Warning! Contains writing! - 9 March 2010

Happiness for all! We achieve ours through the process of oblquity, a method that allows you flexibility in your problem-solving by making it non-taboo to change solutions mid-stream if there's a better one to be had.

We also think you may be interested in a fantasy-science fiction cage match between various characters in books.

And, for you curiosities, a USB-based battery charger can render your computer vulnerable to attack, because of the software it installs on the computer.

In the world today, the lost tribe of Israel may have been found - in Zimbabwe. DNA tests confirm a Semitic origin for a people that claim in oral tradition to be a tribe of Israel - althoguh many of the people now living there are practicing Christians and Muslims.

Iraqis held parlimentary elections on schedule, despite violence that killed 36. Success for the voting process and the confidence of the people, if nothing else.

One of the Vatican's staff has been sacked for allegedly procuring male homosexual prostitutes for a high-ranking clergyman. The clergyman himself has been indicted on corruption charges, but it is a rather ineresting private/public comparison - the clergyman is not being sacked for being gay, at least not yet, and even if he does, it will be corruption, not homosexuality. This despite the Vatican's position that homosexuality cannot be approved of. Tangled webs, indeed.

Domestically, for as much sound and fury the Tea Party and its affiliates have generated (or manufactured), their electoral successes have been few to nonexistent. People will agree with you if you're more radical than others, but they won't elect you, because you're more radical than others. That, and it's very difficult for anyone who isn't independently wealthy or covered in special interest money to run any sort of successful campaign. Even more so now that corporations can spend for their speech as well, a decision the President and the people have criticized.

Sometimes, though, you don't need to push hard to get your opposition to do something stupid - the Congress may be considering a moratorium on all earmarks, which I'm sure is intended to defeat pork but will require all sorts of necessary exceptions while the ban is in effect.

More likely, though, members of the legislature are debating issues of great importance... like trying to ban public dollars being spent by employees on violent pornography at their hotel, or perhaps raving about Rahm Emanuel intimidating them while naked in the locker rooms. On that point, though, if even Glenn Beck can't save you, there's no hope at all for your case. (For perspective, enjoy this - Glenn Beck believes that if your church uses phrases like "social justice" or "economic justice", then you should leave that church immediately, because those phrases are "code words" for some nefarious, likely socialist, purpose.)

Not that the other side doesn't have its share of problems - State Senator Roy Ashburn, most noted in the news for his DWI arrest while leaving a gay bar in the company of another man has admitted to being a homosexual. He claims that his previous anti-homosexual votes were reflecting the will of his constituency. We would strike our heads repeatedly against a flat surface on this, because we expect elected officials to take into consideration their constituencies, but also to exercise good judgment on the materials presented before them. If you're a homosexual, even a closeted one, wouldn't it make more sense to vote against things that would make it more difficult to be homosexual, even if your constituency is rabidly anti-homosexual? The worst they can do is elect someone who believes like they do, yeah?

Elsewhere, Freedom to marry, a group that pushes for homosexuals to be able to marry like heterosexuals, wants the military to offer the same kinds of benefits to legally married homosexuals in military service that it does to heterosexuals. Equal rights and protections under the law, and such. Makes sense to us - if they're married in the legal sense, they're entitled to both the legal rights and responsibilities.

A new program is potentially on the horizon for homeowners - government backing to short-sell their houses, selling them for less than the mortgage they have on them and requiring lenders to forgive the rest. Real estate agents would determine the minimum amount of an offer required to sell the home, and lenders, if given an offer that meets those minimums, would be required to sell the house for the offer. This would certainly help clear a lot of toxic assets off the books and allow homeowners who are upside-down or underwater to shed the thing that is killing them.

a couple that trusted in faith-healing over conventional medicine were convicted and sentenced to sixteen months in prison for criminally negligent homicide. The judge and jurors noted that while religious beliefs need respect, when it comes to the life of their child, the parents should have been willing to set those beliefs aside and seek treatment.

We contrast this with a declaration from Mr. Fisher that the orca involved in the latest Sea World fatality be euthanized, because the Bible tells us to kill animals that hurt or kill people. No, wait, we want Mr. Washington, who takes Mr. Fisher out to his logical conclusion and says humans related to the whale should also die because the whale killed someone. He's not specific to whom, as he rushes by to talk about how the Bible is always good and God is the sole source of all good things. The General is in favor of more animal deaths, especially the ones that tempt him.

With standardized testing and mandates and penalties for schools and a lot of student-focused research, the eyes are now turning toward building a better teacher - one that can instruct, keep order, and do their job well. Some of the possible fixes could be very tiny adjustments with big results. Others include creating a common lexicon and vocabulary, so that when problems appear, they can be described and fixes applied, making the professional schools more practically-focused, so that teachers coming out know how to teach the things they're being hired for,

At the very least, Texas will have some help in improving their standards, because one of the most creationism-friendly board persons lost his seat to a challenger. This does not mean the Texas Board of Ed is clear of nonscience advocates - far from it, but one of the more vocal ones has been unseated.

