Ben has just started to have some attitude issues, and a shorter temper (which was a nonexistent temper before). It's very disconcerting.

Em gets cranky more often and she has lifted eye-rolling to a fine art.

Serpent-handling pastor profiled earlier in Washington Post dies from rattlesnake bite - The Washington Post

Actually, the article is interesting.

Emmett's adolescence has been marked mostly by insane levels of cheerfully aggressive energy. When I see wildlife footage of mountain goats butting heads or big cats tussle-play-fighting that looks like Emmett. If he does not burn off enough energy in a day he will literally start sitting on me, putting half-nelsons on me, swatting at me or rubbing his cheek on my shoulder like a musk deer.

There's a Damned album called: Mindless Directionless Energy. That's Emmett most of his teen years.

Tales out of school - The Daily

Sidney Barthwell just might be the only person on the planet who went to school with both Mitt Romney and Barack Obama.

Friendly with both men long before they entered political life, Barthwell has contributed money to both campaigns and speaks highly of both candidates. But when his two former classmates face off later this year in a series of presidential debates, he doesn’t mince words about what he thinks will happen.

“When they debate, Barack will smoke Romney,” Barthwell, a district court magistrate in Michigan who attended boarding school with Romney and Harvard Law School with Obama, told The Daily.

“Mitt Romney is smart,” he said. “Having said all that, I still think he’s going to get smoked. The best he can do is hopefully come out not looking like a fool. Mitt will find out the hard way as soon as they have their first debate: You don’t debate Obama.”

“When they debate, Barack will smoke Romney,”

Is there anyone at all who seriously doubts this? I mean, even the birthers have to know Romney is a liability in a debate.

Well, there are tea-baggers and the like who think Obama just "reads everything off the teleprompter" and that Gingrich would have smoked Obama in a debate. So I dunno.

Also, have folks seen this?

NOM's Brian Brown To Dine And Debate With Dan Savage | ThinkProgress

Brown challenged Savage to a debate. Savage accepted; it was his idea to invite Brown over for dinner with Savage and his husband and kid. (They're married, right?)

Is there anyone at all who seriously doubts this? I mean, even the birthers have to know Romney is a liability in a debate.

No one at all, which is why, when they actually do debate it will be reframed as a Romney win, just as they did during the Bush/Gore debates: "Well Obama was good, but he did misspeak at one point, and he said "um" a lot. Considering that Romney didn't literally shoot himself in the foot during the debate, I'd say he comes out as the winner!"

I think Gingrich would have done very well in a debate - he's level-headed and can think on his feet. Romney gets flustered and contradicts himself if you ask him what the weather's like.