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Linking Fool Friday

Remember, we must limit any domestic spending as irresponsible, but the tab for the Iraq war is never to be questioned. Also, you must sign this oath of fealty to the Republican party. Furthermore, unless you live in a balsa-wood shack and never drive anywhere, you may not say anything about global warming.

Got some cash to lend? Join the Predatory Lending Association today!

I was cruising the FoolBlog archives, and as such happened to click over to the Epcot82 blog for the first time in a while, and caught this great post on EPCOT Center at 25.

Black Friday can suck it.

Music: World o' cool vids linked at Post-Punk.com. In my high school punk rock phase I really liked The Cramps, but I don't think I had ever seen a video of theirs until now.

And lastly, I'm not the only collector of Muppet videos. Bork bork bork! (Be sure to read this comment, too.)

Mid-Week Cookie Break

Linking Fool Friday (Monday Edition)

Yes, late. There was some sort of holiday last week. As such, not much in the linkin' department.

Von Hayes sighting in Lancaster.

Anyone looking for a Christmas gift idea for the Big Fool, take heed.

And lastly, who would have thought the first two seasons of Sesame Street would be unsuitable for kids?

Mid-Week Cookie Break

Best. Cookie break. Ever.

Welcome ESPN.com readers

Why yes, the 15th was a big day. Why do you ask?

We here at bigfool.com got a visit from the Worldwide Leader last week. ESPN.com's UniWatch column linked to one of our David Letterman-John Kruk transcripts. Almost 20,000 hits from that link alone. Happy to be of service.

Thankfully, it was just an 8K static HTML file, or my bandwidth allocations would be all blown up.

Stupid Question Time

There's much talk of late about the major droughts in the southeastern US and other parts of the world. See, for instance, this Salon article.

Two things I'd really like to know:
1. The water cycle is a closed loop, right? So if water continues to evaporate, it's got to fall somewhere, even if it's not Atlanta. So are there parts of the world that are experiencing more than average rainfall? Long-time deserts that are turning green?

2. What about desalination? GE had an ad a few months back with fisherman-types at sea joyously pulling nets full of bottled water onto the deck, and touting their desalination technology. Is this bullshit? Not cost-effective at large scale? Or should we be setting up the American southeast to start sucking up water out of the Atlantic and the Gulf and de-salt it?

Linking Fool Friday

Good stuff: Anonymous benefactor drops $100 million on the charities of Erie, PA. Orphaned owls take a stuffed toy owl as their new mom.

Not so good: Have I mentioned that there's an economic argument to be made against the Iraq war? Bush vetoes a bill for job training, health research, heating subsidies, and other nice things, saying it's irresponsible and will cost $1300 per second. But remember, the $90K per second that the war has cost us is not to be questioned! This just screams ad campaign for the Democrats.

The writers' strike, explained in four minutes. Another clilp points out inconsistencies in Viacom's stand on online video.

Feed: I enjoyed Food Network's "The Next Iron Chef," and this video of the finale party at Michael Symon's restaurant is a hoot. You'd think the Indians won the World Series from the crowd's reaction. And I love how Symon cracks a smile a split-second before the winner is revealed. On the other hand, who can blame this guy for being mad at Jimmy Dean? (The payoff is in the last 30 seconds.)

Excellent Posnanski piece on the late Joe Nuxhall. I didn't know much about Nuxhall, but there's definite parallels to Richie Ashburn, so I get it. Also, if Posnanski isn't the best baseball writer working today, I don't know who is.

Tor sent this Darwin nominee, who despite being from Albuquerque is no one I know. Perhaps he's related to ABQ Rob, though.

Lastly, look what happens when you mix hip hop with Excel.

Section 409, Row D, Seats 7-8

Nats season ticket packages are supposed to be mailed today, but you can log in to the web site and see your assignments now. I got pretty much exactly what I wanted: next to the press box, lower rows of the section. And I'm still in seats 7 and 8, oddly enough. Check out the virtual view.

Mid-Week Cookie Break

Photography? You know... caaaaandid photography?

I've started a Flickr account. I've been contemplating this for a while, as Snapfish a) requires everyone to register to view your pictures, and b) keeps threatening to delete all my pictures if I don't buy some prints.

Of course, to make Flickr really viable you have to spring for the $25/year "pro" account (unless you LIKE all your photos in one big unmanageable pile). Folks tell me the best thing about Flickr is the networking/sharing aspect, so FOTF best be adding me as Flickr contacts or posting their URLs in comments to convince me to pony up.

Things you don't expect your kids to say

"If you didn't work, we'd have to live under a bridge."
--the Little Fool, age 4

Linking Fool Friday

Remember, spending billions on Iraq is not to be questioned, but spending money improving our infrastructure, like our water supply, that would be "runaway spending." Also, it's the Democrats' fault and has absolutely nothing to do with Bush vetoes or Republican cloture votes.

Excellent David Neiwert piece on what's happened to the Republican party and personal relationships over the past six years. Neddie Jingo works the polls here in Virginia and stands up for his party. Matthews and Russert, still bad for America.

Food: How to get good restaurant advice. Go to Macaroni Grill and get one thousand calories worth of pasta!

Finally, Top Five Badass Popes! And possibly the last of Cool "Disco" Dan.

Mid-Week Cookie Break

Blogroll

Just did a minor overhaul of the blogroll. Removed some sites that seem to be outdated, dropped some others that I don't actually read anymore, added a few that I think deserve your attention. In the second category, I removed links to some of the lefty powerhouses like Daily Kos that I just can't keep up with these days. This is not intended as a condemnation of Kos or any other site I dropped; there's just too much to read, and I get all my left-wing news just fine with a smaller number of feeds (and Ezra, Atrios or Digby will link to good stuff at Kos frequently enough). Not like Kos or Josh Marshall will miss the traffic from over here, and you already know about those sites anyway.

If you're a small-timer and your link has been dropped, it's probably because I haven't seen any posts from you lately. If any Friends o' the Fool have a blog they'd like blogrolled, shoot me an e-mail. (I'm sure I will regret saying that. You know who you are, people; I won't be taking links from anyone I haven't heard of before.) If your already-linked blog is more for personal use and you'd rather not have it appear here, let me know that too.

Now, go check out some of those "Baseball, Ray" blogs. They're good.

Linking Fool Friday

Tim Russert is a pox on the national body politic, and I would go mad with glee if a candidate answered him as Waldman describes here.

A couple weeks ago I linked to a post at Slacktivist discussing how Big US Auto has spent too much time over the years telling us how incompetent they are. That point is driven home further by this guy who makes high-mileage, low-emission, alternative-fuel vehicles using mostly standard parts, something Detroit keeps telling us is a pipe dream.

Food: He's right, I would totally eat this, at least one piece. Jon Stewart is always funny, and it helps when he has easy source material, like Taco Bell opening a franchise in Mexico.

Gambling: Much ado in the online poker world over allegations of cheating on a site called Absolute Poker. This is why I play low-stakes only.

Props to FOTF Otis, all getting published in St. Louis' 52nd City Magazine. The piece won't mean much to you if you're not familiar with St. Louis, though.

Lastly, thanks to Hodge for sending some wacky-ass penguins.

UPDATE: Yeah, Tor the Whiny Bastard sent me some material this week too.