In the continuing "trace the unattributed quotes that were lifted from other sources" vein, a reader points out that the Niall Ferguson quote in the Observer UK article below "appears to be lifted not from the NYT magazine but from a 6/29 Boston Globe magazine article that was posted on Arts & Letters Daily a few days ago: unless of course the Globe writer lifted his quotes from the Times article, but I don't think that Times article was even about Ferguson." Times gets lifted by the Globe gets lifted by the Observer? Or there's the equally amusing reverse conspiracy theory: maybe all three reporters were standing there when Ferguson said it.