Cliff Mason wrote a wonderful article on his blog at CNBC.com about how the public doesn't understand the meaning of the word "bonus" as it applies to Wall Street.  With all this talk of late about ballooning lump sum payments to CEOs of failing companies, the general public is on a witch hunt for executives who are taking more money out of their government-funded companies than absolutely necessary.

However, what the public fails to understand is that many people on Wall Street rely on bonuses as a significant portion of their compensation, and are paid a significantly smaller salary because of it.  They are not paid in the paycheck-every-two-weeks-and-that's-it structure like most Americans.  When Obama recently stated that 'now is not the time for bonuses', it was just like saying 'now is not the time for paychecks.'  A bonus IS a paycheck.  I find it interesting that no major media outlets (other than the finance-specific press) are interested in telling this side of the story.

Fisker has unveiled a new model at the Detroit auto show, and it competes even more directly with Tesla than the 4-door Karma that I've covered previously.  It's called the Karma Sunset, and is a two door drop top version based on the production-ready sedan.  It many not be out until 2011, but it already seems like a much better alternative to the Prius, Chevy Volt, and yes, the Tesla Roadster.  Click through to Luxist for all the details.

Starting later this year, Lexus vehicles will be delivered with a system that allows the company to communicate directly with drivers.  However, there are concerns that the audio messaging service may turn out to be an in-car version of something everyone is already familiar with:  spam.

Drivers will be able to tell if they have any new messages when they start the car, but they don't necessarily have to listen to them right away.  The company has stated that they understand some people prefer to think of their vehicle as a cocoon and would therefore not want to have anything sent to them.  However, messages could include lifestyle info similar to what owners already read in the magazine they receive from Lexus, so they may prove to be more appreciated than some critics think.

USA Today covers the full story here.

While Google works very well most of the time, I've found myself using Jason Calacanis' Mahalo.com more and more for certain types of searches lately.  In case you're not familiar with Mahalo, it's a human-powered search engine, meaning that the results are compiled by real humans instead of an algorithm.  While this limits the number of search terms they can cover, I've found that they have good real-time coverage of every popular news story as well as other general interest topics, and it's really nice to get the information you're after right away (no ads, no keywords buried in a mountain of text).  Between Google, Wikipedia and Mahalo, it rarely takes me longer than 90 seconds to find any information I need.

While "human-powered search" is the official tag line, it also feels similar to a few other websites, like Wikipedia or Digg (but without the geek-dominated extreme left wing bias).  They also just launched Mahalo Answers, which is quite a bit like Yahoo Answers.  I wont judge it yet, as it's only a few days old, but the concept seems to blend quite well with some of Mahalos other strengths (recipes and other DIY tips come to mind).  If you've never used Mahalo, try it out.

Here are a few interesting articles that I've collected over the past week, or few weeks in this case (I haven't had a Weekend Edition in a while).  If you've written about or covered something interesting and entertaining over the past several days that you think should be included in the next "Weekend Edition" post, feel free to contact me using the form on the Contact page of this website.

MoneyNing covers 8 bad things you probably teach your kids about money.

Luxist.com, a luxury blog I'm really starting to like, shows off a particularly nice Estate of the Day.

Karen Hanover lists 10 traits of real estate billionaires.

And, finally, I'd be remiss if I didn't include that O.J. Simpson is finally going to jail!

With Christmas coming and Black Friday only two days away, holiday shopping is going into full swing, even if we are in a recession.  To make spending on others a little more interesting (I've always preferred spending on myself), several retailers are experimenting with gift cards that double as actual useful objects.

Target's card for 2008 doubles as a digital camera!  It even comes with its own USB cord, driver disk, instructions, and a voucher for 40 free prints.

Say what you will about the digital camera card above, this one is my favorite.  Best Buy's 2008 card comes with an integrated speaker with a cord and plug.  It also goes really well with an iPod under the tree, as it allows you to share the music with more than one person on Christmas morning, even if the iPod only comes with headphones.

Several months before the digital camera above was released, Target offered a gift card with a Speed Racer-themed 60+MB flash drive.  It came preloaded with wallpaper files, video clips, printable coupons, and a cheat code for the upcoming video game.  Self promotion doesn't get much better than that.  While it appears that they are no longer available, used ones can still be found on Ebay.

Of course, radio personality Clark Howard has his own solution.  Click here to view an alternative to all the gift card craziness; a printable certificate you can wrap around cold, hard cash.

As reported several different places, billionaire Mark Cuban was charged with insider trading today for selling 600,000 shares of Mamma.com more than four years ago.  Understandably, Cuban is contesting the charges (click the links above for details). 

The SEC is stating that the sale allowed Cuban to avoid around $750,000 in losses.  I find it rather amusing that they no doubt feel the avoided loss will strengthen their case.  Since the amount is by no means substantial to Cuban, I can't help but wonder if stating this will actually weaken it.  To me, it's pretty obvious that the sale was not strictly based on trying to save a few hundred thousand dollars.

I wish Mark all the best, but I suspect everything will turn out alright for him.  The SEC is notorious for doing a consistently terrible job, and besides, Mark appears far too innocent for this to go anywhere.  I've seen shows on CNBC actually bring up charts detailing insider trading almost in real time, but the SEC rarely does anything.  One host even poked fun at the SEC, stating that it was so easy for him to spot but, mysteriously, so difficult for them.  Hopefully, this will all blow over soon so they can focus their limited resources elsewhere.

There's a great article on YourHome.ca that reminded me how broadband connections are not as popular as we all sometimes believe.  As if the higher cost of gas, along with the real estate crisis, wasn't hurting rural area housing enough, it turns out people are also moving away because they can't get broadband!

If you're reading my blog, you're most likely already more tech savvy than usual, and therefore more likely to have a broadband connection, but I'm still surprised that people would be willing to move for what we take for granted.  Perhaps I forget the sting of 56kps.  It has been nine years or so.

The end of the article gets to me a little bit though.  Why would anyone move back to a house that they moved away from over broadband?  While I guess you could question the intelligence of the original move (couldn't they get a satellite connection before?), to me, moving back is a pretty expensive way to own a mistake.  On the other hand, I've had broadband the whole time, so maybe I just don't understand.

Volkswagen shares jumped nearly 90 percent today, on a day that saw a Dow jump of almost 900 points as well.  However, Volkswagen AG was also up 150 percent the previous day.  How?  Porsche announced on Sunday that they had upped their stake in the company to 42.6 percent, and had plans to increase it's holdings to 75% in 2009, but that's not the whole story.

Rumor has it (aka, I heard on CNBC...) that the gigantic run was due in part to hedge funds being short squeezed.  At one point, Volkswagen became not just the most valuable automaker, but the most valuable company on the planet (momentarily besting Exxon Mobil).  The Financial Ninja has covered this story in depth if you're looking for more details.

Here are a few interesting articles that I've collected over the past week.  If you've written about or covered something interesting and entertaining over the past seven days that you think should be included in the next "Weekend Edition" post, feel free to contact me using the form on the Contact page of this website.

Canadian Capitalist manages to find some humor in the credit crunch, my favorite piece being this comic strip.

AutoBlog covers NASA's new lunar rover.

Though posted back in July, Toxel.com lists 20 brilliant advertisements.