Midday.

* Scott McCloud introduces the world to Google Chrome.

* Philip Pullman's Top 40 books.

* Writing tips from Walter Benjamin.

X. Consider no work perfect over which you have not once sat from evening to broad daylight.

XI. Do not write the conclusion of a work in your familiar study. You would not find the necessary courage there.

...

XIII. The work is the death mask of its conception.

* FailureToVet-gate hits the New York Times. And Daily Kos has a round-up of pundit reactions, including David Brooks giving up the ghost and Richard Cohen invoking Incitatus, the horse Caligula made consul.

* And Dark Roasted Blend visits the fantastic megastructures of Paolo Soleri, the thinker behind arcology.

Morning links.

* The protests in St. Paul turned violent yesterday, with police tear-gassing the crowd.

They had come in their thousands – grandmothers, veterans, young families and even disgruntled Republicans bearing banners and peace flags, to demand an end to the five-year conflict. And for the most part, the demonstrations passed off peacefully.

But once the main antiwar march had finished, splinter groups embarked on a violent rampage, smashing windows, slashing car tyres, throwing bottles and even attacking Republican delegates attending the nearby Xcel Centre.

Many of those involved identified themselves to reporters as anarchists. These protesters, some clad in black, wreaked havoc by damaging property and starting at least one fire.

* Washington Monthly has a nice pair of posts detailing the entire Sarah Palin fiasco so far, if you haven't been following the coverage closely here and elsewhere. And for a good articulation of the gambling frame I've been pushing as the best way to understand John McCain, see Josh Marshall.

* Barack Obama loves science and science funding.

* Google releases its long-awaited browser, Chrome, tomorrow. MetaFilter's talking about it.

* Neal Stephenson and the 10,000-Year Clock. There's more Stephenson links at MeFi.

* “The Night Gwen Stacy Died": The End of Innocence and the Birth of the Bronze Age.