That's right. A new camera.

I'm the delighted relatively-new owner of a Canon 300D (Digital Rebel) digital SLR camera. It's taking a while to get used to, especially with shortening winter days and a lot of fall rain, but I managed to take a set of photos worth sharing a few weeks ago at the Hart House Farm. Have a look and leave me comments, if you're so inclined.

Some reading:

• Malcolm Gladwell on personality tests, originally printed in The New Yorker [gladwell.com].
  

  The problem, as Paul points out, is that Myers and her mother did not actually understand Jung at all. Jung didn't believe that types were easily identifiable, and he didn't believe that people could be permanently slotted into one category or another. "Every individual is an exception to the rule," he wrote; to "stick labels on people at first sight," in his view, was "nothing but a childish parlor game."

  
  
• Robert Kagan on international legitimacy. [ John Bonython Lecture ]
  

  Opinion polls taken before, during, and after the war show two peoples living on separate strategic and ideological planets. Whereas more than 80 percent of Americans believe that war can sometimes achieve justice, less than half of Europeans agree. Americans and Europeans disagree about the role of international law and international institutions and about the nebulous but critical question of what confers legitimacy on international action. These diverging world views predate the Iraq war and the presidency of George W. Bush, although both may have deepened and hardened the transatlantic rift into an enduring feature of the international landscape.

  ...

  During the Cold War, even a dominant United States was compelled to listen to Europe , if only because U.S. policy at the time sought above all else to protect and strengthen Europe . Today, Europe has lost much of that influence. It is too weak to be an essential ally but too secure to be a potential victim. That is why Europeans are now concerned about unconstrained U.S. power and about regaining some control over how it is exercised. Long accustomed to helping shape the world, Europeans do not want to sit back now and let the United States do all the driving, especially when they believe that it is driving dangerously.

  
  
• Executive Summary of the St. Clair streetcar Right-Of-Way (ROW) Environmental Assessment report (it's a PDF — be warned).