Tell the FCC: AT&T's takeover of T-Mobile must be stopped

AT&T's $39 billion proposal to take over T-Mobile is bad news for consumers, and a perfect example of what our anti-trust laws are supposed to prevent.

If it's corporate influence as usual at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), you can bet AT&T will emerge the winner and cell phone users will lose big time.

Tell the FCC: Stop the AT&T takeover of T-Mobile. It's bad for consumers, and it's even worse for our democracy.

The FCC is the only federal agency with jurisdiction over the takeover that accepts public comments on the record. It's crucial that we use the FCC's official comment period to demonstrate just how much public opposition there is to this deal.

There have already been an unprecedented number of comments filed by consumers opposing AT&T. But we'll need your help to make the response so huge that even the FCC can't ignore us.

Take action now and submit an official comment to the FCC before May 31st. We make it easy for you to file a protest against the AT&T takeover of T-Mobile.

If approved, there will be a virtual duopoly for mobile phone service -- with AT&T and Verizon controlling 80% of the market. It's one of the largest proposed "mergers" in years -- and the biggest potential anti-trust case of the Obama administration.¹

Make no mistake, AT&T taking over T-Mobile would be a disaster for all mobile phone users -- not just T-Mobile customers. AT&T has a history censoring content and blocking phone features it doesn't like. The proposed takeover would lead to higher prices and stifle choice and innovation in the marketplace.²

Submit an official comment to the FCC: We make it easy for you to file a protest against the AT&T takeover of T-Mobile.

AT&T couldn't be better positioned for success. On issues like media consolidation and net neutrality, the FCC consistently sides with Big Telecom. And it's not just the commissioners it lobbies. AT&T's attention to the FCC is so fierce that it even delivered 1,524 cupcakes to FCC employees in 63 separate offices and departments at Christmas last year.³ In addition, AT&T is the top corporate contributor to Congress,⁴ and the company boasts an intimate and longstanding relationship with White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley.⁵

AT&T, which bitterly opposed net neutrality and succeeded in convincing the FCC to refrain from banning discrimination on the wireless web,⁶ would have even more control over the wireless Internet should the takeover be allowed to go through. The company has a long history of blocking competing services -- like Skype, Google Voice and Slingbox. And has in the past simply crippled mobile phones that can do more than what the company wants to allow its customers to do on the wireless Web.⁷

Tell the FCC: Stop the AT&T takeover of T-Mobile. It's bad for consumers, and it's even worse for our democracy.

The White House, FCC and the Department of Justice have a track record of caving to the major telecom companies -- supporting retroactive immunity for telecom companies that illegally spied on Americans, invoking state secrets to defend telecom companies against lawsuits on illegal practices, and failing to support strong net neutrality regulations at the FCC.

Consolidation of telecom and media hurts our ability to access the information we need as citizens to fully participate in our democracy and hold our government accountable. Corporate control of media, and increasing consolidation of that control of media by the country's largest corporate political contributor, is something that affects all Americans, regardless of who their cellphone carrier happens to be.

It's up to us to fight on every front, and especially at the FCC, to stop President Obama's administration from rubberstamping this terrible deal. With a May 31st deadline on public comments, the FCC must hear a resounding roar from the masses of people who oppose this deal.

Please, submit an official comment now to the FCC. We make it easy to protest AT&Ts's terrible proposed takeover of T-Mobile.

Notes:¹ AT&T-Mobile: Would Merger Put Ma Bell Back Together Again? Huffington Post, May 11, 2011² Five Things Wrong with AT&T's Mega-Merger, Free Press, March 24, 2011 ³ AT&T to FCC: Let Them Eat Cupcakes, Wall Street Journal, December 16, 2010⁴The 10 Biggest Corporate Campaign Contributors in U.S. Politics, Daily Finance, October, 13, 2010.
⁵ AT&T's Man in the White House Free Press, January 8, 2011⁶ AT&T ramps up lobbying effort against net neutrality at FCC, Washington Post, November 29, 2010⁷ AT&T's Backflip A Backward Step For Android, Information Week, March 8, 2010

Republican Judge Strikes Down Ban on Corporate Contributions Directly to Candidates......What Is Your View?

BREAKING: Republican Judge Strikes Down Ban On Corporate Contributions Directly To Candidates

Reagan-appointed federal Judge James Cacheris just ruled that corporations have a constitutional right to contribute money directly to political candidates:

In a ruling issued late Thursday, U.S. District Judge James Cacheris tossed out part of the indictment against two men accused of illegally reimbursing donors to Hillary Clinton’s Senate and presidential campaigns.

