Coyote Blog

I get a number of search engine hits from people coming to this blog looking for information on, you know, coyotes.  I actually get a lot of questions about coyote behavior, which I struggle to answer since by knowledge of the animals generally is limited to:

1. Watching them play outside my house as they likely fantasize about making a meal of my family's Maltese.
2. Taking humor from their hapless interactions with the ACME corporation.

Via a reader, this is the woman you need to be visiting for real coyotes.  She also seems to be a marvelous photographer.  This, for example, is beautiful.

Note to readers:  This post is sticky through 12/15.  There are new posts just below this one!

Welcome!  This year we are in the blogs ranked 1751-2500.  Please cast your vote for Coyote Blog here.  You can vote once per day!  For those new to the site, here is some of what I do here:

Real-life small business experiences:  Buying a company;  Working with the Department of Labor; Case Studies on the Minimum Wage;  What's on my Desk Today;  Getting an SBA Loan

Economics:  The myth of Zero-sum Economics; 60 second refutation of socialism; Business Relocation and the Prisoners Dilemma; Technocrats, government and disasters; Advice for the Reality-Based Community;  Roosevelt's NRA: America's Flirtation with Fascism; the Trade Deficit is not a Debt; A Challenge to Lou Dobbs;  In Praise of Robber Barons

Libertarian political commentary:  Respecting individual decision-making, The real implications of a Privacy Right, Technocrats get their comeuppance, A defense of Open Immigration, New Alien and Sedition laws, Conservatives, let your enemy speak, Liberals, let your enemy speak(and here), Iraq war, The Kelo decision,  

Climate Science:  The skeptical middle ground on warming; A skeptics guide to An Inconvenient Truth

Frustration with runaway torts:  Jackpot Litigation; Coyote vs. ACME

Camping (my business):  New American nomads;  This RV is just wrong

Attempts at humor: How to spot a dictatorship; Coyote's Law;  Making fun of the UN and the Internet;

Sports: The Baseball Closer Role is Nuts; I hate penalty kicks; Pre-season college football rankings are the most important

ACME Products:  Instant Girl; Ultimatum Gun; Earthquake Pills

How I Married Well:  My Wife, the Fashion Diva;  My Wife's Fashion Awards (and here)

Oh, and I promote my new novel, BMOC, a little bit.

Enjoy.

Welcome!  This site is getting a lot of first-time readers this week from our guest-stint at Overlawyered.  For those new to the site, here is some of what I do:

Real-life small business experiences:  Buying a company;  Working with the Department of Labor; Case Studies on the Minimum Wage;  What's on my Desk Today; Getting an SBA Loan

Economics:  The myth of Zero-sum Economics; 60 second refutation of socialism; Business Relocation and the Prisoners Dilemma; Technocrats, government and disasters; Roosevelt's NRA: America's Flirtation with Fascism; Gasoline Supply and Demand; Hoping for Price Gouging; Peak Oil; In Praise of Robber Barons

Libertarian political commentary:  Respecting individual decision-making, The real implications of a Privacy Right, Technocrats get their comeuppance, A defense of Open Immigration, New Alien and Sedition laws, Opposing Special Rights for the Press, Iraq war, The Kelo decision, Free speech, Danger of Politics without Philosophy  

Frustration with runaway torts:  Jackpot Litigation; Coyote vs. ACME

Camping (my business):  New American nomads;  This RV is just wrong

Attempts at humor: How to spot a dictatorship; Coyote's Law;  Making fun of the UN and the Internet;

Sports: The Baseball Closer Role is Nuts

ACME Products:  Instant Girl; Ultimatum Gun; Earthquake Pills

How I Married Well:  My Wife, the Fashion Diva;  My Wife's Fashion Awards (and here)

Enjoy.

Welcome to the Carnival of the Capitalists and my second time hosting the COTC.  Note that several people tried to submit multiple posts - when that happened, I picked just one to include this week.

