Register for free to join our community of investors and share your ideas. You will also get access to streaming quotes, interactive charts, trades, portfolio, live options flow and more tools.
Vivian, I managed to avoid Bram Stoker's book. I did read "Frankenstein" in college. As I recall, it was about as scary as Pee Wee's Playhouse, but since Mary Shelley was 19 or 20 when she wrote it, I cut her some slack. I once took a course, "The Early American Novel." You want to talk sucky books? These books sucked so bad that they defy my ability to describe them. God, what trash.
Iconic Gagmeister Bob Hope Dies
29 minutes ago
By Joal Ryan
Bob Hope, the British-born all-American comic whose jaunty ski-slope profile and sure-fire wisecracks became enduring symbols of optimism from good times to war times, died Sunday afternoon at his home in Toluca Lake, California, less than two months after his 100th birthday.
Hope succumbed to pneumonia, publicist Ward Grant said Monday. He died surrounded by his family, including wife Dolores and daughter Linda.
Beset by failing sight and hearing in recent years, Hope still cut an active figure at an advanced age.
His last TV special for NBC, his network home for 60 years, came in 1996. The day after his 95th birthday in 1998, he could be found in Toluca Lake serving as grand marshal for a parade in his adopted hometown.
His health had been declining in recent years. Aside from losing his sight and hearing, he spent time in a the hospital in 2001 battling a pneumonia. A wave to well-wishers from a balcony, during a stay for gastrointestinal bleeding in 1998, essentially counts as his final public appearance.
In May, he marked his 100th birthday with a quiet dinner at home with family.
"He's thrilled about [turning 100]," Linda Hope told reporters in a telephone press conference shortly before her dad's centenary celebration. "This has been a goal of his for the last number of years. He's determined to be a 100...He rallies [thinking about it]. He's just absolutely amazing."
Amazing is a term that fairly sums up Hope's centennial run: 50-plus movies; 280-plus TV specials; 60 years' worth of overseas shows for U.S. troops; 18 Academy Award-hosting gigs; four stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (one each for TV, radio, film and live theater); one signature song ("Thanks for the Memories"); an eponymous golf tournament (the Bob Hope (news) Classic) and enough jokes to fill 88,000 pages (as donated to the Library of Congress (news - web sites) in 1998).
"He enjoyed making people laugh, and he enjoyed personal encounters with people and bringing smiles to their faces," Linda Hope said earlier this year.
Like the Road... movies that showcased his famous friendship with crooner Bing Crosby (news), Hope was forever on the move. He traveled the globe entertaining U.S. troops through wars (World War II), police actions (Korea, Vietnam) and New World Order missions (Persian Gulf).
When asked about retirement, Hope would resort to his bag of quips: Pack it in? "Never...I'd rather wear out than rust out."
Unlike comic contemporaries (Milton Berle (news), Jack Benny (news), Henny Youngman) who found fame in one, maybe two, mediums, Hope was an all-purpose all-star--vaudeville, Broadway, radio, film, television.
In the end, few of his movies (see: Boy, Did I Get a Wrong Number) may have endured and his annual Christmas TV specials may have run their course, but Hope's reputation as a national instution of comedy was secure.
The Billy Crystal (news) of his day (always the Oscar host, never the Oscar winner), Hope stocked his mantel with five honorary Academy Awards (news - web sites), plus a compliment of Golden Globes, Emmys, People's Choice Awards, a Peabody Award, the Kennedy Center Honor for lifetime achievement and the Medal of Freedom, among others. He was dubbed an honorary knight of the British Empire.
Indeed, the Guinness Book of Records lists Hope as the world's most honored entertainer.
Born Leslie Townes Hope in Eltham, England, on May 29, 1903, he moved to Ohio with his family in 1907, the year he also became a U.S. citizen.
The funnyman's career unofficially launched in 1908 when the boy who would be Bob peformed a Charlie Chaplin (news) imitation in front of a Cleveland firehouse.
He broke into vaudeville at age 18 as a dancer. Seguing into comedy, Hope made his Broadway debut with partner George Byrne in the 1927 show, Sidewalks of New York.
The year that would change his life was 1933: He got his first major critical notices (in the Broadway musical, Roberta) and he got his girl (the former Dolores Reade, a singer).
Hope and Reade wed on February 19, 1934, a union that despite rumors of Bob's philandering would endure parts of seven decades. Dolores was at Bob's bedside when he died Sunday.
In 1937, Hope embarked on another longstanding relationship, inking a deal with NBC for a radio show. The original contract was for 26 weeks. The Peacock and Hope wouldn't part for another 60 years.
His movie career took off in the late 1930s. In all he would star in more than 50 films, including The Lemon Drop Kid (1951) (which introduced the yuletide staple, "Silver Bells"), Sorrowful Jones (1949) and The Seven Little Foys (1955).
With Crosby and resident femme fatale (news - web sites) Dorothy Lamour, he made seven Road... movies. The flicks may have featured exotic locales in their titles--from Road to Singapore (1940) to The Road to Hong Kong (1962)--but they were pure Hollywood, from the cheesy Paramount backlots to the incessent, inside-the-industry jokes traded by Hope and Crosby.
Like many stars who hit it big during the Depression era, Hope found it difficult to bridge the generation gap of the 1960s.
His movie career seemed more out-of-step than ever (I'll Take Sweden, please). His TV specials--especially the annual rah-rah college football tributes--increasingly played like quaint Family Circus comic strips in a Brave New Doonesbury World.
But his older audiences never left Hope and Hope never left them.
He also never left the American soldier. His first show for troops stationed overseas came in 1941. When World War II ended, Hope's mission didn't. Nearly every Christmas from 1948 onward found him delivering GIs a taste of home--from bathing beauties to smart-aleck one-liners.
"I think the shows that had the most meaning for him, were the USO shows," Linda Hope said. "That probably is the thing Dad is going to be best remembered for--his commitment to his men and women in uniform."
Legendary Entertainer Bob Hope Dead at 100
22 minutes ago Add Top Stories - Reuters to My Yahoo!
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Legendary entertainer Bob Hope has died at age 100, a family spokesman said on Monday.
Hope died of pneumonia on Sunday night at 9:28 p.m. with his family at his side, spokesman Ward Grant said.
Hope, who was born in England, was the ultimate comedian, a master of timing who turned the one-liner into an art form and became a national institution.
