Sept 22, 2009 (Happy OneWebDay)
For complete coverage of Monday's Network Neutrality speech and reaction see http://bit.ly/gl2v8
BENTON'S COMMUNICATIONS-RELATED HEADLINES for TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 2009 (HAPPY ONE WEB DAY http://onewebday.org/)
NETWORK NEUTRALITY
Preserving a Free and Open Internet: A Platform for Innovation, Opportunity, and Prosperity
Republicans in Congress and at FCC Move To Block FCC Net Cop Initiative
For complete coverage of Monday's Network Neutrality speech and reaction see http://bit.ly/gl2v8
Industry Groups Question Need For FCC to Expand Internet Openness Principles
Proposed FCC Web rule change draws wireless ire
Genachowski Praised For Net Neutrality Proposal
The Open Internet Has A Great Day -- But It's Only Day 1
Net neutrality victory for consumers
Ensuring Net neutrality
Paying a High Price for Web Freedom
FCC Fires Back at Comcast in Net Neutrality Legal Battle
NATIONAL BROADBAND PLAN & THE STIMULUS
It's Official: NTIA Throwing States Under The BTOP Bus
Short-Staffed Local Governments Struggle with Stimulus Grants
House Democrats Push High-Speed For Anchor Institutions
Who's Running the Show -- the FCC or Hollywood Execs? [Video]
DOE Secretary Chu on fighting consumer smart grid resistance
NEWS FROM THE WHITE HOUSE
President Obama Lays Out Strategy for American Innovation
Obama Innovation Plan Gets Mixed Reviews
Obama concerned about newspapers
America's CTO Aneesh Chopra Challenges Tech Sector
MORE ON BROADBAND/INTERNET
Broadband Adoption: Traveling the Consumer's Last Mile
The Great Internet Buildout Continues
The Triumph of Web 2.5
TELECOM
Google's Phone Service Likely to Draw Scrutiny
Calls for probe of telecoms tie-up
OWNERSHIP
Groups Ask Antitrust Probe of Microsoft/Yahoo Combo Effect on Newspaper Consortium
Dell to acquire Perot Systems for $3.9 billion
EU reveals 'smoking gun' e-mails from Intel antitrust probe
EU probe 'costing Sun $100m a month'
Why We May Help Pay for Tribune to Unload the Cubs
MORE ONLINE ...
Journos Losing Jobs at Three Times Rate of Average Workers
ABC to cut commercial time for premieres of new TV series
Standards body issues draft advisory on maintaining open government data
FTC Seeks Public Comments on Proposed Follow-Up Study on Food Marketing to Youth
US Lags Behind in Health IT, Says Study
Filmmaking incentives losing glamour in cash-strapped states
The Rights of Corporations
MacArthur "genius awards" 2009
Recent Comments on:
Heat over FCC hires
NETWORK NEUTRALITY
PRESERVING A FREE AND OPEN INTERNET: A PLATFORM FOR INNOVATION, OPPORTUNITY, AND PROSPERITY
[SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission, AUTHOR: FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski]
Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski outlined the actions he believes the FCC must take to preserve the free and open Internet. The Commission previously embraced four open Internet principles affirming that consumers must be able to access the lawful Internet content, applications, and services of their choice, and attach non-harmful devices to the network. These four principles guide the FCC's existing case-by-case enforcement of communications law. In a speech Monday at The Brookings Institution, Chairman Genachowski proposed the addition of two new principles. The first would prevent Internet access providers from discriminating against particular Internet content or applications, while allowing for reasonable network management. The second principle would ensure that Internet access providers are transparent about the network management practices they implement. The Chairman also proposed clarifying that all six principles apply to all platforms that access the Internet. Chairman Genachowski will seek to begin the process of codifying the Commission's existing four open Internet principles, along with the two additional principles, through a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) at the October meeting. The NPRM will ask for input and feedback on the proposed rules and their application, such as how to determine whether network management practices are reasonable, what information broadband providers should disclose about their network management practices and how the rules apply to differing platforms, including mobile Internet access services.
