Briefly noted

On the public option...

The current premise is that a public option -- that is, the government providing the same sort of insurance program as Medicare, but for all their citizens and not just the elderly -- is very nearly a nonstarter, because we Americans are apparently supposed to believe that our government providing insurance to a seventy year old is a noble service, but providing that same service to a fifty year old is socialism, and providing that same service to a twenty year old or a ten year old is something that only a goddamned Hitler would do. We can have public fire departments, public police departments, federal disaster relief, flood insurance and whatnot, but keeping you alive and out of bankruptcy if you get sick is an abomination. Never mind that we are alone among the most advanced countries in this regard; never mind that our current system is both among the most expensive and least effective. We are supposed to believe chaos will ensue if we follow the same path as other nations, because the industry that has the most profit to lose if a "public option" is available has sent phalanxes of lobbyists out to assert that everything is, in fact, Just Goddamned Fine, and a hellscape elsewhere. Because the lobbyists say it, the legislators say it. Because the legislators say it, the partisan press says it. Doesn't matter that it's not true. Doesn't matter that there are no death panels, that there are no death booklets, that Stephen Hawking is not, in fact, dead from being British. We have yet to punish any politician or any news organization for baldly lying to us, so long as it is a lie that satisfies us to hear.