Extremely strange: Gallery of Victorian post-mortem photography

Go to io9 and see the whole thing.

After the invention of daguerrotype, the memorializing habits of people have changed: they've chosen the cheap, higher quality photographs instead of expensive and not so lifelike paintings. Painting dead people was common for centuries, so it's no surprise that, in the Victorian Era, post-mortem photos also came into fashion. Here are some of the strangest ones.

Dog picture of the week

This wonderful photograph was submitted to National Geographic Magazine Photo Contest by Julie Pavletich, in 2008.

(image credit: Julie Pavletich, National Georgaphic)

via Dark Roasted Blend.

The White House pulls a switcheroo on retirement savings accounts

Be careful how much you save.

Mr. Obama proposes to "limit an individual's total balance across tax-preferred accounts to an amount sufficient to finance an annuity of not more than $205,000 per year in retirement, or about $3 million for someone retiring in 2013."*

The feds may think $3 million is all you need after a lifetime of work, but that's roughly the value of a California police sergeant's pension if she works for 30 years, retires at age 50 and lives to normal life expectancy.
Out in the private economy, people generally have to work longer than that before they retire, and some of them do manage to save significant amounts. We're talking about people who work for decades and abstain from buying the bigger house or the new car so they can contribute the maximum to their 401(k)s or IRAs. The people who defer gratification and build a nest egg to avoid becoming a burden on their kids or their fellow taxpayers. The people whose savings finance productive enterprise. You know, the bad guys.

*That seems to be assuming a risk-free 7% annually, unless you're spending down the principal, which you can't do because you don't know how long you'll live.  Where do you find a low risk 7% return indefinitely?

4th grade class assignment: 'I Am Willing to Give Up Some of My Constitutional Rights...to Be Safer'

Harvey’s son wrote the note in January. After a local attorney came to speak to his class at Cedar Hills Elementary, his teacher, Cheryl Sabb, asked her class to copy the sentence down.

“There’s no way he knew how to write that on his own free will. He likes to use some big words to flourish -- [but] if he was going to put together a sentence that political I’m sure it would be more jumbled than a nice sentence like that,” he told the news outlet.

Friday links

Andrew Lloyd Webber will adapt the movie School of Rock into a Broadway musical.

Researchers: women are better off without their bras.

Why Do We Get Emotional When We Drink?

Man tries to take photo of beaver; it kills him.  In related news, Hero beavers stop oil spill with their dam.

Gallery: Photos of Sport Balls Replaced With Cats.

The Cicadas are Coming (to the Northeast).