http://benton.org/node/28070
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REPUBLICANS IN CONGRESS AND AT FCC MOVE TO BLOCK FCC NET COP INITIATIVE
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
Some Republican lawmakers moved swiftly Monday to try and block Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski's proposal that the FCC adopt new Network Neutrality rules. Sen Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) Monday introduced an amendment to an appropriations bill that would prohibit the FCC from spending any funds "to develop and implement new regulatory mandates." The bill is co-sponsored by Sens John Ensign (R-NV), Sam Brownback (R-Kansas), David Vitter (R-LA), Jim DeMint (R-SC) and John Thune (R-SD). Sen Hutchison said, "Even during a severe downturn, America has experienced robust investment and innovation in network performance and online content and applications. For that innovation to continue, we must tread lightly when it comes to new regulations. Where there have been a handful of questionable actions in the past on the part of a few companies, the Commission and the marketplace have responded swiftly. The case has simply not been made for what amounts to a significant regulatory intervention into a vibrant marketplace. These new regulatory mandates and restrictions could stifle investment incentives." Public Knowledge President Gigi Sohn responded to the amendment saying, "The FCC has pledged a full, public factual inquiry. The Senate should let that process move ahead." Republican members of the FCC said they did not get an advance summary of the FCC chairman's major network neutrality proposal, and have some concerns about what they call a "monumental" undertaking that could reverse "decades of precedent" and a Clinton Administration bipartisan policy "to allow a diverse assortment of technical experts, rather than politicians and bureaucrats, working in loosely knit non-governmental organizations to make such engineering decisions."
http://benton.org/node/28069
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FCC FIRES BACK AT COMCAST IN NET NEUTRALITY LEGAL BATTLE
[SOURCE: GigaOm, AUTHOR: Colin Gibbs]
The Federal Communications Commission filed a brief with the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit defending the Commission's right to censure Comcast for blocking P2P files on its cable network. The FCC claims it has general jurisdiction over all interstate communications by radio and wire — including the company's cable modem service. The claim came in response to Comcast's appeal last month regarding the FCC's August 2008 decision that ordered the cable provider to stop blocking P2P files and to amend its network management techniques. Comcast argued that the FCC had no jurisdiction to enforce the principles of net neutrality.
http://benton.org/node/28065
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NATIONAL BROADBAND PLAN & THE STIMULUS
IT'S OFFICIAL: NTIA THROWING STATES UNDER THE BTOP BUS
[SOURCE: App-Rising.com, AUTHOR: Geoff Daily]
[Commentary] The San Francisco Business Times report, "California technology officials are scrambling to rank 178 applications for broadband stimulus money that have been submitted to the federal government by businesses, nonprofits and government agencies statewide." Daily understands why the National Telecommunications & Information Administration has shared the applications with states: the NTIA set deadlines for getting feedback from the states and it wants to give the states as much time as possible to review the applications and make recommendations. But if NTIA truly didn't conduct any initial filtering before passing the applications through then they've created a lot more work for the states by forcing them to review everything, which means they'll be wasting time considering those applications that have no chance of making it to the next round of consideration. And if NTIA wanted states to be able to make the best possible recommendations, then why not wait until they're able to see the scores from the initial round of reviews?
http://benton.org/node/28064
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SHORT-STAFFED LOCAL GOVERNMENTS STRUGGLE WITH STIMULUS GRANTS
[SOURCE: Government Technology, AUTHOR: Andy Opsahl]
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) may offer billions of dollars in stimulus funds, but short-handed local governments are having a tough time getting their hands on the money. For cities and counties wracked by hiring freezes and staff layoffs, it's hard enough to cope with existing workloads, let alone the new demands of securing stimulus grants. Finding stimulus-related grants takes time and effort, and then the eligibility requirements must be studied and the application processes completed. Adding to the burden is the fact that some local officials are struggling to understand the process for chasing down stimulus dollars. And others complain the stipulations on grants funded by the stimulus are so restrictive that applying for them isn't practical. Many stimulus grants come with stipulations that make the money nearly impossible to integrate with other stimulus-funded projects. Agency-specific broadband grants often restrict applications that can be run on the network.
