and geothermal by 2020.

New science on the corrosive, traumatizing effects of high school

Our self-image from those years is especially adhesive. So, too, are our preferences. “There’s no reason why, at the age of 60, I should still be listening to the Allman Brothers,” Steinberg says. “Yet no matter how old you are, the music you listen to for the rest of your life is probably what you listened to when you were an adolescent.” Only extremely recent advances in neuroscience have begun to help explain why.

Early Explosives, including cat and bird bombs, from a 16th century illustrated manuscript

More available at BibliOdyssey:

Beyond the novel inclusion of our rocket bird and turbo cat - up top - this 1584 treatise on explosive devices appears to illustrate weaponry seen in earlier manuscripts and offers no new technologies for the Renaissance commando types.

The sketches show various types of barrel bombs, hand grenades, nasty fragmentation/shrapnel explosives, cannons, throwing stars caltrops (anti-personnel ground spikes), unsophisticated spear and staff-mounted 'rockets' or bombs, catherine or pin wheel fireworks and your-guess-is-as-good-as-mine fire vessels and defensive emplacement stakes. Good to know that our modern evil ways build on the twisted imaginations of artistic forebears.

Snoop To Educate Kids About Pot

8 and 9 year olds?

Pension Tidal Wave Looms over Defense Budget

Walter Russell Mead links to and discusses a Financial Times article on unfunded pension liabilities; over the past few decades, military pension costs have inflated rapidly with no signs of slowing down: The liability currently stands at $1.2 trillion and is expected to rise to nearly $3 trillion over the next quarter-century.

And has this to say:

We need a national consensus that every change to a pension program needs to be actuarially sound, and all money promised to pensioners needs to be set aside on a continuing basis, based on reasonable assumptions about investment returns. This needs to be true at every level and in every branch of government.

Video: the I Want To Eat Your Face song from Naked Space

Anyone remember this?  If you want to go directly to the musical part (and skip the part where they discuss hooking up the alien so they know what he's trying to communicate), it starts at ~1:30.

ZeroHedge: The High Price Of Understated Inflation

Read the whole thing!

Economic data has been subjected to incremental distortion; in the United States, data transparency has enabled analysts to reverse out the methodological changes of the last three decades. The scale of the distortions which have been identified is truly shocking.

Taken in aggregate, the extent to which the loss of dollar purchasing power has been understated is almost certainly enormous. Between 1985 and 2011, official data shows that the dollar lost 53% of its value, but the decrease in purchasing power might stand at more like 75% on the basis of underlying data.

Thursday links

50 Collective Nouns to Bolster Your Vocabulary.

German soldiers are growing breasts.

Scientific evidence that you probably don’t have free will.

I Could Pee on This and Other Poems From Cats.

The History of French Fries.

Interactive map that shows every German bomb dropped on London during the Blitz.

German soldiers are growing breasts

It sounds like a joke from 'Allo, 'Allo: soldiers from a German elite fighting force are growing breasts.

According to a medical report, soldiers in the Wachbataillon unit have been slapping their rifles a bit too hard on the left side of their chests during drills.

The repeated slapping has stimulated the soldiers' glands, giving them breasts.

The condition is called one-sided gynecomastia and has affected three quarters of the battalion.

Professor Bjorn Krapohl, director of plastic surgery at the German Armed Forces Hospital of Berlin, told the German Herald: "There is a very significant link between the activity in the Guard Battalion and the development of the breast on the left side.

"They need to change the way they drill. The constant slamming of the rifles against the left hand side of the chest is clearly a significant factor."

via

Musical Coffin Serenades The Deceased

The deceased can listen to their favorite tunes well into the afterlife, and so can those who are mourning thanks to the CataTomb tombstone that has an upgradeable music server that runs on a 2.5GHz Intel processor and a 4G wireless connection (allowing the living to manage playlists online from afar).  So I guess if you really dislike someone you can force them to "listen" to rap in the afterlife.

via Thatslikewhoa

From Michael Yon, the Army's memo on fiscal cuts

US Military Preparing to take Gut Shot

Life Magazine photo archive - inaugurations 1933 - 1969

Eisenhower and Nixon, 1957

Dwight Eisenhower shakes hands with poet Robert Frost after Frost recited one of his poems from memory at the inauguration of President John F. Kennedy in 1961. (The glare of January sunlight on his papers made it impossible for Frost to read a new poem he had written expressly for the event.)

See the whole set here.

