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Photo.net's forum of the funniest comments people have received while taking pictures in public. | Rate the swankiest photo on the site. | Amateur photographers' photographs of the week.

Concerned Americans need to reassess our notions of our intelligence system's strengths and limitations. Says CIA Director George Tenet: “Everyone thinks we’re Tom Cruise. We’re not. We can’t look into every bedroom and listen to every conversation." Newsweek: "Spying can help win wars, but honest spies appreciate their own limitations. Their political masters often prefer the Hollywood version." [popup warning: kill the popup]

Are you a hot, single, successful, beautiful millionaire? If so, you'd never need a site like MillionaireMatch.com.

Studying the Spice Girls can be as rewarding as studying Shakespeare. It's not the subject of the study but the quality of analysis that counts, as Gerald Graff argues in Clueless in Academe: How Schooling Obscures the Life of the Mind.

Portland, Oregon: The quirky news capital of the world. This time they've lost the time capsule.

Film Review

The Truth About Beef Jerky. Writer/Producer/Visionary Fritz Jünker's debut film is, in the eyes of this critic, an inspirational success. Poignant and relevant, it powerfully inspires while gently critiquing a segment of society that claims no reason to exist. It is at once compelling and repelling.

A familiar face is on Tom Deluca's website

[bonus points if you can find it twice]

The Car-O-Meter, by NPR's Car Talk hosts Tom and Ray, will determine if there is a "conflict between your personality and that of your car."

| The car that best matches Ryan's personality.

| Car Talk classic clips. [audio]

Great news! If Hillary Clinton doesn't become President in 2008, there's a chance we could change the Constitution and bring Bubba back!

Hermann Doernemann, the oldest man in Germany, recently turned 110. The only exercise he ever believed in was walking to the corner shop to buy beer and cigars.

Joseph Stiglitz, 2002 Nobel Laureate in Economics and Chairman of President Clinton's Council of Economic Advisors, (fairly) recently sized up the 1990s economy, evaluated the contributions of several lucky economic breaks to the longest U.S. economic boom in history, and laid out some of the reasons people in developing economies mistrust the U.S. as the global economic leader.

Introverts Unite! The best description I've read of the plight of the quiet person.

| An Atlantic Monthly reader agreed: "Hooray for Jonathan Rauch and his desperately needed "Caring for Your Introvert." I am exultant. I laughed out loud no fewer than fourteen times. I have shrunk and laminated a hundred copies of the article, and carry a few in my shirt pocket. Now, when someone perplexed by more than fifteen seconds of silence asks, "What are you thinking about?" I simply hand him or her a copy and retire to the basement. (Kurt Fischer; Roseville, Minn.)

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The Economist: backgrounders