I’ve read and heard several opinions about the health care reform effort here in the United States. This Congressional effort has clearly been derailed and will likely die. Many are disappointed by this, but I am not (but please read on).

The bills that passed through both Houses of Congress were vastly complex. There were over 1,000 pages in these bills, and many influential politicians had to be bribed into supporting it with sweetheart deals for their constituents. The public was barred from watching the discussions even after then-presidential candidate Barack Obama promised to air the process on C-SPAN several times (I saw the footage myself). This is the most damning: During the debates, I heard no backlash from health insurers. If these bills threatened this industry with its mighty lobby and nearly limitless marketing budget, then you would have heard and seen scare-tactics on primetime TV and on the sides of buses.

Scott Brown’s senate win in Massachusetts is an indicator not just of that state but of the country as a whole. Most people aren’t lemmings. Most people believe in ideology, not cults of personality. Most people don’t like shady backroom deals among politicians and powerful special interest groups to support a baffling health care reform bill that they refuse to explain in any meaningful way. Most people don’t like being led about like children or, worse, sheep.

I like our president. Obama is clearly a bright and intelligent man. He is new to national leadership, but that doesn’t make him weak or ineffective. I truly believe his ability to lead effectively is overwhelmed by the Democratic party’s influence and far-left agenda (public trials for terrorists, anyone?). If President Obama could assert his own ideals – the ones we heard on the campaign trail – America would get behind him like it did with Reagan in the 80s. Reagan did it with charisma and conviction. Obama has at least as much charisma, but his conviction is being stifled by his party. If he would stand up to his Democrat peers and lead from his own conviction, then he would become more influential than Reagan could have dreamed.

I would love to see effective health care reform, but a nanny-state is not the answer. America’s capitalist nature can’t accept government-run health care. I know that I cannot, even though I concede there are some compelling arguments.

My suggestion: Obama should allow insurers to easily operate across state lines. Open competition will drive down prices and increase services. If not immediately, then within a few years. And the public option wasn’t going to kick in until a few years, anyway. On top of that, regulators should not allow insurers to discriminate based on pre-existing conditions. Make those changes and assess the results before we bring politics into health care.

I mean, think about it. When the GOP becomes the dominant political force again, would you want planned parenthood to suddenly become unfunded?

Pop a Tylenol and click this link for some mind-bending images.

Optical Illusions at FoxNews.com. And they’re not specifically complementary to the GOP…

You can get the full thumbnails in Firefox in Windows 7 just like Internet Explorer 8.

1. Navigate to about:config.
2. If prompted, confirm that you know what you’re doing.
3. In the filter text field type browser.taskbar.previews.enable.
4. Double click the entry that appears in the list. The value should change from false to true.
5. Hover your mouse over the taskbar tile to see the expanded thumbnails.

Nice.

Thanks to Ed Bott for posting this tip!

Okay, so I predicted Apple’s tablet existed and was right. This is what I said:

The tablet will be announced. Whether it’s called the iSlate, iTablet, (gawd-forbid) iPad, or something else, the name will be instantly cool after it leaves the Apple CEO’s lips.

So what does Steve Jobs do? He named it – you guessed it – the iPad. Ugh.

Learn more at Apple.

Everyone is wondering about it, and some folks are frothing at the mouth about it. The rumored Apple tablet overshadowed real products at CES 2010. It’s been the hot topic on blogs and fan sites. It spilled over into the tech press. And it’s even hitting mainstream news outlets who swear they have the inside word. Who knows. Maybe they do.

The buzz has gone from “does it exist” to “what it will be.” Again, who knows. Until Steve Jobs walks off the stage, it’s all a big guess.

So here’s my guess: The tablet will be announced. Whether it’s called the iSlate, iTablet, (gawd-forbid) iPad, or something else, the name will be instantly cool after it leaves the Apple CEO’s lips. I think the tablet device will be an mix of existing ideas innovatively packaged. If anyone can do this, Apple can. It’ll be expensive. And it will be popular.

Frankly, what I’m more interested in is any announcement regarding iPhone 4.0. My wireless service contract is about up, and I’m interested in learning if I need to wait for better hardware. And if iPhone goes to Verizon, I predict AT&T’s data network woes will significantly decrease.

We’ll all see on Wednesday (Jan 27, 2010).

What is the world coming to?

We have the government taking out an Everest-sized mountain of debt to bail out financial institutions that begged to fail. We’re entertaining another load of debt and taxation for health care reform that no one understands, that requires back-room deals to gain supporters, and has everyone but health insurance companies up in arms. We have terrorists being tried in civil court in New York City where they (allegedly) perpetrated their crimes. We have a Failed Christmas Day Underwear Bomber also headed to the civilian judicial system. Meanshile, our president supports blowing away suspected terrorists with military drones but will read Miranda rights to the ones caught alive.

