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by Tom Philpott

Such scenes would not be possible without government policies that encourage cheap corn. Why do conservatives fetishize indsustrial food, again? Wikimedia commonsBack in 2002, in the right-wing National Review, Rod Dreher declared the rise of the “crunchy cons”—political conservatives who had come to value alternative food systems and reject the dreck served up by corporate giants.

Dreher’s epiphany came when he got hold of a lefty Brooklyn neighbor’s weekly CSA share one day.

Who knew cauliflower had so much taste? It was the freshness of the produce, not its organic status (of dubious nutritional advantage), that we were responding to. But you can’t get produce that delicious in grocery stores here, so when this summer rolled around, we signed up enthusiastically. Now, Julie picks up our weekly delivery in her National Review tote bag.

Dreher reported at the time that his conversion to locavorism struck a chord among readers, hundreds of whom emailed to say that they loved Rush and loved real food, too.

The development seemed to hold great promise for food-system reform. Here was a food regime, propped up by government subsidies and one-size-fits-all regulations, that failed just about everybody, save for shareholders in a few corporations. The food being churned out by our factory system delivered sorry flavor and dubious nutritional value—and its environmental impact even spooked “creation   care” types.

Meanwhile, libertarians had thundered for years against commodity subsidies and the crony capitalism practiced by agribusiness giants and their kept politicians. Significantly, the best thing ever written about how Archer Daniels Midland fattens itself on taxpayer cash is probably this 1995 exposé from the libertarian Cato Institute.

So why not a right-left coalition against Big Food and in favor of alternative food networks?

Sadly, such a coalition has never really gained traction—at least not in any way that’s evident to me. And the right-wing media machine has been revving up in delibfense of Big Food and Big Ag.

Last summer, The American, an American Enterprise Institute-funded journal influential among conservative intellectuals, ran a long attack on the sustainable-food movement entitled “Against the Agri-Intellectuals.” (I responded here.)

Meanwhile, the Cato Institute may deplore Archer Daniels Midland’s political influence and ability to raid the Treasury; but it lionizes Norman Borluag, intellectual father of industrial food.

And Forbes Magazine, play toy of conservative icon Steve Forbes, has been cranking out ringing defenses of the agri-food industry. Recently, Forbes declared agrichemical and GMO seed giant Monsanto “company of the year,” echoing company talking points in a fawning profile.

And now Forbes has a column essentially refrying the above-mentioned American piece, complete with denunciations of “agri-intellectuals.”

These articles tend to fetishize corporate food and acknowledge none of its faults. Most absurdly, they contradict libertarian ideology by completely ignoring the federal government’s central role in developing and maintaining the industrial food system, ably documented by Atul Gawande in The New Yorker.

Currently, Congress is preparing to consider school-lunch reauthorization; and in just a couple of years, it will be time to revisit the Farm Bill. Both pieces of legislation will have a dramatic effect on the kind of food Americans eat over the next generation. Will conservatives follow the path of the “crunchy cons” and fight for new food systems—or the path of Forbes and fight to prop up the old one?

Related Links:

Tales from a D.C. school kitchen: How food service turns a green school into an enviro hog

Why you should go see ‘Fantastic Mr. Fox’

Tales from a D.C. school kitchen: What kids will do to avoid vegetables

by Agence France-Presse

LONDON—Installing wind turbines and solar panels in people’s homes is “eco-bling” that will not help meet Britain’s targets on cutting carbon emissions, engineers warned Wednesday.

In a new report by the Royal Academy of Engineering (RAE), Professor Doug King said it was better to adapt buildings to make them more energy efficient than try to offset energy use with “on-site renewable energy generation.”

The leader of Britain’s main opposition Conservative party, David Cameron, is among those who have installed wind turbines, fixing one onto the roof of his home in the plush west London district of Notting Hill.

“Eco-bling is a term I coined to describe unnecessary renewable energy visibly attached to the outside of poorly designed buildings,” King told the Daily Mail newspaper ahead of the report’s publication.

“It achieves little or nothing. If you build a building that is just as energy-hungry as every other building, and you put a few wind turbines and solar panels on the outside that addresses a few percent of that building’s energy consumption, you have not achieved anything.

“It’s just about trying to say to the general public that ‘I’m being good, I’m putting renewable energy on my building’.”

In existing buildings, which account for the vast majority of those in use in 2050, King suggested low cost alternatives such as installing thermostats on central heating systems or using low-energy light bulbs.

