Funny thing about meat thermometers and ballpeen hammers. You pound one into your ear and you get the worst infection ever. Man, I hate it when that happens. Thank goodness for really powerful antibiotics. After a couple of days worth of bedrest, I feel pretty good. My hearing in the left ear is a little bit like a blown-out speaker in a '72 Chevy Impala, but it's improving.

California's Democrat-dominated legislature on Monday killed Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's proposed universal health care plan. Killed it dead. The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday conducts an inquest and finds that cost is a serial killer:

It's all connected:

Over on the homepage, we're taking a look at America's failing health care system. The U.S., it turns out, leads the industrialized world in "preventable deaths." And it seems the nation's ranks of uninsured are a big factor in all of this.

From the New York Times: