You know Twitter made the big time...

...when your grandmother suddenly looks over at you during a family dinner, and says, "Matt, what's Twitter?"

Though in practice I've found it more annoying than useful. The only real use I've had is tracking and occasionally participating in discussions, usually around conferences. The problem is a discussion rarely develops, it's usually just one-sided microblogging. Meh.

I'm scared...

Walking through the building a little bit ago, here at work, very quiet, and suddenly I heard cackling.  Not witch-cackling, but that weird creepy little sycophantic weasel thing that Jabba the Hutt kept next to his throne.  <shivers>. 

 

And then I heard a deep booming laugh*...

 

 

 

 

* The deep booming laugh turned out to be the annoying guy around the corner.  So that's ok.  I guess.

Wall Street, Bonuses

1.  $170 million / $170 billion = very tiny.  But that doesn't matter, because that $170 million was my money and, well, fuck 'em. 

 

2.  As Mr. Taplin puts it, they managed to lose $65 billion in just 3 months.  On that note... why the f do they deserve a bonus, why are they getting it?

 

3.  Because it's contractually obligated.  WTF, mate?  That's not a bonus, that's pay.  Or, pay by another name... I wonder what incentive they would have to disguise regular pay as a bonus?  (public relations, tax reasons, who knows...)

 

4.  Relatedly, (see last sentence of previous linked article), how the FUCK is the government surprised by this??  It was contractual.  It was planned in advance.  Why the shitstorm right before ...the shitstorm?

 

5.  Finally, who says the government can't just take those bonuses away?  Although taxing them at 100% sounds clever, I don't know if that's going to stand up constitutionally. Kind of a specific law, no?  And may not make it through congress.  On the other hand, why not just take them away?  "We won't be able to retain good people," snivels Wall Street.  EXPLAIN THAT ONE - because it seems to me that taking these away would punish incompetence (ahem - incompetence at best; _____ at worst) while incenting good performance ..... hell, forget the "good" and let's be happy with NOT FUCKING UP.   So, you know, we'd be encouraging the departure of ye who fucked up.  Anyhow, Monsieur is right - this would be analogous to bankruptcy.  Yes?

 

I hope that whoever wrote those shitty contracts gets a papercut on their asshole.

Susan and husband Morgan Tsvangirai

Accident or not, this is crushing.

fox news HEADS UP - lame repackaging of their own lame article

foxnews has an article up, "Critic Says Islamic Extremism Gets Whitewashed in American Textbooks" - the critic is Gilbert Sewall who is a tool.  Predictably.  They had a very similar article citing the same tool aka critic last june.  i blogged about this myself at the time, if you'd like a bit of info on Sewall  :-) (though I've since let up on the blogging)