His career, which included stints as an amateur boxer, minstrel in black face and dancer, spanned seven decades in which he starred in five mediums: vaudeville, radio, stage, movies and television.
Virtually running his own joke factory by employing almost 100 writers, Hope was able to draw on a collection of hundreds of thousands of jokes that specialized in sexual double entendres, gags about his ski-nose and lines that paid homage to his decided lack of humility and willingness to con anyone.
With his trademark ski-slope nose, Hope was one of the first super stars and one of the 20th century's greatest comedians. He also pioneered with Bing Crosby of one of Hollywood's most enduring genres -- the buddy movie.
Crosby and Hope became one of the screen's great couples in a succession of "Road" movies beginning with 1939's "Road to Singapore," which was originally a serious drama called "The Road to Mandalay" that was turned into a comedy first for George Burns and Gracie Allen and then for Jack Oakie and Fred MacMurray, all of whom turned it down.
During the Vietnam War Hope was criticized for being a "hawk" who supported the conflict. But he said he was really a middle-of-the-road supporter who wanted the war to end and even tried twice to visit Hanoi and arrange prisoner releases.
He was born Leslie Townes Hope in Eltham, Kent, England, the fifth of seven sons of a stonemason. His father moved his family to Cleveland, Ohio, when Hope was 3 to work on a church there.
(Fox News is running a terrific tribute)
Castle..when did that happen? eom
Lownumba...
I have tried, and tried, and tried, to read "Dracula"...man, does it suck. Great movies, scary lead, but the book!! Could have benefitted from a good editor.
For that matter, I also HATED the ending to Stephen King's "It"..and I am a HUGE King fan. I remember, after wading through some 900+ pages, the revelation that Pennywhistle was a - if you haven't read "It" and intend to stop now -
big bug just sucked. I felt like throwing the book across the room, but it was too heavy.
BnB....
LOL! Priceless! I hear credibility being flushed.......again.
ergo...no apologies necessary..post a novel, if you wish.
I was lucky; I ducked on the backswing.
I take it that you missed your head. Try again.
"a cry for help"??? Uh, no, actually, I hit my thumb with a hammer.
I came to realize that the universal apathy over my absence was actually a cleverly disguised cry for help. It was most touching.
Speaking of insufferable, I see you are feeling better. We are most fortunate.
The high point of David Copperfield was when his insufferable wife died. The low point was the remainder of the book.
The only Moby Dick I know belongs to Johnny. Accordingly, I vote for David Copperfield or any literary work written by a Brit set in the 1800's; I hate that crap.
Lol... Lownumba...
I'd have to vote for Atlas Shrugged sucking more... only because Moby Dick was so well read to me as a child.
When U.S. companies began marketing their products in Africa, common practice was to have a picture on the label of what is inside, since most people there can't read English. Gerber Baby Food was not aware of this, and ran into a problem, since the photo on their label is of a cute Caucasian baby.
I can't, I'm laughing to hard!
At Soylent Green Acres, my current residence, Saturday nights mean two things: tapioca pudding and a meeting of my literary group. The subject for last night's discussion was: Which Sucked More, Moby Dick or Atlas Shrugged? After a most spirited discussion (there was frigging pudding everywhere), we split 3-3 on the subject. (I should note that two members continually referred to Captain Ahab as "Gregory Peck," so I suspect they may have cheated.) Would anyone care to break the tie?
Classified Section Of Sept. 11 Report Faults Saudi Rulers
By DAVID JOHNSTON
ASHINGTON, July 25 — Senior officials of Saudi Arabia have funneled hundreds of millions of dollars to charitable groups and other organizations that may have helped finance the September 2001 attacks, a still-classified section of a Congressional report on the hijackings says, according to people who have read it.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/26/national/26SAUD.html?hp
Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz told Bush during their meeting at the US leader's ranch in Crawford, Texas, on Thursday that the United States must "intervene in a fair manner to end the current crisis in the Palestinian territories," according to a Saudi official accompanying Abdullah on his US trip.
I wonder why it was pulled?
Check the dateline on the original article.
9/11 REPORT: JOINT CONGRESSIONAL INQUIRY
REPORT OF THE JOINT INQUIRY INTO THE TERRORIST ATTACKS OF SEPTEMBER 11, 2001 –
BY THE HOUSE PERMANENT SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE AND THE
SENATE SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE
July 24, 2003
http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/911rpt/index.html
UPI obviously could not stand behind a story a day earlier than when the report was to be released.
IRAQ
Bush: Mission will be long
President warns that U.S. role will be 'massive and long-term'
Tom Bowman
The Baltimore Sun
http://www.thesunlink.com/redesign/2003-07-02/nationworld/191426.shtml
"Among these terrorists are members of the Ansar al-Islam, which operated in Iraq before the war and now is active in the Sunni heartland of the country," Bush said. "We suspect that the remnants of a group tied to al-Qaida associate (Abu Musab) al-Zarqawi are still in Iraq, waiting for an opportunity to strike."
No solid proof yet linking Saddam Hussein to Al-Qaeda Agence France-Presse
Washington, July 25
http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_319143,00050001.htm
Ansar prisoners interviewed in Tawela, northern Iraq by AFP soon after the attack, insisted their group had no links to Saddam.
"I am a Kurd, all Kurds hate Saddam Hussein, he destroyed my family," said one of the prisoners. He and another survivor had been forced to join Ansar, which established rigid Islamic rules in its area. The prisoners also said they had seen no Arabs or other foreign Islamist fighters in their ranks.
US officials have yet to release evidence that the camp was used for building chemical weapons.
Meanwhile an alleged associate of Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi standing trial in Germany has denied any connection with Al-Qaeda.
Shadi Mohd Mustafa Abdellah told a court in Duesseldorf, Germany on July 2 that he belonged to a group called al-Tawhid, which was "on its own and had nothing to do with Al-Qaeda."
The alleged terrorist, a 26-year-old Jordanian, is charged with plotting attacks against Jewish and Israeli targets in Germany.
Hundreds of pages of German police interrogations suggest the al-Tawhid organization had "its own goals and may even have been a jealous rival of Al-Qaeda," Newsweek magazine reported in late June.
Shadi Abdallah told his interrogators that al-Tawid "was one of several Islamist groups that acted 'in opposition' to bin Laden's Al-Qaeda," according to Newsweek.