The report said it was also vital to engineer buildings to minimize energy demands in the first place, including using masonry to store heat or ensuring a good use of natural light in homes and offices.

“Before renewable energy generation is even considered, it is vital to ensure that buildings are as energy efficient as possible, otherwise the potential benefits are simply wasted in offsetting unnecessary consumption,” it said.

However, it warned a lack of skills in understanding energy use in buildings meant the construction industry would struggle to meet government targets to make all new buildings “zero carbon” by 2020.

Related Links:

NREL study shows transmission costs for big wind are low!

A gust of energy

Last decade was the warmest ever, says NASA

It seems like everybody is scrambling to secure a piece of the mobile advertising market these days. Google is still sorting out the details of its AdMob acquisition, but barring any regulatory snafus, the acquisition should go through in the next few months. Apple acquired the relatively unknown mobile advertising network Quattro earlier this month. Today, Opera announced that it has acquired AdMarvel, a San Mateo-based mobile advertising company.

Sponsor

According to Opera’s new CEO Lars Boilesen, about 50 million people access the web through Opera on their mobile browsers.

AdMarvel, Opera and the iPhone

It’s interesting to note that AdMarvel also offers an iPhone SDK for developers. At the time of the launch of the iPhone SDK, AdMarvel CEO described the iPhone as “an amazingly innovative platform.” Opera hasn’t announced any plans to bring its browser to the iPhone. When we talked to Opera’s former CEO Jon von Tetzchner in December, he noted that the company wasn’t averse to launching a browser on the iPhone, but Apple’s App Store approval process was holding the company back from even trying to get an app into the store for the time being. It is worth noting, though, that Opera does offer an Android app.

Augmenting Revenue Streams Through Mobile Advertising

There can be little doubt that mobile advertising is one of the fastest growing markets in the mobile ecosystem. Google obviously wants a piece of this market through the AdMob acquisition. The company’s own AdSense and AdWords programs offers mobile solutions, but the popularity of AdSense and AdWords hasn’t really translated into success in the mobile space yet. Apple’s acquisition of Quattro is a curious move, as advertising isn’t exactly one of Apple’s core competencies.

For Opera this move makes sense, though. Just like Apple hopes to profit directly from the iPhone apps and mobile sites that use Quattro, Opera will be able to profit from sites that use AdMarvel. Neither Apple nor Opera are traditional advertising companies, but both clearly believe that the mobile advertising market is poised for growth and that they can augment their current revenue streams by dipping their toes into this business.

Discuss

Ford is cooperating with the United Space Alliance (USA) to make better use of virtual reality applications. The automaker uses simulation software developed by video game developers and movie animators in order to pre-test its future car’s driving characteristics.

This is the task of the company’s Virtual Evaluation lab (iVE). The company’s engineers gather data from the tests performed here and use it to improve visibility, quality and comfort of the vehicles, thus reducing costs related … (read more)

With the battle for Cadbury PLC all but complete, score a victory for Kraft Foods Inc. and hard-charging Chief Executive Irene Rosenfeld: She’s poised to pick up a candy industry crown jewel for a price that didn’t rattle Wall Street.

But score a victory, too, for Cadbury’s management, which, after months of effectively dismissing Rosenfeld as a low-rent piker, managed to extract nearly $3 billion more from Kraft than its first offer.

The challenge now for Kraft will be to make the enormous deal pay off, including being able to meld a proudly British company with Kraft, which Cadbury’s management once derided as a low-growth conglomerate.

Kraft announced Tuesday that Cadbury had accepted its buyout offer of $19.5 billion, considerably above the $16.7 billion Kraft first bid in September. The deal would create the world’s largest confectionary business.

And if the deal goes off without any major integration hitches — always a possibility in such a large combination — it should help Rosenfeld deliver on her long-term promises to boost Kraft’s sales and profit growth.

Kraft, facing a Tuesday deadline to up its bid or hold steady, did the former, turning a hostile pursuit into a friendly deal. Kraft still has two weeks to persuade a majority of Cadbury shareholders to accept the deal. And, under British law, the door remains open until Monday morning for the Hershey Co. to jump in with a rival bid.

Hershey couldn’t be reached for comment.

But an offer from Hershey at this point isn’t expected, nor is a rejection by Cadbury shareholders, analysts said. “A bidding war for Cadbury is highly unlikely given the backing of the (Cadbury) board” for Kraft’s offer, said Erin Swanson, a stock analyst at Morningstar Inc.

