Saturday, February 24, 2018
Friday, February 23, 2018
Gun Humper Logic With The FBI
So, let me see if I follow this (ahem) logic correctly...
The FBI is to blame for the Florida shooting, not the loose gun laws that allowed Cruz to so easily obtain an AR-15.
The FBI...run by the guy they elected...Donald Trump...
This kinda reminds me of how 9/11 was not Bush's fault but Benghazi was Obama's fault and Hillary's fault.
The FBI is to blame for the Florida shooting, not the loose gun laws that allowed Cruz to so easily obtain an AR-15.
The FBI...run by the guy they elected...Donald Trump...
This kinda reminds me of how 9/11 was not Bush's fault but Benghazi was Obama's fault and Hillary's fault.
Florida House Speaker Richard Corcoran=Fucking Moron
"All of these shooters have one thing in common — they are abject, absolute cowards,” Corcoran said. “Here’s what a coward doesn’t want to do — stare down a marshal with a gun the second he goes through a door.”
Seriously? What a dumb ass...
Cruz knew there was an armed security guard at the school. He didn't care. He was trying to be all stealth like and shit. Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold weren't stopped at Columbine by an armed guard. Cookie Thornton shot a police officer, took his gun and then proceeded to shoot up Kirkwood City Hall. What kind of fantasy world do these people live in?
People who decide to shoot up a school are NOT RATIONAL. They also aren't cowards because they are NUTS.
I hope that all the new Florida voters will eject this asshat from the capsule come November.
Time Again to Blame Movies and Games for School Shootings
Instead of blaming the NRA for the glorification of guns, Donald Trump is blaming the Internet, video games and the movies for mass shootings in the United States:
We have to look at the internet because a lot of bad things are happening to young kids and young minds and their minds are being formed, and we have to do something about maybe what they’re seeing and how they’re seeing it. And also video games. I’m hearing more and more people say the level of violence on video games is really shaping young people’s thoughts. And you go the further step, and that’s the movies. You see these movies, and they’re so violent. And yet a kid is able to see the movie if sex isn’t involved, but killing is involved, and maybe they have to put a rating system for that.A rating system? Gee, what a brilliant idea. Why didn't the MPAA (the organization that rates films) think of that? Wait -- they have! If Trump ever went to a movie like a real person, he would have seen the MPAA ad that runs during the previews that explains how the rating system works.
The movie Republicans really enjoy attacking these days is John Wick, a 2014 Keanu Reeves film about a former hitman who hit back at the mobsters who killed his dog. Its MPAA rating is “Rated R for strong and bloody violence throughout, language and brief drug use.”
Video games also have a rating system with the ESRB, something Trump would know if he paid any attention whatsoever to what his son Barron does. How can Trump run a country when he doesn't know anything about anything?
Incidentally, guess who the bad guys are in John Wick? The Russian mob! Imagine that! Republicans are attacking a movie where Russians are the bad guys! Where do Republicans get their talking points from? RT News? Sputnik? Pravda? Izvestia? Vladimir Putin?
The fact of the matter is, Hollywood movies like John Wick make as much overseas in countries like China, Great Britain, Germany, Japan and Russia as they do in the United States.
And the entire rest of the world doesn't have weekly school shootings like we do. Because they don't let any random idiot buy guns.
Thursday, February 22, 2018
Trump Needs A Cheat Sheet To Be Human
Remember back in those days of Obama, Barack when the right used to foam at the mouth about his teleprompter? Check out Trump's cheat sheet that he had yesterday when he was talking with the families of victims of gun violence.
Really? He needs fucking crib notes to be a human being and say, "I hear you." He can't fucking remember to be a human being?
Completely. Unfit. For. President.
Really? He needs fucking crib notes to be a human being and say, "I hear you." He can't fucking remember to be a human being?
Completely. Unfit. For. President.
The Obvious Cowardice of Gun Humpers
Every gun humper with a whole bunch of firearms and a dream of being Jack Bauer will tell you that he can save the day should the need arise in a school shooting. President Trump himself has been touting arming schools since the the Florida shooting. Yet I have to wonder if these gun rights folks would actually jump in and save the day or would they just run?
Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School had an SRO (Security Resource Officer) so there was a good guy with a gun on site. Today, he resigned because he never went into the building. SRO's are police officers that are supposed to take bad guys out. He didn't. This was someone who was trained to do this shit and he failed. Do the gun humpers actually expect me to believe that they are going to rush in and save the day where the cops failed?
I don't believe it for a minute. The first thing they would do is likely shit their pants because the only thing they have the courage to do is troll gun grabbers on the internet from the parent's basement. They've never been trained nor do they have the training to take out a live shooter. Playing Call of Duty doesn't count, by the way.
So, yeah...I think they would just run. They wouldn't save anyone but themselves.
Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School had an SRO (Security Resource Officer) so there was a good guy with a gun on site. Today, he resigned because he never went into the building. SRO's are police officers that are supposed to take bad guys out. He didn't. This was someone who was trained to do this shit and he failed. Do the gun humpers actually expect me to believe that they are going to rush in and save the day where the cops failed?
