IN TODAY’S LEGAL NEWS: Alabama man fights to keep wife buried in front yard. “Davis said he was only abiding by Patsy Ruth Davis’ wishes when he buried her outside their log home in 2009, yet the city sued to move the body elsewhere. A county judge ordered Davis to disinter his wife, but the ruling is on hold as the Alabama Civil Court of Appeals considers his challenge. . . . While state health officials say family burial plots aren’t uncommon in Alabama, city officials worry about the precedent set by allowing a grave on a residential lot on one of the main streets through town. They say state law gives the city some control over where people bury their loved ones and have cited concerns about long-term care, appearance, property values and the complaints of some neighbors.”
Archive for 2012
August 20, 2012
RESVERATROL UPDATE: Red wine compound could help seniors walk away from mobility problems. “To determine its effects on balance and mobility, Cavanaugh, Erika N. Allen and colleagues fed young and old laboratory mice a diet containing resveratrol for eight weeks. They periodically tested the rodents’ ability to navigate a steel mesh balance beam, counting the number of times that each mouse took a misstep. Initially, the older mice had more difficulty maneuvering on the obstacle. But by week four, the older mice made far fewer missteps and were on par with the young mice.” Hope this pans out.
Meanwhile, balance responds to practice. A few years ago, I felt that I hadn’t kept up my balance enough and started doing things to improve it, like squats and shoulder presses while standing on a bosu (like a half-ball). I could almost literally (hey, maybe it really was literally) feel the neural networks firing up, and the improvement was rapid and dramatic. Now I do it every once in a while, just to stay tuned up. It makes an amazing difference. When you’re a kid, you do this stuff all the time (or at least did, in the pre-videogame era). Adults, on the other hand, tend to run their lives so as to avoid having to call on balance skills, which is probably good practice in general but leads to atrophy. And the older and more afraid of falling people become, I suspect, the more that is true. Use it or lose it, here as everywhere else.
FREE SPEECH AND BLOGGING: $60,000 Verdict for Blogging the Truth About A Person Intending to Get Him Fired — Reversed.
SHOCKER: The Dirty Little Secret of (Estate) Tax Reform. “The secret is not that special interests give boatloads of money to politicians. Of course they do. That may well be dirty, but it is hardly secret. The dirty little secret I come to lay bare is that Congress likes it this way. Congress wants there to be special interests, small groups with high stakes in what it does or does not do. These are necessary conditions for Congress to get what it needs: money, for itself and its campaigns.”
RACISM AND THREATS OF VIOLENCE AT THE WHITE HOUSE: Obama calls Marco Rubio “boy”: “Tell your boy to watch it. He might get his ass kicked.”
They told me if I voted for . . . oh, hell, you know the rest.
FUNNY, THIS IS AN ANGLE THE PRESS COVERAGE SEEMED TO GLOSS OVER: Former union boss at Occupy event: Our goal is to ‘overthrow the capitalist system and build communism’ [VIDEO].
SEEMS LIKE IT SHOULD BE A HIGHER PRIORITY THAN FEMALE PUNK-ROCK BANDS: For Russia, the threat of massive internal violence is very real.
AT AMAZON, it’s the Levi’s Summer Sales Event.
Also, today only: VHS to DVD 5.0 Deluxe, $27.99.
BECAUSE IT’S MONDAY MORNING, I guess it’s time to run that graphic again!
But then, it’s always time to do that! And you can click on the image for a bigger version, suitable for sharing, posting by the water cooler at work, or whatever . . . .
Related: Gallup: Swing-State Voters Say They Are No Better Off Than in 2008.
MICKEY KAUS: Save GM From Its Defenders. “Louis Woodhill’s Forbes piece–General Motors is Headed for Bankruptcy, Again–has drawn several Web responses defending the bailed out automaker from the charge. The ones I’ve seen are more damning of GM than Woodhill’s original attack.”
THE HILL: Romney campaign keeping debate over Medicare on center stage. “It’s supposed to be the Democrats’ signature issue, but Medicare has risen to the forefront of this year’s presidential race largely because Mitt Romney’s campaign has put it there. On the Sunday political shows, surrogates for the GOP presidential hopeful amplified their attacks on President Obama’s Medicare plans, saying the Democrats’ reforms will gut the popular seniors program leaving it up to Republicans to save it.”
It’s part of the Romney/Ryan campaign’s shocking new math offensive.
PETER INGEMI IS REPORTING Live From The Romney Ryan Event at St. Anselm. Lots of pics and video.
TOO COOL FOR SCHOOL: Obama Team Uses Term It Called “Racist” To Fundraise For Obama.
NOT ONLY SHOULD WE REPEAL THE HOLLYWOOD TAX CUTS, we should crack down on shady “Hollywood Accounting.”
YET, STRANGELY, IT WASN’T REPORTED MUCH IN THE MEDIA: Conservative Horde Marches in Downtown Cleveland Against Media Bias.
But it looks like everyone had a good time.
BEN STEIN EXPLAINS WHY STRICTER GUN LAWS WON’T PREVENT SHOOTINGS.
POLITICO: Obama campaign roiled by conflict.
FINALLY, A NEWSWEEK COVER THAT RESONATES WITH ME:
Here’s Niall Ferguson’s story: “The president has broken his promises, and Romney-Ryan’s path to prosperity is our only hope.”
It’s a far cry from this Newsweek cover, isn’t it? You don’t need a weatherman to see which way the wind blows.
WELL, WHY SHOULDN’T THEY BE? Investors Are Still In Hiding.
GARRY KASPAROV: When Putin’s Thugs Came For Me.
Mr. Putin is not worried about what the Western press says, or about celebrities tweeting their support for Pussy Riot. These are not the constituencies that concern him.
Friday, the Russian paper Vedomosti reported that former Deutsche Bank CEO Josef Ackermann could be put in charge of managing the hundreds of billions of dollars in the Russian sovereign wealth fund. As long as bankers and other Western elites eagerly line up to do Mr. Putin’s bidding, the situation in Russia will only get worse. I hope that the chaos and outrage around the Pussy Riot trial shows Mr. Ackermann and others like him that Putin’s Russia is a very dangerous investment.
If officials at the U.S. State Department are as “seriously concerned” about free speech in Russia as they say, I suggest they drop their opposition to the Magnitsky Act pending in the Senate. That legislation would bring financial and travel sanctions against the functionaries who enact the Kremlin’s agenda of repression. Hit them where it hurts and expose them as the thugs that they are. Those who wish to help should pressure their representatives to pass such measures. If you live in a democracy you have a voice. Do not waste it.
Mr. Putin could not care less about winning public-relations battles in the Western press, or about fighting them at all. He and his cronies care only about money and power. Friday’s events make it clear that they will fight for those things until Russia’s jails are full.
Indeed.
BOOK-COOKING: EVERYBODY’S DOING IT! Exclusive Videos Show How One Texas County Fakes Crime Statistics to Make the Border Look Safe.
RHETORIC IN THE ERA OF HOPE AND CHANGE: Boston Globe: Biden’s “chains” remark sign of tiresome double standard for Democrats; Team Obama: So what?