Shelby Foote has died. There should be some kind of national day of mourning for nerds like myself. All of you from Mississippi should read his obituary even though I'm not totally sure how it ended up in the "Entertainment" section of CNN's Web site. Here's a link. May he rest in peace.
http://www.cnn.com/2005/SHOWBIZ/books/06/28/obit.foote.ap/index.html