This is sure to go all the way to the Supreme Court, so neither opponents or proponents should get too excited, but a Federal Judge has ruled the Health Care Reform Bill unconstitutional. The reason? The individual mandate which would require all Americans to buy Health Insurance.“Because the individual mandate is unconstitutional and not severable, the entire Act must be declared void. This has been a difficult decision to reach, and I am aware that it will have indeterminable implications.,” he wrote in his ruling...
The suit was filed by the state of Florida shortly after the reform law was signed in March. But since then, 25 additional states and the National Federation of Independent Business joined the case, making it the most high-profile and politically charged lawsuit against health reform.
The individual mandate was always the weakest part of Health Care Reform. Liberal legislators wanted it to avoid "free rides" or people not having health care due to their own actions. But the Constitution has always been harshest in its restrictions on the extension of Federal power over individuals. This is a good call.
That being said, I don't think it will be hard to come up with an amendment to the original bill which does pass Constitutional muster.
...but I have to admit, he looks pretty amazing. From Empire Magazine.
During a rebellion/revolution/riot/unrest, there are always debates over whether the crowds defying the government are thugs or heroes. And, as in the American revolution, sometimes the line between the two is a fuzzy one. For those wondering about the protesters in Egypt - and the police - there is an indication that both sides are full of men and women of conscience, as they worked together to defend the Egyptian museum from would-be looters. Even amidst societal chaos, they found common ground on true universal priorities.When fire broke out on Friday night at the ruling party's headquarters, Khaled Youssef, an Egyptian film director who has made movies critical of government policies, issued an urgent call on the Al Arabiya television channel: "I am calling on the Egyptian army to head instantly to the Egyptian Museum. There is a fire right next to it in the party headquarters," he said in a report relayed by Reuters.
As the fire raged, would-be thieves started entering the grounds surrounding the museum, The Associated Press reported. But other young men, some armed with truncheons taken from the police, formed a protective human chain outside the museum's main gates. "I'm standing here to defend and to protect our national treasure," one of the men, a 40-year-old engineer named Farid Saad, told AP.
AP quoted 26-year-old Ahmed Ibrahim as saying that it was important to guard the museum because it has "5,000 years of our history. If they steal it, we'll never find it again."
It has been a LONG time in coming, but the Sudanese finally got a chance to vote for the independence of Southern Sudan. How sure are they of their desire for separation? They voted 99.57% for independence! And unlike most votes of this magnitude, there are no charges of fraud being bandied about in the international press.Six of the ten southern states registered a 99.9 percent vote for separation, with the lowest vote in favor of secession came in at 95.5 percent in Western Bahr al-Ghazal state, which borders Darfur. The long-awaited referendum produced an overwhelming turnout of 99 percent among voters in the south, one of the poorest and least developed regions on earth.
In northern Sudan, voter turnout was only 60 percent, and a modest 58 percent of voters – southerners who live in the north – were in favor of the oil-rich south breaking away. Many southerners opted to leave their lives and work in the north to move home ahead of the referendum, and the United Nations says it expects another 100,000 southerners to make the north-south journey within the next month. More than 190,000 southerners have flooded back into the south since early October, though the most recent arrivals were not able to participate in the referendum, since they had not registered to vote in either the north or the south.
Keep in mind (and your prayers) that this does not end the matter. The North still wants large portions of the South, and especially their lucrative oil fields. There are a number of issues to be worked out. But the fact that the vote took place - without violence - is a hopeful sign that peace may finally come to this poor war-town nation.
I have always been a carnivore, and even as a dieter I always have to choose a plan that lets me have meat or else it is a lost cause. But I know a number of people who have become vegetarian for health or religious reasons. So, I was interested to see that scientists are finding bacon is often a gateway meal that leads vegetarians back to a more omnivorous lifestyle. What is it about the crispy pig byproduct that makes it so irresistible?Because bacon is one- to two-thirds fat and also has lots of protein, it speaks to our evolutionary quest for calories, Lundstrom says. And since 90 percent of what we taste is really odor, bacon's aggressive smell delivers a powerful hit to our sense of how good it will taste.
"There's an intimate connection between odor and emotion, and odor and memory," Lundstrom says. "When you pair that with the social atmosphere of weekend breakfast and hunger, bacon is in the perfect position to take advantage of how the brain is wired."
We all know them and hate them. The random text messages sent by your cellular carrier announcing random offers. They tend to come at inopportune times and set off your phone in the middle of the night. But in Russia, one such text message may have saved hundreds of lives. How long until AT&T is advertising them as "anti-terrosist services" and charging a fee for them?A "Black Widow" suicide bomber planned a terrorist attack in central Moscow on New Year's Eve but was killed when an unexpected text message set off her bomb too early, according to Russian security sources...Security sources believe a message from her mobile phone operator wishing her a happy new year received just hours before the planned attack triggered her suicide belt, killing her at a safe house.
