My Hometown Library I was out and about enjoying the San Francisco summer and wandered into a public library branch. I'm already in the middle of reading a couple good books (this one and this one) so I checked out a few of the more interesting looking CDs that I found in the bin: The Best of Sonny Rollins, Cesaria Evora: cafe atlantico and Creedence Clearwater Revival Chronicle Vol II. What a great deal. I can check out up to 4 CDs for up to 3 weeks. I also learned from a sign (in Spanish) at the check-out counter that they now have People magazine and Cosmopolitan in Spanish! The public library as we know it was invented about 100 years ago at a time when the economics of information were quite a bit different than they are today. Nevertheless, like most government-run institutions the municipal library continues to consume taxes while losing track of how to deliver the most value to the taxpayers. I listen to the fine music of Sonny Rollins while I write this, and I have no objection to Spanish speaking immigrants reading Cosmo in their native language. But I think that offering popular music and trashy magazines in Spanish for free is a stupid waste of my property taxes. Although the original mission of the public library has largely been subsumed by Border's Books, the Internet and the used book shop on the corner, there's much that the public libraries can still do to create value and changes they could make to use their budgets more efficiently. Like focus on teaching immigrants English instead of entertaining them in their native languages; teaching Americans languages of strategic importance such as Arabic and Farsi; concentrate the collections on reference materials that are impractically expensive for individuals to own, while dispensing with all the cheap paperbacks that can be found in used bookstores for a buck or two; close seldom-used branches and keep the remaining ones open during hours that people actually want to use them.

Road to Nowhere. EU foreign ministers are backing a 'road-map' for a Palestinian state, leading to full statehood by 2005. This plan is based on the assumption, along with other fanciful assumptions, that it will be facilitated by "the three moderate Arab states". (As hard as I try, I can't come up with nearly that many, even if I include Michigan). If anybody out there still thinks that the Palestinian political culture has the competence to put on its own pants in the morning, let alone preserve law and order among its own people or respect its neighbors' borders, read this interview with Chief of Staff Moshe Ya'alon. This should help make it clear why there won't be a Palestinian state within anything close to 3 years. And no, the EU is not a credible broker for peace in the region

Inside the brain of a married guy (I) an attractive young lady approaches me on the street and asks "What time do you have?". The answer which pops into my brain but which I do not say out loud is "For you, I have as much time as you need." Now that I'm happily married and have no use for that sort of idiotic pick-up line, they come to me without my having to try. Back when I was single, it would have taken me a week to think of such a comeback. Why is this? (Fred Lapides will probably have an opinion)

Inside the brain of a married guy (II) I was chatting with a married couple I'm friends with and the woman shares the latest slogan she came up with: I'm the CEO of my own life. I reply I'm also the CEO of my own life, and my wife is the COO of my own life. The man nods understandingly. His wife nods approvingly.