Perhaps more important, two imprisoned top Al-Qaeda operatives, including Abu Zubaydah, captured in March 2002, have consistently denied any links with Saddam.
Zubaydah told CIA interrogators that bin Laden explicitly rejected working with Saddam because he did not want to be beholden to him, according to the New York Times.
The results of the interrogations have not been made public.
Go find the corrected version rocket scientist. BTW the UPI sucks.
Ask Condi's deputy. He keeps popping up in the news lately.
Shortly after the Bush Administration took office in January 2001, the National Security Council undertook a review of existing policy for dealing with Al Qaeda. In response to written Joint Inquiry questions, Deputy National Security Adviser Steve Hadley explained: "The Administration took the Al Qaeda threat seriously and, from the outset, began considering a major shift in United States counterterrorism policy." From the first days of the Bush Administration through September 2001, it conducted a senior-level review of policy for dealing with Al Qaeda. The goal was to move beyond the policy of containment, criminal prosecution, and limited retaliation for specific attacks, toward attempting to "roll back" Al Qaeda. The new goal was to eliminate completely the ability of Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups of global reach to conduct terrorist attacks against the United States. . . . Between May and the end of July 2001, four Deputies Committee meetings were held directly related to the regional issues which had to be resolved in order to adopt a more aggressive strategy for dealing with Al Qaeda. These meetings focused on [ ]. This new policy might have produced a coordinated government response to the bin Laden threat or put the nation on more of a war footing with Al Qaeda before Sept. 11. However, as Mr. Hadley noted, "The administration finalized its review of policy on Al Qaeda at an N.S.C. Principals Committee meeting on Sept. 4, 2001." President Bush had not reviewed the draft policy before Sept. 11.
Hmmm, from July to Sept. Must be nice to take the summer off.
Hello Condi? Did you enjoy your vacation?
Hey I think we made Phil's day.
We should eatch for it to see if it comes back up.
Thanks. As I watched both a Republican and Dem Senator basically say the same thing I wonder why it was pulled?
Sorry this is a long post.
Who is Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and what were told about him???
The media and the message.
Posted on Fri, Jul. 25, 2003
German Terror Cell Linked to al-Qaida
Associated Press
http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/breaking_news/6384145.htm
DUESSELDORF, Germany - A German investigator testified Friday that authorities linked the leader of a German-based terrorist cell to al-Qaida but could not confirm U.S. claims that the man was also in contact with Saddam Hussein.
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was the leader of the radical Palestinian group Al Tawhid and also believed to be the "leader of a wing within al-Qaida," federal agent Manfred Ehlenz said at the trial of Shadi Abdellah, accused of plotting attacks in Germany for the group.
In his February speech to the U.N. Security Council, Secretary of State Colin Powell said al-Zarqawi was being harbored by Iraq, evidence of an al-Qaida connection to Saddam.
Ehlenz said the Bundeskriminalamt - Germany's equivalent of the FBI - had linked al-Zarqawi to Hamas and Hezbollah, but never to Saddam.
The Guardian
No proof of Iraq, al-Qaeda links: analysts
By Julian Borger, Michael Howard and Richard Norton-Taylor
January 31 2003
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/01/30/1043804465839.html
That case relies heavily on a man called Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian member of the al-Qaeda leadership who was wounded in the leg in the US-led bombing of Afghanistan. In late 2001, according to US intelligence sources, he sought medical treatment in Iran but was deported and fled to Baghdad, where his leg was amputated. Telephone calls he made to his family in Jordan were intercepted.
The question is whether Saddam Hussein's regime knew who he was and whether it offered him any assistance. "Yes, we have him telling his family I'm here in Baghdad in hospital, but he's not saying: 'And by the way, I'm getting all this help from Saddam'," a well-informed source in Washington said.
Debka
Iraq-al Qaeda Partnership to Target Gulf Oil Fields
DEBKAfile Special Intelligence Report
February 16, 2003, 2:32 PM (GMT+02:00)
http://debka.com/article.php?aid=260
Abu Musaab Al Zarqawi, identified in US secretary of state Colin Powell’s February 5 demonstration to the Security Council of al Qaeda’s links with Baghdad, is not only the commander of the 170 al Qaeda fighters based mainly in the south Lebanese port of Sidon and formed into a brigade of the Iraqi Kurdish radical Ansar al Islam. He also officiates as supreme al Qaeda supervisor of the network’s stocks of unconventional weapons and their distribution world wide. Zarqawi uses Baghdad and Damascus as his transport hub to orchestrate the operations of cells around the Middle East, Western Europe and the Persian Gulf, with active assistance from Iraqi and Syrian military intelligence. The Syrian service is also a joint custodian of Iraq’s forbidden weapons caches in Lebanon.
U.S.: Nine nations pledge troops
Iraq has 'weeks and not months' to disarm, White House says
01/31/2003
By RICHARD WHITTLE / The Dallas Morning News
Last month, Jordan arrested two men described as members of an al-Qaeda cell and charged them with Mr. Foley's killing.
Information Minister Mohammad Affash Adwan said at the time that the men received from Mr. al-Zarqawi machine guns, grenades and money to carry out terrorist attacks against embassies and diplomats in Jordan.
The Los Angeles Times reported Thursday that Mr. al-Zarqawi, an international fugitive believed to be one of al-Qaeda's top chemical weapons experts, had a leg amputated in a Baghdad hospital after being wounded in Afghanistan.
"I am not making the case here that this is a 9-11 connection," Mr. Armitage said. But it is al-Qaeda's "thirst for the weapons of mass destruction – and our belief that if Saddam Hussein can pass them to people who will do us ill without being caught, he will do it – that gives us so much concern."
The Europeans Know More Than They Now Pretend?
by Michael A. Ledeen
National Review Online
http://www.benadorassociates.com/article/230
February 11, 2003
Abu Musab Al Zarqawi's name and photograph have suddenly become front-page items in both the United States and Europe, ever since Secretary of State Colin Powell, in his speech to the U.N. Security Council, identified Zarqawi as an al Qaeda terrorist working out of Baghdad. European antiterrorist experts in Germany and France, who have arrested many of Zarqawi's followers in their countries, have vigorously denied any knowledge of a link with Iraq, but their many denials conceal facts they are suddenly reluctant to proclaim: The Zarqawi story is not limited to Iraq, and the terror network of which he is a crucial link extends from many Middle Eastern countries throughout Europe, and into the United States.