Many thanks to Silflay Hraka for starting the Carnival of the Vanities, of which this is a spin-off, to showcase smaller blogs to a wider readership.  Look for future Carnivals of the Capitalists at these sites (you can submit articles here):

December 26, 2005      Multiple Mentality   

January 2, 2006      Chocolate and Gold Coins   

January 9, 2006      The Social Customer Manifesto   

January 16, 2006      Wordlab   

January 23, 2006      Patent Baristas   

January 30, 2006      PHOSITA   

While you're here, feel free to look around -- this post will tell you more about what I do at Coyote Blog.

In what has now become a tradition of my hosting the COTC, and, in true capitalist fashion, I have taken on a sponsor for this week's Carnival:

This Carnival of the Capitalists is Proudly Sponsored by"¦ ACME Maker of fine anvils for over 50 years

Government Spending and Regulation

Here at Coyote Blog, I have been warning for years that government-funded health care is a Trojan horse for more regulation of your personal life.  I hate it when I am right.

Porkopolis,
a blog highlighting the insanities of pork barrel spending, offers an
out-of-the-box alternative to rebuilding New Orleans at government
expense.

BardsEyeView takes a look at the Federal Budget through the lens of Shakespeare.  Really.

Joshua Sharf at A View from a Height looks at government price and supply regulation of taxis, and wonders what's the point.

Taxes

Jeff Cornwall at the Entrepreneurial Mind gives us the happy news that 2006 will bring us more IRS audits and more people paying the AMT.

Property Rights

Multiple Mentality asks why a man in Atlanta was handcuffed and arrested for selling his own property.

This Carnival of the Capitalists is Proudly Sponsored by"¦ ACME Escalating crises since 1952

Blogging and the Internet

Kicking over My Traces observes that robot blogs are clogging up Technorati, and that Google blog search does a better job of weeding these out

Wayne Hurlbert of Blog Business World is, not surprisingly given his blog's name, bullish on professional blogging and business blogs.

Similarly, ProHipHop is bullish on the business of podcasting.

Barry Welford
brings us a fable to illustrate that InternetLand or cyberspace can be
as complex and confusing to executives as Wonderland was to Alice

The China Stock Blog has the 12 hottest search term keywords in China.   Not sure the Coyote is doing well on any of these...

Gaurav Agarwal's Blog
observes that while computers have penetrated the developed world,
mobile phones have been much more popular in the develop ping world.

Marketing and Growth

Elisa Camahort in Worker Bees Blog reinforces the idea, via two customer service tales, that a bad customer experience can last a lifetime.

Fire Someone Today goes after the difference between "small business owner" and "entrepreneur", and posits that every self-described small business owner who is not focused on growth is probably a hobbyist, a slave, or an impending failure

Jim Logan advises aiming customer communications at the customers, not at grammatical nitpickers.

This Carnival of the Capitalists is Proudly Sponsored by"¦ ACME The secret to Glenn Reynolds success

Business Opportunities

Jane's Fit by Five enjoys getting her first "press" credential and reviews the Fortune Innovation Forum

Anita Campbell at Small Business Trends is doing her annual trends series, and spoke by phone with noted futurist Watts Wacker who gave his forecast
of trends we can expect to see in 2006, along with a bit of advice
about how to interpret and use trends.

Starling David Hunter investigates the success of the $15 apple in Japan, and draws some broader conclusions about the nature of business opportunity.

Barry Ritholtz observes in the Big Picture that the film industry has been much savvier in responding to market and technology changes than has the music industry.

Personal Finance

My Money Blog deconstructs Ameriprise Financial and finds their hiring criteria and training seem to support his concerns about the company (Lots of interesting comments to the post as well with further information)

All Things Financial has a positive review of Lee Eisenburg's book "The Number", which discusses the dollar figure you need to have set aside to retire the way you want to retire.

