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FCC Approves Media Consolidation
evenprime writes "You can expect more media consolidation in the future. CBS is reporting that the FCC has approved the media deregulation that was previously discussed on Slashdot. Expect Clear Channel, Viacom and their kin to get bigger, and the radio to have even less diversity (a situation that some people think is responsible for falling CD sales)."
I gave up watching TV and listening to the radio long ago. There's simply nothing good on anymore, and the radio has been crap for years. I'm sure many of you feel the same way.
RaGe
We're all just noise on the wires..
It's strange indeed that the over-the-air broadcasters successfully complained about the threat of cable, when GE, Disney, Viacom and Fox are hip-deep in cable properties themselves. Gotta love them lobbyists!
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
Perhaps it will be up to PBS to step up and become a real news source much like NPR is on the radio. (True NPR as its own biases, but they seem much less pronounced than any of my alternatives.)
Has Powell, at ANY point, actually outlined how he thinks that allowing for further broadcast television consolidation will help it compete with cable? I could have SWORN the main reason people get cable was for the diversity of the programming.
Bush: He's Liberal in all the wrong ways.
Fine by me. In fact, maybe more than fine. If the entire modern entity that is radio wants to specialize and specialize further, when tech changes enough, they're gonna fall hard, just like any other entity that adapts itself to one set of conditions and attempts to preserve it.
Tweet, tweet.
With media conglomerations owning local channels, there is no incentive to provide news with a local slant. Thus, no one will hear about local issues. Since (thanks to the incredible human intelligence) nothing exists unless we see/hear it, small cities will cease to exist. I say that only partially in jest, but think about how many local issues that get squashed because it conflicts with a more profitable (in the minds of the corporate master) slant? Local environmental impact? Oh, no. Mustn't give that airtime lest it impact the profit machines in the big cities. Also, how about this for a twist on the first amendment? Condider offensive material. People in different areas have different standards, and THAT'S OK. If your city believes that the Golden Girls are the harem of Satan, it should be able to keep Golden Girl re-runs off their local stations. More power to'em. We shouldn't force global culture to be homogenous, even in the name of "Free Speech" and equal access. Ahh... yet more reasons for rejoicing in our household. We have taken our media budget (TV, movies, etc...) and plowed it into books and other activities.
The party in power has now purchased 24/7 favorable media coverage in the upcoming election - and didn't have to spend a dime. How about them apples, Senator McCain and Senator Feingold?
Everyone will start to cheer when you put on your sailin' shoes.
uhhh, hey retard. The peeps at the top will be paying less, not getting more.
Your college prof's taught you this was bad because their subsidized by the federal government. And kiddies like you just eat up their lies.
Soon, there will only be a single, united group of consolidated conglomerates, where it will be impossible to discern if what you are watching is entertainment, news, or just a clever marketing ploy. The saddest part of all is that the average citizen doesn't know or care. From American Idol to soundalike "Gangsta Rap," -trademark used by permission of ClearChannel - it is a seamless integration into our culture, where we are being trained by the richest 1% to be complacent with whatever is produced. The ultimate goal is to turn our lives into an MTV frenzy.
And it is working.
During the Iraq war I heard it said that the Iraqis had state run media, controlled entirely by the government.
We have corporate controlled media. Which is worse, I wonder?
Like figuring out which dildo hurts least going in...
The BBC is a government subsidized quasi-monopoly. Using the BBC as a good example when it comes to media consolidation is abolsutely stupid, since they stand for what we are NOT wanting to happen to US media.
Jukebox Jihad
That whole comment and the "What would Elvis do to stop piracy?" really annoys me to death. The Jihad comment for taking the word of the month (you know, terror, evil people, so on, so forth), and appling it to something that doesn't relate in the least.
