Freedumb Freedumb, Read All About It!

Imposing grip on American news media (new term: Politically Correct - do as I say or you do not work, i.e., eat/live - throughout history, many oppressive regimes have used this standard )

The Solution: The Promise of New Energy Systems & Beyond Oil

Evaporates the Problem: The ill designed "Corporism: The Systemic Disease that Destroys Civilization."

Mild shock and disbelief barely registered in the nation of the most productive, overworked, underpaid, underinsured, vacation deprived, low paid slave/workers in the world, as they watched their bridges fall down, while their taxes, gas and energy costs continued skyrocketing to uncharted realms, as the masses stagnated in unmovable traffic, and government departments threatened to close due to lack of funds - On the bright side, the worldwide corporate 2% greedy guts, individually, had aplenty, more wealth than 30 nations combined, apiece.... irrelevant to who is paying for their errors (as in subprime loans).

As common sense in science is lost with the continued stagnation of our energy base and deep troubling theoretical foundational issues in physics, so too, Civilization's Survival Parameters fly out of sight, out of mind, along with the values and morals inherent within new scientific understanding which new energy systems would reveal. Scientific Stagnation bodes an ill wind to evolution, sustainability, and survival as "cycles of humiliation, dumbing us down, violence, and Unrestrained Corporate Greed prompting resource wars with nuclear finality" join hands with global warming and ecological imbalance to precipitate the historical "rise and fall of civilization" - a Tsunami accelerating toward us with a far more spectacular event than the legends and myths of 'Atlantis and Lemuria"........ had more people known that Energy from Corn (or going backwards to a dimwitted concept of radioactive nuclear power application ) sounded a wee bit kindergartenish and senile for the twenty first century......the Future may have had a chance.



NYT April 23, 2008
Imposing grip on American news media
Murdoch Moving to Buy Newsday for $580 Million
By RICHARD PÉREZ-PEÑA and TIM ARANGO
Rupert Murdoch is moving to tighten his already-imposing grip on American news media, striking a tentative deal to buy his third New York-based paper, Newsday, and getting his first chance to appoint the top editor of The Wall Street Journal, after the resignation of the editor on Tuesday.
His $580 million bid for Newsday and his urgency in remaking The Journal worry his competitors and cause angst in many newsrooms, including his own. And both moves are vintage Rupert Murdoch, a man who operates his sprawling News Corporation like an old-style media mogul, making big bets on old and new media — bankrolling the new Fox Business Network, aggressively pursuing a deal for Yahoo, and buying Dow Jones & Company, publisher of The Journal, for far more than analysts thought it was worth. And that was just in the last year.
His first love, however, remains newspapers. The purchase of Newsday from the Tribune Company would put Mr. Murdoch in control of 3 of the nation’s 10 largest-circulation papers (the others being The Journal and The New York Post). Owning Newsday, which is based on Long Island, would also open an eastern front in the long-running battle for New York tabloid supremacy and, by combining some operations, could allow News Corporation to end decades of heavy losses by The Post.
But the agreement is far from final as competing bidders consider their positions. Mortimer B. Zuckerman, owner of The Daily News, the archrival of The Post, will make a counteroffer next week, according to people involved in the bidding who would not be identified because of the confidentiality of the talks. Representatives of another bidder, the Observer Media Group, publisher of The New York Observer, plan to meet in a few days with Cablevision — which had dropped out of the bidding — to discuss a joint offer.
People in both the News and Observer camps say they were shocked to learn of the handshake deal with Mr. Murdoch, first reported by The Chicago Tribune and The Journal, because they had been assured by Tribune’s bankers that they had until next week to submit offers. In addition, a takeover of Newsday by News Corporation, which also owns two New York City television stations, could face trouble with regulators.
Like other newspaper companies, Tribune has suffered heavy losses in advertising revenue and faces nearly $1 billion a year in debt service costs, forcing it to make plans to sell the Chicago Cubs and assets like Newsday. The company took on most of its debt load last year when it went private in a deal that put Samuel Zell, who made billions in real estate, in control.
News Corporation and Tribune Company declined to comment on any of the moves.
The resignation of Marcus W. Brauchli from The Journal was less shocking, if only because Mr. Brauchli was appointed by the previous owners of the paper. Since he bought Dow Jones in December for $5.2 billion, Mr. Murdoch has moved swiftly to remake the stately paper, calling for shorter articles and more coverage of politics, culture and even sports — and fewer business articles on the front page.
Mr. Brauchli’s colleagues and friends say he championed some of the changes and acted as a brake on others. But they say it was increasingly clear that much of the direction was being set by Mr. Murdoch and the publisher he installed, Robert J. Thomson, who oversees news operations and has none of the usual business duties of a publisher. Editors and reporters say Mr. Brauchli’s authority was being undercut... Full Text