XM/Sirius merger and the "public interest"

SEATTLE, Washington - The seventeen-month hostage crisis otherwise known as the XM/Sirius merger approval is finally over. Piles and piles of silly rhetoric were spilled by opponents of the merger over that time, the most annoying of which involved assertions that the merger was not in the "public interest". Anytime you saw someone raise the specter of the "public interest", you knew one thing for sure: their complaint had nothing to to with the "public interest". Bryan Caplan at EconLog captured the spirit of this when discussing the price freeze and 24-noncommercial-channels mandate:

Yes, that's right. A price freeze for firms that are losing so much money they still might go bankrupt. And a legal requirement to carry a bunch of stations hardly anyone wants. It's a classic case of Orwellian "pro-consumer" regs that discourage innovation and equate "the public interest" with "that which does not interest the public."

One of the most odious "public interest" hucksters was Georgetown Partners, a minority-owned equity firm with broadcasting interests that viciously lobbied that a condition of the merger should be (brace yourself) a requirement that 20% of SIRI/XM's spectrum be forcibly leased to a minority broadcaster. All in the public interest, of course.

Georgetown Partners: Launch your own fucking satellites.

How bicycle pedals financed Nazi pseudoscholarship

SEATTLE, Washington - I'm currently reading The Master Plan by Heather Pringle, a book about the Ahnenerbe, a racial-studies institute founded by Himmler in 1935 that was eventually folded into the SS.

The Ahnenerbe did a lot of archaeological digging and rune-studying to attempt to prove that Aryans/Nordics performed much of the civilization-founding around the world. Hitler was not too gung-ho on this stuff and Himmler needed to scratch about for some additional funding.

He found a nice source of revenue for the Ahnenerbe - selling reflective bicycle pedals. Himmler got word that Anton Loibl, a former chauffeur for Hitler, had recently developed a reflective pedal. Some other guy had recently developed a similar pedal and applied for a patent. Himmler acted quickly: he buried the other guy's patent application, greased the skids for a patent application by Loibl, and got a traffic law passed that required the pedal on all new bicycles.

Well-financed expeditions around the world soon followed.

On the "crosswalk flags" in West Seattle

SEATTLE, Washington - I don't have much of an opinion on whether the little yellow crosswalk flags in West Seattle have merit, but I do know this: the containers holding the flags are not trash bins. Feel free to stop throwing your trash in them.

Do not break the momentum at WS Whole Foods site

SEATTLE, Washington - The heavy equipment has started the beneficial destruction at the Whole Foods site in West Seattle. Good.

To the person driving the equipment: if some neighborhood type comes up to you, and expresses concern over whether the apartment building to be built will have a catenary arch or a lancet arch at its entrance, and that this issue is of great importance to the character of the neighborhood, and suggests you should stop working until some community meetings are held to discuss this... just ignore them and keep working. You're doing the right thing.

West Seattle - excitement every weekend

SEATTLE, Washington - We had a street fair all last weekend, and now a PARADE this weekend? Wow, the party never stops. I was going to go to the Sequim Lavender Festival this weekend to add some spice to my life, but hey, don't have to.

My alarm clock turns 10 years old

SEATTLE, Washington - As best I can tell, my cat turns 10 years old this month. (Or last month, or next month). She's achieved so much in that time, like eating any flower or plant I attempt to display in the house, and waking me up right at the crack of dawn every day, without fail, for a hit of canned food.

Probably, many more years of this await me - besides a broken leg suffered on Christmas morning 1999 she's been perfectly healthy. She's lived in 6 states with me, she's flown more in her life than my mother, she's in it for the long haul.

Zoning Junta appeasement whack-a-mole for West Seattle Whole Foods

SEATTLE, Washington - In a freer world, I'd have a shiny new Whole Foods a block from my house today. As it stands, the developer, BlueStar, is receiving another round of bludgeoning from the dozen or so community activists who've realized they can have fun designing every last detail of a $65M construction project without investing a penny.

