Remember the total, hideous, inexcusable absence of oversight that has been the great hallmark of George Bush's America for almost eight years now? Well, now we're getting to see that same regulatory malfeasance applied to yet another cornerstone of our political system. The Federal Election Commission — the body that supposedly enforces campaign-finance laws in this country — has been out of business for more than six months. That's because Congress was dragging its feet over confirmation hearings for new FEC commissioners, leaving the agency without a quorum. The commission just started work again for the first time on July 10th under its new chairman, Donald McGahn, a classic Republican Party yahoo whose chief qualifications include representing Tom DeLay, the corrupt ex-speaker of the House, in matters of campaign finance.

Apart from the obvious absurdity of not having a functioning election-policing mechanism in an election year in the world's richest democracy, the late start by the FEC makes it almost impossible for the agency to do its job. The commission has a long-standing reluctance to take action in the last months before a vote, a policy designed to help prevent federal regulators from influencing election outcomes. Normally, the FEC tries to root out infractions and loopholes — fining campaigns for incomplete reporting, or for taking shortcuts around spending limits — in the early months of a campaign season. But that ship sailed way too long ago to take the stink off the 2008 race.

Candidates for Sale: Big Business Is Making Sure It Wins the Presidency | The Smirking Chimp

NES Excitebike. Fun.

Excite Bike FULL

I wasn’t going to write anything about this but when I got stared down by the double Knox, I knew it was a sign.

In the first article, I found it interesting that VentureLab has launched 19 companies in 6 years. So I went looking on VentureLab’s site to find out who that was and they list 11 graduate companies raising $42 million. Huh? Then I saw the fine print - “as of May 2006″. What?!?! This goes back to my previous post about accessibility of information and promoting our own good successes. If I were a part of the 8 companies since May 2006, I’d be a little upset that I’m not getting some link love from VentureLab.

The second article was more disappointing. To the question “How long does it take you [Atlanta Technology Angels] to decide to invest?”, Knox Massey answers (emphasis is mine):

The quickest we made an investment was two weeks. More typical is two to three months from when we meet them. We’ve worked with companies that may not be ready for up to a year. We don’t want put somebody who is not ready in front of the group.

Holy cow. Maybe it’s been too long since I raised money (1999 and 2000-1), but that time frame sounds ridiculously long to me.

Sanjay Parekh's blog about fundraising in Atlanta - an especially good fight with Atlanta Technology Angels Wannabe VC/Never Entrepreneur/Dinosaur Gatekeeper Knox Massey in the comments.

Angels and Fund Raising In Atlanta - Bilgistic.com

GrandDialer allows users with a GrandCentral account to dial numbers directly from an iPhone or iPod Touch. null

GrandDialer

Crank calls have never been so easy.

As folks on Reddit have pointed out, Disney’s Hannah Montana Wake-Up Call makes getting up to no good a snap. Just enter your friend’s victim’s phone number and the delightful Miley Cyrus’s voice will wake them up or send them a reminder: “Dear [name], don’t forget that today you have [activity].”

Opening a web-to-phone system to the public without authentication or constraints may be fun — but it’s also ripe for abuse. Without authentication of the sender, users are free to enter any source phone number they want, making it look like the calls are coming from someone else. There’s no opt-out mechanism or audit trail. Even attempts to constrain the system can be circumvented: You can change the recipient’s time zone and wake them up in the middle of the night, or back-date the wake-up call to have it placed immediately.nullnullnullnull

Hannah Montana Crank Calls: VoIP Mischief - GigaOM

I don’t have the patent on the prevailing opinion about local VC community. The opinions and frustrations are real and they’re not something that we should just ignore. There are pretty big problems with the local startup community. Here’s what I think are some of them:

* Local VC money is mostly non-existant. It’s a supply-demand problem essentially. Low supply of great startups and some big hits, very little demand. (Note: I didn’t say lack of money)
* The local community is a relationship-based economy. It’s who you know … The ‘ole boy network. The valley is a meritocracy.
* We have no real track record of big successes we can tout. OK, let’s stop using ISS, JBoss and Mindspring. JBoss didn’t raise any local money, ISS was started over 12 years ago and most young people have never heard of Mindspring
* What few winners we’ve had, they don’t feel compelled (or even obliged) to re-invest / give-back to the local community

Local Investors

We don’t have any real early stage venture investors in Atlanta. OK, investors, go ahead and get pissed and stop reading if you’d like. But, it’s the honest truth. Noro-Moseley is one of the largest and oldest firms in Atlanta. They have some good guys there (Greg Foster has recently joined and he seems like a great guy) like Alan Taetle. However, I’m sorry to say this, these guys aren’t early stage guys. They don’t understand early stage. Period. That’s not to say they haven’t made early stage investments - they have. For example, Clearleap. They invested along side Trinity. Trinity is a great Valley firm. We spent time with them. But here’s the rub. Noro probably wouldn’t have done the deal alone, nor would they have done the deal if it was 3 guys just out of GA tech with no experience (in fact, the founders are ex-N2Broadband guys who had a good exit).

Despite what Alan said in a comment on Lance’s blog, Noro had the opportunity to do the Appcelerator deal - 100% as the only lead investor - on a silver platter. Alan and Greg know that - even though they’ll try and say they didn’t, publicly. But the true story is that I gave Alan one week to put a term sheet on the table; he had a told me and several others many times he would. In fact, Alan told several people around town that they wouldn’t lose the Appcelerator deal even before we had decided to raise a round. I’ve known Alan for a long time and I’d like to think of him as a friend - so I know he’ll be pissed at me for putting this out there.

This Jeff Haynie/Appcelerator thing just keeps getting juicier and juicier! Now Jeff sounds off about it.

What’s wrong with the Atlanta startup ecosystem and how to fix it | Introspection

Waimea Bay, Nov. 27, 1959. The surfers left to right. Max Lim, Ted Gugelyk (me), Jose Angel, Jack Webb, Peter Cole. ------------- We considered this day crowded. 12 guys out. Size between 15 and 25 feet. Storm surf. In '59 - Waimea was not surfed that much. No leashes, no life guards, no jet skis, helicopters, and very few cameras. We depended on buddy system. If one of us got into trouble, others would help. All of us were excellent water men. We were a fraternity of big wave riding brothers. Each was a professional in work life, and riding big waves was our thing - our hobby. Of course, we loved it, the rush, with all our hearts. Slightly insane then, since we were on our own. No jet ski life guards as back up, no ESPN, just us and the sea and its giant waves. Ted Gugelyk email: kukui@lava.net web site: www.anoaipress.com

Waimea Bay, Nov. 27 1959

The debate about what counts as a living thing is fuelled today by the discovery of the first virus that is able to fall "ill" by being infected with another virus.

Viruses can catch colds, says study that redefines life itself - Telegraph

Startup Drinks at Fado Irish Pub!
{ July 30th, 2008 }

It’s the middle of Summer and great time to meet up with your fellow startup entrepreneurs and enjoy a proper pint. Join us for Startup Drinks Atlanta on Wednesday, August 13 at Fado Irish Pub in Buckhead. We’ll be there from 5:30PM until the drinks and/or conversation run out!

Startup Drinks - get together, talk about startups, form drunken companies.

Atlanta Startup Drinks

Entourage is back, Sept. 7. This is my favorite show since the early Sopranos. If you missed seasons 1-3, watch them. This show makes you feel like you are there living the hollywood life. Its lots of fun. And Jeremy Piven is amazing as Ari.

HBO: Entourage