More on the AT&T – T-Mobile Merger

Tim Karr of Free Press writes this:

Congress may be finally waking up to the obvious: that the massive merger of AT&T with T-Mobile just doesn't make sense. No amount of contributions from AT&T, or visits from AT&T lobbyists, will alter this simple truth. On Wednesday, the Senate's top antitrust official, Sen. Herb Kohl of Wisconsin, weighed the facts and wrote a letter urging Attorney General Eric Holder and FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski to reject AT&T's proposed takeover. Sen. Kohl wrote that "the acquisition, if permitted to proceed, would likely cause substantial harm to competition and consumers, would be contrary to antitrust law and not in the public interest, and therefore should be blocked by your agencies." Sen. Kohl's joined a growing chorus of opposition in Washington to the proposed merger. Reps. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) and John Conyers (D-Mich.) also submitted a letter on Wednesday stating that they believed AT&T's takeover of T-Mobile "would be a troubling backward step in federal public policy -- a retrenchment from nearly two decades of promoting competition and open markets to acceptance of a duopoly in the wireless marketplace."

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About high school misfits

A couple of years ago, I raised the topic of high school misfits. As I recall more than a few authors of this site commented that they had been high school misfits, or “outsiders.” The June 20, 2011 issue of Time Magazine includes an article titled “Life After High School,” that has some interesting things to say about high school misfits. Before getting to the misfits, what do long term studies say about the kids who were popular in high school?

[R]ecent research suggests that popularity isn't entirely positive. Belonging to the cool crowd is associated with higher rates of drinking, drug use, sexual activity and minor delinquency during adolescence.
What can you say about the kids who are academically successful in high school?
[P]revious analyses have overstated the role of intelligence in economic success. Hard work and the development of capacities like conscientiousness and cooperation also matter for success--not to mention personal satisfaction and fulfillment.
Finally, what is the current thinking about high school “outsiders”?  Alexandra Robbins, author of the new book, The Geeks Shall Inherit the Earth, argues that high school students

“will be well served in adult life by the same characteristics that made them unpopular in high school. She calls this premise "quirk theory" and describes it this way: "Many of the differences that cause a student to be excluded in school are the identical traits or real-world skills that others will value, love, respect or find compelling about that person in adulthood and outside the school setting."

There.  Doesn't that make you feel better?  While your popular classmates were playing around, you were getting ready for the real world.   And further, as suggested by this same article, outsiders often avoided social activities (or they were excluded), leaving them more time for serious study.

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Neil deGrasse Tyson pleads for reinvigorating NASA

Neil deGrasse Tyson bemoans that "no one is dreaming about tomorrow anymore." At some point, "you gotta look up." He reminds us that NASA enables our dreams: "The most powerful agency on the dreams of a nation is currently underfunded to do what it needs to do. . . . How much would you pay for the universe?” NASA now runs off of .58% of the national budget. Compare this to the 1960s, when a full 5% of the national budget was allocated to NASA. Compare the NASA budget to the money we are wasting on our military adventures and it's intensely depressing.

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Generalizing the travel advice of Rick Steves

My daughter and I just returned from a trip to Europe, where travel guru Rick Steves served as our primary guide. We relied heavily on his travel books regarding Berlin, Paris and London. These travel guides are detailed, well-organized and well-written. I highly recommend them to anyone intending to travel to Europe. What I especially like about Rick Steves, though, is his constant urging to live close to the ground while traveling, to work hard to interact with real people and to avoid expensive travel arrangements that prevent you from interacting with others on their terms. This approach does not come naturally to many Americans. Steves thus works hard to prepare Americans for visiting places that are not America. He doesn’t mince his words. Consider, for example, this passage from his London 2011 book, at page 17:

We travel all the way to Europe to enjoy differences-to become temporary locals. You'll experience frustrations. Certain truths that we find "God-given" or "self-evident," such as cold beer, ice in drinks, bottomless cups of coffee, hot showers, and bigger being better, are suddenly not so true. One of the benefits of travel is the eye-opening realization that there are logical, civil, and even better alternatives. Europeans generally like Americans. But if there is a negative aspect to the image the British have of Americans, it's that we are big, loud, aggressive, impolite, rich, superficially friendly, and a bit naive. [More . . . ]

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Catholic clergy still doesn’t get it.

What? It's not proper to expose children to priests with a well-documented track record of abusing children? Money quote from MSNBC:

"We would have assumed," said the grand jury in a report, "by the year 2011, after all the revelations both here and around the world, that the church would not risk its youth by leaving them in the presence of priests subject to substantial evidence of abuse. That is not the case."
The authorities should throw Justin Rigali into prison for reckless endangerment.

Continue ReadingCatholic clergy still doesn’t get it.