Is your child a "prehomosexual"?

At Scientific American.

ObamaCare's Fatal Flaw?

At American Thinker, an argument that the potential elimination of a personal mandate (via lawsuit by Virginia and/or several other states) could render the whole of Obamacare unconstitutional because there was no severance clause included.

"If Virginia prevails, it leaves the question of what happens to the rest of the ObamaCare statute. This is where the concept of severance comes in. Normally, all comprehensive laws contain a boilerplate severance clause: it says that if any portion of the law is found to be unconstitutional, that portion is severed from the rest of the law -- that is, the rest of the law stands.

But ObamaCare contains no severance clause."

Today is the 689th anniversary of the death of Divine Comedy author Dante Alighieri

              PER ME SI VA LA NELLA CITTÀ DOLENTE

              PER ME SI VA NELL'  ETERNO DOLORE,

              PER ME SI VA TRA LA PERDUTA GENTE...  

              LASCIATE OGNI SPERANZA VOI CH'ENTRATE! 

                               - Id., Canto III, line 1 

                                 (inscription at the entrance to Hell) 

                (Through me is the way to the sorrowful city.

                Through me is the way to eternal suffering.

                Through me is the way to join the lost people.

                Abandon all hope, ye who enter here!) 

Today is the 689th anniversary of the death in Ravenna of the proto-Italian poet, Dante Alighieri (1265-1321), whose allegorical traversal of hell, purgatory, and heaven in the Divina Commedia (the "Divine Comedy") is one of the major works of Renaissance - nay, world - literature.  A Florentine patrician, Dante was deeply affected by an early unrequited love for a noblewoman, Beatrice Portinari, that colored his outlook and writing for the rest of his life.  He was also active in local politics and as a result of the ongoing conflict between the Guelph and Ghibelline parties was banished from Florence in 1302 and wrote the Divina Commedia in exile, eventually settling in Ravenna.  With his magnum opus, Dante almost single-handedly established Tuscan as the literary language of Italy, and he also wrote a collection of prose and lyrics that celebrated his love for Beatrice, as well as treatises on language and politics. 

(Copied from Ed's Quotation of the Day, not available online.  Email me if you want to be added to his email list.)

Pelosi has pocketed nearly twice as much lobbyist cash as Boehner

Facts getting in the way.

The NYT devoted about 1,700 words to how much money Boehner has taken from lobbyists.

But did you know:

• Nancy Pelosi has raised almost twice as much money from lobbyists this election as Boehner has?
• At least 18 House Democrats have raised more lobbyist cash this election than Boehner has.
• Chuck Schumer and Harry Reid have pocketed more lobbyist cash in the past 18 months than Boehner has raised in the past 6 elections, combined?

Tolstoy quotation (for his birthday)

I sit on a man's back, choking him and making him carry me, and yet assure myself and others that I am very sorry for him and wish to ease his lot by all possible means - except by getting off his back.
          

~ Tolstoy (What Then Must We Do?, Ch. 16)

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