Photo of the day

Yes, another surfing photo for my surfing fans out there.  Always love these.  Via the Telegraph:

Hawaiian surfer Jamie O’Brien performs an aerial manouvrePicture: Ian Bird/REX

Quick hits (part I)

1) Nice piece from Emily Bazelon on the recent Texas abortion ruling.  Texas’ law is clearly and patently an “undue burden” (the key language fro 1992’s Casey v. Planned Parenthood and it’s nice to see a judge who gets this.

2) Totally fascinated by this NYT piece suggesting that the key role of sleep is to essentially clean out our brain of the toxins produced during normal brain metabolism.

3) Love this idea about paying for performance with kids’ chores.  If I ever actually start making my kids do enough chores (a parent fail on my part) I think I’ll adopt the approach outlined here.

4) Students pay too much for college and it’s Reagan’s fault.  Had not hear this argument before.

5) Love the unrepentant bike bandits caught on camera.  If I did own an expensive bike, I do think I would invest in a tracker.

6) Can a lawsuit about concussions force FIFA to create safer policies for players?  Let’s hope so.

7) Love this from Seth Masket: Michael Barone dislikes political scientists.  And google.

8) Regular readers know that fecal transplants rock.  Interesting story about a place that is the fecal sample equivalent of a blood bank and how government regulators still have not figured out how to best deal with the issue.  I’m quite convinced I’d be a great donor for OpenBiome, but you’ve got to live in Boston to deliver fresh samples.

9) Nice essay from Jill Lepore on indelible visuals from recent news events (i.e., Ferguson, beheadings).

10) The Vox headline says it all: the class war is over and the rich won.

11) There’s been revisions to the AP US History exam that have conservatives up in arms (apparently the exam recognizes that there’s plenty of ugliness in American history, especially for non-whites– I guess nobody told Fox News).  Looks pretty good to me and Jamelle Bouie.