common carrier

“Net neutrality” is stupid
Robin Harris
“Net neutrality” is another term for “common carrier,” first used for US telecommunications over 150 years ago. If advocates would just use “common carrier” instead of “network neutrality” we could quickly put this debate behind us.

Instead, by making “network neutrality” something new, controversy is created in what should be a settled area: common carrier status for communication infrastructure. Common carrier simply means that carriers handle all comers at a set fee, instead of auctioning access to their network.

The auction model

If network access is sold through an auction, the wealthy get good service and the rest of us get the leftovers. Carriers put their time and energy into maximizing revenue instead of minimizing costs.

If network access is available to all comers for a fee, then we all have equal opportunity to use the Internet for work or play. Providers can offer different service levels at different prices.

Look at FedEx: overnight costs more than 3-day delivery. But the important thing is that overnight costs everyone the same. Imagine going to a FedEx office with a time-critical legal document and instead of a flat fee they said “we have 1 overnight slot available - you’ll bid against these other people.” Very profitable for FedEx - not so good for you - or the country.

Same argument against providing electricity, natural gas, and water and sewage fees discounts for high-usage business customers while charging residential customers standard, non-discounted rates. Reverse socialism: enable business interests at the expense of average citizens. One more way of diverting money to the rich.

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arbiters of classism

The essence of winter is to survive it, which is so very good for the people who live in those large houses with fuel bills of multiple hundreds of dollars that are, for them, easily affordable.

But I, even if I were as warm as I would ever want to be, withdraw my essence deeper, bring everything inside that might be damaged by the cold out there, and wait, crowded in, for the season to change.

Meanwhile, I watch the local news as the vapid, overly socialized reporters tell me that I can save money by turning my thermostat down to sixty-five during the day and sixty or even fifty-five at night.

That does it. I snap. Who the fuck made the local news the arbiter of classism in America? If the poor (or the overly frugal) choose to live in a less than comfortable manner to save money, that's one thing.

But for the local news station to take it upon itself to suggest that we "cope" with bad economic times by turning down our thermostats... Why would they not, instead, ask us to write to our representatives?

"Dear So-and-so, Please inform me as to why, when we can least afford it, our utility bills keep going higher and higher while corporate CEO's get million dollar bonuses for declining profits."

That's the kind of thing that local (and national) news would suggest if they were really looking out for the working class. Instead, they gloss over real problems and deal with mere symptoms.

Because it's the role of TV in postmodern America (and around the world), not to agitate, but to appease; make people feel better about their declining health and wealth while the elite rake in the cash.

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whizzinator conspiracy

Makers Of Whizzinator Guilty Of Conspiracy
Monday, November 24, 2008

PITTSBURGH -- Two men whose company sold a male prosthetic known as the Whizzinator that helped men cheat on drug tests have pleaded guilty to conspiracy in federal court in Pittsburgh.

George Wills and Robert Catalano each pleaded guilty Monday to two conspiracy counts. The two men owned the California-based Internet company Puck Technology, which made and sold products including the Whizzinator.

U.S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan's office said the goal of the Whizzinator and a device called Number 1 was to help both men and women pass drug tests. The devices were sold from October 2005 through May 2008.

The men, both of whom are from California, are scheduled to be sentenced Feb. 20. They face up to eight years in prison, a fine of $500,000, or both.

This is the same fed bitch that prosecuted Tommy Chong for selling bongs. This is why conspiracy charges are so not right:

When a person is arrested, as likely as not, the arrest involves, not legitimate suspicion of guilt, but either prejudice or personal or political ambition. This is unacceptable; and it's the reason why citizens by and large do not trust the law enforcement community any more than they trust the government, which has proven by its long-term behavior over time that its spokespeople are going to always favor lying over telling the truth.

Gotta Revolution

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laissez faire

Business interests (media business stooges) are complaining that, if Obama is elected, he will get rid of our free-market economy. But we haven't had a free-market economy in this country for a hundred years. If business wants a free market environment, it has only to look to itself to get it. What does business in America think it's going to end up with when it continually lobbies government as special interests for special favors and wheedles the government to bail it out every time it gets into a little bit of economic trouble as a result of its greedy, manipulative policies and practices? If business wants to operate in a free market economy, if it wants government to leave it alone, then it should leave the government alone. What goes around, comes around.

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break the banks

You know things are bad when banks won't borrow from or lend to each other because they don't trust each other. They know how dishonest and untrustworthy they each are and they're not about to risk what's left of their assets by relying on crooks like themselves.

Break up the big banks.
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the new awareness

Anyone who has money, especially if they are wont to use it to further disenfranchise those who do not, should keep quiet about it and work well behind the scenes when making their influence count; because we're onto the prejudicial influence that money can buy and we're going to do something about it when you flaunt your wealth and elitism in our faces. (And this goes double for corporate entities that intend to use their money to buy or influence power to act against the good of the common people.)

