My Obsessions

According to a Men’s Health survey, Indianapolis, Indiana, is the most sexually satisfied city in the country.

“The proper level of financial regulation is a complex topic, about which people can have honest differences. But, reasonable people would agree that a bank having a history of involvement with fraud and mismanagement (and a recipient of one of the largest bank bailouts) shouldn’t be writing bank legislation. Unless, of course, you are the U.S. Congress doing business as usual.” ~ Steven Strauss, the Huffington Post

Last week I watched the Pussy Riot documentary on HBO and told my husband the three women were imprisoned for hurting people’s feelings. That’s now been codified; the Russian Parliament just passed a law making it a crime, punishable by up to three years in prison, to offend someone’s religious sensibilities.

Biggest surprise here? Justice Scalia voted with the majority in striking down this requirement.

After Apple and other retailers started selling e-books on the agency model, prices on many best-selling and new books rose to the $12.99 to $14.99 range, infuriating many consumers.

“Who protected them?” [Justice Dept. lawyer] Mr. Buterman said.

“I did,” Mr. Cue said.

“By charging them higher prices?” Mr. Buterman said.

With the House about to take up the farm bill, the Republican Party’s ascendant libertarian wing is taking aim at the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. Eleanor Clift on whether food stamps will survive.

For decades, since the 1970s, food stamps enjoyed bipartisan backing, with farm-state senators and legislative icons George McGovern and Bob Dole championing the program. More recently, even the authors of the famed Simpson-Bowles report on deficit reduction left SNAP untouched. But House Republicans have a different mind-set about food stamps and want to cut $20.5 billion over 10 years from SNAP, five times more than the $4 billion authorized by a big bipartisan vote, 66 to 27, in the Senate this week, setting the stage for the kind of class-based and racially tinged debate about the poor that poisons our politics and on occasion breaks out into the open.

North Carolina’s Senate has passed a measure that would single out hybrid and electric car drivers for special treatment. (The House will consider the measure but hasn’t acted yet.) Here’s the reasoning. The state relies on gas taxes to fund highway construction. But gas consumption has been falling, in part because the American auto fleet has been getting more efficient. In effect, people who drive cars that get 50 miles per gallon are contributing only half as much to the upkeep of roads as people who drive cars that get 25 miles per gallon. And so the North Carolina Senate is suggesting that people who drive hybrids pay an extra $50 for the annual registration fee, and that folks who drive all-electric cars pay an extra $100. This Prius tax would raise about $1.5 million each year.

This is not new, but it’s hilarious. Have a happy period!