I don't believe it for a minute. The first thing they would do is likely shit their pants because the only thing they have the courage to do is troll gun grabbers on the internet from the parent's basement. They've never been trained nor do they have the training to take out a live shooter. Playing Call of Duty doesn't count, by the way.
So, yeah...I think they would just run. They wouldn't save anyone but themselves.
And Yet Again: Guns Are Not Protection
Following the NRA's lead, Donald Trump is suggesting that teachers get paid more to carry guns in the classroom. Sharing the NRA's delusion that more guns make people safer, he thinks that armed teachers with Glock 17s in their purses or desk drawers will somehow stop "cowardly sickos" who bring AR-15s into the classroom.
But let's pretend that students will never be able to take the gun from a teacher. Having a weapon does not protect you from gunfire. It just makes you target number one. When a gunman enters a room he will simply put six rounds in the teacher before firing on his ex-girlfriend or the bully who's been picking on him since sixth grade.
Look at Afghanistan. Sure, the Taliban carries out attacks on soft targets like markets and government ministries. But they more frequently attack police stations and military outposts where everyone has guns. A high percentage of school shooters are suicidal and know full well that they'll eventually meet armed resistance from security guards and the police. They are hoping to go down in a blaze of gunfire, glory and blood spatter. That's their endgame.
Armed teachers will not deter these shooters -- the idea of armed teachers may even excite them, making it an even bigger challenge. More shooters will wear Kevlar, something that is easily bought on the Internet because of its great popularity among the gun cult and conservative survivalist "preppers."
At best arming teachers will only reduce the number of victims. The shooter will enter a classroom by stealth, shoot the teacher and twenty or thirty students. If an armed teacher in another classroom hears the attack, he'll fetch his gun and seek out the shooter. Odds are basically 50-50 that the teacher will die, because his handgun will be less powerful and less accurate than the AR-15 the mass murderer is carrying, and the killer may even be wearing ballistic armor, since he came prepared.
Arming teachers will also kill many students who would not have otherwise died: teachers will shoot kids they think have guns, but don't -- cops do this all the time. Kids will take guns from hesitant teachers and shoot them. Shooters will use other students as cover and teachers will shoot innocent bystanders. Ricochets will hit innocents. Kids will be shot accidentally when guns fall out of waistbands in the hall.
This shows the hypocrisy of the NRA. They don't want to stop gun violence, they want to sell more guns and more gun accessories. They want to turn this country into an armed camp, where people live in walled neighborhoods patrolled by armed guards and a machine gun nest on every block. They want schools to be prisons in perpetual lockdown mode, where teachers are armed guards and principals are wardens.
For the NRA school shootings are a marketing opportunity to increase the prevalence of guns in American society. They like school shootings because they can use them to sell the delusion that more guns make us safer.
The NRA opposes any and all gun control measures because, they say, gun control won't stop all shootings, and the bad guys will be able to get guns "somehow." By that same logic, arming teachers is an even bigger waste of time and money, because it can't stop all shootings because bad guys fire first.
Why should the NRA's Second Amendment trump every other American right, including the right to life?
How will Trump explain it when a teacher's gun is stolen and a dozen kids are dead?
Think about it: arming teachers and coaches makes it trivial for
school shooters to get guns in schools: all a shooter
needs to do is bash a coach with a baseball bat and now he's got a gun provided by Donald Trump and the NRA.But let's pretend that students will never be able to take the gun from a teacher. Having a weapon does not protect you from gunfire. It just makes you target number one. When a gunman enters a room he will simply put six rounds in the teacher before firing on his ex-girlfriend or the bully who's been picking on him since sixth grade.
Look at Afghanistan. Sure, the Taliban carries out attacks on soft targets like markets and government ministries. But they more frequently attack police stations and military outposts where everyone has guns. A high percentage of school shooters are suicidal and know full well that they'll eventually meet armed resistance from security guards and the police. They are hoping to go down in a blaze of gunfire, glory and blood spatter. That's their endgame.
Armed teachers will not deter these shooters -- the idea of armed teachers may even excite them, making it an even bigger challenge. More shooters will wear Kevlar, something that is easily bought on the Internet because of its great popularity among the gun cult and conservative survivalist "preppers."
At best arming teachers will only reduce the number of victims. The shooter will enter a classroom by stealth, shoot the teacher and twenty or thirty students. If an armed teacher in another classroom hears the attack, he'll fetch his gun and seek out the shooter. Odds are basically 50-50 that the teacher will die, because his handgun will be less powerful and less accurate than the AR-15 the mass murderer is carrying, and the killer may even be wearing ballistic armor, since he came prepared.
For years the NRA has been lobbying for silencers, which will make school shootings even more deadly.
If the shooter has a silencer -- something the NRA has been lobbying actively for for years because they want kids to use them -- the shooter may not be detected for many minutes because no one can hear the gunfire.Arming teachers will also kill many students who would not have otherwise died: teachers will shoot kids they think have guns, but don't -- cops do this all the time. Kids will take guns from hesitant teachers and shoot them. Shooters will use other students as cover and teachers will shoot innocent bystanders. Ricochets will hit innocents. Kids will be shot accidentally when guns fall out of waistbands in the hall.