Why doesn't the industry start talking about real leaks in their profits? Bad press for suing kids for $97 billion comes to mind, a price fixing scandal in the mid 90's gets on that list too, but above all, the state of music, the state of repetative crap that continues to be put out... it's like if 31 flavors determined that most people liked choclate and vanilla. You could get those two and only those two flavors at the counter. The others were still available, but you would have to go to black-market 31 flavors to enjoy it, all the while being called a criminal for spending money you never would have spent if you never made the effort to look for more flavors in the first place.
The industry must nevertheless also content itself with conducting business on a more modest scale, painful though the process might be. No one needs to spend in excess of $40 million on a record, as Sony did with Michael Jackson's 2001 flop, Invincible, for instance, when the White Stripes can muster a hit record for $10,000.
That's because the White Stripes is good, and Michael Jackson is getting old. By the way, I like how they skip mentioning that the "flop" sold many millions of records, just not on the same scale as previous, and I don't believe that "Elephant" (latest White Stripes) has cracked 1 million sold anywhere yet...
SecondPageMedia - Wha
When I hear a good song on the radio, I quickly get a pen to write the title down. But guess what? They never name it. Another cd sale lost.
Only the most popular (top ten) singles are treated fairly (artist and title given).
I know I can use the numerous electronic appliances sucha as sattelite tv ) that will enable this but simple radio is much more mainstream.
I know the radio sucks, but I had no idea that the record industry felt the same way.
The music industry hates radio monopoly for the same reason consumers do -- if you own all the stations, it's a lot easier to demand more payola^H^H^H^H^Hmarketing support from the record companies, since they can't shop their product around to other stations as easily.
But don't worry, someone *cough*Disney*cough*AOL-TW*cough* will figure out that if you own the labels and the stations, it's an even better deal.
just my two cents:
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1c: shit
2c: shit
and an extra dollar as a tip:
shitshitsh itshitshits hitshits hitshits hitshitshitshitsh itshitshitshits hits hitshitshitshitshit shitshitshitsh itshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshi
america is certainly leading the way.
i'm going to invest in a bomb shelter in a few years, starting up a eco-collective and ignore the rest of the suffering world.
considering what huge impact media has, this seems like another nail in the coffin of whatever free speech remained in the states.
i'm sure the rest of the world will soon follow.
now we can all just sit back and enjoy the war with eurasia.
crap. i'm going back to reading sci-fi, and pretending the rest of this shit-for-brains world doesn't exist.
f64 : ranting and raving at the same time!
option 1: don't despair, organize! option 2: resistance is futile, despair!
The agency was also six months behind on completing its biennial review. Under a congressional law, the FCC is supposed to revisit its media rules every two years. ... and some urged the agency to ignore its deadline.
Revisiting the rules so frequently gives too much opportunity for rules to relax to quickly.
It's like continually asking the question "were we right?", then rolling the dice.
It's a complex issue, requiring lots of information to be collected and assessed. If this is rushed, it makes it too easy to make a bad call.
To badly paraphrase "the progress of a society cannot be increased just by speeding it up".
I think the Ents had it right.
Esteem isn't a zero sum game
Is that this is a good thing for content producers. Think of it this way:
When consumers major media outlets completely cease to produce anything other than plain gelatin in terms of content, who will fill the void? More and more media choices are available every day. Even through the mainstream channel of cable and satellite options, there are more choices and more content produced.
When people find something creative and appealing, it will give a leg up on the regurgitated reality fare offered by the major players.
Anyone who thinks that they get the straight scoop from any major outlets - NY Times, Washington Post, CNN, Fox News, slashdot.... - needs to have their preconceptions evaluated.
The future of broadcasting is not to be found in the major media outlets. They will be left behind by the next generation of media. It's coming, and making programming more mindless will only hasten the death of TV as we know it.
This could be a great thing.
Respectfully,
Anomaly
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
Well, there were the married people making between $10,500 and $26,000 who thought they'd be seeing the increase in the child tax credit... but aren't. Sucks to be them, huh? Hah-hah!
Ooh, ooh, or those single parents filing as head-of-the-household who won't see a drop in their tax rate. Serves them right for not living like normal God-fearing people!
