On a mailing list, someone suggested that no matter which candidate we elect in November, he or she will not be able to halt the decline of the dollar.
Paul Ciszek replied:
Imagine a foreign country called Dumfukistan. This country is inhabited by religious fanatics who believe that the world will end any day now. This [...]

The day after the bridge collapse in Minnesota, an article in the San Jose Mercury News reported that Caltrans claims the bridges in the San Francisco Bay area to be safe.
While I have a lot of respect for Caltrans, I don’t actually find that very reassuring.  I suspect that if the officials in Minnesota had [...]

As I was listening to a story on BBC World Service about Venezuela nationalizing oil production (seizing the private facilities by force if necessary), I couldn’t help but think of Wyatt’s Torch in the novel Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand.  Ellis Wyatt developed a new process for shale oil production, which revitalized the Colorado economy, [...]

(updated May 2) WorldNetDaily reported on prefessional cleanup of a broken CFL costing Brandy Bridges of Ellsworth, Maine over $2000 (h/t Slashdot). Thanks to Hans Pufal for posting a comment referencing an article with a link to the EPA fact sheet on mercury in CFLs. It turns out that CFLs contain less [...]

Despite persistent rumors to the contrary, the Chinese only own 7.2% of the publicly-held portion of the U.S. national debt.  Of foreign public holders, they are second to the Japanese, who hold 13.2%.  The U.S. public holds 54.4%.
These figures are from the Skeptical Optimist’s pie chart based on Treasury data from January 2007.  Note that [...]

Lore Sjöberg offers a cunning plan for improving other areas of our lives. [h/t Steve]