Sunday, November 30, 2014
Saturday, November 29, 2014
A Real-Life Walter White
Breaking Bad, the A&E series that ended its acclaimed run last year (2008-2013), was a parable of desperation, pride and hubris.
Quiet desperation had long claimed Walter White, a brilliant chemist who was underemployed as a high-school chemistry teacher. To help pay for his handicapped son's medical bills he took on a demeaning second job at a carwash. But when Walter was diagnosed with terminal cancer, his desperation became suffocating. Dreading that he would die and leave his family with a mountain of debt, he turned his scientific skills to the production of the purest crystal methamphetamine.
After taking that fatal step, Walter quickly descended into a world of cheating, lying, stealing and killing. He could have escaped his ultimate fate time and again, but pride and hubris metastasized in his soul like a cancer.
Now a real-life Walter White — who also worked at a carwash — has been sentenced to almost five years in prison. Connie Rogers, of Eagan, MN, swindled the Paradise Car Wash out of more than $330,000. As controller and payroll manager, she wrote herself hundreds of extra checks over a five year period starting in 2007.
She eventually confessed to the crimes after being caught, explaining that she needed the money to pay for health insurance and medical bills.
If Obamacare had been in effect in Minnesota in 2007 would Connie Rogers have become a criminal?
In 2013 it was reported that one to two million Americans would be forced into bankruptcy every year by medical bills. The ACA has been in place for only a year now, and millions more Americans now have access to Medicaid or affordable health insurance. But the expansion of Medicare has been blocked by many states, so there are still millions more Connies and Walters out there.
Republicans in Congress are still threatening to gut Obamacare and turn back the clock so every American is just one lost job, one bad fall, or one minor heart attack away from total financial ruin.
Quiet desperation had long claimed Walter White, a brilliant chemist who was underemployed as a high-school chemistry teacher. To help pay for his handicapped son's medical bills he took on a demeaning second job at a carwash. But when Walter was diagnosed with terminal cancer, his desperation became suffocating. Dreading that he would die and leave his family with a mountain of debt, he turned his scientific skills to the production of the purest crystal methamphetamine.
After taking that fatal step, Walter quickly descended into a world of cheating, lying, stealing and killing. He could have escaped his ultimate fate time and again, but pride and hubris metastasized in his soul like a cancer.
Now a real-life Walter White — who also worked at a carwash — has been sentenced to almost five years in prison. Connie Rogers, of Eagan, MN, swindled the Paradise Car Wash out of more than $330,000. As controller and payroll manager, she wrote herself hundreds of extra checks over a five year period starting in 2007.
She eventually confessed to the crimes after being caught, explaining that she needed the money to pay for health insurance and medical bills.
If Obamacare had been in effect in Minnesota in 2007 would Connie Rogers have become a criminal?
In 2013 it was reported that one to two million Americans would be forced into bankruptcy every year by medical bills. The ACA has been in place for only a year now, and millions more Americans now have access to Medicaid or affordable health insurance. But the expansion of Medicare has been blocked by many states, so there are still millions more Connies and Walters out there.
Republicans in Congress are still threatening to gut Obamacare and turn back the clock so every American is just one lost job, one bad fall, or one minor heart attack away from total financial ruin.
Friday, November 28, 2014
Waiting For Apologies
I'm waiting for apologies from Kevin Baker, my three commenters and other right wing bloggers. More importantly, so is the president. Well, guys, what do you say? Mea Culpa?
In fact, I'm waiting for more than apologies. I'd like to see some gratitude towards the president for essentially saving this country from disaster. The reason why these assholes still have the ability to pay for their internet connection is largely due to his leadership. Perhaps that's why they are so pissed off. He's achieved something.
They haven't.
In fact, I'm waiting for more than apologies. I'd like to see some gratitude towards the president for essentially saving this country from disaster. The reason why these assholes still have the ability to pay for their internet connection is largely due to his leadership. Perhaps that's why they are so pissed off. He's achieved something.
They haven't.
Minnesota Miracles
(As an addendum to Mark's post.)
Ever since the 1970s there has been talk of the Minnesota Miracle, when Wendy Anderson appeared on the cover of Time magazine. Then there was the Miracle on Ice, when the American hockey team, mostly from Minnesota, beat the Russians in the 1980 Olympics. Then the was the lesser Minnesota Miracle in 2011, when a Democratic governor and Democratic legislature (helped by some Republicans who were later tossed out by their party) turned gaping deficits left by an irresponsible Republican governor and legislature into surpluses.
Minnesota, where more money is spent on infrastructure, schools and healthcare, is doing better than states like Mississippi and Alabama, where taxes are low, schools are suing the state, income inequality is high, large segments of the population are obese and suffering from untreated diabetes, and the slave economy never really went away.
According to conservatives Minnesota's success should be impossible. Minnesota has no significant natural resources except water, land and people. It is in the middle of nowhere. It has cold winters and hot summers. It has no geographical advantages like New York's or LA's seaports. It has no oil wells like North Dakota and Texas. It has relatively high taxes. Yet it has low unemployment and an economy that has performed well for decades.
Except for a few lapses under Jesse Ventura and Tim Pawlenty, who kept citing Alabama as an example to follow in his quest for the Republican presidential nomination, Minnesota has consistently paid for its schools, raised taxes when it needed to, and lowered them when it was responsible to do so.
Yet it has consistently outperformed states that have all the advantages — principally low taxes and lax regulations — that conservatives insist are necessary for business to succeed.
Of course, high taxes and government spending don't automatically generate success. It's responsible and accountable government investing in the right things, spending enough to educate their citizens for well-paying jobs and protecting their health and welfare.
Perhaps the real key can be found in the reasons people move to certain states.
