"When I think of the vast sea of to-do lists I've written over the past 20 years ... I'm struck by the utter futility of this incessant compulsion to accomplish stuff."

Don't worry about accomplishment; about doing the right things instead of doing things right; about finding your creative time and defending it ruthlessly; about organizing your life; about what you would like to be written on your tombstone: television is there to help you believe that time is never lost, and to help relegate those productive thoughts to the back of your mind, where they belong. Just keep watching TV!

I suggest leaving suddenly. No goodbyes. Make sure you have your things. No "closure." Just disappear and forget about the controlling bastard. Giving him an explanation would be like handing him a key. The key you never got from him.

Taxpayers are used to absorbing the risk of business by paying for research and development, which is then handed over to some corporation (e.g., the internet). We haven't heard the suggestion that since the Fed is using taxpayer money to bail out Bear-Stearns, which should have lived up to its namesake and have been sternly bearish, what is left of Bear-Stearns should become the property of the taxpayer. Why is some corporation benefitting from taxpayer largesse? When will the tax payers see a return on their investments?

Suppose I offered you stock in my company. The deal is this: if my company succeeds in producing a product, the product is handed over to some other company, and you get to pay for it as a consumer. What kind of investor would go along with that deal? Answer: a tax payer.

If Lehman were to mark their questionable assets to market, they would be insolvent.

Exactly. There is no "free-market capitalism" unless the losses of Bear-Stearns are privatized.

I have been experimenting with what you might call cognitive workout software for years. I have found two software programs that work.

The first is supermemo, a sophisticated flashcard program with a spaced repetition algorithm based on a phenomenological model of the user's memory. It's popular among foreign language and medical students. It also has an "incremental reading" function, intended for coordinating the reading of up to thousands of online documents. The designer of this program is an elitist: he refuses to create a simple user's guide.

The second program is called brainbuilder. This can be used to improve digit span, which is correlated with mathematical ability. It takes discipline to stay with it.

The McCain campaign needs a tempered counterpoint to the belicose and easily angered senator. Well done!

Each sport must be pursued for its own sake

and never to impress potential mates.

-Kompeticles, circ 450 BC

This is tragic. It is unfortunate to unwittingly subject young children to the spectacle of animal abuse.

Since outlawing horse racing is likely to be controversial, I propose an alternative. In cases where the horse would have been be euthanized, I propose that the horse's owner, trainer and jockey be euthanized along with the horse. In case this may lead to heroic attempts to spare horses, I propose further that the decision to euthanize must proceed as if only the horse were affected.

Outlawing horse racing, a practice that can fairly be called animal abuse, is likely to be controversial, so I propose an alternative, in an effort to raise the level of enthusiasm for horse racing.

In cases where a horse is to be euthanized after a race, the owner, trainer and jockey must be euthanized along with the horse.

This practice might result in heroic attempts to spare horses to save the lives of owners, trainers and jockeys; accordingly, the decision to euthanize must be made independently of all other considerations. If the horse would have been euthanized otherwise, then all parties involved must be euthanized on the spot.

Readers willing to weep over the glorious and fatal attempt of an alpha female horse used to winning and dying after giving it her all should be even more willing for the owner, jockey and trainer of the horse to share in her glory, by having them euthanized along with the horse.

Gloriously euthanizing them all on the spot should be the rule, when the decision to euthanize a horse is taken. Otherwise the protests and tears are so much sentimental, sappy, blubbering, self-indulgent drivel.

You're concerned about a mere five years? Try eight. And even after that your friends will tell you to stick it out.

The effect has been to harden Clinton and Obama supporters against each other. The number of Clinton supporters who will not vote for Obama in November is increasing, along with the number of Obama supporter who will not vote for Clinton.

under which Hillary Clinton will concede the nomination. None. No fact of the matter will matter to her. This intransigence is hardening Clinton and Obama supporters against each other, to the point that many will refuse to vote for the other democratic candidate in the general election.

There is no conceivable circumstance under which Hillary Clinton would concede the nomination. By consistently moving goal posts and changing positions, there is a nonzero probability that she might win the nomination, even though Obama (I almost said Gore) is the presumptive nominee. One effect of this intransigence is that Obama and Clinton supporters are increasingly hardened against each other's candidate.

But, if Clinton's stop-at-nothing strategy works, and she is the nominee, (or if there is a unity ticket, which seems less likely) then she will ensure in closely contested states that her campaign will do unto the Republicans that the Republicans did unto the Democrats in 2000. (That can be taken in many ways.)