E. J. Dionne considers whether Howard Dean's presidential campaign resembles Barry Goldwater's 1964 campaign in this Washington Post column.

Here are two Boston Globe articles about presidential political history. First, Christopher Shea discusses Professor Stephen Skowronek's theory that U.S. political history is "a sequence of political creation, decline, and reconstruction." Second, Mark Stricherz explains the importance of the McGovern-Fraser commission in the creation of America's current presidential nominating process.

In this Slate article, David Greenberg discusses theories that link the Kennedy assassination and the Watergate scandal.

This Wired article discusses how Phillip K. Dick's stories have become source material for movies in the 20 years since his death. Paycheck, the 6th film based on Dick's work, will be released this Christmas.

This Fast Company article explains the costs of doing business with Wal-Mart.

Let Them Sing It For You is the most Internet fun I've had in a while. This Swedish website lets you hear any words you want sung, "by some of the world's greatest pop stars." Type in a word or phrase and then listen to them sung from their database of sampled lyrics. After you follow the link, give the site time to process and then listen to the sample phrase "to the beat of the rhythm of the night." Then close the box in the center of the screen, type in any words you want, click "Let Them Sing It", let it process, and click "start". So far my favorite phrase is "Hello, I Love You." Can you recognize the four singers?

According to this BBC article, scientists have discovered that frogs croak in regional accents.

The New York Times recently gave a bad review to Neal Pollack's new book Never Mind the Pollacks. Pollack responded with this rant, which may have been partly inspired by this story from the New Yorker.

William Saletan explains how Howard Dean's campaign is like the war in Iraq in this Slate article.

This New York Times article discusses "When Bad DVDs Happen to Great Films."

This CNN/Money article lists ways to escape automated customer service and talk to a live operator at several banks, airlines, credit card companies, and computer support centers.

In this New Yorker article, Seymour Hersch tells the story of alleged war crimes committed in Viet Nam by an American unit called Tiger Force. This story was recently uncovered by the Toledo Blade, but has been ignored by the mainstream media.

Bruce Sterling has started a new weblog called Beyond the Beyond. A permanent link to Sterling's blog has been added to the Blog Links on the right of this page.

This New York Times article profiles The Paul Green School of Rock Music, a real life School of Rock.

The results are in. Karl Heinz Hille has been crowned World Beard and Moustache Champion.