A good way to start a Sunday morning

This morning, I'd planned to wake up and run with the St Paul girls (whom Amanda refers to as my "running mates"). I woke up and checked Facebook (standard procedure in case anyone can't come) and got some good news on another front (more on that in a minute). I got to Lake Nokomis and met Jenna (the other St Paul girls dumped us). We had a great run. Lake Nokomis at sunrise is just about gorgeous. Plus the sun rise today was all purple and red and even more dramatic than usual.

After completing my exercise, I came home to verify and get more information on what I learned from Keith Ellison's facebook feed. We are one step closer to having an actual health care system. Although, as noted it aint a law yet. Find out all 39 democrats who voted against the bill. (Dennis Kucinich?!?) And, in other good news Gov. Pawlenty is clearly gearing up for a run for president in 2012. I'd just like to point out that health care in Minnesota is cost effective and provides excellent coverage despite the governor's many many attempts to eviscerate the very programs meant to keep costs down.

How does the US stack up against other nations in health care spending? It's what everyone has been saying. We spend more to cover fewer people and tend to score lower than other industrialized nations on public health indicators. (We can talk about abortion but the same people opposed to health care covering abortion have opposed expanding the health care that would reduce our ridiculously high infant mortality rates.)

Note: Apparently this post will be about politics.

Next up in health care: Legalize pot. I learned recently that many other industries are opposed to this because hemp is a better fiber for clothing, rope, and pulp for paper and can be produced with less stress on the environment. Also, in the Netherlands (where pot is basically legal) there's actually a smaller percent of the population actually using it than places where it's illegal.

And I think this is just cool. What a great idea, to take apart HIV and make it carry something that makes us better rather than sick.

Now, H1N1 is all over the news and I'm sure everyone reading this knows someone who's had it already. (Do those people need the shots then?) Here's the treatment method I'm sure we all want our kids to learn. And the tragic real life example of isolation and H1N1. (Although, honestly, how many of you, when you read that story thought "I can see Russia from my house".) And, yet another reason I don't shop at Wal-Mart. (And another reason employers should be required to provide health insurance.)

Hopefully stepping away from topics that can piss people off, I recently discovered I love this show.

I've always wondered what Hydroponic gardening means, especially since last week when I dropped a ton of money on tomatoes grown in a hydroponic garden in Minnesota instead of tomatoes grown some other (less expensive?) way in some far away state. I think I could totally do that in my windows.