This is a public service announcement to my fellow medical students in their basic science years.  If your medical school is kind enough to use your tuition money to video record your lectures and post them on the internet for your later perusal, you do not -- I repeat -- do not need to buy any fancy software to speed up your lectures without chipmunking.  Your free alternative to the expensive software, such as 2xAV by Enounce, is VLC media player.  Just make sure that you have "Scale audio tempo in sync with playback rate" checked.  You access this check box through the "Show setting -- All" radio button and then the "Filters" tab under "Audio."

Quick and dirty screenshot of the dialog:

Instead of studying, I just read this post at The Volokh Conspiracy on how the new-fangled health-care mandate is unconstitutional.  There is a lot of (what I perceive to be) technical legal ideas in it (that I don't understand completely), but the logic interests me.
The really short version of the post is that the Supreme Court would not be looking at the constitutionality of the mandate in terms of how the drafters of the Constitution conceived of the government's powers.  Instead, the Court will evaluate constitutionality of the mandate based on either: 1) if the mandate is consistent with what the Supreme Court has ruled before, or 2) public opinion of the mandate and personal political ideology (preference for the size and power of government).
"And this [option 2) above] would seem to be the epitome of the Rule of Men, as opposed to the Rule of Law."

"Consider a porterhouse steak with a quarter-inch layer of fat.  After broiling, this steak will reduce to almost equal parts fat and protein.  Fifty-one percent of the fat is monounsaturated, of which 90 percent is oleic acid.  Saturated fat constitutes 45 percent of the total fat, but a third of that is stearic acid, which will increase HDL cholesterol while having no effect on LDL...  The remaining 4 percent of the fat is polyunsaturated, which lowers LDL cholesterol but has no meaningful effect on HDL.  In sum, perhaps as much as 70 percent of the fat content of a porterhouse steak will improve the relative levels of LDL and HDL cholesterol, compared with what they would be if carbohydrates such as bread, potatoes, or pasta were consumed.  The remaining 30 percent will raise LDL cholesteropl but will also raise HDL cholesterol and will have an insignificant effect, if any, on the ratio of total cholesterol to HDL.  All of this suggests that easting a porterhouse steak in lieu of bread or potatoes would actually reduce heart-disease risk, although virtually no nutritional authority will say so publicly.  The same is true for lard and bacon."
This speaks for itself.

'Common good' is quite not the same as 'collective good.'  If anyone tries to assert that a health insurance mandate or any other material thing is for the common good, politely inform them that what they mean is for the collective good.  Common goods are good for everyone involved.  Collective goods are good only for those who receive them as private goods.  Here is a nice little article that sheds more light on the distinction.

Update
In February, around the time of this blog's inception, I posted about how I would try my damnedest to adhere to some new standards for myself.  I said I would use the 6 Changes platform to break some old habits and create some new ones.
My experience so far is it is harder to break new habits than to ingrain new ones.  That said, I haven't given up the onychophagia (technical for 'nail biting'), but I have been sticking to a fitness regimen (which includes exercise, dietary alteration, and should also begin to include meditation).

News
Lately, in my spare time, I have been poring over lots of research papers, blog and print media archives, all in the hopes of elucidating some calm water amidst the frantic seas of the dietetic sphere.
What I have learned so far is that I have a lot to learn if diet is going to inform my future practice of medicine (as rightly it should).  So many doctors, it seems, have such a poor grasp of how diet influences the physiology and pathology of humans.
Up to now, I've found Dr. Harris at PaNu to have the simplest and most thorough commentary on what is right (few things) and wrong (most things) with current dietary advice.  I recommend his blog for a read for a fresh perspective, even if you drink the current dietetic establishment kool-aid (lowercase 'k' and 'a').
My gut (pun intended) feeling, my chemistry background (I was a chemistry major undergrad), and some first-year medical schooling all tell me that following a program like PaNu is where it's at for ease-of-use and nutritional soundness.

As of yesterday, I received my crisp, new copy of Gary Taubes' Good Calories, Bad Calories, which is the precipitating work of Dr. Harris' content at PaNu and a veritable bible for lots of the rest of the "paleo" blogosphere.  I may post my impressions of this very influential books as I get further into it, but in the meantime, I say you pick up a copy for yourself.  Just reading through the prologue has me convinced that Taubes' writing style is well-informed, while staying crystal clear and entertaining (clarity and interest are sometimes left out of non-fiction like this).