Ragbag Headliners

Supreme Court Won't Jump Into Health Care Fray -- For Now

The U.S. Supreme Court has refused to jump into the controversial national debate over health care reform at this stage, rejecting a plea from Virginia for a judicial end-around -- an expedited review over whether the sweeping federal law is constitutional.

As expected, the justices without comment on Monday declined the state's "petition for certiorari before judgment."

Various state and private challenges to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act are now before federal appeals courts across the United States -- meaning it could take several months, at least, before they would go to the U.S. Supreme Court. Unusual requests such as Virginia's, to have its appeal move to the head of the line, rarely succeed since the justices traditionally like to have these kind of petitions fully analyzed and decided by lower courts before tackling them.

Federal judges have split on whether a key provision -- the "individual mandate" requiring most Americans to purchase health insurance by 2014 or face financial penalties -- is constitutional.

The high court could be asked this fall to take formal jurisdiction of one or more health care appeals, and decide the matter perhaps by 2012, a presidential election year. –Read more at CNN Justice

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500-year-old Book Surfaces In Utah

Book dealer Ken Sanders has seen a lot of nothing in his decades appraising "rare" finds pulled from attics and basements, storage sheds and closets.

Sanders, who occasionally appraises items for PBS's Antiques Roadshow, often employs the "fine art of letting people down gently."

But on a recent Saturday while volunteering at a fundraiser for the small town museum in Sandy, Utah, just south of Salt Lake, Sanders got the surprise of a lifetime.

"Late in the afternoon, a man sat down and started unwrapping a book from a big plastic sack, informing me he had a really, really old book and he thought it might be worth some money," he said. "I kinda start, oh boy, I've heard this before."

Then he produced a tattered, partial copy of the 500-year-old Nuremberg Chronicle.

The German language edition printed by Anton Koberger and published in 1493 is a world history beginning in biblical times. It's considered one of the earliest and most lavishly illustrated books of the 15th century. –Read more at Yahoo News

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Japanese Lab Invents Internet Kissing Machine

We admit to being sort of creeped out by this: A Japanese lab has created a device that may let let you "French kiss" someone over the Internet.

And by "kiss," we mean waggle your tongue on a plastic straw, thereby making another plastic straw waggle remotely on someone else's tongue.

Hot, huh?

Well, the folks at Tokyo's Kajimoto Laboratory say it's just the beginning of what could become a full-on person-to-person experience over the Internet.

The lab, part of The University of Electro-Communications, posted a video in which a researcher demonstrates the "Kiss Transmission Device." It's a motorized box that looks a little like a police Breathalyzer. –Read more at CNN Tech