The Flames.

Yet there is a difference, an important difference, between being thrifty and being cheap. A cultural stereotype can be an iron chain that binds, or an iron girder that bolsters and supports. The Scots have found that it pays to be thought of as people who know the value of a dollar or a pound (that is precisely what the miser does not know; he overrates its value, just as the spendthrift underrates it). The Scottish reputation for thrift became merely the reverse side of his reputation for hard work, good business sense and fiscal responsibility, and his penchant for success. "There are few more impressive sights in the world," says Sir James Barrie, "than a Scotsman on the make." And making it big time is ultimately what Scottish thrift has all been about.

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More ominously, the stock jokes today about Scots are not about how much money they save, but about how much alcohol they consume (How do you get a Scotsman onto your roof? Tell him the drinks are on the house). The general national mood can only be described as one of prolonged depression. Yet at the same time, one Scottish industry has managed to make a remarkable comeback in the last decade, that of banking. When asked, clients say that they prefer Scottish banks to London-based ones because Scots are supposed to be so hardworking, so conscientiously honest - and so careful about the value of money. Such is the restorative power of a reputation for thrift, even a century later - a thought that must comfort Scottish bank managers when they open their credit-card bills.

IBM showed off a prototype chip today that is being hailed as a technological breakthrough for the tiny transistors -- electrical switches that help power a computer -- that have been made so thin they're 1/10,000th the width of a human hair.

The breakthrough -- the result of research at IBM and the State University of New York Polytechnic Institute in Albany -- could allow as many as 20 billion transistors to be placed on a chip the size of a fingernail and is half the size of the current 14 nanometer standard, company officials said. A nanometer is one-billionth of a meter.

In October 2008, the lawyers for the Vietnamese plaintiffs filed a writ of certiorari with the US Supreme Court to ask them to hear the case. The lawyers for the US veterans also filed their own writ of certiorari. The Supreme Court held a conference on February 27, 2009 to consider taking on the case and denied both petitions. Chief Justice Roberts and Judge John Paul Stevens both recused themselves from the considering the writ. At the same time, the court also refused the writ of certiorari for the suit filed on behalf of US veterans against the chemical companies. The Court did not publically comment on their decision not to hear either case.