People come to Minnesota to work, raise their kids and send them to good schools. They go to southern states to retire and die.
Ever since the 1970s there has been talk of the Minnesota Miracle, when Wendy Anderson appeared on the cover of Time magazine. Then there was the Miracle on Ice, when the American hockey team, mostly from Minnesota, beat the Russians in the 1980 Olympics. Then the was the lesser Minnesota Miracle in 2011, when a Democratic governor and Democratic legislature (helped by some Republicans who were later tossed out by their party) turned gaping deficits left by an irresponsible Republican governor and legislature into surpluses.
Minnesota, where more money is spent on infrastructure, schools and healthcare, is doing better than states like Mississippi and Alabama, where taxes are low, schools are suing the state, income inequality is high, large segments of the population are obese and suffering from untreated diabetes, and the slave economy never really went away.
According to conservatives Minnesota's success should be impossible. Minnesota has no significant natural resources except water, land and people. It is in the middle of nowhere. It has cold winters and hot summers. It has no geographical advantages like New York's or LA's seaports. It has no oil wells like North Dakota and Texas. It has relatively high taxes. Yet it has low unemployment and an economy that has performed well for decades.
Except for a few lapses under Jesse Ventura and Tim Pawlenty, who kept citing Alabama as an example to follow in his quest for the Republican presidential nomination, Minnesota has consistently paid for its schools, raised taxes when it needed to, and lowered them when it was responsible to do so.
Yet it has consistently outperformed states that have all the advantages — principally low taxes and lax regulations — that conservatives insist are necessary for business to succeed.
Of course, high taxes and government spending don't automatically generate success. It's responsible and accountable government investing in the right things, spending enough to educate their citizens for well-paying jobs and protecting their health and welfare.
Perhaps the real key can be found in the reasons people move to certain states.
People come to Minnesota to work, raise their kids and send them to good schools. They go to southern states to retire and die.
Evil Liberals Spur Third Fastest Revenue Growth In The Country
As I have stated previously...
Part of the reason is that Minnesota has structured state tax collections to take advantage of progressive taxes, which levy higher tax rates the wealthier a person becomes, Hamline University economics professor Stacie Bosley said. “There is a heavier reliance on the income tax [in Minnesota],” she said. “If you see the most gains in the highest income groups, a progressive tax system gets more revenue.”
Wait...huh? I thought taxes were JOB KILLERS. There goes that fucking theory...again!
Part of the reason is that Minnesota has structured state tax collections to take advantage of progressive taxes, which levy higher tax rates the wealthier a person becomes, Hamline University economics professor Stacie Bosley said. “There is a heavier reliance on the income tax [in Minnesota],” she said. “If you see the most gains in the highest income groups, a progressive tax system gets more revenue.”
Wait...huh? I thought taxes were JOB KILLERS. There goes that fucking theory...again!
Thursday, November 27, 2014
Local Prosecutors' Inherent Conflict of Interest
The takeaway from the grand jury decision in Ferguson is not the guilt or innocence of the cop who shot Michael Brown. It's that local officials cannot be trusted to oversee the prosecution of the actions of their local police departments.
By most accounts Bob McCulloch, the St. Louis Country prosecutor who "presented" the Brown case to the grand jury, sounded more like a defense attorney trying to exonerate the cop who shot Brown.
McCulloch was especially unqualified to bring the case: he has a personal history that should have immediately caused him to recuse himself in the case. Among the reasons -- and there were many -- his father was killed by a black suspect while on a police call.
The cops are an important part of the local power hierarchy, and they get a lot of privileges and get cut a lot of slack.
For example, you may recall how Scott Walker blamed public sector unions for all Wisconsin's woes a few years ago. He emasculated teacher and other unions by eliminating collective bargaining. But police unions were exempted.
Why? Because Walker needs the police on his side. When a governor or DA or mayor pisses off their own police force the cops start pulling stupid crap, like the ones who accused the mayor of Minneapolis of using gang signs (#pointergate).
That's why local and state government should be out of the picture when deciding whether to prosecute police misconduct. The FBI and the U.S. Attorney's office should automatically have jurisdiction whenever cops shoot civilians or are accused of other crimes.
It shouldn't be Internal Affairs, or the DA from the next county over, or the state's attorney general. It should be the FBI. Now, the FBI ain't perfect. But they don't have an inherent conflict of interest like all the local power brokers do.
Federal jurisdiction of police misconduct protects everyone involved: DAs and mayors would avoid bad blood with their cops. Cops would know they're not being hounded over some local political vendetta. And the public would know that the local DA isn't whitewashing the crimes of their pals on the police force.
In many of these cases the feds eventually get involved anyway. In the Rodney King case there were huge riots in LA after the jury acquitted or deadlocked on the excessive force charges. But two of the four cops later went to prison for violating King's civil rights.
Might as well eliminate the middle man.
By most accounts Bob McCulloch, the St. Louis Country prosecutor who "presented" the Brown case to the grand jury, sounded more like a defense attorney trying to exonerate the cop who shot Brown.
McCulloch was especially unqualified to bring the case: he has a personal history that should have immediately caused him to recuse himself in the case. Among the reasons -- and there were many -- his father was killed by a black suspect while on a police call.
Local district attorneys and prosecutors have an inherent conflict of interest when it comes to investigating their own police departments.
And it's not just McCulloch. Some demanded McCulloch appoint a special prosecutor, but that wouldn't cut it. Local district attorneys and prosecutors have an inherent conflict of interest when it comes to investigating their own police departments. They have to work with cops every day. They depend on them for apprehending suspects, gathering evidence, testifying in court, and sometimes for protection from vengeful criminals. A prosecutor who pisses off the police department is dead meat, figuratively and sometimes literally.The cops are an important part of the local power hierarchy, and they get a lot of privileges and get cut a lot of slack.