And the Supreme Court just overturned a 20-year ruling that now allows corporations to spend freely on political causes. With the sort of money at play here, it could be impossible for any candidate or group to effectively voice any different opinion from that of a corporate giant. If you thought the era of Bread and Circuses was bad now, just wait for the fall. Corporate Big Brother will feed us any opinions we need.

I’m packing up and moving to the Moon.

Regardless whether you support health care reform bill that is currently being reconciled between both houses of US Congress, here’s something to consider:

Health insurance companies are quiet.

The insurance industry has a powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. They can also mount an intense media campaign to raise fear, uncertainty, and doubt among the US population if they felt their sources of income were threatened. The leaders of these companies sprinkle hubris in their coffee every morning.

And they’re quiet.

Believe this: If this health care reform bill would benefit the American people, the insurance lobbyists would be in a frenzy and the airwaves would be filled with prime time commercials showing how government influence would doom your loved ones while showing images of IV drips and cemeteries.

My prediction is that health care reform will pass. And it will boil down to nothing more than offers of government subsidies for our poorest citizens who still won’t be able to afford out-of-pocket expenses. Meanwhile, there will be no relief for the middle class, and the CEOs of major insurers will still receive annual multi-million-dollar bonuses.

It’s all bread and circus, ladies and gentlemen.

That, according to FoxNews.com. And it’s most likely correct.

Here are the Nine Big Stories the Mainstream Media Missed in 2009.

Even as a conservative person, I get tired of the hot air and bellowing the right-wing pundits undertake on a daily basis. Conversely, the venom spewed by left-wing pundits is scary at times. Like just about everything in life, the truth lies somewhere in the middle.

Personally, I like President Obama, but he’s not perfect. I believe that he is a darling of the mainstream media and that is a dangerous thing. Our nation’s founding fathers fully expected the press would always act as political watchdogs, critically examining those in public office. Somewhere in the 1970s, that stopped happening. Today, the transparency of support for Democrats among the largest media outlets is egregious. Self-respecting Democrats agree with me.

FoxNews might be self-evangelizing, but the article about what mainstream media missing significant stories is no less true because of that.

As I previously wrote, the iPod touch continues to be a stellar device. Given it’s a phone-less version of the iPhone, I know why that device is so popular and gets rave reviews from even non-Mac users.

I’ve always wanted a shared calendar resource in the cloud that my wife and I could jointly manage and reference. I set up two Google Calendars. One for my wife, and one for me. I shared my calendar with hers. Entries and changes from both calendars show up on our respective calendars immediately when viewed in a Web browser. I set up the iPod touch to access her Google Calendar. With push enabled, the iPod’s Calendar app becomes a seamless extension of the Google Calendar. Updates are immediate in both directions. The iPod even color-codes entries from the different calendar sources.

Not surprisingly, this has sold me on the iPhone. Our contract on our current mobile service expires February 1. I’ll be snapping up iPhones at about that same time.

I don’t plan to abandon the Zune, though. I prefer to have media on one device and phone/data on another. But that’s just me. And the Zune software’s media management features are so much nicer than iTunes. By far!

Okay, I’ve decided to partake in some Cupertino Kool-Aid by buying an iPod touch (3rd Gen) for my wife. It arrived from Amazon on Monday, and she accidentally opened it on arrival thinking it was something she had ordered. There went my Christmas surprise for her!

Software

Anyway, my biggest anxiety about taking the iPod plunge was iTunes. I downloaded version 9.0.2, and it was just as I expected: Kinda crummy.

Installation was a bit naggy with some questions and presentation of 2 EULAs (end user license agreements). C’mon! Two?! Getting iTunes to see the music folders on another computer was far from straight-forward. I had to add the folder with a command in the File pull-down menu. During the lengthy scan-and-add process, I was puzzled by what I was seeing. Was it copying music to the local PC? No, I later found out. iTunes just churns new additions at its own snail’s pace. Zune scans and adds new media in a heartbeat.

Once the music collection was added to iTunes, it worked mostly as I expected. Still, the Zune software is much more elegant by a large degree.

iTunes’ photo management stumped me. I had to search the Web for a clue on this one. I was expecting iTunes to be able to view pictures like Zune software does. It doesn’t. It looks to one folder for pictures and syncs those files to the iPod without displaying the contents of that folder from within iTunes. I wasn’t expecting that paradigm. I was expecting to browse the images and selectively sync them to the iPod … like Zune does. If I can browse videos, why not photos?

Zune 4.0 software: A
iTunes: C-

Hardware

The Zune HD player is really nice for video, audio, and pictures. The iPod is different, but equally as elegant in these areas. Apps and Internet (via wi-fi) are nice in Zune but sorely lacking when compared to the iPod touch. The iPod performs excellently. I mean, really excellently. Even the on-screen keyboard’s responsiveness and performance is head-and-shoulders above the Zune’s. The browser is quick and renders nicely. The other Internet-connected apps are also beautiful in their operation.

Zune HD player: B
iPod touch: A+

Conslusion

I can see why people love their iPhones. Once you get beyond iTune’s shortcomings, the iPod touch device looks like a real winner.