According to this article in the New York Times, the baillout money that was ostensibly given to the banks to jumpstart the economy or forestall a collapse, etc, by opening up the credit spigots is not in fact, being used for that purpose.

It's being transferred directly to the bankers.

I am, shocked, shocked!

Poignant, funny, bittersweet, sweepingly cinematic, poetic, and maybe even a tad disturbing.

The Russians really do have a genetic gift for melancholy, I think. This guy may displace Pasternak! Laura from Dr. Zhivago, step aside. There is a new star in the firmament, a new heartbreaking love-object just out of reach. And her name is


Sarah!

The other day I was listening to Terri Gross on Freh-share, and her guest was Michael Pollan of “Omnivore's Dilemma” (and Martha's Vineyard hippie) fame. They were talking about his recent article in the New York Times Magazine, which was essentially about marrying agricultural policy to national health and community-wellbeing policy.

Below the fold: Ag Ec Rock Star! [Read More!]

Boy, that sure was some crisis

Wall Street banks in $70bn staff payout
Pay and bonus deals equivalent to 10% of US government bail-out package

Imagine if we had not had the bailout bill! The Wall Street types who shit the worldwide bed might have missed their outlandish compensation! One shudders to think.

But we're safe now; at least until their bonuses come due next year, when we'll have to have another emergency to make sure they get paid.

Over on CIO.com, my friend Adam Kolawa, founder of software-tools company Parasoft, has an article called "How Better Software Can Save the World. It's a reader's digest condensed version of his new book The Next Leap in Productivity: What Top Managers Really Need to Know about Information Technology, for which I wrote the afterword.

Kolawa's main point is that software is still made using artisan/guild/craftsman techniques, and the whole process can be vastly improved by automation and by using the Total Quality Management techniques (from Demming et al) that have been widely used in manufacturing for fifty years or more.

Anyway, if you're into software process geekery, you should check it out. I think it makes sense, myself. Actually, you should probably check it out even if you're not into software process geekery. Given the way things are going lately, anything that offers any hope at all of saving the world needs to be carefully checked out.

Hello comrade piggy! here is the latest news from our departments of homeland security and justice. Although the item reported may appear unsavory, Comrade Bush and Comrade Cheney and Comrade Paulson assure me that this action is in the national interest. And who am I (or you!) to question them?

Oink! Oink!