Ah, America

One of our country's great attributes, I think, is its ability to produce just the most outrageous--and oddly capable--characters imaginable, from Benjamin Franklin to P.T. Barnum to Snoop.

Well, I think we can add a minor character to that list: Rocky Twyman. He sounds like something out of a Wodehouse novel, and has probably caused more scratched heads than anyone now living.

The five cent penny

An emotional case for mothballing nickels and upgrading pennies is made:

The nickel is a misshapen fraud with a beastly portrait of a godless slaveowner. The penny is a pure classic that bears around the world billions of images of the Great Emancipator in all his Christian mercy, from the filthiest whorehouse to the bedsides of tykes. After all the work it’s done for us, now it’s our turn to give the penny a leg up. Ditch the nickel. Promote the penny to five-cent status.

Works for me. Though why are we always so stuck on Presidents (Ben Franklin notwithstanding)? How about some Senators--like Daniel Webster, for instance? Or how about a genius, like Einstein? I'd be down.