For example, you may recall how Scott Walker blamed public sector unions for all Wisconsin's woes a few years ago. He emasculated teacher and other unions by eliminating collective bargaining. But police unions were exempted.
Why? Because Walker needs the police on his side. When a governor or DA or mayor pisses off their own police force the cops start pulling stupid crap, like the ones who accused the mayor of Minneapolis of using gang signs (#pointergate).
That's why local and state government should be out of the picture when deciding whether to prosecute police misconduct. The FBI and the U.S. Attorney's office should automatically have jurisdiction whenever cops shoot civilians or are accused of other crimes.
It shouldn't be Internal Affairs, or the DA from the next county over, or the state's attorney general. It should be the FBI. Now, the FBI ain't perfect. But they don't have an inherent conflict of interest like all the local power brokers do.
Federal jurisdiction of police misconduct protects everyone involved: DAs and mayors would avoid bad blood with their cops. Cops would know they're not being hounded over some local political vendetta. And the public would know that the local DA isn't whitewashing the crimes of their pals on the police force.
In many of these cases the feds eventually get involved anyway. In the Rodney King case there were huge riots in LA after the jury acquitted or deadlocked on the excessive force charges. But two of the four cops later went to prison for violating King's civil rights.
Might as well eliminate the middle man.
Wednesday, November 26, 2014
The Double Standard in Action
Nicholas Kristof at the New York Times has been writing a series of columns called "When Whites Don't Get It." The reaction of many white readers has been anger at being made to feel guilty about how poorly society in general -- and the police in particular -- treat African-Americans.
I am white and I am middle-aged, and I don't feel one iota of guilt over the plight of blacks in America. I feel anger at how unjustly African Americans are treated by the police, at how they are constantly hassled by "broken windows policing," how they are selectively stopped for trivial traffic violations in order to collect more fees for the Ferguson police department, how their voting rights are systematically denied, and how black men and boys are shot by police over and over again.
But apparently, most whites don't feel this same sense of outrage. They feel put out by being forced to listen to what they consider endless whining by an ethnic group that has suffered for centuries from systemic and systematic slavery, discrimination, harassment and intimidation right now to this very day.
Kristof's articles make me feel anger at a corrupt and stacked system. If you feel guilt, your subconscious is telling you something.
There have been numerous demonstrations across the country over the decision of the grand jury in Ferguson not to prosecute the officer who shot Michael Brown. The vast majority of protests have been peaceful, but there have been some fires and other violent incidents caused by masked troublemakers.
One incident at a protest in Minneapolis stood out, though, as an emblem of the totally thoughtless and self-centered attitude of over-privileged whites. It also demonstrates the endemic double standard the police employ for blacks and whites.
A white man in a car plowed through a group of protesters, running over a woman in a slow-motion hit and run. (She escaped with minor injuries.)
The driver intentionally pulled around another car in order to ram through the crowd. He couldn't be bothered to turn around and find another route. And, oh yeah, he's not a racist: most of the people in the crowd were white.
This is emblematic of the attitudes of far too many Americans: I don't give a damn about anyone else. I don't care if the system is stacked against them. If they get in my way I'll just run them down.
And what happened to the driver? Did Minneapolis cops arrest him for vehicular assault, fleeing the site of an accident, or reckless endangerment?
Nope. Police "questioned" him and let him go, but are "investigating" the incident, which was caught on at least two separate videos.
But if he was black you can be damn sure the cops would have had him with his arms spread-eagle on the hood of his car for the cameras, searched his car for drugs and thrown him in jail.
I am white and I am middle-aged, and I don't feel one iota of guilt over the plight of blacks in America. I feel anger at how unjustly African Americans are treated by the police, at how they are constantly hassled by "broken windows policing," how they are selectively stopped for trivial traffic violations in order to collect more fees for the Ferguson police department, how their voting rights are systematically denied, and how black men and boys are shot by police over and over again.
But apparently, most whites don't feel this same sense of outrage. They feel put out by being forced to listen to what they consider endless whining by an ethnic group that has suffered for centuries from systemic and systematic slavery, discrimination, harassment and intimidation right now to this very day.
Kristof's articles make me feel anger at a corrupt and stacked system. If you feel guilt, your subconscious is telling you something.
There have been numerous demonstrations across the country over the decision of the grand jury in Ferguson not to prosecute the officer who shot Michael Brown. The vast majority of protests have been peaceful, but there have been some fires and other violent incidents caused by masked troublemakers.
A white man in a car plowed through a group of protesters, running over a woman in a slow-motion hit and run. (She escaped with minor injuries.)
The driver intentionally pulled around another car in order to ram through the crowd. He couldn't be bothered to turn around and find another route. And, oh yeah, he's not a racist: most of the people in the crowd were white.
This is emblematic of the attitudes of far too many Americans: I don't give a damn about anyone else. I don't care if the system is stacked against them. If they get in my way I'll just run them down.
And what happened to the driver? Did Minneapolis cops arrest him for vehicular assault, fleeing the site of an accident, or reckless endangerment?
Nope. Police "questioned" him and let him go, but are "investigating" the incident, which was caught on at least two separate videos.
But if he was black you can be damn sure the cops would have had him with his arms spread-eagle on the hood of his car for the cameras, searched his car for drugs and thrown him in jail.
Still Nothing on Benghazi
The seventh Congressional committee to look into Benghazi has returned their verdict. The final report, from Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Michigan, and ranking member Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger, D-Maryland, concludes there was no intelligence failure prior to the attack, no stand-down order to CIA operatives trying to go assist at the besieged consular building and found conflicting intelligence in the wake of the attack about the motive and cause, which were reflected in early public comments by the administration.
