From the Wired chat logs:

Manning described the incident which first made him seriously question the U.S. Government: when he was instructed to work on the case of Iraqi "insurgents" who had been detained for distributing so-called "insurgent" literature which, when Manning had it translated, turned out to be nothing more than "a scholarly critique against PM Maliki":

i had an interpreter read it for me… and when i found out that it was a benign political critique titled "Where did the money go?" and following the corruption trail within the PM’s cabinet… i immediately took that information and *ran* to the officer to explain what was going on… he didn’t want to hear any of it… he told me to shut up and explain how we could assist the FPs in finding *MORE* detainees…

i had always questioned the things worked, and investigated to find the truth… but that was a point where i was a *part* of something… i was actively involved in something that i was completely against…

And Manning explained why he never considered the thought of selling this classified information to a foreign nation for substantial profit or even just secretly transmitting it to foreign powers, as he easily could have done:

Manning: i mean what if i were someone more malicious- i could've sold to russia or china, and made bank?

Lamo: why didn’t you?

Manning: because it's public data

Lamo: i mean, the cables

Manning: it belongs in the public domain -information should be free - it belongs in the public domain - because another state would just take advantage of the information… try and get some edge - if its out in the open… it should be a public good.

Manning has spent the last 7 months in prison, the last 5 of which have been in solitary confinement. He is let out of his cell 1 hour a day. He continues to believe he is a whistleblower.

According to this article, a 1940 Supreme Court decision, Chambers v. Flordia, "characterized prolonged solitary confinement as 'torture' and compared it to '[t]he rack, the thumbscrew, [and] the wheel.'"

“It was absolutely critical that everybody be together because if the proponents of the bill were able to say it was bipartisan, it tended to convey to the public that this is O.K., they must have figured it out,” Mr. McConnell said about the health legislation in an interview, suggesting that even minimal Republican support could sway the public. “It’s either bipartisan or it isn’t.”

Mr. McConnell said the unity was essential in dealing with Democrats on “things like the budget, national security and then ultimately, obviously, health care.”

So, essentially, McConnell's saying: we're not going to help. Any issue that's plaguing this nation, it's just going to have to wait a couple years until we have a Republican president.

Thanks GOP. Thanks a lot.

The role of gender in society is the most complicated thing I’ve ever spent a lot of time learning about, and I’ve spent a lot of time learning about quantum mechanics.

The researchers found that one of the most important factors in happiness is the gap between the number of hours someone works per week and the amount of time they’d like to work per week. If that difference is three hours or less, an individual is likely to be quite happy. People who are overworked (that is, they work greater than three hours more per week than desired) are less satisfied, and those who are underworked tend to be the unhappiest of all.

Notice that this is relative. If you want to work a lot and you do, you're fine. But if you're working more, and you want to work less, it's probably a good idea to find some way to shave a couple hours off your work lifestyle.