Friday Morning Linkorama

  • Philadelphia is telling the boy scouts they have to pay the standard rate if they want to use city facilities. Penn and Teller did a wonderful expose’ on how the scouts have been taken over by the Religious Right. I’m fine if they want to exclude gays. I’m not fine with them getting free goodies from the government when they do it.
  • Yep, the Democrats sure are fighting pork.
  • Jonathan Rauch has one of the best articles I’ve read on the Iraq War.

    Some optimists say that in Army Gen. David Petraeus, Bush has finally found his Gen. Grant. That may or may not be true, but it is beside the point. The problem is that Petraeus has not yet found his President Lincoln.

    Read the whole thing. (Hat tip, Lee).

  • Cracked has the worst twist endings in movie history. I agree with their #1 choice. David Gale was a rancid movie and featured one of the most uncomfortable sex scenes in movie history. Signs, massive whomping plot holes and all, was very good. Some twist endings do work: Fight Club, the original Planet of the Apes, The Sixth Sense. Here’s a way to discriminate. If a movie is all about the twist ending, it will usually suck. If, however, it holds together and the twist ending is just an extra, it usually works.
  • Gregg Easterbrook was a running item at TMQ on the earliest appearance of Christmas decorations, music and sales. I can’t remember where, but I recently saw the first appearance of “war on Christmas” hysteria. Ugh.