No doubt there is a connection between Zarqawi and Iraq — director of Central Intelligence George Tenet was not sitting right behind Powell to endorse a fantasy — but that is only a small part of the story. Zarqawi's footprints lead unerringly to Iran, whence he has directed murderous operations in Jordan and Western Europe. And one doesn't need anonymous sources to prove it: It's on the record in Germany and Italy, at a minimum. One large body of evidence is available from the Federal Court of Justice in Karlsruhe, Germany, in connection with the trial of one Shadi Abdallah.
February 20, 2003
Why Hasn't Saddam Killed Us All?
by Doug Bandow
Doug Bandow is a senior fellow with the Cato Institute and a syndicated columnist.
http://www.cato.org/dailys/02-20-03.html
The administration points to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, whom it links to al-Qaeda and who received medical treatment in Baghdad. The Ansar al-Islam group is said to include al-Qaeda soldiers and have established a poisons training camp.
It's not clear how much credence to give to information gleaned from American captives, however. They could hope to win favor with their interrogators or provoke another conflict with America.
Moreover, al-Zarqawi's ties to al-Qaeda are thin -- it is not a rigid organization with a well-defined membership. German intelligence says al-Zarqawi's al-Tawhid organization is more like an affiliate, and one focused on the Palestinians (and Jordan), not the United States. An American intelligence analyst argues that al-Zarqawi "is outside bin Laden's circle. He is not sworn al-Qaeda."
The War Against Bush
From the June 30, 2003 issue: They were split over Saddam, but Dems are united against the president.
by Stephen F. Hayes
06/30/2003, Volume 008, Issue 41
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/002/831zisax.asp
A mid-level associate of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, an al Qaeda leader specializing in biological and chemical weapons, was captured in Baghdad shortly after the war. Al-Zarqawi, who also has ties to an al Qaeda splinter group, Ansar al-Islam, which operated in Kurdish-controlled Iraq, fled to Baghdad and received medical treatment after he was wounded fighting in Afghanistan. Colin Powell, in his presentation to the U.N. Security Council on February 5, 2003, spoke of al-Zarqawi and intelligence that he was operating a small cell from Baghdad. U.S. intelligence officials believe he remained in Baghdad as the war in Iraq began in mid-March, and may have fled to Iran following the conflict. On June 11, 2003, Knight-Ridder reporters revealed that U.S. troops in Baghdad captured "several suspected associates of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi" and "suspected members of Ansar al-Islam, a Kurdish Islamic extremist group."
SoxFan
I read that story earlier but try clicking the link right now. This is what I got twice.
9/11 report:
By Shaun Waterman
UPI Homeland and National Security Editor
Published 7/25/2003 1:50 PM
WASHINGTON, July 23 (UPI) -- On July 23 2003, United Press International published an article about materials believed to be in a report to be released July 24 regarding investigations into the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. UPI cannot further stand by this story as originally filed and will have a corrected version soon.
Copyright © 2001-2003 United Press International
Vivian, in light of our recent discussion regarding Bush saying that there IS TIES to Al Qaida I thought this might shed a different light wouldn't you say?
9/11 report: No Iraq link to al-Qaida
By Shaun Waterman
UPI Homeland and National Security Editor
Published 7/23/2003 7:48 PM
WASHINGTON, July 23 (UPI) -- The report of the joint congressional inquiry into the suicide hijackings on Sept. 11, 2001, to be published Thursday, reveals U.S. intelligence had no evidence that the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein was involved in the attacks, or that it had supported al-Qaida, United Press International has learned.
"The report shows there is no link between Iraq and 9-11," said a government official who has seen the report.
Former Democratic Georgia Sen. Max Cleland, who was a member of the joint congressional committee that produced the report, confirmed the official's statement.
Asked whether he believed the report will reveal that there was no connection between al-Qaida and Iraq, Cleland replied: "I do ... There's no connection, and that's been confirmed by some of (al-Qaida leader Osama) bin Laden's terrorist followers."
The revelation is likely to embarrass the Bush administration, which made links between Saddam's support for bin Laden -- and the attendant possibility that Iraq might supply al-Qaida with weapons of mass destruction -- a major plank of its case for war.
"The administration sold the connection (between Iraq and al-Qaida) to scare the pants off the American people and justify the war," said Cleland. "What you've seen here is the manipulation of intelligence for political ends."
The inquiry, by members of both the House and Senate intelligence committees, was launched in February last year amid growing concerns that failures by U.S. intelligence had allowed the 19 al-Qaida terrorists to enter the United States, hijack four airliners, and kill almost 3,000 people.
Although the committee completed its work at the end of last year, publication of the report has been delayed by interminable wrangles between the committees and the administration over which parts of it could be declassified.
Cleland accused the administration of deliberately delaying the report's release to avoid having its case for war undercut.
"The reason this report was delayed for so long -- deliberately opposed at first, then slow-walked after it was created -- is that the administration wanted to get the war in Iraq in and over ... before (it) came out," he said.
"Had this report come out in January like it should have done, we would have known these things before the war in Iraq, which would not have suited the administration."
The case that administration officials made that al-Qaida was linked to Iraq was based on four planks.
Firstly, the man suspected of being the ringleader of the Sept. 11 hijackers, Mohammed Atta, was supposed to have met with an Iraqi intelligence official in Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic, in April 2001. But Czech intelligence - the original source of the report - later recanted, and U.S. intelligence officials now believe that Atta was in the United States at the time of the supposed meeting.
The Iraqi official, Ahmed Khalil Ibrahim Samir al-Ani is now in U.S. custody.
Secondly, U.S. officials said Iraq was harboring an alleged al-Qaida terrorist named Abu Mussab al-Zakawi.
But the government official who has seen the report poured scorn on the evidence behind this claim.
"Because someone makes a telephone call from a country, does not mean that the government of that country is complicit in that," he told UPI.
"When we found out there was an al-Qaida cell operating in Germany, we didn't say 'we have to invade Germany, because the German government supports al-Qaida.' ... There was no evidence to indicate that the Iraqi government knew about or was complicit in Zakawi's activities."
Newsweek magazine has also reported that German intelligence agencies - having interrogated one of Zakawi's associates - believed that Zakawi was not even an al-Qaida member, but headed a rival Islamic terror group.