I say, hand me another Benjamin, Jeeves: I need to light my cigar.
AHHHHHHH! I'm burning with goodness again!
- Reakk, Sluggy Freelance
...and no rules to bind them...
Gee, and why should they? After all, companies know what's best for the consumer, right? Hey, I want all of my news and entertainment to come from just a couple companies who can disseminate their news, products and viewpoints, that way we are not so confused by different sides of reality.
I'll tell ya folks, the truth is about to become muddier to the average citizen, and yet much more difficult to discern for those that actually are interested in the truth.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
we're not cattle, but well suscepteable to mass marketing, which is what media outlets are being used for.
it's not a lack of free will, but it's well funded persuasion. and it works terribly well.
in short: any deregulation of any market, leads to monopolies, and a deregulation of the media market leads to control of a majority of people.
f64 : quite in despair over the state of the world
IIRC, the big complaint on the tax cuts is that people that do not pay income taxes are not getting any money out of the deal. I am quite puzzled that this arguement can escape from a Liberal Arts department or a Workers World Party meeting (yes, that was redundant).
The whole argument (against income tax cuts) is that it is "giving something to someone", which is obviously false. An absence of taking is not giving.
Perhaps we should give every person that does not pay income taxes $1,000,000.00 using the same logic,i.e., if it is not taken it is a gift, and all will be well?
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
Here in the Philadelphia area we have stations like WXPN as well as a plether of college radio. Between those stations and NPR, I don't even bother with comcerial stations.
Many cities have the like, find something in your area and support it.
If all else fails, join WHYY / NPR.
The BBC do have the advantage that they're a government-funded public service, rather than a profit-making business. In the worst case, that'd make them as bad as you describe, but they seem to have avoided that.
:-)
(They do have pretty serious competition on mainstream TV from the commercial ITV and Channel 4, although commercial radio is bad enough here that the BBC wins by default)
They're often rather critical of the government, actually, and in many disputes they're accused of being biased by both sides, which might well mean they're uncomfortably close to being balanced.
It's amusing to see the grandparent post commenting on Radio 1's larger playlists though, since some of the Radio 1 DJs have been known to complain (subtly, of course) about the commercial crap they're made to play. I hate to think what Clear Channel must be like if that's an improvement
It's no more independent than any other media. In fact, the BBC was charged by one of their own reporters of skewing the news coverage of the Iraq war.
Thus continues the fall of America into bland mediocrity, and that is at best. I wouldn't be surprised if they manage to kill the new Low Power FM (LPFM) regulation next.
So it seems that the internet will continue to be the only source or real news and music anymore.
Hopefully people will finally get sick of the drudge TV and radio have become and demand things be put back the way they were. I mean seriously, look at what crap cable is now.
I have Time Warner Cable in Cincinatti, the standard cable and it makes me want to puke.
I get a few local channels which of course play crap. I've got CSPAN which comes in full of bars in the image, not that I watch that anyway unless I need to get to sleep fast. I've got three religious channels, which to 95% of the world is unwatchably boring, not to mention I'm not Christian anyway. I've got two PBS channels, which probably are better viewing than most the rest of it put together. A few crap movie channels like TBS and TNN and TNT. Discover channel, comedy central, cartoon network and news. That is IT. Oh and I have nine channels above 70 which show a test pattern 24/7, one of which has someone chanting the local weather over it. I pay about $40 a month for this "privilage".
If it were not the only way to get high speed internet where I am at, I would not even fucking bother with cable. I only wish I had enough techy neighbors to get a bunch of us together and buy our own T1 and set up a wireless neighborhood access point... Sadly, all my neighbors tech expertise ends at giving their John Deere an oil change.
