I asked back in February of last year, which seems like forever ago, whether Google would end up remaining a left-wing outfit. As it turns out, they’re joining the Occupy radical left claiming the Obama administration’s new Net Neutrality plans don’t go far enough. These radicals are flipping out because they won’t be happy until we get single payer Internet. So whether the left shoots down Chairman Tom Wheeler’s vote on Net Neutrality 3.0 remains to be seen.
Will the Obama FCC dance to the tune set by the furthest left wing of the President’s party, in an election year where the electorate is going to be much further to the right than the one that re-elected the President?
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I’ve taken some criticism for saying over and over again in this space, that kids don’t belong on the Internet (unsupervised and uncontrolled really), and that classrooms should not have Internet access introduced. The basic problem is that unfettered Internet access brings bullies and predators to kids. It also means pornography will just keep popping up, and there’s no way to fix that with these uncontrolled environments. It’s just not worth the risks.
Have you quit using Mozilla Firefox yet? It’s time to switch, yet again, as Mozilla has taken an extremist political position for no real reason except that the project has been completely hijacked by radical ideologues. Not only are they for zombie Net Neutrality, they’re claiming the Obama FCC isn’t going far enough. Lunacy.
Look, it doesn’t really matter what browser you use: MS Internet Explorer, Apple Safari, Chromium, Google Chrome Opera, or w3m. Just switch to anything that doesn’t fund this left-wing outlet.
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Edward Snowden is in full propaganda mode for Vladimir Putin, basically becoming Putin’s puppet. I’m sure he’s enjoying his award nominations while his patron state terrorizes women.
Barack Obama showed weakness when he even floated the possibility that America would turn our control of ICANN over to other countries. Down in Brazil they’re all over that idea (the anarchists are claiming they want a non-governmental control, but look, in a world with Russia and China, and even the EU countries like Germany having ‘national champions’, that’s not happening). India’s game, too. Republicans, and heck it’d help if Democrats did it to, must signal that the next President will not let this happen.
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If you want an explanation of the ‘Heartbleed’ bug in the news, Francis Cianfrocca gives a good explanation in Coffee and Markets. But more important is his point about NSA. He always speaks carefully about that organization, but in his roundabout way he made an excellent point: NSA has a dual mandate. NSA’s job is both to break into enemy communications, and to protect our communications. The Heartbleed bug is so devastating that if they knew about it, they’d have to work to protect us from it, before someone else could use it against us. That’s how bad it is. There’s no way they knew about it a year.
If you don’t like that businesses hire lobbyists, shrink government and quit picking winners and losers so they don’t have to.
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Imagine you have a neighbor, let’s call him Chet Glix. He comes over and offers a deal to you: When he’s out of town, you water his plants, feed his pet, mow his lawn, and get his mail. When you’re out of town, he’ll do the same for you. Sound fair? Not quite. He travels once a week, you travel once everyfew months. Yeah, that’s exactly the kind of unbalanced “peering” deal Netflix wants to force ISPs to make under the name of “Net Neutrality.” And that’s why we should reject Netflix calling fairness and paying for what you use a “tax”
What if we called Netflix’s fees an unfair tax and demanded they give us free movie peering in the name of Movie Neturality?
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Gotta love it when the left uncritically regurgitates Sprint’s misleading talking points when they’d be having a hysterical screaming fit in the event I did the same to support my views.
Sadly I was right in my predictions about Obama back when hef irst took office, and Marco Rubio was right. The Obama administration is handing over the Internet to the UN, a blow to liberty and a victory for dictators around the world. I’m sure Rand Paul’s on board, since he wouldn’t want to tweak any dictators or anything.
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ACU and other normally small-government types have bafflingly come out against the satellite TV bill STELA, and Steve Scalise’s efforts to enact Retransmission Consent reform, a cable idea first proposed jointly with Jim DeMint. This is wrong, and this is a strange supporting of laws that pick winners and losers.
You see, back in the 70s when Cable TV started to take off, broadcasters and socialists alike freaked out. Broadcasters because they were faced with competition for eyeballs where they previously had a monopoly, and socialists because it offended that someone might actually pay for TV. So they teamed up to rig the system, passing laws and regulations that prevented an open market for many broadcasts, instead creating territorial monopolies for broadcasters. These regulations have let the broadcasters get fat and happy (see also Aereo).
Pass retransmission consent reform. Supporters say without reform we “simulate” a free market, and to reform would harm “content producers.” This turns the truth on its head. Broadcasters are overpaid, underworked middlemen with government-manufactured monopolies. They produce nothing but just happen to hold a government license to spectrum. Make ’em compete. And certainly never make satellite providers buy from a propagandist like The Weather Channel.
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Remember during the height of the Edward Snowden media frenzy, how his defenders would dutifully parrot every word RT said about him? Here’s your great Snowden defender now. RT and Snowden are the enemies of liberty, peace, and the United States of America.
Bitcoin is the fantasy tool of ideologues, the 21st century version of Goldbuggery, but there turns out to be a group even more ridiculous than the Bitcoin zealots: TSA agents.
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Started a new job officially this week, which means I personally have a new day to day schedule. This is going to be an adjustment. I’ll hopefully have a minimal disruption of Tech, but we’ll see at first.
Remember how Edward Snowden kept claiming that he was just protecting American privacy and exposing NSA overreach? That’s a lie. The fact is, Snowden is not reliable and it’s a shame NSA mistakenly trusted him.
Yet another Bitcoin site has shut down due to the rampant theft in the Bitcoin community.
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Have you heard about The Weather Channel trying to force Dish Network to buy its programming? Yes, they actually want the Obama administration to force that to happen. They claim it’s a public service, except ratings are falling and they don’t even do exclusively weather anymore. Guys, it’s 2014: People get the weather on the Internet and on their phones. Nobody needs to watch cable TV for weather anymore. We must not use government to subsidize this buggy whip manufacturer.
Bitcoin continues to be used for crime, and leading Bitcoin groups are clouded by scams, so it’s no wonder Joe Manchin wants to ban the whole thing.
I can’t really blame him. I can’t support it – we already have money laundering laws – but I understand it.
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