"As part of the health care reform, we have to ask you for your race."

Tung Yin finds something else that's obnoxious about Obamacare. "Obnoxious" is his word.

"You're free to decline to answer," [the hospital receptionist] said, and added that it used to be really hard for her to ask this question.

I said that I was, quite obviously Asian, but apparently that was not precise enough for the requirements of the new health reform act. It was necessary for some reason to classify me as not just "Asian" but "Chinese."

Is this meaningless bureaucratic collection of information, possibly useful for medical reasons, or something more nefarious?

"You cannot be serious."

Things not to say in/on court.

About that Christmas tree.

I said it's okay — and green enough — to get an artificial Christmas tree. Then Professor Yin came in with some scary stuff about lead, and Professor Bainbridge says don't get a tree at all, and don't even get presents — give it all to charity.

What's the best solution to the Christmas tree problem?
	A real tree, a cut tree. Follow tradition!
	A nice new artificial tree. The lead problem is solved, right?
	Some sort of potted tree, that you reuse or replant or something.
	No tree at all!
pollcode.com free polls

Glomming.

Reacting to a NYT story about the problem women outnumbering men at various universities these day, Tung Yin writes:

... I went to Caltech for college in the mid- to late 1980s, where the male-female ratio was 8-1. From a social standpoint, it wasn't clear that 8-1 was better than infinity. I learned the term "glomming," which described the phenomenon of 6-8 guys standing around a single woman, usually with only one of the guys actually talking to her, and the rest just nodding their heads.

Glomming... it checks out in Urban Dictionary.

Glom is a funny word. I've always mixed it up with grok. Only grok is a Martian word.

It's Let's Talk Like Rahm Emanuel Day!

Come on, everybody! It's exciting. It's liberating.

Somebody not talking straight to you?

"Take your f***ing tampon out and tell me what you have to say."

Dog getting under foot?

"I’m going to kill that f***ing dog."

(Those 2 quotes are from this Ed Driscoll piece, where I arrived via Instapundit.)

What's worse, the tampon remark or threatening the dog?
	Threatening the dog, because I love pets.
	Threatening the dog, because death is horrible.
	The tampon remark, because it implies that women are inferior to men.
	The tampon remark, because it's so odd and icky.
pollcode.com free polls

ADDED: Tung Yin notes a semi-scientific test that might explain the connection between Rahm's way of talking and his success. It's all about pain.