If you ever doubted Tim Carney’s contention that big governments and big businesses form natural alliances, read the New York Times’ Connecticut.html?hpw&rref=sports&_r=0″>piece on ESPN’s relationship with Connecticut politicians (and Connecticut taxpayers).

“By the spring of 2000, ESPN had shed its roots as a small start-up and was beginning to look more like a mature corporate behemoth,” the Times’ Steve Eder writes. “That is when ESPN did what other big, multinational companies had done: It went to the statehouse in Hartford and sought financial incentives in exchange for continued growth in Connecticut.”