Monthly Archives: March 2005

Feingold 2008: Winer Announcements Perhaps First Endorsement

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Dave Winer says he will support Russ Feingold for President in 2008, though he comments that “I’m sure he has almost no chance of winning, but every time I’ve wondered if anyone would stand up against the lunatics that run this country, Feingold has been there”. The Democrats certainly need to think different…. Perhaps Janesville’s Russ Feingold is the answer?

Russ has earned my respect over the years because: he’s always been willing to talk, spends his time flying coach on commercial airlines, dining at places the rest of us choose and generally showing up to visit with the people.

A useful question for Russ: Can one be idealistic & effective in the current political arena?

Milwaukee Voter Fraud

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Greg Borowski:

At least 82 felons voted illegally in the presidential election Nov. 2 in Milwaukee, though the total is likely far higher, a new computer analysis by the Journal Sentinel has found.

Indeed, there are more than 600 potential matches between felons on probation and parole and names and middle initials of people who voted in the city. But a full analysis could not be completed by the newspaper because of a 2003 state law that bars access to birth dates of voters.

The newspaper, though, was able to do a partial analysis by combining several computer databases to capture birth dates for about 39% of those who voted in the November election.

Borowski also mentions a 2003 change in Wisconsin’s public records law that hinders this investigation. What about Madison?

Venture Capital & How to Start a Startup

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Paul Graham offers up two very useful articles:

  • How to Start a Startup:
    You need three things to create a successful startup: to start with good people, to make something customers actually want, and to spend as little money as possible. Most startups that fail do it because they fail at one of these. A startup that does all three will probably succeed.
  • A Unified Theory of VC Suckage:
    But lately I’ve been learning more about how the VC world works, and a few days ago it hit me that there’s a reason VCs are the way they are. It’s not so much that the business attracts jerks, or even that the power they wield corrupts them. The real problem is the way they’re paid.

    The problem with VC funds is that they’re funds. Like the managers of mutual funds or hedge funds, VCs get paid a percentage of the money they manage. Usually about 2% a year. So they want the fund to be huge: hundreds of millions of dollars, if possible. But that means each partner ends up being responsible for investing a lot of money. And since one person can only manage so many deals, each deal has to be for multiple millions of dollars.

Beatallica: Milwaukee-based parody band & the music wars

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Xeni Jardin:

On the NPR program “Day to Day” today, I report on Beatallica, the Milwaukee-based parody band known for Metallica-infused covers of Beatles songs. As reported previously here on Boing Boing, Sony Music accused them of violating copyright laws, demanded that their webmaster pay “unspecified damages,” and forced the band’s ISP to shut down their website.

Cowen & Sawicky on Tax Reform

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Tyler Cowen & Max Sawicky:

Alan Greenspan has called for a consumption tax and President Bush has toyed with the related idea of a national sales tax. These proposals have some ideal economic properties but the politics don’t work. Consumption taxes are largely invisible; you don’t see what you pay on a yearly tax return but, rather, it is absorbed in the price of goods. Not surprisingly, Western European countries have both consumption taxes and high rates of overall taxation. Flat taxes bring some benefits but wouldn’t drastically lower the costs of our tax code; the biggest difficulty in filing your return is calculating your income.
I recommend starting on the expenditure side. Let’s gradually freeze Social Security benefits in real terms, introduce more market incentives to health care, redo the Medicare prescription-drug bill, and cut discretionary government spending. We should admit more revenue-positive immigrants as well and stop subsidizing the defense of Western Europeans.

Fighting Rivals with Efficiency

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Rick Barrett:

“Right now, the Midwest is awash with old, decrepit manufacturing plants,” Mautner said in an interview. “Some of these are factories with century-old equipment, and they?ve seen few improvements over the years. At the same time, China is building all new facilities, with all new equipment, and they?re consuming about half of the world?s oil, and half of the world?s steel and concrete.”
U.S. companies can?t stop China?s industrial revolution, but they can shield themselves from it a little, Mautner said.