The next iteration of the X Prize will offer $10 million to the team that successfully develops a brain-computer interface. Previously, the X Prize awarded $10 million to Virgin Galactic for successfully developing a viable commercial passenger spacecraft, so this new competition bears watching. The article doesn’t go into a lot of detail on what will constitute the winning entry, but it does contain this curious quote:

The Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) X PRIZE will reward nothing less than a team that provides vision to the blind, new bodies to disabled people, and perhaps even a geographical “sixth sense” akin to a GPS iPhone app in the brain.

I’m not sure how a BCI will give me a new body, but that’s not what what I’m interested in. I just want the means to take over the world with my army of giant thought-controlled robots. I promise that the winning X Prize team will be appointed to appropriate scientific roles (yet to be determined) within my royal court. Also, I will make myself available to all teams for field testing.

Terri Carlson, a divorced woman in her forties with a rare genetic condition, is searching for a husband. More specifically, she’s seeking a husband who can provide her with health care coverage because she cannot obtain coverage due to her preexisting condition. To that end, she has set up a website to promote herself and solicit offers from potential suitors. In a YouTube video featured in a CBS News interview, she said, “The lower the co-pay, the sexier you are to me!”

I don’t post this because I’m interested in throwing my hat in the ring (although she seems like a lovely woman and, hey, she could do worse), but to point out that this is probably an exaggerated example of a real trend. Plenty of couples probably factor in health care coverage considerations when deciding whether and even whom to marry. And it’s a concern that probably never enters the head of a woman living in Canada or the U.K. or any other country with national health care.

To be fair, Ms. Carlson could look for a different job that offers health care, but the combination of a bad economy and her health issues may make that a difficult proposition. Meanwhile, the Democrats are still wringing their hands over whether to pass a health care bill. If they fail, perhaps Ms. Carlson can guilt a Democratic congressman or senator into marrying her. I hear those federal benefits are pretty good.

I spent my Saturday morning watching a replay of yesterday’s question-and-answer session between Obama and House Republicans. It’s rare in American politics to see this kind of unmediated policy debate between a president and the opposition. And that’s unfortunate; I think a lot of voters are hungry for honest debate free of media spin and hyperbole.

My more partisan take on the Q&A is that it plays so well to Obama’s strengths while exposing Republican “ideas” as vacuous and simplistic. The president had the assured demeanor of someone eager to debate because his ideas are qualitatively better than those of the opposition. I got a lot of satisfaction from watching him dismantle Republican nonsense that the health care bill is the instrument of radical Trotskyites plotting a proletariat revolution. If Obama is to have any hope of moving his agenda forward, he’ll need to do a lot more forceful advocacy like this. Americans generally still like Obama, much more so than anyone in Congress. He needs to parlay that likeability into trust and these open debates are a good start.

The thing about State of the Union speeches is that they usually end up sounding like wonky wish lists. Eighty to ninety percent of that wish list will never come to anything and presidents can consider themselves lucky if that other ten percent survives in any recognizable form. And I think Obama knows that. He’ll be lucky to finish the year getting a financial reform package and, if the stars align just right and the Democrats manage to keep it together, a health care bill. Even that’s an optimistic view.

I’d like to live the world envisioned in Obama’s speech, but I’m guessing we’ll end up muddling through much of 2010.

As I was passing through the Government Center earlier this evening, I saw a bunch of high school kids filing into the courts wing for a mock trial tournament. I had a momentary flashback to my own mock trial experience; I had a vague notion that I wanted to be a lawyer and so mock trial seemed like something I should try. I also had a ginormous crush on a girl who was the team. I never summoned the courage to ask her out, but I did end up with an attorney’s license, so I guess it wasn’t a total wash.