Today's Links and Minifeatures 2005 07 22 Friday

Well, I finally got off my rear end and opened a 529 plan for my younger daughter's college. Hilda, the older one, I opened on the day we got her social, but I had a little bit of cash flow difficulty when Ramona, the younger one, was born last September, so I didn't get around to it until yesterday. At least I put two years worth of my normal contributions in, so both daughters are fully funded now for 2005. I've been putting in $2000 per child per year. I don't anticipate it covering 4 years at Harvard, but if they're careful they should be able to get through a state school here in California without loans. And if they do go to Harvard it'll still be a big help. If you've got kids, folks, start that account now. Most people have the option of putting retirement off. If they don't have money for college when it's time, they're probably not going.

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I'm looking for some feedback if you've got a minute, either via email or comments. Are these Links and Minifeatures articles something that makes the site more or less attractive to you? Would you stop by more or less often if I altered them? If you have your own website, would you link more often if the articles were split up, or less often?



I want to have at least a certain number of the articles on the front page be consumer education related, and I've been cheating to achieve this by amalgamating my daily miscellany and looking around at other blogs in the alliances I've joined. I feel I should give links to good content whenever I have time, and I want to write on other topics myself, yet do not want to have fewer than about 5 articles on the front page be consumer related. The solution of writing more articles on my focus subjects leads in short order to burnout (some I can do in an hour or so, but most take much longer), and the solution of fewer articles relating to it on the front page seems to be losing my desired focus. Starting next week, I'm going to have to start reposting previous articles anyway, but I would appreciate any constructive ideas you want to share.



(I was also hoping when I started this to have more people sharing cautionary tales of bad experiences than I have received thus far.)



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Iraq the Model makes a point I wasn't aware of. The very first constitution for a state that happend to be mostly Islamic evidently did not make Islam the state religion. I gather that he's irritated with the clerics who insist it be the state religion of Iraq and that said constitution discriminate against Israelis. I wonder how many ordinary Iraqis feel the same? There's also a more general article on the Constitution. Use the link on the blogroll if you want to read about Saddam's trial. The Iraqi constitution is important.



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Mudville Gazette has the goods on a kinder gentler area denial weapon. Some liberals are going off on it with questions like "How do you ensure that the dose doesn't cross the threshold for permanent damage? Does the weapon cut out to prevent overexposure?" Greyhawk asks if hurling pillows would be acceptable. Having a certain bent of mind, I simply ask these people: If you had a choice of this weapon or a machine gun, which would you rather we use? Because if it's the machine gun, we can save a lot of R&D money, and I'm certain that Eeevvil Halliburton won't be making anything from the sales of this weapon then! Okay, it can likely be improved. The question remains: microwave or machine gun?



He also has a post about a Commemorative Marine Corps dollar that I wonder why they don't just put it in general circulation? It's certainly a lot more attractive than that Sacajawea nonsense or the ugly Susan before it. If the other services want in on the act, hey, so much the better for Proof Sets!



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Politechnicalpoints us to the fact that War Criminals are being paid here. I agree with him. Publicise smaller bounties for their heads, attached or not, and watch them turn themselves in. Is there any organizations except the UN bankrupt enough to say, "Mount a massacre, Make a $Million?" (Okay, I can see MoveOn advocating "Conservative Cleansing", but we're the ones with all the guns.)



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Carnival of the Vanities #148 is up. Haven't had a chance to go through it for favorites yet. UPDATE: Marshall vs. Marshall and the liberal view of intel, La Cosa Nostra in Washington State, In a battle of Ideas, it's best to have one,



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Cutting Edge of Ecstasy has an article on the National Sex Offender Public Registry, making a point that measures for accuracy are likely to be lax. I have a requirement to tell every househunting client I work with to the sex offender registry list here in California, and document it lest I be liable. Truthfully, though, I imagine anybody who can show they were on the list erroneously is looking at instant million$, so I'm not too horriby worried for them. I am concerned for our taxpayers.



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Recovering Democrat makes a point that cannot be made too often about Anti-Semitism and the Holocaust. There quite simply is no other group anywhere in the world with anything approaching the history of persecution that Jews have. It wasn't just Germany and Arab lands, but Russia, Poland, Austria-Hungary and the Holy Roman Empire, Spain, France and even England, just in Europe. I'm no expert on the Diaspora, but I imagine they went elsewhere as well as Europe, and despite the difficulties they faced in those places, there aren't a whole lot of jews left outisde of Europe, the United States and Israel. You do the math. They need a place where they can escape to if the need arises. Because it seems to arise on a regular basis. And it's not like the vast majority of the Arab world gave a rats backside about the area, or the Arab inhabitants of the area, at any point prior to the establishment of Israel, and most still don't care about the former inhabitants and are unwilling to grant citizenship in their country to those muslims who stayed, or those muslims who left, or their descendants.



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I must again apologize to my fellow RINOs and LLP members. I'm trying to check out everyone's website at least once a week, preferably two or three times, and link to good stuff. My Minifeatures essays have been getting out of hand and becoming full-blown articles of late. I do welcome emails about posts you're proud of.



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