Well, it sure looks this way to me.
For instance,
the bill now includes a provision, supported by some opponents of spam, that directs the Federal Trade Commission to come up with a plan for a no-spam registry.
I think the off shore spammers will love this one: a list comprised of mostly good email addresses! Yea, I know that the spammers are supposed to send in their lists for scrubbing but I suspect joes p*rn shop won’t be sending in their list.
I expect to see a lot more headphones on folks while they are at their computers (or just a wireless signal away) and not just to listen to the latest music downloads.
Check out this article about Skype, the latest hot peer-to-peer application that will be making a lot of encumbent telephone companies (both land and cellular) nervous and will have government officials at all levels wondering why their utility tax revenue stream is shrinking.
This has the potential to be a classic case of creative destruction and I, for one, think it is a good thing!
Via Assymetrical Information.
The 2nd edition of Carnival of the Capitalists is up at Jay Solo’s place.
One of the great things about the blogosphere is how many things even a modest reader can learn about that never make their way to network news, fair and balanced fox, your local paper, etc.
The most recent for me is the Ignoble Prize which has been presented since 1991:
Every Ig Nobel Prize winner has done something that first makes people LAUGH, then makes them THINK. Technically speaking, the Igs honor people whose achievements “cannot or should not be reproduced.”
The The Apostropher’s favorites of 2003 are listed here and my personal favorite for the last two years is the 2002 Ignoble Prize in Economics:
The executives, corporate directors, and auditors of Enron, Lernaut & Hauspie [Belgium], Adelphia, Bank of Commerce and Credit International [Pakistan], Cendant, CMS Energy, Duke Energy, Dynegy, Gazprom [Russia], Global Crossing, HIH Insurance [Australia], Informix, Kmart, Maxwell Communications [UK], McKessonHBOC, Merrill Lynch, Merck, Peregrine Systems, Qwest Communications, Reliant Resources, Rent-Way, Rite Aid, Sunbeam, Tyco, Waste Management, WorldCom, Xerox, and Arthur Andersen, for adapting the mathematical concept of imaginary numbers for use in the business world. [NOTE: all companies are U.S.-based unless otherwise noted.]
I don’t usually borrow whole posts but this from Doug Allen at Catallarchy aptly describes one aspect of the bizarre and misguided priorities that citizens of the US have built up around themselves over the last 200+ years:
Somewhere, violent criminals are still at large. Somewhere, a shady character is plotting terrorist activities. Somewhere, a drunken teen is getting behind the wheel of a car. Somewhere, a man is beating his wife.
But law enforcement resources are being used to charge Tommy Chong, fine him, and send him to a prison filled with dangerous whackos for nine months for selling bongs over the Internet.
When people exchange goods on mutually agreeable terms leave them alone.