For some reason I can't stop seeing "Red." From Chairman Mao skateboards to Frederich Engels comic books, socialism seems to be taking over over the kid's aisle. In fact, I have no doubt that Senator McCarthy (bless his soul) is rolling over and over in his grave just thinking about these products. Oh well. I guess one good turn deserves another. The following are 7 faux-socialist products definitely worth waiting in line for. 1. Create-A-Commie If you love fascism's... READ ON

According to this article from the CBC, the city of Toronto is banning its 23,000 employees from using FaceBook. Not surprisingly, YouTube and a few other social networking sites are already on the list. Of course, what's most interesting about the thing is that while it applies to all city employees, it doesn't apply to politicians, who apparently need the sites to interact with their constituents. I love Canada, but it sounds a little Animal Farm-ish, no? Like all Toronto city employees are... READ ON

I'm a lecture junkie. I have previously blogged about Little Gray Books, one of my favorite online lecture series. A new resource for finding online lectures has come to my attention: Listening to Words. The site contains a database of lectures (990 of them), which can be searched, browsed by lecturer, or by lecture location. This is a gold mine of spoken word content, people! Get downloading! Best bets: The Fog of War: Robert S. McNamara and Errol Morris in Discussion, Bill Bryson at The Royal... READ ON

In other exciting Peruvian news, Peruvian president Alan Garcia has declared March the month when punctuality will sweep the nation: "(We must) stop this horrible, pitiful, disastrous custom of failing to be punctual," he intoned in a speech, inveighing against the $5 billion in annual economic damage caused, he said, by being late. Tallying tardiness, he said Peruvians as a whole were annually late by 3 billion hours. That works out to over 107 hours of tardiness for every man, woman and child.... READ ON