Half of me wants to laugh and half of me wants to weep. Watch this video and find out why.

I thought I was pretty harsh in my last post about people’s ignorance, but I’m rethinking that. This woman is so mindbogglingly stupid that she thinks rainbows are created by an unnamed toxic sludge dumped into the environment by a government effort to search for new energy sources. I guess her backyard sits at the corner of Paranoid Street and Stupid Lane.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that she is from Northern California. I don’t know if this is a byproduct of 60′s drug culture but this place is dominated by people just like her; totally ignorant of their own ignorance. She recorded this video because, in her mind, she was going to sound the alarm about this environmental abuse. Yet it never occurred to her to take a moment to research what causes rainbows. The thought never crossed her mind that there might be a simple explanation for it. No, she thought this phenomena was weird so immediately she just knew it was something toxic and caused by the government.

I just love that she jumped to this government conspiracy conclusion too because I would bet my paycheck that she is the type that supports a government takeover of the health care industry. She would be completely happy if the very same government that she believes is polluting her backyard with rainbows, controlled her health care.

Maybe there should be an intelligence test for voting.

Pew Research Center has proven with a simple web quiz that 90% of Americans are idiots. 0.5% are irredeemably stupid. You 0.5% can go to bed knowing you’re an anchor on human progress.

Take this quiz and find out where you stand. A normal person should get every single question right. If you have to pause on any of these, count yourself as ‘kinda dumb’.

All done? Good! Hopefully you did as well as me.

If you didn’t, well, take solace. It’s probably not your fault; not completely anyway. Ideally your brain would be interested enough to seek out knowledge on its own. Spend time reading books (non-fiction ones), magazines (no Hollywood gossip ones), blogs (find some serious ones, no gossip either). However I think the reason you haven’t sought this out already is because your education didn’t encourage it. Public education is crap. No child ever gets encouraged to search for answers. For instance, what did you ever get back from your literature classes? I remember them from high school, but I can’t think of any value I gained from that. What did I learn? We read from a set of books chosen by the teacher, and I can’t remember anything. Maybe I would have learned something from a more challenging curriculum. Instead of telling me what to read, I should have to find my own books on certain topics chosen by the teacher and write papers about them. In that sort of class I would have to learn to think abstractly. I would have to do my own research instead of briefly memorizing some plot points and forgetting them after the class. Maybe teachers can figure out some in-class presentation assignments so kids would get some experience in public speaking. Sure this class would be a lot harder, but the kids would be better for it. By finding their own books, they may even develop their own interests.

That’s just one example. That approach may not work with math and science but it definitely works for those soft and mushy social “sciences”. The problem with public education is that it’s structured to provide answers. Teachers present a problem, then present an answer. Students don’t need to think, so they never develop an interest in doing so. Then they spend the rest of their lives eating the intellectual pablum of People magazine and TMZ.

This news is just too delicious to check. So far it’s an unsubstantiated, anonymous report on LiveLeak, but I hope it turns out to be so much more. According to this report, one of President Obama’s Secret Service security detail has been fired because he complained about the Obama family’s frequent gripes over certain demographics. The retarded part of this unsubstantiated story, and what makes me doubt its reality, is that the Secret Service Agent took his complaint directly to the president. Who does that? Unless you really hate your job and are looking to be fired, you don’t lecture your boss. I wish I could hear that conversation go down.

Incidentally I have no problem believing the Obama family is there badmouthing “certain demographics”, which of course means white people in flyover country. They’re wealthy, lefty, urbanites so naturally they can look down their noses at the little people. Actually this reminds me of a rumor floating around during the 2008 campaign. I forget where this allegedly happened, but at some campaign event the police providing security were told to keep out of sight of the Obamas at all times. The implication being that the Obamas were such super-liberals they refused to suffer the presence of any law enforcement. I can’t say that was true either, but it’s such a caricature that you want to believe its true. I have a feeling this story about the Secret Service Agent will go that way too; it will fade away for lack of evidence but will be remembered because its too much of a caricature to forget.

But pretending its true, and even though I would love to have some solid evidence of Obama’s elitism, it’s probably a bad thing for the country if the Secret Service Agent comes forward publicly with this news. You don’t want the Secret Service getting politicized, and you don’t want future presidents having to keep their guard up 24/7 around these guys. The right thing for this guy would have been to quietly request a transfer or resign. Complaining to the president was just idiotic.

A long way back, after trashing GM’s car designs, I said I would mention some GM products I do enjoy. I’ve been lazy about this blog lately but I haven’t forgotten about that. This will be a short post though because there’s only one car I can think of that I would seriously consider buying: the 2010 Buick LaCrosse.

That I would like a Buick is amazing because I am under 50 years old. The new LaCrosse is so different than the frumpy old man cars I’ve seen Buick churn out though. Technically Buick is a second tier luxury nameplate, like Acura or Infiniti. However I think this car is so well done it can be compared to low-end luxury cars from first tier nameplates like the Lexus ES350 or Mercedes-Benz C-Class.