Bowels are being blown in epic proportions all across right wing land as facts (once again) are bouncing off the cult bubble. Perhaps the re-appointment of Trey Gowdy to really, really try to find something…anything…on Benghazi will yield results.
That liar Obama has to be up to something…he just has to!!!
Bowels are being blown in epic proportions all across right wing land as facts (once again) are bouncing off the cult bubble. Perhaps the re-appointment of Trey Gowdy to really, really try to find something…anything…on Benghazi will yield results.
That liar Obama has to be up to something…he just has to!!!
Tuesday, November 25, 2014
The Ferguson Verdict
After hearing the verdict and summary explanation of the Grand Jury in the case against Darren Wilson, I think they made the right call. Other than the Grand Jury, no one had access to all of the available evidence and testimony so there isn't any doubt that they had the clearest picture as to what happened in the shooting death of Michael Brown.
Of course, I still have to wonder…did he really have to shoot him that many times? Why couldn't he have just hauled out the taser?
Regardless of the answers to these questions, the bigger problem remains. The criminal justice system is blatantly racist against black people. Communities like Ferguson exist all over the country where white police and civic leaders represent large black populations in a disproportional way. This needs to change yesterday.
Or there will be many more Fergusons.
Of course, I still have to wonder…did he really have to shoot him that many times? Why couldn't he have just hauled out the taser?
Regardless of the answers to these questions, the bigger problem remains. The criminal justice system is blatantly racist against black people. Communities like Ferguson exist all over the country where white police and civic leaders represent large black populations in a disproportional way. This needs to change yesterday.
Or there will be many more Fergusons.
Monday, November 24, 2014
Net Neutrality and the Comcast Monopoly
A couple weeks ago the president finally entered the net neutrality debate, giving the issue additional visibility. He said that the FCC should categorize the Internet as a public telecommunications utility and not some abstract "information service" as it is now.
Then corporate shills like Ted Cruz started saying dumb things like "Net neutrality is Obamacare for the Internet."
More and more people are getting their news from the Internet, rather than broadcast television or the radio. The FCC regulates radio and television stations as common carriers because they serve the public interest. As society comes to rely on the Internet as a common carrier it should be treated as one. Do you want the execs who run MSNBC to decide what news you should be able to read?
But it's more than just access to websites. With the rise of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Skype, and so on, it's clear that the Internet has supplanted the telephone as the primary communications channel for large segments of the population.
Once upon a time, AT&T had a monopoly over most telephone service in the United States. Their subsidiary, Western Electric, manufactured almost all the telephone equipment in the country. "Ma Bell" made you rent a telephone from them, charging much more than it was worth. They also charged you for every "extension" in your house. This vertically integrated monopoly was broken up into seven regional "Baby Bells" in 1984.
Comcast is in a similar position and exhibits similar behaviors. Like AT&T, it charges you more if you connect more computers to the Internet, or use a WiFi modem. While you can buy your own cable modems and set top boxes (similar to TiVo, but without the extra subscription fee), Comcast makes it extremely hard for customers to do so. By comparison, my ISP (the phone company) doesn't charge extra for having a WiFi modem or additional computers.
When cable TV was regulated all channels but premium ones like HBO were unencrypted, making it easy to watch and record TV shows with your own equipment. But since deregulation, Comcast has stopped transmitting channels in "Clear QAM" (the digital equivalent of the old unencrypted analog NTSC signal), forcing customers to use Comcast equipment to watch and record TV.
And the "Just use satellite TV line" is bogus. There's just no comparison between cables and satellite and broadcast TV: satellites are hostage to the weather and they're totally one way. Broadcast TV is worse; its coverage is extremely spotty and now that it's fully digital a lousy signal doesn't mean you get a snowy picture, it means you get no picture at all.
Comcast is quickly becoming a vertically integrated nation-wide monopoly, in much the same way that AT&T was: Comcast controls the production of movies, TV programs and news through Universal Studios and various television production companies. It distributes programming through its own television network (NBC). And it delivers that programming to households through the cables it owns, and is granted monopoly status by cities across the country (mostly through acquisitions over many years).
In the early years of cable, cities used to exercise a great deal of control over providers, but after cable deregulation and acquisition of all local cable companies by national behemoths like Comcast and Time Warner, the cable companies call all the shots.
Internet service is usually priced by throughput: for example, in our area Comcast charges $30/month for 6 Mbps, $40/month for 50 Mbps, and $78/month for 105 Mbps. Users pay a sliding price based on the data rate. Now, Comcast doesn't actually promise you'll get that data rate, and they threaten to cut you off you use too much data. Comcast is also trialing data usage plans that charge you more if you exceed certain limits.
To pay Comcast, Netflix and HBO will have to charge more for their services. But Comcast isn't my Internet provider. Why should I pay more for Netflix because Comcast is extorting Netflix? Netflix isn't paying my ISP anything extra.
And what about YouTube? If Google doesn't pay Comcast blood money to send YouTube videos produced by Internet users for the entertainment of other Internet users, will Comcast throttle YouTube into uselessness? And what about all the other services that are migrating to the Cloud, like backups, your photos, your music, etc. Will Comcast charge every company that sends any data to their customers? I mean, if they can charge Netflix, why can't they charge everyone a fee to get access to their customers?
Comcast is engaging in that practice that conservatives consider the most heinous of all sins when the government does it: double taxation. Comcast wants to make you pay twice for getting your data: once for receiving it, and once for Netflix to send it to you.
In recent years Time Warner has cut off channels in several markets across the country (Showtime in Kansas City, NBC, CBS and ABC in various cities around the country). Comcast owns NBC and its news channels, MSNBC and CNBC. When the merged Comcast/Time-Warner company enters negotiations with Disney, ESPN or Fox, will it do the same to those channels? Will it also cut off Fox news sites and ESPN video streams as a negotiating tactic? Without net neutrality, nothing could stop them except "negative feedback from the customers." But since Comcast has a monopoly, their customers have no real alternatives.
