Gail Collins, "Small Is So Beautiful": Pacu, Testicle-Eating Fish, Found in Illinois Lake

In her latest superficial New York Times op-ed entitled "Small Is So Beautiful" (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/12/opinion/collins-small-is-so-beautiful.html), Gail Collins sings paeans to Obama's proposal for a one-year cut for all Americans making less than $250,000 per year:

"All of this takes us to President Obama’s call for Congress to extend the Bush tax cuts for families with incomes below $250,000 a year. Most people, the president said, believe it is wrong to 'raise taxes on middle-class families.' It was certainly a triumphant moment for the administration’s economic policies. In 2008, who among us could have hoped that four years in the future, middle-class Americans would be making $250,000 a year?"

Sorry to throw cold water in your face, Gail, but regrettably the Obama proposal is not an endorsement of the Simpson-Bowles Commission recommendations, which provides a path out of America's economic thicket, but rather pre-election largess that leads nowhere.

And of course there was the usual airy reference by Collins to the Seamus story.

As long as Gail wishes to talk about cuts, far more relevant than Collins's tripe is an article appearing in the Huffington Post entitled "Pacu, Testicle-Eating Fish Species, Caught In Lake Lou Yaeger In Illinois" (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/07/pacu-testicle-eating-fish-illinois-lake_n_1656015.html?utm_hp_ref=mostpopular). According to the article:

"Responding to a report that a fisherman had reeled in a piranha on June 7, lake superintendent Jim Caldwell brought the fish to the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, where it was identified as a pacu. Some reports say another pacu was seen a couple of weeks later.

Caldwell said he is still swimming in the lake nearly every day. Pacus primarily eat nuts, aquatic vegetation and snails, he told KDSK, and pose no real threat to humans.

Residents of Papua New Guinea may beg to differ. There, according to British fisherman Jeremy Wade, the pacu is known as the 'ball cutter.' In 2011, Wade said locals informed him that two fisherman had died from blood loss after something in the water had bitten off their testicles, according to the Metro."

Pacus eat nuts, but don't pose a real threat to humans? Sorry, but I won't be swimming in Lake Lou Yaeger any time soon. Perhaps, however, the author of the Obama tax cut proposal would care to do us all a favor and test the waters.