I love teh interwebs.

Quoted: ID card from inside a wallet made in Japan.

I have an unnatural affinity for weird maps like these..

Quoted: what the country would look like if politics trumped geography

Fear the "reindeer effect".

Quoted: Do conservatives have more fun? Should liberals start describing themselves as humor-challenged? Scientists try to find out.

Great graphic... NC hasn't fared too badly if price trends in Charlotte are representative (and I think they pretty much are)

Quoted: A presentation of monthly data collected from Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller of home prices in selected cities.

Awesome chart. I'm not thinking it would make a particularly good stocking stuffer (except perhaps for some policy wonks).

Quoted: Death and Taxes 2009 is a educational and political poster detailing information on the budget of the united states and your federal taxes. Republicans and democrats enjoy this thoughtful gift. Makes a great gift for students too.

I liked this line: "Influential convicted felons, she says, are America’s most overlooked talent pool."

Quoted: Now here’s something you don’t see everyday: A program that helps convicted felons turn the talents they’ve learned in prison – such as making and peddling “hootch” (bootleg liquor) and re-selling smuggled cigarettes – into entrepreneurial skills they can use...

An unremarkable article except for the priceless quote below. :-)

Quoted: One man tried to silence him with a glare and a threat that involved a coffee cup, incest and Mr. Zulkowitz’s head.

So maybe Kat *could* have ice cubes in Mauritania!

Quoted: How to build a solar refrigerator: the brighter the sun, the better it works.

A group of students last year at San Jose State University built a solar-powered ice maker with $100 worth of plumbing and a four-by-eight-foot (1.2-by-2.4-meter) sheet of reflecting steel. No moving parts, no electricity but give it a couple hours of sunshine and it can make a large bag of ice.

Huh. I've been using a PC for years and didn't know about using "Windows key and “D” simultaneously" to show the desktop.

Quoted: David Pogue's technology column has appeared each Thursday in The Times since 2000. Each week, he also writes the Times e-mail column