FoolBlog

Linking Fool Friday (Thursday Edition)

I'll be AFC pretty much all day tomorrow.

Just a couple of items. I found this Wired article on the technological and social networking aspects of the Iraq war to be quite interesting. I hate to sound like one of those bloggers, but this is the kind of reporting that we're not getting in the mainstream media. Good to see that there are some in our military who think farther than "Our military kicks ass! Yeah!", and are figuring out ways to actually work with the local populace to keep the peace and rebuild. Will it be enough?

And lastly, I can't believe we're still having conversations about race and intelligence. If it comes up near you, show 'em this Tom the Dancing Bug cartoon.

I'd like to thank all six of my readers for sticking with me, and for posting the occasional comment or throwing me a link. This blog is strictly small-time and always will be, but this outlet means a lot to me. Here's hoping you have a happy and prosperious 2008.

Mid-Week Cookie Break

Linking Fool Friday

There was a family emergency last week which kept me largely away from the computer. LFF returns today.

UCC church kicked out of Christmas chartiable program, apparently because they're too nice to gay people.

Obstructionist Republicans yaaaaaaaay!

Mike Huckabee's immigration proposal = awful.

We all hate TicketMaster, but I hate ticket brokers more.

Nats news: Oh please, oh please...

Mid-Week Cookie Break

White chocolate, macadamia and dried cranberry.

Kids TV is bad for you: Aladdin is a wuss

I took the girls to Blockbuster the other night, and they picked out one of the craptacular Disney Princess videos, in which the House of Mouse recycles the princess characters in all-new, lower-quality short adventures. In one of these tales, Aladdin and Jasmine visit a neighboring kingdom where the king is about six years old, and the state of the kingdom is tied directly to the king's mood. Being that he's a pissy little kid, the kingdom is mess: when he's mad, there are huge thunderstorms, and the ground is cracked and parched so there are no crops.

Jasmine is able to please the boy king by telling him a story, but the king then demands that Jasmine stay with him... FOREVER. The entourage flees the castle, and volcanoes erupt an' shit because the boy king is so pissed off. Eventually they are cornered by the king again, and Jasmine goes with him, because she feels bad that the people of the kingdom are suffering on her account. And Aladdin meekly accepts this.

Later he concocts a plan to appeal to the king's feelings that Jasmine has been taken from her family, and the king releases her. And I suppose that's how Disney needs to play that one out. Still, I would have enjoyed this story much more if Aladdin had done what any self-respecting apocryphal Middle Eastern prince would have done had his bride been seized from him by the ruler of a neighboring state: hurry back to Agrabah, then return with an army, lay waste to the already-ailing enemy nation, cut off the king's head with a scimitar, annex the land and heavily tax its occupants.

But, that's just my opinion.

Linking Fool Friday (Monday Edition)

I was AFC all day Friday.

Now and then I stop and thank my lucky stars that my kids are by and large normal. I remember reading a piece on Salon a few years back by the mother of a teenage retarded boy; her life pretty much consisted of taking care of him and nothing else, and she confessed to sometimes wanting to drive her car off a bridge. In a similar (but more upbeat) vein, Ian Brown writes about his son who has a strange genetic disorder. It's an incredible piece, and Brown finds a lot of lessons and even joy in his son's checkered existence.

Nice story about a woman who got ripped off by Princess cruises, and the readership of the Post's Travel section offering to help her out.

Drew Carey defends the VFW poker game.

Mason Nation: Dress Like a Pimp Night!

Mid-Week Cookie Break

This is from a video Henson & company did for the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and in researching it I found this exquisite review on Amazon. Satanic, hell yeah!

Pile on Gregg Easterbrook

A favorite pastime of much of the lefty blogosphere, indeed. I largley like Easterbrook's NFL column, but it annoys me when he throws in misguided political nonsense like this:

Any wealthy person who claims to favor higher taxes on the rich should voluntarily donate to the Treasury whatever additional amount he or she believes the rich should pay. For Clinton, or any wealthy person, to proclaim a willingness to be taxed more but then not voluntarily tax himself, is self-promotional hypocrisy. Clinton and other rich people who make claims about favoring higher taxes on the wealthy, but then hoard their money, want to be admired for seeming to be willing to sacrifice -- without the annoying complication of actually making any sacrifice.

Horse hockey. While I am by no means wealthy, I would favor paying more in taxes if it led to national health coverage or other improved services. But it would take everyone paying higher taxes in order to pull that off. So I'm in favor of higher taxes if everyone is paying their fair share. I'm not about to dash off a check for an extra thousand bucks to the IRS out of sheer principle, though, because it would be a drop in the bucket and utterly futile. Even if you're super-wealthy and can send, I dunno, a million dollars, it's not like that's going to accomplish any of your objectives. I find it quite rational for Bill Clinton to be willing to pay higher taxes if all the other rich folks pay up too. Would his paying extra taxes voluntarily and alone actually accomplish anything?