AJR on Lee Enterprises, Parent of the Wisconsin State Journal

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Lori Robertson:

At the Wisconsin State Journal in Madison, Bill Wineke, the books editor and a columnist, recalls a time in the early 1970s–he’s been there since ’63–when he wrote a column that was distributed to about 15 Lee papers.

After a number of weeks, the State Journal decided to syndicate the column and asked the papers to pay 50 cents each, for postage. Every one of them dropped it.

….

Ron Seely, science and environment reporter at the Wisconsin State Journal, said in late April that his paper was leaving two key jobs unfilled: a regional reporter position and an assistant city editor job. “That makes it harder on our already small staff,” he said. “That’s frustrating.”

Jason Shephard take a look at the local daily newspaper business in the June 2, 2005 Isthmus – available now. Shephard mentions Lee’s 20% profit margins along with a few local reporter’s comments.

Is Wharton Ruining American Business?

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Mauren Tkacick:

That is, anyway, the assertion of an increasingly influential batch of business-school professors, including noted iconoclasts like McGill University management guru Henry Mintzberg and Yale economist Robert Schiller (who wrote that MBA curriculums are “so devoid of moral content that the discussions of ethics must seem like a side order of some overcooked vegetable”). More reasoned types like the late Sumantra Ghoshal of the London Business School, whose posthumously published Bad Management Theories Are Destroying Good Management Practices has roiled the business education world, agree. “Business schools do not need to do a great deal more to help prevent future Enrons,” Ghoshal wrote. “They need only to stop doing a lot they currently do.”

Flaws in the National ID Card – Supported by Feingold & Kohl

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Joseph Menn:

The standards are intended to weed out impostors applying for licenses, in part by requiring state employees to check on the validity of birth certificates and other supporting documents. After states adopt the necessary changes, anyone applying for or renewing a license will get one reflecting the new standards.
But once the law takes full effect three years from now, it will also give many more bureaucrats access to personal information on people nationwide. And it will add more data to each file — including digital copies of documents with birth and address information.
To some industry experts and activists concerned about the fast- growing crime of identity theft, putting so much data before more eyes guarantees abuse at a time when people are increasingly concerned about who sees their personal information and how it gets used.
“It’s a gigantic treasure trove for those who are bent on obtaining data for the purpose of creating fake identities,” said Beth Givens of the nonprofit Privacy Rights Clearinghouse. Armed with a stranger’s name, Social Security number and date of birth, it’s not hard for fraudsters to take out bogus loans that can wreck a victim’s credit record.

Additional Background. Let Senators Kohl & Feingold know your views on this latest personal information grab.

Losing Control of Your PC (Dell, this time), continued

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Art Wolinsky:

Wait a minute… Let me see if I have this right. You installed Dell Support on my computer and then tell me that if I don’t want the upgrade, I’m going to have to pay you help me get off what you put on?
After some discussion, it is absolutely clear that is the case with “no exceptions”. Any software support I need, no matter what the nature of that support, I am going to have to pay for.

Similar to Microsoft charging for anti-virus software…

Salon’s take on the EliteTorrents FBI takedown

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Andrew Leonard:

Haven’t we seen this rerun before? A particular version of file-sharing software becomes popular. The entertainment industry starts paying attention. Lawsuits begin to fly. A few people get their fingers burned, and then we do it all over again. Napster, Kazaa, Grokster and now BitTorrent — the names change but the story doesn’t. The software will get better and the busts will get bigger. Same as it ever was.
The latest news in the file-sharing wars was delivered via a press release from the Department of Justice with all the solemn portentousness of an announcement that a major terrorist had been captured. “This morning, agents of the FBI and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) executed 10 search warrants across the United States against leading members of a technologically sophisticated P2P network known as Elite Torrents.”

New USPS Stamps: Famous Scientists

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USPS:

Four American Scientists-Thermodynamicist Josiah Willard Gibbs, geneticist Barbara McClintock, mathematician John von Neumann and physicist Richard P. Feynman-were honored with postage stamps dedicated in a special ceremony today at Henry R. Luce Hall, Yale University, New Haven, CT.

America Runs on AMT

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Albert B. Crenshaw:

The AMT, as it is widely known, was created to catch up with the clever rich. Now, though, it has little impact on those folks and instead is whacking millions of fairly ordinary Americans. In fact, according to the Treasury Department, next year a typical family with two children will have to pay the AMT if its income exceeds $67,890. And by 2015, as many as 50 million taxpayers will have to pay it.
The AMT has, however, been very, very good to the Treasury. It is pulling in $18 billion in tax revenue this year, and by 2015 the AMT could be pouring $210 billion annually into the government’s coffers. Washington insiders for some time now have been laughing that it would be cheaper for the government to repeal the regular income tax and keep the AMT.
This may be funny, but it’s not a joke. The crossover point, when the AMT begins to produce more revenue than the regular tax, is now projected to be 2013.

Meanwhile, our Senators Kohl & Feingold recently voted for a massive big business tax giveaway on overseas earnings.