Free Money Finance lists 10 questions you should be asking about your retirement

Why Homeschool discusses the importance of early economics training for your kids, and some approaches for teaching them outside of the classroom.

Searchlight Crusade responds to privacy concerns over real estate and mortgage forms, and explains why you have few alternatives to providing your information if you want to close the deal.

Jim at Blueprint for Financial Prosperity describes how he saved $200 on a car repair by ordering parts himself, but still letting the mechanic do the work.

David Porter advises you to make sure you understand your ARM in the light of recent interest rate increases.

This Carnival of the Capitalists is Proudly Sponsored by"¦ ACME Leader in dehydration technologies

Wall Street & Investing

Retired at 30 announces the brand-new Carnival of Investing, which seems like a pretty good idea given how many investing and personal finance posts the CotC is attracting.

George at Fat Pitch Financials discusses the phases associated with
publicly traded corporations going private to avoid Sarbanes-Oxley
regulations.

The Internet Stock Blog analyzes what impact the new Google music search function may have on other search and music sales-related stocks.

Mike Price discusses his value-investing strategy

The Japan Stock Blog brings news that the XBOX 360 is not selling well in Japan, for reasons that may be bad news for Microsoft.

Triple Pundit reports that institutional investors are beginning to press insurance companies over their risks/exposure to global warming.

Michael Cale of Financial Methods argues that based on current inflation and interest rates, investors should
allocate more assets to bonds and gold and fewer assets to equities.

Triple Witching Friday has camera-phone pictures of the floor melee that ensued from MIzuho's $335 million trading error, potentially one of the most expensive typos in history.

Patri Friedman of Catallarchy argues that index funds using the S&P 500 are not true index funds as the composition of the index is actively managed by humans

Having just exercised some employee stock options, Early Riser explores potential investments for his money.

Economic Forecasts

Financial Options has a summary of economic indicators for release next week, with commentary.

This Carnival of the Capitalists is Proudly Sponsored by"¦ ACME Never be without a date on Friday night

Economic & Business Theory

James Hamilton in Econbrowser takes another stab at bringing sanity to the gas price "gouging" meme.

The Prudent Investor discusses a seismic shift in power in global financial markets from west to east.  "When a conflict-torn dwarf nation like Serbia can sell debt maturing in
20 years with a coupon of 3.75% while the USA has to pay 4.50% for the
same maturity it is high time to throw the old dogmas of investing
overboard."

Sophistpundit looks at the effect of tradition on journalism and the evolution of successful media companies.

The Common Room draws from a book written in the 1870s where 'Aunt Sophronia' advices her nieces on economic principles.

Thinking about Peter Drucker leads David Foster of Photon Courier to some conclusions about what is wrong with today's business schools.

Health Care and Malpractice

Good News!  InsureBlog reports that it may be getting easier for cancer survivors to get life and health insurance.

This Carnival of the Capitalists is Proudly Sponsored by"¦ ACME California Dreamin' with Earthquake Pills

Business Practices

David Daniels in Business and Technology Reinvention argues that companies' use of forced stack ranking of employees is out of date.

Ed at Daily Dose of Optimism observes that when a Japanese business struggles, its execs often get a pay cut.  He wonders why this logical practice is much rarer in the US.

Jack Yoest writes that corporations don't seem to be showing their traditional hesitation at firing employees before Christmas.

Joe Kristan tells us a tax fraud story and draws the moral:  Don't cheat on your taxes and then piss off the CFO who is helping you do it.

200Motels engages the Three Stooges to explain why Enron is pushing up daisies.

The Coyote Within (hmmm, coyotes and business blogs) provides us a business fable about finding out your true character.

Humor and Other

Wordlab looks at politically correct alternatives to "Christmas"

Noah Kagan advises the occasional reversal of holiday gift-giving.

Gill Blog has a picture of the portable inflatable meeting room

Closing Notes

Thanks to the Original Illustrated Catalog of Acme Products for the advertising copy.  You can find more ACME promotional material here.