Topping Kraft’s bid would be “very challenging” for Hershey, a considerably smaller company than Kraft, Swanson said. “We expect the saga to finally come to a close.”

Kraft isn’t necessarily getting Cadbury on the cheap, experts said. But the price it’s paying is within a range that many Wall Street analysts expected. “In our opinion, Kraft is paying a fair price for a very attractive asset,” Swanson said.

Rosenfeld, in a conference call with stock analysts, said Kraft had maintained its “financial discipline” and that both its dividend and credit rating would remain intact. Indeed, Moody’s Investors Service on Tuesday said Kraft will likely retain its investment-grade credit rating, despite taking on debt to help fund the deal.

As for Cadbury, the $19.5 billion is somewhat less than what some analysts believed it is worth, but 50 percent more than Cadbury’s market value before Kraft went public with its buyout bid in September.

“What Cadbury did was fantastic — they pulled another $2 1/2 billion out of Kraft’s pockets,” said Thomas Lys, a professor and acquisitions expert at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management.

Kraft, with $42 billion in annual revenue, is a collection of brands and foods from Oscar Mayer meats and Oreos to chocolate candy in Europe. Cadbury, with about $8 billion in revenue, is a worldwide leader in chocolate and is known best in the United States for its Dentyne and Trident chewing gum.

“The two companies are highly complementary,” Rosenfeld said.

The combined companies would be the world leader in chocolate and sweets, Kraft said, and No. 2 globally in the high-growth gum market, behind Mars’ Wrigley operations. For Kraft, the deal should help boost its sales and profit growth rates, and greatly bolster its presence in international markets.

Rosenfeld told analysts Tuesday that the biggest opportunity presented by the deal is to “fill in geographic white spaces.” For instance, with Cadbury’s strong presence in India and Mexico, Kraft will have better opportunities to distribute its products there.

“From a strategic perspective (the deal) makes a ton of sense,” said Morningstar’s Swanson.

Matt Arnold, a stock analyst at Edward Jones, agreed, “If it’s integrated right.”

Many big corporate mergers have eventually foundered on integration issues. If integrating a buyout target takes longer than expected, anticipated cost savings dissolve. Kraft predicted pretax cost savings of at least $675 million a year once the combination has been working for three years, which will likely entail job cuts.

And then there’s the issue of melding together disparate corporate cultures, a task that won’t be made any easier by Cadbury management’s public dismissals of Kraft’s business model and management, Swanson said. “They’ve bashed Irene and Kraft for months.”

With its new bid this week, Kraft sought to appease not only Cadbury shareholders, but its own stockholders, reducing the amount of new shares it will issue to fund the deal.

Kraft had planned to issue up to 370 million new shares of stock, which would have required shareholder approval. Earlier this month, Kraft’s largest shareholder, billionaire Warren Buffett, said he’d likely vote “no” to that proposal, fearing Kraft might overpay for Cadbury.

But with the new deal, Kraft is paying more cash, so the amount of stock it would be issuing would fall below the amount needed to conduct a vote by its shareholders. Buffett didn’t release a public comment Tuesday on the deal.

Kraft’s stock slipped 17 cents, or 0.6 percent, to $29.41 on Tuesday.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

[email protected]

Read the original article from Tribune News Services.

After being in Central Illinois for over two years, I finally hosted my first poker game last week. It was a lot of fun. I got a group of relative newcomers together and taught them how to play a Texas hold’em tournament. We had an hour long class where I went over the basics, pretty much following the plan I previously blogged about. Then I had them each chip in a couple bucks and I dealt them their first tournament (I didn’t play).

One hand came up that reminded me of something that happened when I still lived in New York. The hand was pretty straightforward. A few people played the hand, two of them played until the end. There wasn’t much betting, but I remember one player made a small but significant bet on the end. Another player called him. He turned over his two cards to show that he had a pair of sevens, one in his hand, one on the board.

Since this was more or less a practice hand, the other player turned her hand over and said, “Oh damn, I thought you were bluffing.” Her hand consisted of an eight and a three. She did not have a pair. She should not have called. Her hand was too weak to call.

However, she was partially right. He didn’t have a strong hand. It was a pretty weak hand too. I probably wouldn’t have bet on the end with his hand, unless I was trying to bluff. Perhaps she picked up on the fact that his hand was weak and therefore called. But it’s not enough to know someone is bluffing. In order to call their bet, you have to be able to beat their bluff.

