I’ve got to live FREAKIN’ long enough to see this technology in the wild.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
Category: economics
email openinternet@fcc.gov
… the FCC voted to move forward with their new proposed net neutrality rules. While somewhat tempered from the original rumored proposal, the proposed rule is still far-sweeping and controversial. …
If you have strong feelings about the proposed rule, now’s your time to be heard. …
The e-mail inbox the FCC set up for accepting comments …
openinternet@fcc.gov
Consumerist – How To Tell The FCC Exactly What You Think About The Proposed Net Neutrality Rule
Here’s the message I sent them:
faster internet, wider delivery and more competition
Tell me honestly that Wheeler’s current proposal will result in faster internet, wider delivery and more competition.
You can’t.
It won’t.
We want what they have in Korea, Japan and Europe. Or better.
DISAPPOINTED in the FCC and the Obama government. This is the kind of anti-competitive legislation I’d expect from Republicans.
Mike Elgan has 3,291,744 followers on Google+.
https://plus.google.com/+MikeElgan/posts/DQQmXzwrpAi
I trust his opinion as do hundreds of thousands of others. His opinion is my opinion:
Wheeler has managed to forward his proposal to kill net neutrality in a country where almost everybody wants net neutrality. He’s doing it by exploiting the ignorance, gullibility and passivity of the public, the anti-regulation platform of the political right and truckloads of money from the industry he serves at the expense of the public. …
read on … How Tom Wheeler’s FCC plan will wreck your Internet.
email openinternet@fcc.gov
Or don’t complain if your Internet service is slow, expensive and crappy in future.
right wing “echo chamber”
People ask me why I’m so agitated by the Tea Party and other right wing gasbags. And not nearly as much irked by soft-headed, left wing muddled thinkers.
What makes me mad is disinformation.
Disinformation is intentionally false or inaccurate information that is spread deliberately. It is an act of deception and false statements to convince someone of untruth. Disinformation should not be confused with misinformation, information that is unintentionally false.
The left wing often spreads misinformation. Poorly.
In the USA (but not in Canada) people make money in the right wing media echo chamber.
In media, an echo chamber is a situation in which information, ideas, or beliefs are amplified or reinforced by transmission and repetition inside an “enclosed” system, often drowning out different or competing views. …
One purveyor of information will make a claim, which many like-minded people then repeat, overhear, and repeat again (often in an exaggerated or otherwise distorted form) until most people assume that some extreme variation of the story is true. …
I love seeing Jon Stewart and Colbert call out the disinformers.
One of the worst is Glenn Beck, “with his violent rhetoric, his frequent and absurd fear-mongering, his nasty vitriol, his “jokes” about assassinating government officials, his baseless conspiracy theories, his race-baiting, his flat-out, bald-faced lies, his many hypocrisies … ”
Well said.
Beck left FOX in 2011. But is worth about $90 million today. The more he lies, the more money he makes.
Rush Limbaugh makes around $66 million / year.
The main motivation for those two, Bill O’Reilly and others, is money. I don’t trust a word they say.
FOX and the echo chamber endless repeat daily “talking points“. It’s incredibly boring to count the repetitions of the talking points of the day.
related – NY Times opinion piece 2013 – Suffocating Echo Chamber
tea seller to Prime Minister
Despite a low caste upbringing, Narendra Modi has been elected Prime Minister of India.
Votes counted so far suggest the BJP is on course for the most resounding victory by any party for 30 years, trouncing the outgoing Congress Party.
The controversial leader campaigned on promises to revive the economy. …
He’s criticized for being too pro-Hindu, anti-Muslim.
problems with the USA
I’ve got a love / hate relationship.
Many of the best and brightest I know are from the States. The best Gymnastics club. The best Gymnastics equipment company.
Apple and Google are from the USA.
Americans are the most innovative.
But my best guess is that the USA will go down the crapper fast, rather than have a graceful decline as did Great Britain.
There’s a fair bit of truth in this graphic.
The U.S. government gridlock looks to be continuing for at least the next 6 years.
Republicans are not going to change fast enough to make major improvement.
The Democrats seem to want to copy Republican policy, for the most part. There’s been no serious attempt to improve anything under Obama, aside from a very slight fix of Health Care.
Merde. 😦
my ambulance charge – $351.76
In December I spent 7 hours in the Emergency Ward of the hospital. Excellent and prompt treatment. I must have seen 10 different specialists. Had a CT scan.
