I've been enjoying quite a bit of historical fiction lately. I just read 'Gates of Fire' by Stephen Pressfield about the stand of 300 Spartans against thousands of Persians at Thermopylae. It was excellent. One of my favorites is 'Shogun'. I recently read 'Horatio Hornblower' and enjoyed them.

Do you read historical fiction? What are your favorites?

The FDNY's "Dirty Little Secret": At least a dozen of New York's Bravest - some of them assigned to look after Sept. 11 widows - have left their wives for the spouses of their comrades killed in the terror attacks, sources told The Post.

"It's disgusting, heartbreaking what they've done," said Mary Koenig, whose husband, Gerry Koenig of Staten Island's Rescue 5 squad, ditched her and their two kids for Madeline Bergin, the widow of his friend and firehouse mate, John Bergin, after the World Trade Center attacks.

An insider who has worked with firefighter families and a counselor who worked for one of the FDNY services told The Post there are about a dozen cases similar to the Koenigs.

I can kind of see how this would happen, but it's pretty sad. I'm not sure that better counseling for surviving firefighters and widows would have a great impact, but I don't know what else could possibly work.

(via anil)

Hmmmm....here's a brief movie called iPod's Dirty Secret. Interesting....for iPod users, is the "Dirty Secret" true, and if so, isn't this the kind of thing that usually draws accusations of Evil Incarnate if Microsoft happens to do them?

(via The Punning Pundit.)

OK, as long as I'm dusting the cobwebs out of here, I should direct any readers with connections to small liberal arts colleges located in Northeastern Iowa to check out Gregg Easterbrook's Tuesday Morning Quarterback column, which is now hosted at NFL.com. Scroll down to "Obscure College Football Score of the Week #2".

1. CBS makes a movie about Ronald Reagan.

2. Said movie isn't sufficiently fawning about Reagan for conservative tastes.

3. Said conservatives scream bloody murder about the "liberal media".

4. CBS caves; moves movie to Showtime.

So, is this the liberal media run amok, trampling the memory of a great leader? Or is this thin-skinned conservatives unable to stand the slightest criticism of their sacred cows?

Time for the ever-popular "Where are you on the political spectrum?" quiz, which has me being pretty liberal and pretty libertarian. My results, and link to the quiz, here. (It takes five to ten minutes.)

Timothy Noah on Amazon's new "search inside the book" feature. Is this feature useful? I'm really not sure that it is, and I definitely think that it needs an off-switch. For instance, if I just want to get a Stephen King book, should I be forced to wade through every book that somewhere in its pages includes the words "Stephen" or "King"? This thing strikes me as an example of rolling something out before it's ready. Thoughts?

Kevin Drum posts a couple of excerpts from the President's news conference yesterday.

It's probably a given that George W. Bush is not the best speaker out there -- he's adequate with a prepared text, but in my ears he's dreadful off the cuff. Is this important? What should be our reaction to a President of the United States who uses words like "unsticker"? Should we be amused, mortified, ambivalent? Does this indicate anything?

Russia has a new clinic for alcoholics.

Children alcoholics.

Oops!.. I did it again

Ever get an earworm? You know, those songs that get stuck in your head, sometimes for days? For the longest time Ms. Spears had a strangle hold on my brain. Chili's jingles also often plague me. For the exorcism of these malevolent musical maladies, I usually try to get a more appealing song to force the worm out. Too often though this humming to myself will not work, and I am stuck with it until I can gain access to a more apt aural antidote. The most persistent may require a full dose of Beck's Odelay.

Most of the time though, I don't mind the infestations, as they tend to be songs I enjoy (Mitsubishi commercials usually fall into this category). They can even help when there is no stereo around. Friendly earworms are always welcome on long motorcycle rides.

So what are some of your earworms, and how do you get rid of them?

(cross-poted to ABOHO)

Speaking of book clubs, do remember to complete this (inevitable) Brothers Karamazov Personality Test on your way out.

A blogger named "Slacktivist" has decided to do an exhaustive review of the Left Behind books -- start here and move forward. What's interesting is that Slacktivist is doing this not a book at a time, but a page at a time. Of course, I don't expect him to get all that far into the project.

Has anyone here read these? I haven't, but I've scanned them several times in bookstores, enough to be turned off by the prose and the ragged right-hand margins in the copies I saw.

The people have spoken. Well, the Brits anyways. In April, the Beeb's "Big Read" began the search for the nation's best-loved novel, and we asked citizens to nominate their favourite books. Find the results here and here. Top 21 are here and you can vote if you fake being across the pond.

And is this just an excuse to bump the Collab Book Club discussion up a little bit? You're damn right! So, I Claudius or Brief History of Time?

OK, folks, is Mother Teresa worthy of Sainthood? (Depending, of course, on your level of hostility toward the whole idea of Sainthood in the first place.) Here's a MeFi thread about her.

Time for the ever-popular "Caption This Photo of the President"!

Keeping with the automotive theme, is anyone else here, like myself, a big fan of Click and Clack, the Tappet Brothers? I love their show, especially the Puzzler and "Stump the Chumps!" Here are some of their classic clips.

Here's an article (a fairly commercial article, but an article nonetheless) about the return of the station wagon. So, what do we all drive, would we drive a station wagon, are minivans really inherently uncool, and what vehicle did we hate the most?

For the Cubs-fans among us: stuff that's happened since their last World Series championship. Wow.

OK, here's a question via Bookslut that I found intriguing. You're on a first date, you go to the person's apartment or home and while they're in the kitchen you glance at their bookshelf. What book's presence on that shelf would make you end the date as quickly as possible, tear up their phone number, and never contact them again?

(Yeah, lots of us here have wives already. Pretend. And if there actually are any women reading this blog still, because we've been so incredibly lax in keeping it up, feel free to answer too. It's not necessarily a "male" question.)

Stolen from MeFi, but an interesting question: What's the biggest mistake of your life so far? Here's how some prominent Brits answered that question.