This shows the hypocrisy of the NRA. They don't want to stop gun violence, they want to sell more guns and more gun accessories. They want to turn this country into an armed camp, where people live in walled neighborhoods patrolled by armed guards and a machine gun nest on every block. They want schools to be prisons in perpetual lockdown mode, where teachers are armed guards and principals are wardens.
For the NRA school shootings are a marketing opportunity to increase the prevalence of guns in American society. They like school shootings because they can use them to sell the delusion that more guns make us safer.
The NRA opposes any and all gun control measures because, they say, gun control won't stop all shootings, and the bad guys will be able to get guns "somehow." By that same logic, arming teachers is an even bigger waste of time and money, because it can't stop all shootings because bad guys fire first.
Why should the NRA's Second Amendment trump every other American right, including the right to life?
Wednesday, February 21, 2018
The Queen of Katwe
Everyone is talking about how great a film Black Panther is, and it's a fine superhero film for all the reasons others have stated. But there's another recent Disney film with an all-black cast, about a real person from a real African country who accomplished a truly superheroic feat: The Queen of Katwe.
The heroine, Phiona Mutesi, lives in a slum in Uganda. Despite her father dying of AIDS when she was three, despite her single mother being too poor to pay for school, despite not knowing how to read, despite being a girl who had to sell corn in the street and carry her family's water home in big plastic gas cans, she learns to play chess. And she's good at it.
She played at the 39th Chess Olympiad in Moscow in 2010, and in 2012, at the age of 16, she became a Woman Candidate Master at the 40th Olympiad in Istanbul. She currently has a rating of 1628, 300 points better than I ever was when I played chess.
She is now 21 and is attending college in Washington state.
As all movies that are based on real life do, the film exaggerates Phiona's skill level, which is described by chess journalist John Saunders as "a competent club player."
But considering that she started from absolutely nothing, supported only by a chess coach whose attention was divided between tutoring hundreds of other kids and playing soccer, her accomplishments are truly astounding.
Her story puts the lie to people like Donald Trump who call African countries shitholes (or shithouses, as Trump's defenders insist). Given the opportunity, people in every country can accomplish great things. And they work that much harder because they have nothing to fall back on.
The Queen of Katwe is available for streaming on Netflix.
The heroine, Phiona Mutesi, lives in a slum in Uganda. Despite her father dying of AIDS when she was three, despite her single mother being too poor to pay for school, despite not knowing how to read, despite being a girl who had to sell corn in the street and carry her family's water home in big plastic gas cans, she learns to play chess. And she's good at it.
She played at the 39th Chess Olympiad in Moscow in 2010, and in 2012, at the age of 16, she became a Woman Candidate Master at the 40th Olympiad in Istanbul. She currently has a rating of 1628, 300 points better than I ever was when I played chess.
She is now 21 and is attending college in Washington state.
As all movies that are based on real life do, the film exaggerates Phiona's skill level, which is described by chess journalist John Saunders as "a competent club player."
But considering that she started from absolutely nothing, supported only by a chess coach whose attention was divided between tutoring hundreds of other kids and playing soccer, her accomplishments are truly astounding.
Her story puts the lie to people like Donald Trump who call African countries shitholes (or shithouses, as Trump's defenders insist). Given the opportunity, people in every country can accomplish great things. And they work that much harder because they have nothing to fall back on.
The Queen of Katwe is available for streaming on Netflix.
Why Not Give Teachers Tasers?
Every time there's a shooting the NRA says the solution is more guns. Now they’re saying that every teacher needs to be armed. Many schools are seriously talking about doing it.
It's idiotic, of course. More guns means more deaths.
Teachers will drop their guns in the can and accidentally shoot themselves or the person in the next stall. Teachers will shoot their wives accidentally while cleaning their guns. Teachers will lose their guns and kids will get hold of them. And what happens when an armed teacher loses his cool and kills a student in class after the kid screams, “What are you gonna do? Shoot me?”
Most teachers don't like the idea of killing people, and would be hesitant to shoot someone, especially a former student. When guns are involved, any hesitation means your gun will just be added to the arsenal of the shooter.
But something the NRA never mentions is giving teachers tasers. Yeah, tasers aren’t perfect. You can still kill someone with a taser, but they're much less lethal.
And tasers could be an even greater deterrent than guns. The idea of going down in a hail of gunfire and blood spatter is attractive to gun nuts. But being shocked by a taser, collapsing like an old man, then drooling and jerking spasmodically on the floor is not romantic at all.
And it doesn't have to be just tasers. Tear gas and mace can be especially effective in enclosed areas like hallways and classrooms. If we put our minds to it, we can probably come up with a lot of non-lethal ways to deter gun violence, rather than surrender to the NRA’s guns everywhere, all-the-time mentality.
So why push for guns in schools when there's a non-lethal alternative that no one has even tried?
