Olla podrida is a local, Spanish term for a Mulligan stew, for olio, etc.
Founding fathers and illegal immigrants — A new blog on the migration debate, cleverly titled Migration Debate, highlights a New York Times opposite-editorial page piece that details how many of our “founding fathers” took advantage of illegal immigration, or immigrated illegally themselves. William Hogeland wrote the piece, whom some of you will recognize as the author of The Whiskey Rebellion: George Washington, Alexander Hamilton and the Frontier Rebels who challenged America’s newfound sovereignty. (Scribner, 2006)
Google’s amazing powers: Bad time to be speechless: Over at 31fps, Google.com/maps magical powers are explained: The author finds a store on Google maps, clicks a button, and Google first calls his phone, and then calls the store — go Google, and leave the dialing to Google. Star Trek wasn’t this good. Just be sure you’re over being speechless when the party at the other end answers.
Amazing cosmos: Phil Plait at Bad Astronomy lists his top 10 images from outer space for 2006. #1 is a doozy, but be sure you read the explanation Phil offers.
Fashionable extinction: Microecos explains how fashion wiped out a beautiful, unique bird, the huia, in New Zealand, a century ago. It’s a reminder of how stupid humans can be — a good exercise is in there somewhere for geography classes, or a general lecture on the effects of colonization.
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 