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fair use

Copyright owners, such as NBC Universal, Warner Bros., and Viacom, were put on notice Wednesday when U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel ruled that they must not order video be removed from Web sites indiscriminately. Before taking action against a clip, copyright owners, must form a "good-faith belief " that a video is infringing, according to Corynne McSherry, an attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

EFF represents the Pennsylvania woman who sued Universal Music Group for demanding that YouTube remove her clip, which featured her infant son dancing to 30 seconds of the Prince song "Let's Go Crazy." EFF has always argued that the video was a "textbook" example of fair use and Universal Music should have recognized that.
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"The DMCA absolutely anticipated this very scenario," Litvack said. "Universal said she infringed on her copyright and sent a take-down notice. She then has an opportunity to appeal to YouTube (counter-notification remedy), which is what she sought and the video was restored."

But McSherry of EFF argues that the counter-notification remedy doesn't protect people from unfounded claims and puts the onus on them to prove their innocence. She remembers that before the DMCA, a media company that wanted someone to remove allegedly infringing material would first have to convince a judge and then obtain a temporary restraining order.

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Fogel agreed and the wrote: "The unnecessary removal of non-infringing material causes significant injury to the public where time-sensitive or controversial subjects are involved and the counter-notification remedy does not sufficiently address these harms."

CNET

What I am about to say may not be true, I may be reading my own bias into this, but what gives Universal or any corporation the right to "order" anyone but its own employees to do anything? I'm going to assume that that's just an unfortunate choice of a word by the reporter who wrote this story, because otherwise I might blow a gasket here.

Nevertheless, it seems to me that the DMCA has gone too far by enabling companies to intimidate websites into removing material poste haste with no concern for the rights of people who post to the sites. It's another instance of how we're all so afraid since 9-11 to act to our own better judgment and must always defer to the "authority" of someone who purports to be...

Oh, never mind. It all just pisses me off. That's all.

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slap on the wrist

FAA proposes $7.1 million fine against American
Thu, 14 Aug 2008 03:24 pm PDT
Reuters - American Airlines, a unit of AMR Corp (AMR.N), knowingly flew planes that needed safety repairs, the U.S. government charged on Thursday in a letter that proposed a $7.1 million fine against the carrier.

Uh-huh. See? I told you they were doing it. And, once again, instead of arresting the people responsible and sending them to jail, they opt to fine them. It's all a big shell game: If you get caught, it's going to cost you a little bit of money. What's $7 million to a multi-billion dollar company? And what kind of incentive is that to discourage corporate officers from breaking the rules again? They take a little bit of money away from them--and give it back in corporate welfare if the company gets itself into financial trouble. What a scam. Meanwhile, passengers risk their lives by flying.

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deceptive products and practices

If a guy owes you $50 and you never see him again, it's worth it.

Unknown

If a company sells me a defective product, and I never buy from them again: it's worth it to me, to know that I reduce my chances of being ripped off; but it's not worth it to the company, which loses business, especially if I tell everybody I know about my experience and advise them to shop elsewhere.

If a company makes a defective product, subsequently discovers the error, and, in order to minimize its loss, deeply discounts the defective product, selling it at a price where people believe they're getting a great bargain and only discover much later that they were ripped off by poor quality, it's not worth it to either the customer or company, for the above reasons.

If companies routinely engage in these deceptive practices, valuing profits above customer satisfaction, we call it American corporate capitalism.

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Parkinson's Law

"Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion."

Parkinson's Law

There is little necessity any more that I ever complete any work.
And I have all the time I need to complete any work I choose to do.
Therefore, I should seldom get anything done. And yet I do.
So there's something not quite accurate about that law.

It seems to apply only to corporate work by uninterested employees and doesn't take into account the motivation to get something done for its own sake or for your own sake. Which perhaps reveals the true nature of corporate work.

Oh, I know what the corporate defense against this argument would be: "Good employees don't feel this way; they always work to the company's best interest." But corporate (and government and, more generally, social) definitions often turn logic around backwards, converting black into white, or, if necessary, various shades of gray. Don't fall for it.

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Comcast: Worst. Company. Ever.

Comcast has always been known for its lousy customer service. But the company's plans to turn the Internet into something that looks like cable TV should get you hopping mad.

Craig Aaron, In These Times

This isn't me saying this. Just thought I'd point that out. I'm not the only one who sees the "conspiracy". They are out to "get" us. Don't let them dupe you into believing they are not. They'll do everything they know how to convince you that you are merely being (unreasonably) paranoid and that they are merely acting to better enable the American way of life; but their real purpose is to increase their stranglehold over as much of the economy as possible [to which end they lobby (i.e., bribe) congress], the net result of which is to take as much power (money) as possible out of your pockets. The primary way that they are doing it these days is by rendering ineffective the anti-trust legislation that real patriots put in place half a century or so ago. In this fiasco, the Bush-Cheney machine has been of immense value to them.