It's idiotic, of course. More guns means more deaths.
Teachers will drop their guns in the can and accidentally shoot themselves or the person in the next stall. Teachers will shoot their wives accidentally while cleaning their guns. Teachers will lose their guns and kids will get hold of them. And what happens when an armed teacher loses his cool and kills a student in class after the kid screams, “What are you gonna do? Shoot me?”
Most teachers don't like the idea of killing people, and would be hesitant to shoot someone, especially a former student. When guns are involved, any hesitation means your gun will just be added to the arsenal of the shooter.
But something the NRA never mentions is giving teachers tasers. Yeah, tasers aren’t perfect. You can still kill someone with a taser, but they're much less lethal.
And tasers could be an even greater deterrent than guns. The idea of going down in a hail of gunfire and blood spatter is attractive to gun nuts. But being shocked by a taser, collapsing like an old man, then drooling and jerking spasmodically on the floor is not romantic at all.
And it doesn't have to be just tasers. Tear gas and mace can be especially effective in enclosed areas like hallways and classrooms. If we put our minds to it, we can probably come up with a lot of non-lethal ways to deter gun violence, rather than surrender to the NRA’s guns everywhere, all-the-time mentality.
So why push for guns in schools when there's a non-lethal alternative that no one has even tried?
Sunday, February 18, 2018
The "We Do It Too" Fallacy
Now that Robert Mueller has released his indictment of Russian nationals and companies for hacking the 2016 election, some conservatives have come to the defense of Russia. "We do it too," they say.
Yes, we have done it in the past. And it has cost us dearly. The 1979 Iranian Revolution was a direct outcome of CIA meddling in that country during the 1950s. Supporting Saddam in the 1980s backfired when he thought we gave him a green light to invade Kuwait, leading us into two wars. Our support for terrorists like Osama bin Laden and the Taliban during Russia's 1980s invasion of Afghanistan backfired when those same people turned against us in 2001.
Now we're the ones stuck in an eternal war in the desiccated mountains of Asia, and Russia is backing the Taliban (as well as North Korea, Iran, and Syria).
But, as former CIA Russia operations chief Steven Hall says, equating Russian and American activities “is like saying cops and bad guys are the same because they both have guns — the motivation matters.”
The United States has -- mostly -- tried to promote democracy and transparency with our actions. Our greatest failures have occurred when we let private concerns (mostly oil) interfere with our mission of democracy. We've promoted democracy with programs like the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe, which were often the only source of real news that communist countries had during the cold war.
Russia doesn't have free and fair elections -- Putin files fake criminal charges against credible opponents and prevents them from even running. So the United States can't do what Russia did to us.
Russia is attacking us to show their own people that freedom of speech and democracy are untenable and undesirable. The election of Donald Trump and the chaos, discord and corruption he sows are intended as much to weaken the United States as it is to prove to the Russian people that they're better off with a stable, autocratic dictator like Putin than whatever nutjob free and fair elections would put in power.
But saying that "we do it too" to excuse Russian attacks is tantamount to treason. It is condoning a foreign power's attempt to sabotage the basic exercise of our democracy.
Mueller's indictment didn't tell Donald Trump or his advisor anything they didn't already know. But Trump has declined to impose any new sanctions on the Russians, as required by a bill passed almost unanimously by Congress last year.
Why not?
Trump's actions sure do seem like a conspiracy: until last week he had constantly denied an attack had ever occurred, he has tried to cover up the attack by firing the FBI director and attempting to curtail the investigation, and he has refused to punish the foreigners behind the attack.
When Trump met with Russians in the Oval Office he said, “I just fired the head of the F.B.I. He was crazy, a real nut job. I faced great pressure because of Russia. That’s taken off.”
Sure does sound like an admission of guilt, doesn't it?
Yes, we have done it in the past. And it has cost us dearly. The 1979 Iranian Revolution was a direct outcome of CIA meddling in that country during the 1950s. Supporting Saddam in the 1980s backfired when he thought we gave him a green light to invade Kuwait, leading us into two wars. Our support for terrorists like Osama bin Laden and the Taliban during Russia's 1980s invasion of Afghanistan backfired when those same people turned against us in 2001.
Now we're the ones stuck in an eternal war in the desiccated mountains of Asia, and Russia is backing the Taliban (as well as North Korea, Iran, and Syria).
But, as former CIA Russia operations chief Steven Hall says, equating Russian and American activities “is like saying cops and bad guys are the same because they both have guns — the motivation matters.”
The United States has -- mostly -- tried to promote democracy and transparency with our actions. Our greatest failures have occurred when we let private concerns (mostly oil) interfere with our mission of democracy. We've promoted democracy with programs like the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe, which were often the only source of real news that communist countries had during the cold war.
Russia doesn't have free and fair elections -- Putin files fake criminal charges against credible opponents and prevents them from even running. So the United States can't do what Russia did to us.
Russia is attacking us to show their own people that freedom of speech and democracy are untenable and undesirable. The election of Donald Trump and the chaos, discord and corruption he sows are intended as much to weaken the United States as it is to prove to the Russian people that they're better off with a stable, autocratic dictator like Putin than whatever nutjob free and fair elections would put in power.
