Happy Wednesday morning all. Got back to Washington late last night - the ride back in from BWI at 11 pm is a dark one - and I'm back in the office bright and early this morning.

Obviously, while I have been gone, something major happened. Sitting around a television with some of my closest friends, as well as some parents, a couple of whom are doctors, we watched as the votes were tallied and the gavel hit the desk, declaring that health care reform had been passed through the U.S. House of Representatives.

It was a landmark day for all of America and for those in Washington who were finally able to make it happen. And while there will be many more trials to come, including a legal challenge brought by state attorneys general (Washington state AG Rob McKenna is one - a bad political calculation in a state where he enjoyed bipartisan support), this great "unfinished business," as the late Ted Kennedy put it, is finally done.

One of the key votes was Vancouver Rep. Brian Baird, a no vote last year, who switched his vote this time and is not running for re-election. Many point to his retirement as a reason for that vote, which means we would be remiss in not pointing out that maybe that's how he wanted to vote all along. Politics can change votes in a hurry.

There will be improvements over time, but despite the threats, I don't see any GOP attempts at a repeal going anywhere. Sometime down the road, maybe 20, maybe 50 years from now, that March day in 2010 will be another landmark day in our history. The day equity became a leading cause in this country again.

Which might be what sparked VP Joe Biden to say, in the vicinity of a microphone, "this is a big f*cking deal," to the president.

"No f*cking sh*t, Joe."

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- Democrats proved they could govern again, something sorely missing for quite some time in Washington. Can that continue?
- Lost in this, or maybe intentionally not brought up, is one of the underlying effects of this bill, an attack on wealth inequality. Since Reagan the gap between rich and poor has been steadily widening, but this looks to slow that down.
- Are we headed for a "radical center".

- It is worth paying attention to what is going on between Google and China right now, as the search giant attempts to circumnavigate Chinese filtering. The country known for extreme censorship is blocking Google at every turn.

- They are rejoicing in 20 congressional districts today, as Sarah Palin announced her targets for the 2010 midterm elections. The Democrats are that is. Give her credit for this quote, which obviously was printed on her Facebook page: "Come November, we're going to print pink slips for Members of Congress as fast as they've been printing money."

- This stuff often just gets pushed to the side these days, but this is a pretty high-profile resignation in the Catholic church, that seemed to be a long time coming. It probably should've happened a while ago.

- The UC school system may propose three-year bachelors degrees (something many students could do if they wanted to anyway), as well as taking more out-of-state students, who pay higher tuition, in order to bring in much needed money. UW president Mark Emmert has said the Seattle could also be recruiting outside of Washington state as well.

- The other financial reality in California is that it will be easier to get out of prison, strictly because they state can no longer afford to have the nearly 167,000 people it currently has in prisons. About 11 percent of the state's budget goes to the prison system.

Closing this one out with the one of the best dunks you'll ever see, courtesy of Amare Stoudemire: