From FT, lessons from the collapse of Bear Stearns: Never again will bankers be able to argue that what is good for Citigroup is good for America, or what is good for RBS is good for the UK; and the truth about speculators — they are doing God’s work: Speculation is to financial markets what claptrap is to the political system, absolutely crucial. What if?: The book gives way to the download, and solitary reading transforms into virtual conversations. Benjamin Kunkel remembers Giovanni Arrighi. Girls Just Want to Have Fun: An article on polyandry in Malaysia. Can't Wait 'Til Tax Day: It's a heretical thought, but would people pay more taxes if they could designate where a portion of their money went? Life returns to an eerie Chernobyl: In the radioactive realm at ground zero of history's worst nuclear disaster, nature reclaims its territory — and a few defiant old folks are calling it home again (and part 2). Library of Congress curator Mark Dimunation is on a worldwide mission to find exact copies of the books that belonged to Thomas Jefferson. Reconstructing a Lost Library: George Wythe’s "legacie" to President Thomas Jefferson. From JASSS, reviews of books on networks and complexity. Not tonight, honey: An excerpt from Sexy Orchids Make Lousy Lovers & Other Unusual Relationships by Marty Crump. Hampton Stevens on the short and brutal life of a Nascar engine. Smart debt, dumb debt: Because we never face up to how much we need government to do, there is a pathetic quality to our discussion of big deficits. It's not our debt that's unsustainable, it's our politics. Luc Foisneau on the French philosophers eclipsed by rationalism. Algebra in Wonderland: The other-worldly events in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland can be interpreted as satire on 19th-century advances in mathematics (and more).