If she had a small pair, or even an ace or a king, she could have made that call, thinking that since he is bluffing, her pair or high card will beat his junk hand. Still, she could have done something to win the hand, if she thought he was bluffing. She could have rebluffed. If instead of calling, she had raised his bet by a significant amount, he might have thrown his pair away, certain that she had a bigger hand. A rebluff is a pretty sophisticated move for someone playing hold’em for the first time, however.

As a player, I rarely rebluff, especially at the end of a hand when the pot is large. It’s a play that can require a lot of guts, and I think I’ve only recently acquired the courage to do it at all. I have learned to do it a lot more frequently at the beginning of a hand. If you are playing against someone and realize that they raise quite often, a good reraise with any two cards can often make them fold and win you a small but profitable pot. In tournaments, a few well timed reraises can easily mean the difference between winning and losing.

Anyway, like I mentioned above, this hand reminded me of a hand that I played in New York. I used to be a part of a weekly tournament among friends. We each threw in $5 or $10 and played a tournament that might last a couple of hours. At it’s peak, we had 30+ people showing up each week, so when you won the tourney, you could go home with a nice pot.

One night I was playing a hand against a friend. He was playing to my left and new to our tournament, and to hold’em in general. Everyone folded to me. I was on the button and I had an interesting hand, something like an eight and nine of hearts. It wasn’t a great hand, but in order to be unpredictable, you have to sometimes raise with interesting hands, rather than just great hands.

Anyway, my friend called. The next three cards on the board helped me, I think I had a straight or a flush draw, but I still didn’t have a pair. He checked and I pushed the rest of my chips in the middle, hoping he would fold. He called quite quickly. He turned over his two cards, a jack and maybe a nine. He didn’t have a pair or much of a draw. He had called my bluff, without a hand that could beat a bluff.

The last two cards didn’t help me and his jack high, beat my nine high. The reason I remember the hand is not because of the unique play, but because I handled it so badly. Instead of smiling and saying, “Good call,” I harangued him. “How could you make that call?” I said, frustrated.

“I knew you didn’t have much,” he responded, clearly confused as to why I was upset.

“But you had jack high! You couldn’t beat a bluff.”

And yet, clearly he could. His junk hand was better than mine. I walked out of the room and sat in the office next door for a while. I had to hang out until the game was over and lock up the place. I hope that I apologized for my behavior that night. I know that I did at a later date. I don’t think it affected our friendship, but I don’t remember him coming back to play in our tournament again either.

Since then, I think I’ve gained a lot of perspective, at least when it comes to poker. I’ve lost hands against strangers that were far larger and more important than the one against my friend. I’m sure that given the right circumstances I could still lose my cool at a poker table, but now it’s much more rare. I think that makes me a better poker player, and I’m sure that it makes me a better friend.

And now when I’m playing in a friendly game for a few bucks and a know-it-all player exclaims in agony after a hand, “How could you call me with that?” I know enough to sit back calmly and smile and think to myself how glad I am that it’s not me saying that.

Dublin is to feel the benefit of 8.48 billion euros ($11.98 billion) of new construction as the dormant property sector rebounds in Ireland this year.

This is a bit of a surprise considering the dire straits of the Irish economy, which has swung from bank bust to sovereign debt warning since the financial crisis began. 

Dublin, once nicknamed Dubai on the River Liffey because of its abundance of riverfront cranes, looks set to turn the corner in terms of construction as investors anticipate a return to economic growth by the time of project completion.

The property restart comes in addition to 8.2 billion euros ($11.6 billion) worth of property already under construction. The 44.3 billion euros ($62.6 billion) of projects on hold may be more alarming for foreign investors, as Ireland continues to be mired in a bank scandal which has cost the government billions and broken down the confidence of the citizens in the state.

