Bizzy’s AM Coffee Biz-Econ Links (022706)
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- Uh, you guys in Iran, there is NOT a correlation — This goes back to late October, but considering the world situation, it is still worth noting (HT Atlas Shrugs): “Iran’s hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told the latest cabinet meeting in the Iranian capital that ‘if we were permitted to hang two or three persons, the problems with the stock exchange would be solved for ever,’ according to a Tehran-based newspaper.”
- While on the subject, it looks like terrorists have their own useful idiots in Europe.
- A late hat tip to an e-mail from S.O.B. Alliance member Porkopolis for this item, which I have sat on because I had hoped to do more with it. But this will suffice — British retail giant Tesco PLC is coming to the US to duke it out with Wal-Mart, Costco, et al. Tesco’s competitive advantage is supposed to be its superior customer intelligence, and its supposedly unique ability to “make the most of its statistical information. ….. Tesco can closely watch what its shoppers are purchasing. It then explores linkages between the products people presently buy and the ones they might be persuaded to buy next.” Let the games begin.
- Comedian Don Knotts died Friday. He was best known as Sheriff Andy Griffith’s deputy on “The Andy Griffith Show.” People like Knotts were strictly in it for laughs and had no other agenda. Today (supposedly), if you’re not edgy, you can’t be funny. Baloney — If you have to be edgy to be funny, you’re either not as talented as Don Knotts was, or you’re taking the easy way out.
- A sure sign that the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is running out of worthy nominees — The Sex Pistols will be inducted this year. Always playing the pretentious rebels, they of course won’t be there, and informed the R&R HOF of their no-show plans in an incoherent screed (warning: foul language). The band was a hyped-up creation of a music industry media desperate to find something “new” in the late 1970s. It never achieved anything meaningful musically or financially, period.
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- The Wall Street Journal editorialized on Thursday about the decision of Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle, who had twice vetoed school-choice legislation (”Wisconsin’s Governor to Inner-City Kids: You’re Stuck“), to sign it the third time around:
Ultimately, a sustained grass-roots campaign led by choice proponents — along with flagging poll numbers among Mr. Doyle’s pro-voucher black base in an election year — forced the Governor’s hand. A particularly effective television spot by the Alliance for Choices in Education featured a black father telling the camera, “If school choice is good enough for the Governor’s family, I ought to be able to have it, too.” Governor Doyle’s son attended a private school. Sometimes it helps to point out the hypocrisy of public officials who exercise the very freedoms they deny others.
Voucher advocates, who want the enrollment cap removed altogether, didn’t get everything they wanted, but they did get the better of the Governor. And with some extra breathing room, they’re hoping focus can return to student achievement, where it should be.
Why did Doyle have to make it so difficult?
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- Rolling Stone’s “Inside Scientology” expose by Janet Reitman seems especially pertinent in light of this (cough, cough) news (HT Tattle-Tale).
