Largest current obstacle to happiness

That would be reading the newspaper. Consider this column from today's Journal.

[after Bear Stearns], the politics of targeting taxpayer money at beleaguered homeowners has shifted. No matter the merits or intellectual distinctions, it is nearly impossible for a politician to explain the following: Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson were willing to risk as much as $30 billion of taxpayer money -- without congressional approval -- so that J.P. Morgan Chase could buy Bear Stearns cheap at an auction in which it was the sole bidder. But a taxpayer-backed rescue of homeowners whose mortgages are worth more than their homes is unwise and unwarranted.

Oh the inanity. The hypocrisy. The utter and complete moral and intellectual bankruptcy of the entire Republican ideology. From bailing out investment banks but not homeowners to subjecting hospital patients to adulterated Chinese drugs (got to preserve that free trade!) to trashing an entire economy so that buyout firms can make billions (hey, that's innovation at work).

If only I had the strength to just stop reading the paper.

Then I could be happy.