Month: May 2003

FCC rule changes

ABC’s Frisco station, KGO-TV, had a little get-together for the national audience with Peter Jennings and a bunch of local media folks (the PG&E guy from the Bay Guardian, local news anchor Pete Wilson, an ethnic media guy, the deputy editor of the Frisco Comical, and Barbara Simpson, the right-wing talk radio “Babe in the … Continue reading “FCC rule changes”

ABC’s Frisco station, KGO-TV, had a little get-together for the national audience with Peter Jennings and a bunch of local media folks (the PG&E guy from the Bay Guardian, local news anchor Pete Wilson, an ethnic media guy, the deputy editor of the Frisco Comical, and Barbara Simpson, the right-wing talk radio “Babe in the Bunker”) and a live studio audience.

One of the subjects was the proposed FCC rule changes that will allow more consolidation. So obviously, this discussion didn’t happen, because if it did there could be no Blackout. Seriously, it was the one issue that all panelists agreed on, left, right, center, and loony: bad, bad, bad. It was as if you had proposed privatizing the schools to a meeting of the teachers’ union.

Which leads me to believe it must be a good idea.

I was wrong

A couple of days ago, I claimed Lawrence Lessig had censored a comment I left on his blog. He protested that he’d done no such thing, and in fact allowed me to leave the comment. So I do believe Prof. Lessig is telling the truth and I misconstrued a software or network problem as censorship. … Continue reading “I was wrong”

A couple of days ago, I claimed Lawrence Lessig had censored a comment I left on his blog. He protested that he’d done no such thing, and in fact allowed me to leave the comment. So I do believe Prof. Lessig is telling the truth and I misconstrued a software or network problem as censorship.

I was wrong to impugn Prof. Lessig’s honor, and I apologize.

WiFi Bubble

Business Week online has an interesting article about over-hyped WiFi: A year ago, Sean Marzola was the CEO of one of Silicon Valley’s hottest Wi-Fi startups. Embedded Wireless Devices in Pleasanton, Calif., had set out to design chips for Wi-Fi (wireless fidelity) access points — “hot spots” — that permit wireless Internet access within a … Continue reading “WiFi Bubble”

Business Week online has an interesting article about over-hyped WiFi:

A year ago, Sean Marzola was the CEO of one of Silicon Valley’s hottest Wi-Fi startups. Embedded Wireless Devices in Pleasanton, Calif., had set out to design chips for Wi-Fi (wireless fidelity) access points — “hot spots” — that permit wireless Internet access within a radius of 300 feet. But about 18 weeks before EWD’s first product could start being manufactured, investors pulled the plug. Last August, EWD quietly closed its doors, leaving Marzola an entrepreneur without a home.

Note to venture capitalists: If you’re funding WiFi chips, you’ve been had. Intel, Broadcom, TI, Intersil, and Samsung will own this market, not foundry-less startups. You’ve been warned.

Politics of Dead Children

You know the story: the sanctions against Iraq (now lifted, praise Allah) caused the deaths of millions of innocent Iraqi babies. Only it’s not true, as the Iraqi doctors are now free to say: Under the sanctions regime, “We had the ability to get all the drugs we needed,” said Ibn Al-Baladi’s chief resident, Dr. … Continue reading “Politics of Dead Children”

You know the story: the sanctions against Iraq (now lifted, praise Allah) caused the deaths of millions of innocent Iraqi babies. Only it’s not true, as the Iraqi doctors are now free to say:

Under the sanctions regime, “We had the ability to get all the drugs we needed,” said Ibn Al-Baladi’s chief resident, Dr. Hussein Shihab. “Instead of that, Saddam Hussein spent all the money on his military force and put all the fault on the USA. Yes, of course the sanctions hurt – but not too much, because we are a rich country and we have the ability to get everything we can by money. But instead, he spent it on his palaces.”

Saddam ordered dead baby bodies refrigerated so they could be used as propaganda.