BlueStar sent an operative to a recent neighborhood meeting to beg for mercy regarding some recent design changes. I won't re-hash it all here, but it's the usual stuff - what happened to the roofline, what happened to the storefront, what happened to the plants, what color is the roof, what material is the roof, where are the balconies, there's too much parking, there's not enough parking, let's study the shading some more, on and on.

Regarding "what happened to the towers", BlueStar noted that the towers were removed per their last meeting with the Zoning Junta. The desire for towers waxes and wanes with the moon.

Even though they're already digging away at the site, another Zoning Junta meeting is set for August 14 to further ponder the roof resins and street buffers. BlueStar has even hired Vlad Oustimovitch, who appears to be the Winston Wolf of West Seattle design issues, to help get the developer and the "community" on the same page.

As I've said before, I don't think subjective design aesthetic issues should be subject to community review. Check for safety, check for compliance with regard to building height, etc., and that's that. I'll be able to see the thing from my living room window, and I still don't think the "community" should be dictating aesthetics to the developer. Surprise me.

I mentioned all of this to the operative at the BlueStar booth at the street fair this weekend, and I shan't say what he said to me but he didn't say I was crazy.

Blue Man Group can't wear saggy pants in Flint, MI

SEATTLE, Washington - Relevant-in-another-era Flint, Michigan is putting a fresh interpretation on their disorderly conduct and indecent exposure statutes that will allow them to wage war on saggy pants. This should put Flint back on the map.

Best of all (as several Reason commenters noted), the Detroit Free Press graphic explaining the new interpretations has put the saggy pants and exposed buttcracks on shiny blue humanoids, presumably to steer clear of any racial prejudgment regarding who might be more likely to be "sagging".

I'm bringing down a whole stock sector

SEATTLE, Washington - If I make it to the end of the month at my house it will be 24 months living at the same address - the longest such streak for me since 1992.

See the stock chart below - U-Haul was expecting me to move around June 1st. I'm surprised they didn't just send a van over without me even calling them.

I'll have to start peeking at the real estate listings.

iPhone/Apple myopians

SEATTLE, Washington - In New York one of my co-workers whipped out his iPhone. "You have one of these?" I was asked. No, I don't. "Oh, you're waiting for the 3G, huh?"

To these myopians there are two kinds of people, those that have an iPhone and those for whom the purchase of an iPhone is imminent. I'm not buying an iPhone. I have no interest in general in Apple's overpriced gear. I have a years-old, crappy iRiver mp3 player on which I put talk shows.

Different perspectives of "nearness"

SEATTLE, Washington - I golfed at the Bellevue Muni the other day, and one of the guys I got paired up with lived right across the street from the course. As he was talking to another Bellevue guy about their housing situations he noted that one of the things he liked about his location was that it was "near everything".

Not only is the Bellevue Muni not "near everything", but I'm having trouble thinking of even one thing that is "near" it.

Looks like Anne Hathaway snitched on her boyfriend

SEATTLE, Washington - Anne Hathaway's very-recently-ex-boyfriend Raffaello Follieri is in the hoosegow, and one of his friends is speculating that Hathaway snitched on him. It would figure, a chick living high on the hog on her boyfriend's dirty money then selling him out as soon as things sour.

"It makes sense," the friend said. "She's referred to as his former girlfriend in the indictment even though her spokesman never confirmed they broke up."

Hathaway, who is not identified by name in the criminal complaint, split with Follieri shortly before his arrest last week. He is charged with posing as an agent of the Vatican to fleece investors out of millions.

Shady Vatican-related investment schemes - wasn't this the plot of The Godfather Part III?

Found at I Don't Like You in That Way

Will Charbucks get the chop in West Seattle?

SEATTLE, Washington - Charbucks has announced plans to close 600 U.S. market stores - good to see that Howard Schultz is willing to rattle the cage above and beyond getting rid of the warm breakfast sandwiches.

The press release notes that 70 percent of the closures will be stores opened since the beginning of FY 2006 (which is October 2005 for Starbucks) and well well, we have two Charbucks (at least!) right in the neighborhood that have opened since then - the "Rainier Roaster" Charbucks on Fauntleroy and the former Infinity Espresso location.