In the end, it was concluded I suffer from Vertigo. … (I suffered from Vertigo twice, so far. There’s been no re-occurrence since December.)
In the end, I was charged ZERO dollars. Filled out no paperwork. ONLY showed them my driver’s license.
LOVE the Canadian Health Care system. 😀
At Christmas my family warned me that I’d be billed for the Ambulance. About $400.
I poohpoohed that. And flew to South Africa.
On my return to Calgary in May I found the bill waiting.
$351.76
Oh well. That’s still very inexpensive for excellent service I got in a medical emergency. I’m happy I don’t live in the U.S. of A.
I paid up.
Net Neutrality debate in 3 minutes
Tell the FCC that they should reclassify broadband internet as a telecommunications (or “Common carrier”) service. Right now broadband is regulated like TV or radio, which doesn’t make sense.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
Obama, the FCC, and the (former lobbyist) FCC Chair Tom Wheeler are supposed to be protecting the Public. They haven’t.
The Obama administration has sucked, so far, in terms of Net Neutrality.
There’s less competition in the USA than ever before.
Reducing Firearm-Related Violence
The Institute of Medicine published findings:
In 2010, more than 105,000 people were injured or killed in the United States as the result of a firearm-related incident.
Recent, highly publicized, tragic mass shootings in Newtown, CT; Aurora, CO; Oak Creek, WI; and Tucson, AZ, have sharpened the American public’s interest in protecting our children and communities from the harmful effects of firearm violence. While many Americans legally use firearms for a variety of activities, fatal and nonfatal firearm violence poses a serious threat to public safety and welfare. …
Priorities for Research to Reduce the Threat of Firearm-Related Violence
William Saletan summarizes:
Earlier this year, President Obama ordered the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to assess the existing research on gun violence and recommend future studies. That report, prepared by the Institute of Medicine and the National Research Council, is now complete.
Its findings won’t entirely please the Obama administration or the NRA, but all of us should consider them. Here’s a list of the 10 most salient or surprising takeaways. …
1. The United States has an indisputable gun violence problem.
According to the report, “the U.S. rate of firearm-related homicide is higher than that of any other industrialized country: 19.5 times higher than the rates in other high-income countries.”
2. Most indices of crime and gun violence are getting better, not worse.3. We have 300 million firearms, but only 100 million are handguns.
4. Handguns are the problem.
5. Mass shootings aren’t the problem.
6. Gun suicide is a bigger killer than gun homicide.
7. Guns are used for self-defense often and effectively.
8. Carrying guns for self-defense is an arms race.
9. Denying guns to people under restraining orders saves lives.
10. It isn’t true that most gun acquisitions by criminals can be blamed on a few bad dealers.
Surprising findings from a comprehensive report on gun violence.
Republicans Say No to CDC Gun Violence Research. Most in the GOP don’t want to know the facts. And definitely don’t want their voters to know the facts.
Dr. Garen Wintemute, a professor of emergency medicine who runs the Violence Prevention Research Program at the University of California, Davis, spent $1 million of his own money to continue the research.
As I’ve said before, I don’t think people are very far apart on this issue. Fire arms lobbyists are going to have an increasingly difficult fight buying politicians over the coming years. And they’ll have to outspend their opponents at an even greater rate.
Republicans must change. Or lose. Long term.
U.S. dominated by economic elite
The rich are getting richer, the poor poorer.
The US government does not represent the interests of the majority of the country’s citizens, but is instead ruled by those of the rich and powerful, a new study from Princeton and Northwestern Universities has concluded.
The report, entitled Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens, used extensive policy data collected from between the years of 1981 and 2002 to empirically determine the state of the US political system.
After sifting through nearly 1,800 US policies enacted in that period and comparing them to the expressed preferences of average Americans (50th percentile of income), affluent Americans (90th percentile) and large special interests groups, researchers concluded that the United States is dominated by its economic elite.
Unfortunately for those rich elite, they only get one vote. Those getting poorer and poorer also get one vote.
Eventually, no matter how bad the Democrats are, Republicans will lose every election.
The GOP must change or go the way of the dodo bird.
new – easier to BUY American politicians
Billionaires and corporations can now buy politicians legitimately.
The rich have far, far too much influence on American politics already. 😦
I’m hoping there’s more disclosure on who donated how much to whom, in future. But not optimistic.
Rick McCharles 