In essence, Comcast is demanding "protection" money from its competitors and everyone else on the Internet. They're telling Netflix (you'll have to imagine the in a Jersey gangster accent), "Dat's a nice movie youse got dere. It'd be a shame if dose packets got lost..."
Then corporate shills like Ted Cruz started saying dumb things like "Net neutrality is Obamacare for the Internet."
Without net neutrality, Comcast would be free to slow the Fox News website to a crawl while running MSNBC at top speed.
The fact is, net neutrality is what everyone, liberal or conservative, expects the Internet to be. Net neutrality would prevent broadband companies like Comcast from charging for Internet "fast lanes." Without it, Comcast could, for example, slow the Fox News website to a crawl while letting the MSNBC website (which Comcast owns as part of NBCUniversal) run at full speed.More and more people are getting their news from the Internet, rather than broadcast television or the radio. The FCC regulates radio and television stations as common carriers because they serve the public interest. As society comes to rely on the Internet as a common carrier it should be treated as one. Do you want the execs who run MSNBC to decide what news you should be able to read?
But it's more than just access to websites. With the rise of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Skype, and so on, it's clear that the Internet has supplanted the telephone as the primary communications channel for large segments of the population.
Government is giving Comcast preferential treatment over other ISPs.
And then there's the issue of equal treatment under the law. When the FCC made its regulations about the Internet back in the 1990s, there was no such thing as consumer broadband. Internet traffic was transmitted over standard telephone lines. That paradigm has been turned on its head: now Comcast is the one providing actual telephone service over broadband. Comcast has therefore become a telephone company and should be regulated as one. But government is giving cable companies like Comcast preferential treatment over ISPs that started out as telephone companies.Once upon a time, AT&T had a monopoly over most telephone service in the United States. Their subsidiary, Western Electric, manufactured almost all the telephone equipment in the country. "Ma Bell" made you rent a telephone from them, charging much more than it was worth. They also charged you for every "extension" in your house. This vertically integrated monopoly was broken up into seven regional "Baby Bells" in 1984.
Comcast is in a similar position and exhibits similar behaviors. Like AT&T, it charges you more if you connect more computers to the Internet, or use a WiFi modem. While you can buy your own cable modems and set top boxes (similar to TiVo, but without the extra subscription fee), Comcast makes it extremely hard for customers to do so. By comparison, my ISP (the phone company) doesn't charge extra for having a WiFi modem or additional computers.
Cable TV rates have gone up four times faster than inflation.
But unlike AT&T, Comcast is mostly unregulated. That means they can raise their rates at any time, and they do. A lot. Since 1995 cable TV rates have gone up at four times the rate of inflation. Comcast likes to claim that they've been upgrading infrastructure and adding new channels, but I don't get Internet through them, I've had the same cable leading into my house for 30 years and I don't watch any of the hundreds of useless channels they keep tacking on. I'm getting nothing for that increased price.When cable TV was regulated all channels but premium ones like HBO were unencrypted, making it easy to watch and record TV shows with your own equipment. But since deregulation, Comcast has stopped transmitting channels in "Clear QAM" (the digital equivalent of the old unencrypted analog NTSC signal), forcing customers to use Comcast equipment to watch and record TV.
And the "Just use satellite TV line" is bogus. There's just no comparison between cables and satellite and broadcast TV: satellites are hostage to the weather and they're totally one way. Broadcast TV is worse; its coverage is extremely spotty and now that it's fully digital a lousy signal doesn't mean you get a snowy picture, it means you get no picture at all.
The Time Warner acquisition would give Comcast a broadband cable monopoly over two-thirds of the country.
Comcast has a monopoly on broadband and cable TV service over huge sections of the country, yet they're trying to extend their domination of the US market with their acquisition of Time Warner cable, which would give Comcast two-thirds of the broadband cable market in the country. They try to justify the acquisition by claiming that they don't compete with Time Warner -- but the whole reason that they don't compete is that cable companies are granted local monopolies!Comcast is quickly becoming a vertically integrated nation-wide monopoly, in much the same way that AT&T was: Comcast controls the production of movies, TV programs and news through Universal Studios and various television production companies. It distributes programming through its own television network (NBC). And it delivers that programming to households through the cables it owns, and is granted monopoly status by cities across the country (mostly through acquisitions over many years).
In the early years of cable, cities used to exercise a great deal of control over providers, but after cable deregulation and acquisition of all local cable companies by national behemoths like Comcast and Time Warner, the cable companies call all the shots.
Internet service is usually priced by throughput: for example, in our area Comcast charges $30/month for 6 Mbps, $40/month for 50 Mbps, and $78/month for 105 Mbps. Users pay a sliding price based on the data rate. Now, Comcast doesn't actually promise you'll get that data rate, and they threaten to cut you off you use too much data. Comcast is also trialing data usage plans that charge you more if you exceed certain limits.
Comcast wants to make you pay twice to stream from Netflix.
The point is, you pay to get data at the rate you paid for. But now Comcast also wants to charge Netflix and other companies (presumably HBO, now that it's launching its HBOGO service) to send you that data at the rate you already paid for. And the only reason Netflix made a deal with Comcast is that Comcast has a monopoly position over such a large part of the country.To pay Comcast, Netflix and HBO will have to charge more for their services. But Comcast isn't my Internet provider. Why should I pay more for Netflix because Comcast is extorting Netflix? Netflix isn't paying my ISP anything extra.
