| Why the House health reform bill is better than the Senate's.
October 29, 2009 at 11:01 pm
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| If only the United States were like Denmark, or Israel, or South Korea, or even Nebraska, health reform would be practically home free. These are all places where bills need pass only one legislative body to become law. Here in Washington, however, we're stuck with an unrepresentative upper chamber called the Senate, where one opportunistic independent and a handful of recalcitrant Democrats can block the majority's will by using a reactionary legislative maneuver with a disgraceful history that got mythologized by a conservative Hollywood populist into a cherished American tradition.
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Sponsored Topics: United States - Democratic - Nebraska - Senate - Denmark |
| It doesn't make sense to charge fat people higher insurance premiums.
October 29, 2009 at 8:14 pm
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| Safeway CEO Steven A. Burd thinks he's solved the nation's health care crisis. The California-based grocery chain has kept its insurance costs stable for the last four years, he says, while its competitors have watched their bills rise by an average of 38 percent. That's because Safeway encourages its workers to pursue a healthy lifestyle: If you're thin and you don't smoke, you can get a significant discount on your premiums. Otherwise, you've got two choices: Pay more for your insurance or mend your wicked ways.
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Sponsored Topics: Insurance - Health - Health care - California - Business |
| Why do kids crave magic?
October 29, 2009 at 3:59 pm
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| During Magic Dan's second trick in a show at our town library last weekend, the magician didn't pull off the sleight of hand he seemed to have planned. He was supposed to make a red scarf disappear into an egg, cupped in his hand. But when he displayed the egg to the crowd, he presented the side that showed the last bit of the scarf, poking out. "I made a mistake," he said, showing the egg with scarf to the kids sitting on the floor and in small chairs, next to their parents in larger ones. "Now let me teach you something about misdirection."
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Sponsored Topics: Magic - Sleight of hand - Performing Arts - Arts - Magicians |
| Is it OK to like Chris Brown's new single featuring Lil Wayne?
October 29, 2009 at 2:47 pm
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| If your stomach turns a little at the thought of ever hearing Chris Brown's voice again—or, for that matter, his name—get ready for one nauseous winter. The R&B singer, who pleaded guilty in June to beating his ex-girlfriend Rihanna during a February argument, is set to release his third album, Graffiti, in December. Last month, the lead single, "I Can Transform Ya," hit radio, and the follow-up, "Crawl," came out last week. There's something audacious about Brown's return, and not just because it took a scant three months for him to slide back into album-promo mode after entering his guilty plea. Brown has been exposed in the Rihanna saga, after all, as more than an abusive boyfriend. Promising affection and pleasure in his music but brutish and violent in real life, his love oil turned out to be snake oil: An R&B loverman best known for a domestic-violence conviction is an insupportable contradiction.
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Sponsored Topics: Chris Brown - DomesticViolence - Rihanna - Singer - People |
| People whose hobby is visiting cemeteries and photographing graves.
October 29, 2009 at 1:36 pm
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| Not long ago, I met a woman named Cara at Brooklyn's Green-Wood Cemetery. She led me to a computer kiosk tucked under a big gothic archway at the main entrance. The computer allows you to browse the names and resting places of the 560,000 people buried in Green-Wood's 478 acres. Cara entered a name into the search field—"Johansen, Mathias"—and pressed "locate." A map appeared with a red square indicating general burial location. She zoomed in to a hand-drawn plan of subdivided lots. Lot 38325 was marked with a red "X."
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Sponsored Topics: Cemetery - Burial - Death - Cemeteries - Death Care |
| Dispatch from Game 1 of the 2009 World Series.
October 29, 2009 at 1:31 pm
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| NEW YORK, NY—In the ninth inning of the first game of the 2009 World Series, Alex Rodriguez comes to bat with the Yankees trailing by five runs. After a postseason full of late-inning, game-changing home runs, A-Rod has finally lived down to pre-October expectations of A-Fraudulence. In his first three at-bats against Phillies ace Cliff Lee, the New York third baseman flailed away pitifully, striking out swinging in his first two at-bats and grounding out weakly his third time up. This time up, with the count 1-2 and the first World Series game at the new Yankee Stadium all but over, a frustrated fan just to my left speaks up. "C'mon, you son of a bitch!" he heckles wearily. Rodriguez swings and misses at the next pitch, and the Yankees lose to the Phillies 6-1.
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Sponsored Topics: World Series - New York Yankees - Alex Rodriguez - Philadelphia Phillies - New York |  |
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