Thirdly, defectors provided to U.S. intelligence by the then-exiled opposition group, the Iraqi National Congress, said that Islamic terrorists had been training to hijack airliners using a disused plane fuselage at a camp in Salman Pak in Iraq.
"My understanding was that there was an alternate explanation for that," said the government official, suggesting that that they were doing counter terrorism training there. "I'm not saying that was the explanation, but there were other ways of looking at it."
Fourthly, officials have cited a series of meetings in the 1980's and 1990's between Iraqi officials and al-Qaida members, especially in Sudan.
Former CIA counter-terrorism analyst Judith Yaphe has questioned the significance of this data, "Every terrorist group and state sponsor was represented in Sudan (at that time)," she said recently, "How could they not meet in Khartoum, a small city offering many opportunities for terrorist tête-à-têtes."
The government official added that the significance of such meetings was unclear: "Intelligence officials, including ours, meet with bad guys all around the world every day. That's their job. Maybe to get information from them, maybe to try and recruit them.
"There are a series of alternative explanations for why two people like that might meet, and that's what we don't know."
He went on to suggest that the conclusions drawn from the information about the Sudan meetings was indicative of a wider-ranging problem with the administration's attitude to intelligence on the alleged Iraq al-Qaida link.
"They take a fact that you could draw several different conclusions from, and in every case they draw the conclusion that supports the policy, without any particular evidence that would meet the normal bar that analytic tradecraft would require for you to make that conclusion," he concluded.
http://www.upi.com/print.cfm?StoryID=20030723-064812-9491r
Castle...Amen! EOM
Subject: Mars (received in email)
The Red Planet is about to become a spectacular sight! This month and next, Earth is catching up with Mars in an encounter that will culminate in the closest approach between the two planets in
recorded history. The next time Mars may come this close is in 2287.
The encounter will culminate on August 27th when Mars comes to within 34,649,589 miles of Earth and will be the brightest except for the moon in the night sky. It will attain a magnitude of -2.9
and will appear 25.11 arc seconds wide. At a modest 75-power magnification Mars will look as large as the full moon to the naked eye. Mars will be easy to spot. At the beginning of August it will rise in the east at 10 p.m. and reach its azimuth at about 3 a.m.
By the end of August when the two planets are closest, Mars will rise at nightfall and reach its highest point in the sky at 12:30a.m. That's pretty convenient to see something that no human being has seen in recorded history. So, mark your calendar at the beginning of August to see Mars grow progressively brighter and brighter throughout the month.
...you will find sunset times, Mars rise times (when Mars rises above the local horizon) and Mars transit times (when Mars is directly overhead) for several cities in the United States. The times are for the evening of August 26, 2003, and the early morning of August 27, 2003. If your city is not listed, you can use the city closest to your location.
http://www.planetary.org/marswatch2003/us_rise-set_times.html
Glad they're back & hope they stay...
Bible Verses Back Up at Grand Canyon
Fri Jul 25, 9:52 AM ET
PHOENIX (Reuters) - The bible is back at the Grand Canyon -- at least for now.
Three bronze plaques inscribed with biblical passages that were removed this month from scenic overlooks at the canyon's South Rim have been reinstalled pending legal advice, David Barna, a National Park Service spokesman, said on Thursday.
The plaques were pulled from Hermit's Rest, Lookout Studio and Desert View overlooks earlier this month after the Arizona chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (news - web sites) concluded that they violated the U.S. Constitution's precepts on separation of church and state. As a national park, the Grand Canyon is run by the U.S. Department of the Interior.
"We need to take a step back and look at this," said Barna. "We'll need some help." It was not known when a final decision would be made.
The plaques, belonging to the Evangelical Sisterhood of Mary, were placed at popular spots on the busy South Rim 33 years ago to honor God for creating the majestic, crimson-hued canyon in northern Arizona.
They contain passages from the Book of Psalms and a verse from the King James version of the Bible which reads, "O Lord, how manifold are thy works! in wisdom hast thou made them all: the earth is full of thy riches."
"We are very happy they are back up and giving glory back to God again," said Sister Pinea Zarkos, a spokeswoman for the Sisterhood of Mary in Phoenix. "We are all praying now that they will remain up."
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=573&ncid=757&e=6&u=/nm/20030725/od_n....
Okay I am in favor of that but wait a minute.
Government Offers Plan to Coordinate Climate Study
By JENNIFER 8. LEE
ASHINGTON, July 24 — Seven months after first promising to come forward with a plan to look into the causes of global warming, the Bush administration introduced a comprehensive program today to coordinate current efforts studying climate change — and develop some new ones — across some 13 federal agencies.
The plan was presented at a news conference by Commerce Secretary Donald L. Evans and Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham. Among its provisions was $103 million to be spent to deploy new satellite-based global observation technologies.
[satellites? We need more satellites? This is when I start to think maybe this would be helpful to the military. Maybe this is not about global warming comepletely]
Officials did not identify how any of the program would be financed, however, bringing concern from scientists that any new initiatives would simply draw resources away from existing research efforts.
[Wait you mean they aren't actually going to fund this? This is what this administration does all the time. They put out programs they are not going to fund, or they take funds from other programs.]
Further, environmental advocacy groups criticized the effort as an administration delaying tactic to focus on uncertainties rather than the scientific consensus that has already emerged about how human activity contributes to global warming.
"The administration wants to call a lot of attention to its research plan, because it wants to distract attention from its failure to have a global warming and pollution reduction plan," said Daniel A. Lashof, a senior scientist with the Natural Resources Defense Council.
Mr. Evans and Mr. Abraham, on the other hand, emphasized the importance of "sound science" in making decisions about climate change.
[Whiner!! I think this guy is probably right, but he is whining don't you think?]
"When it comes to global climate change, America is leading," said Mr. Evans, noting that the United States spent more on climate change research than Japan and Europe combined.
[Good for US.]
He said the federal government was spending $4.5 billion on climate change efforts, although that figure included financing for marginally related things, like a substantial amount in tax breaks that are given to business and agriculture for energy efficiency initiatives and the like.
[ This is Bush accounting. They do this all the time. It is like saying they have increased veterans funding by 4 billion dollars when 2.5 billion is actually co-payments the veterans will have to pay.]