Wrong on Women Warriors

Any claim that our fighting forces are not reaching their maximum potential because females are not included is absurd. The number of women who are the equal to reasonably well-developed men in upper-body strength and who have the same stamina and endurance is vanishingly small. Because the number of women who will meet the military’s already debased physical-fitness standard will not satisfy the feminists’ demand for representation, the fitness standard will inevitably be lowered across the board or for women alone, as we have seen in civilian uniformed forces.

I am not aware of any comparable crusade to create gender-integrated football teams. At least America knows what’s really important.

Spengler: Denial still is a river in Egypt

Egypt is running out of everything, except well-wishers from the Western foreign policy establishment, for which the Arab Spring has been a humiliating proposition.

The deterioration of the Arab Spring into societal breakdown constitutes a reproach to the Western foreign policy establishment, which could not envision this outcome before, and refuses to consider its consequences now.

How one conducts a "constructive discussion" with someone who believes that Jews are the descendants of apes and pigs is a matter we will leave to Senator McCain's memoirs, if ever they appear. President Morsi's paranoid ravings are sadly typical of Egypt's pre-modern backwardness - its 45% rate of illiteracy, its 90% rate of female genital mutilation, its 33% rate of consanguineal marriage - that make it a money sink unable to adapt to the shifts in the global market during the past several years.

A Wealth of Words: The key to increasing upward mobility is expanding vocabulary.

Long article but worth the time, especially if you're a parent (or grandparent).

So there’s a positive correlation between a student’s vocabulary size in grade 12, the likelihood that she will graduate from college, and her future level of income. The reason is clear: vocabulary size is a convenient proxy for a whole range of educational attainments and abilities—not just skill in reading, writing, listening, and speaking but also general knowledge of science, history, and the arts.

Egypt's President Says Jewish-Controlled Media Distorted His "Jews are Bloodsuckers" Statement

Foreign Policy has more.

Obama sent them four jets anyway.

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) led a delegation last week to Egypt, Jordan, Israel, and Afghanistan that included Sens.Chris Coons (D-DE), Kelly Ayotte (R-NH), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), and Kirsten Gilibrand (D-NY). Their stop in Cairo included a 90-minute meeting with Morsy that devolved into an uncomfortable set of exchanges as the senators pressed the Egyptian president to explain his 2010 comments describing Jews as "bloodsuckers who attack Palestinians" as well as "the descendants of apes and pigs."

After the meeting, McCain issued a statement saying that the senators "voiced our strong disapproval of the statement" and that the senators and Morsy "had a constructive discussion on this subject." Morsy's spokesman issued a statement after the meeting saying that Morsy believed in religious freedom and "the need to distinguish between the Jewish religion, and those who belong to it, and violent actions against defenseless Palestinians."

But inside the meeting, the discussion over Morsy's 2010 remarks was much more heated than either side publicly acknowledged afterwards, according to Coons. Addressing the comments was the first item on the senators' agenda, and the discussion did not go well, he told The Cable in an interview.

"We tried to give President Morsy an opportunity, now that he is the president, to put his comments in a different context because he was claiming that he was taken out of context. On their face they seemed to be very offensive and inappropriate," Coons said. "It was a difficult conversation."

Morsy told the senators that the values of Islam teach respect for Christianity and Judaism, and he asserted repeatedly that he had no negative views about Judaism or the Jewish people, but then followed with a diatribe about Israel and Zionist actions against Palestinians, especially in Gaza.

Then Morsy crossed a line and made a comment that made the senators physically recoil in their chairs in shock, Coons said.

"He was attempting to explain himself ... then he said, ‘Well, I think we all know that the media in the United States has made a big deal of this and we know the media of the United States is controlled by certain forces and they don't view me favorably,'" Coons said.

Best newspaper front page today: no wonder Bill's afraid

Jonah Goldberg: Good sense and gun control

It's ridiculous to hold the freedom, health and happiness of the many hostage to the potentially bad actions of the few.

van Gogh's self portrait transformed into a photograph

We Can Now Make Snow From Poop. But Should We?

A parched ski resort desperately needs water for its fake snow. Its solution? Sewage.

Sometimes a bad application of a good idea can make the idea itself seem worse. Examples abound: communism, social Darwinism, the last two seasons of The Office. And then there's Arizona Snowbowl, a ski resort outside Flagstaff that's poised to become the first to make all of its artificial snow from reclaimed sewage water. In wetter regions, resorts often get that water from nearby lakes or rivers, "but we simply don't have those resources," says resort general manager JR Murray.

