This has got to be one of the most feel-good Wikipedia pages: "List of sole survivors of airline accidents or incidents." Included in some of the most incredible survivor stories you will ever hear of. Including Vesna Vulovic, who fell 33, 000 feet and survived and Juliane Kopcke, who's plane exploded after being struck by lightning, then walked 9 days through the jungle before finding another human being.
If you're in a good mood, and you'd like to stay in a good mood, don't reat Gordon Long's "Economic Death Spiral." I warned you . . .
John Conyers, Jr. (D-Mich.) and Congressman Ed Markey (D-Mass.) held a press conference to raise antitrust and public interest concerns surrounding the proposed merger of AT&T and T-Mobile wireless telecommunication companies. Markey explained further:
The AT&T - T–Mobile deal is like a telecommunications time machine that would send consumers back to a bygone era of high prices and limited choice,” said Markey. “AT&T and Verizon have divided the nation into Bell East and Bell West. Approving consolidation of the number of nationwide carriers from 4 to 3 and then inevitably to 2 would return consumers to a duopoly in the national wireless market. This would be an historic mistake. Consumers will be tipped upside down, with the money shaken out of their pockets as the lack of competition leads to higher prices. It is innovation and investment in new technology that ultimately leads to the changes that protect consumers and promote competition. Anything less is a huge step backwards for our country’s ability to compete and win in the global marketplace.
Here is an excerpt from Free Press:AT&T and Verizon would control nearly 80 percent of the market for mobile telecommunications.
As a result of the merger, the wireless market would be more consolidated than the markets for oil, banking, automobiles and air travel. What does that mean? It means that to achieve comparable consolidation in the oil industry, ExxonMobil would have to merge with BP, Shell, Chevron-Texaco and Citgo. And to make the comparison still more accurate, Exxon would not only have to merge, but would require you to buy only Exxon gas for the next two years.
We should all be concerned about this level of concentration in the market for a service that all Americans increasingly depend on. Mobile service is as critical for families as affordable, reliable water and electricity, and communities who can least afford to pay more will bear the cost of lining AT&T’s corporate coffers. That’s why 50 organizations dedicated to social justice filed a letter today with the Department of Justice and the FCC opposing the merger.
In 1984, when the Justice Department broke up the old Ma Bell, the prevailing consensus was that AT&T had gotten too big. But the AT&T-T-Mobile merger would create a behemoth that’s substantially bigger than the old Bell conglomerate. It really is 1984 all over again.
I suspect that only a smallish minority of people deeply care about the many dramatic political and legal changes that have been occurring in the United States over the past ten years. Just to make sure, though, I have created a United States Citizen Consent Form and Survey, and I would like to propose that it be distributed to all U.S. citizens and they be compelled to fill it out by federal mandate.
Maybe the results will substantiate my fears that I am an outsider living in what used to be my own country.
I've heard the expression that hail was "as big as a golfball" but I had never before seen hail that big. Until yesterday. Here are a few photos and a short video from my front porch. That's my hand holding 3 large hail balls (is that what you call them?) and the yard was littered with hail.
The car parked under the tree sustained a dozen large dents during the 10 minute barrage of hail.