Murdoch's Bad Week

Murdoch Just Dropped His BSkyB Satellite Bid

Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation announced that it is withdrawing it's $12 billion bid to take over the shares it does not already own in Britain’s main satellite television broadcaster, Sky News reported. Ironic the source? Maybe they heard it down the hall?

So this development is the latest that stems from the phone hacking scandal within Mr. Murdoch’s British newspaper empire that has convulsed his company and ended not only the News of the World - but more importantly a very close, cozy and influential relationship with the British establishment. Police and also Ministers. What that really means is that power recognizes power. And when insects recognize a sick plant - they attack it. Or use the shark analogy. Whichever works better for you.

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Utility (almost) Charged City For Memorial Flags

I'm not an expert with Public Relations - but I'm going to say this is was not well thought out.

Officials on eastern Long Island are fuming that the local power authority charged a $5 per pole fee to fly American flags along a parade route honoring a local soldier killed in Afghanistan. (WABC/ABC News)

New York Utility Charged for Hanging Flags From Its Poles At Memorial for Slain Soldier

The folks on Shelter Island, N.Y., were furious after they held a memorial parade to honor Lt. Joseph Theinert, a town resident who was killed in Afghanistan. The service included having members of Theinert's old unit march along a flag draped street that was named after Theinert.

Then they got the bill. The Long Island Power Authority charged them for hanging the American flags from its utility poles.

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Update: New York Power Company Criticized for Charging American Flag Fee Says It Will Cover Cost

The Nagging Swing of Dissatisfaction

"An army of the people is invincible!" ~ Mao Zedong (Quotations From Chairman Mao Tse-Tung)

In almost every national election for the past two decades, we have seen a change in control of either one or both houses of Congress or the White House. This has happened in 1992, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2002, 2006, 2008, and now again in 2010. The pattern is very clear. And it is not because Americans “prefer divided government,”-- it’s because they can’t get anyone in the system to listen to them!

Why is that? Becauseneither of these factions is ever going to change the system one iota if they can help it; they are the system, they are its servants, its enablers, its enactors.

There's talk today warning the TEA party people that the hard part starts today - to keep their candidates on point and not to fall into the pattern that seems to be the norm in Washington - absolute power.

"The usual pattern is that after the election the voters and the activists go back to their normal lives, but the organized interests redouble their efforts to influence policymakers....Tea Partiers must change that pattern. They must keep up the pressure on Congress and state legislators. They must demand actual performance, not just promises. And they must also seek to change the attitudes of the American people. It’s not enough to favor small government in principle; more voters have to agree to give up their own subsidies and benefits," writes David Boaz

That's all well and good - and yes, his suggestions should be taken to heart. They won't.

That's why the Pelosi-Reed gang did nothing to peel back anything the Bush Administration did from 2001-2006. Even when they had the majority - what, exactly, did they do differently? They stopped the wars. They repealed the Patriot Act. They put Rove and Cheney on trial and closed Gitmo. Oh, they didn't? That's right, because they voted or approved ALL of that on their watch with hardly a blink of an eye.

The Progressives elected Obama, sat down and went back to Tweeting. There was a real failure on their part to assume that Mr. Obama "Got It" and was willing to do whatever it took to get it done. On the left, there's a lot of blame and failure to shake at - but four fingers point back to the real problem... a fall back to apathy and complacency.

On the bright side, we're starting to - maybe barely - wake up from the United States of Amnesia. We know we've been lied to, bullsh*tted, and without cheap oil or Simon on American Idol - the end is near. Yes, this is the beginning of the end - who's end? That's up to us. It's all our doom if we don't wake up soon. It's theirs if we don't hit the snooze button - and they know that.

Meantime, here are two well crafted articles from two extreme ends of the political spectrum.
Paul Craig Roberts: The Impotence of Elections
Scott Tucker: Apocalypse Again: The Boom-and-Bush Cycle of Bipartisan Politics

The Next Economy and America's Future

"The perfect storm: An unprecedented concentration of income and wealth at the top; a record amount of secret money flooding our democracy; and a public becoming increasingly angry and cynical about a gov't that's raising its taxes, reducing its services, and unable to get it back to work. We're losing our democracy to a different system. It's called plutocracy." ~ Robert Reich

Everybody knows the dice are loaded.

From Dairy To Pork

A dangerous band of insurgents

In Vermont, the federal government plans to seize a farmer’s land to build a $5 million border post on a quiet country road. The community is fiercely opposed, and the Department of Homeland Security is under fire for planning expensive projects that aren't needed.

The hamlet of Morses Line is just a dot on the Canadian border in the small northern Vermont town of Franklin. A quiet country road leads to the existing brick border station at the edge of a hayfield.

In about two hours on a recent afternoon, one truck and two cars go by. One was a Customs officer arriving for his shift.

“Last night was a little busier because you had bingo at the church in the neighboring town,” says Brian Rainville. The land the U.S. government wants is part of his family’s dairy farm. Rainville goes through a box full of documents and pulls out the architectural drawings for the new border post.

“So we’re looking at putting in a storm water pond, a traffic turnaround, covered parking, three designated traffic lanes, two stages of radiation detectors, a two-story building with a fitness center on the second floor. It all strikes me as a little much for Morses Line,” he says.

“I’m not quite sure how Morses Line, with a traffic rate of 2 1/2 cars an hour, is a matter of national security and utmost budgetary importance…”

Similar controversies are playing out across the 3,000-mile border with Canada, where the Department of Homeland Security plans to spend $355 million to fortify 22 border stations.

Federal money is hard to turn down, but even the Vermont congressional delegation opposes the Morses Line project.

The government says the projects are needed to meet the challenges of a post-Sept. 11 world. “Our homeland security is only as strong as each individual port of entry,” says Marco Lopez, a spokesman for Customs and Border Protection. “That is why we are committed to making sure that we are able to provide the technology and the infrastructure requirements that this new threat environment demands of us.”

Officials say the existing Morses Line customs building has a leaky roof and not enough space to inspect vehicles or hold prisoners.

I’m willing to bet that the officers manning the post know 95% of all the travelers by sight. If they only inspect those unfamiliar to them, wouldn’t a car port and a handheld radiation detector work. Total cost maybe $25k if bought through a government contract. Less than $5k if bought on the open market.

I also expect this story to end badly, as there will probably be a Federal take over of the family farm by way of imminent domain. I sincerely hope that I am wrong.

Thanks Dvorak, for the story.