Somebody should start a comedy routine with the punch line being “and the share price went up.” Sometimes the news that can cause share prices to rise can seem pretty absurd. Take Sallie Mae latest troubles for example…

Student lender Sallie Mae said Monday it raised $2.9 billion through a stock sale, the majority of which will be used to settle contracts that require the company to buy back shares at above-market prices.

and at the end of the article…..

Shares rose 36 cents, or 1.8 percent, Monday afternoon $20.01 The company’s shares had plunged last week to their lowest price since early 2001.

I know the markets were probably just relived that Sallie Mae manged to get out of those contracts as easily as it did. Still, its kind of funny when stocks rise on news like that.

From MSNBC….

TRENTON, New Jersey – Amid growing concern over drug-resistant superbugs and nonhealing wounds that endanger diabetes patients, nature’s original antibiotic — honey — is making a comeback.

More than 4,000 years after Egyptians began applying honey to wounds, Derma Sciences Inc., a New Jersey company that makes medicated and other advanced wound care products, began selling the first honey-based dressing this fall after it was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Follow the link if you want to know more.

Actually, lately, it hasn’t been so much a lack of wanting to write as a lack of wanting to write about sewing. This surprised me, though it should not have. I always have mulitiple projects started, because after a time I get sick of working on one, and work on something else instead. Why would Click Here to continue reading.

On Tuesday the 18th I received an invitation to a meeting on Wednesday the 19th to discuss the implementation of Oracle software to replace our current factory software. Some of the high-level people who were part of the A-Team had assigned various people in the plant to be on teams to document critical functions of Click Here to continue reading.

Lean Production, based on the Toyota Production System, recognizes 7 wastes:

Transportation. Moving something from one spot to another does not make it worth more.
Inventory. If a miser saves all of his money, what good does it do him? If a company has more product than someone is ready to pay for, what is it worth?
Motion. Click Here to continue reading.

This week’s poem of the week is Ash Wednesday by T.S Eliot. It was his first poem after his conversion to Anglicanism.

When I read this rant by Rich Mullins two contradictory thoughts went through my head. Too much exposure to Sunday school as a child can really corrupt your writing style. And yet, the last two paragraphs of the rant are pure gold in spite of that corrupting influence.

The great split in America between the Congregationalists and the Unitarians has had a profound and far reaching effects on our culture. It has affected our politics. It laid the seeds for the 60’s and gave us higher education as we know it today. And as this essay points out, it has also affected our architecture.

People who have a pessimistic view on life are not very popular. But sometimes they are right. This clip is from a year back in time….

Pakistan is a tribal country that has a lot of guns. You have violent Islamic insurgency in that country that has killed a lot of people and fought the army to a standstill. You have a dictator running the country who has almost been killed several times. Some of those attempts on Musharraf’s life raise Click Here to continue reading.