Michael Blowhard writes:

Dear Blowhards --

Apologies for blizzarding you with links, but I'm just back after a few weeks away, and am lovin' pigging out on good, fresh web-stuff. Yee-hah.

* We're generally all for piecemeal, small-scale ways of developing and evolving around here. Which means that those occasional largescale developments that genuinely work -- Rockefeller Center, Haussmann's reworking of Paris -- are fun to puzzle over. I spent a dreamy half-hour poring over this page, where Cyburbia's Ablarc has posted a lot of beautiful photographs of (and smart comments about) Haussmann's Paris.

* Dixie-dwellin' Randy Sparkman remembers what Elvis meant, and not just to Southerners but to other musicians too.

* Mike Hill is feeling old: He can remember home deliveries of seltzer water. I'm feeling old myself: I can remember home deliveries of milk.

* Thanks to Tatyana, who alerted me to this sly and sexy posting about the movie "Secretary."

* Thanks to Dave Lull, who points out this terrific Robert Birnbaum interview with the invaluable Camille Paglia. Birnbaum's own site -- where surfers can enjoy tons of in-depth interviews with many authors -- is here.

* Why all the blank external walls? David Sucher gives a fast lesson in what makes good and bad urbanism. Hey architects, hey builders, hey developers: While making great architecture may be ineffably difficult, being a good neighbor just ain't that complicated. So why not make your aims a little more modest and let the whole "greatness" thing take care of itself?

* Maria Sharapova fans should enjoy exploring this gigantic image-dump. No shortage of fist-pumps, Lycra shorts, or Amazon-ish yet coltish limbs. A few nightclub shots and cameltoes, too.

* Is America really the worlds' biggest pollution offender? It seems to depend.

* Will Duquette thinks that many of those who criticize Intelligent Design are missing the point.

* What's conservative about a President who signs into law a "$286 billion transportation measure that contains a record 6,371 pet projects inserted by members of Congress from both parties"? (From the Washington Post, via Marginal Revolution guest poster Robin Hanson.)

Best,

Michael