Today two FCC commissioners, Jonathan Adelstein and Michael Copps, refused to rubber stamp the DoJ’s unconditional approval of AT&T’s acquisition of BellSouth. This could be a landmark event. As FCC chairman Martin, who has never seen a consolidation he didn’t love, finds himself with a split board. Commissioners Martin and Tate are pushing hard to [...]
About a month ago an Illinois court found the Spamhaus Project– one of the premier open sources of spam blacklists – libel for $11M to a spammer — bargandepot.net, e360 Insight, and it’s clients. Spamhaus is a UK organization; therefore, they believed a state ruling in Illinois had no effect. On the 6th, however, the [...]
Amanda, at Pandagon, has been spreading the word about a feminist blogger (BB), who being denied prompt access to emergency contraception (EC) has found herself pregnant and now is seeking an abortion. I have worked in and around the EC access movement for years, and fortunately, here in Illinois, we have an enlightened governor who [...]
This week presented a great deal of news about our friends at the FCC. Fresh from their imbroglio surrounding a surpressed report showing that media consolidation adversely effected local news coverage, the FCC board, tenacious as ever, has issued an updated agenda for its meeting on October 12th; an agenda which is forecasting more bad [...]
A recent article int the NY Times has revealed that the Department of Homeland Security is funding the development of software to sniff out anti-government bias in the written word. The software will be first used on foreign and domestic newspapers to, presumably, detect those who are disloyal, and thus a threat to US security. [...]
It seems that everyone is aghast at the exploits of fmr congressman’s Foley’s pederasty. While there is some gratification in seeing those who fed our tabloid democracy becoming victims of it, the overall effect does little to benefit our republic. Foley’s actions were certainly, if not criminal, unethical, and he should, and has been forced [...]
Rich Whitney, the Illinois Green Party candidate for Illinois governor, will be appearing at our coffee house to answer questions and seek support. 6:00 CDT
