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.

You Too Can Debate. You Betcha!

Voodoo Donuts

I tend to stay away from Voodoo Donuts. But I dashed into Coffee Time on NW 21st yesterday to get out of the rain, and there they were in the case. Just above a tray of so-called healthy, peanut-cranberry "cookies". If you've never had the pleasure of a Voodoo donut...

They are kind of the culinary equivalent of that Neil Young performance I just blogged about. Coffee Time's a good place though, in spite of some of their choices in pastries and cookies.

Worst. Idea. In. Music. Ever.

I'm crazy about the Beatles and really like Neil Young. However will I ever be able to remove this performance from the recesses of my mind? Ever?

Oh dear.

Fools Errand

Says the Motley Fool...

"The genius financial products that kept your eyes deep in Cristal and
vacation homes nearly caused the global financial system to seize up."

(via Steve Dekorte... http://www.dekorte.com/blog/blog.cgi?do=item&id=3619)

But, hey. There's still time for the whole system to seize up. $700b
is just used grease to try keeping the gears spinning a while longer.

Oh, yeah. Anyone thinking this is going to do any significant, lasting
good doesn't understand:

* the financial system (which I *don't*), or...
* how the US Congress works (which I *do*, sorta-kinda)
* human nature (ditto).

How Oregon voted in the massive debt giveaway

It's about time to get rid of Wu anyway. Now that he's voted yea on
the bailout, all the more reason.

Defazio and Blumenauer vote no. Thanks for trying!

http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2008/roll681.xml

You're Darn Right

Tim Riley, funniest newsman on the planet after Jon Stewart...

"84% said Palin did better than expected.

"Yur darn right," "Doggone it," "say it isn't so Joe," "Ya" instead of
you were just of few of the folksyisms used by Palin to appeal to the
Tonya Hardening crowd. It had no substance. Therefore, it worked
flawlessly as planned. Her base ate it up like a heapin' bowl of
mashed 'taters.

Proving one needent wear red high heels to run a household, modern man
Joe Biden teared up like a woman."

http://timrileylive.wordpress.com/2008/10/03/745/

What's On The Cloud Vs. What The Cloud Is On

No one but Microsoft would *run* their cloud on Windows. That's a big
distinction. Amazon will run Windows for you. On their
non-Windows-based cloud.

Meanwhile Microsoft will come up with a new OS for their cloud. Will
that be for everyone's cloud. Or just their cloud? Is this another
attempt to carve out a proprietary product that no one else can
(easily) emulate? As in "my code is written for Microsoft's
proprietary Windows Cloud OS. It won't run on the Windows Server that
Amazon supports."

http://www.microsoft-watch.com/content/web_services_browser/ballmer_looks_to_the_cloud_and_says_windows.html

This Is Science

""When I teach about messenger RNA carrying information from the cell
nucleus to sequence enzyme production," Borass added, "I could care
less what you feel about it. I want you to learn it. The issue is how
well does theory account for observable phenomena and so far nothing
better than evolutionary science has emerged to explain biological
processes.""

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/09/26/palin_science_creationism/

What About The Whips

Phil Windley...

"I'm not much of a conspiracy theorist, but I find it hard to believe
that Pelosi is stupid or naive. That leaves me wondering why this came
up for a vote today if she thought it would lose."

http://www.windley.com/archives/2008/09/did_pelosi_screw_up_or_is_she_crazy_like_a_fox.shtml

I'd say she either knew it would lose (if so, good for her) or she
thought the vote would pressure enough fence sitters to land on the
yea side.

I'm not sure why Phil's putting this all on the Dems though. There
were more Republicans voting no than Dems. And there are majority and
minority whips whose job it is to ensure they have the votes from
their own members.

Either way though, good for each of them for voting no.

At Least REST / Atom Is Now A Marketing Ploy?

Roy Fielding...

"REST (as in Representational State Transfer), happens to be defined
by my dissertation. I am getting tired of big companies making idiotic
claims about REST and their so-called RESTful architectures. The only
similarity between CMIS and REST is that they both have four-letter
acronyms....

REST is an architectural style, not a protocol, and thus announcing it
as a protocol binding is absurdly ignorant behavior for a group of
technology companies. The RESTish protocol binding actually being
proposed by CMIS is AtomPub, or at least it would be if not for the
huge number of unnecessary protocol extensions that tunnel the Web
Services interface through fake-Atom and fake-HTTP... Are there any
REST constraints that this binding doesn't violate?...

It is obvious that the SOAP binding was designed first and the AtomPub
binding added for marketing reasons."

http://roy.gbiv.com/untangled/2008/no-rest-in-cmis