Of the $4.5 billion figure, the budget for the Climate Change Science Program, which oversees the government's climate research, is about $1.7 billion. Budgets for the various research efforts on climate change are scheduled to be either flat or reduced in the next fiscal year.
[What? All this for nothing?]
Interesting stuff, ergo. Thank you. eom
Thanks for the article Vivian, I think it is about right. None of this is easy especially when you examine what was thought in say 1995. Here's a link to what I would call a typical NeoCon argument in 1995. The author Laurie Mylroie makes the case that Ramzi Yousef is or was directly connected to Iraq. Note that there is no mention of Bin Laden in this at all. http://www.fas.org/irp/world/iraq/956-tni.htm
She is in retrospect just plain wrong I think.
After some 13 years of civil war by 1996 the Sudan was a hot spot for "terrorists" while the Clinton Administration failed to arrest Bin Laden it did "succeed" in convincing the government there to stop aiding and abetting him.
The human rights report. This is the most atrocious place in the world. Makes Iraq's whole history look almost benign.
http://www.usis.usemb.se/human/1996/africa/sudan.html
And there was bipartisan support to do something. But nothing was ever done.
http://www.kstatecollegian.com/issues/v104/fa/n022/opinion/opn.guest.brow.html
"The Security Council this afternoon called on the Government of the Sudan to comply with requests of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) to extradite to Ethiopia the three suspects wanted for attempting to assassinate President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt on 25 June 1995, in Addis Ababa."
http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/1996/19960131.sc6170.html
But what happened when Clinton did try and do something?
"Bill Clinton epitomized the concept of "wag the dog."
The Clintons played each scandal like a volleyball, deflecting one scandal after another by contrived news events and even wars.
Bill Clinton's 1999 war over Kosovo was perhaps the most egregious use of presidential power to divert the public's attention and save a presidency."
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2002/6/13/211338.shtml
And of course the left wanted him impeached and to stand war crimes trials.
http://www.themodernreligion.com/terror/media_sudan.htm
Sox...
It bothers me, too, believe it or not, that we have not found anything. I wonder, often, if the intelligence you cite was a)faulty or b)old, or worse c) accurate, but aged enough that Hussein had a chance to trot the stuff over to Syria, bury it, destroy it, etc.
We do know the French were selling him propulsion packages for long-range missiles, that has not been disputed, but the question is why.
I've every confidence the truth will come out...eventually. The people of the world we live in are far to savvy to be kept in the dark.
I am in full agreement with the war, and frankly, I don't care about the presence/absence of WMDs..except for the fact that that was the reason sold to the public by the Bush administration for going in. Why not just state the obvious? That Hussein refused to comply with UN resolutions, that he was a proven threat (Kuwait in '91) to his neighbors, and that since he had not lived up to his end of the cease fire for the Gulf War that contract was null and void and hostilities would commence immediately.
Now, how about that Kobe Bryant deal? Wow.
Vivian - Hans Blix has said that they were given access to every place they went. They were not prevented or hassled at all, unlike before in 1998. The problem is that the US had given them their best WMD sites and the UN was coming up empty and the longer they stayed there the other countries would realize that the intelligence that the US had was turning into mush.
Vivian think about this - Cheney, Powell, Rumsfeld, and Bush said they knew he had WMD. Rumsfeld said he knew where it was and Cheney 3 days before the war said the Saddam had reconstituted his Nuclear Weapons program. Where the hell is this stuff if they had such hard intelligence. They said they had 30,000 weapons filled with Chem/bio weapons. They can't hide that crap so where is it? Where are the missiles they said they had? We have found zilch, nada, nothing.
Sox...
I could say the same for you, regarding believing anything you want so long as it supports your position, and I'd be just as accurate.
I do agree, however, that the proof will determine my ultimate decision on what/who to believe.
I find it interesting that amidst the controversy both Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair seem confident in their assertions of WMD in Iraq. I can't help but wonder what they know and will I be privy @ some point to it.
Vivian with all due respect since the "major battles are over" this administration and the British administration have been frantically looking for anything to link the two plus find WMD. They have done neither. You seem to believe anything, no matter how flimsy, as proof there is a link.
Heck, they found 6 people in Buffalo that were trained by Al Qaeda. Does that mean the US has a link to Ossama?
You evidence is someone said something to a reporter who was not present and under pressure these captives might say anything. Heck Syrians went over the border to fight us as well as other Muslims. Does that make them Al Quada? But even if true and Al Quada is fighting us over their now that does not show any link. What is shows is that Al Quada wants to kill our soldiers because they are there and it's easy.
Much of the "evidence" that we had against Iraq has gone poof. It's vanished if it ever was there. You choose to believe anything you want. I'll wait for facts to emerge before I swallow this President's statements.
Sox...
Hans Blix, and his 200, had their collective hands tied and you know it. They had absolutely zero control over where and what they inspected. Their "inspections" were a joke.
And, while I'm on this soapbox, let's not forget that this entire war is simply a continuance of the Gulf War in 1991. Some 17 UN resolutions later, and still defiant, the U.S. had had enough.
ergo...I had not forgotten about you. Here is an example of Clinton's missed opportunities with bin Laden. And all because the "game" of politics was just too complicated for Slick.
Make no mistake, bin Laden was on our 'radar' for some time, so this should have been a no-brainer.
By Barton Gellman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, October 3, 2001; Page A01
The government of Sudan, employing a back channel direct from its president to the Central Intelligence Agency, offered in the early spring of 1996 to arrest Osama bin Laden and place him in Saudi custody, according to officials and former officials in all three countries.
The Clinton administration struggled to find a way to accept the offer in secret contacts that stretched from a meeting at a Rosslyn hotel on March 3, 1996, to a fax that closed the door on the effort 10 weeks later. Unable to persuade the Saudis to accept bin Laden, and lacking a case to indict him in U.S. courts at the time, the Clinton administration finally gave up on the capture.
Sudan expelled bin Laden on May 18, 1996, to Afghanistan. From there, he is thought to have planned and financed the twin embassy bombings of 1998, the near-destruction of the USS Cole a year ago and last month's devastation in New York and Washington.
Bin Laden's good fortune in slipping through U.S. fingers torments some former officials with the thought that the subsequent attacks might have been averted. Though far from the central figure he is now, bin Laden had a high and rising place on the U.S. counterterrorism agenda. Internal State Department talking points at the time described him as "one of the most significant financial sponsors of Islamic extremist activities in the world today" and blamed him for planning a failed attempt to blow up the hotel used by U.S. troops in Yemen in 1992.