Fascinating story: Everything Was Fake but Her Wealth

Ida Wood had been living as a recluse in a New York hotel for 24 years when her sister died in 1931 and everything changed. One of her lawyers, who was unfamiliar with Ms. Wood, worked to figure out who this 93-year-old woman really was. For one thing, he discovered that despite her miserly lifestyle, she was quite wealthy.

A representative from Union Pacific revealed that the sisters owned about $175,000 worth of stock and had not cashed their dividends for a dozen years. Examining the sale of the New York Daily News, O’Brien learned that Ida had sold the paper in 1901 to the publisher of the New York Sun for more than $250,000. An old acquaintance reported that she sold all of the valuable possessions she’d acquired over the years—furniture, sculptures, tapestries, oil paintings. An officer at the Guaranty Trust Company remembered Ida coming to the bank in 1907, at the height of the financial panic, demanding the balance of her account in cash and stuffing all of it, nearly $1 million, into a netted bag. Declaring she was “tired of everything,” she checked into the Herald Square Hotel and disappeared, effectively removing herself from her own life.

And then the story gets stranger.

While Checking For Terrorists on Disney Cruise, Police Arrest Woman For Stealing Pack of Cigarettes in 1991

While checking the passenger list of a Disney Cruise for terrorists, authorities at Port Canaveral found someone who was apparently almost as dangerous: a woman who stole a pack of cigarettes in 1991 and never got around to paying the measly $85 in court fees.

Authorities had checked the ship's manifest for terrorists, but after running Hall's name found out that she had an outstanding warrant.

Hall now lives in Connecticut, has a degree in architecture, and works for a jet design firm where she helps design jet engines. But back in 1991 she was nothing but a common Florida cigarette thief. As an 18-year-old, she shoplifted a pack of smokes from a Walmart in Orange County.

She had failed to pay $85 in court costs at the time.

Hall was arrested on Thursday and has still not been able to post bail. Brevard County officials must first transfer her back to Orange County, and her arrest just before a three-day weekend has complicated the matter. In fact, Hall may end up spending a whole week in jail before she can put the matter behind her and return home.

Rand Paul to Hillary: With Your Leaving YOU Accept Culpability for Benghazi!

via Gateway Pundit:

So we have a review board. The board has 64 things we can change. A lot of these are common sense and should have been done. But the question is, it’s a failure of leadership that they weren’t done in advance and four lives were lost because of this. I’m glad that you’re accepting responsibility. I think ultimately with your leaving you accept the culpability of the worst tragedy since 9/11″ And, I really mean that. Had I been president at the time and I found that you did not read the cables from Benghazi, you did not read the cables from Ambassador Stevens, I would have relieved you of your post.

Clinton on whether government botched Benghazi explanation: ‘What difference does it make!?’

Video here, comments here.

And this:  ‘Tear-syncing’: Hillary ‘chokes up’ recalling the day she blamed free speech for Benghazi murders

The lengthiest oath required of witnesses in a legal trial is 374 words

In the judicial courts of Burma, until at least the middle of the 19th century.  Read the whole thing.

An English translation appears in Kenneth RH Mackenzie's 1853 book Burmah and the Burmese, published in London. Mackenzie writes: "The oath is written in a small book of palm leaves, and is held over the head of the witness."

Called The Book of Imprecations or The Book of the Oath, the slim volume also expresses the court's sentiments about any witnesses who would fudge facts. The court is fairly thorough in its wishes, touching on the most likely eventualities.

"May false witnesses die of bad diseases, be bitten by crocodiles, be drowned. May they become poor, hated of the king. May they have calumniating enemies, may they be driven away, may they become utterly wretched, may every one ill-treat them, and raise lawsuits against them. May they be killed with swords, lances, and every sort of weapon. May they be precipitated into the eight great hells and the 120 smaller ones. May they be tormented. May they be changed into dogs. And, if finally they become men, may they be slaves a thousand and ten thousand times. May all their undertakings, thoughts and desires ever remain as worthless as a heap of cotton burnt by the fire."

And so on.

The oath itself is all business. The deponent must say: "If I speak not the truth ... when I and my relations are on land, land animals, as tigers, elephants, buffaloes, poisonous serpents, scorpions, &c, shall seize, crush, and bite us, so that we shall certainly die. Let the calamities occasioned by fire, water, rulers, thieves, and enemies oppress and destroy us, till we perish and come to utter destruction. Let us be subject to all the calamities that are within the body, and all that are without the body. May we be seized with madness, dumbness, blindness, deafness, leprosy and hydrophobia. May we be struck with thunderbolts and lightning, and come to sudden death. In the midst of not speaking truth, may I be taken with vomiting clotted black blood, and suddenly die before the assembled people.