--Won't that be grand? Computers and the programs will start thinking and the people will stop. - Dr. Walter Gibbs
Too many people are discussing this as though the problem is what it does to diversity. It's not that it will make it harder to find good music (it's already nearly impossible) or that you won't hear a wide enough diversity of opinion (you already don't). It's not about consumer rights, it's about democracy. Concentrated ownership allows them to lie unchallenged. Even if the lies are caught and publicised on political websites, etc., the majority will never hear anything but the lies. Exit democracy, exit a functioning republic.
Behold the riant ape! Beware, his crooked thumbs!
How easy is it to collude amongst 100 people/corporations vs. how easy is it to collude amongst 5?
Think of a standard bell curve -- how reliably does a sample count of 5 map to a curve vs. a sample count of 20? Of 100?
How is the public served by having diminishing points of view? How is the FCC doing is job to protect PUBLIC interests when public opinion is massively against these actions?
AHHHHHHH! I'm burning with goodness again!
- Reakk, Sluggy Freelance
Actually, it's conservative economists that seem to be screaming the loudest about George II's tax plan.
The stated purpose of this plan is to jumpstart the economy. The ultra-wealthy don't do most of the spending, working stiffs do. It makes much more sense to give an immediate moral boost to the nation at large by allowing many more people to go on a spending spree.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Wow, I didn't realize the FCC just banned anyone from owning a radio station except those five evil corporations. What is the timetable in the FCC regulation for the police and military to storm the independent radio stations, nationalize them and then give them to the "big five?"
You can tell a great deal about the character of a man by observing those who hate him.
What exactly have you seen/heard/read during the administration of the FCC by Michael Powell that would indicate to you that any decision they've ever made was done to serve the public interest?
That's fine for Fox to refuse certain ads, in the current environment anyway. Now imagine a future where Newscorp or clearchannel or disney owns 98% of a market - they will control all info. You won't even know what the issues are because you will never hear about them.
The internet is inadequate for solving this problem. Start looking for the "friendly cooperation" links - like the WashPost/Newsweek/MSNBC cluster. Nice, eh? The truth is that Big Media controls a lot of the internet too. Popular exceptions are rare - Drudge Report, for instance - but often lack "credibility" in the minds of many.
Oh, please. Government subsidized means catering to the people who control the purse string in government.
This is absolutely amazing. Out of one half of their mouths, slashdotters scream government corruption and tyranny (read patriot act) and out of the other half of their mouths preach that only the government can be trusted with stewardship of the media.
You can tell a great deal about the character of a man by observing those who hate him.
I don't want to say too much right now, because I feel betrayed and I am at the day job. IANACS (I am not a constitutional scholar), but given my limited knowledge, the FCC is supposed to REGULATE wireless communication in the name of the public and for the public good. This is because the airwaves are PUBLIC property. My hope is that people will wake up soon, but I fear this is not going to happen, since conventional wisdom states that most people get their news from one of these major corporations that stands to gain from media consolidation. Strangely enough most people I know don't it seems, maybe I just spend time with like-minded individuals. I was going to make this a completely cynical comment, but several ideas give me hope. 1. People will wake up and realize something is amiss. I believe the people of America can only stomach so much, before they take action. 2. There are still plenty of community driven media outlets, and I think people DO pay attention to them. 3. These companies will get so big they will trip over themselves, and I think this is already happening. Recent Examples of #3: Nullsoft's WASTE Sony Entertainment vs. Sony Electronics Of course, people I associate with may just happen to be more media savvy than most people. It is very likely that the mind of the average American is being underestimated. This issue really makes me want to ask some difficult questions of the powers that be. I may have some more insight into this after listening to the media center staff and board tomorrow morning. Stay Tuned. I'm going back to doing my day job. Disclaimer: I work for a community media center.
There were several available online petitions to simply fillout and click to submit--how many of us actually bothered?
Not happy with biased news? Tired of being handed opinions rather than facts? Well, if you stood by and did nothing, stop whining and eat the pile of poo you actually helped create.
Liberty isn't free. We need to be vigilant and consistently take sensible action before tyrants take over out of pure self-interest.