Thanks, its been fun.  Gotta go...

This Carnival of the Capitalists is Proudly Sponsored by"¦ ACME Escape from it all with the Smoke Screen Bomb

Note to readers:  This post is sticky through 12/15.  There are new posts just below this one!

Welcome!  This year we are in the blogs ranked 1000-1750, which to the un-initiated might seem like an also-ran category until you understand that last year we were in the "ranked 8751+" category, so this is a real step up!  Anyway, if you are a regular reader, you can vote once a day here.  For those new to the site, here is some of what I do here:

Real-life small business experiences:  Buying a company;  Working with the Department of Labor; Case Studies on the Minimum Wage;  What's on my Desk Today; Getting an SBA Loan

Economics:  The myth of Zero-sum Economics; 60 second refutation of socialism; Business Relocation and the Prisoners Dilemma; Technocrats, government and disasters; Roosevelt's NRA: America's Flirtation with Fascism; Gasoline Supply and Demand; Hoping for Price Gouging; Peak Oil; In Praise of Robber Barons

Libertarian political commentary:  Respecting individual decision-making, The real implications of a Privacy Right, Technocrats get their comeuppance, A defense of Open Immigration, New Alien and Sedition laws, Opposing Special Rights for the Press, Iraq war, The Kelo decision, Free speech, Danger of Politics without Philosophy  

Frustration with runaway torts:  Jackpot Litigation; Coyote vs. ACME

Camping (my business):  New American nomads;  This RV is just wrong

Attempts at humor: How to spot a dictatorship; Coyote's Law;  Making fun of the UN and the Internet;

Sports: The Baseball Closer Role is Nuts

ACME Products:  Instant Girl; Ultimatum Gun; Earthquake Pills

How I Married Well:  My Wife, the Fashion Diva;  My Wife's Fashion Awards (and here)

Enjoy.

This is a revival, in honor of our upcoming 1-year anniversary, of what used to be a regular feature on this site, and is explained here. Many of our ACME products come courtesy of this site.

In the spirit of what will probably be known as natural disaster month, comes this coyote favorite:

Welcome to the Carnival of the Capitalists.  Many thanks to Silflay Hraka for starting the Carnival of the Vanities, of which this is a spin-off, to showcase smaller blogs to a wider readership.  Look for future Carnivals of the Capitalists at these sites (you can submit articles here):

While you're here, feel free to look around -- this post will tell you more about what I do at Coyote Blog.

For this week's Carnival, I have decided to take a bit of a risk, and, in true capitalist fashion, I have taken on a sponsor for this week's Carnival:

This Carnival of the Capitalists is Proudly Sponsored by"¦ ACME Maker of fine anvils for over 50 years

Continue reading ‘Carnival of the Capitalists’ »

If you are coming from the "Best Business Blog" poll, welcome  (if you are a regular reader, you can vote for Coyote Blog here).  Here are some examples of our business blogging:

Real-life small business experiences:  Buying a company; Outsourcing to Your Customers;  Working with the Department of Labor;  A Primer on Workers Comp;  Dealing with Sales Taxes;  Services and Brands

Economics:  Taxes and Class Warfare; The Harvard MBA indicator;  Messed-up Pensions

Capitalist Philosophy: 60 Second Refutation of Socialism, While Sitting at the Beach;   Respecting Individual Decision-Making

Libertarian political commentary:  Post election wrap-up; Thoughts on Kyoto;  Fisking the NEA

Frustration with runaway torts:  Jackpot Litigation; Coyote vs. ACME;  Plenty More Here

Camping (my business):  New American nomads; This RV is just wrong

Attempts at humor:  Replacements for Dan Rather; My Manhood vs. the Pocket Door

Extending Occam's Razor: Meyer's Law

ACME Products:  Instant Girl; Ultimatum Gun; Earthquake Pills

Welcome!  Thanks to Elise Bauer for ways to make this post sticky in TypePad.  Please, have a look around.  Here are some examples of what I do here:

