Today marks the beginning of the Chinese New Year, the Year of the Pig, and children born under this sign are thought to be especially lucky, not to mention polite, honest, hardworking and loyal.  And this Pig year is thought to be especially extra-specially lucky, being not just a Pig Year but a "Golden Pig Year", which comes around only about every 60 years and apparently has much of China in an uproar, with maternity rooms in hospitals being booked solid for months and pre-planning already begun years hence for preschools.

Yes, there's still time to conceive a baby for this super-duper Pig Year, but you should also know the flip side of all this luck says that the rest of us are going to be suffering through fires, epidemics, and all manner of disasters and epidemics.  Yay.  And pass the pork chops.