No, Princeton, I will not give you money.

My ten-year college reunion is coming up. (Gulp.) That means even more than the usual stream of pleas from Princeton that I send along some moolah. (Five years ago, I wisely decided to remove my phone number from the alumni directory, after my then-roommate informed me that "a friend from school" had called and asked me to call her back -- the "friend" was someone I'd never met who was working for the annual giving campaign. But I still get plenty of emails and snail mail.)

I refuse to give one cent to Princeton.

I had, in many ways, a very good experience there -- in particular, my thesis advisor, Dr. Robert Cava, and my German professor, Jamie Rankin, were among two of the best teachers one could hope to encounter in one's life. So why won't I fork over the cash?

Reason number one: Paul Krugman, a professor of economics who doesn't understand that a massive government entitlement cannot possibly reduce the national deficit (blithely ignoring all of the funny math Democrats used to pretend that it will), among other basic principles that even I, who switched my grading option in Princeton's Economics 101 class to pass/fail to avoid getting a C on my transcript, understand. Reason number two: Peter Singer, a professor of ethics who thinks that being moral consists of making sacrifices, that anybody in need has a right to what you have earned, precisely because you have earned it and he hasn't.

Both of these men have a base to spread their poisonous ideas in large part because Princeton employs them. I will happily -- and selfishly -- give to organizations whose work supports my life. But to support an institution that employs these men, who are working so hard to undermine my life? Hell, no.

ObamaCare adds headaches to doctors' days

ObamaCare will do much worse than cause doctors headaches as its provisions take effect, but right now, the New York Times reports that physicians are having to spend significant amounts of time answering patients' questions about the law.

Why should your physician have all the answers here? After all, I would bet nontrivial sums of money that most of the idiots who voted for the bill's passage have read a tenth of the bill, much less its entire 2,409-page text. I feel sorry for America's doctors, who on top of the massive injustice already done them by passing a bill that threatens to enslave them even more than they are already, now have to take extra time out of their days explaining the mess that has been foisted upon them and their patients. That's time they could be spending on patient care, on leisure activities, on all manner of productive pursuits.

If you have a question about the health-care bill, demand an answer from your congressional representatives. Let's make them spend hours trying to explain the unjustifiable thing they have done.

A nation of averages

In "Government-Run Health Care vs. the Hippocratic Oath," Paul Hsieh argues that government control of care subverts your doctor's judgment -- and undermines your ability to trust your doctor. One of the ways in which this happens is that bureaucrats inherently make rules based on averages. Instead of deciding how much and what kind of care a patient needs based on that patient's individual symptoms, overall health status, and general situation, as a doctor who has direct contact with a patient can do, bureaucrats look at the average level of care required by a patient with a particular condition, based on data from a large group of such patients. Then they condemn a doctor giving more care than the average as an "outlier" who is using "unnecessary resources," even if the patient's health situation makes that care all too necessary. An average, after all, is a calculation that includes both patients who need less care and patients who need more. In a free market, patients who need more than the average amount of care can seek it, and pay for it. In a government-controlled market, such patients are deemed "outliers," and to put it bluntly, they're screwed.

But payments to doctors aren't the only way in which government-run health care imposes an average to the detriment of anyone who happens to be "above average" in their need for care. The New York Times reports that the health care "reform" bill is capping the annual limit of money that can be put into a tax-free health-care flexible spending account at $2,500, starting in 2013. Proponents of the limit argue that the average amount put into such accounts is much less than that -- only $1,400 (of course, I'm sure people would put more money in if it could be rolled over from year to year and thus used to insure against serious, unforeseen events). So who are we really hurting by imposing it?

Those with chronic conditions, that's who. The article cites a Florida couple who spend $350 per month just on their co-pays for prescription drugs for heart disease, diabetes, and Crohn's disease -- let alone any money they spend on over-the-counter meds, which won't be allowed reimbursement from an HSA starting next year. They are hardly the only Americans who take multiple medications, or who have children who need orthodontic work, or who would simply prefer paying for their health care out of pocket rather than buying an expensive comprehensive insurance plan that doesn't deliver the value paid for. Such people will now have to pay for those expenses with post-tax, not pre-tax, dollars.

