FCC Approves Comcast Purchase of N B C

According to the Randy Rhodes show, the deal for Comcast to buy NBC – Universal has gone through. The FCC approved the deal. Unfortunately I can’t find confirmation of this story in any other news source. This means that for those with the misfortune of having Comcast cable their service on everything that isn’t NBC will be getting lousier and that NBC will have a constant preference. The opportunity for lots of price irregularities exists. But it all goes back to having a Net neutral internet. This is in grave jeopardy now. Too much power is in the hands of two few. It’s hard to say which is worse – a horizontal or vertical monopoly. When one company is involved in both the production and distribution of a product there are dangers. Some say that there is “product integration” and I don’t mean race. Since everything is handled by all one source who can coordinate their efforts, greater efficiency can be achieved. But I would not hold out any hope that such savings by the company will be passed on to the consumer. Unfortunately, this won’t be the last of merger-mania.

Cops are really obsessed with finding the cop shooter who is at large and presumably in the Los Angeles area. However I don’t see the point of that dragnet they set around nine schools in the Valley, with the campuses in lock-down way after school hours. They would not even allow the kids to walk home. The way cops see it anyone with the cajones to shoot a cop, would not hesitate at shooting anybody else.

Yesterday the House of Representatives voted by a wide margin to repeal the Health Care bill passed just ten months ago in its entirety. The repeal was by a bigger margin than when the original bill was passed. Even Democrats say the bill needs to be "fixed" like getting rid of some 1099 provision that business have to file when they make a purchase. On the other side even the Republicans say many of the provisions of the Health Care bill are worthy goals. But from my point of view the best thing is for the US Senate to follow suit and at least take up debate on the repeal. Starting over with a blank piece of paper doesn't seem at all a bad thing at this point. We need to enact things the Republicans want such as increasing competetion among insurance companies and "bending the cost curve" by not turning it into some contest to see how much money can blow on useless diagnostic tests ten days before the patient is set to die of something else entirely like that Sixty Minutes episode talked about. As to changing medical liability laws, I would treat softly here but even I think where might be ways of nibbling around the edges of outlandish jury awards. The only provision of the bill I really liked was the one about 80% of all insurance revenues has to go for medical care and not overhead or profit. I know there are anicdotal stories about various patients, children, with termanal diseases who are helped by this bill. I feel for those people but perhaps the media exposure they have gotten can facilitate getting private donations for their cause. There are a lot more people who will be hurt by this bill with increased costs and red tape all over the place.

They say that dementia is curable while Alsheimers is not, and only about half of the cases they used to call dementia are actually Alsheimers. Alsheimers is a disease with genetic markets. According to Laurie, people like myself who are into math would never get Alsheimers because we exercise our brain, and she says "studies have showing that a few minutes exercising your brain will keep you from getting the symptums of Alsheimers even if you have the genetic predisposition. Of course none of this helped Ronald Reagan. Now we have the case of the feuding sons, Michael and Ron. Ron just came out with a book saying Reagan had Alsheimers as early as the 1984 reelection campaign and perhaps if it had been diagnosed he wouldn't have run and we've be spared all that Iran-Contra stuff. From my own observations, I didn't think Ronald Reagan seemed as "aware" in that campaign as he had been in the past. Michael isn't taking his brother's book well at all but is lashing out at him. If your a conservative, even the recitation of facts is seen as treason.

I guess if the Jets win this weekend it will be the first time the NY Jets will have been in the superbowl since 1969. For a team that has already accomplished the impossible, the merely difficult doesn’t seem that hard. Good luck. The Orion Federation is backing the Bears.

They had one of those White House state dinners with President Hoo as the honored guest being treated to al all American surf and turf dinner with apple pie for desert. Unfortunately the rhetoric is a little harder to swallow. President Hoo out of deference to his host agreed more strides needed to be made in human rights in his country and he agreed to cooperate on such transcendent issues as Global Warming. Still I doubt that Chairman Hoo will be so deferentially treated by Nancy Palosi when she meets with him today. The trade deficit with China has exploded in just the past decade with Bush taking over and is now in excess of 250 Billion after being six million in 1981 when Ronald Reagan took office. If I were president for the sake of American price I would be more forceful in stating the American position and risk rocking the economic boat. Like I say the Chinese like things the way they are and I see little risk at all of their pulling the economic plus on us by withdrawing loans or “putting the squeeze on us”. They know we have other alternatives and national necessity would mandate these.