Thank you, Molly Ivins

A reader on BuzzMachine… by Jeff Jarvis makes the following astute observation on Molly Ivins, Texas’ answer to Bob Scheer: Until her dying day, Molly will never, never, ever get over the 1994 Texas gubenatorial election, so any comments she makes about U.S. policy, domestic (where at least she’s consistant) or foreign have to be … Continue reading “Thank you, Molly Ivins”

A reader on BuzzMachine… by Jeff Jarvis makes the following astute observation on Molly Ivins, Texas’ answer to Bob Scheer:

Until her dying day, Molly will never, never, ever get over the 1994 Texas gubenatorial election, so any comments she makes about U.S. policy, domestic (where at least she’s consistant) or foreign have to be seen in that light. If Bush did it, she’s against it, and one of these days, everyone else will see the light and Ann Richards will be avenged.

(Ironically, thanks to Molly’s connections to some of the key media elites due to her past work with the New York Times and current writings in publications like The Nation, too many media people out of New York and Washington have, since the mid-1980s, gone to Ms. Ivins for the inside stuff on what Texans are really thinking, which given Texas’ political leanings, is about like going to former New York City mayoral candidate William F. Buckley, Jr., to get the hot tips on the inner workings of the New York City Council. But that’s what they did in the late ’90s trying to get a handle on Bush, and its also when Molly coined the term “Shrub” and pretty much helped fix the image in many minds that Bush was an idiot, which helped cause the Gore campaign to “misunderestimate” him in the 2000 election.

Had Molly not had so much animus towards GWB over the ’94 election and had said to her friends outside of Texas, “Watch out for this guy, he’s craftier than he looks and sounds,” there’s a strong possibility the Gore people would have done a better job from the start of the campaign and Al would have been elected president. So Karl Rove ought to slip a few extra bucks in Ms. Ivin’s direction for her contribution to putting Bush over the top, and making the liberation of Iraq possible.)

Posted by John at May 22, 2003 05:44 PM

Word.

Canard-o-Matic

Stefan Sharkansky has done an amazing feat of research in the Robert Scheer Canard-o-Matic, a chart of the repetitive set of canards that recur in Scheer’s columns. Like any good citizen, Scheer recycles. Or maybe he composts, I’m not sure.

Stefan Sharkansky has done an amazing feat of research in the Robert Scheer Canard-o-Matic, a chart of the repetitive set of canards that recur in Scheer’s columns.

Like any good citizen, Scheer recycles. Or maybe he composts, I’m not sure.

Blackout Myth

The usual suspects (Lessig, Salon, Gillmor, free software blogs) are floating a myth to the effect that Big Media are hiding proposed FCC rule changes from their viewers. Let’s see what we can find in five minutes of looking for the story. MSNBC: Broad media ownership rules floated ABC: Fed Ruling Could Make More Media … Continue reading “Blackout Myth”

The usual suspects (Lessig, Salon, Gillmor, free software blogs) are floating a myth to the effect that Big Media are hiding proposed FCC rule changes from their viewers. Let’s see what we can find in five minutes of looking for the story.

MSNBC: Broad media ownership rules floated

ABC: Fed Ruling Could Make More Media Monoliths

CBS: Media Giants Want Room to Grow

CNN: nothing.

Fox News: FCC Proposal Would Ease Media Ownership Restrictions

Another myth bites the dust.

Now what about the rules? The criticism generally makes the same point, whether it’s from conservative Bill Safire or Bushwacking Salon: fewer voices. Given that we only have two today – Fox News and the rest of the right against the East Coast Establishment and the rest of the left – I don’t really see that happening. Media companies are still going to compete for eyeballs, and if there’s only one media company in the world, then departments are going to compete for eyeballs. So that doesn’t persuade me.

There are some potential benefits that could come from more streamlined and efficient news-gathering, however. To give one example, you used to be able to get fairly decent coverage of state government from TV, radio, and print almost anywhere in California, but today you only get it from the Sacramento Bee. Oh, the LA Times, the Frisco Comical, The Union Trib, the Register, the CC Times, and the Murky News put up a front, but their coverage is episodic and incoherent to all but insiders who’ve been studying for years.

