NEW SPECIES DISCOVERED, thanks to Flickr.

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TURKEY SCIENCE BEGAN WITH THE MAYA: “A new University of Florida study shows the turkey, one of the most widely consumed birds worldwide, was domesticated more than 1,000 years earlier than previously believed. Researchers say discovery of the bones from an ancient Mayan archaeological site in Guatemala provides evidence of domestication, usually a significant mark of civilization, and the earliest evidence of the Mexican turkey in the Maya world.”

OLD GREEN: CLEAN ENERGY. New Green: No Energy. “For years, the green argument was something like this: If only we can replace fossil fuels with cleaner, renewable energy sources, we can enjoy our current standard of living without endangering the environment. Now it appears some greens have advanced the argument to a brand new phase: It’s as if they’ve replaced a green energy policy with a no-energy policy. Good luck with that.”

I’m beginning to think they just don’t like people.

ANIMAL FARM, the full-length 1954 animated movie.

READER BOOK PLUG: Reader Patrick Wayland asks me to plug his novel, The Jade Lady, a mystery with a hunt for World War Two treasure set in Asia. Done!

NEWS YOU CAN USE: Want To Live Longer? Eat Less, Have More Sex.

SEXISM ON MSNBC: MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell demeans women, parrots Axelrod: ‘Ryan is not a pick for moms, women.’ Funny, because I seem to see a lot of women in those pictures of the incredibly long lines at Romney-Ryan rallies. . . .

21ST CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: My Husband Won’t Move In With Me.

RUTH WEDGWOOD: Ban Ki-Moon Is About To Break The Boycott of Iran. “Maybe the secretary general hopes to show that he is not constrained by the foreign-policy preferences of the Western democracies.”

ENTHUSIASM: Reader Tim Ellis emails from outside the Romney-Ryan rally in High Point, North Carolina: “I am in line at the High Point NC rally, I can’t possibly begin to tell you how many people are here. The line is winding around buildings at least 3 blocks. People are still flowing in too (into line, not the building), we drove 200 miles and may not get in. That will be fine though just to see this level of support.”

Related: This is what 2012 looks like — lines around the block at Romney-Ryan rally in High Point, NC. “Let this be a lesson for The Eeyores Among Us.”

CYNTHIA YOCKEY COULD USE SOME HELP. I donated.

BOYCOTTING THE BOURGEOIS INSTITUTION OF MARRIAGE, but demanding the bourgeois institution of wifely inheritance. Wait, you mean that “all property is theft” stuff only applies to other people’s property?

Gabrielsson and Larsson weren’t just a couple, but also a leftist action group. First they were Maoists and then Trotskyists, voicing their criticism of the Swedish welfare state from a leftist point of view. She was an architect, while he worked for a news agency. They managed to make ends meet, and had no children. Like many Swedes of their generation, they were anti-bourgeois.

In their social circle, while couples may have been monogamous, they didn’t marry. But under Swedish law, a member of an unmarried couple doesn’t inherit anything from his or her deceased partner, no matter how long the couple was together. Blood trumps love, unless a will exists, but Larsson hadn’t written one. For that reason, the rapidly growing proceeds from the sale of the books and the film rights went to two biological relatives, Larsson’s father Erland (his mother Vivianne is dead) and his younger brother Joakim. . . .

After Larsson’s death, when his novels suddenly became such a huge success, the widow who isn’t a widow under the law sat down with Erland and Joakim Larsson to discuss what should happen next. An agreement seemed possible. But then attorneys took over the case, and an inheritance war ensued — one in which the Stieg Larsson fan community has participated extensively.

Two camps have since formed in Sweden: the (primarily female) Eva camp, with its own website (www.supporteva.com), and the (primarily male) Larsson camp (www.moggliden.com).

Shocking, that division. Plus, this: “The inheritance dispute is being waged publicly. It culminated when Gabrielsson and Joakim Larsson went on Swedish television to explain their respective positions on the dispute. The widow, invoking a higher form of justice, said that the money had made the two Larssons greedy. Joakim Larsson defended his right to the inheritance and, in his modesty, came across as likeable.”

“A higher form of justice” translates as “give me the money regardless of the law.” “Greedy” means “you won’t give me what I want, just because it’s yours, not mine.”

