God and Ross Perot

Everybody is gushing about the newly opened Perot Museum of Nature and Science, made possible by a generous $50 million donation by the Perot children in honor of their parents, Ross and Margot Perot.

Q. What is the difference between God and Ross Perot?
A. One is an all powerful being, an object of worship, the source of all that is good, and the other one is God.

See what I did there? Comedy gold. Top shelf. (With apologies to Craig Ferguson.)

Well, not *everyone* us gushing. There's at least one person in north Texas who doesn't worship Ross Perot and that's Jesse Morrell, or at least he doesn't worship the Perot museum. Morrell is a minister dedicated to "open air outreach," that is, a street preacher from Tyler. Morrell recently visited the new Perot Museum and blogged about it.

After the jump, my review of Morrell's review.

Review: Behind the Beautiful Forevers

Amazon

From Behind the Beautiful Forevers, by Katherine Boo:

Abdul rose with minimal whining, since the only whining his mother tolerated was her own. Besides, this was the gentle-going hour in which he hated Annawadi least. The pale sun lent the sewage lake a sparkling silver cast, and the parrots nesting at the far side of the lake could still be heard over the jets."

After the jump, my review.

Spendthrift Sam and Judicious Janet

Recently, I bemoaned the bipartisan agreement that the government needs to "tighten its belt." This conventional wisdom is just plain wrong. I pointed to a column by economist Paul Krugman to explain why.

Apparently, some readers had trouble understanding how inflation and debt can sometimes work to our advantage (and by some readers I mean one in particular). Admittedly, it's counter-intuitive. If government debt contributed to our economic stagnation, how can more government debt get us going again?

After the jump, my attempt at paraphrasing Krugman's argument.

S2L77: Ayutthaya

From 1977 02 11 Thailand

Before there was Bangkok, there was Ayutthaya. The city was founded in 1350 and was the capital of Thailand until sacked by the Burmese in 1767, after which the Thai capital was moved to Bangkok. In recent decades, the ruins of Ayutthaya have been undergoing excavation and restoration. It was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1981, four years after my visit.

More photos after the jump.

Straus versus Perry

The opening of the biennial Texas legislative session featured two speeches that could influence what issues the legislature focuses on. Paul Burka of The Texas Monthly highlights the tension between those two speeches.

After the jump, my own take.