"Shock Doctrine, USA"? Please!!

Dr. Krugman writes that Governor Walker's efforts are "an attempt to exploit the fiscal crisis to destroy the last major counterweight to the political power of corporations and the wealthy." This is tenuous at best. These public employee unions are NOT a counterweight to powerfull corporations and the wealthy, they are a counterweight to their fellow citizens, the taxpayers, who, these days are anything but wealthy.


And what's so bad about privatization? Chicago privatized their parking meters to the tune of $3B. It was a good deal, except that they blew through the money to pay the excessive demands of the public employee unions.

To quote The Reverend Wright, "the chickens have come home to roost".

Pope John Paul's II Miracles

It was determined that Pope John Paul II has only one more miracle to go to meet the requirement for Sainthood.  Pope Benedict the XVI has approved the curing of Sister Simon-Pierre of Parkinson's disease, the same disease that Paul II suffered, as a miracle after she found herself cured upon waking from a dream about the dead Pope.  She and others had been praying to John Paul II to help her.  But I submit that another miracle is not required.  Cardinal Bernard Law, formerly the Archbishop emeritus of the Diocese of Boston resigned that office on Dec. 13, 2002 and immediately left for Rome to become  Archpriest of the Basilica de Santa Maria Maggiore, at the direction of John Paull II, allegedly only hours before Massachuettes State Troopers arrived with subpoeanas for his appearance before a Grand Jury investigating his part in the cover-up of child molestations.  Pretty miraculous in my opinion.

Keith Olbermann & the Hypocrisy of the Left

Keith Obermann has left MSNBC.  I don't know what the brouhaha was all about but I have one question.  Why did Keith negotiate a contract for $7.5M per year for 4 years?  The left complains loudly about senior executives making more than 20 times the average wage.  They cite European companies where that ratio is typical as the model to follow.  Using a liberal number of $92,000.00 as the average wage scale for NBC, Mr. Olbermann should have insisted that his contract not exceed $1.8M per year.  But, in reality, if $1.8M is what he believes would be a fair salary for the CEO of General Electric, then for the sake of equity, something the left is passionate about, he should have insisted on being paid signifcantly less that $1.8M.  I think $900K would have been fair. If it's determined that this divorce was about money, I'm sure it was because Keith was insisting his salary be lowered and he decided to resign to protest MSNBC's intransigence.

NY Times: Jigsaw picture of an accused killer 15 January 2011

To the Editor:

As a factual presentation, this article is excellent. There are however, two instances of editorial commentary that, not surprisingly, tie Jared Loughner to right-wing extremists. This isn’t accidental. The New York Times and other main stream media outlets are determined to link this incident to right-wing politics. I find it reprehensible.

Both instances are related to his views on the “the need for a new monetary system” that he ostensibly thinks should be “gold and silver”. There are extremes on both the left and the right that would replace our monetary system and based on the economic events of the last couple of years not only extremists are contemplating the need to consider new and even old ideas in this area.

It was gratuitous of the New York Times to link Loughner to right-wing extremists in this article and a retraction is requested.

Email to Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke

Dr. Bernanke,


I was extremely dismayed by a response you gave on a recent "60 Minutes" interview. I believe it was Steve Croft who asked you if the Federal Reserve was "printing money" to pay for the Treasury Bonds it is purchasing as part of QE2. To answer that question literally was extremely disingenuous and makes it difficult for me to believe anything you say in the future. You and I both know that by use of the phrase "printing money" Mr. Croft was not referring to printing currency. I'm sure the Fed is not paying for these bonds with currency. He was, in fact, referring to the fact that the Federal Reserve is paying for these bonds with created money. There's no shame in that. It is simply the truth. And for you to obfuscate the obvious is inexcusable.

