EdCone.com

"Facebook is not only on course to go bust, but will take the rest of the ad-supported Web with it." 

We'll see. 

Much more here from Doc Searls.

Ticket-tax proposal, crime reduction strategies, and more, in this week's report from the Manager.

A substantial local story about Bob Page and the impact on his company, Replacements Ltd., of his stand against Amendment One...

...reported in the New York Times.

Maybe the N&R will reprint it.

And when Florida State does join the Big 12 -- which happens soon, unless John Swofford can dig into his cutthroat bag of tricks and add Notre Dame while stealing Oklahoma, Southern California or the Carolina Panthers -- it will have two crushing effects.

Blame the Seminoles for the allegedly imminent death of the ACC?

Sure, why not.

Whales may possess an exotic sensory organ, but they are known to have terrible gaydar and only vestigial bullshit detectors.

We had a tomcat (named Tom) who navigated a cross-town journey several times. And that was before GPS.

Economic-development group tells scientists that scientists don't understand science, and Raleigh has its marching orders:

State lawmakers are considering a measure that would limit how North Carolina prepares for sea-level rise...

The Coastal Resources Commission agreed to delete references to planning benchmarks – such as the 1-meter prediction – and new development standards for areas likely to be inundated.

N&R devotes most of its A1 above-the-fold real estate to a photographic investigation of John Edwards' necktie selections.

Apparently, no actual news happened here in Mayberry yesterday. 

At least the new editor is taking things seriously and engaging readers over at his blog, where he addresses questions about the accuracy of a recent front-page report on the wage gap between men and women. Haha jk he's really busy catching up on that NYT story about GSO everyone else talked about three days ago and pondering  heavy stuff like "Why do we so love animal pics?"

"[A] landmark event in the downward spiral of print newspapers."

Even worse than it appears, given the very low rate of internet access in New Orleans.

I read TGWAMM on the recommendation of my mother, not too long after the eponymous war ended, and still think about it all these years later. Also, "Class" was useful back when I was writing about rich people.

RIP, Paul Fussell.

 

StreetWatch needs supplies for its outreach to the homeless. On the list: soup, canned pasta, beans, tuna fish, saltines, peanut butter, water, and toilet paper. Snacks and desserts are appreciated, too.

Please drop off donations for StreetWatch in the box in the lobby of the police station at 2602 S. Elm-Eugene St.

[A] newspaper that reduces its coverage of the news important to its community is certain to reduce its readership as well...

...American papers have only failed when one or more of the following factors was present: 1) The town or city had two or more competing dailies; 2) the paper lost its position as the primary source of information important to its readers or 3) the town or city did not have a pervasive self-identity. We don’t face those problems.

Warren Buffett writes to his new newspaper employees, pledging local control and adequate resources. Free content is an unsustainable business model, he says, and Berkshire is likely to purchase more papers.

A nice feature on John Isner that gives a sense of how hard he works and also provides a glimpse of the regular guy from GSO who happens to be a world-class tennis star. 

Clemson board to meet over ACC-breakup rumors.

The Mosaic Festival is a fun, free event in downtown Greensboro.

It happens a week from Saturday.

If you can kick in a few bucks, that would be awesome. 

If not, you should go and enjoy it anyway.

Lunch at United House of Prayer.

Dinner at Guy and Jerry's Burger Spot.

You're only young once.

A quick summary of who screwed up on the Facebook IPO.

An even quicker summary: Everyone.

It's like the last two bubbles hooked up and made an ugly baby.

Not what we needed to restore faith in the market. 

Three bits of long-settled wisdom that my country forgot during my adult life:

• Avoid land wars in Asia
• Keep a sharp eye on the bankers
• Prohibition causes more problems than it solves

The last one seems to be meming just now (NSFW; thnx to Fred for the pointer).

From my POV the big news on the Edwards trial is that a northbound lane of Eugene Street by the Preyer building is now a parking lot for "news" vehicles, making it that much harder for me to return to the bosom of my family each evening. 

Ginia Zenke was kind enough to send along some photos of the scene around the courthouse. I posted this one because of her caption for it: "Probably two different messages being broadcast here."

Bondless financing for the PAC has been the buzz behind the scenes for a while now. 

What surprises me is the confidence that big private funding is on the way. I heard some big numbers the other night, and from sources I thought might be off the table. I hope that's true. 

Sources who tell me they are themselves well-sourced say the demise of the ACC could be imminent, with FSU and Clemson jumping to the Big 12 and the whole thing then disappearing in short order as the SEC and Big 10 gobble up the remains.

We'll see.

"Local ordinances prohibiting oil and gas exploration and development activities invalid; petition to preempt local ordinance."

