Bizzy’s AM Coffee Biz-Econ Links (021606)

Pay attention to local issues for couple of days and you realize how much you can miss so very quickly everywhere else. This is the first of what may turn out to be three link posts today.

Free Links:

• When visiting Internet cafes, it might be best to BYOC, as in Bring Your Own Computer (HT Techdirt). Otherwise it might be GEEK time, as in Get Everyone Else’s Krud.
• Bad news for the vitamin and supplement nannies — Calcium supplements dont’ seem to accomplish much.
• Return of the dot-com kids, but this time it’s different: “there’s one big difference this time around ….. During the original bubble years, for many of these companies the fact that the founders were inexperienced 20-somethings was often used as a major selling point for the company. There were tons of articles profiling young founders, where it seemed like what the companies actually did was secondary. This time around, it seems like more companies have at least figured out that it helps to focus more of the attention on the company and its products.” Imagine that.
• iPod music transferrers as criminals — except by the good graces of The Recording Industry Association of America. I think there is actually sympathy on the part of the average person for protecting intellectual property, but The RIAA seems bound and determined to alienate everyone. When you see headlines like this one (”RIAA Says It’s Granting You A Favor In Letting You Use Your iPod”), you realize the dangers of letting these creeps have their way more than very rarely.
• This seems flat-out creepy — “Couple’s implant chips take love to a new level.” Jennifer Tomblin and Amal Graafstra “have had a small electronic chip embedded under their skin that grants access to each other’s front doors and home computers.”
• (Originally seen at Hugh Hewitt, story here) Jack Cafferty of CNN actually referred on-air to Fox News, whose Brit Hume interviewed Dick Cheney about the you-can’t-avoid-the-coverage hunting accident, as “F-Word News,” and accused the Vice President of “seeking a safe haven.” Looking at these ratings, I’d say that Mr. Cheney just wanted to make sure he would be seen by somebody. Update: I learned this morning that Cafferty hadn’t even seen the interview when he made his snarky remarks. Real classy, Jack.
• This cost overrun makes the Pentagon look positively frugal — “Tories create committee to scrap gun registry.” This doozy comes from Canada (bolds are mine; yes, the figures are correct) — “When the Liberals added the registry to the federal gun control program in 1995, they said it would cost taxpayers no more than $2 million. But the most recent estimates put the figure in the hundreds of millions of dollars, bringing the total cost of the gun program to more than $1 billion. The Conservatives have called the registry a waste of taxpayers money that targets duck hunters rather than criminals.” No matter who it targeted, it has scored a direct hit on beleaguered Canadian taxpayers.

Require Free Registration:

• This was bound to happen — Retailers respond to anti-Wal-Mart legislation by suing in federal court in Maryland and Suffolk County, NY. Their angle of attack looks like a pretty good one: ERISA (pension and benefits law). ” The good news is that the judiciary isn’t likely to let such legal gerrymandering stand. The trade group argues that both laws run afoul of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, widely known as Erisa. One of Erisa’s goals was to create a system in which nationwide employers could offer workers uniform benefits, free of conflicting state mandates. The courts have routinely struck down state laws that mandate particular benefits.” Update: The whole idea behind ERISA was to ensure that companies treat their workers fairly in their pension and benefit plans. The irony of Democrat-dominated legislators trying to go around ERISA without amending ERISA itself shouldn’t be lost on the average worker.