Matt Yglesias reports on Speaker Pelosi's conference with some Village bloggers:

[T]he most interesting part of the discussion was when Pelosi waxed a bit expansively about the historic nature of the achievement if reform passes. She observed that with the exception of John Dingell who was around for the Civil Rights Act and Medic[a]re, nobody else serving in the House has been part of anything this important. For most of us, she said, “this is the most important thing we will ever do.”

For the life of me, I do not see it. This bill is thin gruel. Of course it has its points that are applause worthy - the expansion of Medicaid being the clear winner - but there is nothing in the reform part of the bill that I see as particularly important. And in the end, I think evaluations of the health bills really rest on whether you believe the regulatory, state exchanges model adopted by the Obama Administration will lead to meaningful health care reform. Is it a camel's nose under the tent for real health care reform? In my opinion, it isn't. YMMV. Pass it? Sure. But argue it as important, substantively and/or politically? Don't see it.

Speaking for me only

Facebook has now overtaken Google as the most visited website. How smart is it to share your life on Facebook or other social networking sites? This week, the keynote speaker at the South by Southwest Interactive (SXSWi) festival proclaimed privacy is not dead in the era of social networking, it just needs fixing. The speaker, Danah Boyd, works for Microsoft.

I disagree. It's very much dead, not only for social media but for e-mail. The evidence? Take a look at Facebook's subpoena and search warrant guide -- or Google's or AOL's or anyone else's. Or, take a look at the Stored Communications Act (18 USC 2703) and see how easy it is for law enforcement to get your personal information and contacts, and with a search warrant, the content of your communications.

How are you going to find those guides? I'm not going to publish them, but you can find them on Cryptome.org. I will tell you a little about what they will turn over: [More...]

So here's the new plan. It's seems very convoluted -- and like something you do in the dark of night hoping nobody figures it out.

The House will say it doesn't have to vote on the Senate bill because it's already been passed by one house. They will present a little "sidecar" of a reconciliation bill, and it all goes right Obama for signature and the obvious proud statement he'll make: he's passed the most important legislation of the last three decades.

What do we get? No public option, for one thing. [More...]

I'm probably the only person watching 20/20 and the story behind The Bachelor. Sorry, but it's way more entertaining than Obama and Kucinich and health care. "24" is on too. And "Damages."

Update: How into the 20/20 Bachelor show did I get? I left an ear of corn boiling in water for 45 minutes and didn't realize it until the smoke started filling the kitchen. The water had evaporated, the pot was charred beyond repair and the corn is pure black.

This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

It gets worse. GQ not only has the Rielle Hunter interview that will appear in the magazine I wrote about earlier, it has the video of her photo shoot (in which she doesn't look like she's hating being photographed without her pants or provocatively) and outtakes from the interview. Highlights:

• John Edwards asked her opinion as to whether he should endorse Obama (she didn't give one)

• Edwards lawyers asked her to swear in writing she didn't leak or sell information about them

• She hasn't spoken to her sister in 17 years (the sister that went on TV to talk about her) -- it sounds like she doesn't talk to anyone in her family :

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I've spent way too much time on Rielle Hunter and John Edwards and need to get back to work. BTD has also been very busy.

Here's an open thread, all topics welcome.

Justice John Paul Stevens, who turns 90 on April 20, discusses his retirement plans in a New Yorker interview with Jeffrey Toobin. He says he's keeping his options open and will decide in about a month.

Sounds like he's planning a retirement announcement for his birthday. But he cautions against reading too much into his decision to hire only one law clerk. His other three clerks offered to stay with him. So he only needs one new clerk.

If he retires, then what? Will Obama name a safe choice to avoid a confirmation battle? Or will he show some spunk and name a true progressive?

Rielle Hunter, paramour of John Edwards, is telling her side of the story to GQ.

The first thing I noticed is the photo spread of Hunter that accompanies the article. In two of the three photos, she's wearing no pants and her white shirt is unbuttoned suggestively. In a third, her sweatpants are loosened and untied with her now flatter belly exposed and her child on top of her. She looks like she's auditioning for a Hollywood movie. No matter what she has to say, it's going to be hard to take her seriously and impossible not to question her motives.

She looks good, kind of like Heather Locklear. What we learn: She loves her "Johnny." She insists she didn't meet him in the bar (but afterwards on a street corner)and she would never approach a man first. But what are the first words she says to him on the street corner? "You're so hot." The inconsistencies in her tale get worse as the interview progresses. [More...]

Who's watching the premiere of HBO's new miniseries, "The Pacific?" President Obama held a screening of it at the White House last week. I'm going to give it a shot, but war movies aren't really my thing.

Also beginning tonight is the new season of Celebrity Apprentice, with Rod Blagojevich as one of the contestants. The reviews haven't been too kind.

There's also a new Desperate Housewives and Brothers and Sisters. And "On Demand" has Precious, the Hurt Locker and The Informant.

What are you watching or listening to tonight? Or, if neither, what's on your mind. This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

Configuring networks and routers has always been an impossibility for me. No matter how closely I follow the directions, I always mess it up.

This morning, my laptop said I needed to upgrade the driver on my wireless connection. After I did, I couldn't get online. The network only showed limited access instead of local and internet. I was about to go to Office Depot and buy a new router when I thought I'd try one last time to play with the old one. I put the disk in my desktop (which is connected by ethernet cable).

Three hours later, I'm done. I have a new network and not only does my desktop and laptop recognize it, but so does my iPhone and iPod (they never recognized the old network.) [More...]

Don't forget to turn your clocks ahead an hour before you go to bed.

This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

President Obama has nominated Goodman Liu, age 39, to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. Finally, he's nominated a liberal.

Goodwin Liu, 39, is an unabashed liberal legal scholar who, if confirmed, could become a force on the federal appeals court for decades. There's talk that in time, the Rhodes Scholar, former high court clerk and current assistant dean and law professor at the University of California, Berkeley, could be the first person of Asian descent chosen for the Supreme Court.

Jeff Sessions isn't happy. That's a good sign. Obama needs to realize his efforts to appease Republicans by nominating centrists isn't working:

Only six of Obama's 15 appeals court nominees have been confirmed even though the president's choices have seemed designed to avoid "high-profile fights," in the words of Curt Levey of the conservative Committee for Justice.

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