... in the Weberian sense, anyway.

The Government Accountability Project. Neal Stephenson sez, "give these guys money".

More on micropayments:

(Or was that "moron micropayments"?)

Scott McCloud hints at interesting thoughts to come on having artists get payed for their work online.

Evan's Pricing Matters makes an obvious (though it apparently isn't to a lot of people) but important point.

the book I linked to above, Information Rules, is also available from Amazon as a Microsoft Reader e-book. The price? $23.96 -- exactly the same as the hardcover version. This will never work. Sure, it'd be nice to download the book immediately instead of waiting and paying for shipping, as well as to have an electronic copy. But for most readers, the advantages of having the book printed and bound will far outweigh the benefits of speed and searchability... The sad -- and all-too-common -- thing is, when it's demonstrated that these sales have flopped, the publisher will probably conclude that no one will buy e-books, period, when perhaps many people would have at a more reasonable (still highly profitable) price.

Some choice quotes from my Logic textbook (Contemplative Logic, by Cyril Welch, who also teaches the course):

"it seems that doctrines most easily supplant the priorities they name, and that one must constantly overcome them in order to actualize them."

"...theories intend not to erect a picture replacing our attention to reality, but rather to occasion a focus directly on reality."