Well, the FCC decided to give away the public airwaves today, apparently the FCC thought there was too much diversity. If you really believe that there is too much diversity, then check out this graphic of how concentrated the media community really is.
Remember, as noted earlier at Media Deregulation, the FCC received 11 comments in favor of further consolidation and thousands of comments against further consolidation. So, how is the FCC acting in the public’s interest?
From The 10b-5 Daily:
Second Largest Accounting Firm Settlement Ever - The Associated Press reported on Friday that KPMG has agreed to a $125 million settlement in a securities class action in the E.D. of Pa. The case is based on KPMG’s role in the events leading to Rite-Aid Corp.’s 1999 restatement of earnings. According to one of the plaintiffs’ attorneys, it is the second-largest settlement by an accounting firm in a securities class action (after the Cendant case, in which Ernst & Young agreed to pay $335 million). U.S. District Judge Dalzell’s ruling on the settlement is expected next week.
From The Register:
Court confirms DMCA ‘good faith’ web site shut down rights
…
InternetMovies.com had asked the District Court for the District of Hawaii to require that copyright holders investigate infringing Web sites before shutting them down. This rational request was rejected by the court, as its granted the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) and any other DMCA zealot the right to put the clamp on Web sites at will.
“This decision rules that the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) does not require a copyright holder to conduct an investigation to establish actual infringement prior to sending notice to an Internet Service Provider (ISP) requiring them to shut-down an allegedly infringing web site, or stopping service all together to an alleged violator,” InternetMovies.com said in a statement.
From CBS News:
Halliburton’s $400M Iraq Payday
(AP) The Army has given a Halliburton Co. subsidiary more than $425 million in troop support work related to the Iraqi war in the past 14 months, using an exclusive contract that Vice President Dick Cheney’s former company won in 2001.The previously undisclosed work, awarded without competitive bids, is in addition to the $71.3 million that Halliburton’s subsidiary, Kellogg Brown & Root, has received from the Army Corps of Engineers in no-bid contracts to repair and operate oil wells in Iraq.
Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., who disclosed the troop support work orders Thursday, said the structure of exclusive contract means that “the amount that Halliburton could receive in the future is virtually limitless.”
The Washington Post has an article stating that the FCC has recieved only 11 comments in favor of further media deregulation, as opposed to over 9,000 emails and a petition with 170,000 signitures opposing deregulation.
Also, Reuters has an article describing how the major media sources have neglected to give the potential FCC deregulation any coverage. Finally, there is an article by Paul Krugman (originally printed in the NY Times) detailing how many Americans found themselves watching the BBC instead of American media during the Iraq War because American media outlets were acting like they were state run.
Is running up huge deficits today the Republican plan to curtail future spending?
US ‘faces future of chronic deficits’
By Peronet Despeignes in WashingtonThe Bush administration has shelved a report commissioned by the Treasury that shows the US currently faces a future of chronic federal budget deficits totalling at least $44,200bn in current US dollars.
The study, the most comprehensive assessment of how the US government is at risk of being overwhelmed by the “baby boom” generation’s future healthcare and retirement costs, was commissioned by then-Treasury secretary Paul O’Neill.
But the Bush administration chose to keep the findings out of the annual budget report for fiscal year 2004, published in February, as the White House campaigned for a tax-cut package that critics claim will expand future deficits.
It seems that Florida has joined the bandwagon. Florida is considering lowering the required test scores on the FCAT needed to graduate. Florida’s solution is three tiered. The first tier would allow students to enter community college as long as they have a 2.0 GPA and have completed all of the required courses, even though they did not pass the FCAT. The students would then be required to take remedial classes before they take college level classes. Assuming they complete the requirements for an Associates Degree, they will be allowed to go on to a 4 year university and earn a Bachelors Degree, even though they never earned a High School diploma. The second tier would allow students who have moved to the state from another state or country to graduate provided that they have a 2.0 GPA and have completed all of the required couses, as long as they meet the graduation standards of the location where they previously lived. The third tier, which was originally designed for speakers of other languages, but is now available to any student will give a High School diploma to any student that scores above a minimum score on the ACT or SAT, even though state education administrators state that there is no relationship between the scores on the FCAT and the ACT/SAT. The minimum score for the SAT would be 370 verbal and 350 math.
Direct from the White House’s Office of Management and Budget about the FY2004 Budget.
THE REAL FISCAL DANGER
As noted frequently in this document, the federal government appears likely to spend more than it takes in for at least the next few years. Although the resulting deficits are manageable by any reasonable standard, they are cause for legitimate concern and attention. But whatever judgment one reaches about the deficit of this year or even the next several years combined, these deficits are tiny compared to the far larger built-in deficits that will be generated by structural problems in our largest entitlement programs. Social Security and Medicare combine to provide financial support to 39 million seniors-14 percent of our population-and account for one-third of total federal spending. As our population ages and health care costs continue to escalate, the costs of these programs will grow enormously, in fact, so rapidly that they will threaten to overwhelm the rest of the budget.
Donald Rumsfeld Seems to Think So
The basis of the invasion of Iraq was that Saddam Hussein posed an immediate threat to the United States because of his possession of WMDs. Now, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has stated that a reason that no WMDs have been found is because Hussein may have destroyed all of the WMDs prior to the war. If he destroyed the WMDs prior to the war and the U.S. knew he had WMDs prior to the war, then why didn’t the U.S. know that he destroyed the WMDs? Or did the current administration know this, but just neglected to pass that along to the American people?
Apparently, after merging with TimeWarner, AOL’s Steve Case is unhappy with the way the merger has turned out. He is now considering the idea of spinning off AOL into a standalone company. Is this another case of corporate greed gone bad? TimeWarner’s shares have gone from $56 at the time of the merger (May, 2001) to $14.71 today.