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• Famed Manchester United Mired in a Debt Crisis of ‘Galactico’ Proportions
• Sorry, Krugman, But I’d Rather Not Learn From Europe
• Uh-Oh: Now Jim Rogers Is Warning About The Chinese Property Bubble

BERKSHIRE HATHAWAY INC.
NEWS RELEASE
Berkshire Hathaway Inc. Shareholders Approve 50-for-1
Split of Its Class B Common Stock
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE January 20, 2010

Omaha, NE (BRK.A; BRK.B)—Berkshire Hathaway Inc. announced that at a Special Meeting of
Shareholders held earlier today, its shareholders approved amendments to Berkshire’s certificate of incorporation that provide for a 50-for-1 split of its Class B Common Stock. As a result each existing outstanding share of Class B Common Stock will be exchanged for fifty shares of New Class B Common Stock. There will not be a record date or a payable date. The New Class B Common Stock will begin trading on the New York Stock Exchange as of the opening of the market tomorrow and the existing Class B Common Stock will cease trading as of the close of the market today.

Berkshire’s Class A Common Stock is not being split. However as a result of the amendments to
our certificate of incorporation, beginning tomorrow each share of Class A Common Stock will
be convertible into 1,500 shares of New Class B Common Stock.

Berkshire Hathaway and its subsidiaries engage in diverse business activities including property
and casualty insurance and reinsurance, utilities and energy, finance, manufacturing, retailing and services. Common stock of the company is listed on the New York Stock Exchange, trading
symbols BRK.A and BRK.B.

— END —
Contact
Marc D. Hamburg
402-346-1400

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	The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life by Alice Schroeder Buy new: $13.60 / Used from: $11.85 Usually ships in 24 hours
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January 20, 2010, 1:37 pm

Berkshire Hathaway said Wednesday that its shareholders had approved splitting the company’s class B shares 50-for-1 as part of the company’s $26.3 billion acquisition of Burlington Northern Santa Fe, the nation’s second-largest railroad.

The stock split, supported by Warren E. Buffett, Berkshire’s chief executive and controlling shareholder, will enable the company to offer Berkshire stock to smaller shareholders of Burlington Northern as part of the takeover.

Mr. Buffett said at a shareholders meeting in Omaha that the stock split was needed to make the transaction easier for small investors. “If we hadn’t done this, there would have been justification of the criticism that a big shareholder got a different deal that a small shareholder,” he said, according to Reuters.

The 50-to-1 stock split will make Berkshire’s class B stock much more affordable at roughly $68 a share, based on Wednesday afternoon’s price of $3,430.75. But the Berkshire class A shares, which remain the most expensive American stock at nearly $103,000 on Wednesday, will not be split.

Share Investor Links

Share Investor Blog – Stockmarket & Business commentary
Share Investor New Zealand Business News– Get more business news
Discuss this topic @ Share Investor Forum – Register free
Share Investor’s Daily Forex Updates

Recommended Amazon Reading

	The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life by Alice Schroeder Buy new: $13.60 / Used from: $11.85 Usually ships in 24 hours
	The Intelligent Investor: The Definitive Book on Value Investing. A Book of Practical Counsel (Revised Edition) by Benjamin Graham Buy new: $14.95 / Used from: $10.44 Usually ships in 24 hours

By Matt Hawes

Erroll Southers, President Obama’s choice to lead the Transportation Security Administration, withdrew from consideration for the position earlier today.  Southers faced criticism from senators and was also weighed down by information that he may have misled Congress concerning his use of a government database to dig up personal information.

From the Washington Post:

As The Eye first reported in November, Southers told senators that he asked a co-worker’s husband who worked for the San Diego Police Department at the time to run a background check on his ex-wife’s boyfriend.

The incident did little to stop his confirmation by the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. But a day after the panel referred his nomination to the Senate, Southers told lawmakers that he himself had twice conducted the database searches, downloaded confidential law enforcement records and then passed the information on to the police department employee….

Read the rest.

Senate opposition was led by Senator Jim DeMint, who not only opposed Southers’ plans for TSA, but was pressing for more information about the database incident.

It’s no surprise, however, that many lawmakers have taken the opportunity to praise Southers and express their disappointment that he has withdrawn his name.  After all, violating civil liberties and abusing your authority to dig up personal information is a central tenet of the government’s approach to security.  A questionable history would only add to his qualifications.

Since the nomination is currently vacant, I’d like to officially take this opportunity to plug my support for Steve Bierfeldt to head up the TSA.

Update: Thanks to Matt Holdridge for designing this “Steve Bierfeldt for TSA Chief 2010” poster!  Now we just need a good campaign slogan… Freedom Takes to the Skies?

If the most popular rumor is true, and the Apple Tablet finally has a 10.1-inch display, here’s how it will compare with the iPhone and the Newton MessagePad 2000. Clearly, it won’t fit in your pocket. Not even Phil’s pocket.