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sports addiction

So, like, when did sports take over the nation?
You turn your back for just a few years and...

Professional sports, I realize, has been popular for a long, long time;
but it seems like, lately, it's gotten ridiculous.

We're a nation of sports addicts, which would be okay if we were participating, exercise being good for us and all. But we're addicted to watching--while drinking alcohol and filling our faces with unhealthy foodstuffs.

And we've [okay, I'm going to stop using the 1st person plural here, because I am definitely not a party to this madness] vested huge amounts of cash and resources into the effort, and not only at the corporate level, which is somewhat understandable, given the fact that the country is hardcore corporate capitalist.

I disavow all of it. It's insanity disguised as normal social engagement.
The country has gone over the top.

[This diatribe has been prompted by a daily Pittsburgh Yahoo! e-mail alert that I get that is supposed to report news but is filled with sports news with an occasional actual news items included (maybe); so, maybe this is more of a Yahoo! problem than a national one. Nah.]

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groundswell

While I was online tonight, because it just happened to pop into my head, I did a Google search on "fuck Comcast" to see what I would get. Apparently, there are a lot of people who feel the way I do about the company. With this kind of groundswell, how do they stay in business? Obviously, like Netflix, through dishonesty, by lying in their tv ads about how great they are and what they will do for you that they will not in fact do. Promises unkept.

On the other hand, it occurs to me that I could probably get similar results by Googling "Fuck [insert the name of any corporation here]." It's not Comcast specifically, but corporations in general that suck.

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the dark side of society

A sincere and well-intentioned lady, Kathleen Seidel, the mother of an autistic child, has been subpoenaed by a lawyer working for the Rev. Lisa Sykes, who recently won her suit against the government, claiming that vaccines caused her child's autism. So, now she's got her attorney canvassing the net and sending out what amounts to subpoena-bullying to anyone and everyone who has even the slightest cyber-connection to the case; that is, if you happen to have said the wrong thing, look out, they may be after you.

It would be bad enough if this woman "of God" were simply pursuing a libel ruling; but, apparently, she has gone much further than that: she (or rather her lawyer) is attempting to intimidate legitimate criticism and opinion in order to suppress it. It's the same tactic that the government (FBI, et al.) uses when people on the net get too many hits and become a nuisance when criticizing...whomever, whatever influential politician or bureaucrat happens to be offended at that moment.

Free speech? Sure, you got it. But don't you dare to try to exercise it effectively. Seidel is a lawyer herself, so she knows how to defend herself, and does so effectively. Not so, most of us. We plod along in relative anonymity and seem to do just fine; but if we manage to gain a bit of an audience, then someone, somewhere is going to take exception, and some people being what they are, incapable of accepting others' opinions as being as legitimate as their own, will go out of their way to shout you down or, failing that, rally quasi-legal forces against you. This is the dark side of society, the force that demands that you join the consensus, or else.

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Comcast

Comcast is undoubtedly one of the worst corporate offenders of individual rights. Its activities re net neutrality and web traffic throttling alone are enough to dishonor it.

If you subscribe to a Comcast service, change to a competitor. If you work for Comcast, quit; or, better yet, act internally to sabotage its business.

[But be smart about it. Don't take any unnecessary chances. And never tell anyone what you're doing. The only true secret is the one you tell to no one. Revealing your anti-corporate agenda is a sure way to get caught, lose your job, and perhaps even get prosecuted and sent to jail.]

This is a good strategy to use against any corporation that acts to deprive individuals of their inherent right to live free of corporate influence.

Corporations are the antithesis of individual freedom.
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Net Neutrality

The activist issue may be new, but Net Neutrality is not. It's been the unwritten rule of the day since the inception of the internet. The corporate conspiracy to de-neutralize the internet is what is new. Cable and phone companies are plotting to hi-jack the net and turn it into a corporate tool.

I find the actions of corporations generally disgusting. And, since a corporation, not being a living entity (despite what the law claims), cannot act, the actions of people running those corporations are disgusting. They act to maximize the importance of profits and minimize that of social welfare.

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Medical Over-Billing

Audits sting hospitals, physicians
Sat, 01 Mar 2008 12:53 am PST
AP - In coming weeks, private audit companies will begin scouring mountains of medical records. Their mission: Determine if health care providers erred when billing Medicare and require them to return any over-payments to the federal government. The auditors will keep a tidy percentage for their services.

Oh, c,mon. This has been going on for decades and they're just now getting around to checking it out? Everybody knows that over-billing goes on all the time. And the insurance companies turn a blind eye to it. I myself successfully challenged $400 on a bill of $2500. They gave in and removed the items without so much as a second look. Why? Because that's the way they do their billing. If it's challenged, remove it. "Whoops, sorry, we made a mistake." If it's not challenged, it's found money. The only thing that disturbs me about this story is that the government is paying expensive accountants to verify the "errors." That's probably another story that could be investigated for fraudulent intent.

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