Just another way in which letting the government take over health care will screw you if you're "above average" in any way...

New law will create a shortage of health screenings

That's what the New York Times should have titled its blog post "New Law Will Require Free Health Screenings."

After all, if you force insurance companies to let patients completely ignore the cost of preventive care, they'll demand even more of it than they do when they have to fork over a co-pay. But there won't be a magical increase in the number of new physicians to perform all of these physicals, mammograms, and other procedures deemed to be preventive care. In fact, we can bank on fewer good doctors in the future than we have now, thanks to falling reimbursements and the soul-killing paperwork they increasingly have to spend their time doing.

Let's call a spade a spade: "Free health screenings" really means "health screening shortage."

The insidious bracket creep

One of the provisions in the health care "reform" bill is a tax on so-called "Cadillac" insurance plans -- those that cost more than $27,500 for a family or $10,200 for an individual. (So, in the name of egalitarianism, we are not only supposed to feed the short poppies but cut off all the tall ones.) This is supposed to get the "rich" to pay "their fair share" of others' health costs.

As the Boston Globe points out, many Massachusetts residents who don't consider themselves "rich" but nonetheless are covered under expensive health plans -- their high prices themselves the result of Massachusetts regulations that force patients to purchase coverage for more services than they may want or need -- stand to be hit by the "Cadillac" tax. And that's at current insurance plan rates -- in 2018, when the tax sets in, don't be surprised when health care "reform" has pushed premiums so high that many more Americans get taxed.

Unfair? Hell, yes.

Recipes for the paleo-minded

As I mentioned back in my Goals for 2010 post, I have not gone paleo as many of my Objectivist friends have, but I have reduced my carb consumption quite a bit. Where I used to eat cereal for breakfast, now I have salami and cheese; where I used to load up my plate with rice or couscous to go with whatever meat and vegetable I was having, I now limit the grain portion to no more than half a cup, or skip the grain altogether. I've found that I get fewer hunger spikes this way, and maintaining the weight loss I achieved last year has been no problem. I still have a deep love of distinctly non-paleo desserts, particularly cake and pastries, but even those I have less often in favor of chocolate-covered almonds or a rich chocolate ice cream (Ronnybrook Farm's Chocolate Silk is pretty damn awesome).

I'm not interested in using this post to persuade others who haven't adopted paleo at any level to do what I have done, nor to be persuaded to go whole hog (pun intended) by those who are full-on paleo purists. Rather, because I love to cook, I wanted to share a few of my favorite full-on paleo and paleo-friendly recipes that I've discovered since switching to a less carb-heavy lifestyle. Here we go -- and I'll post more as I find them!

Salmon fillet en papillote with julienned vegetables, by Alton Brown. This recipe makes use of a method that paleo man most certainly did not have at his disposal -- the microwave! If you're thinking, "I can make a tasty dinner in the MICROWAVE? Yeah, right!" I implore you to give it a shot, because in terms of flavor vs effort, this is just about one of the highest bang-for-your-buck recipes I can think of. Basically, you chop some vegetables, put 'em on a piece of parchment, season, throw some fish on top, season that, throw some oranges and a little vermouth on, and toss that baby in the nuke machine and you have dinner. To those purists who do not eat snow peas, it's easy enough to julienne something else, like broccoli stems or asparagus, in their place. The recipe also works for fish other than salmon -- I made it last night with wild striped bass with excellent results (just be aware that you may have to adjust cooking time).

Chicken drumsticks with muhammara sauce, from Epicurious. This is a theme: simply cooked meat with an amazing pureed vegetable-based sauce. Purists should of course omit the bread crumbs from the sauce. Again, an incredibly easy-to-make dish, and very flavorful indeed.

Skirt steak with cilantro-garlic sauce, from Epicurious. See above re: yummy pureed sauces, although this is herb- rather than veggie-based. No need to modify, it's paleo as is!