Wednesday, November 4, 2009 Midday

Well, the House health care plan hasn’t even been voted on yet, and already, it’s running about 40 percent over budget. Speaker Pelosi said it would cost $890 billion over 10 years. But hold on: so much more spending was added in the final hours, the non-partisan Congressional budget office now puts the tab at $1.2 trillion. I’m beginning to wonder if the current Congress can spend less than a trillion dollars on anything. I might quit this job and become their pizza deliveryman. Imagine the tips! Then again, they seem to be a lot more generous with our money than with their own.

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Africa is falling apart, and I don’t mean politically. A volcano in Ethiopia has caused a 35-mile-long crack to open up within days. Geologists say this kind of “unzipping” is what caused continents to break up and drift apart. If the crack kept opening at this rate, within a few years, Africa could split into two continents with an ocean between them. But don’t order a new atlas just yet: it would more likely take a few million years

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18-month-old Sophie Atay of Gateshead, England, is suffering from a rare form of cancer. Doctors said her only chance of survival was a trip to Memorial Sloan Kettering Hospital in New York within one week for experimental treatments. But her desperate parents didn’t have the money. Well, they do now. Sophie just received a gift of $150,000 from the so-called “Meanest Man on Television”… Simon Cowell. Be careful, Simon: people might figure out there’s a kind heart under those black T-shirts. It could ruin your reputation.

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A new twist in the story of the Louisiana justice of the peace who refused to provide a marriage license to an interracial couple. He’s already facing a federal discrimination lawsuit. Now, he’s out of work. He resigned last night.

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Finally today, a grateful salute to a towering Huck’s Hero: Staff Sergeant Olaf Schmid of Britain’s Royal Logistics Corps. He was an army bomb disposal expert, pulling a five-month tour in Afghanistan. In that short time, he disabled 64 bombs, and saved countless lives. Until last weekend. Sgt. Schmid was on his final mission, just two weeks away from going home, when a roadside bomb he was disabling exploded. His commander called Schmid “better than the best of the best,” and the bravest man he’d ever met. That is an understatement.