Stephen Moore of the Cato Institute writes about why the New York Stock Exchange probably isn't necessary anymore.#

The Religious Policeman: "If you answered 1a and 2b, you're obviously still corrupted by decadent western zionist thinking, you don't understand our unique traditions and culture, go back to the beginning and start again."#

Alex Halavais reports the story of a father and daughter who lived in a town park.#

With the help of the authorities, he now lives in a trailer and is mowing lawns. I know this might be short-sighted of me, but I have to wonder whether they are really better off. The "authorities" have noted that she is reading and working at a 12th grade level, and is articulate and bright. No doubt, this was in large part exactly because of the environment in which she lived. Now, she gets to go to public school while her father mows lawns.

The Religious Policeman writes about what is good about Saudi Arabia:#

3. Public safety Unless you are unfortunate enough to get in the way of a terrorist bomb, and with the exception of our roads (where standards of driving are appalling), this is a very safe place to live. Somebody once quoted to me that there are more murders each year in Washington DC than there have been in the whole of Saudi Arabia since its inception. Muggings are extremely few and far between, and unlike in the West, I can walk with my family thru the city center or in the neighborhood, at 2.00 in the morning, with absolutely no fear of a drive-by shooting or being set upon by a gang of drunken hooligans.

Brent Simmons has some interesting thoughts about Frontier. It sounds very cool.#

Matt May is my favourite person at WWW2004.#

This is a conference blog post about a presenter talking about blogging. Love my navel. Looooooove my navel. Who's a pretty navel? You are!

Daniel Gruhl of IBM Research presented on "Information Diffusion Through Blogspace". He described blogging as "just on the cusp of being absolutely universally well-known" and "the greatest thing for exhibitionism... since windows." Some that die as soon as they're created, and some that are updated with "pathological intensity."

Julie Leung quotes an awesome girl who wrote a letter to Nordstrom.#

"Dear Nordstrom," she wrote. "I am an eleven-year-old girl who has tried shopping at your store for clothes (in particular jeans), but all of them ride way under my hips, and the next size up is too big and falls down.

"I see all of these girls who walk around with pants that show their belly button and underwear," she wrote. "Your clearks sugjest that there is only one look. If that is true, then girls are suppost to walk around half naked. I think that you should change that." (sic)

Paul Craig Roberts writes about why Brown v. Board is so misunderstood.#

Brown is one of those politically correct decisions, the status of which is independent of facts and understanding. Law school academics, such as UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh and George Mason University law professor David Bernstein, think that Brown was a Supreme Court case about southern segregation. As long as they make clear that they are against southern segregation, Volokh and Bernstein don't have to know anything else, such as for example, that Topeka is not in the south or that Brown was a consolidation of five cases, 60% of which were not in the south. Neither academic has any idea of Brown's legal history. They don't need to know. All that is important is that they support the Brown decision as the best thing since baked bread.