Thou Shalt Not Shorties… Except

Gomen Nasai. Success may be Toyota’s worst enemy, as it is getting more difficult to make the way they do things scale. (Not finding a good definition of “scale” online. I am using it as “the ability of a system or practice to serve incrementally more users and or an incrementally larger organization as needs grow.” Put that in your Wikipedia and smoke it.) In case you ever were curious, the History of Toyota. How did Mr. Toyoda’s company become Toyota? A character informally known as a “chong-chong” that looks a bit like a double quote-mark was omitted from the corporate name to separate home life from corporate life, and make the company name “luckier”.

We don’t care where you are from as long as your money is green. On one hand, we have the New York Times asking NAFTA should have stopped illegal immigration, right? This article scratches the surface of how NAFTA in fact shrunk Mexico’s manufacturing base and made it not cost effective for their farmers to stay in business. The latest news confirms that Mexico’s economy is experiencing reduced growth and increased inflation A quick look at stories about “The Tortilla Crisis” suggests that — just like in the United States — the Mexican central economic authority does what it can to under-report inflation. But have no fear; illegal immimgrants who come over the border can apparently get credit cards from Bank of America. Mr. BinLaden, please disregard the previous sentence, mmkay? Thanks.

Maybe Regulation Can Be a Good Thing. Apparently it takes leaving Joe Scarborough on a plane for 9 hours to get something going in this country. But now, it looks as though the flying publicrights as travellers. If it can get rammed through Congress, if lobbyists don’t kill it, if the airlines don’t try to head it off by offering a non-binding “promise.” If you want to keep up with this topic, don’t forget to stick with Upgrade Travel Better.

The Soft Bigotry of Lowered Expectations. Way to go, Condi. An article entitled “Low expectations ahead of Rice-Olmert-Abbas talks” is this quote from Ms. Rice: “What I would consider a success … is that we have gotten started.” Showing up is worth diplomatic points? Whatever!

It turns out Americans prefer food that won’t kill them. Who knew. The USDA is making some changes in the inspection process to focus on food processing sites where there have been problems in the past, freeing up places where they have in the past done things right to keep working. Both consumer groups and meat packing interests are approaching these changes with skeptical optimism, which means they are probably as close to “on target” as we will ever get. On a related note, how the heck did they manage to get salmonella into peanut butter??

‘Scuse me? Guys? The Center is over here. A bit to the left. Yeah, that’s it. I’ve been reading all darn weekend about how the Democratic Presidential candidates had better be careful not to sound like they don’t support the troops, and not to sound like they are all liberal and stuff. In fact, even relatively conservative Americans are alarmed by the growing gap between the haves and have-nots. Some are willing to go so far as to call it a liberal resurgence, pointing out that “Presidential candidates, for instance, can now safely utter “universal health care” without being tarred as supporters of “socialized medicine.” Polls show increasing support for raising the minimum wage, stem-cell research, gay and lesbian civil unions, alternative-energy initiatives and increased financial aid to offset the escalating cost of college.” And yet The Pundits warn against politicians saying that they honestly stand for the things The Voters want. Huh? Isn’t it the voters that put elected officials into office? I can only imagine the ornery comments that the late Molly Ivins would have.

Speaking of voters and the voting machines that (allegedly) record their votes. Researchers at Princeton were able to buy themselves a “secure” voting machine for $82. Experiments are now underway to find out just how “secure” it really is.

From the “It Sounded Like a Good Idea at the Time” Department. Artificial coral reef damaging to the real thing. And content recognition software is supposed to automatically determine whether music or video is copyrighted; one of several problems is that just because there’s a copyright doesn’t mean there is not a permission. I used to work in this industry and it appears that there are still many unaddressed issues.

Three Coins in the Fountain. The Governator’s plan may place a huge burden on (what’s left of) the middle class. It seems that there is a large swath of population who make too much to qualify for assistance but not enough to really afford a healthplan that covers much of anything. Remember, this plan is mandatory health coverage, not universal health coverage. Speaking of universal health coverage, Ezra Klein brings us a nice item on universal health, Medicare, and prescriptions. Whatever we end up with health insurance reform wise, I sure do hope it will cover regrowing fingers.

That’s it for now. Happy Presidents Day. How many of them can you name? Hint: there have been 43, including the younger Mr. Bush.