Hedgehog deflated by vets in life-saving procedure

Veterinary surgeon Adam Revitt said: "The hedgehog was so swollen and very inflated. It couldn't curl up into a ball and couldn't move.”

At first the team couldn't understand how the spherical creature could be so large and yet remain a normal weight until an x-ray revealed a giant air pocket trapped under the animal’s skin.

Yesterday was England's shin-kicking competition

Here's the Wikipedia entry.  The 2013 contest was supposed to happen yesterday, but I can't find anything on the winner.

The Other IRS Scandal - it targeted pro-Israel charities

Read the whole thing at PowerLine:

It wasn’t just the Tea Party: it has been widely reported that the IRS also has harassed and discriminated against pro-Israel charities, in particular those that support settlements in Judea and Samaria. In the Free Beacon, Alana Goodman pursues the story:

A Washington Free Beacon investigation has identified at least five pro-Israel organizations that have been audited by the IRS in the wake of a coordinated campaign by White House-allied activist groups in 2009 and 2010.

These organizations, some of which are too afraid of government reprisals to speak publicly, say in interviews with the Free Beacon that they now believe the IRS actions may have been coordinated by the Obama administration.

The media scrutiny began as early as March 26, 2009, when the Washington Post’s David Ignatius published a column questioning the groups’ tax-exempt status.

Ignatius’s column is here. Ignatius displayed a remarkable obtuseness with regard to the First Amendment:

For many years, the United States has had a policy against spending aid money to fund Israeli settlements in the West Bank, which successive administrations have regarded as an obstacle to peace. Yet private organizations in the United States continue to raise tax-exempt contributions for the very activities that the government opposes.

But the tax laws do not depend, obviously, on whether a charitable organization supports or opposes the policies of the current U.S. administration. Groups like the Sierra Club and the ACLU have often promoted policies at odds with administration policies, but no one has suggested that they should therefore lose their tax-exempt status. And, of course, you can contribute to tax-exempt organizations like the Free Gaza Movement. But somehow the idea took hold that charities lending support to Israeli settlements are somehow different. This idea was promoted by pro-Palestinian groups, who encouraged IRS scrutiny of such organizations.

Using the powers at your disposal to dispose of those who challenge your power

Excellent post by Dr. Zero: 

Neil Cavuto zeroes in on the common theme linking Obama's scandals: "If you're not gonna love me, fear me."

Obama himself has put his philosophy in just those terms, telling Latino votersbefore the 2010 midterms to "punish our enemies and reward our friends." At the end of the 2012 election, he was telling his supporters to think of voting for him as an act of revenge against their enemies. And you can't help but notice his politics are deliberately divisive - he and his allies advance every single policy by conjuring an "enemy" group motivated by nothing but pure evil. 

It's not just rhetorical posturing. It's an attitude that has spread throughout his Administration, which is remarkably energetic in its abuse of power to injure and intimidate those "enemies." A just government is fearsome to criminals and foreign enemies; Obama's government keeps the law-abiding in a constant state of terror. One false move and you'll run afoul of a vengeful regulator agency. Any day now, the President could pop up with another round of demands to confiscate your income.

What Happens To Spelling Bee Kids?

Read the whole thing at NPR:

Former spellers tend to lead successful professional lives, says James Maguire, who tracked years of national spellers for his book, American Bee: The National Spelling Bee and the Culture of Word Nerds. "Whatever the menu of things they're going to do, that skill of single-minded focus is going to help them. Not only can they do that — they can do it under pressure."

Maguire says almost all the former spelling bee kids wind up winning "at life," though not necessarily with careers working with words. More than half a dozen former champs from the past two decades excelled in math and science and went on to become physicians.