But saying that "we do it too" to excuse Russian attacks is tantamount to treason. It is condoning a foreign power's attempt to sabotage the basic exercise of our democracy.
Mueller's indictment didn't tell Donald Trump or his advisor anything they didn't already know. But Trump has declined to impose any new sanctions on the Russians, as required by a bill passed almost unanimously by Congress last year.
Why not?
Trump's actions sure do seem like a conspiracy: until last week he had constantly denied an attack had ever occurred, he has tried to cover up the attack by firing the FBI director and attempting to curtail the investigation, and he has refused to punish the foreigners behind the attack.
When Trump met with Russians in the Oval Office he said, “I just fired the head of the F.B.I. He was crazy, a real nut job. I faced great pressure because of Russia. That’s taken off.”
Sure does sound like an admission of guilt, doesn't it?
Russia, the NRA and the Parkland Massacre
Donald Trump's other attempt to discredit the FBI is to suggest the investigation into Russia's hacking of the 2016 election is somehow diverting attention away from dangerous gun nuts who are shooting up our schools, concerts and nightclubs.
There is a connection between the Russia investigation and the shooting in Florida, but it's not the one Trump is suggesting: the NRA is colluding with Russia to turn America into a warzone where school kids are shot by the hundreds every year.
In recent years the NRA has become involved with Russian oligarchs (apparently receiving illegal contributions from Aleksandr Torshin), and phony Russian "gun rights" organizations.
As they frequently do, the Russians have set up a "honeypot" trap by
having an attractive woman be the face of their "gun rights" group in
the United States, in the person of Maria Butina.
Russia has reasonable gun laws, so any Russians coming to the United States to talk about gun rights are obvious liars. Their support of the NRA is yet another social engineering scam to divide public opinion in the US and set us at each others' throats.
As Trump would put it: Every time there's another school shooting in the United States the Russians are laughing their asses off.
There is a connection between the Russia investigation and the shooting in Florida, but it's not the one Trump is suggesting: the NRA is colluding with Russia to turn America into a warzone where school kids are shot by the hundreds every year.
In recent years the NRA has become involved with Russian oligarchs (apparently receiving illegal contributions from Aleksandr Torshin), and phony Russian "gun rights" organizations.
Russia has reasonable gun laws, so any Russians coming to the United States to talk about gun rights are obvious liars. Their support of the NRA is yet another social engineering scam to divide public opinion in the US and set us at each others' throats.
As Trump would put it: Every time there's another school shooting in the United States the Russians are laughing their asses off.
Blame the State of Florida for Parkland, Not the FBI
Having now been forced to admit that the Russians hacked the 2016 election, Donald Trump and the Republicans are attacking the Mueller investigation by trying to discredit the FBI.
Republicans always complain about how libtards look to Washington to solve their problems. "Why don't they do something themselves?" conservatives whine.
Well, it turns out that several Florida agencies were well aware that the shooter was mentally ill, but did nothing to stop him:
A Florida social services agency conducted an in-home investigation of Nikolas Cruz after he exhibited troubling behavior nearly a year and a half before he shot and killed 17 people at his former high school in Florida, a state report shows.The problem is not the FBI. The problem is that Florida knew this kid was bad news, and did nothing about it. The state of Florida let him buy an AR15 assault rifle! Why didn't they add this kid to the list of people who can't buy guns?
The agency, the Florida Department of Children and Families, had been alerted to posts on Snapchat of Mr. Cruz cutting his arms and expressing interest in buying a gun, according to the report. But after visiting and questioning Mr. Cruz at his home, the department determined he was at low risk of harming himself or others.
The report is the latest indication that Mr. Cruz was repeatedly identified by local and federal agencies as a troubled young man with violent tendencies. The F.B.I. admitted on Friday that it had failed to investigate a tip called into a hotline last month by a person close to Mr. Cruz identifying him as a gun owner intent on killing people, possibly at a school. The local police were called to Mr. Cruz’s house many times for disturbances over several years.
The deaths in Parkland are the fault of the NRA, the gun cult and Republican legislators in Florida.
Saturday, February 17, 2018
Cutting the Cord, or Why We Need Network Neutrality
Cable TV companies are among the most despised in the nation. Their employees are surly and uninformed, their service is terrible, their prices have risen two or three times faster than inflation, and they make you pay for hundreds of channels you don't care about and will never watch. That's because they're monopolies, and have been free to do whatever the hell they want after Congress deregulated them 20 years ago.
When cable companies started using their monopoly position to provide Internet access, it only got worse. They claimed they had the right to charge not only their customers for their Internet access, but the companies that sent their customers data. They claimed they had the right to slow down or block any company that they felt used too many "network resources," but really they wanted to shut down companies like Netflix that provided streaming video that competed with their core entertainment business.
Obama's FCC instituted "network neutrality" to prevent cable companies from screwing their customers and other businesses. The FCC classified internet providers as common carriers (like phone companies) who can't discriminate against other businesses.