"When I am going by water, may the water nats [spirits] assault me, the boat be upset, and the property lost; and may alligators, porpoises, sharks, or other sea monsters, seize and crush me to death; and when I change worlds, may I not arrive among men or nats, but suffer unmixed punishment and regret, in the utmost wretchedness, among the four states of punishment, Hell, Prita, Beasts and Athurakai."

After that and a lot more, the oath concludes with a few thoughts of hope and cheer.

If I speak the truth, may I and my relations, through the influence of the ten laws of merit, and on account of the efficacy of truth, be freed from all calamities within and without the body; and may evils which have not yet come, be warded far away. May the ten calamities and five enemies also be kept faraway. May the thunderbolts and lightning, the Nat of the waters, and all sea animals, love me, that I may be safe from them. May my prosperity increase like the rising sun and the waxing moon; and may the seven possessions, the seven laws, and the seven [merits of the virtuous, be permanent in my person; and when I change worlds, may I not go to the four states of punishment, but attain the happiness of men and Nats, and realize merit, reward, and perfect calm.

Then the witness, if he is still alive and not seized with madness, dumbness, blindness, deafness, leprosy or hydrophobia, testifies.

The whole thing is here.

via Marc Abrahams in The Guardian.

Middle-Earth PSAs

More here.

Why Doctors Should Not Ask Their Patients About Guns

Dr. Paul Hsieh writing at Forbes on why physicians should not routinely ask patients whether they own guns, because it could compromise the integrity of the doctor-patient relationship. - read the whole thing.

Tiger Woods: I left California over tax rates too

During a press conference Tuesday, golf legend Tiger Woods said he moved to Florida in 1996 because of California’s high tax rates. The comments came after fellow golfer Phil Mickelson hinted Sunday that he might leave the Golden State — or perhaps even move out of the U.S. completely — because of income tax increases.

Previous post: Phil Mickelson, taxes, and the Laffer curve

(RELATED: Pro golfer Phil Mickelson may leave US in response to state, federal income tax hikes)

(RELATED: Millions flee California because of progressive tax system)

‘Erotic’ Novel Featuring Barack and Michelle Obama on Sale Now

Surely American literature has reached new heights with the publication of GuestHouse Games, in which Barack and Michelle Obama, “alone in their isolated beachfront guesthouse in the tropical paradise of Kailua, Hawaii,” are “drawn into the ancient Hawaiian spiritual world and into the exploration of their own deepest and most forbidden desires.”

Camel Wrestling Championship

The males naturally fight for their females during mating season and their readiness to do battle is visible in the white froth coming from their mouths, the tension in their hind legs and their tails whipping at their backs.

There is no overall winner of the competition but rather, for every pair that wrestles, there is a camel that wins.

40 Years Later, 54,559,615 Abortions

Weekly Standard:

In a new document, 'Abortion Statistics: United States Data and Trends,' NRLC education director Dr. Randall K. O’Bannon estimates that there have been 54,559,615 abortions since 1973 based on data from both the Centers for Disease Control and the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute, a former Planned Parenthood research arm. Guttmacher receives numbers directly from abortion centers themselves and is the prime source for more current figures.

Phil Mickelson, taxes, and the Laffer curve

Following all the reports yesterday of Mickelson possibly going Galt:

At what point does raising top marginal tax rates lose more tax revenue than it takes in? Where is the peak of the Laffer curve?

Obama’s consumer finance agency just handed down 3,000 pages of new mortgage lending rules

Jimmy P at AEI on the unintended consequences:

In his inaugural address, President Obama made the case for a more active and intrusive government. As my pal Bob Stein of First Trust Advisors tweeted: “Obama’s 2nd Inaugural Address was, in its essence, a rebuttal to Reagan’s 1st, 32 years later.” (That was the address when President Reagan said “government is not the solution to our problem;government is the problem.”)

So it was a fascinating coincidence to see this research note this morning from GS Washington Research Group on new mortgage lending rules from the Obama administration:

The [Consumer Financial Protection Bureau] has released more than 3,000 pages of rules this month related to mortgage lending.

We believe this will create a compliance nightmare which will force banks to be more cautious when originating purchase mortgages. This further fuels our worry that purchase mortgage conditions will remain excessively tight in 2013, which is negative for mortgage lenders, home builders, mortgage insurers and others with exposure to the housing market.

