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Give Ronald Bailey, Reason magazine's science writer, some credit for being open to persuasion. He may once have characterized the notion of global warming as a "scam," but he later relented in the face of overwhelming evidence that the earth is heating up.

Is Google evil? That was the question last night, as the debate group Intelligence Squared gathered six Google watchers at Manhattan's Rockefeller University and let 'em have at it.

Just $25 billion more (OK, maybe a bit more) in cheap government loans—that's all the Big Three automakers need to retool and avoid collapse, the CEOs of Ford, General Motors, and Chrysler pitched to Congress on Tuesday. "From the response they got, it will be a tough sell," BusinessWeek reckons.

Zoop! Maybe all that TARP money won’t be needed after all! Paaf! The stimulus package all Democrats want may need to exceed the cost of the original bailout, some economists say!

With sales down and costs up, restaurants are forced to find ways to cut expenses because raising prices would cause even worse sales declines.

The cuts could in some cases save big money, in other cases come mostly at the margin, and in some instances seem almost pathetic, judging by the Wall Street Journal's account. One tactic, according to the Journal's Raymund Flandez, is "prolonging the life of fryer oil."

Ew.

We suppose it was just a matter of time once the Google deal died. According to the New York Times, the resignation of Jerry Yang as chief executive officer of Yahoo has been in the works for quite some time. Then again, the decision was also reportedly "mutual" on the part of Yang and the board of directors, a claim we find at least a little suspect.

If this year’s credit crisis taught us anything, it’s that we all need to brush up on our economic vocabulary. But we’re not here to try to explain how terms like credit-default swaps, collateralized debt obligations, and mortgage-backed securities made it into the news for the thousandth time. Instead, we’re starting with the basics; and we’re doing it with the help of a little music.

The recent market turmoil portends hard times for even the wealthiest universities.

There is a story that Steve Jobs likes to tell about fonts. In 1972, Jobs enrolled at Reed College in Portland, Ore.; after a semester, seeing little value in college, he dropped out. But Jobs hung around Portland—he crashed in friends' dorm rooms, recycled Coke bottles to buy food, and sat in on several courses that he found interesting.

Yahoo co-founder and CEO Jerry Yang will step down as soon as the company finds a replacement, the Wall Street Journal, CNN Money, Business Week, and the New York Times all report this morning. The central narrative of Yang's "rocky reign" in his second stint as CEO was "his refusal to sell the Internet company to Microsoft Corp. for $47.5 billion—more than triple Yahoo's current market value," observes CNN Money.