SBA: New Small Business Government Contract Rules

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Darren Dahl:

The SBA’s Office of Advocacy announced recently that roughly $2 billion in federal contracting money that was believed to have gone to small businesses actually went to large companies in fiscal year 2002. The reason: Larger companies like Titan, Raytheon, General Dynamics and Hewlett-Packard bought the small businesses that originally received the contracts.
Since the government strives to award 23% of all prime-contract dollars to small businesses, the SBA has implemented a new monitoring system that will force companies to recertify their small business status if they take part in an acquisition

Our Rights: Television Liberation

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EFF:

Today, you can use any device you like with your television: VCR, TiVo, DVD recorder, home theater receiver, or a PC combining these functions and more. A year from now, when the FCC’s broadcast flag mandate [PDF] takes effect, some of those capabilities will be forbidden.
Responding to pressure from Hollywood, the FCC has adopted a rule requiring future digital television (DTV) tuners to include “content protection” (aka DRM) technologies. Starting next year, all makers of HDTV receivers must build their devices to watch for a broadcast “flag” embedded in programs by copyright holders. When it comes to digital recording, it’ll be Hollywood’s DRM way or the highway. Want to burn that recording digitally to a DVD to save hard drive space? Sorry, the DRM lock-box won’t allow it. How about sending it over your home network to another TV? Not unless you rip out your existing network and replace it with DRMd routers. Kind of defeats the purpose of getting a high definition digital signal, doesn’t it?

Read this review of the EyeTV 500 HD (High Definition) TV Tuner/Recorder.

Creating and Managing Change – The Car Business

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Queuing up at the local car wash recently, I was behind a guy in his 60’s who had a nearly new Cadillac CTS. While waiting for our cars to make the short wash trip, I asked him how he liked the car (the CTS has received many favorable reviews, as has the new STS – including the STS-V).
He has owned Cadillacs for 25 years and this one (CTS) does not ride nearly as well as his previous cars (big sigh). The older Cadillacs were known for essentially riding like a sofa. Personally, I like the direction they’ve gone with Cadillac (performance, efficiency, improved handling and interesting transmissions), though I’m not a big fan of the designs.
Cadillac is attempting to resurrect its product line and change the public perception (see their Led Zeppelin advertisements), something that is very difficult in any business, particularily with strong competitors such as Acura, Audi, BMW, Lexus, Mercedes and Volvo, among others.
In a related note, famed car guy Bob Lutz, #2 at GM and a former exec with BMW, Ford and Chrysler is now evidently blogging here [RSS Feed]. Interesting reading, particularily the opportunity he now has to interact with buyers, sellers and everyone in the GM supply chain. I applaud the effort and hope the result is better, more attractive and economical cars from the firm that used to have 50% of the US market.
Background Fat Link: Bob Lutz

Wisconsin Open Records: Bill Leuders on AG Peg Lautenschlager’s support

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Isthmus news editor Bill Leuders writes about Wisconsin Attorney General Peg Lautenschlager’s strong support for our open records rights:

Last spring, the newspaper I work for had a problem obtaining some public records from Madison schools. Officials demanded that we first send a check for $613.08 to cover the costs they expected to incur reviewing the records and deciding what information to black out.
These costs put the records effectively beyond our reach. Worse, I knew from my involvement with the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council that this was part of a much larger problem. Throughout the state, records custodians were seizing on some loose language in a 2002 Supreme Court case to justify charging exorbitant fees designed to thwart records requests.
I asked state Attorney General Peg Lautenschlager for an opinion on this practice. Her office reviewed the matter and in short order issued an unequivocal opinion stating that Open Records Law does not permit such costs. Custodians may charge only for copies and in some cases for the cost of locating records.
It was a major win for the cause of openness in Wisconsin, one of many on which Lautenschlager has played a role. Indeed, in my opinion, no one in Wisconsin has done more to preserve the public’s right to know.