http://benton.org/node/28063
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HOUSE DEMOCRATS PUSH HIGH-SPEED FOR ANCHOR INSTITUTIONS
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
House Democrats have made it clear to the Federal Communications Commission, and now the National Telecommunications & Information Administration, that they want the national broadband plan to include getting high-speed broadband service to libraries and other anchor institutions. In a letter to NTIA, which is handing out billions in government grant money for broadband deployment, adoption and education, House Communications Subcommittee members Doris Matsui (D-CA) and Ann Eshoo (D-CA) and former Subcommittee Chairman Ed Markey (D-MA) urged the administration to put a priority on "anchor institutions, including libraries, schools and health facilities." They said that a number of those institutions did not apply for that money because they did not fit the categories established by BTOP, and those that did apply found the process "confusing, complicated and discouraging." The legislators suggested that the anchor institutions needed 100 megabits to 1 gigabit connections to provide distance learning and healthcare services.
http://benton.org/node/28062
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WHO'S RUNNING THE SHOW -- THE FCC OR HOLLYWOOD EXECS?
[SOURCE: Public Knowledge, AUTHOR: Mehan Jayasuriya]
[Commentary] Although panelists at Federal Communications Commission National Broadband Plan workshops are given five minutes to make presentations, last week Paramount Pictures CEO Frederick Huntsberry was given ten minutes on "The Role of Content in the Broadband Ecosystem." And, oddly enough, even though the presentation was made at a public forum to inform public policymaking, Paramount is claiming ownership of the presentation and not allowing public access via the FCC's website. Paramount claims the presentation "could possibly encourage the kind of behavior that the video describes."
http://benton.org/node/28061
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DOE SEC CHU ON FIGHTING CONSUMER SMART GRID RESISTANCE
[SOURCE: TelephonyOnline, AUTHOR: Sarah Reedy]
Expediting deployments of smart grids, through stimulus money and the creation of standards, is one of the Obama administration's top priorities. To move the process along, the National Institute of Standards plans to release its smart grid standards roadmap at this week's Grid Week conference, but it will take more than interoperability assurance to convince consumers it's the smartest move, according to Department of Energy Secretary Steven Chu in a keynote address Monday. Advanced meter infrastructure (AMI) is being rolled out today with demand response as the ultimate goal. The idea is that consumers can adjust their energy usage in real time to save money and lessen their carbon footprint. The utility can also exercise this control for the customer, turning down electricity at peak periods and encouraging consumers to run their dishwashers, for example, at off-peak times. If utilities use the demand response and load shifting tools available to them, they can eventually shift 20% of the load off-peak, Sec Chu said, noting that a substantial part of generated capacity and distributed capacity is used less than 5% of the time. If the utility can shift 1%, 5% or maybe 10% off the peak load into other times, it can get a better return on investment, he said, potentially saving them hundreds of billions of dollars per year. Sec Chu noted that while demand response and dynamic pricing will hopefully alter consumer habits in the long term, initially it won't. It will do the opposite and create angry consumers, he admitted.
http://benton.org/node/28050
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NEWS FROM THE WHITE HOUSE
PRESIDENT OBAMA LAYS OUT STRATEGY FOR AMERICAN INNOVATION
[SOURCE: The White House]
At the Hudson Valley Community College, president Barack Obama deliver remarks on his commitment to fostering new jobs, new businesses, and new industries by laying the groundwork and the ground rules to best tap our innovative potential. The President's innovation strategy has three parts: 1) Investing in the Building Blocks of American Innovation -- from research and development to the human, physical, and technological capital needed to perform that research and transfer those innovations. 2) Promoting Competitive Markets that Spur Productive Entrepreneurship -- creating a national environment ripe for entrepreneurship and risk taking that allows US companies to be internationally competitive in a global exchange of ideas and innovation. 3) Catalyzing Breakthroughs for National Priorities -- in sectors of exceptional national importance -- alternative energy sources, reducing costs and improving lives with health IT, and manufacturing advanced vehicles -- government can be part of the solution.
