Posted by TriSec, due to technical issues....but written for us today by Trojan Rabbit! Note: I was afraid I'd get too technical with this and I probably did. But I feel this is important because most of the progressive stations are smaller AM stations and it looks like they could be squeezed out by the large corporate stations if HD become more prevalent. This little bloggie post is just scratching the surface.We all know the state of the print media world, as many long established newspapers are unable to deal with shrinking ad revenues and a shrinking reader base as people get their information elsewhere in more immediate forms. Another form of media, around since the turn of the last century, is heading towards the same cliff towards oblivion. Many of its problems are of its own doing, aided and abetted by a government agency more interested in creating revenue streams and bowing to lobbying pressure than insisting upon technical feasibility. AM radio used to be king, of course it was also the only broadcast entertainment available. During the day, the small local stations could keep you abreast of what was going on in your home town. At night, when the sun went down, your favorite network shows could be easily heard from the stations in the big cities, hundreds of miles away. All it took was a bit of imagination on the part of the listener to transport you anywhere the shows writers wanted to take you. And while reception was more or less dependable, the listener would have to deal with static from thunderstorms on many nights or the occasional passing motorist with bad spark plug wires. Along came [WIKI=Edwin_Armstrong]Edwin Armstrong[/WIKI] (the inventor of the [WIKI=Superheterodyne_receiver]superheterodyne[/WIKI] system which is the basis of just about every receiver made) with his new invention - [WIKI=FM_broadcasting]FM[/WIKI], promising near noise free reception and greater fidelity. The AM radio industry (most notably RCA), and AT&T, who saw FM as a threat to their voice transmission line business fought fiercely against it, lobbying the FCC to delay its widespread acceptance as long as possible, even going as far as to have the original FM band moved, instantly making useless thousands of radios. It took many years for FM to become the predominant medium for music, thanks to pioneering (read - desparate for listeners and willing to try anything) stations like [WIKI=WBCN_%28FM%29]WBCN[/WIKI] where progressive and album rock became a staple. And AM became mostly a medium for news, sports and talk radio.
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(b) Policy.— A member of the armed forces shall be separated from the armed forces under regulations prescribed by the Secretary of Defense if one or more of the following findings is made and approved in accordance with procedures set forth in such regulations:
(1) That the member has engaged in, attempted to engage in, or solicited another to engage in a homosexual act or acts unless there are further findings, made and approved in accordance with procedures set forth in such regulations, that the member has demonstrated that—
(A) such conduct is a departure from the member’s usual and customary behavior;
(B) such conduct, under all the circumstances, is unlikely to recur;
© such conduct was not accomplished by use of force, coercion, or intimidation;
(D) under the particular circumstances of the case, the member’s continued presence in the armed forces is consistent with the interests of the armed forces in proper discipline, good order, and morale; and
(E) the member does not have a propensity or intent to engage in homosexual acts.
(2) That the member has stated that he or she is a homosexual or bisexual, or words to that effect, unless there is a further finding, made and approved in accordance with procedures set forth in the regulations, that the member has demonstrated that he or she is not a person who engages in, attempts to engage in, has a propensity to engage in, or intends to engage in homosexual acts.
(3) That the member has married or attempted to marry a person known to be of the same biological sex. That's just a snippet from the fabulous "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" military code.
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Have you been following the news coming out of the Pacific in recent weeks? The vastness of the Pacific region is often difficult for Americans to grasp; the ocean itself covers nearly the entire hemisphere, and the distances are vast. I've flown across the Pacific twice; going from Manchester (NH) to Detroit, to Nagoya, Japan, and finally Manila and back again. It's a flight of over 8,500 miles and it took well over 24 hours in both directions. On September 29, a magnitude 8.0 earthquate triggered a tsunami that struck the Samoa archipeligo.
Oct. 7 (Bloomberg) -- More than 3,000 people are homeless in the Pacific Island nation of Samoa and face the risk of disease, a week after a tsunami wiped away 20 villages, the United Nations said in a statement today.
The Sept. 29 tsunami, spawned by a magnitude-8.0 earthquake, killed 137 people, injured 310 and left six still missing in the nation of 177,000, the UN said. Damage to Samoa’s roads, sewers and other infrastructure could reach $150 million, the international organization said.
The World Health Organization and UN agencies are working with the Samoan government to plan the islands’ reconstruction and ensure that it has a system in place to monitor medical needs and outbreaks of disease, according to the statement.
The UN Children’s Fund, UNICEF, said 9,000 children need assistance and 2,000 of those have been forced from their homes by the disaster.
On the island of Niuatoputapu, part of Tonga, the tsunami left nine dead and more than 300 homeless, the UN said. The island’s fresh water supply has been restored, and sufficient food supplies are available.
Just today, a video was released by the FBI office on American Samoa that showed the tsunami coming ashore in their parking lot.
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Conversation with Caricatures A dialogue with a Liberal, Conservative, and myself (Something unrelated. But I have just been informed that Obama has one the nobel peace prize.) Episode 01: PatriotismMyself: Welcome one and all to Conversation with Caricatures. Here we discuss the issues through lenses so distorted you’d swear this wasn’t real. As always we are joined by Liberal and Conservative. Now, let’s start with Conservative, what does Patriotism mean to you?
