Pike Place Fish is a major tourist attraction in Seattle.  Fishmongers skillfully toss a purchased fish from the front display  to the back side of the counter.  Crowds gather and cheer.  It’s quite a show and is often on TV for local interest on national broadcasts of a major sports events.

According to the Seattle Times,  these fish-tossers are scheduled to make a presentation at an upcoming convention of veterinarians.   Enter PETA, the animal rights people. From their letter to the vets:

You should know that people who care about animals are appalled that a veterinary organization, whose purpose is to represent the interests of those whose jobs involve protecting the well-being of animals would promote an event in which animals are treated so disrespectfully and are handled as if they were toys.

These fish are dead. Gutted. Cleaned. About to be fileted and wrapped up to be taken home and pan seared or grilled.  I love salmon, especially with a nice Oregon Pinot Noir.

There is even a business book from these fish mongers called When Fish Fly: Lessons For Creating a Vital and Energized Workplace From the World Famous Pike Place Fish Market.

Microblogging platform and lazy book deal factory Tumblr introduced a “feature” yesterday called Tumblarity, a single convenient number that lets users know exactly how many terrible blogs are better than theirs.

Alas, my interest in the story tumbled lamely thenceforth.

The WSJ ran an interesting article about cyberspies penetrating our electrical grid (despite the fact that the article did not live up to its alarmist headline “Electricity Grid in U.S. Penetrated by Spies.”

Cyberspies have penetrated the U.S. electrical grid and left behind software programs that could be used to disrupt the system, according to current and former national-security officials.

The spies came from China, Russia and other countries, these officials said, and were believed to be on a mission to navigate the U.S. electrical system and its controls. 

Several hours after reading this I took my 5-year old to Safeway. Unfortunately, the store was closed because the computers were down and would not come back up, we were told.  We could not even  use cash to purchase the dozen eggs we came to buy so we could color Easter eggs.  

Amazing.  The entire store was down because of computer problems.  Stores can no longer do cash transactions without computers.  

Though my son told the Safeway lady that I could fix it, I was more intrigued by the notion of cyperspies penetrating retail computer systems and the resulting impact.

For further related reading about the electrical grid, there’s also Wired magazine:  the informative “China and Russia vs. US Grid!”  and an extensive article  ”Power to the People: 7 Ways to Fix the Grid, Now“

Likely not grubbing for profits.  I’m guessing it is confusion over the list of recalled products. That list grew fast and kept changing as supply chains were unraveled. 

The store clerk dutifully and sincerely checked the store’s printout of recalled products as though the list was the official gospel.  

Sure, the store office had a printed list.   List got old.  But the printout was etched in stone to store employees. 

Yo, FDA!  Get a better system of notifying retailers and consumers.  That bad food is still out there.

Traditionally trained journalists have been throwing “fat pitches” — easy to hit baseballs served up to a batter to blast out of the park for a home run.  Stewart, thank goodness, asked tough questions.

I like the U.K. Guardian’s take on it:

His assault on Wall Street began in earnest with a classic Daily Show technique: a series of juxtaposed clips revealing incompetence and hypocrisy

He accused CNBC hosts and pundits of abandoning their journalistic duties and acting like cheerleaders for the market.

The interview was one of those classic television moments that crystallised the public mood in the credit crisis. Stewart articulated the anger and bewilderment of millions of Americans who now feel ripped off and afraid. He framed the question everyone wanted asked: how were the financial masters of the universe allowed to pursue their ruinous behaviour unchallenged for so long?

It caught the attention of the White House, prompted a frenzy among bloggers and soul-searching in the media, which failed to spot the biggest story of a lifetime or warn the public until it was too late. Indeed, CNBC and other supposedly objective journalists stood accused of complicity with big business, belonging to a cosy coterie that egged on company chief executives and fanned the flames of excess.

CNBC is a parade CEOs as talking press releases (in other words, our future is so bright, buy my stock and pump up the share price) as well as an “Entertainment Tonight” style of egocentric commentators whose motivation is to get their faces on TV and enable CNBC to sell ads.

This letter is to inform you that an inadvertent administrative error occurred that resulted in an overpayment of severance pay by Microsoft. We ask that you repay the overpayment and sincerely apologize for any inconvenience to you

Some laid off workers may have beeen underpaid.

Is this a feature or a bug?  Get your copy of  MS Payroll 2009 (requires Vista).

The NFL so closely restricts the use of the words Super Bowl that companies resort to using euphemisms in place of the real words “Super Bowl.”

Wikipedia notes that one use of euphemism is “to avoid revealing secret, holy, or sacred names to the uninitiated.”  In the Super Bowl case it is besause companies did not pay huge licensing fees required to legally utter the words Super Bowl. 

A few examples from recent emails include these euphamistic subject lines: “This Year Watch The Game In Style!” (Costco), “Gather with friends for the greatest Sunday in Sports!” (Pottery Barn).   There are lots more. You get the point.

Funny, search Google for “the big game” and the #1 result is from WikiPedia: “The Big Game is the annual game between University of California, Berkeley (known simply as “Cal” or “Berkeley”) and Stanford University.  Contrary to local opinion, there is life beyond the Bay Area.

Who is enriched? Follow a simplified money trail.  Your tax dollars … to the government … to banks in the form of a bailout … to ad agencies … to TV … to the NCAA … to the coffers of rich college athletic programs.

In a WSJ article “The Bailout Bowl: Big-Game Sponsors Scored Billions,” we get some numbers and great quotes.

Citigroup: sponsor of the “Rose Bowl Game Presented by Citi,” recipient of $25 billion capital plus another $25 billion investment in bailout money. (Also purchaser of naming rights to the Mets’ new stadium, Citi Field.)

Bank of America: sponsor of the Pioneer Las Vegas Bowl, recipient of $15 billion from TARP.

U.S. Bancorp: sponsor of the Roady’s Humanitarian Bowl

Eagle Bancorp: sponsor of the EagleBank Bowl, recipient of $38.2 million from TARP

GMAC: sponsor of the GMAC Bowl

Capital One: sponsor of the Capital One Bowl

Some great quotes:

“Some of the advertising folks at these firms might think it’s important to put their corporate brand on public events, but taxpayers might think they’re being taken for a ride,” said Pete Sepp, vice president for policy and communications at the National Taxpayers Union.

Rep. Scott Garrett (R., N.J.) ,,, questioned why banks — which reportedly aren’t using federal funds to lend to consumers as intended — need to sponsor nationally televised sporting events. “The irony is these guys aren’t lending to people, so what are they advertising for?” Mr. Garrett said.

“There’s interestingly zero sense of shame” from banks paying for vanity advertising, said Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform.

There has always been big money in college sports (in recent history at least), mainly for the top men’s major sports programs, primarily football and basketball. The big money part is not new.

Federal funding of college bowl games is the new twist. Hopefully, a backlash of consumer sentiment will cause these recipeients of bailout money to spend less on advertising and more on lending and shoring up their businesses.

He really would like it. It’s not just me being lame.  He’s that kind of dad, a real fix-it-up chappie (a Dr. Seuss character).  Behold, the online shopping experience during the wee hours. 

“Temporarily offline … visit one of our … stores” Gee how convenient.

Fortunately, fewer sites have been down during the night this year. It was a bigger problem last year.  

Lowe’s is open for business. They get the sale. Cha-ching for them.