Cacheris says that under last year’s Citizens United Supreme Court case, corporations enjoy the same right as people to contribute to campaigns.

The ruling is the first of its kind. The Citizens United case had applied only to independent corporate expenditures, not to actual campaign contributions.

Today’s decision extends beyond the egregious Citizen United decision because Citizens United only permits corporations to run their own ads supporting a candidate or otherwise act independently of a candidate’s campaign. Cacheris’ opinion would also allow the Chamber of Commerce and Koch Industries, for instance, to contribute directly to political campaigns.

If today’s decision is upheld on appeal, it could be the end of any meaningful restrictions on campaign finance — including limits on the amount of money wealthy individuals and corporations can give to a candidate. In most states, all that is necessary to form a new corporation is to file the right paperwork in the appropriate government office. Moreover, nothing prevents one corporation from owning another corporation. Thus, under Cacheris’ decision, a cap on overall contributions becomes meaningless, because corporate donors can simply create a series of shell corporations for the purpose of evading such caps.

Social Security Cuts Put Vets Back in Line of Fire | AFL-CIO NOW BLOG

Social Security Cuts Put Vets Back in Line of Fire | AFL-CIO NOW BLOG

Nutrition’s New Design – Science and Technology – Utne Reader

Nutrition’s New Design – Science and Technology – Utne Reader

"Do You Cry?" "Is It Normal to Cry?" ~ Eckhart Tolle

The Day Before Disclosure: A Movie....A Must See!

The Day Before Disclosure

"Tantrums" from Brain Rules for Baby

DR. JOHN J. MEDINA, a developmental molecular biologist, has a lifelong fascination with how the mind reacts to and organizes information. He is the author of the New York Times bestseller "Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School" -- a provocative book that takes on the way our schools and work environments are designed. His latest book is a must-read for parents and early-childhood educators: "Brain Rules for Baby: How to Raise a Smart and Happy Child from Zero to Five."

Medina is an affiliate Professor of Bioengineering at the University of Washington School of Medicine. He is also the director of the Brain Center for Applied Learning Research at Seattle Pacific University. Medina lives in Seattle, Washington, with his wife and two boys.

"Talk to Your Children" from Brain Rules for Baby

In the event that you have not heard of John Medina:

DR. JOHN J. MEDINA, a developmental molecular biologist, has a lifelong fascination with how the mind reacts to and organizes information. He is the author of the New York Times bestseller "Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School" -- a provocative book that takes on the way our schools and work environments are designed. His latest book is a must-read for parents and early-childhood educators: "Brain Rules for Baby: How to Raise a Smart and Happy Child from Zero to Five."

Medina is an affiliate Professor of Bioengineering at the University of Washington School of Medicine. He is also the director of the Brain Center for Applied Learning Research at Seattle Pacific University. Medina lives in Seattle, Washington, with his wife and two boys.

Saul: Humanity Has Reached the Point Where it Can and is Listening to the Voice of God

Saul: Humanity Has Reached the Point Where it Can and is Listening to the Voice of God

Psychology Definition Of The Week: Displaced Anger

Anger is often associated with suspicion and mistrust, and can manifest itself in feelings of hostility, frustration, exasperation and even fury. But what happens when you displace your anger?

Anger displacement occurs when you direct your angry thoughts and feelings at someone or something that is safe or convenient, rather than the actual source of your anger. For example your boss gives you a hard time at work, but you say nothing and take it out on your partner when you get home. Not only is this bad for your relationships, but it is also ineffective when dealing with the angry feelings – the anger you feel at your boss is still there.

In time you may start to write a script for yourself that involves always displacing your anger, and this in turn can lead you to adopt a cynical and hostile view of your world. Anger turned inward can also lead to depressive disorders. So how can you deal with anger more effectively?

Think about what is making you feel angry and why it is you feel anger rather than a different emotion. Are you feeling threatened by the situation, or did you have unrealistic expectations to begin with?

Avoid reacting to provocation by showing indifference to the source. Don’t feel the need to justify yourself. Instead remain calm and detached.

Remember to breath. During angry ‘fight or flight’ situations your breathing may become shallow. This can impact on your ability to remain calm, rationalise and problem solve effectively.

Try to express yourself in a calm and level way the moment you start to feel angry. Don’t suppress the feelings so they build up. Remember to breath slowly and think “conversation not confrontation”. Try to be assertive rather than aggressive.

Smile, laugh. Visualise yourself letting go of the anger. Try to avoid thinking about the situation over and over again. This will just fuel your angry feelings. Distract yourself by thinking about something more pleasant.

