Ignorance Is Bliss. Or, Is It?

Mrs. F. is currently reading The Geography of Bliss: One Grump's Search for the Happiest Places in the World. It's a non-fiction book written by an NPR foreign correspondent that explores the origins of happiness and where it is found.

She just read aloud a passage that was interesting—and both surprising and predictible at once...

[p. 14] Extroverts are happier than introverts: optimists are happier than pessimists; married people are happier than singles, thought people with children are no happier than singles; Republicans are happier than Democrats; people who attend religious services are happier than those who do not; people with college degreesa re happier than those without, though people with advanced degrees are less happy than those with just a BA; people with and active sex life are happier than those without; women and men are equally happy, though women have a wider emotional range; having an affair will make you happy, but will not compensate for the massive loss of happiness you will incur when your spouse finds out and leaves you; people are least happy when they're commuting to work; busy people are happier than those with little to do; wealthy people are happier than poor ones, but only slightly.

Discuss...

Just wondering...

I was at the counter of a Dunkin Donuts yesterday (NOTE: iced coffee is only 99¢ this month) and I could hear a television over my shoulder...

"Nancy Pelosi and her lieutenants assembled...blah...blah..blah..."

"Hmm," I thought. "That HAS to be FOX News."

It was. And then they trotted out some jackass Republican Congressman to decry "the increase of government in your health care" and is that "what Americans want?"

It was nothing I haven't heard a thousand times before, but it dawned on me that this argument loses what little credibility it had as the number of Americans without any health care coverage at all increases..."Government-run health care for me and my family versus nothing at all? Where do I sign up?"

They are going to lose this argument and so many others because the GOP doesn't feel the ground shifting beneath their feet.

The Furious Bracket

Money's too tight for me to be going nuts entering pools, but I still gotta do a bracket. This is absolutely the most ill-informed one I've ever completed—I know absolutely nothing about college hoops at this point in my life. It's gone downhill dramatically since having kids and an actual job (as opposed to consulting), but I think the cumulative effect is actually erasing the six-years-stale knowledge I do possess.

I entered the Balloon Juice pool (free—bragging rights only) through Yahoo! and if I can figure a way to show you the whole bracket I will, but in the meantime, my Final Four is Loisville, UConn, Gonzaga and Texas. With UConn over the Zags 78-70 in the final.

Purely sentimental picks based on nostalgia and not much else. UConn and Gonzaga are long-time Furious Favorites, but I've never ridden Gonzaga this far. Texas is here solely for my love of Rick Barnes—and I don't even know if he's still the freaking coach. And Louisville, because I just can't argue with the numbers.

Oh, and here's Obama's bracket.