Link post for good reasons

To wit, TYG and I went out to dinner on impulse, to one of our favorite restaurants in the area (Sage, vegetarian Persian cooking). Then I had to finish up work, and now I’m spent, so …
•The deficit is going down, but the deficit hawks who used to worry about it are still complaining because dammit, Obama hasn’t cut Social Security like he was supposed to!
•A new frontier in anti-abortion legislation: Tennessee (in response to judges who say abortion rights are protected by the Constitution) is considering a constitutional amendment that says absolutely nothing in the rest of the Constitution gives abortion rights any protection. Though of course, the legislators backing the amendment say that no, they wouldn’t try to ban abortion or anything …
•A sub-shop chain (Jimmy Johns) has a non-compete clause in its worker contracts that says they can never work for pretty much anyone who sells sandwiches if the restaurant competes with any Jimmy Johns anywhere.
•Helaine Olen (of Pound Foolish) traces the history of the myth that if we just stopped buying coffee at Starbucks in the mornings, we’d all be rich. The real problem, she says, is that the cost of things we have to have (gas, shelter, etc.) has gone up so much.
•Mitt Romney once promised that by the end of his presidential term, unemployment would be down to 6 percent. It didn’t take Obama that long.
•A couple of years ago, a U.S. Park Ranger tasered a man for walking his dog without a leash. The man sued in court and just won.
•NC Senate candidate Thom Tillis supported a resolution condemning slavery. This attracted flak from the right wing, apparently because they see it as the first step to paying reparations for slavery. So Tillis’ has an explanation: welfare is really reparations for slavery, so in condemning slavery he’s fighting the welfare state or something.