Current events

"Real life isn't like a feel-good TV story about a viral video" department:

NEW YORK (AP) -- The New York City homeless man - whose gift of boots from an NYPD police officer became an online sensation - is back on the streets with no shoes.

Gee, do ya think?

Young people's attachment to their mobile phones is eroding their personal relationships, according to a new study.

I find this utterly baffling:

President Obama opposes an immigration reform bill backed by companies including Apple, Microsoft, and Adobe that would let U.S.-educated computer programmers and engineers remain in the country, the White House said today.

I have to admit that this has a certain appeal:

At this moment, Republicans in Congress need to examine which presents a more dire threat to the country:

A) A double-dip recession driven by the sequester and the expiration of the Bush tax cuts, or

I was going to say something about "your tax dollars at work," but there's something even more irritating than the wasting of the truly insignificant (to the feds) sum of $100,000. It's the idea that a government study, if enough earnest researchers just push all the right buttons, can fathom the depths of human relationships and thwart all destructive behavior:

Slate has the most fascinating question of the day: Why is public nudity illegal?

Here, here:

This is what they call a "compromise" in Washington:

Cut through the fog, and here’s what to expect: Taxes will go up just shy of $1.2 trillion — the middle ground of what President Barack Obama wants and what Republicans say they could stomach. Entitlement programs, mainly Medicare, will be cut by no less than $400 billion - and perhaps a lot more,

[. . .]

Where, oh, where are the rugged women of yore who stood toe-to-toe with men and demanded respect and equal treatment? Today,we have the likes of Sandra Fluke, the Georgetown law student who demanded that we all pay her $10 a month for birth control pills and now in the running for Time magazine's person of the year:

Hey, my alma mater is famous again. No, not for the Letterman-Oprah gabfest. It's a court case to answer the burning question, "Who's the boss around here anyway?"