http://benton.org/node/28060
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OBAMA INNOVATION PLAN GETS MIXED REVIEWS
[SOURCE: CongressDaily, AUTHOR: Andrew Noyes]
President Barack Obama's speech about innovation Monday was hailed by a range of technology industry stakeholders as a bold step toward achieving economic recovery and maintaining American competitiveness. President Obama articulated his support for making permanent a research and development tax credit, which is proposed in his FY10 budget request, by noting that it would help companies afford the high cost of developing new ideas, technologies and products. Also among Obama's talking points was the importance of a lower tax rate on capital gains to spur investments in start-up businesses. He said zeroing out the tax for investments in certain businesses is essential because they are engines of innovation and produce 13 times more patents per employee than large companies. TechNet, a political network of Silicon Valley CEOs, lauded Obama's strategy saying that now, more than ever, "America's future prosperity is tied to the enactment of policies that foster a culture of innovation and job growth." Business Software Alliance President Robert Holleyman said Obama's vision is aligned with the tech sector's belief that government should "set ambitious goals, create incentives for innovation and investment, create a favorable business environment, and allow companies to compete." Senate Republican High Tech Task Force Chairman Orrin Hatch (UT) slammed the speech, arguing that his words did not match his policy proposals and in several instances "go in exactly the opposite direction."
http://benton.org/node/28059
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OBAMA CONCERNED ABOUT NEWSPAPERS
[SOURCE: Toledo Blade, AUTHOR: Dave Murray]
Saying that he is a "big newspaper junkie," President Barack Obama expressed hope Friday that newspapers can find their way through the financial crisis in which most are now mired. In an Oval Office interview with editors from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and The Blade of Toledo, the president spoke of the vital role journalism and newspapers play in American society. "Journalistic integrity, you know fact-based reporting, serious investigative reporting, how to retain those ethics in all these different new media and how to make sure that it's paid for, is really a challenge," President Obama said. "But it's something that I think is absolutely critical to the health of our democracy." Across the country, newspapers are struggling to maintain readership and advertising revenue that has been lost to the Internet. Thousands of journalists have been laid off, and over the past year several newspapers have closed. The Rocky Mountain News in Denver shut down, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer moved to the Web, and several large newspaper corporations filed for bankruptcy, including the Tribune Company, which operates the Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times. President Obama said he has noted the trend. "I am concerned that if the direction of the news is all blogosphere, all opinions, with no serious fact-checking, no serious attempts to put stories in context," he said, "that what you will end up getting is people shouting at each other across the void but not a lot of mutual understanding. "What I hope is that people start understanding if you're getting your newspaper over the Internet, that that's not free. And there's got to be a way to find a business model that supports that." Craig Aaron, senior program director of Free Press, said, "President Obama's leadership is needed to put the future of journalism on the national agenda. Now is not the time for bailouts, but it is a moment for forward-looking policies that will support local and diverse media ownership, encourage experiments and innovations, and invest in a world-class public media system. Our concern should not be for newspapers -- or not just newspapers -- but rather for newsrooms and keeping reporters on the beat."
http://benton.org/node/28058
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AMERICA'S CTO ANEESH CHOPRA CHALLENGES TECH SECTOR
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Timothy Hay]
Silicon Valley, like the country's other business hubs, has been hammered by the world's financial panic and ensuing recession. But a large group of the high-tech sector's leading lights investors, bankers, entrepreneurs and business owners were heartened Saturday by talk of the coming "national cyber leap-year." Federal Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra reminded them the government has a mandate to apply emerging technologies to the country's most pressing challenges. Silicon Valley and other tech hot-spots, Chopra said, have a direct pipeline to the White House that did not exist even six months ago. "I challenge the academics, the private sector and government agencies to come back to me with game-changing ideas we can initiate now, in the next 90 days" Chopra said. If new technology can help with hot-button issues like improving health care and government transparency, providing wider access to data, making a more secure Internet, reducing energy waste or creating a better school system, it stands a good chance of being fast-tracked to deployment, new partnerships or new funding, Chopra said.