What makes you angry? How do you deal with your anger?

"Do Psychopaths Mis-Rule Our World?"

http://muckraker-gg.blogspot.com/2011/05/do-psychopaths-misrule-our-world.html


In recent days the political news has been like an episode of some TV drama about high-level corruption – call itCriminal Minds meetsThe West Wing. The head of the International Monetary Fund – the global financial organization that sets terms for development aid -- was jailed in New York for allegedly assaulting a housemaid sexually at his hotel. Meanwhile, in California news broke that the state’s movie-star governor – known as both the Terminator and the Gropinator – fathered a love-child almost a decade ago and it didn’t come out until he was about to leave office.

Then, of course, there’s the presidential campaign of Newt Gingrich, a poster child for bad behavior, launched last week with a series of disastrous missteps and rationalizations. (To continue, click on link above)

When the Internet Thinks It Knows You

May 22, 2011

By ELI PARISER

ONCE upon a time, the story goes, we lived in a broadcast society. In that dusty pre-Internet age, the tools for sharing information weren’t widely available. If you wanted to share your thoughts with the masses, you had to own a printing press or a chunk of the airwaves, or have access to someone who did. Controlling the flow of information was an elite class of editors, producers and media moguls who decided what people would see and hear about the world. They were the Gatekeepers.

Then came the Internet, which made it possible to communicate with millions of people at little or no cost. Suddenly anyone with an Internet connection could share ideas with the whole world. A new era of democratized news media dawned.

You may have heard that story before — maybe from the conservative blogger Glenn Reynolds (blogging is “technology undermining the gatekeepers”) or the progressive blogger Markos Moulitsas (his book is called “Crashing the Gate”). It’s a beautiful story about the revolutionary power of the medium, and as an early practitioner of online politics, I told it to describe what we did at MoveOn.org. But I’m increasingly convinced that we’ve got the ending wrong — perhaps dangerously wrong. There is a new group of gatekeepers in town, and this time, they’re not people, they’re code.

Today’s Internet giants — Google, Facebook, Yahoo and Microsoft — see the remarkable rise of available information as an opportunity. If they can provide services that sift though the data and supply us with the most personally relevant and appealing results, they’ll get the most users and the most ad views. As a result, they’re racing to offer personalized filters that show us the Internet that they think we want to see. These filters, in effect, control and limit the information that reaches our screens.

By now, we’re familiar with ads that follow us around online based on our recent clicks on commercial Web sites. But increasingly, and nearly invisibly, our searches for information are being personalized too. Two people who each search on Google for “Egypt” may get significantly different results, based on their past clicks. Both Yahoo News and Google News make adjustments to their home pages for each individual visitor. And just last month, this technology began making inroads on the Web sites of newspapers like The Washington Post and The New York Times.

All of this is fairly harmless when information about consumer products is filtered into and out of your personal universe. But when personalization affects not just what you buy but how you think, different issues arise. Democracy depends on the citizen’s ability to engage with multiple viewpoints; the Internet limits such engagement when it offers up only information that reflects your already established point of view. While it’s sometimes convenient to see only what you want to see, it’s critical at other times that you see things that you don’t.

Like the old gatekeepers, the engineers who write the new gatekeeping code have enormous power to determine what we know about the world. But unlike the best of the old gatekeepers, they don’t see themselves as keepers of the public trust. There is no algorithmic equivalent to journalistic ethics.

Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, once told colleagues that “a squirrel dying in your front yard may be more relevant to your interests right now than people dying in Africa.” At Facebook, “relevance” is virtually the sole criterion that determines what users see. Focusing on the most personally relevant news — the squirrel — is a great business strategy. But it leaves us staring at our front yard instead of reading about suffering, genocide and revolution.

There’s no going back to the old system of gatekeepers, nor should there be. But if algorithms are taking over the editing function and determining what we see, we need to make sure they weigh variables beyond a narrow “relevance.” They need to show us Afghanistan and Libya as well as Apple and Kanye.

Companies that make use of these algorithms must take this curative responsibility far more seriously than they have to date. They need to give us control over what we see — making it clear when they are personalizing, and allowing us to shape and adjust our own filters. We citizens need to uphold our end, too — developing the “filter literacy” needed to use these tools well and demanding content that broadens our horizons even when it’s uncomfortable.

It is in our collective interest to ensure that the Internet lives up to its potential as a revolutionary connective medium. This won’t happen if we’re all sealed off in our own personalized online worlds.

Eli Pariser, the president of the board of MoveOn.org, is the author of “The Filter Bubble: What the Internet Is Hiding From You.”