And last out, the Dumb Criminals file strikes again. Public service announcement - attempting to shave one's private parts while driving is a bad idea.

In technology, Google releases a Public Data Explorer, allowing the people to dive into and monkey with all sorts of public data, to create their own comparison charts and graphs, which could then be overlaid on Google Maps and the like to make with the mashups, the possibility of using rotation to power space elevator cars up and down, alleviating needs for fuel to drive the cars, a claim made about a catalyst that could generate the equivalent of an American household's daily energy use out of three gallons of water, carbon nanotubes coated with fuel that generates heat can also generate electricity, which could make for some very tiny power sources, the first commercially available brain-interface device hits the market, the drug Ritalin's ability to increase brain plasticity, speeding learning, which explains its off-label use as a study drug, and a small device with a camera, microphone, and accelerometer, useful for helping to jog the memory or to blog one's life in its live, and mostly boring, capacity.

Of special note, a scientist claims that free will is an illusion generated by consciousness, and that we need to let go of it in science, because it's magical thinking, and face the reality that it's comforting to believe we're in control of our actions, but that we're just a very complex organic machine.

Last out, a confirmation that the best explanation for the extinction event of the Cretaceous-Paleogene era is still an asteroid strike by a single massive rock. In our own era, the release of methane gas trapped under Siberian permafrost may accelerate the climate change phenomenon toward a tipping point, one that might result in our own extinction event. This won't stop people from opining about whether or not they thing climate change is real or scientifically valid, with/out facts to support them, mind you, or trying to scapegoat someone into being a doomsday rhetoritician so they can ignore them, but any time someon suggests things might result in extinction with a reasonable probability, we should probably at least pay attention to them, even if only to debunk them.

Thus, we arrive in opinions. A multi-part opinion piece from Mr. Sowell, about the health care debate, is our lead. Part I of "Alice in Health Care" opens with a stage-setting overview - we complain that health care costs too much, but we want health care costs to be paid by other people, which is why it costs so much. Our uninvolvement in our costs makes us demand more expensive things, thinking we're getting it for free, and to overuse our medical care, seeing the doctor about every case of the sniffles or small rash, making costs more expensive for everyone. Mr. Sowell concludes that the only real way to lower costs is to make it so each person has to shouluder those costs themselves. If we continue on our current path, only rationing, price controls, and the accompanying lower quality of care and lack of innovation will keep costs down. Part II aims to be a review of other single-payer systems already in place. They're predestined to fail in his eyes, having the scandals of the NHS, the wait lists in Canada, and the assumption that both of those systems offer lower quality and availability because of their country-wide nature taking the stage. He uses cancer survivorship as his example, with Americans surviving their cancers far more than others because, in his opinion, we have access to the newest and most expensive treatments immediately, instead of having to wait in line while the cancer grows on us. Part III returns to his insistence that Americans consume more medical care because they don't have to pay for it out of pocket, demanding ever-more comprehensive packages against expenses instead of stripped-down insurances against risks. Mr. Sowell suggests that state mandates be abolished, so as to get rid of all the special interest requirements, and laws be changed so that doctors don't have to practice "defensive medicine" to avoid being sued for malpractice. (I wonder if vision, dental, and birth control are "special interests" to Mr. Sowell or not. It would be nice to know how far he wants to gut your insurance plan.) Part IV talks about the increasing complexity for doctors to get reimbursed from insurance companies and government entities, with a sidebar (that really should have been in Part III) about the increased costs of carrying malpractice insurance.

To summarize - people should pay their own medical costs and only get insurance for big risks, sinlge payer always results in wait lines, diminished quality, and lack of innovation, tort reform so doctors can't get sued for ridiculous amounts if they mess up, and the system as it is creates bureaucratic headaches for doctors. Of the four, two are actually sensible. Paperwork should be streamlined and made simple for reimbursement. The easiest way to do that, of course, would be to adopt one standard across the country for billing and filing. The easiest way to do that would be to adopt a single-payer system, which is more than adequate for most general needs, even if it does tend toward problems with non-emergency specialist care (which could be fixed by making it a very good incentive to pursue medicine as a profession, instead of bone-crushing debt and uncertainty). And making it so that doctors don't have to carry gigantic amounts of medical malpractice insurance by limiting damage awards, or, even better, actually enforcing "a jury or one's peers" so that doctors on trial have a jury of doctors in their field making decisions.

Single-payer is obviously not a complete failure - it works well for most people most of the time in the places that have it. It might work even better than our current system, because there's no incentive to drop people just as they get expensive to make the profit margin better.