The Trump administration, of course, is getting rid of the policy because the cable industry has given Republicans tons of campaign contributions.
For the last eight or ten years there's been a lot of talk about cord cutters -- people who get rid of their cable TV subscriptions and use antennas to receive broadcast TV over the air, or subscribe to services that stream cable-TV content over the Internet.
These services have historically have not been very good. They don't have all the channels people want and quality has been rather choppy. Worse, they didn't have the local TV stations that people depend on for weather forecasts and local news.
That has all changed: it's now possible -- in many areas of the country -- to cut the cord and get pretty much the same local and cable programming that your cable company provides. For a fraction of the price!
Last year CenturyLink, our DSL provider, ran a fiber optic cable down the main street near our house. Recently they offered a life-time guaranteed price of $50/month for 80 megabit internet. It's not the gimmick that the cable companies always offer, where they give you a deal for three months and then triple the price. In 20 years our DSL provider has never raised the guaranteed price. Instead they drastically increase the data rate for a marginal, guaranted-for-life price increase.
In that same time frame Comcast's prices has more than doubled, to more than $100/month with no improvement in service. They just keep adding more worthless channels we never watch. So we decided to dump Comcast.
We tried an antenna, but we live in a very hilly suburb and the transmitters are 20 miles away. The signal is awful with indoor antennas, and putting an antenna on the roof is a hassle and might not even work. So we decided on streaming.
We looked at four services that stream cable programming and local channels: YouTube TV, Hulu, Sling and DirecTV Now (which is not the satellite TV service). They're all comparably priced and have similar features: full HD, live-streaming of local and cable channels including movies and sports, a DVR feature (with varying release dates, capabilities and costs), and access to on-demand libraries of shows and movies that appear on the supported networks. All of them let you try the service for a week for free, and they're all in the $35-40 price range. Some of them have 4K capability.
Their channel lineups aren't identical, and will vary by region. We picked YouTube TV, which has all the channels we care about except for the local PBS affiliate, but as public TV supporters we have access to PBS's streaming service, which gives you access to episodes of shows like Victoria before they're aired on local stations.
But we would have been happy with DirecTV Now or Sling; both were fine. DirecTV Now has a distinct advantage of charging only $5/month to add HBO. Hulu had more restrictions, was more expensive, and was less reliable than the others, but it does include access to a huge library of TV shows going back decades.
YouTube TV includes some channels that Comcast charged extra for (like TCM, ESPNU, the Olympic Channel), so we're paying $50 a month less to get more of the things that we want.
Some of the services don't have access to Comedy Central, the local CBS or the CW affiliates, perhaps because Comedy Central, CBS and CW have their own streaming services (CC's and CW's are free, CBS's is $6), or they just haven't finished negotiations yet. YouTube TV is still actively adding channels (TBS/TNT came online just last week).
Furthermore, if you have limited viewing habits, you can save even more money. ESPN is introducing their streaming service this spring for only $5/month. HBO's streaming service is $15/month. There are also tons of other on-demand streaming services, like Amazon and Netflix, that have large libraries of shows or offer pay-per-view movies and shows.
You can stream through a browser with your computer, through an app on your smart phone, or through several different streaming devices. We went with a streaming device because using a computer is a hassle when you're sitting on the couch, and would rather use a remote than our phones.
Most of these streaming devices are tiny compared to computers or even cable TV set-top boxes: Roku's Streaming Stick, Google Chromecast, Amazon's Firestick use WiFi and connect invisibly to your TV's HDMI port. We went with the Roku Ultra because we wanted a traditional TV remote and a wired connection. Many of these devices allow you to "cast" the stream from your smart phone to the TV screen, if that's your thing.
You will, of course, need a decent Internet connection to use these streaming services. Looking at the stats on our Roku box, it looks like it uses about 4 megabits, so at least an 8 megabit connection is needed.
Sadly, TiVo does not work with most of these streaming services, though there's no technical reason it could not: it works fine with Hulu, Netflix and Amazon. TiVo with cable has a better interface and user experience than Roku or YouTube TV. TiVo's wishlists are very nice, and the commercial skip feature is great. But it's just not worth almost a thousand dollars a year.
We're lucky that we live in an area that has two Internet providers: Comcast and CenturyLink. But a lot of people don't have any choice: they only have Comcast or some other giant cable company that has a government-sanctioned monopoly on cable and Internet service.
These streaming services are bringing competition and innovation into America's living rooms. Net neutrality is needed to guarantee that all Americans have equal access to the information and entertainment services, and that new companies have an equal opportunity to compete against companies that were granted monopolies by cities and states decades ago.
This kind of competition could save the average American consumer $500 to $1,000 dollars a year. Which is a hell of lot more money than middle-class Americans will see from Trump's tax cuts for the wealthy.
But without net neutrality Comcast can shut out millions of Americans from these services, taking billions of dollars out of their pockets.
When cable companies started using their monopoly position to provide Internet access, it only got worse. They claimed they had the right to charge not only their customers for their Internet access, but the companies that sent their customers data. They claimed they had the right to slow down or block any company that they felt used too many "network resources," but really they wanted to shut down companies like Netflix that provided streaming video that competed with their core entertainment business.
