My apologies in advance. Too much coffee.

A couple of random thoughts that found a vacancy in my brain today. I suppose that is one good thing about not being too thoughtful. Plenty of space to work with.

Our nation has desparately needed something we can agree upon. Something upon which a consensus can be built.

It is cold.

There it is. In all my running around today I said a hundred times, or if the person walking toward me beat me to it he or she said, a hundred times, "Cold enough for you?" or "Can you believe how cold it is?" or perhaps just "BRRRRRR." There was no debate, no conditions, no wrangling for position. Just simple acceptance. All the polling numbers show that everyone thinks it is cold enough. Even the push polls that had questions like "if cold weather improves sexual performance, would you think it is too cold," or "if Democrats would lose control of Congress because it is too cold, would you still say it is too cold?" still resulted in a huge percent of people agreeing that is too cold. There were a small number of those identifying themselves as Republicans that changed their opinion when responding to the push poll. Both questions.


Now that we know we can achieve such unity, perhaps we can build upon it, maybe about something we can actually do something about.

The second random thought, in no particular order of significance or importance, is that we need creative thinking. Get out of the box. I have devised a method of problem solving. I call it the intersect solution.

We face countless problems in our society, in our country, in the world.

For instance, affordable health care. One of the things that is consistently suggested as a cause of high medical costs is the cost of tests, particularly that of diagnostic imaging, such as mammograms, x-rays, and a variety of scans.

Another controversial issue in the news this week is airport security. The ACLU and those of us who are lying about our weight and how we go to the gym regularly are raising objections to the enhanced screening that has been proposed. Specifically, there are new machines that see through your clothes all the way to the body and, I suppose, below the surface of the skin. The resulting image is your naked body, exposed to TSA officials and inevitably you-tube and facebook.

So what about just turning up the power on those machines occasionally, and when you travel by air, you get a complimentary copy of the body scans to take to your doctor on the next visit? Timely travel and medical diagnostics. And an amazing new profile picture. All for the price of an airline ticket.

Voila. The intersect solution. The book will be in stores soon.

Because in this cold weather you might need a good read. And if the snow comes to the south you may not be able to make it to the store and you might run out of toilet paper. Bad book? No toilet paper?

Voila. Another problem solved by the intersect solution.

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