The "Rainier Roaster" location was allegedly a Kenny Rogers Roasters previously - perhaps if Charbucks folds up that store a Boston Market or Krispy Kreme will open there to continue the tradition of bloated, overexpanded chains at that location.

A can of herring in the mail is NOT a Sicilian message

SEATTLE, Washington - Two groups that are very good at manipulating government are the major music labels (encapsulated as the RIAA) and the National Association of Broadcasters. They usually get what they want, but when their interests are at odds, they have to switch to other tactics, like sending cans of herring to their opponents.

Terrestrial radio stations do not have to compensate a musician when they play their song on the radio, a situation that has existed since the 1930s (!) and came into existence because broadcasters convinced Congress at that time that their broadcasts were essentially free promotion of the musicians, a damn bloody FAVOR to the musicians that they should be grateful for.

As sales of music via traditional channels are declining, the RIAA has decided now would be a good time for this rule to be lifted and for radio stations to start sending big checks to the RIAA member labels. This would be big money - likely billions of dollars per year - and each side is duking it out via their toadies in government.

At the same time, a RIAA-sponsored group, musicFIRST, sent a can of herring to the NAB and issued a press release saying "hey, we sent a can of herring to the NAB", to point out the alleged red herring nature of the "promotion" argument of the NAB. Their pitch is that corporate, corporate, corporate radio is taking bread from the mouths of the starving artists that you love.

The NAB is firing right back, saying that the foreign-owned, foreign-owned, foreign-owned music labels have been bilking artists for years and are trying to take money from Your Friendly Local Radio Station and send it to foreign-owned foreign corporations.

I won't get into the merits of their positions, I just hope they keep fighting, because this is more entertaining than listening to music.

Found at Ars Technica

Final insult as Mariners leave New York

NEW YORK, New York - Looks like Newsday was sufficiently bitter about the Mariners winning two games against the Mets that they referred to the Mariners as the "Pirates" in the writeup of Wednesday's game.

Pirates and Mariners both sail the seas but that's where the similarities end.

Nannytastic New York menu labeling rules - even at the ballpark

NEW YORK, New York - New York's pathetic rules regarding "chain" restaurants being required to list calorie counts on their menus have taken effect, and you can't even get a sausage & peppers sandwich at the ballpark without being confronted with calorie counts.

I picked the wrong night to go to Shea Stadium

NEW YORK, New York - I'm not much inclined to go to baseball games but seeing that Your Seattle Mariners won their first two games against the Mets, and listening to the subsequent anguish on New York sports talk radio afterwards, I decided to go to the last game of the series. I was prepared to gloat about another Mariners victory - not like a loud sports-fan idiot, but silent gloating, a silent sense of conquest.

This is the last season for Shea Stadium, which was another reason to visit. (The replacement for Shea is in the background below.)

Things did not work out, as the Mariners were bludgeoned and the Mets fans (many in my section wearing yarmulkes, not something you see much at Safeco) were in their full belligerent glory.

I left in the third inning, just as Miguel Batista was leaving, out of a sense of solidarity.

George Washington probably didn't see Seattle coming

NEW YORK, New York - This statue of George Washington (thankfully not sporting his Masonic apron and spatula) is at the Federal Hall National Memorial in lower Manhattan, the location of the original capitol of the United States.

Washington's first inauguration was in 1789, when Seattle was not even a twinkle in anyone's eye - in fact what is now Washington was still in the possession of Spain per a papal bull issued in 1493. Sixty-one years after Washington's inauguration, in 1851, the Denny party landed on Alki, and it was more than a decade after that that the first Mercer Maids arrived, allowing the Denny party to reproduce.

The Loser Express a.k.a. Staten Island Ferry

NEW YORK, New York - There's a way to suffer the costs of living in New York City (e.g. the ~4% city income tax) without getting any of the benefits - live on Staten Island. This is the ferry leaving Manhattan in the morning, so it's empty. In the afternoon, it's full of loser commuters that live on Staten Island.

A rare TV special on Atlantic City

NEW YORK, New York - I've always noted that Atlantic City gets less attention in TV and movies than you would expect. The ledger balances a bit this Thursday on HBO (I check the HBO schedule when I'm at a hotel as I don't have it at home) as they present ATLANTIC CITY HOOKERS: IT AIN'T E-Z BEING A HO', a self-explanatory documentary.