Larry David Op Ed New York Times Dec. 21, 2010

To the Editor:

Larry David is a very funny man.  But it is a sign of psychological distress when someone uses humor to assuage guilt.  The Jews and Catholics have a common tradition when it comes to guilt as a child development tool.  As a cradle Catholic, I’m familiar with the phenomenon.  It is obvious to me that Mr. David feels extreme guilt for his not having donated his portion of the Bush Tax cuts of the last 8-10 years.  He needs to write that check today before his mother finds out.  Make it out to the Internal Revenue Service.  You’ll feel better in the morning.  I promise.

The Plot to Destroy Terrestrial Broadcasting takes Shape

“…we should expect a linear relationship between costs imposed on broadcasters and the likelihood of them abandoning over-the-air broadcasting. Every dollar of additional costs for broadcasters is one less dollar of profit, and thus reduces the attractiveness of over-the-air broadcasting as a business model. And don’t forget the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow: once broadcasting leaves the spectrum, much more valuable services can utilize those frequencies.” Thus spake Stuart Benjamin in early 2009 in “Roasting the Pig to Burn Down the House: A Modest Proposal”

http://scholarship.law.duke.edu/faculty_scholarship/1949/

Professor Stuart was hired by the FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski later that same year, he “joined the Commission in December 2009 as the agency’s first Distinguished Scholar in Residence. He resides in OSP (Office of Strategic Planning) and works on spectrum reform, First Amendment issues, and long-term strategy (emphasis added). He is on leave from Duke Law School, where he is the Douglas B. Maggs Professor of Law. He specializes in telecommunications law, the First Amendment, and administrative law.” http://www.fcc.gov/osp/resident-scholar.html

It appears the FCC is beginning to take action in keeping with the ideas of Professor Benjamin. On November 30 TVNewsCheck published an article “FCC begins TV Spectrum Revamp”. In the article Chairman Genachowski said, “The spectrum is too valuable and our spectrum needs too great for it to be used inefficiently in this manner, especially given that less than 10% of Americans receive broadcast television only through over-the-air spectrum signals.’’

So, the plan is to move more stations to the VHF band, a band by-the-way that has proved problematic after the digital transition. The idea is to have 2 stations share a single 6MHZ band while retaining their right to “must carry” on cable. This will free up the more desirable UHF band for wireless broadband. But it will also impose yet more cost by forcing some broadcasters to, yet again, buy VHF transmission equipment.

On December 2 TVNewsCheck published a story “FCC Plan Makes VHF a High Priority”. I’ll simply quote from the beginning and end of this piece.

“As part of its plan to shift 120 MHz of spectrum from TV broadcasting to wireless broadband, the FCC wants to pack TV stations more tightly together in the remaining 180 MHz of spectrum to free up some for auction.

To do that most efficiently, it must make the VHF portion of that remaining spectrum (chs. 2-13) more hospitable to broadcasting.”

The article goes into the issues with VHF, citing Television consulting experts who discuss some of the additional costs and reduction in performance broadcasting would experience going back to VHF, concluding with the following paragraphs.

“Since the digital transition, most stations are now broadcasting in the UHF band. Some of them are worried that in trying to improve the VHF band, the FCC is signaling that it intends to force some UHF stations back to the VHF band.”

“Among them is Dan Ullmer, chief engineer at WECT Wilmington, N.C., which made the leap from VHF to UHF in September 2008 when it because (sic) the first station in the nation to switch to all-digital service.”

‘“We have really good coverage along the coast now,” he said. “Going to VHF would be going backwards for us. We have built out all-new UHF facilities, UHF antennas. All that would have to be changed out. We'd have to enter another major transition in the market, which would likely disenfranchise our viewers. They've already been through a major transition here.”’

So, Professor Benjamin’s ideas are becoming manifest. There is no doubt where this is headed. They have made it very clear that the goal is to promote wireless broadband at the expense of terrestrial broadcasting. With the rulemaking vote of November 30, the process begins. It sets the stage for forcing broadcasters back to an inferior frequency band and having THEM pay for it, both of which make broadcasting less viable. Recall Professor Benjamin, “Every dollar of additional costs for broadcasters is one less dollar of profit, and thus reduces the attractiveness of over-the-air broadcasting as a business model.”