If the Bee were part of a conglomerate that included papers in LA and Frisco, their Sacramento coverage would be part of the deal, and if they were connected to TV and radio stations, it would probably penetrate to the mass audience that doesn’t read a daily paper.

News companies used to live and die by local and regional stories, depending on wire services for state, national, and global coverage, but the wire services aren’t cutting it any more, for reasons I don’t entirely understand. So our media is moving in a new direction, where news companies depend more on broadly-based audience for news with a particular attitude. So you’ve got your Fox News fans with their conservative point of view and your ABC News fans with their progressive point of view, happily enjoying news that reinforces their beliefs. So markets are defined differently these days, thanks to cable and satellite and the Internet, than they were in the days when the existing FCC rules were drafted, and that’s just a fact.

Having invested money in researching and reporting a story, why shouldn’t Fox and ABC be able to present it to radio and newspaper audiences as well as their TV audience? After all, these are just different delivery vehicles serving the same public. Outside the US, the myth of impartial news has no standing; you know when you pick up a paper in France, the UK, or India where its bias lies, and you interpret accordingly.

This isn’t too much for the poorly-educated American public to do for themselves.

Another interesting aspect of this story is the criticism of the belief that the Internet can ever be a check on the networks. The Internet can’t, in its present form, deliver broadcast-quality audio and video, but isn’t this exactly as the very critics of “MediaCon” have said they wanted it to remain? (I’m referring to the “World of Ends” concept that the Internet is perfect and shouldn’t be improved.)

An enhanced Internet capable of carrying broadcast-quality programming is a technical possibility. If we were to have that, what would the objection to relaxed FCC rules then become? There has to be one, because bigger is always badder, in this analysis, even when it isn’t.

Atkins might be good for you

ABC News reports on a study of the Atkins Diet: And while the authors caution that additional research is needed, they also discovered an increase in high-density lipoprotein (HDL), or “good” cholesterol and a decrease in serum triglycerides among dieters in the Atkins group. Those results are positive because low HDL and high triglyceride levels … Continue reading “Atkins might be good for you”

ABC News reports on a study of the Atkins Diet:

And while the authors caution that additional research is needed, they also discovered an increase in high-density lipoprotein (HDL), or “good” cholesterol and a decrease in serum triglycerides among dieters in the Atkins group. Those results are positive because low HDL and high triglyceride levels increase an individual’s risk of developing heart disease.

While it’s no better than other diets for long-term weight loss, it could be better for the heart.

Latent fascism

Lawrence Lessig deleted a comment I left on his blog about this phony claim of his: Remember, we had to increase our term to harmonize with the rest of the world; now the administration is pushing the rest of the world to increase its term to harmonize with us. The comment: You can’t be that … Continue reading “Latent fascism”

Lawrence Lessig deleted a comment I left on his blog about this phony claim of his:

Remember, we had to increase our term to harmonize with the rest of the world; now the administration is pushing the rest of the world to increase its term to harmonize with us.

The comment: You can’t be that ignorant. The US extended the term of copyright to harmonize with the EU, and now we seek to bring other nations, such as Singapore, into compliance.

When I lived in Singapore in the mid-80s, their copyright law didn’t protect the works of non-Singaporeans. It was possible to buy all the popular software of the day (Lotus 1-2-3, MS-DOS, Microsoft C, dBase) for the price of a floppy, and photocopied manuals were available for a minimal charge. Pirated audio and videotapes were also available for next to nothing, complete with fake liners. It was a Napster-lover’s dream.

I think you would have liked it.

Oftentimes, the folks who scream the loudest about commercial interests trampling their free speech don’t respect the concept when it applies to those with whom they disagree. Lessig proved himself to be one such person. Of course, the boy has no obligation to let me disagree with him on his blog, but if he wants to be taken seriously as a First Amendment champion he should at least try and confine his rants to the general neighborhood of the facts.

UPDATE: Lessig claims he didn’t delete my comment, so I’ve reposted it to see if it sticks. He also posts, in my comments, some misdirection on CTEA and the EU.