The Change You Want in 2010

Near the end of the NY Times' front page story on the reorganization of the health care reform effort was this segment:

Senior Republicans showed little new willingness to collaborate with the Democrats. Asked where he might be willing to work across the aisle, the Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, offered praise for Mr. Obama’s strategy in Afghanistan but not a single example on domestic policy.

Mr. McConnell was asked if the health care bill was dead. “I sure hope so,” he said.

So, there it is. People are satisfied with the health care system that is trending upwards in costs and downwards in enrollment numbers?

And if you were thinking that the Democrats would be playing ball with the Republicans now, it seems that the Republicans aren't stepping on the field until they have the majority again. So, there you go.

(Admittedly, the next paragraph is Susan Collins talking about bipartisanship. I'm not convinced she means it, so I did not include it.)

Soccer and more, lots more

ESPN gives soccer the short end of the sports stick a lot of the time, so I'm glad that the did this little feature on US soccer this summer. The pictures are great. The bad thing is that its a features article and not about soccer. Boo on that.

For those not soccer-ly inclined here is an article from my hometown press outlet. Its sort of about human rights but mostly just a human interest thing.

The most trusted name in news

I get random bits of information from Yahoo! because it is my home page (for now- read below). When I saw this article/blog post I was very appreciative of its timely relevance to my life.

As for Yahoo! being my home page, that may soon go by the wayside for several reasons. First, they change the layout so much that I'm tired of it trying to figure it out every so often. Not a big deal but its annoying. Second, I don't use their mail that much any longer (the funny e-mail name isn't as cure when you're 26 as it is when you're 13- when I got it). Third, the things that Yahoo! has been the most useful for- checking to see if I have an e-mail or not- is no longer available. I can't go to yahoo.com and see that I have (or don't) a new e-mail so, why not just go directly to mail.yahoo.com or to games.yahoo.com to play a crossword? Fourth, as my ironic blog title indicates, I get my "regular" news from other sources: NYTimes, WaPo, Chron.com, etc. so why flip through to Yahoo's webpage to see what they're saying?

The previous paragraph probably should be filed under the category of gratuitous posting of life's minutiae that maybe should be left to one's self. But, whateryagonna do.

A.O. Scott

One of the things I have enjoyed the most about the New York Times is the movie reviews in the Arts section. Often I find myself reading reviews of movies I have zero interest in watching just to read how others think of them. My favorite reviewer is A. O. Scott and until tonight I had never seen his face.

He review "Mad Max" in their video section of their website in this clip. Its short so there's not much there, but for other fans of his, I thought it might be interesting.