“There are three variants of procrastination, depending on what you do instead of working on something: you could work on (a) nothing, (b) something less important, or (c) something more important. That last type, I’d argue, is good procrastination.

“The procrastinator can be motivated to do difficult, timely and important tasks, as long as these tasks are a way of not doing something more important.

“Are crowds wise or dumb?

Groups of people are dumber than their constituent members when they exchange words, like in committees, boards, governments, meetings, etc.

Groups of people are smarter than their constituent members when they exchange actions. Markets are smarter than individuals because currency is a surrogate for action.

“The US Senate has issued a subpoena ordering the Bush administration to give up documents related to its surveillance of domestic terror suspects. The administration has refused a series of requests to release the documents in the past.

“Overall if the unemployment rate doesn’t increase and interest rates don’t increase then I don’t think it will have an effect on the rest of the economy.

“I’m willing to bet anyone in this room $1 million that the rates the nation’s wealthiest individuals pay in income tax are less than those their subordinates have to pay.

“For every 100 girls diagnosed with a special education disability 217 boys are diagnosed with a special education disability.

“To answer a call on the iPhone, you can tap Answer on the screen, or pinch the microscopic microphone bulge on the white earbud cord. Either way, music or video playback pauses until you hang up.

Making a call, though, can take as many as six steps: wake the phone, unlock its buttons, summon the Home screen, open the Phone program, view the Recent Calls or speed-dial list, and select a name. Call quality is only average..

E-mail is fantastic. Incoming messages are fully formatted, complete with graphics; you can even open (but not edit) Word, Excel and PDF documents.

The Web browser is a real dazzler. You get full Web layouts, fonts and all, shrunk to fit the screen. You scroll with a fingertip — much faster than scroll bars. You can double-tap to enlarge a block of text for reading, or rotate the screen 90 degrees, which rotates and magnifies the image to fill the wider view.

Finally, you can enlarge a Web page — or an e-mail message, or a photo — by spreading your thumb and forefinger on the glass. The image grows as though it’s on a sheet of latex.

“Why should the big N [north] always be on top when there are hundreds of other directions—thousands, if you get down to seconds of arc—that have an equally legitimate claim on our affections? I grieve to think of the shattered dreams of, say, south southeast.

During the Middle Ages, maps often had east on top—whence the expression ‘to orient.’

“The executive branch has an obligation to remain within constitutional limits. The point of the signing statement is to advise where the executive sees those limits.