And what about YouTube? If Google doesn't pay Comcast blood money to send YouTube videos produced by Internet users for the entertainment of other Internet users, will Comcast throttle YouTube into uselessness? And what about all the other services that are migrating to the Cloud, like backups, your photos, your music, etc. Will Comcast charge every company that sends any data to their customers? I mean, if they can charge Netflix, why can't they charge everyone a fee to get access to their customers?
Comcast is engaging in that practice that conservatives consider the most heinous of all sins when the government does it: double taxation. Comcast wants to make you pay twice for getting your data: once for receiving it, and once for Netflix to send it to you.
In recent years Time Warner has cut off channels in several markets across the country (Showtime in Kansas City, NBC, CBS and ABC in various cities around the country). Comcast owns NBC and its news channels, MSNBC and CNBC. When the merged Comcast/Time-Warner company enters negotiations with Disney, ESPN or Fox, will it do the same to those channels? Will it also cut off Fox news sites and ESPN video streams as a negotiating tactic? Without net neutrality, nothing could stop them except "negative feedback from the customers." But since Comcast has a monopoly, their customers have no real alternatives.
In essence, Comcast is demanding "protection" money from its competitors and everyone else on the Internet. They're telling Netflix (you'll have to imagine the in a Jersey gangster accent), "Dat's a nice movie youse got dere. It'd be a shame if dose packets got lost..."
Sunday, November 23, 2014
Good Words
From a question on Quora regarding the hatred of Barack Obama...
I think it is perhaps inaccurate to say they hate him. I think their real motive is fear. Of course, the fact that the only time conservatives have ever come unglued is when a black man was elected to office does little to bolster that claim. And by unglued, I am referring to their unprecedented decision to see him fail, rather than advance their own agenda.
The near total shutdown of the legislative process is utterly unprecedented. And the constant threat to shut down government is likewise. No modern democracy has shuttered its doors in the 34 years I have been a voter, yet we have done it many times. It is a complete repudiation of the concept of a civilized society and wholly unacceptable.
Then there are the bizarre polls by reliable sources than show many of them believe Obama is the Anti-Christ, a Muslim, a terrorist, and a Communist. These are delusional beliefs.
And it is hard to treat their tactics as sincere attempts to get their jobs done. To often they are caught saying things like asserting "the right size of federal government is small enough to drown in a bath tub." This sentiment is tantamount to anarchy. And it is difficult to believe it is in pursuit of a sincere belief in states' rights, as they engage in the same slash-and-burn tactics at the state level. They want to truly roll back the calendar to a time when government provide only police and military services (a time I doubt actually ever existed).
They espouse insane ideas like shuttering the IRS, the Environmental protection agency, and the Department of Education. They advocate banning abortion, banning the pill, and continuing to refuse to fund processing rape kits. Male you win, female you lose.
They deny incontrovertible facts such as climate change, the male-female pay disparity, evolution, and the separation of church and state.
And they have become dependent on juvenile dirty tricks in their policy stances. They conceived cap-and-trade, now they lead the charge against it. They conceived the personal mandate requiring people to buy health insurance. They then sued to claim it was unconstitutional. These are tactics I have not seen before in modern politics.
I think a major motivation is the changing demographics of the US population. They are incapable of embracing Latino and Black voters for reasons that are difficult to paint as anything other than racist. This means the end of their power is an inevitability as these groups are growing faster than the white population. And they are losing women, who are offended at their refusal to acknowledge rape is a problem or that women are shortchanged on payday. Alienating 50% of the population is suicide.
On top of that, gay rights and healthcare and immigration reform are buying Democrats voters. And not just for an election, perhaps for lifetime.
Unless their voter manipulation scams can control the outcome of increasingly large numbers of elections indefinitely, it will all come crashing down on them. And do not underestimate the importance of those tactics. All the senate seats they gained this cycle and both G.W. Bush runs were won by margins smaller than many projections of the number of suppressed voters. It is literally no longer clear we are a democracy. Meanwhile, in Michigan, democracy is already dead.
Finally, a large minority of their supporters, the Tea Party, have gone "all in" on extremism. Many reasonable Republicans feel wholly boxed in by this. And siding with the extremists actually buys more moderate Republicans a temporary reprieve.
Ultimately, Republicans know they have lost the future and are just trying to delay the inevitable. This knowledge has basically made them hysterical.
What is truly frightening about the possibility they do not hate Obama, is that if it is true, we should expect no reprieve when he leaves office.
Amen, brother
I think it is perhaps inaccurate to say they hate him. I think their real motive is fear. Of course, the fact that the only time conservatives have ever come unglued is when a black man was elected to office does little to bolster that claim. And by unglued, I am referring to their unprecedented decision to see him fail, rather than advance their own agenda.
The near total shutdown of the legislative process is utterly unprecedented. And the constant threat to shut down government is likewise. No modern democracy has shuttered its doors in the 34 years I have been a voter, yet we have done it many times. It is a complete repudiation of the concept of a civilized society and wholly unacceptable.
Then there are the bizarre polls by reliable sources than show many of them believe Obama is the Anti-Christ, a Muslim, a terrorist, and a Communist. These are delusional beliefs.
And it is hard to treat their tactics as sincere attempts to get their jobs done. To often they are caught saying things like asserting "the right size of federal government is small enough to drown in a bath tub." This sentiment is tantamount to anarchy. And it is difficult to believe it is in pursuit of a sincere belief in states' rights, as they engage in the same slash-and-burn tactics at the state level. They want to truly roll back the calendar to a time when government provide only police and military services (a time I doubt actually ever existed).
They espouse insane ideas like shuttering the IRS, the Environmental protection agency, and the Department of Education. They advocate banning abortion, banning the pill, and continuing to refuse to fund processing rape kits. Male you win, female you lose.
They deny incontrovertible facts such as climate change, the male-female pay disparity, evolution, and the separation of church and state.