More Details

The new mortgage rules just keep coming. In January alone, the CFPB has finalized:

·         an 804-page Qualified Mortgage rule,

·         a 753-page mortgage servicing rule,

·         a 311-page high-cost mortgage appraisal rule,

·         a 125-page appraisal disclosure rule,

·         a 431-page high-cost mortgage counseling rule,

·         a 116-page escrow rule, and

·         a 541-page rule against steering borrowers to higher cost loans.

It also issued a 185-page proposal to provide small banks a partial exemption from some QM provisions.

That is 3,081 pages on final rules – or 3,266 pages if you include the proposal – related to mortgage lending. Violations of these rules results in penalties varying from monetary damages, to the return of all interest and fees paid on the loan, to enforcement actions, to losing the ability to foreclose on a delinquent borrower.

We see this regulatory flood – which Congress required as part of Dodd-Frank – as impeding credit availability.

This is government in action. It’s messy, costly and it produces loads of unintended consequences — all the stuff of which Obama seems only dimly aware.

What Gay Guys Think About Vaginas

via Tastefully Offensive

Ultimate Drunk Fails Compilation

Former French President Sarkozy Prepares Move to London to Escape 75% Tax Rate

Nicolas Sarkozy is preparing to move to London to set up a billion pounds plus investment fund, it was claimed today.

If the move goes ahead, the controversial Frenchman will become the latest to escape a potential top tax rate of 75 per cent in his home country.

He and his former supermodel third wife Carla Bruni-Sarkozy would be likely to settle in an affluent district like South Kensington – so becoming the most high profile Gallic celebrity couple in the city.

But the former president is under investigation for corruption in France, and if he does cross the Channel there will be outrage.

Why is Spanish sperm declining in quality?

The journal Andrology has published a multidisciplinary and international study, headed by the Department of Preventative Medicine and Public Health of the University of Murcia (UMU), which demonstrates that "total sperm count and concentration has declined amongst young men in the south-east of Spain in the last decade." More specifically, the decrease amounts to 38%.

Telepathy and Temperance

In Illinois during April of 1908...

Mrs. Marvin Miller, of Jacksonville, Illinois, was a passionate Anti-Saloon League member, and a believer in telepathy. To Mrs. Miller’s credit belongs the idea of wedding temperance to telepathy. Mrs. Miller spoke of the idea to her friends, and urged it at several talks to Illinois daughters and mothers. She and her friends even gave a demonstration. According to the Ocala Evening Star of April 3, “[a]t Aurora last week the Rev. William Wasson, rector of the Episcopal church, was scheduled for an address in opposition to the local option. The women…sat in the audience and launched thought waves at him. They say he was so confused that this thoughts became muddled and his language halting.”

With a county by county election on the Prohibition question scheduled for April 7, 1908, the Temperance Thinkers mobilized some 500,000 women to dress all in white and to direct thought waves at voters. “Women arrayed in white will assemble at the polls,” described one paper, “and by concentrated mental effort endeavor to influence the men. The male-citizen will also be subjected to visual influence of an extraordinary character. In order to get to the voting booths he will be compelled to walk between lines of women and girls.” With only a small handful of urban counties dissenting, Illinois barred some 1,500 saloons. Twenty counties voted for an absolute ban on liquor.

The Arizona Republican, reporting on the results, sounded a note of alarm. “We can think of no more powerful influence than the concentrated effort of a half million feminine wills directed towards a certain object. There was nothing unlawful or improper in the exercise of such an influence, provided the thought currents are turned off when the polls closed and were not permitted to play after the counting of the ballots began. In that case, the mental suggestion of the ladies to the election boards would have amounted to hypnotism, which, though not expressly inhibited by the statutes would have been reprehensible.”

As an electoral tool and fad, telepathy seems to have faded after 1908. 

Read the whole thing here.  H/T @4gottenstories

First Term: Obama Increased Debt $50,521 Per Household

President Obama is currently demanding that Congress increase the legal limit on the federal debt without making him agree to corresponding cuts in federal spending.

Funny Aggressive Neighbors Notes

Some good ones below, more at Odd Stuff Magazine.

Smiley faces stamped on the side of hundreds of sheep across the UK

The odd image was first spotted on 20 animals grazing in a field in Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire.

There have since been sightings in a further five fields, from Perthshire in Scotland to Exeter, 500 miles away in Devon.

"It’s like crop circles - but on sheep."