"Had we been able to roll up bin Laden then, it would have made a significant difference," said a U.S. government official with responsibilities, then and now, in counterterrorism. "We probably never would have seen a September 11th. We would still have had networks of Sunni Islamic extremists of the sort we're dealing with here, and there would still have been terrorist attacks fomented by those folks. But there would not have been as many resources devoted to their activities, and there would not have been a single voice that so effectively articulated grievances and won support for violence."
Clinton administration officials maintain emphatically that they had no such option in 1996. In the legal, political and intelligence environment of the time, they said, there was no choice but to allow bin Laden to depart Sudan unmolested.
"The FBI did not believe we had enough evidence to indict bin Laden at that time, and therefore opposed bringing him to the United States," said Samuel R. "Sandy" Berger, who was deputy national security adviser then.
Three Clinton officials said they hoped -- one described it as "a fantasy" -- that Saudi King Fahd would accept bin Laden and order his swift beheading, as he had done for four conspirators after a June 1995 bombing in Riyadh. But Berger and Steven Simon, then director for counterterrorism on the National Security Council (NSC) staff, said the White House considered it valuable in itself to force bin Laden out of Sudan, thus tearing him away from his extensive network of businesses, investments and training camps.
"I really cared about one thing, and that was getting him out of Sudan," Simon said. "One can understand why the Saudis didn't want him -- he was a hot potato -- and, frankly, I would have been shocked at the time if the Saudis took him. My calculation was, 'It's going to take him a while to reconstitute, and that screws him up and buys time.' "
Conflicting Agendas
Conflicting policy agendas on three separate fronts contributed to the missed opportunity to capture bin Laden, according to a dozen participants. The Clinton administration was riven by differences on whether to engage Sudan's government or isolate it, which influenced judgments about the sincerity of the offer. In the Saudi-American relationship, policymakers diverged on how much priority to give to counterterrorism over other interests such as support for the ailing Israeli-Palestinian talks. And there were the beginnings of a debate, intensified lately, on whether the United States wanted to indict and try bin Laden or to treat him as a combatant in an underground war.
In 1999, Sudanese President Omar Hassan Bashir referred elliptically to his government's early willingness to send bin Laden to Saudi Arabia. But the role of the U.S. government and the secret channel from Khartoum to Washington had not been disclosed before.
The Sudanese offer had its roots in a dinner at the Khartoum home of Sudanese Foreign Minister Ali Othman Taha. It was Feb. 6, 1996 -- Ambassador Timothy M. Carney's last night in the country before evacuating the embassy on orders from Washington.
Paul Quaglia, then the CIA station chief in Khartoum, had led a campaign to pull out all Americans after he and his staff came under aggressive surveillance and twice had to fend off attacks, one with a knife and one with claw hammers. Now Carney was instructed, despite his objections, to withdraw all remaining Americans from the country.
Carney and David Shinn, then chief of the State Department's East Africa desk, considered the security threat "bogus," as Shinn described it. Washington's dominant decision-makers on Sudan had lost interest in engagement, preparing plans to isolate and undermine the regime. The two career diplomats thought that was a mistake, and that Washington was squandering opportunities to enlist Sudan's cooperation against radical Islamic groups.
One factor in Washington's hostility was an intelligence tip that Sudan aimed to assassinate national security adviser Anthony Lake, the most visible administration critic of Khartoum. The Secret Service took it seriously enough to remove Lake from his home, shuffling him among safe houses and conveying him around Washington in a heavily armored car. Most U.S. analysts came to believe later that it had been a false alarm.
Taha, distressed at the deteriorating relations, invited Carney and Shinn to dine with him that Tuesday night. He asked what his country could do to dissuade Washington from the view, expressed not long before by then-United Nations Ambassador Madeleine K. Albright, that Sudan was responsible for "continued sponsorship of international terror."
Carney and Shinn had a long list. Bin Laden, as they both recalled, was near the top. So, too, were three members of Egypt's Gamaat i-Islami, Arabic for Islamic Group, who had fled to Sudan after trying to kill Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. Sudan also played host to operatives and training facilities for the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement, or Hamas, and Lebanon's Hezbollah.
"It was the first substantive chat with the U.S. government on the subject of terrorism," Carney recalled.
Taha mostly listened. He raised no objection to the request for bin Laden's expulsion, though he did not agree to it that night. His only rejoinders came on Hamas and Hezbollah, which his government, like much of the Arab world, regarded as conducting legitimate resistance to Israeli occupation.
Sudanese President Bashir, struggling for dominance over the fiery cleric Hassan Turabi, had already made overtures to the West. Not long before, he had delivered the accused terrorist known as "Carlos the Jackal" to France. Less than a month after Taha's dinner, he sent a trusted aide to Washington.
Maj. Gen. Elfatih Erwa, then minister of state for defense, arrived unannounced at the Hyatt Arlington on March 3, 1996. Using standard tradecraft, he checked into one room and then walked to another, across Wilson Boulevard from the Rosslyn Metro.
Carney and Shinn were waiting for him, but the meeting was run by covert operatives from the CIA's Africa division. The Washington Post does not identify active members of the clandestine service. Frank Knott, who was Africa division chief in the directorate of operations at the time, declined to be interviewed.
In a document dated March 8, 1996, the Americans spelled out their demands. Titled "Measures Sudan Can Take to Improve Relations with the United States," the two-page memorandum asked for six things. Second on the list -- just after an angry enumeration of attacks on the CIA station in Khartoum -- was Osama bin Laden.
"Provide us with names, dates of arrival, departure and destination and passport data on mujahedin [holy warriors] that Usama Bin Laden has brought into Sudan," the document demanded. The CIA emissaries told Erwa that they knew of about 200 such bin Laden loyalists in Sudan.
During the next several weeks, Erwa raised the stakes. The Sudanese security services, he said, would happily keep close watch on bin Laden for the United States. But if that would not suffice, the government was prepared to place him in custody and hand him over, though to whom was ambiguous. In one formulation, Erwa said Sudan would consider any legitimate proffer of criminal charges against the accused terrorist. Saudi Arabia, he said, was the most logical destination.
