March 22, 2011 archive

• Six In The Morning by mishima
• On This Day In History by TheMomCat
• Punting the Pundits by TheMomCat

And these articles-

• Taking Back America: FISA & the Lies of Barack Obama by TheMomCat
• The Right to Know: Show Us The Money by TheMomCat
• Evening Edition by TheMomCat (an able substitute for a daily feature)

Special live blogging of the NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament–

• Round of 32 Day 2

The Stars Hollow Gazette

More Steep Canyon Rangers below.

All the guns and all the money are on one side, and the other side is a disorganized mob of down-scale consumers.

Who wins?

U.S.-Led Assault Nears Goal in Libya



By ELISABETH BUMILLER and KAREEM FAHIM

Published: March 22, 2011

WASHINGTON – An American- led military campaign to destroy Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s air defenses and establish a no-fly zone over Libya has nearly accomplished its initial objectives, and the United States is moving swiftly to hand command to allies in Europe, American officials said, despite some fighting reportedly continuing on Tuesday.

But the firepower of more than 130 Tomahawk cruise missiles and attacks by allied warplanes have not yet succeeded in accomplishing the more ambitious demands by the United States – repeated by President Obama in a letter to Congress on Monday – that Colonel Qaddafi withdraw his forces from embattled cities and cease all attacks against civilians.

Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

The big business news that hit the “airways” yesterday was the announcement that AT&T’s plan to gobble up T-Mobile for a mere $39 billion which would create the largest wireless carrier in the US and leave just three major cellular companies in the country: AT&T, Verizon and the much smaller Sprint Nextel. Hold on, was I dreaming, or did we taxpayers spent a fortune of are hard earned tax dollars to break-up AT&T? Are those ten years of litigation and the consequent pain in the royal tuchas for consumers that it created a mere practical joke?

The deal still must pass muster with the from both the Justice Department and the Federal Communications Commission. as has been pointed out in the NYT:

Unlike the merger of Comcast and NBC Universal, which consolidated a transmission company and a content provider, the proposed AT&T and T-Mobile deal is a “horizontal merger” that would combine two companies that had been direct competitors.

As part of their assessment, antitrust lawyers must determine whether the deal might undermine efforts to encourage broadband service competition between wireless and landline providers. AT&T and Verizon both control a major segment of the landline market, so by allowing them to dominate wireless services as well, the merger could effectively hurt competition for broadband delivery options.

All in all, the consumer is the one who bears the brunt of these mega-mergers with increased rates and diminished service. Remember AT&T’s penchant for hidden charges?

How about jobs? What happens to all those T-Mobile employees? The newly merged company would save $3 billion a year with the expected  closing of hundreds of retail outlets in areas where they overlap, as well as the elimination of overlapping back office, technical and call center staff.

Everything old is new again.  

Der Spiegel recently published some “graphic” photos of American soldiers in action in Afghanistan.

The details don’t matter.