Category Archives: Business

When doctors follow the rules, are they violating the Hippocratic Oath?

– I will prescribe regimens for the good of my patients according to my ability and my judgment and never do harm to anyone. I went to my doctor a few weeks ago for the first time in months. During the course of conversation about my health and how I was doing, etc., we stumbled onto the question of why I hadn’t been in

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Michigan rep. introduces a stimulus bill for the rest of us: the Student Loan Forgiveness Act of 2012

Back in 2007, as I was thinking about my little Dr. Sammy in 2008/EdF1rst project, I conceived a heresy. It went like this: What would happen if, as a massive economic stimulus, you forgave all outstanding student loan debt in America? I knew from experience the impact that loan debt has on consumer spending. You have, at this point, a

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Hoop star chooses Spring Break over national tournament – a decision with long-term career implications?

Wow. Here’s one I never imagined I’d see. King’s College women’s basketball team is traveling north this weekend to play in the NCAA Division III National Tournament Sweet 16 in Amherst, Mass. The Lady Monarchs’ leading scorer, however, opted instead to head south. Paige Carlin, a senior forward and the sixth man off the King’s bench, left for Cancun, Mexico

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Target to require retinal scans and DNA samples of all in-store customers

Okay, maybe not yet. But we’re definitely getting there. Check out today’s two-part gotcha. Part 1: Back in 2008 I wrote a piece called “The Smartest Shopping Cart That Ever Lived,” a glimpse into the near-future of GPS meets RFID meets customer relationship management meets intelligent supply chain meets nosy retailer shopping experience. I invoked Minority Report in doing so –

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As boycott pressure mounts on Limbaugh, two words come to mind: hoist, petard

I don’t know when the very first boycott of a product or company happened, but I suspect the tactic has been around in some form or another for a long time. I do remember the onset of the modern form of the practice, though. Back in the ’70s and ’80s, social conservatives began going after businesses who advertised on shows

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“Apology” to Sandra Fluke shows libel threat and advertiser defections have Team Limbaugh running scared; what to do next

Rush Limbaugh has apologized to Sandra Fluke. Sort of – he uses the opportunity to reiterate everything except the actual insults. If he were concerned about sincerity, he wouldn’t have buried the apology on Saturday afternoon, he have delivered it in the same medium as he did the attack. Here’s what the move by Limbaugh means: His lawyers told him

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Komen hires the wrong PR firm, missing the boat once again (and some thoughts on PR Daily’s coverage of the story)

So, the Susan Komen Foundation has hired a big-hitter PR firm. And not just any PR firm, either. Now, Komen is assessing the damage, and it’s using a consulting firm founded by two former Democratic strategists. Penn Schoen Berland (PSB), the firm Komen hired to help determine how badly the crisis hurt its reputation, is founded by former Democratic strategists

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Heartlandgate, Climategate and pro wrestling ethics

The more I watch modern politics (and economics and the culture wars and science “debates”) the more it all reminds me of pro wrestling. You know how it goes. Tough match, back and forth, both the good guy (the “face”) and the bad guy (the “heel”) getting their licks in, and then at the decisive moment either the heel “accidentally”

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Komen/Planned Parenthood controversy: why haven’t we heard from Komen’s corporate sponsors?

Corporate sponsorship is important for a great many of America’s non-profits, and that’s certainly true of the Susan G. Komen Foundation. Of course, any time you strike an alliance with another entity, you can’t help assuming some of their risk. Your partner jumps the tracks, all of a sudden people are looking at you even though you didn’t do anything

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What were the top privacy stories of 2011?

2011 was a big year where issues of political power were concerned. The #Occupy movement made a great deal of noise the past few months. Finally, there was lots of discussion about Citizens United and corporate personhood, and the “99%” began asserting its anger. There was l’affaire WikiLeaks and the ongoing Julian Assange and Bradley Manning battles, with Anonymous getting involved

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Dear Mayor Hancock and members of the Denver city council: no high rises in the Highlands

Citizens across the country are embroiled in battles to keep developers from destroying the character of their cities and towns, and now one such fight has made its way to my neighborhood, the Denver West Highlands. Here’s the note I just sent to the mayor and city council. I suspect a lot of our readers know exactly how I feel.

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Another modest proposal: how the NBA can make its small markets more competitive within the new CBA structure

A couple of weeks ago, as I was lamenting what looked (at the time) like the end of the road for the NBA 2011-12 season, I explained that the league was facing an especially nasty confound. You had three factions (players, big market owners and small market owners), and there was simply no common ground between two of them (the

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