How Detachment from an Addicted Person Can Be Loving For All By Wayland Myers, Ph.D.

© Wayland Myers, 1997 www.NonviolentCommunication.com 

“Detachment is a means whereby we allow others the
opportunity to learn how to care for themselves better.” I heard a drug rehab counselor say that many years ago and I was confused and disturbed. I was a parent. My child’s life, and our family, was being ravaged by her struggle with drug and alcohol use. Was I being told I should abstain from trying to protect her from the consequences of her addictive behaviors? That I should not try to control her recovery? I had heard about this “loving detach- 

ment” before. Then, it just sounded like some form of self-protective abandonment. But now, this counselor made it sound like a gift. How could that be?

Over time, I came to see the counselor’s point. I slowly discovered there were a number 

of benefits to using loving detachment as a way of relating to anyone struggling with a self-harming behavior pattern. And, when I met Marshall Rosenberg in 1986, I came to believe that even more. The insights and values of his Nonviolent Communication process greatly enhanced my understanding of how detachment can be loving for all involved.

Today, I consider myself lovingly detached when, 

I am willing and able to compassionately, and without judgment, allow others to be different from me, to be self-directed, and to be responsible for taking care of themselves. 

I have identified four ways that detachment is loving for those I care about, and four ways it is loving for me. 

How detachment is loving for others: 

I. Those I care for might learn to look within, and trust themselves for self-direction, including when and how to ask for help. If I refrain from trying to manage their problematic situation, the people I care about may learn something about thinking for themselves, problem solving, and when and how to ask for help. They might learn to better listen to their feelings and intuitions, to heed those little voices we all wish we listened to more. They might learn to better recognize when they want help and how to request it in ways that leave them feeling good, rather than embarrassed or ashamed. In short, letting them manage their own affairs gives them the opportunity to draw on their own inner resources, instead of mine, and from this direct experience of their abilities, no matter how groping or uncertain, they can build competence and may thereby increase their confidence. I believe this is the number one, and most natural, avenue for creating an increased sense of self esteem.

II. They might learn more about cause and effect. 

My not intervening allows others to have an uninterrupted experience of the cause and effect relationship between their actions and the natural consequences of those actions. In this way, they have a direct encounter with their personal power to con- 

tribute to their own pleasure or pain. Allowing people to have appropriate sized, real problems, and real responsibility for working out their solutions, seems to greatly facilitate this learning. 

III. They might experience the motivation to continue on, or change. 

Pleasurable and painful experiences often provide us the motivation to repeat what brought satisfaction and change what didn't. We all use this kind of emotional energy to move us forward in life. These motivating energies arise naturally within and feel much better to respond to than the attempts by others to motivate us through guilt, fear and other forms of coercion. 

IV. Self discovery and self enjoyment might increase.

If I grant others the freedom to think, feel, value, perceive, etc. as they wish, and they relax because they feel respected and safe, they might discover many new things about themselves. They might discover what they really like, feel or think. They might have

moments of creative insight that inspire, excite and encourage them. They might invent new, more satisfying dreams for their lives than ever would have appeared under the pressure of my controlling presence. 

Whenever I find myself struggling with the impulse to step-in and begin trying to manage another's life, or solve his or her problems, I find it helpful to review the four points just presented. They strongly motivate me to remain lovingly detached. 

Now, how about the ways loving detachment benefits me? 

How detachment is loving for me: 

I. I am relieved of the strain of attempting the impossible.

By carefully reviewing my experiences of trying to control other people's physical behavior, sobriety, health, learning, emotions and opinions, I have come to one conclusion: The only thing I might be able to control is a person's physical behavior and that requires that I possess enough physical strength and am willing to use it. If I accept my powerlessness to control the other things, the inner lives and wills of others, then I relieve myself of the stress and strain of attempting the impossible. This is a primary way for me to create more serenity in my life. In fact, if I practice this process deeply enough, I sometimes reach the point where I form no opinion about what another should do. This is a truly liberated and refreshing moment for us both. 

II. What other people think of me can become none of my business. 

If I am powerless to control the thoughts, perceptions, values or emotions of another, then I can liberate myself by accepting that their opinions of me are none of my business. Accepting this as fact, I not only free myself, but the other person as well, because I cease my attempts to control their inner workings. 

III. My attention and energy are freed to focus on improving my own life. 

I have plenty of problem areas in my own life. Obsessing about another’s life can help me avoid the pain within mine. But, the time and energy I spend obsessing about another's life I don't spend on mine, and if I do this enough, my life stays at its current level of unmanageability or gets worse. Loving detachment gives me the opportunity to invest my energies in my life. 

