The Free State Project: "A plan in which 20,000 or more liberty-oriented people will move to a single state of the U.S. to secure there a free society. We will accomplish this by first reforming state law, opting out of federal mandates, and finally negotiating directly with the federal government for appropriate political autonomy. We will be a community of freedom-loving individuals and families, and create a shining example of liberty for the rest of the nation and the world."

To No One's Surprise, Hussein Sweeps Back Into Power in Vote: "If there is a reliable hard core to the support for Saddam Hussein among ordinary Iraqis, it is here on the baking flatlands of north-central Iraq, where the Iraqi leader was born. So it was no surprise today that officials of the Ministry of Information provided a fleet of buses to bring foreign reporters 110 miles from Baghdad to watch Tikritis voting in a referendum on Mr. Hussein's presidency. Under Iraq's Constitution, the referendum serves as an election, but it has only one candidate - Mr. Hussein."

U.S. aircraft to join sniper hunt: "Army reconnaissance planes with high-tech surveillance equipment were being deployed to help search for the Washington-area sniper, who claimed his latest victim, an FBI analyst, as she loaded her car at a Virginia mall Monday night."

I just updated my Which * are you? page, since it appears to be my most popular.

Building Badly and Still Selling: "Finally, and most interestingly, in a study appearing in The Economist about persuasion, 'Students, posing as beggars, asked people for 'small change' and got something 44 percent of the time; they asked for a specific single-coin amount, like a quarter, and got it 64 percent of the time; they asked for arbitrary amounts like 37 cents, and got what they asked for 75 percent of the time. 'The more precise and unusual the request, the less people were able to resist it.'"

Pentagon to help in sniper hunt: "The Pentagon has agreed to help law enforcement agencies in their hunt for the serial sniper who has killed nine people in the Washington suburbs. Following a request from the FBI at the weekend, the Pentagon is to provide manned, fixed-wing reconnaissance aircraft capable of relaying information quickly."

Information for Sale - My Experience With Google Answers: "When your resume and business card say "freelance librarian" people are often interested in what you do for a living. Finding the right niche in a tough job market can be a challenge. When Google Answers started accepting applications for researchers for their online question-answering service in April, I thought I'd found my match. Still in beta at press time, Google Answers is a fee-based, question-answering service. If you have a question, you can post it, set a price for it, and sit back and await a response. An answer can currently cost from $2.50 to $200 - originally $4 to $50 - with the researcher receiving 75 percent of the amount bid, once the question is answered to the asker's satisfaction. The interface also allows for comments, so that people not approved as researchers, or who may not have the entire answer to a question, can chime in with additional information. This process of knowledge accumulation and storage has been likened to 'a paid version of Usenet' without all the spam. Google owns the answers that researchers and commenters provide. Since Google also owns the Deja News Usenet archive, this direction seems like a logical progression for them."

Website reunions blamed for ruining marriages: "The divorce courts are seeing increasing numbers of cases in which people have enjoyed an online relationship, only to see their domestic arrangements fall apart when an angry partner discovers their internet infidelity."

Nevada blood supply dangerously low: "Nevada's blood supply is reaching dangerously low levels that could affect the state's health care facilities, local blood bank officials said on Tuesday."

Mac OS X to Get Journaling: "The journaled file system, which will run atop the Mac's traditional HFS file scheme, will be switched off by default; users will be able to switch it on via the command line, sources said. They reported that while Elvis runs in the background, enabling the journaled file system will slow current system performance by 10 percent to 15 percent."