http://benton.org/node/28057
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MORE ON BROADBAND/INTERNET
BROADBAND ADOPTION: TRAVELING THE CONSUMER'S LAST MILE
[SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission, AUTHOR: FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn]
At a Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies event in Washington, Federal Communications Commission member Mignon Clyburn said "merely making broadband available to all sectors of this nation is simply not enough. While it can be said that most of the country is currently wired for some kind of broadband, a large percentage of Americans - and a disproportionate number of African Americans - have not adopted broadband in their homes." She identified price as one barrier to adoption, but pointed to research identifying additional obstacles. She said it is the FCC's challenge to figure out exactly why those Americans who could otherwise afford broadband decide not to use it. "In the telecom world, we are always talking about the "last mile": the physical piece of wire, or fiber, or cable that takes the network out to the customer premises. But when it comes to broadband, I tend to think of the last mile not as a mile, per se, but rather as two half miles. Yes, we have to make sure that broadband infrastructure reaches everybody. But as we know, deployment is only half of the battle. The other half - the other half-mile, if you will - is all about whether or not the consumer chooses to engage with the technology. We can extend broadband infrastructure to every single person in America, but if the consumer says "no, thanks," have we really made progress? Is that consumer better off? Is the country better off?"
http://benton.org/node/28054
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THE GREAT INTERNET BUILDOUT CONTINUES
[SOURCE: GigaOm, AUTHOR: Om Malik]
[Commentary] You can draw a straight line between the popularity of Facebook and a developing boom in Internet infrastructure. Earlier this month, Facebook announced that it has 300 million subscribers. The fantastic growth of the company is mirrored by the rapid advancement of Twitter and many other web services that have spawned ecosystems of their own. While these services get most of the media attention, a much bigger story is what lies beneath — the Internet's infrastructure and the grid that powers it. "We have entered this new era where essentially everything is on all the time," Alan Meier, a senior scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, recently told The New York Times. And increasingly, everything is connected to the Internet. The biggest impact is being felt by the electricity grid. The power consumed by servers alone doubled between 2000 and 2005 to about 123 billion kilowatt-hours. Data center power use is likely to increase another 76 percent by 2010, according to Jonathan Koomey, a researcher at Lawrence Berkeley and Stanford University. I can't imagine the energy implications of what's coming next.
http://benton.org/node/28052
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THE TRIUMPH OF WEB 2.5
[SOURCE: TheBigMoney.com, AUTHOR: Daniel Gross]
The first generation of dot-coms burned through cash rapidly because they had to spend a lot of money building and running their businesses—marketing and advertising to get the word out, not to mention software, consultants, and programmers to run online systems and analyze the results. Thanks to Web 2.0, many of these costs have plummeted. Many of the basics are now essentially free, which means a business built on the infrastructure laid down by the first two generations of Web companies can gain scale on a shoestring budget, all while giving away its products and services for free. Call it Web 2.5.
http://benton.org/node/28051
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TELECOM
GOOGLE'S PHONE SERVICE LIKELY TO DRAW SCRUTINY
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Fawn Johnson]
Google Inc.'s new phone management service is destined to draw scrutiny from the Federal Communications Commission as the agency struggles to reconcile rotary-phone-era rules for iPhones and BlackBerrys. Google is letting consumers test its Google Voice service, which allows people to link all of their phones to a common number and manage calls and messages through a single Web site. The service can also be used to send and receive phone calls and text messages. Google Voice, which uses both the Internet and traditional phone networks, is one of many new phone services -- including eBay Inc.'S Skype -- that raise questions about how to fit into the heavily regulated phone industry. FCC and industry insiders say regulators have been reluctant to subject newer phone services to traditional rules for fear of squelching an emerging technology. Google argues that its mostly free service isn't a traditional phone service and shouldn't be regulated like other carriers. Google provides free domestic calling, but charges per-minute fees for international calls, much like Skype. The company is pressing forward, letting some customers use its software and creating versions for BlackBerrys and smart phones running its Android operating system, even though the government has yet to determine how existing regulations apply to these new services.
http://benton.org/node/28080
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CALLS FOR PROBE OF TELECOMS TIE-UP
[SOURCE: Financial Times, AUTHOR: Andrew Parker]
Consumer groups are calling for an investigation into plans by France Telecom and Deutsche Telekom to merge their UK mobile businesses, because of fears that the tie-up could damage the quality of phone services. Lawyers are also warning that the proposed deal faces intense scrutiny by regulators because it would result in reduced competition.
