A Masquerade at Disney? Only in Tokyo...

Blue Sky Disney: Halloween By The Sea...:

Starting September 10th, Tokyo DisneySEA will have "Mysterious Masquerade," its first park-wide Halloween event. The typical things you would expect to see on Halloween will be there from pumpkins, eerie music, dusty old cobwebs with flickering candles, all of which will be layered in details. The Masquerade will be a special twenty-plus minute show featuring Mickey and Minnie going to a costumed dance party at which it's revealed that all the other guest are ghost. Another smaller show called "Masquerade Dance" will feature various Disney characters and a special Halloween themed fireworks celebration called "Night High Halloween" will delight guest throughout the park. The event will run till November 3rd.

'cause you *know* that if they ever proposed the idea of 20,000 guests wearing masks in a "children's" park in the States, the conservative nutcases would, well, go nuts.

You know, for being "conservative" these loudmouths really have very little respect for *real* tradition.

FDR was not Ozymandeus...

Two Boston Area Zoos to Close Due to State Budget Cuts : Mike the Mad Biologist:

I know I'm going to sound like a broken record, but, once again, a major part of the stimulus should have been to make up state budget shortfalls, which stemmed from the economic recession. Not only is it good economic policy (what's the point of the federal government putting people to work, only to have state governments fire other people), but those state budget cuts reduce services:

Franklin Park Zoo, a Boston institution that has drawn generations of city and suburban families, may be forced to close its doors and possibly euthanize some of its animals as a result of the deep budget cuts imposed by Governor Deval Patrick, zoo officials said yesterday.

Without more state funding, those zoo officials said, they will run out of money by October and have to close both the Franklin Park Zoo and its smaller counterpart, Stone Zoo in Stoneham. The zoo would lay off most of its 165 employees and attempt to find new homes for more than 1,000 animals, the officials said.

I'm increasingly agreeing on this - the whole country would be a lot better off if the stimulus reached more than just banks, autos, a few (already funded) road construction projects, and a handful of mortgage holders who still will likely foreclose anyways.  Making up for the major shortfalls caused by the recession, especially in drastically hit states like California, keeps more people on the payroll, which in turn MAKES UP FOR SOME OF THE SPENDING by having them 1) employed and paying taxes as opposed to solely living on welfare, and 2) employed and making purchases (incurring both tax revenue and corporate fiscal survival).

This, you "socialism sucks" idiots out there is key: FDR's plan finally worked because PEOPLE WORKED FOR A LIVING.  Didn't matter what they did - they did something useful, they collected a paycheck, stuff they did IS STILL AROUND and being used in communities and parks all across the country (I know: I climbed one of his little projects, the 400 steps of Moro Rock paved in 1937).  The cost-efficiency of some of those projects has so reached "infinity" (as the time in use continues to grow, with the cost long since paid for) as to be unimaginable.

You want a government to really challenge itself: look to that example of cost-effectiveness in FDR's legacy, 'cause nothing the stimulus packages, or anything else on the budget right now, is going to come close.