Sally Wister’s Journal — M. T. Anderson  recommends this Civil War era journal in an interview, saying it was one of the more interesting things he read doing research for Octavian Nothing.  He claims that if Wister had ever turned her hand to fiction, she would have been one of the great American novelists.

The Quiet Coup — article in The Atlantic in which Simon Johnson, former economist with the International Monetary Fund, explains exactly how the IMF would be treating the United States if it were any other country.

Fear and the Availability Heuristic — post on Bruce Schneier’s blog about the non-rational basis of most human risk assessment.

360 Degree Character Reviews — John Rogers talks about some interesting exercises a writer can use to get to know his or her characters.

Join or Die — artist Justine Lai’s series of paintings of herself having sex with the presidents of the United States.

BOINC — Open source software to donate unused processor cycles to many scientific projects.  I’ve donated mine to the World Community Grid.