So stop your whining on Slashdot until you actually do something constructive like contacting your representatives to tell them this issue will decide how you vote in elections.
I expect to get my news from an aggregate/agent from many sources. These sources/feeds will be a combination of subscription/ad driven/professional reporting/blog. They will be a blend of text/audio/video from fast (realtime) and slow (downloaded) connections.
I doubt very much that I'll be able to distinguish between what was a newspaper, television, or radio station.
I see the current rules as a being very irrelevant in 5-10 years.
I don't think you understand that Clear Channel doesn't some how magically come and and steal away stations. The VAST majority of stations that Clear Channel buys are stations that are near or completely in the toilet. Im not saying all of the stations...but definitely most. Do some research and get an understanding of todays media and financial world before posting something so weak.
These neo-Conservatives work on the belief that an unrestricted market will be the cure for all ills, yet the closer we get to this situation - the worse everything is! A market that relies on a government enforced artificial monopoly will never be unrestricted. If they really wanted the airwaves to be an unrestricted market, they should let anyone broadcast without restriction.
Lower income people DO pay taxes. Lower income people pay a greater percentage of their income in taxes than rich, just ask warren buffet.
Warren Says Bush Tax Cut is Stupid
Even the rich are against this tax cut, they dont WANT the money and they flat out tell people they wont spend it.
Personally, I think we should do away with income tax completely. Instead, tax the goods that people consume.
I completely agree with that. But if we taxed the goods, people would consume less and the economy would slow down. It depends on the percentage of tax on each good, but currently states do tax goods.
"Those that buy the goods pay the taxes on them. More expensive items, same tax rate, but more is paid."
Thats already done, so I guess we need to raise taxes in this area, fine, but I think the income tax should still exist.
Anyway the tax cut is bad, the worlds richest people know more about the economy than you, if warren buffet says hes not going to spend the money and to give it to the poor, why the hell dont you listen to him? Hes going to get most of the tax cut anyway.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
What is with the bias against large companies? It always amazes me that almost everyone on Slashdot is against any large company simply BECAUSE it's a large company. What's so bad with a large company controlling more of what you see and hear? Think about it logically... which might be tough for some of you government-school-educated youngsters...
A company is concerned with profit. Profit comes from customers. Customers come from people that are pleased with what you provide. If you don't please people with what you provide, you don't get customers, and you don't make a profit. If you don't make a profit, you go out of business, and someone else takes your place. The Big Corporations aren't the enemy... the public is the enemy. If the public is diversified enough to demand more variety in their television and radio, then the Big Corporations will create more programming to suit those needs. If those needs aren't being filled, a new company will be formed to fill them (and at worst, the Big Corporation will buy the small company when it becomes a menace to their profits, but the Big Corporation will keep the programming that made them successful, thus increasing their profit).
I don't see how politics has anything to do with the FCC's decision, but as long as you bring it up, nobody said anything when ABC, CBS, and NBC were the only stations in the market, so why worry now that Fox (and Rupert Murdoch) are becoming successful? Again, the law of supply and demand kicks in.
Step 1: Demand conservative-biased news reporting.
Step 2: Supply conservative-biased news reporting.
Step 3: Profit!
Why is this so difficult to understand? With all the coverage it's getting, you can hardly say that the "current regime" is "NOT interested in anything that might produce news media that isn't 100% behind" them. It's the simplest of economic rules and it's been working since the dawn of time, yet you continue to put the political spin on it. Why are you so afraid of a little competition from someone who obviously understand economics?
"It's better to have a gun and not need it than need a gun and not have it." ~ Christian Slater, True Romance
This surprised me not at all.
A few years back, when Murdoch was a Canadian citizen, he tried to get British Peerage, which is illegal for Canadians and so was blocked by the Prime Minister. This did not please Murdoch and so the issue became front-page news on the National Post, the Canadian national newspaper he'd founded not long before. That's right--he used his newspaper chain as a venue for a temper tantrum. (IIRC, Murdoch eventually gave up Canadian citizenship so he could get his lordship. Good riddance, I say.)
