[New York Times]
The Hookie Awards: named after public intellectual Sidney Hook, they go to the authors of some of the most important essays written in 2004.

[wfs.org]
World Future Society forecasts for 2005.

[Socialist Review]
Christmas story by China Miéville.

[personal page]
The 48 Laws of Power.

[SF Weekly]
Labyrinth building.

[Idiom Site]
On the origin of idioms.

[ABC News]
Nearly half of all Americans believe the U.S. government should restrict the civil liberties of Muslim Americans, according to a nationwide poll.

[bozzetto.com]
The modern shift toward asylum living can have negative consequences.

[New York Times Magazine]
The 4th Annual Year in Ideas.

[ionsys.com]
November 2004 Harper's Magazine essay by Mark Slouka on the virtues of idleness.

[Times Online]
Well, I'll be skipping this one.

[The New Criterion]
Nowadays, with an immense range of skills to be mastered, an enormous spectrum of individuality seeking an ever-wider variety in the arts, and a huge and diversely specialized volume of knowledge, any oneness we can expect in our culture cannot possibly be that of the centralized and unitary.

[MSNBC]
Ignorance is ugly. Having to live amongst the ignorant is debilitating.

[The New Yorker]
I never much liked Charlie Brown or Snoopy, but I like this essay.

[Fimoculous.com]
The Best (Everything) of the Year.