It's One of Those Days

I've had several tabs open for several days.  I just haven't felt like doing anything about them.

• It is charming that Queen Elizabeth now has a great-grandchild, but the breathlessness of the coverage is more than a bit silly.
• The Rude Pundit last week ran a series of posts about Texas women and reproductive health care; I particularly like the one that begins

  There's a reason the average Texas woman is meaner than a goddamn snake: She lives with Texas men.

  but you should also read this one (and part 2), and this one, and this one; this one is by a Wisconsin woman, this one by a woman who had been raped, this one remembers Dr. Tiller, and this one brings the example of her mother.  More posts listed here.
  
  (Note:  The Texas women I have known have been quite nice.  As have the Texas men.  But none of the ones I know are either Republican or in the legislature.)
• Really, Mr. Weiner, didn't you learn anything the first time?
1. Keep it in your pants
2. Keep it off the Web.
Maybe that should be part of the Political Science curriculum now: How to Conduct a Clandestine Affair Without Getting Spread All Over The Media Including Internationally.
• Three from naked capitalism [see what I did there?]:
• David Dayen on mortgage databases:

  According to Section 331 of the bill, the utility would “organize and operate” the National Mortgage Data Repository. The repository would be a standardized catalog into which any qualified depositor (qualified by the utility, it appears) could stash all their mortgage-related documents – including notes, mortgages, and any related information. The repository would set the standards for the required information in the documents, as well as standards for recording a “creation, assignment, or transfer of interest.” You’ll notice the lack of any regulatory oversight of these procedures. Basically, this private entity, the National Mortgage Market Utility, which could be owned by banks, sets the rules for a brand new private mortgage transfer and document database, not dissimilar to MERS. Theoretically, the data in the repository would be publicly available, with privacy safeguards.
  
  Now here’s the kicker. The repository’s defined purpose is to “address problems that can arise when paper notes cannot be produced, due to loss or destruction as a result of natural disaster or other causes; and to provide a uniform procedure for demonstrating the right to act with regard to such notes or other registered data for all actions in any State or Federal proceeding, judicial or nonjudicial, involving such notes or other data.” Emphasis mine.

• Yves Smith on possible appointment of Larry Summers to Chair of the Fed.

  The big problem with Summers is not his record on deregulation (although that’s bad enough) or his foot-in-mouth remarks about women in math, or for suggesting that African countries would make for good toxic waste dumps. No, it’s his appalling record the one time he was in a leadership position, as president of Harvard. Summers was unquestionably the worst leader in Harvard’s history.

• Guest post by Bill Black on why conservatives and libertarians should favor a restoration of the Glass-Steagall Act.
Doggie bags at the cash register.