Thanks to Jeff Sykes for sending along this PDF of proposed fracking legislation for North Carolina, which seems to remove all local control over drilling decisions.

You didn't think they were going to stop at billboard ordinances and internet access, did you?

I've seen less-flattering thumbnail travelogues about GSO than Kim Severson's waiting-on-a-verdict placeholder.

And I'd agree that local interest in the John Edwards trial seems muted -- most North Carolinians came to their own conclusions about the man long ago, leaving the field to trial junkies and students of campaign-finance law.

Locals who got upset when Andrea Peyser called our town "derelict" last week must not be familiar with Peyser's highly ignorable schtick. 

UPDATE: Seriously, Greensboro, Peyser is not worth your ire.

I'm thinking about buying Facebook. 

Not shares, the company.

For serious, though, it seems healthy that investors are skeptical of Wall Street hype and waiting to see how higher valuations might be justified. 

I'm not sure from this clip that Mr. Worley understands that civil protections for gay couples would not require him to kiss a man.

Natural gas prices are low, and NC may have just a fraction of the reserves initially touted by the gas companies. 

We have time to get this right.

I thought about linking an earlier version of this story yesterday in a post about nickel-and-diming poor people, but, anyway, this headline is not quite accurate: "Wells Fargo To End All Free Checking Accounts By August."

People who maintain a minimum balance will still get free checking. We'll still be able to get penalties for our own dumb mistakes reversed, too -- I just did it last week at Wells Fargo. Fees are for people who can't afford them. (I guess one could argue that my account isn't really free, as it requires me to park funds with the bank, but the money has to go somewhere so it feels free to me.)

So, yeah, this (NSFW):

"Nobody’s clear about the Volcker Rule...It’s 270 some pages and if you gave it to six experts on the subject, they’d come back with seven interpretations what it means."

No, really? Wonder how that happened.

Banks are going to gamble with insured deposits as long as we let them.

Music lineup for the fast-approaching Mosaic Festival in downtown GSO.

Volunteers are welcome, so is financial support via Kickstarter.

Charlotte readies for convention protesters. 

Previously: "[I]t was announced that people who were not planning on being part of disrupting the 2012  Democratic National Convention in Charlotte should leave."

"[T]he Gate City has had big dreams, made big investments and grown."

Winston-Salem Journal looks east with envy at Greensboro's Coliseum complex, entertainment business, and can-do spirit. 

Buffett's Media General deal may be more about the deal than the newspapers.

We hiked close to ten miles around Lake Brandt this afternoon. Lots of people biking and kayaking and dog-walking and such. 

The extensive trail network is of course a terrible thing for Greensboro -- it's a shame to see public money poured into things the market disdains, but still, nice in its own way.

It's great that the N&R Ideas section excerpts local blogs, but shouldn't the paper identify paid opinions as such?

For example, Piedmont Publius is not exactly Sam Hieb's blog, it's a John Locke Foundation vehicle for which Sam produces content that must to some extent advance the viewpoints of the parent organization. Yet readers of the print edition of the N&R get no clue that this is the case -- even the URL, which includes "johnlocke.org," is invisible to them. 

That's not a knock on Sam, or JLF, but it does seem like an important detail for the N&R to omit. 

The poor ye will always have with you, so, what the hell: "The trick is to rob them in ways that are systematic, impersonal, and almost impossible to trace to individual perpetrators."

GPD press release on blown murder case after the jump. Not a lot of detail on what went wrong, beyond "administrative and documentation shortfalls," but much of the blame is dumped on the now-retired investigator who first handled the case, and the fixes all seem aimed at those administrative and documentation problems. Anyone know what mistakes were made?

Some pre-Carolinian history of North Carolina, rediscovered.

First JP Morgan took us back to 2007, then Facebook and the teevee hucksters tried to replay 1999. Junk bonds and S&Ls can't be far behind (or, ahead).

Your weekly report from the City Manager, hot off the virtual presses.

UPDATE: More here from the BizBlog. No way Bryan kicks in big money for a downtown PAC, unless it does.

/update

Too bad everything the Bryan Foundation does is evil, because otherwise the idea of selling the nice stadium it built for Greensboro and presumably reinvesting that money in other good local projects would be laudable.

Private local ownership of the ballpark by the parties most interested in its continued success, recycling of philanthropic dollars...but, y'know, Jim Melvin, so let's all hate this.

Philly paper says HPU is the poster child for excess:

The school’s amenities provide an extreme example of what’s happened at too many American universities in recent years. They have been adding frills left and right to entice doting parents choosing which college to spend their own or borrowed cash on.

I have no idea how frilly Ohio Northern is, but a diploma that comes with $120K in debt had better be worth a lot.

Spartan dorms and fancy libraries seems like the right mix to me.