As for his premise that people should pay their own health care, that hurts the poorest the most. Many of them are working multiple jobs as it is, none of which offer any sort of health insurance. So the cost for a standard cleaning for your teeth? $550. That's one job's paycheck in one shot. An office visit to a GP? Probably another paycheck's worth, not to mention any prescription costs. They honestly can't afford the cost of medicine. Even middle class people probably couldn't afford the cost of medicine, especially if they had kids, because then you start multiplying that $550 by each child. Sick? Can we afford the $200-$500 that the office visit would cost? Another $100 for a prescription medicine with no generic equivalent (or one embargoed for a certain time to let the makers make their profits)? Medicine would only be for the rich, with the poor and the middle class left with the Republican health care plan, as explained by Congressman Grayson: "Don't get sick, and if you do get sick, die quickly." Rather thank bankrupt much of the country, we'll go with the option that covers everyone so they can go when they're sick to the right person, without having to take advantage of the rules thar require emergency rooms to treat people, regardless of their ability to pay - single-payer insurance.

In other opinions, a study claiming that religious groups are generally more racist than nonreligious groups. Unfortunately, the paper itself is hidden behind a wall, because we'd like to know what they use for their definitions before saying they're absolutely right, totally wrong, or telling them their research needs lots of work. After all, we've managed to lose the cure for scurvy, despite knowing it for hundreds of years, only to have to rediscover it by accident because of circumstances and opinions being thrown about carelessly without the necessary rigor and review, so all papers always need review.

The WSJ contributes an unsigned expressing wariness of a purported plan to ban private lenders from offering federally-guaranteed student loans, putting all of those loans, as well as an expansion of the Pell Grant program, under the Department of Education. The WSJ says the savings are inflated and the costs deflated, and that this constitutes a "federal takeover of education". What, more than they already are generally the people to go to for higher education funding?

Mr. Heffer pens a column talking about the difference between campaign and reality in the Obama Administration, when politics, invaded and the hopeful promises he ran on were thrown into the ugly meat grinder that is the legislative body. Barack Obama could do much better on his politics and approval if, y'know, his own party wasn't fighing him (and was composed of people who are actual liberals) and that the opposition felt like helping out in the business of governing, instead of saying no to everything until they're put back in power.

Finally in opinions, we save the worst for last, as Mr. McCullough declares that liberals don't believe in personal responsibility, because liberals believe healthy people should have to pay for sick people's care, that working people should subsidize the lazy and indolent, and the President's cigarrette and alcohol consumption are perfect examples of this lack of responsibility. I suspect, Mr. McCullough, that being President would drive many people to drug use and abuse, for starters. After that, though, have you ever met people on government assistance? The ones working, applying for work, and still not making enough to get past the poverty line? The ones that will be bankrupted if the working adult (or adults) falls sick? The ones that can't afford child care, and so have to leave their young kids at home after school for hours? You know, the working poor that, when you say that they're lazy, would be totally entitled to give you the finger, but won't, because they have no time to do so? Yeah, them. Once you've met them, and seen their life, then, if you still want to, you can call them lazy, but not until, and you'll still be wrong when you do.

But, and we're being charitable here, if those weren't the people you were going after, but instead people who can afford insurances and such, and who choose to drink or abuse drugs, and you believe those people shouldn't have insurance coverage for anything that arises out of those behaviors, then, well, you're still a cold, cruel person. "You, fatty! Get thin or your insurance won't cover your heart attack!" "You, drinking person! Get sober or we won't send an ambulance to take you to the hospital when you've had too much and poison yourself!" "You, smoker! Kick your addiction or insurance won't pay for treating your chronic lung disease!" If this is your "personal responsibility", to insist that others live life the way you want them to, and to treat everyone as less than a person because you think the life choices they've made are wrong, then I want none of it. And those people won't want to be around you, because you will be the nag, the person who only sees them as being fat or a smoker or a drinker, the death of good things. And if those people are forced out and have to rely on charity, I expect Mr. McCullough to be the first person in line telling them they're not groveling enough, they don't "appreciate" the charity they've been given enough, and that they're lazy and worthless because they have to get charity in the first place.

Last out, Mr. Hedges paints a bleak picture of things as they are and how much worse they will get, calling for rebels and the young to make the country better by standing with the oppressed against the comfortable corporate corporate-controlled state. (Which, as we are well aware, means more than just being a member of the Fighting Keyboarders.) Maybe one of the steps to eliminating that control is to remove the means of their advertising from our public spaces? (I find Sao Paulo's decision and continued ability to enforce the ban fascinating.)

At the very end tonight, well, considering how much we've written above this point, we're just going to say, have a happy day and enjoy the virtual cookie you get for reading all the way down to here.