• Meet Harry Reid & the Senate’s Health Care Bill: $849 billion, 2,074 pages, no insurance for abortions or illegal immigrants, other characteristics, etc. [CNN]
• Despite really maxing out every copy editor’s patience with the word “contentious,” Hamid Karzai was sworn-in for another five-year term as President of Afghanistan.  [New York Times]
• Eric Holder took questions from 9/11 families about KSM’s trip to New York. [Washington Post]
• Obama wants to do a free-trade deal with South Korea. Give it a week after this thing goes through that “SKaFTA” is not the name of some 16-year-old’s Bouncing Souls cover band. [WSJ]
• Quarantining people isn’t doing much to stop swine flu from killing us all to death. [AP]
• Ireland will not be granted that Fifa World Cup playoff rematch, no matter how unfair the Irish justice minister thinks that handball thing was. [Guardian]

• If you were hoping to buy or rent a bunch of abortions and charge them care of whatever new health care bill ends up passing, this will not be possible! [New York Times]
• China is very upset with the Dalai Lama for going to some Himalayan town that is not technically a part of China but is so close it’s probably at least entertaining the notion. [Washington Post]
• It’s probable that Nidal Malik Hasan acted alone at Ft. Hood. Oh plus President Barack Obama, but other than that, alone, yes. [Wall Street Journal]
• So guess now’s as good a time as any to take a look at mental health policy and practices in the military. [Los Angeles Times]
• Even though Tony Blair will never admit it, he still wants to be the president of the EU. [Times Online]
• Hurricane Ida is the first hurricane to hit America this year. It struck parts of Mississippi, Florida, and New Orleans. All three still exist.  [AP]

Alan Grayson! Yes! Who even is this guy, and yet, ALAN GRAYSON. Watch Alan Grayson carry on for like four minutes about how much he hates Olympia Snowe and her whole stupid state. He’s like, “Maine? Hardly!” Seriously, he basically says this. MORE »

• Herta Muller, the famed rather depressing Teutonic authoress, has won the Nobel Prize in Literature. [New York Times]
• Hooray, the Senate Finance Committee has approved the most recent health care bill, which means it could be sent to the Senate floor by the end of the month! [New York Times]
• Pakistan would rather the U.S. not interfere in its new civilian government actually, even if this would mean the U.S. would send along literally $8 billion in aid. [Washington Post]
• End-timesily, there have been four earthquakes in the past 11 hours in the South Pacific today. [CNN]
• Fall shopping was not such a hit this year it turns out, and it’s looking like most stores will be reporting declines. [AP]
• “Royal Mail” employees in England are THISCLOSE to striking after losing a contract with Amazon. Amazon loses things all the time though! [Guardian]