IV. I can express my love or caring in ways that bring me joy and satisfaction. 

When someone I care for is struggling with a problem, or feeling some kind of pain, I usually want to be supportive or helpful. But, I want to offer the kind of help that would bring me joy to offer, and them joy to receive. 

Psych doctors took money from drug companies to medicate children in juvenile jails....

by Tara Green 

(NaturalNews) Psychiatrists working for the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice, entrusted with the health of children in state custody, accepted thousands of dollars from drug companies. While earning huge fees as speakers for manufacturers of anti-psychotic pills, the doctors also wrote prescriptions for psychiatric drugs for children in the DJJ system. The Palm Beach Post News broke the story of this medical conflict of interest which one former federal prosecutor calls "truly stunning and troubling."

Post reporter Michael LaForgia found that one in three of the psychiatrists who held contracts with the Department of Juvenile Justice (DJJ) to treat children in the system also either accepted gifts from drug companies or appeared as a paid speaker for those companies. LaForgia's research revealed that the doctors prescribed anti-psychotic drugs prior to those drugs receiving approval from the FDA for pediatric use. One of the psychiatrists whose work LaForgia investigated wrote significantly more Medicaid prescriptions for children during the period he was working for the pharmaceutical companies. The combined pharmaceutical company payments to the four highest paid DJJ-affiliated psychiatrists totaled nearly $200,000.

The Post's story prompted Wansley Waters, the recently appointed secretary of the DJJ, to order an investigation into the prescription of antipsychotic drugs to children in the state program. Citing the investigation, Waters declined further comment on the situation. However, Circuit Judge Ronald Alvarez, a 12-year veteran of the Palm Beach County juvenile courts, stated that "This is a serious, legitimate and possibly life-threatening issue that requires investigation, reformation and possibly prosecution."

Lack of regulation at the federal, state and county helped contribute to this situation. Neither the federal government nor the state of Florida requires drug companies to disclose payments to physicians. The Florida DJJ has no policy in place asking doctors working for the agency either to reveal or to avoid conflicts of interest. The DJJ also has no tracking system for drugs prescribed to children in its care, instead relying on the judgment of doctors to write prescriptions in the childrens best interest.

Less than a week before the Post broke the story, the DJJ's chief medical director, Lisa Johnson, sent a memo to all contracted and state-employed doctors working with children in the system. In that memo, she warned psychiatrists against prescribing anti-psychotics and other medication except for reasons approved by the federal government. The memo also reminded doctors not to use drugs as "as a means of punishment, discipline, coercion, restraint or retaliation."

As the pharmaceutical companies move to expand their market everyone becomes a potential "patient" to be medicated. Children in the care of the state, unable to refuse treatment and without direct parent or guardian involvement in their daily lives are especially vulnerable. The Post story is a commendable (and, unfortunately, these days, all too rare) instance of the mainstream media living up to its watchdog role, fulfilling the famous description of journalism's mission to "comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable." We hope the Pulitzer committee has made note of Michael LaForgia's tremendous work in bringing about reforms in the medical pill mill culture.

To grasp the extent to which mainstream healthcare, and the psychiatric profession in particular, has been co-opted by Big Pharma, check out the information available at the website of the Citizens Commission on Human Rights. As one article on the CCHR website notes, the DSM, known as the diagnostic manual of the psychiatric profession, has in reality become a "billing bible": "With the DSM, psychiatry has taken countless aspects of human behavior and reclassified them as a mental illness simply by adding the term disorder onto them . . . The DSM is driven not by science, but instead caters to the pharmaceutical industry." The CCHR urges psychiatrists to take heed of the advice of take heed of Dr. Paul Genova, who wrote in Psychiatric Times, that the "DSM diagnostic system has outlived its usefulness by about two decades. It should be abandoned, not revised."

As the CCHR website and videos document, the profit-based method of disease diagnosis and drug prescription is not only greedy and unethical but also dangerous. Many of the drugs being given to children have caused serious and even deadly side-effects. The website DrugFree Children.org also provides useful information for anyone wanting to move past the pharmaceutical companies' propaganda about the supposed safety and benefits of their products.

Also worth reading to understand the pill-mill culture is the book "Selling Sickness: How the World's Biggest Pharmaceutical Companies Are Turning Us All Into Patients" (Ray Moynihan and Alan Cassels, 2006). The authors of this book reveal the collusion of Big Pharma, doctors and supposed "patient advocacy groups, abetted by the public relations and advertising campaigns designed to persuade consumers that they need drugs. The book is also the basis of a documentary film of the same name.