Shiny Link Dump

Some of the stuff I've been reading...

• Are poor people poor ... because they're poor? (NYSun) [My gut says no - though I think there's merit to the argument that the level of bureaucracy to getting government handouts actually breeds more poverty, but then there's this, the lasting effect of Clinton's welfare reform plan (Boston Globe)].
  
• Guy Kawasaki interviews Bill Price, a co-author of The Best Service is No Service. Pretty cool stuff about how better service can come with a cut in costs. Particularly relevant as we build our web platform that will interface with our clients.
  
• Textbook posted online of the US Patent System - its history, flaws and benefits. (MIT OpenCourseWare)
• Advice on dealing with VC's from the founder of theFunded - a controversial site where entrepreneurs gripe about venture capitalists. (TechCrunch)
• Salivating over the prospect that a pentabyte can be stored on the size of a DVD - or the equivalent of 20,000 Blu-ray DVD's or a quadrillion byes - with the help of nanotechnology (H/T Instapundit)
• What happens when a buyout goes bad. A story on what's happening at Freescale Semiconductor (H/T PEHub)
• Why aren't "progressive" bloggers up in arms over Zimbabwe (and the current attempts by Mugabe at really stealing the vote)? (CommentaryMagazine)
  
• Hillary Clinton's unintended lesson on economics. (Cafe Hayek)
• It wasn't genocide, it was 'just' mass murder [stunning] (H/T Instapundit)
  
• Where do budding capitalists go in San Francisco? Well, the local communist cafe of course. (New York Times)