Financial jargon can be intimidating, even for people who solve second-order differential equations every morning before breakfast. But finance is really just addition and subtraction, with maybe a multiplication (interest rate) or division (profit margin) thrown in here and there. Eric Sink's article Finance for Geeks is an excellent introduction, accessible to both technical and non-technical business owners.

9895 words since my last update, 232,090 since January 1.

Fascinating. I never realized Neil Bush (President Bush's brother) was in the semiconductor industry.

(Silicon Strategies link. Free registration required.)

In an analysis in Foreign Affairs, Jessica Stern argues that Al Qaeda has become an ideology, more than an organization. As such, an effective anti-Al Qaeda policy must address the grievances that make radical Islam's nihilism attractive. Until an alternative ideology takes root, new leaders will emerge as quickly as the old ones are removed.

(Link by way of Metafilter, which also has lots more on the subject.)

The New Republic has an interesting, but frightening, account of Vice President Cheney's role in foreign policy. Ideologues who refuse to consider inconvenient facts worry me.

California got one right. The state will require that electronic voting machines provide a voter-verifiable paper audit trail. This prevents vote fraud by creating a check against tampering with the electronic record.