my newest brilliant plan

Recently, I've been thinking...wouldn't it be cool to have kids with names that are all palindromes? A lot of people do the common theme with the names of their kids - all names starting with the same letter, or all have middle names that are in the family. But who has kids with names that are spelled the same forwards and backwards??

You start with Mom and Dad - already palindromes! So here are the kids' names I've come up with so far... Please add your suggestions to the pool so I'm adequately prepared once the kids start coming.

Girls:
Ana or Anna
Hannah
Barbra B.
Lil

Boys:
Bob
Race Car
Abba

Another option is to spell the last name backwards for an instant first name! This only works with one kid though.

we need more holidays here...

Ok, so I haven't done formal research on this, but it seems like every other country in the western world has way more holidays than we do. Is there a reason why we haven't been smarter about enacting more national holidays?

The first holiday I'd add is July the 5th. Just extend the current day celebrating our independence to include the day after as well. Seriously...they don't start fireworks until after 9pm. That lasts, what, an hour? Then you shoot off some of your own fireworks. You make it home, and look - the NEIGHBORS are still shooting off fireworks. Loud fireworks. It's impossible to fall asleep when loud things are exploding right outside your windows.

I'm sure someone out there has calculated the exact dollar amount of lost productivity when the nation shuts down for a day. But what about the benefit of giving people adequate time off for rest? What's the advantage of that in dollars? How productive is everyone today, when we're all groggily trying to work?