Call me a loyal customer. Yahoo has been my home page for a decade, which is about two thirds of the life of the web itself. Whenever I bought a new computer or installed a new browser, I dutifully found my way through the preferences to set my default page to good old Yahoo. In the old days, back when people still prepended "World Wide" to "Web," I preferred Yahoo because the home page loaded quickly and offered a great directory that neatly sliced the contents of the entire web into a handy taxonomy.

Great answers to Part I of the regrets column. Here are my other 5 top regrets.

Yesterday, Steve Benen at the Washington Monthly pointed out that Paul Ryan had a piece at the American Spectator Web site. In it, Ryan writes:

The American character itself and the principles of free market democracy which protect and preserve it may be lost beyond recovery if Congress chooses the wrong path to health care reform

I don't have a whole lot of time to write this, but I'm hoping that the core questions I'm going to forward here will be compelling enough to stand on their own.  As I prepare to leave for the day, I'm listening to NPR.  I've been quite busy lately and haven't had the time to read as much as I like, but I've been trying to follow the political developments of health care reform.  It seems to me that this week we've gotten down to a new meme: "How will we pay for it?"

In a post long ago, I talked about regrets and how I view them as a natural part of the examined life, something to be embraced, not feared. A person who claims he has no regrets is either a magnificent liar or an unreflective fool.

You can learn a lot from your regrets, and the only goal should be to minimize their occurrence as you grow older.

As the post-election protests by reformists simmers in the background, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has openly defied Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, setting the stage for a major political battle among the conservatives who hold power.

Last week, the House of Representatives voted 410-8 to spend nearly $100,000 to engrave "In God We Trust" and the Pledge of Allegiance at the Capitol Visitor Center. The Wisconsin-based Freedom From Religion Foundation Inc. immediately sued to stop the engraving.

As devoted deadman blog readers with photographic memories know (a surprisingly slim sample size), I've never been a fan of being barefoot.

July 20, 2029

To celebrate the 60th anniversary of the first moon landing, NASA staged a high-tech reenactment of the event in Nevada National Landfill Park. The landing was delayed by several hours due to cloudy weather and space junk that disrupted satellite transmission of President George Prescott Bush's remote broadcast from Washington D.C. Officials finally commenced the mission without the President's address after impatient visitors began shouting and throwing landfill refuse, including vintage Pepsi bottles, plastic shopping bags, and other historic artifacts.

Lloyd Blankfein, CEO of Goldman Sachs, apologized today for his firm's strong earnings in 2009. In a press statement, he took responsibility for the profit and promised to lose money more aggressively for the remainder of the year.

The American Conservative Union (ACU), which proudly boasts of being "the nation's oldest conservative lobbying organization," proudly demanded $2M+ from FedEx in return for endorsing its position in a legislative dispute with UPS, stating, "We stand with FedEx in opposition to this legislation."

Our own Orlando yesterday posted an unbelievably tragic story regarding her mother and how our health care system completely failed her and her family. It's a powerful tale, one whose basic premise unfortunately could probably be told by way too many people in this country, and everyone needs to read it.

But trying to put aside the raw emotions for a moment - albeit, a nearly impossible task when discussing people's health and/or finances - this is a crisis where the answers will not come easy.

I didn't grow up in a family with a lot of money. In fact, we apparently started out poor. I didn't know this, because I was three and thought a walk shuffling through leaves was the best entertainment ever. But my mom and dad both worked really hard and my mom was a serious penny pincher. So, they saved.

We finally have liftoff. Congratulations, NASA, sixth time's the charm.

Now we wait for the shuttle to catch up and dock with the International Space Station, which should happen around midday Friday. Here'a site that lets you follow the choreographed dance between the two vehicles in more-or-less real time:
http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/tracking/

Once the two spacecraft are docked together for their 16-day rendezvous, they should make a spectacular sight from Earth.

The Supreme Court nomination process is one of the weirdest games in American politics. By tradition, the confirmation process is supposed to be non-partisan. Many Americans subscribe to an ideal that judges should objectively interpret the law without political bias. Of course, everyone admits that there is no true objectivity, but many of us still hope that our judges will come as close to objectivity as possible in a political institution.

I'll get back to the regularly scheduled My One Favorite Things soon enough, but right now I got a bone to pick with my cell phone company, T-Mobile.

I mostly have positive vibes toward T-Mobile as their customer service has been very helpful and their network seems to have continually improved in New York City, but I'm annoyed with the numerous 'surcharges' the company tacks on to my monthly bill.

I can admit when I'm wrong. Sometimes.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/09/AR2009070902908.html

I was absolutely certain that Roland Burris would never let go of his senate seat without a contentious primary. I was also pretty sure that Lisa Madigan would challenge him in a primary.

Looks like the Illinois Democratic party might have something up its sleeve. I can't wait to see who the final candidate will be

The titular question is one that my old man used to ask me when the going got tough and he could see that I was thinking of packing it in.

"You're going to give up, huh?"

"I don't know, dad.  This is hard!"

"Well, did you ever hear of Oliver Twiddledee?"

"No."

"That's because he gave up."

(IMPORTANT UPDATE: Full video - embedded below in the comments section - seems to exonerate the POTUS of his 'checking the goods' gaffe, tho not Sarkozy.)

So the media is all abuzz of this picture of Barack and French President Nicolas Sarkozy apparently checking out the rear end of a 16-year-old girl from Rio de Janeiro.