(Plus ça change:) Benjamin Franklin , in "Dangers of a settled bureaucracy" (1787)

(Glenn sends this:)

People are inquiring about this post, stirred by North Korea's supposedly thermo-nuclear test yesterday. The post was written in March 2...

The Dutch CVB, or whatever the alphabet soup, sends us a new European Insurance Card . Because we had discovered belatedly in the ER of the ...

We also do art, right? So, that's the excuse: That's not the art, that's just the unfinished bathroom We're sitting ...

Here's an unedited email I sent to my lawyer earlier today: ...thanks...I'll react tomorrow...It would be EXTREMELY HELPFUL IF YOU...

Dear Mr Minister, I'm in the process of renewing my passport, and still cannot believe this. How is it that K-Mart has my address and...

James Saft , the Reuters' columnist, has a piece in the IHT about a talk by Andrew Haldane , the executive director for financial stab...

Senior moment - A 98 year old woman in the UK wrote this to her bank: Dear Sir, I am writing to thank you for bouncing my cheque with wh...

You study philosophy at the Free University of Berlin, and you see yourself as a midrange intellectual all your life, and you cringe at the ...

The Darty man arrives. Yet another guy, two meters long, pouchy, funny haircut. He re-installs the induction hob, and then provides a length...

The Samsung hob had been re-installed on Friday. On Saturday morning, some desperate noises from the kitchen. "Michael." A pause...

Repairman has arrived (see previous post). Postwoman (Muriel) has arrived, delayed, with the International Herald Tribune . Maureen Dowd, t...