No one can deny that Facebook has a certain convenience factor. You can now find out which former classmates got fat, went bald (or both) from afar without having to embarrass yourself at a high school reunion.

Politico posed this question to its readers in yesterday's Arena: "With unemployment rising, is the stimulus a failure? Is the answer more stimulus? Was there, as Biden says, 'a misreading of just how bad an economy we inherited?'" The last part of that question is disturbing on several levels. Is it still possible for a rational citizen, knowing that his or her tax dollars are going to be sucked into the mountain of stimulus induced debt, to put their faith in the government to solve this economic recession?

The plan for buying troubled assets -- which was earlier announced as the central element of the administration's financial stability plan -- has been recently curtailed drastically. The Treasury and the FDIC have attributed this development to banks' new ability to raise capital through stock sales without having to sell toxic assets. But the program's inability to take off is in large part due to decisions by banking regulators and accounting officials to allow banks to pretend that toxic assets haven't declined in value as long as they avoid selling them.

Yesterday, the Congressional Budget Office released its latest snapshot on the federal budget. For the first time in more than ten years, the government ran a deficit in June. June is a big tax-paying month, so it usually records a surplus.

Yesterday evening, on the Official Google Blog, Google ended a long period of speculation by announcing the development of the Google Chrome Operating System [Chrome OS]. It has been suggested many times that this is a step Google was considering; the release of the Chrome browser and the Android operating system for mobile devices added fuel to the fire.

Yesterday the Malaysian National Fatwa Council has issued another of its many fatwas, which have seen an increase in numbers during this time of political turmoil. "Yoga is forbidden for Muslims. The practice will erode their faith in the religion," said Abdul Shukor Husin, the council's chairman.

Not only does the UK have the longest commuting times on the European scale with an average of 45 minutes per trip, but also one of the most expensive public transportation systems in the world. In addition, seven out of ten people living outside London travel to work by car, which causes both higher waiting times in traffic and pollution. According to the RAC foundation, UK commuters travel up to 17% further to work than they did just 10 years ago.

Some time ago I spoke to a technology recruiter who told me he wouldn't dare proposing anyone over 40 to his clients. The recruiter in question was well past this particular age and quite shamefaced, but he said clients just don't want to see older faces waiting outside the interview room.

How many hours do you expect to work in your lifetime? This may sound like a meaningless question, yet it is far from irrelevant. Reaching an answer to the question will shed a great deal of light on what is happening to the knowledge workforce in general and the shape of your personal future working life in particular.

Google may eventually solve the problem of finding data on the web. Too bad its first effort reports the wrong numbers for unemployment. Since leaving public service, I have occasionally pondered whether to start a company / organization to transform the way that data are made available on the web. The data are out there, but they remain a nuisance to find, a nuisance to manipulate, and a nuisance to display.

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