"With some of our personalities out of the game, we decided to head south to the Jersey Shore, where we see the Atlantic City lights, where many lost souls go broke," explains [director Brent] Owens.

Shot on location in the casinos and on the streets of this east-coast gambling mecca, the often explicit, yet frequently poignant, documentary underscores the hopes, fears and humanity of these Boardwalk women-for-hire, telling hard-luck stories of six prostitutes, who open up in a series of informal interviews.

This thing is about 4 years old but it's new to me.

Some Midtown pics

NEW YORK, New York - Some pics from the 46th floor workout room of my hotel, midtown Manhattan. The building with the radio tower is the Condé Nast Building.

Murderous schemers going far afield for targets

SEATTLE, Washington -

Not quite a movie review - Beat

SEATTLE, Washington - I decided to rent the 2000 movie Beat because (1) I was reading The Beat Hotel by Barry Miles, (2) I wanted to see Kiefer Sutherland's performance as William S. Burroughs and (3) I read in Luke Ford's interview of producer Donald Zuckerman that the production was a circus and that Courtney Love was a difficult drama queen.

Sutherland doesn't look much like Burroughs but I think he did a good job with his verbal cadence. He had some lines that I would imagine Burroughs speaking but other than that the script didn't seem to have much muscle. He's not in much of the movie.

In fact, there isn't much movie - it allegedly has a 93 minute run time but the credits were rolling at about 75 minutes. From the Zuckerman interview you see that this is because they had to whack whole scenes because Courtney Love just didn't deliver the goods. I think a Kate Winslet or Winona Ryder could have done something here. (Ryder was offered the role.)

I guess the bottom line is, when Courtney Love is insisting on having the make-up people for other cast members fired, the producer and director are arguing over edits, and Mexican co-producers commandeer the film's negative and try to extort you, it affects the quality of the film.

Woody Allen lost his nerve

SEATTLE, Washington - I and many other celebrated the news of the lesbian action in his new movie Vicky Cristina Barcelona involving Scarlett Johansson and Penelope Cruz.

Bad news: Vicky Cristina Barcelona is rated PG-13. It doesn't appear we're going to get the anticipated steamy lesbian sex.

Woody has made at least ten R-rated movies, why did he crack up here? Even Deconstructing Harry was rated R! Why was that rated R - because of Woody's discussion of the tax implications of his hooker payments?

FCC will soon need to welcome a new group of ass-kissers

SEATTLE, Washington - the Federal Communications Commission serves no purpose for most of us, but its existence is still a great deal for the five people on the board, who have spent the last 450+ days getting their rings kissed by proponents and opponents of the XM/Sirius merger.

Now FCC chair Kevin Martin is going to recommend approval of the merger to the rest of the board, with a bunch of diktats and restrictions forced upon the merged entity, just to show that the FCC is doing its job.

The merged entity will have to offer a bunch of new pricing packages, agree not to raise prices for three years, and abide by other arbitrary conditions. Most grating to me is that they will probably have to set aside about 8% of available bandwidth (about 24 channels) for stuff that the FCC thinks people want, instead of simply trusting the company to provide what people want:

The companies agreed to turn over 8 percent of their satellite capacity, which works out to 12 channels apiece for noncommercial programmers and for those who have "not been traditionally represented" in radio.

Sirius already provides minority programming. Take for example the black man: SIRI provides several music channels that you'd have to say cater to a black audience, plus there's an entire comedy channel, headlined by Jamie Foxx, targeted to a black audience.

SIRI even has a gay/lesbian talk channel and has had it for years.

Seems the number-crunchers at the FCC don't consider all of this adequate. Implicit in the FCC's minority programming requirement is the patronizing assumption that various minority groups will not be interested in the 140+ channels offered by satellite radio unless something is narrowly targeted to them.

Even given all of this, the whole FCC board is not yet happy. History-professor-turned-FCC-petty-dictator Michael Copps is still making noise that approval is still a "steep climb" - the ass-kissing of Copps is not yet completed.