Click on the Onion pins scattered around the globe to reveal mind-expanding factoids about the lesser, conquerable nations of the Earth. Come back each week to learn more about how little you know.

My favorite is Australia, though I didn’t check out all of them yet. (via Kottke)

Link

Bacon is #1, followed by ninjas.

Individualist anarchism refers to any of several traditions that hold that “individual conscience and the pursuit of self-interest should not be constrained by any collective body or public authority” and that the imposition of “the system of democracy, of majority decision” over the decision of the individual “is held null and void.” Benjamin R. Tucker, a famous individualist anarchist, held that “if the individual has the right to govern himself, all external government is tyranny.”

The Kuru Toga is a self-sharpening mechanical pencil that writes as precisely and evenly as a high-quality gel pen. After just a couple of lines of writing, the lead in a normal mechanical pencil becomes a blunt irregular chisel shape, leading to clumsier, increasingly smeared writing. Experienced pencil users try to counteract this by rotating their pencil every few words, a tactic that works, but very imperfectly. The Kuru Toga, however, counteracts this automatically via an internal ratchet mechanism that rotates the lead minutely with every stroke. As you write it’s constantly sharpening and rounding the lead against the paper. The resulting script is noticeably more legible and can be much finer than with a standard pencil […]

Ingenious.

In this fiery and funny talk, New York Times food writer Mark Bittman weighs in on what’s wrong with the way we eat now (too much meat, too few plants; too much fast food, too little home cooking), and why it’s putting the entire planet at risk.

Excellent and inspiring talk, I’d also like to pull out this little but nevertheless spot-on comment of his:

There is no way you can be nice and treat animals (cattle mostly) fairly if we are killing 10 bil. of them a year. And that’s just the US alone.

Wow… Another reason for me to turn it down a notch.

I received a catalog today from Casual Living and in big bold print on the front page, it said “BUY NOW, PAY NOTHING”. Then in significantly smaller print underneath, it said, (until April). That mantra has been sung throughout the credit markets over the last 10 years. The banks waive a carrot in front of the consumer and reel them in and encourage them to go deeper and deeper into debt. They do this by prescreening customers through credit reporting agencies, mailing offers to apply, and to transfer balances at teaser rates or zero percent financing.

Excellent piece, and to think that all this credit shit is yet to really sweep Serbia is only more depressing.

To me personally, taking out a credit was never really an option. I always saw it as a shortcut to something that should have been done by hard work, good planning of your resources and smart decisions. Maybe it’s just me, but it definitely feels good being 100% debt free (me personally and our company.)

Do you know what time it is?