http://benton.org/node/28079
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OWNERSHIP
GROUPS ASK ANTITRUST PROBE OF MICROSOFT/YAHOO COMBO EFFECT ON NEWSPAPER CONSORTIUM
[SOURCE: Editor&Publisher, AUTHOR: ]
The Center for Digital Democracy, Consumer Action, Consumer Watchdog, and USPIRG have written the Justice Department Antitrust Division saying that the impact of the proposed merger of Microsoft and Yahoo's search platforms raises "significant antitrust concerns" that include the impact on the Yahoo Newspaper Consortium. "How will the transaction impact the operation of Yahoo's Newspaper Consortium, which now serves as a revenue source for the beleaguered newspaper industry?," asks the letter to Assistant Attorney General Christine Varney from the four groups. "The specter of a joint Yahoo and Microsoft-operated Consortium must be evaluated as well for its potential impact on other online publishers," the letter adds. The groups have raised alarms in the past about behaviorally targeted ads, which are one of the tools that has been developed by Yahoo for the Newspaper Consortium members.
http://benton.org/node/28053
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DELL TO ACQUIRE PEROT SYSTEMS FOR $3.9 BILLION
[SOURCE: ModernHealthcare.com, AUTHOR: Melanie Evans]
Dell will purchase Perot Systems, a major healthcare information technology company, for $3.9 billion.
http://benton.org/node/28048
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EU REVEALS 'SMOKING GUN' E-MAIL FROM INTEL ANTITRUST PROBE
[SOURCE: IDG News Service, AUTHOR: Paul Meller]
In an unusual move, the European Commission (EC) unveiled e-mail exchanges between Intel and computer manufacturers that its antitrust officials describe as "smoking gun" evidence from the probe that resulted in the chipmaker being fined just over $1.45 billion in May. A non-confidential version of the May ruling was made public Monday, less than a week after Intel's formal appeal of the decision was released by the Court of First Instance in Luxembourg. In its appeal, the company accused Europe's top antitrust authority of erring in law, conducting sloppy analysis, and denying it the right to a fair defense.
http://benton.org/node/28047
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EU PROBE 'COSTING SUN $100M A MONTH'
[SOURCE: Financial Times, AUTHOR: David Gelles]
Oracle chief executive Larry Ellison said late on Monday night that Sun Microsystems was losing $100m a month while European regulators scrutinize Oracle's acquisition plan for the hardware supplier. Antitrust regulators in Europe have taken a tougher line on competition issues, particularly in the technology industry. In this case they are examining whether Oracle's control over MySQL, an open-source Sun product, would stymie competition in the database software industry. Although Oracle also makes database software, Mr Ellison believes European regulators are misguided in their inquiries. "MySQL and Oracle do not compete at all," said Mr Ellison, adding that he would not sell MySQL.
http://benton.org/node/28078
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WHY WE MAY HELP PAY FOR TRIBUNE TO UNLOAD THE CUBS
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Alan Sloan]
[Commentary] The Chicago Cubs aren't going to win anything this year despite having one of baseball's largest payrolls. But their bankrupt owner, Sam Zell's Tribune Co., may be about to hit a home run -- at your expense. Zell, whose tax dodging is a frequent topic of Sloan's, is trying to unload the team in a deal that would divert almost $300 million from taxpayers to the creditors of Tribune, the nation's second-biggest newspaper company. The proposed Cubs deal, involving a "leveraged partnership" using lots of borrowed money, is so aggressive that a leading tax expert, Robert Willens expects the IRS to challenge it. The Ricketts family, founders of Ameritrade (now TD Ameritrade), would put $150 million of cash into a partnership that would also borrow up to $698 million. Tribune would put the Cubs, Wrigley Field and related assets into the partnership. Tribune would emerge with $740 million of cash and 5 percent of the partnership, while the Ricketts family would have 95 percent and operating control. Call me naive, but it sure seems to me that when you start with 100 percent and full control and end up with 5 percent, $740 million and no control, you've sold 95 percent. Zell's tax folks, however, will argue that Tribune is getting nontaxable proceeds from a leveraged partnership. They'll also argue that Tribune's guarantee of some of the partnership's borrowings makes it a true partner of the Rickettses. Hello? A debt guarantee from a bankrupt company?
http://benton.org/node/28077
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