More seriously, he also ordered all of his papers to run editorials opposing a particular major land-claim settlement with various First Nations groups.
And then, there was the town that got so pissed off at him that they started their own local newspaper.
Anyway, y'all had best start investing in printing presses and broadcast licenses. The only way you'll get decent media now is if you make it yourselves.
The entire POINT of a free press is NOT to act as a cheerleader or supporter of the government. It is supposed to be a semi-4th tier to government, independent of of the government, watching the government and providing information, not propaganda from the government.
The big media moguls are, to a man, conservative. They only accept conservative slanted news, conservative opinion pieces, and pro-business pieces. They only care about profit, not telling the truth, not providing a bullshit detector for the people against the government - unless the government isn't inclined to give bags of tax giveaways, special business deals (cronyism ala Haliburton), and other special dispensation to big business. Then they can be counted on to support...wait, that simply means once again that they support only a conservative agenda. They have no interest in objectivity nor in getting a balanced view to the people, like it used to be.
Big Corporations are automagically in bed with conservative politics and political figures. Anything they support is automatically against the interest of the many (the People) and in favor of the bank book of a few CEOs and other members of the board. Big business is automatically against freedom, alternative views, even objective views (because it is objectively bad to pollute, no matter what, for instance, so an objective view of that fact is anathema to Big Business because it impacts the bottom line).
Name a single Big Corporation that supports free expression, the improvement of those with less instead of furthering those who already have everything, are pro-environment, anti-pollution, etc, etc. They do not exist. Hell, the stockholders of Exxon, an evil company if ever there was one, voted for $$$ instead of the most logical and sensible and GOOD thing...healthy environment and the inevitable future: developing more "green" energy. Big Business is anathema to life in general.
Repeat after me: Money \= happiness. Lots of money is not better than clean air, water, and open space. There are more important things in life than $$$.
In Bushworld, they struggle to keep church and state separate in Iraq as they increasingly merge the two in America.
The Limbot is invited to tell me just what kind of "ultraliberalism" a Fortune 50 company is likely to sponsor. He is also invited to tell me about how liberal Warren Buffet is (owner of Berkshire, owner of whe Washington Post.
The whining about the "ultra-liberal" mass media used to come from conservatives.
The mass media isn't ultra-conservative, they're the same people who promote and broadcast and sell the entertainment content that the Religious Right whine about.
The proper description for the agenda of both PBS and the mass media is corporatist. The agenda is about social control via news management for the benefit of the people who buy advertising, and that isn't your average "progressive" group and that isn't the average limbot.
Tech Public Policy stuff
What obvious things happened after the telecom deregulation in 1996?
1. Cable prices went up and I (along with many others) don't have any choice in selecting a cable provider.
This shows that deregulation doesn't always increase competition and benefit consumers. In fact, it had the opposite effect!!!
2. Companies like Clear Channel now own 1,200+ radio stations rather than the previous limit of 40.
And you say larger media companies will get smaller as a result of deregulation? Your conclusion directly contradicts recent and verifiable history. How exactly did you form your conclusion? Did you pull it out of your ass and hope people would buy it simply to avoid being labeled a "paranoid"? The "if you disagree with me then you must be a conspiracy theorist" argument was overused for years and lost its impact on people who can see through bullshit.
3. Clear Channel stopped playing Dixie Chicks for making a political statement that management did not agree with.
This is a verifiable example of how censorship can occur when media companies get very large. Other artists with similar opinions obviously got the message they'd better clam up or risk losing airtime.
And whether we agree or not with the Dixie Chicks is totally irrelevant--actually UNDERSTANDING and DEFENDING the Constitution of the USA is what is important for true American citizens. You did read the entire Constitution at least once, right?
While I disagree strongly with your opinions and obviously incorrect statements, I will fight to defend your right to express them.
Again, the best reasonable guess as to what will happen as a result of this deregulation is to look at recent history regarding similar events like the Telecommunication Act of 1996.
