AT&T to buy T-Mobile

AT&T, the technology mogul has announced that they will be buying T-Mobile. The deal would top out at $39 million but wouldn't take affect until a year from now.

This would mean that T-Mobile would have a much wider selection of phones, contract plans, and service. However, T-Mobile users will no longer get unlimited data packages, one of the big draws for T-Mobile.

While the deal would mean more service for users that are grandfathered in, it would most likely mean higher prices for everyone. As Cingular has already been bought out, there are fewer and fewer cell phone options. This means not only will AT&T charge more for their services, Verizon and Sprint will also have to charge more in order to compete. I personally am against the idea. AT&T is turning into a Monopoly and soon its only going to be AT&T and Verizon. If this happens, cell phone bills will be through the roof.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/What-ATTTMobile-deal-could-apf-678471533.html?x=0

Tough Mudder

Quake in Japan leads to mounting nuclear threats

As the quake and tsunami that rocked Japan finally start to peeter off, disaster is still on the horizon in the form of nuclear meltdowns. As the tsunami took out power and generators, the nuclear plants had no way of cooling down the reactors thus resulting in melt downs and explosions. The explosions have led to radioactive material being released into the air. Thankfully, a majority of the material was blown over the ocean, but much of it is still affecting Japan and authorities are urging citizens to stay indoors and have enacted a 30 mile no fly zone over the plants.

Many officials are comparing the melt downs to that of Chernobyl. However, I firmly disagree with this. While the events are unfortunate and the entirety of the events in Japan is tragic, the melt downs are no Chernobyl. The events that happened in Chernobyl nearly wiped out the entire surrounding area and caused birth defects and mutations to this day. While the events in Japan may lead to cancerous side effects, the buildings were properly built and containable. The areas that exploded were not the core power sources. The affected zone is within 30 miles. Chernobyl is still affecting the area. The melt downs in Japan are the least of their worries and more attention needs to be brought to the thousands still missing and the devastatingly low amounts of food and water.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/ts_nm/us_japan_quake

NPR fires Ron Schiller

NPR announced recently that Ronald Schiller has been fired from the radio giant. The decision came after Schiller made a comment that NPR would be better without federal funding. NPR released a statement saying

The comments contained in the video released today are contrary to everything we stand for, and we completely disavow the views expressed. NPR is fair and open minded about the people we cover. Our reporting reflects those values every single day – in the civility of our programming, the range of opinions we reflect and the diversity of stories we tell.

I personally think the decision to fire Schiller over his opinion is completely ridiculous and goes against everything the 1st amendment and NPR stands for. Schiller in no way made negative comments or actions against the station, he simply stated his own opinion. Actions like this make me think that not only does NPR go against what they believe in, but that they don't deserve the funding.

Governement shutdown looms over Washington

As the US budget continues to fall into dissaray, that threat of a governement shut down has been brought up in order to cut funding. The move would comnpletely shut down what governement considers unnecessary positions for a period of time. It would save millions of dollars by not having to pay for salaries. This would include house represenatives, agents of governemntal groups like EPA and the IRS. The positions that are considered "nonessential" would be the ones to be shut down.
While republicans are for the shut down, democrats are radically against it. They are so against it that they have been forced into an "emergency short term" fund cut. The bill that was passed will cut nearly $4 billion dollars in government spending but it is only temporary, and only postpones the threat of a government shut down.
Personally I think that if temporarily shutting down some positions would save the country potentially millions of dollars then it needs to be done! There is no need for represenatives to be getting paid so much. Not only that, but the move would ensure a decrease is laws and regulations passed.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_congress_spending