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When I was growing up in the 70s and 80s, it seemed that there were a couple of things you could rely on: conservatives would always support the US no matter what, and religious conservatives would always refer to the King James Version of the Bible as the "authentic" version of that book. The Moral Majority was pretty much founded on these two principles. And they succeeded in intimidating lawmakers, packing school boards and generally making people long for the good old days of Roger Williams and William Penn. Recently, however, the religious and patriotic Right have seen their respective stars diminish as liberals and moderates have attempted to take back the moral and patriotic high ground. In the aftermath of the 2008 election, it even appears to have made conservatives go a little... what's the word I'm looking for? Ohhhhh yes: crazy! Witness the following examples and see for yourself
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More then Zombieland
Author: wickedpam
Date: 10/07/2009 12:39:21
It’s October, the time when the air turns crisp, the leaves change color and the dead walk the night and day. I love this time of year. I’ve loved scary movies, books and TV shows since….jeez….I think I saw the Creature Double Feature on the UHF station when we lived in the Philly suburbs. Those horror movies are a far cry from the blood porn most movies of this genre are today. Vampires worked themselves into the culture and become sexy instead of scary…well maybe that hasn’t changed to some extent (and I’m not counting Nostforatu). The un-killable serial killers like Jason, Freddie and Mike Myers all have pasts that we should be sympathetic too. And monsters have become computer generated and too big to take seriously, i.e. Cloverfield (which is a great movie but I’m not that scared of giant praying mantis from outer space). There is one thing in horror movies, however, that has always made my skin crawl since I first saw it when MTV did its week of scary movies for Halloween back in the ‘80’s, that’s The Night of the Living Dead. I’m talking Zombies!!!!!!
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Ask A Vet
Author: TriSec
Date: 10/06/2009 11:25:52
Good Morning. Today is our 2,393rd day in Iraq. We'll start this morning as we always do, with the latest casualty figures from Iraq and Afghanistan, courtesy of Antiwar.com: American Deaths Since war began (3/19/03): 4347 Since "Mission Accomplished" (5/1/03): 4208 Since Capture of Saddam (12/13/03): 3884 Since Handover (6/29/04): 3488 Since Obama Inauguration (1/20/09): 119 Other Coalition Troops - Iraq: 325 US Military Deaths - Afghanistan: 856 Other Military Deaths - Afghanistan: 573 Contractor Employee Deaths - Iraq: 1,395 Journalists - Iraq: 335 Academics Killed - Iraq: 431 We find this morning's cost of war passing through: $ 917, 303, 150, 000 . 00You may have missed it during the past week while the Republicans were busy howling over Mr. Obama's trip to the Olympic Committee for Chicago's failed bid to host the 2016 games....but he's spent an awful lot of time recently reviewing Afghanistan. We always count the days we've been in Iraq....but lest we forget, we've been in Afghanistan longer.
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I watched " Capitalism: A Love Story" yesterday morning. Although I knew what I was going to see, and knew many of the items of interest in the move before going in, I came away shaken and as the day went on I became distressed. The corporate powers are so great in this country I wonder if We the people... is going to disappear forever. Continue reading...
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News Insanity
Author: velveeta jones
Date: 10/04/2009 14:26:33
The Neo-clowns are pranking us all - once again - with their antics that are crazier than Velveeta's Great Aunt Lolla that used to wander the halls of the old folks home selling slightly used crackers; a strange metaphor for her dementia. Recently, we were graced with the news that Sarah Palin is writing a book! Well, she's too busy doing, um, something, to actually write it herself. But the book is on its way with the help of woman by the name of Lynn Vincent. Ms Vincent is a delightful woman whose previous work includes a tome called Donkey Cons an investigative book about the democratic mafia party. She also ghost wrote the memoir of Lt. Gen. William G. "Jerry" Boykin, the former head of the Army's Special Forces Command, who literally believes that his job in the U.S. military was to defeat Satan for the Christian nation of America. A man who once stood at the pulpit of a church in 2002 (First Baptist Church of Broken Arrow, Okla.) and, after showing slides of battles from Somalia told the congregation "Ladies and gentleman, this is your enemy. It is the principalities of darkness. It is a demonic presence in that city that God revealed to me as the enemy."
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Good Morning! October...and the end of the Outdoor Discovery School season at ol' LL Bean. Today's my last shift for the school, but the weather is going to be suck-o-licious, so I don't know if anything is going to be happening at the store today. Fall is starting in earnest around these parts. Some leaves are starting to turn...it's opening weekend for the Topsfield Fair, and as it starts to get colder and darker, I often ponder the life cycle of this earth and its inhabitants....namely us. Now sure, we'd all like to live forever, but that's just not a realistic option for most of us. I'm sure we're all young and mostly healthy....but have you given any thought at all to your final resting place? I know I'd like to be cremated, and perhaps have the ashes scattered around Kejimkujik National Park in Nova Scotia, but I suppose I have time to worry about that. Or you could go the Gene Roddenberry route, and have your ashes vacuum-dessicated and pressed into a tiny capsule and shot into space. Cool and uber-geeky, but damn expensive. Ah, I know. How about making like Walt Disney and having your body frozen, in the hopes that some future science can cure whatever killed you and bring you back to life? No wait...that's an urban legend...
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