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Category Archives: Business

S&R Honors Richard Joshua Reynolds: Self-interest, rightly understood, and our legacy of progressive capitalism

Posted on 2012.11.11 by winterSmith Leave a comment

This is a song Charles Manson stole from the Beatles. We’re stealing it back. – Bono When we hear talk about “markets” and “capitalism” and “business,” especially as such things are fetishized in the corporate media (think about how The Apprentice franchise has apparently made Donald Trump, a barking conspiracy theorist whose companies have declared bankruptcy four times and who has

Elections are educational! 14 things we wouldn’t have known without Campaign 2012

Posted on 2012.10.23 by Bonesparkle 3 comments

Everybody seems to be so negative about campaign season. They hate the ads, they hate the mudslinging, they hate the lying, they hate the candidates. Not me – I LOVE campaign season. Why? Because it’s an opportunity to learn stuff that not only didn’t I know before, but that I’d never learn any other way.

East Denver neighborhood organizers beat back Walmart

Posted on 2012.10.10 by winterSmith Leave a comment

In everything from large cities to small towns across the country, people who care about the integrity of their neighborhoods and the health of their local economies seem to be constantly fending off Walmart expansion into areas where the company is neither wanted nor needed. It’s always gratifying when the natives are successful, as it now appears they have been

Business

Johnny Rotten doing butter commercials: still Punk after all these years

Posted on 2012.10.07 by winterSmith Leave a comment

Discussion boards across the UK are a’splodin’ and some Very Serious punk fans are up in arms over the sainted Johnny Rotten’s decision to do a series of commercials for Country Life Butter. Like this one.

A quick, nonpartisan democracy lesson for our anonymous faux-patriot thugs

Posted on 2012.10.05 by winterSmith Leave a comment

Let’s start with this. DENVER – A Mexican restaurant in the Highlands neighborhood declined a Mitt Romney campaign stop. Now the owners of Rosa Linda’s Mexican Café are getting death threats, nasty threatening phone calls, and insulting e-mails criticizing their choice. “I don’t want people to be angry at me,” Rosa Linda Aguirre, the owner of the neighborhood staple, said.

Announcing a new policy: I’m going to slap you in the lips.

Posted on 2012.10.02 by Bonesparkle Leave a comment

I had a small disagreement with a hotel yesterday. I had booked for three nights, but a change of plans required me to cut the trip short and come home a day early. As the clerk was processing the change, she said that she’d be refunding the third night, minus a “15% administrative fee.” Now, I know that changes like

Business

UPDATED: Waiting for a package: delivery guarantees deciphered #wtf

Posted on 2012.09.26 by Bonesparkle 6 comments

I ordered something from an online retailer last week and in checkout I selected the 3-7 day delivery option. As a public service, I thought I’d take a few moments of the time I’m spending sitting by the mailbox to deconstruct some shipping terminology for you. Here’s the term: Guaranteed delivery in 3-7 business days. Seems straightforward enough. But what does

Business

NFLPA threatens to do the right thing; time will tell

Posted on 2012.08.29 by winterSmith One comment

Last week I called out the NFL Players Association for sitting idly by while the league screws the refs. You’d think a group of people who came out of that process as mad as the NFLPA membership did would be more than happy to stand up for the zebras. You’d think a group of people who hate Roger Goodell as

Streaming services and digital downloads: How can we listen to music in a way that actually benefits the musicians?

Posted on 2012.08.28 by winterSmith 23 comments

I love music. I can’t tell you how much money I’ve spent on it through the years, but a lot. I own thousands of CDs (either in physical or digital form) and am blessed to count as friends some of the most talented artists I’ve ever heard. It’s that last part, I guess, that causes me to take what has

NFL screwing the refs, players enjoying the show

Posted on 2012.08.23 by winterSmith 4 comments

Jeff MacGregor brings the hammer down on Roger Goodell and the NFL re: its lockout of the refs. The money shot: If Roger Goodell and the NFL and the NFL owners were serious about player safety and player conduct, for $50 million a year — less than 1 percent of total revenue — they could hire 200 well-trained full-time officials

Mark Zuckerberg: Is it time for Facebook’s boy genius to go?

Posted on 2012.08.17 by winterSmith 9 comments

Today’s LA Times asks a good question: Is Mark Zuckerberg in over his hoodie as Facebook CEO? Business writers Walter Hamilton and Jessica Guynn dig into an issue that I suspect some of us have seen before, and it’s remarkable that the clamor over Zuck specifically hasn’t been louder for some time. Should Mark Zuckerberg, the social media visionary but neophyte corporate

Facebook’s bad year just got worse

Posted on 2012.08.02 by winterSmith 9 comments

It’s an interesting time to be Facebook. You know, as in the old Chinese curse “may you live in interesting times.” They’ve been the target of freedom and privacy advocates for some time. All the way back in 2008 I was talking about the company’s anti-privacy tendencies and arguing that things were only going to get worse for the citizenry. More recently, I

Found: the worst fucking online payment system in the world. Yay for me.

Posted on 2012.07.24 by winterSmith 2 comments

I owe my medical provider money. I think. I had some tests run and my insurance doesn’t cover it all, so I owe a few extra bucks. I’m trying, as hard as I can, to pay the bill. And for all I know, I may have already. But I can’t prove it. My first instinct was to pay online. Boy

Q: Was the Supreme Court ruling on Obamacare a victory or a defeat? A: Yes, it was.

Posted on 2012.06.30 by winterSmith One comment

Depending on your perspective, Thursday’s Supreme Court ruling upholding the “Obamacare” program was either a thumping victory for progressives everywhere or a clever corporatist / conservative flanking maneuver that makes it even less likely American citizens will ever enjoy the kind of basic access to healthcare that the rest of the developed world takes for granted. I’ve been harshly critical

Facebook: the most congenitally dishonest company in America

Posted on 2012.06.26 by winterSmith 13 comments

If you are not paying for it, you’re not the customer; you’re the product being sold.” Did you know you have a Facebook email address? Maybe you did and maybe you didn’t. But if you have a Facebook account you have a Facebook email. And that email is now your default email on FB. WTF? You didn’t do that. NOBODY