Obama's FCC instituted "network neutrality" to prevent cable companies from screwing their customers and other businesses. The FCC classified internet providers as common carriers (like phone companies) who can't discriminate against other businesses.
The Trump administration, of course, is getting rid of the policy because the cable industry has given Republicans tons of campaign contributions.
Net neutrality can save many Americans $1,000 a year.
To see why network neutrality is important, let's look at a real-world scenario. A scenario that could save many Americans $500 to $1,000 a year.For the last eight or ten years there's been a lot of talk about cord cutters -- people who get rid of their cable TV subscriptions and use antennas to receive broadcast TV over the air, or subscribe to services that stream cable-TV content over the Internet.
These services have historically have not been very good. They don't have all the channels people want and quality has been rather choppy. Worse, they didn't have the local TV stations that people depend on for weather forecasts and local news.
That has all changed: it's now possible -- in many areas of the country -- to cut the cord and get pretty much the same local and cable programming that your cable company provides. For a fraction of the price!
Last year CenturyLink, our DSL provider, ran a fiber optic cable down the main street near our house. Recently they offered a life-time guaranteed price of $50/month for 80 megabit internet. It's not the gimmick that the cable companies always offer, where they give you a deal for three months and then triple the price. In 20 years our DSL provider has never raised the guaranteed price. Instead they drastically increase the data rate for a marginal, guaranted-for-life price increase.
In that same time frame Comcast's prices has more than doubled, to more than $100/month with no improvement in service. They just keep adding more worthless channels we never watch. So we decided to dump Comcast.
We tried an antenna, but we live in a very hilly suburb and the transmitters are 20 miles away. The signal is awful with indoor antennas, and putting an antenna on the roof is a hassle and might not even work. So we decided on streaming.
We looked at four services that stream cable programming and local channels: YouTube TV, Hulu, Sling and DirecTV Now (which is not the satellite TV service). They're all comparably priced and have similar features: full HD, live-streaming of local and cable channels including movies and sports, a DVR feature (with varying release dates, capabilities and costs), and access to on-demand libraries of shows and movies that appear on the supported networks. All of them let you try the service for a week for free, and they're all in the $35-40 price range. Some of them have 4K capability.
Their channel lineups aren't identical, and will vary by region. We picked YouTube TV, which has all the channels we care about except for the local PBS affiliate, but as public TV supporters we have access to PBS's streaming service, which gives you access to episodes of shows like Victoria before they're aired on local stations.
But we would have been happy with DirecTV Now or Sling; both were fine. DirecTV Now has a distinct advantage of charging only $5/month to add HBO. Hulu had more restrictions, was more expensive, and was less reliable than the others, but it does include access to a huge library of TV shows going back decades.
YouTube TV includes some channels that Comcast charged extra for (like TCM, ESPNU, the Olympic Channel), so we're paying $50 a month less to get more of the things that we want.
Some of the services don't have access to Comedy Central, the local CBS or the CW affiliates, perhaps because Comedy Central, CBS and CW have their own streaming services (CC's and CW's are free, CBS's is $6), or they just haven't finished negotiations yet. YouTube TV is still actively adding channels (TBS/TNT came online just last week).
Furthermore, if you have limited viewing habits, you can save even more money. ESPN is introducing their streaming service this spring for only $5/month. HBO's streaming service is $15/month. There are also tons of other on-demand streaming services, like Amazon and Netflix, that have large libraries of shows or offer pay-per-view movies and shows.
You can stream through a browser with your computer, through an app on your smart phone, or through several different streaming devices. We went with a streaming device because using a computer is a hassle when you're sitting on the couch, and would rather use a remote than our phones.
Most of these streaming devices are tiny compared to computers or even cable TV set-top boxes: Roku's Streaming Stick, Google Chromecast, Amazon's Firestick use WiFi and connect invisibly to your TV's HDMI port. We went with the Roku Ultra because we wanted a traditional TV remote and a wired connection. Many of these devices allow you to "cast" the stream from your smart phone to the TV screen, if that's your thing.
You will, of course, need a decent Internet connection to use these streaming services. Looking at the stats on our Roku box, it looks like it uses about 4 megabits, so at least an 8 megabit connection is needed.
Sadly, TiVo does not work with most of these streaming services, though there's no technical reason it could not: it works fine with Hulu, Netflix and Amazon. TiVo with cable has a better interface and user experience than Roku or YouTube TV. TiVo's wishlists are very nice, and the commercial skip feature is great. But it's just not worth almost a thousand dollars a year.
We're lucky that we live in an area that has two Internet providers: Comcast and CenturyLink. But a lot of people don't have any choice: they only have Comcast or some other giant cable company that has a government-sanctioned monopoly on cable and Internet service.
These streaming services are bringing competition and innovation into America's living rooms. Net neutrality is needed to guarantee that all Americans have equal access to the information and entertainment services, and that new companies have an equal opportunity to compete against companies that were granted monopolies by cities and states decades ago.
