The United States Congress, one of the greatest deliberative and lawmaking bodies on the planet, has a lot on its plate these days:

Global warming. Continued turmoil in the world’s financial markets. Millions out of work. Soaring health care costs and legions of uninsured. Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Retirement programs on the brink of fatal assault from waves of retirees. Entire industries threatened with extinction. A national debt that would have been unimaginable a generation ago.

Yes, with all that swirling around Capitol Hill, our legislators could be forgiven if they had no time to focus on the seminal issue of who becomes the national college football champion.

They could be forgiven.

But, apparently, they can’t be stopped. And they are wrong.

Earlier this week, a House subcommittee approved legislation that would force college football to adopt a playoff system to determine a national champion. It would replace the current system of polls, computer rankings, bowl games and, for all we know, the study of chicken entrails.

We don’t like the current system. No one likes the current system.

But if ever there were a place government ought not to go, the ephemeral crowning of a national football champion is such a spot.

n Ho-hum. Durham and some of the best and the brightest — what’s new?

With an internationally acclaimed university and a research park that has for a generation been the benchmark for high-tech havens, we’re almost jaded about accolades for individuals and institutions.

Almost — but not yet.

So it is exciting when one of ours wins the recognition that Lanair Lett, a senior at the N. C. School of Science and Math, notched this week. Lett became the fourth student form the prestigious high school — officially, a part of the University of North Carolina system — to win one of the most prestigious prizes for student scientists.

Lett won for biochemistry research that could help treatment for diabetes.

Lett, from Henderson, has been mentored by a Duke postdoctoral fellow and financially assisted by NC Seed, a program that helps put talented high-school students in top-notch lab settings. Kenneth Cutler, director of N.C. Project Seed, was proud of the results.

“We teach them how to think like scientists, write and present like scientists,” Cutler said.

For learning that lesson so well, Lanair Lett receives this week’s Durham Grit award.

n Here at Week’s End, we’re not exactly immaculate housekeepers.

But we were quite impressed with the “lasagna effect” that Krista and Mo Staten had achieved, with layers upon layers of, well, stuff finally blocking their front door.

And we were even more impressed with the transformation wrought by folks from the television show, “Clean House: The Search for the Messiest House in the Country.”

The Statens, who “Clean House” designer Mark Brunetz called “just genuinely gracious people,” now have a neat, orderly house decorated with new furniture. The new furnishings were bought with the proceeds from a yard-sale sell off of their old, cluttered stuff.

For demonstrating that almost no situation is beyond redemption, given the right will and, yes, reality TV show, we extend our congratulations to the Statens.