1995 Christmas List, http://www.rasmusen.org/_amazon/xmas95.htm

• 1. The Bell Curve , by Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray, 1994, 845 pp.. $21.00. Wonderful arrangement of data, social theorizing, and explanations of statistics. And it has survived extraordinarily ferocious attacks.

• 2. The offset screwdriver. A wonderful, cheap, idea for tightening screws at odd angles.

• 3. Paw-paws. A great American fruit, something like bananas and pears, that grows in the Indiana woods in paw-paw patches. Walnuts and hickory nuts, too, while we're talking of fall foods.

• 4. The Mormon Murders , by Steven Naifeh and Gregory Smith, 1988. $5.59. A good journalistic book about defrauding the Mormon Church and blowing up people. Equally good on the psychology of con men and Mormons.

• 5. Creeds of the Churches , ed. John Leith, 1982 (3rd edition). $26.00. In one paperback volume, the basic beliefs of many churches.

• 6. Street Atlas. A CD-ROM that will locate the exact block you want to visit and allow you to print out the map. It even will find the 812-331-xxxx exchange area for you. (OBSOLETE IN 2003)

• 7. STATA. An econometric package for doing nonlinear regressions that is easy to use and extremely well-engineered. Actually, items (2), (8), and (9) on this list all give one that feeling of the satisfaction of something well-designed.

• 8. Ray Stevens, His All-Time Greatest Comic Hits. A cassette that combines clever words with clever music and style, very much like Tom Lehrer except sophisticatedly unsophisticated, instead of unsophisticatedly sophisticated.

• 9. The ZipDrive. Like an external, portable (1 pound) floppy drive----but with 100 Meg floppies. 200 dollars and 20 dollars per disk or less, so this is the cheapest storage around. For a PC magazine review and a link to Iomega's homepage, go to www8.zdnet.com/pcmag/features/removable/rers4.htm

• 10. Winston Churchill, Marlborough: His Life and Times, 1934. Now you see how he knew how to run a coalition, and why he understood being booted out in `45. This is a hard book to find, though.

• 11. CS Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms , 1958. $7.20. This book brings the Psalms to life and has a few things to say about theology and exegesis too.

• 12. Belle-Vue Gueuze lambic ale. This beer, naturally fermented in Belgium and aged three years, is mild and good, very oaky, and not too sour despite the intentional souring by lactobacteria.