Buick finally produced a body that looks modern and refined with the capability to dust a few at the line. It’s a huge departure from their past designs, which to my eye, looked like they were trying to emulate the 1996 Ford Taurus. Oh and that interior just sells me. Sumptuous is the word that repeats in my mind when I look at pictures of it.

To be fair, I haven’t seen the car in person. I liked the ES350 until I sat in it. So maybe I’m getting ahead of myself, but it’s a huge leap forward for Buick to have a 30 year old Californian actually consider them at all.

But there’s a onion in the ointment. Actually two. What is the point of buying a luxury car if it won’t impress women? Last December when I told a woman I was looking to buy a Lexus, she swooned! Honest to God, she swooned. She became breathless and started peppering me with questions about it. I really doubt any woman is going to swoon over a Buick.

Second, GM has become Government Motors and I am far too angry over that to buy any GM. There is no way I will consider getting a GM car so long as the government owns a share. Hell, even if the government divests I’m not sure that will satisfy my anger.

I suppose it’s just as well that way. Since I’ve started hiking, I’ve been driving on a lot more country roads and gravel paths. I really shouldn’t bother getting a luxury car if I’m just going to beat them up with that sort of use.

With Barack Obama in the White House and Democrats controlling the House and Senate, they own the legislative agenda. So it looks like no matter what we’re going to end up with a massive disruption to the health care industry. I was thinking about how our society will cope when government controls the health care of most Americans. One issue grabbed my attention: abortion.

Abortion was a huge hot-button issue in the 1990s. The media spent a lot more time and ink back then covering it, and while I don’t have any statistics on this I suspect there were more protests about it back then. Today the issue feels mostly settled. Conservatives don’t like it but they have seemed to accept that Roe v. Wade isn’t going to be overturned. When Obamacare comes into force I expect abortion will roar back as an enormous social issue. When the federal government becomes every citizen’s health insurer, conservatives will not be happy paying for abortions. With the government as insurer it will have to pay with money collected as taxes. Don’t think that abortion will be an “elective” procedure and not eligible for coverage. NARAL and NOW will never ever permit Democrats to do that. And so tax money will go to pay for abortions, and there will be much outrage and protest. If Republicans want to actually derail Obamacare they should bring this up. If the health care debate can be sidetracked into the abortion quagmire, it will come to a standstill.

The American Spectator is a conservative publication I don’t normally read, but I saw a link to an article where they had a different take on the issue. They found a different abortion pitfall for Obamacare. The Roe v. Wade decision that permitted abortion nationally could make any government involvement in health care decisions unconstitutional. Before I explain TAS’s reasoning you need to understand that a key part of Obamacare is the government’s ability to decide on what treatments you’ll be allowed to have. President Obama has been saying the cost of health care is rising so fast because doctors run too many tests and prescribe too many medicines to cover their asses from malpractice lawsuits. Under Obamacare, government bureaucrats will decide what tests, surgeries and medicines you are permitted to have. They can overrule your doctor and yourself if they choose.

TAS sees two ways this conflicts with Roe v. Wade.

One: The State has a legitimate interest in keeping you healthy.

We repeat, however, that the State does have an important and legitimate interest in preserving and protecting the health of the pregnant woman, whether she be a resident of the State or a nonresident who seeks medical consultation and treatment there, and that it has still another important and legitimate interest in protecting the potentiality of human life.

- Roe v. Wade Decision

Roe’s language is focused on pregnant women, but that can easily be extended to all Americans.  The Supreme Court decided that the government has an interest in protecting the health of Americans. How can the government live up to that if it is denying treatments to lower costs? How can the State ever deny a hip replacement surgery to a 90 year old? The government must protect our health, and doing that requires pursuing every treatment. Denying a treatment to save money would be negligent and the government would then be liable. So much for cost savings.

Two: The right to privacy excludes the government from intruding on the patient-doctor relationship.

The right of privacy, whether it be founded in the Fourteenth Amendment’s concept of personal liberty and restrictions upon state action, as we feel it is, or, as the District Court determined, in the Ninth Amendment’s reservation of rights to the people, is broad enough to encompass a woman’s decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy.

- Roe v. Wade Decision

In Roe v. Wade the Supreme Court found that the 14th Amendment’s right to privacy and 9th Amendment’s support for individual liberty would exclude the government from the abortion decision. It’s easy to extend “women” to all Americans, and an “abortion” can be extended to all medical procedures. I would like to see the logic that says only women have the right to make a decision on abortion, but the government can decide everything else.

So TAS concludes either Roe or Obamacare has to go. It’s a rather fascinating result and I’m happy to hear any news that could undermine the government’s takeover of our health care system. However, if this legal logic is correct, how come point two hasn’t been used to slay the twin beasts of Medicare and Medicaid?