Real-life small business experiences:  Buying a company;  Working with the Department of Labor

Economics:  Taxes and Class Warfare;  The Harvard MBA indicator

Libertarian political commentary:  Post election wrap-up;  Thougts on Kyoto

Frustration with runaway torts:  Jackpot Litigation; Coyote vs. ACME

Camping (my business):  New American nomads;  This RV is just wrong

Attempts at humor:  Replacements for Dan Rather;  Meyer's Law

ACME Products:  Instant Girl; Ultimatum Gun; Earthquake Pills

Enjoy.  And, don't forget to support small blogs by voting in the "best of the rest" category -- you can go vote here.  Coyote Blog (hint, hint) is in the middle of the list.

A regular feature, it is explained here. Many of our ACME products come courtesy of this site.

Usually, to keep with our theme, I try to stick with products used by our friend the coyote. Given that the weekend is approaching, though, and you may be looking for the right purchase to start out your weekend, consider this great ACME product:

I can imagine the pricing:
Talking Model: $20.00
Non-Talking Model: $30.00

Enjoy!

This series explained here. We get many of our featured products here.  You can find all of our past featured products here.

Our ACME product this week was chosen to help me walk all over Disney World chasing my two kids.

This series explained here. We get many of our featured products here.  You can find all of our past featured products here.

Today's featured product is an ACME classic.  Not necessarily high tech or sexy, but one in which ACME has a tremendous world market share.  No self respecting cartoon character would drop any other brand anvil but ACME!

This series explained, and other past featured products, here. We get many of our featured products here.

This week's product was purchased by the Bush administration, soon to be used in Fallujah:

This series explained, and other past featured products, here. We get many of our featured products here.

Today's feature is just in time for Halloween, the ACME Super Hero suit. The great thing about this product was that the suit not only looked, uh, sortof cool, kindof, but it conferred super powers on the wearer. Unless, of course, the wearer was a coyote.

Two of my blogging interests in one - ACME and litigation. This is a reprint of an article by Ian Frazier years ago in the New Yorker, but it is still funny. The complaint in the case of Wile E. Coyote v. ACME. ACME's response is here.

A regular feature, it is explained here. Many of our ACME products come courtesy of this site.

Today, in honor our our server which seems to be a bit slow, this fine ACME product:

A regular feature, it is explained here. Many of our ACME products come courtesy of this site.

Usually, to keep with our theme, I try to stick with products used by our friend the coyote. Given that its almost Friday night, though, and you may be looking for the right purchase to start out your weekend, consider this great ACME product:

I can imagine the pricing:
Talking Model: $20.00
Non-Talking Model: $30.00

Have a great weekend!

A regular feature, it is explained here. Many of our ACME products come courtesy of this site.

Back in the corporate world, I could have really used this to sneak out of meetings.

A regular feature, it is explained here. Many of our ACME products come courtesy of this site.

Once again, ACME is way ahead of its time. Below are the ACME rocket skates:

And here is the modern copy-cat product from motosk8 (courtesy of Gizmodo)

A regular feature, it is explained here. Many of our ACME products come courtesy of this site.

This is an awesome product. The ACME dehydrating technology was always tops. These are perfect for pitching into an unloved neighbor's swimming pool. Not sure I would add water while holding it in my hand, though...

A regular feature, it is explained here. Many of our ACME products come courtesy of this site.

Today's featured product is the ACME jet powered pogo stick. Let's send one to Ralph Nader.

If you checked out our "about" section, you will see that one of the reasons this site is named "coyote blog" is to honor that great American businessman (err, thing) Wile E. Coyote and that most famous of all corporations: ACME. This site has a really funny and nostalgic catalog of those great ACME products.

This one was always one of my favorites:

Of course, none of the products ever worked right, but the good folks at ACME were WAY ahead of their time. They already knew to have good in-house lawyers plastering warning labels all over every products: