A Short Banking History of the United States - WSJ.com
It's all Jefferson's fault, says John Steele Gordon, because he didn't understand the notion of a central bank.
Medieval Help Desk for Thee in Camelot from Merlin « Knights of the Pain Table
A sketch from a Norwegian comedy show: A monk calls the helpdesk because he can't figure out how to use this newfangled contraption called a "book." "I got to that point myself, but then I stopped, fearing I would lose some text."
Rocks In My Dryer: A Letter To Myself in 1987
Some retro-perspective from a 35-year-old to a 15-year-old: "First of all, Honey, we need to talk about the eye make-up. If God intended you to have electric blue eyelashes, He would've made you a Smurf. Second of all, you're not fat. Look in the mirror and memorize what (have mercy!) 105 pounds looks like, because you will never, NEVER see it again." Read the whole thing.
Conservative Canon « Marty Andrade
A collection of links to lists of must-read books on political philosophy, economics, culture, etc.
Scrappleface: Obama Scraps Plan to Change Middle Name
Satire: "Sen. Obama noted again that he is not a Muslim, and that Americans shouldn't fear his 'funny sounding name.'
"'If you want to be scared of something,' he added, 'be frightened of my socialistic domestic policies, my amoral social policies and my capitulationist foreign policy. After all, what's in a name?'"
Does dowsing work? - Crunchy Con
Supernatural weirdness, an unexplained natural phenomenon, the adaptive unconscious?
Stepping in Number Two by Fred Schwarz on National Review Online
Colorful vice-presidential nominees from the past.
Percy Shaw / Designing Modern Britain - Design Museum
The elegantly designed, durable, self-wiping Catseye road reflector: "Shaw's eventual design consisted of four glass beads placed in two pairs facing in opposite directions, embedded within a flexible rubber moulding which was mounted on a cast iron base. The device was buried in the road and fixed in position with asphalt. When vehicles drove over the dome the rubber contracted and the glass beads dropped safely beneath the road surface. Aiming for minimal maintenance, Shaw even devised a way for his Catseyes to clean themselves. The cast iron base collected rain water and whenever the top of the dome was depressed, the rubber would wash rainwater across the glass beads to clear away any dust or grime that had gathered there, just as the human eye can be cleansed by tears."
Fred Thompson :: Townhall.com :: Qualified
"One can hardly disagree with the desirability of our leaders having the qualities that Brooks describes (putting aside the question of how many of our leaders who are not Sarah Palin have demonstrated these qualities). But there are other important qualifications, such as will, courage, and determination. Frankly, an infusion of these qualities into our body politic is desperately needed - not just to raise hell with the establishment, but to speak the hard truth about unpleasant choices facing our country. To push for choices that will, in the long term, benefit our country, our children and our grandchildren. In other words, things which 'prudent' leaders are all too often reluctant to do.
"For many years we have failed to address looming problems that will prove catastrophic to our nation. It's not because we are bereft of leaders with great experience. And it is not because they do not understand the 'essential current of events.' They know these things all too well. It is because they do not have the political courage to do anything about it."
Michelle Malkin » Newspapers dying. You should care.
From August, but See-Dubya's words are worth keeping in mind as we read about layoffs and price increases: "As much as I'm for amateur and semi-pro sleuthing, the fact remains that most news gets reported because someone, somehow, gets paid to report it. Obviously, newspapers need to adapt and respond to market pressures. And maybe someday maybe the web will be organized to deliver the same degree of full-time local reporting and investigation that print media does, and a paperless news environment will come about. Until then I'm going to keep subscribing to a paper-even though I'm not in any particular hurry to get cable TV."