And they have become dependent on juvenile dirty tricks in their policy stances. They conceived cap-and-trade, now they lead the charge against it. They conceived the personal mandate requiring people to buy health insurance. They then sued to claim it was unconstitutional. These are tactics I have not seen before in modern politics.
I think a major motivation is the changing demographics of the US population. They are incapable of embracing Latino and Black voters for reasons that are difficult to paint as anything other than racist. This means the end of their power is an inevitability as these groups are growing faster than the white population. And they are losing women, who are offended at their refusal to acknowledge rape is a problem or that women are shortchanged on payday. Alienating 50% of the population is suicide.
On top of that, gay rights and healthcare and immigration reform are buying Democrats voters. And not just for an election, perhaps for lifetime.
Unless their voter manipulation scams can control the outcome of increasingly large numbers of elections indefinitely, it will all come crashing down on them. And do not underestimate the importance of those tactics. All the senate seats they gained this cycle and both G.W. Bush runs were won by margins smaller than many projections of the number of suppressed voters. It is literally no longer clear we are a democracy. Meanwhile, in Michigan, democracy is already dead.
Finally, a large minority of their supporters, the Tea Party, have gone "all in" on extremism. Many reasonable Republicans feel wholly boxed in by this. And siding with the extremists actually buys more moderate Republicans a temporary reprieve.
Ultimately, Republicans know they have lost the future and are just trying to delay the inevitable. This knowledge has basically made them hysterical.
What is truly frightening about the possibility they do not hate Obama, is that if it is true, we should expect no reprieve when he leaves office.
Amen, brother
Saturday, November 22, 2014
Friday, November 21, 2014
Obama Acts On Immigration
Last night, President Obama announced his executive action on immigration and it was truly an historic moment. Honestly, I don't think this country has seen anything like it since the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863. Five million undocumented workers can finally come out of the shadows and not have to worry about being taken away from the children who are already American citizens.
The president has been beyond patient with the House of Representatives. The Senate passed a bill 18 months ago with 68 senators voting yes. The House refused to act, largely due to the representatives from the Confederacy...I mean, the Tea Party...behaving like 12 year-olds having a temper tantrum. Now, they will be forced to do something. The question is...what?
Basically, they are fucked and I think that's fantastic, given their xenophobic bullshit. If they impeach the president or shut the government down, voters will make them pay in 2016. If they pass the Rubio bill or some other bill that fixes immigration, they will look like they caved to the president (cue the boiling pit of sewage). Worse, they will give him what they have promised time and again to never do: SUCCESS.
People won't remember that it was Congress that ultimately fixed immigration. They will remember the strong leadership of the president acting when an impotent legislative branch failed to do so. My bet is they will throw a temper tantrum first, see that the president's poll numbers go up, and then cave.
It's going to be absolutely wonderful to watch:)
The president has been beyond patient with the House of Representatives. The Senate passed a bill 18 months ago with 68 senators voting yes. The House refused to act, largely due to the representatives from the Confederacy...I mean, the Tea Party...behaving like 12 year-olds having a temper tantrum. Now, they will be forced to do something. The question is...what?
Basically, they are fucked and I think that's fantastic, given their xenophobic bullshit. If they impeach the president or shut the government down, voters will make them pay in 2016. If they pass the Rubio bill or some other bill that fixes immigration, they will look like they caved to the president (cue the boiling pit of sewage). Worse, they will give him what they have promised time and again to never do: SUCCESS.
People won't remember that it was Congress that ultimately fixed immigration. They will remember the strong leadership of the president acting when an impotent legislative branch failed to do so. My bet is they will throw a temper tantrum first, see that the president's poll numbers go up, and then cave.
It's going to be absolutely wonderful to watch:)
Thursday, November 20, 2014
Why You Might Not Want to Use Uber
You know those privacy policies that Internet services have? The ones where they say they can use your data however they like, but they promise they'll never do anything bad? But somehow spammers always get your email address and fill your inbox with all kinds of useless junk?
Uber, the Internet taxi company masquerading as a "ride sharing service" in an attempt to circumvent local laws and regularions, also has a policy:
The company’s privacy policy indicates it is saving some details of drivers’ trips, as well as customers’ email and home addresses and phone numbers, among other records. Most of that information helps Uber provide its on-demand car service. But the policy also vaguely says it might use information “for internal business purposes” — a catchall, of sorts, that might grant the company great legal latitude.
“The privacy policy has lots of contradictions in it. In some places they say, ‘We will only use your location data to deliver transportation to you’ — and in other places, they say, ‘Actually, we’ll use your location data to deliver ads and for other business purposes,’” said Alvaro Bedoya, the executive director of Georgetown University’s Center on Privacy and Technology.
Uber is not only watching everywhere you go, but they as a company are also engaging in prurient speculation about what you're doing.
Uber is not only watching everywhere you go, but they as a company are also engaging in prurient speculation about what you're doing. They even wrote a bragging blog post about "Rides of Glory," which is their term for people who use Uber for one-night stands. Astonishingly, this post has been up on Uber for two years and they still are not embarrassed enough to take it down.But instead of just selling your email address to spammers, Uber appears willing to use that data against its customers: journalists who covered the company's unsavory activities, according to a recording made of one of Uber's execs:
Emil Michael, the company's senior vice president of business, said at a dinner in New York last week that the company should consider hiring a team of researchers to "dig up dirt on its critics in the media," according to a BuzzFeed report.If they talk so blithely about doing this to reporters, I wonder how many lawmakers and high-profile businessman would trust Uber with the secrets of their comings and goings?
Michael said the company could spend a million dollars to hire four top "oppositional researchers" and four journalists to delve into the personal lives of journalists and their families. Uber CEO Travis Kalanick was also present at the dinner -- along with VIPs from both the entertainment and media industries.
