June 28, 2017

New Google News layout is awful - any suggestion for alternate news aggregator sites?

EDIT: THE OLD LAYOUT OF GOOGLE NEWS CAN NOW BE ACCESSED AT THEOLDGNEWS.COM

I've used Google News as my PC homepage since it started in 2004, I think. Last night, they implemented a new layout, which really destroys using the service for me. There was great information density and I could see dozens of stories at a glance across my screen, links to different sources providing the same story.

The new format seems geared toward phones and I can see two stories with TONS of white space on the sides and need to scroll endlessly and still don't find the info easily that was on a single widescreen PC screen before. Are any other Google News users frustrated with this change today? Are there alternate news aggregator sites that you like? I really loved Google News - lots of news at a glance from lots of good sources. But, the update is such a big downgrade that it's likely time to move on to something else.

June 26, 2017

There should be an ad campaign this week calling out AHCA

Open with video of Trump saying that he would not cut Medicaid and give the stats on how much this bill cuts it, emphasize how many people will lose coverage, how many of them are elderly, how a tax cut for the very rich is embedded in this bill. Run the ad frequently in the states of Republican Senators, specify in each ad the relevant lobbyist money that that Senator has taken. Emphasize that this bill is being rushed through with 1 week for debate, so that the people won't have a chance to understand it and object to what it is.

I guess we'd want to save the money that would cost for the 2018 races, it would be nice to associate the Rethugs with the stink of this from the outset.

June 14, 2017

The best Al Franken interview

In case people weren't aware of it, just thought I'd post a link to Marc Maron's interview with Al Franken from a couple weeks ago. Al did a bunch of interviews for his book, but Maron's one of the best at getting people to talk and this one is nice because it gets more off of his prepared material and goes deeply into his career in comedy and his childhood & Maron worked with him at Air America.

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June 8, 2017

McCain's questions to Comey sucked

I've been hoping that he's the Republican Senator with a sense of duty to country that is concerned about Putin and would most pursue Trump's collusion/obstruction. But, his questions of Comey today were awful. All he talked about was Hillary's email investigation and rambled in a practically senile way about why she isn't still under investigation if the Russians tried to influence the election and she was a part of the election.

They had Comey's statement in advance, I thought he'd have some solid questions that might delve into things. The questions I heard him ask near the end of the session were lame. Any random educated citizen could have done a better job.