This is due to the fact that political discussions in America are fast becoming solely theological in nature. Allow me to explain this concept. Each side has their beliefs. Each has their tenets which they fervently defend. Much of this is done on faith. And, when your entire world view is radically different than the person you're arguing with, there is very little chance of either agreement or mind-changing. It's like the Jews and the Muslims arguing not over where the boundaries of Israel and Palestine are, but over whether Moses or the Prophet were right. In other words, it is like just about every disagreement over religion you can think of -- from all of history. If my core beliefs do not agree in a factual way with your core beliefs, then we can discuss things up to a point, but once we both hit that point then we just stop listening to each other, and begin talking past each other instead. Or, even worse, shouting at each other.

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President Barack Obama will address Congress and the nation this Wednesday night on the subject of healthcare reform. What he'll say is anyone's guess, at this point. Which (by the way) is exactly the problem he's trying to fix. Nobody's really sure what Obama will fight for, and what he will toss overboard in the name of political expediency. Even staunch Obama supporters would be hard-pressed to say, right now, what Obama will say in his speech this Wednesday. But whatever he says, one fact remains crystal-clear: Obama has got to be specific in his speech, or else the healthcare reform effort may collapse of its own weight soon after. And by being specific, Obama's got to start taking some things off the table. If Obama attempts more lofty (but detail-free) rhetoric, and does not (his other favorite metaphor for this situation) "draw bright lines in the sand," then he is going to disappoint a lot of people who voted for him because they thought he would be a good leader.

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I've always been confused why the media goes berserk about rating a president's "first 100 days," but then just stops counting after the first milestone. This, to a statistician, would be known as a "zero dimensional data array" -- one data point, to be exact. If you don't re-test the sample on a regular schedule, how are you supposed to compare it to anything?

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California voters may soon get a chance to weigh in on whether marijuana should be legalized and taxed by the state. If enacted, this may help the state's budget by providing revenue from a brand new source, while also freeing up money that previously went to enforcement efforts against marijuana growing. Of course, marijuana would still be illegal under federal law, but this may be a turning point in the legalization movement -- the point where politicians desperate for tax revenues see dollar signs instead of prison bars when looking at the cannabis plant.

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Conservatives and corporate-owned Democrats are in a tizzy. The House is moving its version of healthcare reform forward, and it (gasp!) raises money by (double-gasp!) taxing rich folks. Not by very much, as these things go -- but you certainly wouldn't know that from hearing Republican politicians and their enablers in the news media. As far as they're concerned, Democrats are going to raise everyone's tax rates (yes, even YOURS!) until they rival Denmark's (complete with Fox News graphics, in case you missed the point). While the tactic is new, the strategy is an old one, and can be summed up as: "Who will stand up for the poor, poor millionaires and billionaires?"

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This Saturday is, of course, Independence Day. It was also scheduled to be "Round Two" of the tea bag protests. But their planned protest seems to be fizzling like a wet firecracker. At least in the media's view, so far. Perhaps scheduling protests on one of the worst news days in the year is responsible for this inattention?

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Dan Froomkin's "White House Watch" column today will be the last one that appears on WashingtonPost.com. Froomkin has expressed interest in possibly moving the column elsewhere and continuing it, and I consider this a test of whether newspapers are (a.) smart enough to realize this is the way to modernize and move into the future of journalism, or (b.) dumb as a bag of hammers. WashingtonPost.com has obviously chosen the (b.) route. Because Froomkin's column is a shining example of how newspapers could migrate from their print business model to the more interactive web-based model they need to be in to survive.

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Every so often I get a wild-and-crazy idea on a subject I know little about. These usually are later proven to be unworkable or unwise (by people who do know what they're talking about), but this low level of success shall not deter me. Because right now, in the midst of two roaring debates ("how to pay for healthcare reform" and "how to wean ourselves off foreign oil"), there seems to be a partial answer to both that nobody has hit upon yet. Instead of paying for healthcare by taxing soda, sugar, fast food, tobacco, or liquor (all of which have been proposed so far, as well as other less-direct taxes like tinkering with the income tax system), why not tax plastic?

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We have officially entered Cuckoo Bananas Land in the healthcare reform debate, it seems. Because that headline is correct -- some Democrats now think that the way to entice Republicans to vote for their healthcare bill is to raise people's taxes. Well, when I say "some Democrats," I should really use the more technically-correct "Senator Max Baucus." Because his plan doesn't even seem to have impressed many of his fellow Democrats so far.

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I admit, I am getting the jump on the rest of the media here, by writing my "First 100 Days" article six days early (some would say five days early, but they would be wrong). I have jumped this particular gun already, I should point out, having already written one article (after Obama's first week in office) entitled "Obama's First 168 Hours." So today we are going to pre-empt the usual Friday Talking Points article this week with a special edition on President Obama's "First 100 Days," since everyone will be talking about it starting this weekend.

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