Even if Uber doesn't intentionally use your data against you, Uber is a big name and a big target for hackers: every transaction you conduct with Uber is stored on the Internet. It's one-stop shopping for the Russian gangs who've broken into Target, Home Depot and several banks: if Uber's programmers are as bumbling as Michael, its VP of business, the data on every Uber customer could already be in the hands of the bad guys.
If you use a local taxi service the nerds in Uber's data center aren't going to giggle about your late night trips.
Local mom and pop taxi services will get you a lot more privacy. Most them have no Internet presence and their customers are therefore immune to hackers. They don't keep your financial data or a record of your comings and goings online, like Uber does in order to charge you and "improve your service." If you pay your cabbie in cash, they don't even have your credit card number. The driver might record your trip in a handwritten logbook, but it's probably never going to be entered into a computer system. If you use a local taxi service the nerds in Uber's data center aren't going to giggle about your late night trips.Uber was in the news earlier this year when its staffers scheduled thousands of rides with competitors Gett and Lyft, then canceled the fake rides and screwed the Lyft drivers out of the fares.
And there are other reasons not to use Uber. Since the company takes a 20-25% cut out of every ride, money that previously would have stayed in your local economy is going off to California. Uber is constantly angering its drivers by unilaterally lowering fares. Uber may be a $17 billion dollar company, but its drivers are making less than minimum wage.
Add to this the flouting of local laws and regulations in hundreds of cities and towns that local companies have to abide by, and it's clear that Uber has in a few short years become as arrogant and corrupt as any mobbed-up cab company in the country.
Come to think of it, it's not surprising that a company that has the gall to name itself Uber is so morally and ethically reprehensible.
The only thing über about Uber is their ego.
Wednesday, November 19, 2014
Rand Paul on Bill Maher
If I were Hillary Clinton, I'd be very careful about Rand Paul. A message like this resonates with younger voters and makes it NOT a done deal for her.
Tuesday, November 18, 2014
Good Words
And they happen to be mine...
There are a number of reasons why they hate President Obama.
1. Conservatives are very tribal. Anyone that doesn't adhere strictly to their ideology is vilified (progressives, liberals, Democrats, RINOs).
2. He's been more successful than George W. Bush and other conservative leaders. Anyone that demonstrates greater skill or intelligence than a conservative is immediately tarred and feathered, especially if said person's words or actions prove conservative ideology wrong. Today's conservative is very adolescent, suffering from insecurity and a massive inferiority complex similar to "short man's syndrome." Like a child rebelling against their parents, they behave irrationally and that's where a lot of the hate comes from.
3. He's black. The conservative base in the South is still racist, bigoted, prejudiced, and believes in stereotypes about blacks. He also has a "Moose-lem" sounding name so that makes the bigots from other parts of the country hate him too.
4. He beat them twice. Echoing the adolescent thing again from #2, conservatives hate to lose. Like adolescent bullies, they retreat further into hate rather than reflecting on why they have those feelings in the first place (again, some sort of inadequacy probably going back to issues with their parents when they were younger).
5. He's young. Not talked about too much but given that the average age of the conservative base is 68, they are likely pissed that some young whipper snapper is running the country.
6. Problems with authority. Conservatives don't like anyone telling them what to do. They know what is best for themselves on every issue, even the ones where they lack knowledge (again, back to the adolescent thing again). They especially don't like Democrats telling them what to do because they don't think any liberal deserves the White House. This sentiment comes from the Antebellum South where only certain people should be in positions of authority. Conservatives are very aristocratic.
7. He represents change. Conservatives today see the world changing and they won't have any of it. This again has to do with the average age. Old people get scared when they age and become more irrational when things don't look the same. In some ways, they revert to childhood and pine for "the good ol' days." President Obama represents moving forward, not looking back, on nearly every issue so it's terribly frightening for them.
There are a number of reasons why they hate President Obama.
1. Conservatives are very tribal. Anyone that doesn't adhere strictly to their ideology is vilified (progressives, liberals, Democrats, RINOs).
2. He's been more successful than George W. Bush and other conservative leaders. Anyone that demonstrates greater skill or intelligence than a conservative is immediately tarred and feathered, especially if said person's words or actions prove conservative ideology wrong. Today's conservative is very adolescent, suffering from insecurity and a massive inferiority complex similar to "short man's syndrome." Like a child rebelling against their parents, they behave irrationally and that's where a lot of the hate comes from.
3. He's black. The conservative base in the South is still racist, bigoted, prejudiced, and believes in stereotypes about blacks. He also has a "Moose-lem" sounding name so that makes the bigots from other parts of the country hate him too.
4. He beat them twice. Echoing the adolescent thing again from #2, conservatives hate to lose. Like adolescent bullies, they retreat further into hate rather than reflecting on why they have those feelings in the first place (again, some sort of inadequacy probably going back to issues with their parents when they were younger).
5. He's young. Not talked about too much but given that the average age of the conservative base is 68, they are likely pissed that some young whipper snapper is running the country.
6. Problems with authority. Conservatives don't like anyone telling them what to do. They know what is best for themselves on every issue, even the ones where they lack knowledge (again, back to the adolescent thing again). They especially don't like Democrats telling them what to do because they don't think any liberal deserves the White House. This sentiment comes from the Antebellum South where only certain people should be in positions of authority. Conservatives are very aristocratic.
7. He represents change. Conservatives today see the world changing and they won't have any of it. This again has to do with the average age. Old people get scared when they age and become more irrational when things don't look the same. In some ways, they revert to childhood and pine for "the good ol' days." President Obama represents moving forward, not looking back, on nearly every issue so it's terribly frightening for them.
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