THE EVER-CHANGING WEB DEPT:
Starting in 2011, the NY Times will begin charging a fee for reading
some of its online stuff.
Prediction: it won't work. Not as long as you can read good stuff, for free, almost everywhere else on the web. Maybe the Times has a magic formula in mind that they are sure will reap them benefits. If they do, then one supposes other newspapers
will copy it, and the days of free newspaper content online could be over. But I doubt it.
DO YOU BELIEVE IN MIRACLES? YES! DEPT:
Sure enough, Republican Scott Brown upsets Democrat Martha Coakley in the U.S. Senate election yesterday.
The problems this presents for Obama and the Democrats have been well-documented, so I won't go into them here. A small point that struck me about it all is this: indeed, the polls coming out right before the election had pointed to a Brown victory. And they turned out to be right. If the candidate you favor is the one surging in the polls, you love that they turn out to be correct. Don't you? But if the polls turn in a way you don't want them to, you try to find reasons not to believe them...
Meanwhile, as for the meaning of Brown's victory, Nancy Pelosi (no surprise) still doesn't get it:
Pelosi said Wednesday that Democrats have gotten the message from Massachusetts voters — and it isn't to drop health care. "We heard, we will heed, we will move forward with their considerations in mind, but we will move forward" on health care, she said. She and others contend that because Massachusetts already has near-universal health coverage under a state law, the upset victory by GOP state Sen. Scott Brown to take the late Edward M. Kennedy's seat could not be seen as a referendum on the issue. "Massachusetts has health care. ... The rest of the country would like to have that too," said Pelosi. "So we don't say a state that already has health care should determine whether the rest of the country should."
Hmmm. Yes, never mind that Senator-elect Brown said specifically that he opposed the Democrats' health care bill, while Coakley made it clear she supports it, and it was a major issue in the campaign. Right...
Meanwhile NBC/WSJ has come out with polls on the Democrats' health care bill, and President Obama's job approval. Not much solace there for Democrats, either--Obama's approval is only at 48%, and only 33$ support the health care bill, while 46% oppose...
NCAA HOOPS DIARY:
Women's hoops--Notre Dame 78, Louisville 60: Big win for Muffet McGraw's Irish. You wondered whether there would be a hangover from ND's loss last weekend at UConn, a game with a lot of hype. And indeed, Notre Dame quickly fell behind by 12 in this game, and played slowly, passively. But they rallied. Key stats: ND had 4 players in double-figures. And again, they finished strong, outscoring Louisville 41-23 in the second half. It was Coach McGraw's 600th victory--big congrats to her.
It's so important in team sports to overcome the bad, to persevere. In this case, that usually means plugging away after a tough loss, rebounding and coming back strong the next game. It's good the lady Irish could do it.