Stop being a liberal or a conservative: be rational and exercise common sense.
"... Customers come from people that are pleased with what you provide. If you don't please people with what you provide, you don't get customers, and you don't make a profit. If you don't make a profit, you go out of business, and someone else takes your place... "
Exactly. So why are the big few media companies grovelling to the gov't to change the rules? Because they provide crap and expect people to be happy with that. Instead people turn off the radio/TV (or don't buy the brain dead newspaper unless they have a bird that needs a cage change). Then the big corp. cries that they can't be competitive without inhaling whatever small stations are giving them competition.
The people own the air waves in the U.S. and the media is supposed to serve our needs, not the other way around. Or they have the option of not providing the service and they can go out of business. I guess that's the capitalist way - I just looked it up in my copy of "Selfish Greed 101".
Penguins are so sensitive to my needs - Lyle Lovett
~Conspiracy theorist always complain about consolidation with claims that it "hurts competition" or "raises prices". But in many cases it does lower costs and lowers prices for consumers.
OK, Let me know when was the last time your Cable bill, or DSL bill dropped for the unmetered services (basic charges)?
"the difference between myself and a madman is that I am not mad" -Salvadore Dali
I never said I valued profit over truth. I said that nobody would start a news agency that had no ability to make a profit.
The concept you don't seem to understand is that with competition, each news network will check the rest, thus preventing any incredible failures in communicating truth. If you're an exec at MSNBC and FNC makes a grave error and reports that Osama Bin Laden has been killed, and you can prove they're wrong, don't you think you would? You'd gain an edge over the competition, bringing in more viewers, and more potential customers... eventually equaling more profit. Don't you think that's the point of starting a national news channel?
"It's better to have a gun and not need it than need a gun and not have it." ~ Christian Slater, True Romance
If the big media is "leftist" then:
- Why are the REPUBICANS blocking restoring the "Fairness Doctrine?"
- Why are the REPUBLICAN members of the FCC voting FOR the big companies and the Democrats against?
- When was the last time you saw a representative of the union movement on TV?
- Why is every single AM radio station right-wing?
The FCC commissioners who voted for this only care about what Bush tells them to do. Bush cares what his political campaign contributors and spin doctors and handlers tell him to do.
Where did you get the idea that Bush cares what we think?
Tech Public Policy stuff
To supply the "if you're wondering" part that seems to have gotten lost. Global warming and ozone depletion have nothing to do with each other, all it takes is some homework and/or a basic knowledge of chemestry to know this.
In very simplified brief terms, and devoid of complexities that would require a physics lesson:
Ozone depletion:
Cause: Breakdown of the Ozone (O3) molecule caused, in large part, by man-made chemicals that have made their way to the upper atmosphere.
Effect: Ozone 'blocks' (I'm skipping the physics lesson) Ultra Violet radiation, less Ozone = more UV. High levels of UV radiation are harmful to essentially all life on earth because UV radiation can cause celular damage.
Greenhouse effect:
Cause: Increase in atmospheric gases which act as an insulational layer for the earth. To grossly simplify, (fractional)absorption and re-emission of Infra Red radiation that would normally escape into space, so that it instead is re-emmited back toward earth. Heavy industry has caused larger levels of "greenhouse gases" to be released into the atmosphere then normally occur in nature.
Effect: Global temperature increases by a small amount, amount may be large enough to effect systems in unstable equilibrium, or those which are near boundry conditions.
Granted, it would be highly unlikely for conditions to accur that would result in the total melting of the polar ice caps. But that's not what's important.
What's important is that with the following words "a whole 300 feet. No big loss." You completely destroy any creditability you ever had.
Stop and think for a minute how many major world cities are at LESS then 300 feet of elevation?
I suppose "No big loss" is a subjective value call, but I think the majority of people would consider the loss of the majority of major cities in the world, as a big loss.
Building a better backup.
Zettabyte Storage