Links and Minifeatures 2008 02 19 Tuesday

Carnival of Personal Finance

San Diego Special Edition

Climate change: China - Victim, US - Culprit

This one is so utterly transparent that I can't think of any reason not to spot it.

Jay Tea over at Wizbang makes a great point about "Gun Free Zones" in The "Zone" Non-Defense

Little Ramona loved Disneyland! We took her on Star Tours, and she came off saying, "Do it again!" I suspect my wife, who is not a roller coaster person, suggested Space Mountain thinking to scare her off, but she came off that cackling with glee, too. Didn't get to go on Matterhorn (line had gotten too long and they'd taken it off FastPass, - Grr!) and we just didn't get to the area where Big Thunder Mountain was, but I suspect she'd have been fine with that also. One compensation for dealing with Toddlerzilla - she makes all the height restrictions! We went on the Rocket Sleds a couple of times and Buzz Lightyear also because Hilda isn't a roller coaster person, either. I felt really bad for my wife that King Arthur Carousel was closed, but gave fist pumps on a couple occasions as we walked by that "It's an Earworm after all" was closed for the next several months. Question: Why is Peter Pan's Flight always so dadburned crowded? And not on FastPass, either! It's been many years, but I don't remember it as being particularly good even before the old ticket books went out of service (which says something about how long I've been going to Disneyland). But little Ramona's favorite character is Tinkerbell, so we kind of wanted to go on that for her, and were completely frustrated because the line was always huge. First thing she did was try to get to Tinkerbell just inside the main entrance. We took both kids to meet Mickey, of course, and they also met Goofy also Toontown, as well as Winnie the Pooh, Eeyore and Tigger (brand new Tigger suit - the orange was actually painful to look at). The only time we had any real trouble was on the Snow White Ride when the Queen turned around as the Witch, and that wasn't bad. We took a break midafternoon for nap and dinner, then went back until almost eleven PM, which was pretty good even if little Ramona was dead to the world before we got out of the park. We got a picture at 9:30 the next morning, showing them both still completely zonked out. Of course, Ramona and I were completely exhausted for two days afterwards - when you're both as old as we are, it really takes it out of you to keep up with young children like that.

(By the way, seems like every time I come back from the north anymore, traffic on the 5 is horrible from just south of San Clemente, no matter the time. It took over two hours from there to get to where we left my wife's car in Mira Mesa - less than fifty miles, on a weekend with no significant traffic events any of us saw or knew of. I don't see anything like that on the 8 except for a short period at rush hour or when there's been a major accident. 94's about the same, and even the 52, which may take longer to clear, doesn't stack up outside of rush hour. One more reason to consider East County!)

Satire so real it seems ripped from tomorrow's headlines: Castro Quits: Clinton-Obama on Short List?