Marginal Utility

by Ken Houghton

The theme song to the show—at least as broadcast in the United States—was written and is sung by my favorite Christian Canadian.

So I have no idea what to make of this, spotted in Wal-Mart in La Salle yesterday:



Yes, the title as shown is Benjamin and the Green Knight.

Rosie owns, and is very fond of, this which—save for the name of the title character—appears to be the same film.

I suspect "Hey, it's Franklin/Comin' over to play" won't make as much sense if you think the character's name is Benjamin.

Labels: just life, Kids, My home not native land

by Ken Houghton

What Valerie was watching on YouTube:

Labels: just life, My home not native land

by Ken Houghton

Spam e-mail heading that is wrong on so many levels: "Downloadable porno DVD's for free"

My Windows machine certainly doesn't have the capability of downloading DVDs. Maybe it's something to do with that new IPhone 2.0?

By the way, I can now say that a GPS allows you to drive around in a city as if you were a native. Except for those times when it waits until you're two car-lengths from the left turn and in the far right lane, at which point you just have to remember that having New Jersey plates is good for something.

Labels: just life, My home not native land, technology

by Ken Houghton

Via Rob Farley at LG&M, ousted Obama advisor Samantha Power discusses Canada's role in the Afghanistan/Iraq CF:

Canada has been quietly embroiled in one of the most revealing political and international-security debates since the end of the cold war. It's a debate critical to the future of NATO. And its outcome may tell us a lot about the fate of the U.S.'s struggle against terrorism.

At issue is Canada's military role in Afghanistan. Canada is one of 26 NATO countries in the International Security Assistance Force, which is attempting to stabilize Afghanistan and neutralize the Taliban and al-Qaeda. But Canada is one of only a handful of NATO countries that have embraced the task of actual war-fighting. The Canadians, who have 2,500 troops on the ground, have suffered 82 fatalities, a death rate that is higher than the U.S. military's in Iraq. In an increasingly two-tiered NATO alliance, Canada occupies the fighting tier, alongside the U.S., Britain, Denmark and the Netherlands.

The real Coalition-of-the-Willing(-to-sacrifice-their-citizens).

She then notes that the Canadian citizenry is Rational:

The Afghan war had broad public support in Canada in 2002, but is now seen as one front in George W. Bush's hugely unpopular "war on terror."...Having taken few casualties in the past half-century, Canadians have found it jarring to watch flag-draped coffins return to what can feel like a very small country. A public that has long seen its military as innocently patrolling the peace has had trouble adjusting to its forces engaging in a full-fledged, unconventional war.

We now see why pictures of coffins are not broadcast in the United States.

Perhaps most important, Canadians do not see the Afghan conflict as directly relevant to their own security. Al-Qaeda has never staged an attack on Canadian soil. And although 24 Canadians were among the victims of 9/11 and terrorists were planning to blow up two Air Canada flights in the British terrorism plot of 2006, Canadians worry that fighting alongside the U.S. will increase--not decrease--the risk that they will become a target.

So they have no national security interest—even if we are dumb enough (as Power apparently is) to conflate Al-Queda with Afghanistan and Iraq.*

But Power is thrilled because the Canadian government didn't listen to its voters.

A recent poll showed that 47% of Canadians wanted their soldiers to leave Afghanistan immediately, and only 17% supported maintaining a combat role....After a heated and long-overdue domestic debate, the Canadian Parliament last month voted to keep its soldiers in Afghanistan until 2011--with the provisos that Canadian forces be reinforced by 1,000 troops from elsewhere and that Canadian forces concentrate less on combat and more on training Afghan security forces.

Power disingenuously concludes that "When finally consulted in earnest, Canadians concluded that the financial and human costs of the mission were in fact worth bearing, at least for now."

And then she gets to her point, sort of:

The U.S. alone can't succeed in Afghanistan. But Canada's example shows that even our closest allies need to be convinced that the fight is theirs too.

I'm not generous enough to conclude that "alone" and "But" were added by an editor. So how does she plan to convince them?

NATO rules should be rewritten to ensure that countries that invest disproportionate military and financial resources (as Canada has done) should have some of their costs subsidized by the alliance. If a government does not want to send its troops to fight, it should still be obliged to contribute funding and civilian expertise, which remains in short supply.

Since Scott and Hilzoy want to get all hyper, again, about Clinton's 2002 vote—even though it's not so different from Obama's public positions—maybe they could explain the difference between Power's pitch and John McCain's Hundred Years War.

Labels: Afghanistan, My home not native land, terrorism

by Ken Houghton

Unintentional Non Sequitur of the Day?

Shira: "I got some boxes from Whole Foods. Most of them held Febreze, but they smell really bad."

Labels: just life, My home not native land

by Ken Houghton

Let us hope it does not go as this one did.

Labels: hockey, My home not native land

by Ken Houghton

Finally, a hockey fight video I can embed on a family blog. This is the way it should be done:

Labels: hockey, My home not native land

by Ken Houghton

When culling the CD collection, do not leave "How Come" from D12 World on the stereo when the three-year-old comes in from playing.

Labels: just life, My home not native land, pop music

by Ken Houghton

UPDATE: See correction from Tom in comments. Oh well.

Reagan defenders are perpetually saying that, after he created massive deficits and a recession with the 1981 tax cuts, his people learned better, and all of the following tax cuts were "revenue-neutral."

I'll leave it to the folks at AngryBear to graph out the truth of that statement; suffice to say, the 1986 revision (discussed here and, most especially, here, to pick two from Divorced One Like Bush) has long been cursed by me. Generally, 1986 made it harder to get out of a poverty trap, and easier to maintain Generational Wealth without doing anything.*

But—or, probably, for example—the one thing that 1986 did was eliminate the first $250,000 per person on gains from the sale of real property.** And since there is no chance we will make anything near that limit, there is no chance that I will have to negotiate with the IRS over why we haven't didn't buy another house in the United States over the following two years.****

And, in part, we have RR to thank for it.

*If you believe either of those two is a good idea, please explain your theory of economic growth, and Why No One Will Publish It Except the AEI.

**Technically, I believe the ceiling was set lower, and raised either seven or ten years later.*** But Reagan set the standard for considering basic housing to be "an investment."

***Strangely, those try to cast some portion of the blame for the housing boom/bust on that Clinton administration action ignore that the standard was set by Their Leader.

****This, of course, assumes the current house can be sold.

Labels: Housing Bubble, mortgage, My home not native land, Tax Incentives

by Ken Houghton

You have three boxes. One is large, but has a very weak bottom. The other two are smaller and stable.

You pack the large, unstable box with (mostly children's) books, but are careful not to fill it to the top.

You attempt to carry the box of books down the stairs.

Do you:

1. watch in horror as the books fall from the bottom early in your journey?
   
2. make it to the turn in the stairs and end up in the hospital?
   
3. realize immediately what will happen and move the other two boxes, leaving the large one for the next victim person?

Fortunately, in this case, the answer is (1).

Labels: just life, My home not native land