Forget the bailout. We're going to recover one way or another. We always have. Congress is really doing the heavy lifting on that one, anyway. Health care reform is going to be the defining issue of Obama's presidency. If he does it, and does it well, he will go down as one of the great Presidents - one who managed to pull the U.S. out of a spiraling disaster caused by constantaly increasing medical expenses. If he doesn't pull it off then history will remember him as the man who couldn't quite reach his potential. Nobody will remember how many promises he broke if he can pull this off. But fake fixes won't cut it. Lincoln and FDR would not be considered our greatest Presidents if their ideas had failed. Whatever plan he gets through has to be effective - and that means he has to convince the American people to stand up to "Harry and Louise" ads and threates of socialism and put pressure on their reps to do the same.

It has helped put things into perspective for me. I understand now why certain people seem to be able to hold onto conflicting ideas even in the face of extensive evidence to the contrary. I highly recommend the series called "Cracks in the wall" by Sara at Orcinus. She not only explains the authoritarian mind, but links to some other documents that are fascinating reading, including a Canadian study on authoritarian thinking. Click on my sig for a link.

The difference between 2 and 1 is not very big, even though it may be statistically significant. Sometimes results can be statistically significant without being functionally significant. The real question is: Is this drug more effective than other treatments, like tylenol? If I were a fibro patient, I'd want more than a 2 in 10 chance of being relieved of pain if I were going to take a drug which probably has significant side effects.

California has a series of problems that are unique. Regardless, whether other states can balance their budgets or not, it is wrong to suggest that California is asking for some kind of bailout when all we really want is payback for what we've given over the years. Other donor states can deal with their own issues. Some of them aren't doing so well, either.

The real question is why is California being trashed when the banks that loaned the money, the lack of regulation that allowed the loans, and many of the investors who drove up housing prices were from out of state? The depth of our current fiscal crisis isn't caused by our politics - it's the housing bubble bursting. We never should have had that bubble to burst. Our own fiscal decisions have contributed, but we've somehow managed to get by until now.

If you see a child (who is not old enough to unlock a door)alone in a car in a parking lot you should immediately call 911. The police would rather deal with a false alarm than a dead baby. If you're running late and don't have time to wait for the police, give them the location and license plate number and put a note on the windshield. Heck... if you see a pet alone in a car on a warm (not even hot) day you should alert somebody. It's illegal to leave pets in cars to die. This is one time it's okay to butt into somebody else's business.

...that I've been shocked at the vitriol from the left towards Israel. Every time a conflict starts between Israel and Palestine there are flame wars with most people blaming Israel for everything bad that happens. I'm pretty moderate when it comes to Israel/Palestine conflict - I think that both states have made big mistakes. I believe that pretending that Israel is soley at fault and is committing genocide is totally wrong and insulting to the Jewish State and the people who support it. So I'm afraid that there is some justification for the argument that liberals hate Jews. Some, even many, do.

That said, the man who committed murder yesterday was not a liberal by any stretch of the imagination. He was much closer to an anti-government right-winger in his philosophy. I can see why the right should want to declaim any association with him(especially given the recent Tiller murder), but he had no evident sympathy for Palestinians... he simply hated Jews in general and hated the government in general. He was a classic right-wing anti-government fanatic. It's no mistake that he went to Washington to commit his murder and murdered a guard, a government representative, at a government institution.