TechBytes

This week the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) asked for input about PEG channels (public, educational and governmental access channels) in the states as PEG activists demanded that: Preferential spectrum be preserved for these channels and preferential menu placement of PEG channels be given; and, Video service providers be restricted from moving PEG channels from old analog technology to new digital delivery.

“Merger mania is gripping the global pharmaceutical industry” scream the headlines.

Bank of America just canceled contracts to hire a batch of foreign-born business students, because Congress said its bailout recipients (the “TARP” money) should hire American first.

Officials at the NTIA (the Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications & Information Administration), the FCC and the USDA, (yes, the Department of Agriculture) held a meeting earlier this week to begin to decide how to spend the $7.

Forty-two seconds a page—that is how long members of Congress were given to read, understand, evaluate and consider all the implications for the largest spending bill in history.

In a desperate scramble to balance their state budgets, state legislators in many states have seized upon the idea of “increasing revenue” (read: raising taxes) rather than taking actions to live within their means.

The growing incidence of calls for government meddling and control of speech is staggering.

The “stimulus bill” will throw $20 billion dollars at an effort to improve health information technology (IT).

In his 1981 inaugural speech Ronald Reagan famously said, “In the present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.

These days it seems that almost every discussion includes the word “stimulus.