RICHARD FERNANDEZ: Boom-and-Zoom vs. Turn-and-Burn: “By picking Paul Ryan, Romney has decisively broken from Obama’s policy path. The selection of Ryan means Romney is no longer running as Obama-lite. He’s bet that the guys in no-man’s-land don’t want Government Cheese. They want a real job. They want a real future. They want to be citizens of the greatest country on earth again.”

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VIDEO: DNC Chair Doesn’t Know Political Affiliation Of Obama Endorsed Super PAC.

UPDATE: Moe Lane: “Debbie, Debbie, Debbie Wasserman Schultz: there are lies, and there are STUPID lies. You know who’s behind Priorities USA.”

#TSAFAIL: Stranded jet-skier saunters through JFK safeguards. “A stranded jet-skier seeking help effortlessly overcame the Port Authority’s $100 million, supposedly state-of-the-art security system at JFK Airport — walking undetected across two runways and into a terminal, The Post has learned. Motion sensors and closed-circuit cameras of the Perimeter Intrusion Detection System, or PIDS, were no match for Daniel Casillo, 31, of Howard Beach, who easily breached the system meant to safeguard against terrorists. . . . Dripping wet and in a bright-yellow life jacket, Casillo climbed the perimeter fence, which is eight feet high, and walked across that runway and intersecting Runway 31L — and made it all the way to Terminal 3 without anyone noticing.” He’s been charged with criminal trespass — no, really — while the officials involved should be charged with criminal negligence. But it’s doubtful that anyone will even lose their job over this.

UPDATE: Reader Brian Medcalf says I’m wrong to blame the TSA, which isn’t responsible for airport perimeter security. That’s a fair point, I suppose. But if the perimeter is this insecure, what’s the point of having the TSA gropefest at all?

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Shane Nichols writes: “I disagree. Reader Brian Medcalf has missed the point, which is that the TSA is an incredibly expensive farce. The fact that a stranded jet skier was able to access the very assets that TSA is spending billions to protect (runways and terminals) makes that point even more difficult to refute. It may be that TSA is blameless for allowing the man to scale the fence undetected. But that would make it no less appropriate to criticize the TSA for wasting our time and money to play security theater at the front door of the airport, while utterly failing to account for the unguarded back door. Arresting the stranded jet skier is an adolescent attempt to divert blame and attention from TSA’s breathtaking incompetence.” Among others’.

MICHAEL BARONE: Romney-Ryan ticket puts entitlement crisis at center of campaign.

Romney’s choice was not much of a surprise after he told NBC’s Chuck Todd on Thursday that he wanted someone with “a vision for the country, that adds something to the political discourse about the direction of the country. I mean I happen to believe that this is a defining election for America, that we’re going to be voting for what kind of America we’re going to have.”

This arguably describes some of the others mentioned as possible nominees, but it clearly fits Paul Ryan.

He doesn’t fit some of the standard criteria for vice president. He hasn’t won a statewide election, held an executive position or become well known nationally or even in much of Wisconsin.

But more than anyone else, more even (as impolite as it is to say) than the putative presidential nominee, Ryan has set the course for the Republican party for the past three years both on policy and in politics. From his post as Chairman of the House Budget Committee, he has made himself not just a plausible but a formidable national nominee by advancing and arguing for major changes in entitlement policy.

He has argued consistently that entitlement programs — Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid — are on an unsustainable trajectory. Left alone, they threaten to crowd out necessary government spending and throttle the private sector.

Few public policy experts, on the center-left as well as the right, disagree. But many politicians, certainly those in the Obama White House, shy away from confronting the entitlement crisis. Better to demagogue your way through one more election cycle and kick the can down the road.

That’s going to be harder to do, now. Plus this:

Ryan and Romney can make the point — lost in the shuffle when this is a low-visibility issue — that their plan leaves the current Medicare system in place for current recipients and those over 55. Those who have made plans based on the present program can continue to rely on it.

But they can also make the point that their reforms are necessary in order to make sure Medicare is sustainable in the long run. Polls show that many voters under 55 doubt that they’ll ever get the Medicare and Social Security benefits they’ve been promised.

One more thing about Ryan, I think, appealed to Romney. He has already shown he cannot be intimidated by the most eminent opponent. Watch the video of Ryan’s five-minute evisceration of Obamacare at the president’s Blair House meeting. You can tell that Obama didn’t like it one bit.

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