Arab v. Family

"At a town-hall event Friday in Minnesota, McCain took the microphone
from a woman who had called Obama an Arab. McCain said, "No, ma'am,"
and he called Obama "a decent, family man.""

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081011/ap_on_el_pr/obama

Somewhere around half the US voters want this person to lead the free world.

TriSano at GOSCON

Mike's speaking at GOSCON...

http://fuzzypanic.blogspot.com/2008/10/trisano-goscon.html

This looks like a good time for government agencies, local, state, and
federal to become more collaborative and open.

Lightroom and Lightweight Languages

Interesting write up on Adobe Lightroom, written largely in Lua, via
Ted Leung...

http://www.sauria.com/blog/2008/10/09/lua-in-lightroom/

The Open Source Conference Dance

Er, shuffle, *they* call it...

http://blog.oregonlive.com/siliconforest/2008/10/open_source_conference_shuffle.html

Newspaper Woes

The Oregonian's been laying people off and offering early retirement,
etc. Apparently, not surprisingly, advertisement revenue is way, way,
way down.

Now from across the river comes news of Chapter 11 from the Vancouver,
WA paper, the Columbian...

http://www.oregonmediainsiders.com/node/1701

First the Internet, now the economy.

Pot Meets Kettle Big Time - 2008 Edition

Via Tim Riley

Optimistic Networking

"In the last few weeks of financial crisis many of us have discovered
that the powers-that-be are just making it up as they go along and the
emperor really doesn't have much to wear. But out of this crisis in
confidence something new and potentially powerful is rising: the
networked public sphere is turning its attention to how Washington
actually works (or fails to work). Powered and connected by the
Internet, a critical mass -- in both senses of the word -- is forming
around what we can do to fix both our political and economic systems."

http://www.npr.org/blogs/sundaysoapbox/2008/10/critical_masses_of_citizens_ar.html

Maybe. That would be a good outcome.

Straws

I'm listening to talk about the coordinated rate cuts, ongoing bailouts, etc. People are speculating whether or when these actions will help. Very little of what I've heard or read addresses what seems to be at the heart of getting credit flowing - whether or not my organization knows what our true assets are worth, why would we extend anything to yours, not knowing what yours are worth either?

That seems to be at the heart of the Fed going straight to dealing commercial paper - eliminate the middlemen, because the middlemen have essentially eliminated themselves. This seems like the ultimate race to the bottom. But no one knows where the bottom is.

It is kind of an interesting time, as long as the basic supply chains remain functional. Huh.

Fed now buying commercial paper

So now the Fed is directly responsible for ensuring companies can make
their payrolls. Hmm.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=95471631

The Keating Five: Hey, John McCain - I *thought* I recognized you!

http://keatingeconomics.com/

Finally people seem willing to call BS on McCain. The only problem is how far the Republicans are will to go to smear the opposition when the Republicans' backs are up against the wall. There is a lot at stake in this to the rich and powerful who feel entitled to remain rich and powerful.

Big Bottom

"Just talked to trader in Brooklyn who says he's hopeful we're near
the bottom. And why not, you know?"

http://twitter.com/planetmoney/statuses/948618425

An entertaining activity may be to go back through the last six months
or so of financial news to find all the predictions about having hit
bottom.

No. We will know we've hit bottom as we are on the way *up*. There are
still far too many people claiming no one knows who owes what to whom
in order to even guess where the bottom may be.

This seems to be far deeper than any first level financial system
apologist could fathom. They will not know where bottom is.

BTW, Here's your man for leading the bailout...

Yes, he is from Goldman Sachs. But you can trust him. Certainly.

I mean, there's a flag right there, behind him.

I bet he's even a Republican.

The Art of the Interpreter

Another classic came to mind this week, The Art of the Interpreter (PDF) (PS). Steele and Sussman, 1978.

We examine the effects of various language design decisions on the programming styles available to a user of the language, with particular emphasis on the ability to incrementally construct modular systems. At each step we exhibit an interactive... interpreter for the language under consideration.

Update: an anonymous commenter is looking for a non-broken link. Here's one I just succeeded with...

http://library.readscheme.org/page1.html

Here comes the BS

If she can't win on truth, maybe the fundamentalist christian can win on lies.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/bloomberg/20081006/pl_bloomberg/aj7yeq09er4q_1

How revealing.

Economist.com - "Economists are overwhelmingly pro-Obama"

http://www.economist.com/world/unitedstates/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12342127

Money Talks

As Steve Dekorte writes, we now know who our members of congress truly
represent. I've not been a fan of direct democracy. The idea of a
deliberative body of representatives appeals to me. I'm rapidly
becoming more favorable toward direct democracy. Not that that would
bring perfection, but at least that would bring direct responsibility.

Direct democracy as most anything though would work better in a
decentralized system. There are no easy answers but over and over the
primary lesson is smaller is better.

As it turns out overwhelmingly those who voted yes are those who
receive the most money from the banking lobby. Although the law that
passed gives the administration the _option_ of taking part ownership
of the institutions it bails out, what is the likelihood of Paulson,
an owner, siding with the taxpayers over his best buddies, also
owners? Zero, that's the likelihood. These are crooks and they've
taken us to the cleaners.

http://www.dekorte.com/blog/blog.cgi?do=item&id=3621

Required listening and reading

This American Life's episode this morning was on the debt crisis. I'll
listen to it at least a couple more times I am sure.

The reporters also have a blog and twitter thing...

http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/

This is excellent background for everyone to understand how we got
here, how bad it is, and what actions could help going forward.