The disappearing center in American Politics.

Isn't this mostly the death of the Southern Democrat? The charts could be consistent with two different phenomena:
1. We used to have more votes on issues that didn't divide along partisan lines
2. We used to have more rogue congressfolk, and now they all fall in line (but they went rogue individually, not all on the same issue)

They're implying in the article that it's #2 - congressfolk used to be free thinkers, and now they're locked in, but I think it's probably #1 - for Southern Democrats and groups like that, issues didn't fall cleanly along party lines.

Plus gerrymandering. Plus Republicans ever-accelerating extremism.

I'm sure we've done this kind of thing before, but some of these made me laugh.

A suffering of hipsters

A quibble of critics

A racket of DJs

A khaki of IT guys

A pretense of operagoers

An argument of Unfogged commenters? That's not quite right.

So, how're your taxes?

How about that Clive Bowensomething?

More details on that parental involvement kind of sucks study.

Remember the whole praise-the-effort thing? Generally we all seemed to share a visceral memory of being labeled as smart, and then giving reduced effort in order not to risk overturning the label.(Not me! I was clear from sixth grade on that I was a notch below the smartest kids. I was lazy as a purist.)(I abruptly quit being lazy in my classes after 10th grade, and I'm not sure why.)

Anyway: to build kindness and loving character, apparently you should just label the hell out of your child.

I don't want to bias the discussion, because I'm very curious about your reactions, but I find this school fascinating. Surely most of you will say "tl;dr," but I bet some won't be able to stop reading.

1. An easily peeled hard-boiled egg is such a joy.

2. Obviously you should just hulk-squeeze the eggs into pieces. I don't know why the recipes say to chop or use a food processor.

3. Good lord I love egg salad. I could devour this whole bowl.

I saw this family on Oprah a few years ago. At the time, they were living in separate one bedroom apartments, as the father notes. That kid's mental illness is seriously no joke. (As opposed to the funny kind!)

Via elsewhere

We are having a ridiculous back-and-forth with a swim instructor that came to us super highly recommended by a good friend. For funsies, I'll share here.

Swim Instructor: your kids must do ISR (infant safety rescue) because they're under 6.
We look it up on the website and see that ISR is 10 minutes a day, 5 days a week, for six weeks, and we have mini-heart attacks. Also it's $600. ($600 is probably reasonable for you liberal bi-coastal elites, but our other place offers 8 private lessons for $120.)

We write back and say that the logistics are impossible for our family, but could we just sign up for regular old private lessons?

She wrote back:

I do not offer a two day a week swim lesson program. It takes daily consistency and a commitment to get them to truly learn the self rescue technique through the sensory moto learning process. Other Swim Schools do have a few days a week program but it takes a lot longer..years. I teach to get kids safe as quickly as possible should they reach the water alone. Preparing them to be problem solvers in the water. I try hard to meet the parents scheduling needs as far as the time of day, teaching long hrs up to 7 in the evening in hopes to accommodate. ISR also has a Pay It Forward scholarship program if you or someone you know may be interested. Once your child knows the self rescue technique and advances on, those swim lessons are 4 days a week. Once your child has swam with me several years and has shown to be a strong swimmer... Usually eight years old and up, I offer a Stroke Technique Clinic that is two days week. This is to meet the needs of those that want to advance towards swim team or a workout format. I would love to do what I can to work with you and your family. Let me know if you have any other questions.

I think the other place sounds pretty reasonable is what I think.

Mostly I'm just gobsmacked at the 10 minutes a day/5 days a week/6 weeks of hell. And how completely she fails to grasp what's so hard about that. (For the record: four days a week is do-able, for two weeks or so.)

Lab-grown vaginas.

It's similar enough to things that people have been doing that it's almost easy to overlook how amazing it is. They made an entire human organ, and put it in someone who didn't have it, and it works. Wow.