The History of the Yo-Yo

Guest post by Jeff Perren

One of my favorite pastimes is reading about inventions. About.com has a good, short article on the surprisingly long and colorful history of the Yo-Yo.

Enjoy!

They have been around for over twenty-five hundred years... Around 1800, the yoyo moved into Europe from the Orient...
     It is a Tagalog word, the native language of the Philippines, and means "come back." In the Philippines, the yoyo was used as a weapon for over 400 hundred years. Their version was large with sharp edges and studs and attached to thick twenty-foot ropes for flinging at enemies or prey...
    Modern inventor Donald] Duncan's first contribution to yo-yo technology was the slip string, consisting of a sliding loop around the axle instead of a knot. With this revolutionary improvement, the yo-yo could do a trick called "sleep" for the first time…

Still More Gangster Government

Guest post by Jeff Perren

There is, sadly, more gangster government on display in the U.S. A new example arrives almost daily now. Merrill Matthews writing for Forbes has one.

"Take the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (aka, ObamaCare). The law empowers the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to monitor health insurance premium increases. If HHS bureaucrats identify increases they think are “unreasonable” — which they define, at least for now, as a 10 percent increase or higher in one year — they can begin to harass the company.

...

We had a taste of how the administration responds to what it considers to be unreasonable increases last fall when health insurers started raising their premiums to reflect the new benefits and “consumer protections” being forced on them under ObamaCare.

HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius pounced, sending a letter to America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), a health insurance trade association, asserting: “There will be zero tolerance for this type of misinformation and unjustified rate increases. …. Simply stated, we will not stand idly by as insurers blame their premium hikes and increased profits on the requirement that they provide consumers with basic protections.”

Translation: We’re going to make your life miserable until you recognize there’s a new sheriff in town."

Yeah, like the Sheriff of Nottingham. Where's Robin Hood — or Ragnar Danneskjold, if you prefer — when you need him?