Slate, you are BREAKING my little heart!

Today's Papers is dead.

UPDATE: I've checked out the new news-aggregator feature, The Slatest, that Slate launched today. I'm sure it's a fine news aggregator, but it's not a replacement for TP. Several things made TP great. One: its simplicity. Just white background, black text, and blue links. No divided page with multiple features; just an ad or two and the regular Slate sidebar. It published once. Easy on the eyes, and also easy to read. Which brings me to Two: its style. The beauty of TP was that it wasn't a news aggregator. It was a news summary. I didn't have to click through to the original article to get a fairly good understanding of what the article said. There are enough sites that provide the "link plus one sentence description" service for headline news. What I loved about TP was that it talked in paragraphs instead of sentences. And finally, Three: it was well-written! I know Daniel Politi is still around writing the morning issue of The Slatest, but will we still get the great narratives? Will he be able to compare coverage between newspapers? Will he pick out that one idiosyncratic story to stick at the bottom of the page? Oh, I'm grieving here. It's taking willpower not to start bawling right here in the library.

Slate. Please, pretty please, with a cherry on top. Do whatever you want with this Slatest thing, but have mercy on us--bring back Today's Papers!

Reader Poll

Should That's Relevant start--ahem--tweeting?

(a) Yes, you're hilarious. The more saisai, the better.
(b) Nah. Your blog's just a bunch of one-liners anyway. Leave twitter for the celebs (and their PR guys).
(c) No, see, you're not very funny, or even all that interesting. Your blog's bad enough. Don't make it worse.
(d) Fuck you.*


*If you ask me, this should be an option in every reader poll ever taken, ever.

Why that was my only post on health care

Because I can't stand it, this flagrant, consequenceless lying. It drives me up the goddamn wall. I can't watch the news; I can't read more than an article or two before reaching my limit and triggering my gag reflex. The fact that people who lie, lie, lie aren't immediately called out, publicly and unequivocally, means there's no disincentive to just lie, lie, lying. I feel guilty for not paying more attention, but it just disgusts me, and I have to back away slowly or risk harming myself or others.

My only post on health care

I understand health insurance reform is something about which reasonable people might disagree. But wouldn't it be nice if the reasonable people were the ones we heard, instead of the psycho loony fear-mongerers on either side? Especially the "Obama will kill all the old people!" And, jeez, look at folks on Medicare worried about socialism and government intervention. Man I hate that shit.

Today, Obama joins the chorus pleading for sanity to prevail.

REQUIRED reading

Liberals and conservatives alike, take 30 minutes and digest this. Not the way I would've written it, but the substance is well worth your time.

The new summer accessory: the man-belly

I hope these guys don't expect their girlfriends to be 36-24-36.

UPDATE: And I'm not the only one.

First pull-up!

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!