This kind of competition could save the average American consumer $500 to $1,000 dollars a year. Which is a hell of lot more money than middle-class Americans will see from Trump's tax cuts for the wealthy.
But without net neutrality Comcast can shut out millions of Americans from these services, taking billions of dollars out of their pockets.
The Children Continue To Speak
Donald Trump's tweet about the Florida shooting has garnered many comments from students who were actually at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Here's my favorite.
“I don’t want your condolences you fucking price of shit, my friends and teachers were shot,” she tweeted. “Multiple of my fellow classmates are dead. Do something instead of sending prayers. Prayers won’t fix this. But Gun control will prevent it from happening again.”
I'll extend Sara's fucking piece of shit comment to all the gun rights activists in the United States along with this promise. I'm going to do everything in my power to make sure that YOU are held responsible for the deaths of every single person who has died in a school shooting.
If I were in charge, you'd be at Gitmo right now and you'd never see the light of day again.
“I don’t want your condolences you fucking price of shit, my friends and teachers were shot,” she tweeted. “Multiple of my fellow classmates are dead. Do something instead of sending prayers. Prayers won’t fix this. But Gun control will prevent it from happening again.”
I'll extend Sara's fucking piece of shit comment to all the gun rights activists in the United States along with this promise. I'm going to do everything in my power to make sure that YOU are held responsible for the deaths of every single person who has died in a school shooting.
If I were in charge, you'd be at Gitmo right now and you'd never see the light of day again.
Thursday, February 15, 2018
Another Shooting by a White Supremacist Terrorist
Several news outlets are reporting that the Parkland Florida school shooter, Nikolas (spelling Amerika with a 'K') Cruz, was a member of the "Republic of Florida" white supremacist group:
The [Anti-Defamation League] said ROF leader Jordan Jereb told them Cruz was associated with his group. Jereb, who is based in Tallahassee, said Cruz was brought into the group by another member and had participated in one or more ROF training exercises in the Tallahassee area, the ADL said. Law enforcement officials have not confirmed the link.
ROF has mostly young members in north and south Florida and describes itself as a “white civil rights organization fighting for white identitarian politics” and seeks to create a “white ethnostate” in Florida.
Three former schoolmates of Cruz told ABC News that Cruz was part of the group. They claimed he marched with the group frequently and was often seen with Jereb, who also confirmed to ABC News that Cruz was, at least at one point, part of that group.If this kid had even the most tenuous connection to any form of Islamic or liberal group, you can be certain that Donald Trump and the Republican echo chamber would be screaming bloody murder about the scourge of Middle East immigrant terrorists and the evils of Mohammedanism.
But since Cruz was a MAGA hat-wearing white supremacist gun nut Trump and the right are only talking about mental illness.
The one thing that all these mass shooters have in common is an infatuation with guns.
The one thing that all these mass shooters have in common -- from Columbine, to Sandy Hook, to Las Vegas, to Parkland -- is an infatuation with guns. Like Cruz, lots of people are depressed and have other mild forms of mental illness. But most don't pose a danger to anyone, except perhaps themselves.The real danger to society at large is not run-of-the-mill depression or even schizophrenia -- it's this infatuation with guns. It is so common that it needs a name: let's call it Gun Infatuation Syndrome. Gun infatuation is a form of mental illness, like drug addiction, bipolar disorder or obsessive-compulsive disorder.
People suffering from GIS make guns a basic part of their daily lives. GIS progresses as its sufferers come to devalue human life: since the only purpose of guns is to kill, killing is normalized in their minds. Their positive view of guns metastasizes into a positive view of killing and killers -- Cruz and other mass shooters idolize past mass shooters.
Conservatives are all about profiling people: they were livid when New York gave up the racist Stop and Frisk program, claiming that there would be blood in the streets. But the murder rate dropped precipitously during after stop-and-frisk ended, prompting honest conservatives to admit they were completely wrong about the policy.
Some conservatives want to profile American Muslims and ban all Muslim immigrants because some Muslims are terrorists. Even though the fact is more Americans die at the hands of right-wing racists like Dylann Roof and Nikolas Cruz than Muslims.
The simple fact is: the people most likely to commit mass shootings are those with lots of guns. People who have no compunctions about shooting other people. People who have a chip on their shoulder and feel that they have the right to use lethal force against those they think have wronged them. Narcissistic people obsessed with vengeance.
With a vengeful narcissist in the Oval Office actively promulgating this mindset, is it any wonder that we've already had 18 shootings at schools just six weeks into 2018?
People are blaming the FBI for not doing anything about Cruz after they received warnings about him. But there are literally millions of gun nuts out there like Cruz who post exactly the same crap on the internet that he did.
And whenever the FBI does go after these gun nuts they scream bloody murder about the Deep State and their Second Amendment rights.
So, sure, let's profile the people who are most likely to commit shootings -- people who have lots of guns and are suffering from Gun Infatuation Syndrome. Let's take their guns away and get them into treatment.
Before they shoot up your kid's school.
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