Things I learned this week

Every week a certain number of items cross my desk that are interesting, but that I don't have enough to say about to justify a whole post. I'm going to start a Friday ritual of posting a list of these items, in the same spirit as the BBC's 10 things blog.

1. The Minnesota arm of the Democratic Party is known as the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party. (New York Times)
   
2. The State Department will pay travel and evacuation expenses for career diplomats' pets, but not for their same-sex partners. (SLOG, Washington Post)
   
3. Attempts to scare people with the specter of "socialized medicine" are nothing new. In 1922 the American Medical Association opposed a bill providing government-funded prenatal care, calling it an "imported socialistic scheme." (NPR, JSTOR)