Yearly Archives: 2005

Virgin’s Free Daily

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Zachary M. Seward:

Richard Branson’s ever-expanding Virgin Group is considering a foray into the newspaper business with a free daily publication in New York City, according to an individual familiar with the company’s plans.
The newspaper, which would focus on show business and entertainment, is still in the preliminary stages of planning at Virgin, the source said. It would be sponsored by the company’s entertainment division, which includes the Virgin Megastores.
Free newspapers have flourished, though not always profited, in major metropolitan areas over the past decade. New York is already home to two such papers, am New York and Metro, though both feature general interest news.

I think we’ll see more of this. The daily paper will be free (ad supported), then some will go weekly only.

Calatrava’s Chicago Skyscraper to be Tallest in U.S.

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A proposal to build a new 115-story building by 2009 could give Chicago claim to having the first and second tallest skyscrapers in the country.
The 2,000-foot tower, proposed by Chicago developer Christopher Carley and designed by noted architect Santiago Calatrava, would go up along the city’s lakefront near Navy Pier, northeast of the Loop.
The 110-floor Sears Tower is currently the nation’s tallest building. Carley’s building, minus its spire, would be 1,458 feet high — taller than the Sears Tower by eight feet.

(more)

Madison’s Spending Challenge

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Phil Brinkman summarizes the implications of the recently signed State budget on the City of Madison:

Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk said the limit on counties is “very comparable” to one she has insisted Dane County abide by in its budget. She predicted it wouldn’t affect county operations.
But Madison Mayor Dave Cieslewicz said the budget will force hard choices in Madison, which will be limited to increasing its levy to no more than 4 percent next year, below the 5.7 percent average of the last 15 years (emphasis added).
The city faces $9.5 million in increased costs to continue existing services next year, Cieslewicz said, but will be limited under the cap to collecting about $6 million more in property taxes.
Although the city is growing, police, fire, streets and other agencies would have to cut their budgets 2.1 percent from what it would cost to maintain the same level of services, Cieslewicz spokesman George Twigg said. The city could also raise fees and fines, as it has done before, or dip more deeply than usual into its “rainy day fund” to help cover the gap.

Madison’s 5.7% average levy increase over the past 15 years is not sustainable, given the State’s generally slow economy. City leaders need to start thinking different, rather than continuing with a “same service” approach.

The Personal 40 MBA

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Josh Kaufman:

My goal was to reduce the PMBA list to no more than 40 titles. Here are my editing criteria:

  • Valuable Content – each book has to contain a lot of useful, practical information on how business works, how you can add value, and must explain why the material in the book is important to know. As a whole, the list must cover as much ground as possible, while providing a mix of both complimentary and conflicting viewpoints.
  • Acceptable Time Commitment – no 1,000 page books here, although there are a few (good) textbooks in the mix for the more technical topics (accounting, finance, real estate). You should be able to get the key points of each book in a few hours, or by reading the chapter introductions and summaries of the textbooks.
  • Reference Value – is the book going to be one you pick back up when you need information? How does the book re-read? Is this a book that is worth keeping for many years?

Watching Us Through The Sorting Door

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Mark Baard:

A former CIA intelligence analyst and researchers from SAP plan to study how RFID tags might be used to profile and track individuals and consumer goods.
“I believe that tags will be readily used for surveillance, given the interests of various parties able to deploy readers,” said Ross Stapleton-Gray, former CIA analyst and manager of the study, called the Sorting Door Project.

What is RFID?

Payola is Pervasive

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Barry Ritholtz:


“This is not a pretty picture; what we see is that payola is pervasive,” Mr. Spitzer said, using a term from the radio scandals of the 1950’s in describing e-mail messages and corporate documents that his office obtained during a yearlong investigation. “It is omnipresent. It is driving the industry and it is wrong.”

The Attorney General’s findings alleges that the illegal payoffs for airplay were designed to manipulate record charts, generate consumer interest in records and increase sales:

“Instead of airing music based on the quality, artistic competition, aesthetic judgments or other judgments, radio stations are airing music because they are paid to do so in a way that hasn’t been disclosed to the public,” Spitzer said at a press briefing.

An alternative? I think we’ll see more of this.

Cheaper Health Insurance?

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Wall Street Journal:

The idea behind the legislation, sponsored by GOP Representative John Shadegg of Arizona, is disarmingly simple: Allow Americans to buy health insurance from vendors in any one of the 50 states.

Right now Americans who aren’t lucky enough to get insurance from large employers or poor enough to qualify for Medicaid find themselves at the mercy of the legislators and insurance commissioners of the state in which they happen to live. This can be OK in states that exercise this regulatory function judiciously. But in others, the young and working poor find themselves effectively priced out of the market by special-interest regulations dressed up as consumer protections.

Milwaukee Talk Show Host Faces Court Date for Weblog Post

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Derrick Nunnally:

Barring a late settlement, talk-radio host Charlie Sykes faces a court date as a defendant in a libel suit this week.
The plaintiff, Spanish Journal editor Robert Miranda, sued Sykes in January over a November post on Sykes’ Weblog on the WTMJ-AM (620) site that alleged Miranda had helped foment a protest at a 1991 pro-Gulf War event in which several speakers were pelted with small objects. Miranda wasn’t in Wisconsin at the time of that protest, which Sykes described in his essay as an “an example of the assaults on free speech on university campuses.”
Although Miranda’s original requests for a court order mandating Sykes publicly apologize, undergo sensitivity training sessions and make diversity presentations to middle and high school students are no longer in play – a small-claims court doesn’t have that authority, it turns out – Miranda said the suit, which now requests the small-claims maximum of $5,000 in damages, will serve as a forum in which Sykes’ “journalistic integrity will be questioned,” among other matters.

Mayor Cieslewicz Comments on Doyle’s State Budget Signing

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Madison Mayor Dave Cieslewicz:

“Contrary to what some have claimed, this is not a ‘fully-funded freeze’. Such a freeze would have increased shared revenues to reflect the rising costs for providing basic services, and account for inflation in the freeze formula itself. This budget does neither. Adjusting for inflation, this year’s budget effectively cuts our shared revenue payment by 6%, on the heels of a 16% shared revenue cut in the prior budget.
“While city government continues to tighten its belt, property taxes rise faster than inflation because more of our budget must be borne by the property tax. Fifteen years ago property taxes made up 54% of Madison’s budget. Today, thanks to continually eroding state aids, property taxes make up almost 70% of our budget. In other words, what is truly driving property taxes is not increased spending, but cuts in state aids.