Bizzy’s AM Coffee Biz-Econ Links (031406)

Free Links:

• The “Most Livable State” Rankings Are Out (HT Club for Growth blog) — New Hampshire, Minnesota, and Iowa are 1, 2, and 3. Arkansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana make up the bottom three. Locally, Ohio is #37, Kentucky is #47, and Indiana is #36. Believe it or not, two of the 44 factors involved were weather-related. The choice of factors looks a bit too subjective to me, but of course the “Live Free or Die” state residents would disagree.
• Cybercrooks are going after smaller phish, er, fish — Security experts, along with my e-mail program’s junk folder, have noted that “phishing” attempts, where the e-mail sender pretends be be your bank or financial institution, are focusing on smaller banks and credit unions instead of the big ones, on the theory that customers of smaller institutions may be less aware of phishing and perhaps more trusting that an e-mail they receive is authentic. Don’t be fooled: Never click through from an e-mail purporting to be from a financial institution to a web site; there is just too high of a chance that it is fraudulent (you should even be careful about the alert e-mails you set up to remind you of payments, statement availability, and the like). The safest thing: Type a URL you know is correct directly into your browser’s address bar.
• Toyota will make 100,000 Camrys a year at a Subaru Plant near Lafayette, Indiana, that is apparently underutilized, and add 1,000 jobs.
• Capital One, which had its origins as a credit-card issuer, is spreading its wings into full-service retail banking by buying New York-based North Fork Bancorp.
• The Competitive Enterprise Institute has a blog (HT Amy Ridenour). Though the organization occasionally gets a little bit absolutist for my taste (claiming, for example, that there is no such thing as price gouging, ever-ever), it’s definitely worth a periodic visit.
• And Now, for Something Totally Different, Have Alien Bacteria Landed? — I link, you decide. I heard Paul Harvey talk about the “red rain” in India this over the weekend, and found this article in the UK Guardian that I believe is the one Harvey was reading from. I know Paul Harvey and The Guardian don’t make it so, but it’s interesting nonetheless. Coincidentally S.O.B. Alliance member Conservative Culture also has an item about red rain, and other weird rain phenomena. It’s enough to make you want to stay indoors.
• What Happened to ThePeoplesCube.com? A Google search on “thepeoplescube.com” yields no results, i.e., the site has been totally purged by Google. The People’s Cubers think they’ve been targeted by Google for political incorrectness. Matt Cutts (HT SEO Blog tells The Cubers (and it appears correctly) that the purge is a punishment because “you had spam (specifically hidden text) on your pages. When Googlebot visited http://www.thepeoplescube.com/Truth.php on Sun, 05 Mar 2006 12:17:12 GMT, the page looked fine to users, but had hidden text.” I must be so 1999: Doesn’t anybody pick up the freaking phone and talk to somebody before they accuse them of shutting down their business, or (turning it around) just pushing the “purge” button? Zheesh.