Making an Old Fashioned Cocktail
This is in honor of SO’s Christmas Eve tradition: sipping old fashioned cocktails and decorating the tree:
MyBlog
Senate Passes Health Care Reform
By a vote of 60 to 39, entirely along party lines, the U.S. Senate today passed a historic health care reform bill that will expand coverage to 31 million Americans without insurance.
“We’re all very, very proud of this moment,” said Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) at a press conference after the vote aired on C-SPAN. “Today we made history.”
Progress is not easy, said Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), “but today we were able to prove it’s possible.”
The Senate bill, which met a wall of resistance from Republicans and a threat of “kill the bill” from the left for its imperfections, now must be reconciled with the House-passed legislation, which includes the public option that had to be jettisoned from the measure negotiated by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to achieve passage.
Other items, such as the types of taxes to levy to pay for the proposal as well as abortion language, remain to be worked out in conference.
The shaky coalition for reform has to hold together for several more weeks before the bill can be passed and signed by President Barack Obama, who wants to achieve what has eluded so many Democratic presidents for decades: health care for millions more Americans.
The president spoke to the cameras shortly after the vote, calling the measure “real reform” that bans discriminatory practices by health insurers, curbs costs, and expands coverage to millions. He said this is the “most important reform” since Medicare’s passage in the 1960s.
“Our challenge then is to finish the job,” he said, before wishing everyone a Merry Christmas and a happy New Year.
End-of-the-Year Blogging: 2009 Lists | Movies
Today in 2009 lists: movies.
- HuffPo’s The Funniest Movies of the ’00s. Some of these — “Old School” and the “Hangover” — are already classics (IMO).
- Roger Ebert’s best films of 2009 (helpfully split by indie and mainstream).
- The New Yorker’s David Denby’s picks, which include a few interesting choices; Anthony Lane’s selections are here.
- Manohla Dargis, of the New York Times, reviews the year in movies, and so does Stephen Holden.
- Ann Hornaday of The Washington Post reveals her top 10 movie moments of the decade and opens up the discussion to readers. You can even mess around with her list, voting her choices up or down. I forgot about “Children of Men”! That was a fabulous, insane, scary film. I’d re-watch that instead of the “The Road” any day.
- CNN presents several lists, from a “diverse” group of “movie experts”.
It seems I have a lot of great films still to watch!
NYT Magazine Reviews 2009 in The Ninth Annual Year in Ideas
Blog Alley’s periodic display of some of the fascinating items featured in the New York Times’ magazine The 9th Annual Year in Ideas issue.
The Cul-De-Sac Ban
Virginia’s attempt to re-open the dead ends and improve safety.
PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY LAUREN NASSEF
Health Care Blogging: Iced In?
The U.S. Senate appears prepared to vote on a health care bill. Maybe snow salves the soul. Or traps people in D.C. so they have to work.
Meanwhile, Frank Rich sends up flares: Beware the frauds; they live among us.
Science Friday: Why the Guinness Gurgles So
Who doesn’t love beer science?!? Below and here.
Support Science Friday.
End-of-the-Year Blogging: 2009 Lists | Books
Toward the end of every year, media outlets try their best to make “sense of it all,” usually by publishing lists — seminal and not-so-seminal events, ins and outs, ups and downs, what you missed, what you luckily avoided — ad infinitum, until our calendars are finally, and blissfully, turned to the new year.
So what’s a blog to do with all of these annoying lists? Well, of course, we point you to a few from time to time.
Here are some 2009 lists, in the book category:
- “What David Sedaris Read This Year,” from The New Yorker, the author’s list of audio and “eye”-books he absorbed in 2009.
- NPR’s Lynn Neary’s picks from 2009, for the book club set.
- From the New York Times, “The 10 Best Books of 2009” and, for the ambitious reader, “100 Notable Books of 2009.”
- The Washington Post killed its print edition of Book World in 2009, but nonetheless presents Jonathan Yardley’s favorites from this year.
- The Atlantic’s “Books of the Year.”
- The American Library Association’s “2009 Top Ten Best Books for Young Adults.”
- Finally, The Guardian keeps it real by asking “What were your worst books of the decade?”
Health Care Blogging: Ditch It or Deal?
Stats guy Nate Silver at fivethirtyeight.com says progressives who support health care reform should stay on board, despite losing the battle for a public option (etc.) in the Senate and even as Dr. Howard Dean, dean of the liberal reform advocates, pulled his support for the measure.
Nate being Nate, he’s got a chart to illuminate his point that the Senate measure would, with all its flaws, be a big improvement over the status quo:
Read Silver’s post about how he came up with his numbers; TNR’s Jonathon Cohn’s take on recent developments is here.
Read here about the screwball Senate, where one lawmaker can keep an entire nation on edge.
Can that cooling saucer of our democracy finish its work by Christmas-eve-eve? Don’t break out the egg nog just yet.
NYT Magazine Reviews 2009 in The Ninth Annual Year in Ideas
Blog Alley’s periodic display of some of the fascinating items featured in the New York Times’ magazine The 9th Annual Year in Ideas issue.
Bicycle Super Highway
Denmark’s drive to create a vast infrastructure for bicycling commuters.
PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY REINHARD HUNGER SET DESIGN BY SARAH ILLENBERGER
