For Net Neutrality SNIPS InterTubes

Net Neutrality = Neuter the Gatekeepers

The FCC's Net Neutrality Proposal Is Out: It's Time to Make Our Voices Heard: 'via Blog this'

Net Neutrality on Wikipedia

This is a more complex topic than I thought going in and after reading arguments on both sides I feel incompetent to make my own with cogent logic.  So I admit flat out that I'm taking my stand on gut feeling.

Just based on the lists of proponents and opponents to Net Neutrality legislation and regulation I would have to choose the proponents to stand with as I respect the range of philosophies and political affiliations of most of the names I recognize whereas I cringe at most of the names I see on the opponents list.  Some of whom I know think library users are freeloaders and would consider me a parasite for needing tax payer support and like to talk about boot strapping yet are now advocating for having those bootstraps cut just as I'm about to lift myself up by them.

A partial list of proponents and opponents is in the Wikipedia article.

I find the idea of an ISPs ability to discriminate data transmission based on ability to pay a downright deathknell to the inde startup entrepreneurs like I'm hoping to be.  That they have and thus could be allowed to use the technology to decide how fast data between my business sites and my customers and clients can move based on whether I can afford to compete with billionaire corporations able to pay for premium service that provides their data cutting edge speed makes me alarmed that my prospects for success have been neutralized.

Even more alarming is the ISP capability of censoring data according to content or the application it was created by and for.  Audio Visual, including VOIP, being slow-streamed for non-premium customers for example.  I imagine with horror what that could mean for my vid chats on Google and Skype with Ed or the book trailers for my self-pub ebooks.

What if they can discover the political or religious views contained in the data and censor it according to their own preferences?

And there have already been attempts by ISP to redirect traffic to a premium client from their competitors.

What would all this mean for the non-profit organizations?

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Currently Kieth

I'm counting down.

I've made no secret of my fondness for Keith Olbermann's show and how upset I was when he got into that kurfuffle with MSNBC which I essentially stopped watching after that. By essentially I mean I still download Rachel's pods and sometimes actually watch them. And I get Ed's newsletter and occasionally follow a link to watch a video a day or three or more after it aired.

But enough on all that. There have been enough words wasted on that whole mishmash.

Meanwhile, tonight, I'm counting and recounting stitches as I put back in the several rows I had to pull out of a bookmark I'm crocheting after discovering, while working the last row, that it wasn't laying flat because one side had 34 of what the other side had 22. I'm still not sure how I managed that. I gave up trying to diagnose it precisely after my eyes started crossing as I tried to count the stitches in the rows behind the row I was working on looking for the exact place the mistake began. I finally decided it would be quicker to take it out and put it back in taking care to count and keep my eyes on the work not the TV. To be sure I took out the original mistake, I took it all the way back to the end of row two. I was almost to the end of row 7 and about to begin the border when I discovered there was a problem.

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I Want My Keith TV

I've been seeing black fireworks against red sky since I opened the email announcement this afternoon. I've spent the following six hours peering through that haze while exploring angles of the story online.

Keith Olbermann was suspended without pay indefinitely by MSNBC today. Ostensibly for donating to three Democratic political campaigns this year without getting prior approval from his boss. I don't believe for a second that is the true reason.

For one thing the rule he supposedly violated is one that hasn't been applied to MSNBC pundits for years. It is meant for those journalists at NBC who need to avoid the appearance of conflict of interest or bias as objective reporters of the news. It has long been obvious that no MSNBC anchor (or other talking heads on there for that matter) are unbiased. They are all pundits/editorialists. Opinion is the product MSNBC has been selling.

The very fact the personalities on MSNBC are up front and even in your face about their biases is why I watch. I'm not watching for the news. By the time they are talking about it I've already seen some version of the story online and attempted to follow it as close to its primary source as possible and if I'm interested enough, followed discussions about it in a number of blogs or other online sources whose integrity I trust. Let me be clear, that does not include any of the networks on or off cable TV.

There's a lot of speculation out there that it has something to do with the imminent acquisition of NBC/MSNBC/Universal by Comcast. Though Comcast denies it currently has any role in policy or decision-making at the organizations.

Me I'm having de ja vu from when they dumped Donahue in the lead up to the wars and I'm wondering if GE, the parent company, is going to start banging the drums again and is acting proactively to free their soap box of opposition voices.

But it doesn't need to be about war. There are any number of agendas the corporate media might want to silence opposition about. Net Neutrality say. The privatization of social security. The repeal of the health care bill and the Wall Street reform. The tax cuts for the top 2%. Attempts to bring back the rules against media monopolies that would prohibit deals like the Comcast acquisition of NBC et al and Murdoch's acquisition of The Wall Street Journal . The fallout of the Supreme Court ruling equating corporate donations to political campaigns with free speech that resulted in massive untraceable money flowing into this year's election efforts for the first time.

I could go on and on. In fact it has surprised me how long the corporate kings had been putting up with their court jesters like Keith--those willing to speak truth to power from a core of integrity and wisdom that those in power have often forfeited.

After Donahue's dismissal I stopped watching MSNBC until late 2006 after I caught a clip of one of Keith's early special comments. I'm stopping again until he returns. Sorry Rach, I'll follow your blog and maybe scavenge clips off the blogsphere but you must realize that if it is either Comcast or GE behind this, they won't stop with Keith. You, Ed, and Lawrence will follow like falling dominoes. The voices with large audience share, like you four, advocating for the common man, the vulnerable, and the voiceless are dwindling alarmingly. What happens when they are all gone?

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My Senator Has a Spine

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This was the first evidence of spine in any government official I've seen in the weeks since the BP oil spill. I hope its not just smoke and mirrors. Because when the true and full impact on our environment and economy by this disaster is finally known and sinks into the consciousness of the American people, we are going to remember who was buddy-buddy with the oil guys and who stood up to them.

I've been obsessed with the Deep Water Horizon oil spill story for over a week now and am beginning to feel like a hypocrite for not owning up to that in my blog. It's partly because I'm overwhelmed and in shock by the magnitude of this unnecessary disaster.

And angry. So angry. At everybody implicated including government but mostly BP and Halliburton and Transocean.





And there is evidence found by scientists that the bulk of the oil hasn't been rising to the surface but is still sitting under water in several huge plumes the volume of which appear to be many times that of the estimates of either BP or the government (which is calculating based on NASA photos of the ocean surface).

40 photos related to this story here.

Nightmare thots:

• The BP estimate of 5000 barrels per day may be off by as much as 65,000!
• It could take them months to stop the leak.
• Hurricane season starts June 1st.
• The gulf states economies will be disrupted worse than by Katrina for much longer--possibly decades.
• The fragile ecosystems in the Mississippi marshes could be more than decimated.
• Ditto for the marine ecosystems off the coasts of Florida--most at risk being the coral
• The oil could catch a ride on a current and travel up the east coast

All that barely scratches the surface of what we're in for.

Remember the Exxon Valdez? The oil is still sitting in that Alaskan bay, still sliming the coast and shortening the lives of indigenous flora and fauna. Over twenty years later.

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Haiti on My Mind

7.3 earthquake....many aftershocks....collapsed school with 100s of children....collapsed hospital. ...homes falling into ravines...tsunami watch.....

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Note: the images in the last video are from the Sumatra quake of similar strength last September combined with text snippets of news of today's Haiti quake and poignant music.

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