Click the image above to see the high definition version.

Oh Phil. [Gizmodo’s Tablet Coverage]

Apparently, it’s time for reruns. The NY Times is reporting that China is now planning to start scanning text messages for “unhealthy content,” which is defined as including any of various (secret) keywords supplied by the police. Now, given the recent ramp up in attention paid to China’s censorship efforts, this might be interesting… if it hadn’t been announced five years ago. This is what the NY Times wants us to pay for? I guess if they block off their content behind a paywall, no one would be able to search the archives of the NY Times to find out that that great paper had covered the story five years ago itself (though, a couple months after we wrote about it).

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American startups are not alone when it comes to the well of venture funding drying up. A recent report by the Israel Venture Capital Research Center has found that funding in Israel fell drastically to $1.12 billion in 2009, nearly half the amount from the previous year. The 46% decrease marks the lowest funding numbers since 2003 and ends Israel’s streak of three consecutive years with increasing number of companies and funding dollars.

The numbers are a sign of the worldwide economic stress that is affecting countries large and small across the globe. While funding plummeted between 2008 and 2009, the number of companies funded only fell roughly 7% from 483 to 447, which means less money is being given to each company. In the fourth quarter of 2009, the average financing round was just $2.2 million, down from $3.61 million during the same period in 2008.

Sponsor

By sector, life sciences saw the most growth took the lion’s share of the money up from 15% in 2008 to 24% in 2009. Semiconductors in Israel continued a downward trend, falling from 15% of the funding in 2008 to just 8% in 2009, its lowest share since 2001. The internet and communications sectors held steady at 13% and 20% respectively, but they are nowhere near their numbers from 2000 when they combined for almost 70% of the total funding.

As reflected in the report, Israeli venture firms tend to favor mid-stage funding over seed funding by a great margin. In the fourth quarter of 2009, mid-stage companies accounted for over half of the funding, while seed companies gained just 4% of the total.

We recently reported that the fourth quarter showed hope for American startups, both in mergers and acquisitions and venture funding. For comparison, the United States saw over $20 billion in venture funding for 2461 deals in 2009, an average of nearly $8.5 million per deal.

With venture funding seemingly drying up in Israel, the United States could see an influx of foreign entrepreneurs coming to American for venture funds. Of course, this could be expedited by the creation of a startup visa program, a topic we wrote about earlier this month.

Photo by Flickr user hoyasmeg.

Discuss

Asian DVD Club, a private torrent site specializing in, wait for it, Asian content, has disappeared from the ‘net during the last few days. No need to panic though, it will return soon.

No need for us to elaborate, this message from the site admins explains all:

Some of you might be aware that we were planning to change hosts yet again due to the technical and administrative difficulties we were experiencing. We were literally 2-3 days from finally moving when our host experienced hardware related problems and the site disappeared off the internets.

Worry not though, we got the database and stuff backed up. But right now we can only wait for our host to straighten things out and give us the files – and then we are all set to move to our new host and keep doing what we do best. Hopefully this will happen within the week.

Until then, catch up on some Asian movies you have not seen, or why not digitalize some that you already own so you have them ready? Trust us when we say that we are doing our best for a speedy recovery of ADC, because after all Asian DVD Club is the sun that never sets!

Article from: FreakBits

One down and four to go, or so we think.

Lovie Smith has made one hire so far as he begins Day 15 of the coaching search at Halas Hall, and four positions remain unfilled. Could another opening arise?

Running backs coach Tim Spencer has spoken to Michigan State coach Mark Dantonio about the vacant running backs coach position on the Spartans’ staff, according to FootballCoachScoop.com.

Spencer is an original member of Smith’s staff. He left Ohio State after 10 seasons as an assistant for the Buckeyes to join the Bears in 2004. He was one of two assistants on the offensive side of the ball to survive the Jan. 5 purge along with wide receivers coach Darryl Drake.

The report indicated that Michigan State also was considering Reggie Mitchell (Kansas) and Sedrick Irvin (Memphis) to replace Dan Enos, who left to become the head coach at Central Michigan.

Irvin, a who played at Michigan State, accepted his position at Memphis less than two weeks ago.

Spencer’s son Evan is a junior at Vernon Hills High and is a highly recruited wide receiver who is getting significant interest from Big Ten programs. Tim Spencer played at Ohio State.

By Brad Biggs

Read the original article from Tribune News Services.