Debbie and I saw the new Sherlock Holmes movie this weekend. I recommend it.

You may have noticed from the TV commercials or theater trailer that Robert Downey Jr. isn't portraying a "by the book" pure version of Holmes. Still, he puts a great twist on the character and I enjoyed his take on the role. Same thing for Jude Law's Dr. Watson -- a bit different from what we usually see but it works, quite well.

The first part of the movie dragged; I would have chopped about 20 minutes from the first half hour. (But I tend to be impatient in films.) And when the plot finally swirled into view, I first thought "Oh, this is not going to work." Not to give anything away, but in the end it *did* work, quite well.

So even if you're a diehard Irregular, set aside your standard view of 221b Baker Street and enjoy a great adventure.

I think the politicians have done the worst possible towards health care reform. First of all there is no "reform". Insurance companies and for-profit hospitals are going to continue to make sizable profits (their stocks are going up). The only difference now is that we (I) will be forced to buy insurance from them. If I don't, I will be fined $750. Which is still cheaper than paying for health insurance. The broken system is still broken. The system will stay broken until you remove stock holders and profits from the system.

The government wants to charge fees to the medical device manufacturers, which doesn't make sense at all. Why not include the drug manufacturers? Over the years, I've worked for three medical device manufactures. They are not exactly rolling in the dough. These fees will either put them out of business or they will pass the fees along to the hospitals, doctors and insurance companies, who will... guess what? ...pass those fees on to the rate payers.

There needs to be a not-for-profit government, or other entity, option. But the republicans are against this, striking fear into people by asking "do you want the government making your health care choices for you?"

It's such a red herring. Right now we've got corporations making these choices for us. What's the difference? None, expect that the latter has executives taking my money and spending the winters on their yachts in the south pacific.

There are going to be tax incentives to help the lower and middle classes afford their insurance. Those will go away with the next administration. Tax incentives never last more than a few years because they are so easy to change. So yeah, in 4 years we'll be right back where we started. What we need is something like a constitutional amendment, something that can't be changed willy nilly based on which way the political wind is blowing. But that will never happen, either. The citizens of this country are anything but united in their vision and goals. So we'll just have to deal with it.