Sunday Early Afternoon Links

I just spent two hours in the rain watching my kid's soccer game. Frozen solid and the coach only put my kid in the game for ten minutes. Grumble. OK, let's see what going on in the class blogosphere.

Lindsay, who appears to have hit the 20 post mark, has several excellent posts. I liked her post on the Girls Next Door.

I've been reading about an American journalist's experience living in Holland for a couple of years. A sample:

Friends who have small children report that the government can reimburse as much as 70 percent of the cost of day care, which totals around $14,000 per child per year. In late May of last year an unexpected $4,265 arrived in my account: vakantiegeld. Vacation money. This money materializes in the bank accounts of virtually everyone in the country just before the summer holidays; you get from your employer an amount totaling 8 percent of your annual salary, which is meant to cover plane tickets, surfing lessons, tapas: vacations. And we aren’t talking about a mere “paid vacation” — this is on top of the salary you continue to receive during the weeks you’re off skydiving or snorkeling. And by law every employer is required to give a minimum of four weeks’ vacation. For that matter, even if you are unemployed you still receive a base amount of vakantiegeld from the government, the reasoning being that if you can’t go on vacation, you’ll get depressed and despondent and you’ll never get a job.

The Political Machine defends the medicinal marijuana.