Check the facts behind those negative campaign ads!  This site is like Snopes for politics.

Hey, I never knew this before: Some spiders are indoor spiders who long ago evolved to live inside buildings!

Curvy-hipped women are smarter and have smarter children.

A man whose parents lived with and loved another couple for part of his childhood writes about the experience.  I think the most interesting thing about this is that he says the divorce was harder on him than the cohabiting.

Orson Scott Card wrote this great article about walkable neighborhoods, public transit, and ways to improve retail operations.  He wrote a lot of the things I’ve been meaning to write (and now don’t have to get around to!) as well as some I hadn’t thought of yet.  He also makes me grateful for Pittsburgh, where those “little downtowns” are a reality.

Interesting facts about the countries that legalized homosexual civil unions in the early 1990s: Rates of heterosexual marriage increased, rates of heterosexual divorce decreased, rates of sexually transmitted infection decreased, and rates of unmarried childbearing increased at a slower pace than before civil unions became available.

A great reason not to get married, whatever your sexual orientation: In Massachusetts, you can be required to pay alimony to your spouse’s ex-spouse!

This local mom has an almost paperless home because of the many reusable products she makes and sells.  I really like the looks of her school-gear bags (intended to replace those horrible zippered vinyl ones whose scratchy seams always split at the worst possible moment), and the unicorn-print diapers are sooo cute!

Here’s a place to buy reusable sandwich wrappers that are not made of vinyl.

Walk Score uses an address to calculate the “walkability” of the neighborhood–what’s within walking distance.  Our home scores 88 out of 100.  My childhood home scores 23.

The daughter of feminist author Alice Walker writes about how her mother’s stances affected her life as a child and now as a mother.

Interesting thoughts on cat-to-human translation and Emotional Dynamic Range.

Here’s an old house turned into an eye-popping art project.