Susan Rice, then senior director for Africa on the NSC, remembers being intrigued with but deeply skeptical of the Sudanese offer. And unlike Berger and Simon, she argued that mere expulsion from Sudan was not enough.
"We wanted them to hand him over to a responsible external authority," she said. "We didn't want them to just let him disappear into the ether."
Lake and Secretary of State Warren Christopher were briefed, colleagues said, on efforts launched to persuade the Saudi government to take bin Laden.
The Saudi idea had some logic, since bin Laden had issued a fatwa, or religious edict, denouncing the ruling House of Saud as corrupt. Riyadh had expelled bin Laden in 1991 and stripped him of his citizenship in 1994, but it wanted no part in jailing or executing him.
Saudis Feared a Backlash
Clinton administration officials recalled that the Saudis feared a backlash from the fundamentalist opponents of the regime. Though regarded as a black sheep, bin Laden was nonetheless an heir to one of Saudi Arabia's most influential families. One diplomat familiar with the talks said there was another reason: The Riyadh government was offended that the Sudanese would go to the Americans with the offer.
Some U.S. diplomats said the White House did not press the Saudis very hard. There were many conflicting priorities in the Middle East, notably an intensive effort to save the interim government of Prime Minister Shimon Peres in Israel, which was reeling under its worst spate of Hamas suicide bombings. U.S. military forces also relied heavily on Saudi forward basing to enforce the southern "no fly zone" in Iraq.
Resigned to bin Laden's departure from Sudan, some officials raised the possibility of shooting down his chartered aircraft, but the idea was never seriously pursued because bin Laden had not been linked to a dead American, and it was inconceivable that Clinton would sign the "lethal finding" necessary under the circumstances.
"In the end they said, 'Just ask him to leave the country. Just don't let him go to Somalia,' " Erwa, the Sudanese general, said in an interview. "We said he will go to Afghanistan, and they said, 'Let him.' "
On May 15, 1996, Foreign Minister Taha sent a fax to Carney in Nairobi, giving up on the transfer of custody. His government had asked bin Laden to vacate the country, Taha wrote, and he would be free to go.
Carney faxed back a question: Would bin Laden retain control of the millions of dollars in assets he had built up in Sudan?
Taha gave no reply before bin Laden chartered a plane three days later for his trip to Afghanistan. Subsequent analysis by U.S. intelligence suggests that bin Laden managed to draw down and redirect the Sudanese assets from his new redoubt in Afghanistan.
From the Sudanese point of view, the failed effort to take custody of bin Laden resulted primarily from the Clinton administration's divisions on how to relate to the Khartoum government -- divisions that remain today as President Bush considers what to do with nations with a history of support for terrorist groups.
Washington, Erwa said, never could decide whether to strike out at Khartoum or demand its help.
"I think," he said, "they wanted to do both."
In that very report it states that UN weapons inspectors were ordered out of Iraq by the UN in 1998 which is true because British and US forces were going to commence bombings (which the Texas bug killer, Tom DeLamest of the bunch, roundly criticized - what a Patriot).
As for UN inspectors in 2003 they left right before the war and Iraq did not kick them out. However, it appears another Texan is also confused -
Talk about revisionist history - Last week, in blaming the war on Saddam, Bush said: ''We gave him a chance to allow the inspectors in, and he wouldn't let them in. And, therefore, after a reasonable request, we decided to remove him from power.''
So what was Hans Blix and those 200+ doing is Iraq? At much less cost the UN was far more effective in finding WMD than bubba. Is Bush back to his old ways of heavy drinking and forgetting what happened in the past?
And for those who doubt the weapons inspectors were tossed from Iraq:
http://www.fair.org/extra/0210/inspectors.html
Sox...in response to your assertion that Hussein has no ties to al Qaeda, I offer:
"Bin Working Together?
Embedded correspondent Gethin Chamberlain of The Scotsman newspaper reports captured Iraqi soldiers have told British forces that Usama bin Laden's Al Qaeda terrorists are working with Saddam forces near Basrah. The Iraqi prisoners have reportedly told British Interrogators that at least a dozen Al Qaeda members in the town of Az Zubayr have been planning grenade and gun attacks on coalition positions. If found, these Al Qaeda operatives would provide the first concrete proof of a connection between Usama's terrorist network and the brutal Iraqi regime."
...and the link: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,82691,00.html
.......then there's this.......
"SNOW: You said on the 14th of February that you had more information to deliver about Al Qaeda cooperation with Iraq. When are we going to see that?
POWELL: I think the CIA and other intelligence agencies of the government are hard at work in generating more information, as suggested.
There is an axis between al Qaeda and Iraq. We're not trying to overstate this case, and we're not trying to force any conclusions with respect to 9/11.
But we think there's a pretty good case that with the Al-Zarqawi presence that we have seen in Baghdad, with other things that have gone on, the Baghdad regime is witting of the presence of al Qaeda in Iraq, and it is certainly a place where they can find some opportunity to perform, to act, to find haven.
And so, we don't want to overstate the case, but we're not going to listen to the case that says there is no connection, because that is inaccurate."
...and the link: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,80556,00.html
....there's more: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,77710,00.html
Viv..You are welcome... and I will be dropping in. I've just been added as an assistant to yet another board, so I am even busier and have less time now then before... but I have this board bookmarked.
Have Fun!
Thank you, dear friend!! Welcome and come back often! eom
Ergo...
yeah, I remember, and agree that it may be cheaper in the long run for the big media conglomerates... still think it's the consumer that will pay... one way or another.
Castle do you remember when we were talking about digital radio and having to pay for the radio in the future? Part of this FCC ownership deals with the impact of having less local media. If and when you get all your media over one cable or satellite or whatever it will become much more difficult for a small company to compete. Right now it is fairly inexpensive to beam out a radio show. But when the federal government reclaims those spectrums people won't be able to do that anymore. Part of the FCC's argument is that four or five media conglomerates are plenty, and that this extra ownership will help drive the technological costs of HDTV down. Making it cheaper in the long run for the big media conglomerates, and stimulating spending.
#msg-505000
.<font color=fuchsia>Hello!!! Best Wishes For Much Success With Your New Board!!!
ergo...can you wait till tomorrow? Good! Have a good evening, folks!
Volume | |
Day Range: | |
Bid Price | |
Ask Price | |
Last Trade Time: |