First in Capitalism, Last in Broadband

BBC NEWS | Technology | Broadband World: Mapping the global picture

Extolling the virtues of a “pure and unadulterated capitalism” has always been in vogue in the United States, and it has never changed the fact the country is lagging in many critical measures of quality of life, chief among them life expectancy and infant mortality.

Now we can add broadband speed to the list, though broadband speed is hardly a measure of quality of life. It is a damn nice measure of excess, that one characteristic for which the USA is best known.

It’s nice to know to know that monopoly power is still worshipped in the United States  for the excess power and wealth it concentrates in the hands of the few. Who cares that monopoly power never delivers better service at a lower price, innovation (Microsoft still doesn’t get the iPod), improvements in infrastructure, or a functioning marketplace?

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Fear of Truth

Congressional computers continue to be used to vandalize Wikipedia – Wikinews, the free news source.

It is entirely not surprising that the Congressional IP addresses belonging to those who “vandalize” Wikipedia and Wikinews belong disproportionately to Republicans. The Republicans are surpassed in their opposition to reality only by the red Chinese and the communist Cubans. Even Hugo Chavez has greater tolerance of the truth. (Which is not to say that he is tolerant of the truth.)

As if propaganda outlets like CNN, Fox “News”, network news, Rush Limbaugh and his coterie of “conservative pundits” weren’t enough, Republicans seem to feel the need to tamper with an open medium that meticulously documents the source of every minute datum entered into it.

Whether the motivation for these attempts at averting truth arises from fear or malice, the scenario bodes ill for the party of Lincoln.

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The Soup Thickens

BBC NEWS | Americas | Gay marriage row at Miss USA show

You know you live in the primordial soup when a ditzy beauty queen objects to the offense that a gay gossip queen serving as a judge may have have felt at her objection to homosexuality and to gay marriage.

Should gay men be judging heterosexual female beauty pageants? Does being a gossip columnist qualify one as a judge of beauty?If yes, would this mean that American standards in beauty have been elevated, or that the “gay mafia” is exerting its influence. Should a decidedly naive beauty be disqualified from being queen for being a bigot? If yes, would this constitute an elevation of American beauty standards?

Within this primitive confusion lies the incontrovertible assertion that the Miss America Pageant represents absolutely nothing. No other fact can possibly account for the Pageant’s pathetic grasps for publicity.

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Demand Accountability

Don’t know how many people are as fed up with NPR as I am, but if you are, go to the NPR contact page, choose “share a comment” and then “The Ombudsman”, then choose Morning Edition or any program that you want to complain about, and send them the following. Just be sure to customize it for the program of your choice.

Morning Edition has been decimated. It is now two hours of garrulous banter punctuated by a few scant minutes of barely competent reportage.

The interview format is stupid. It is condescending, it is wasteful, and it is deceptive. It makes no sense to have incompetent anchors like Steve Inskeep or Rene Montaigne interview a competent reporter like Anne Garrells or Nina Totenberg. In this manner, the interview format takes time away from a perfectly competent and knowledgeable journalist. This format reduces the amount of information being reported.

The interview format is also a means of muzzling the journalist and/or deceiving your listeners. A perfect example was Linda Wertheimer’s interview with your business editor on Sunday’s Weekend Edition. The editor (whose name I can’t be bothered to look up after the embarrassing piece she delivered) gave us a rosy picture of the US as the world’s leading manufacturer. This assertion cannot be true given consolidation of the European markets. Furthermore, America’s preeminence in production does not remedy its economic ills. The drop in production–and the drop in exports–is a persistent trend. We could very well remain the world’s greatest producer and still have a shrinking economy.

Naturally, Wertheimer participated in this deceptive argument by avoiding asking any of the questions raised above. The pathetic script did not allow it, and the very existence of the script makes NPR a propaganda source.

I have gone beyond the point of halting all donations to my local NPR stations as a form of protest. I am going to start writing my politicians to kill NPR.

NPR is no longer a disinterested source of news. Its content is nearly 50% Republican propaganda, as demonstrated by the persistence of useless “analysts” like Cokie Roberts and Juan Williams. NPR no longer produces as much original reportage as it did 20 years ago. It no longer adds to what the wire services deliver to everyone effectively for free.

In as much, NPR is useless, and I want it off my precious airwaves.

If you want sentiments like mine to balloon into a movement, keep doing what you are doing.

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Read My Lips: I Have No Balls

Steele In Serious Hot Water With Social Conservatives

In confirmation of his previous affirmation that neither he nor the Republican Party have any balls at all, Michael Steele bowed to his masters again today and withdrew his earlier assertion that he views abortion as a choice.

The choice issue cuts two ways. You can choose life, or you can choose abortion. You know, my mother chose life. So, you know, I think the power of the argument of choice boils down to stating a case for one or the other.

Are you saying you think women have the right to choose abortion?
Yeah. I mean, again, I think that’s an individual choice.

You do?
Yeah. Absolutely.

Are you saying you don’t want to overturn Roe v. Wade?
I think Roe v. Wade—as a legal matter, Roe v. Wade was a wrongly decided matter.

Okay, but if you overturn Roe v. Wade, how do women have the choice you just said they should have?
The states should make that choice. That’s what the choice is. The individual choice rests in the states. Let them decide.

The bigger story, perhaps, is the fact that the entire Republican Party apparatus is oblivious to the irony of it all: Michael Steele is a leader who is expected to obey the rank and file. Only the Republican Party apparatus–a cadre of apparent illiterates incapable of grasping the semantics or the political process of leadership–would expect full compliance with failed policies from its new leader.

The conclusion is inescapable. The party of Lincoln is now the party of slaves. Resistance is futile. You will conform.

Boy.

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Beckham Bends LA

BBC SPORT | Football | Europe | Beckham reluctant to return to US

It’s hard to blam Beckham. For all of its glitz and glamor, LA (Beverly Hills, especially) is a shitty place to live. It’s hard to trade Milan and Italian sophistication for LA’s gridlock and Angeleno status consciousness. Countless others have abandoned LA for places far less glamorous as Milan, this writer included.

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Drawbacks of Online Advertising

On an October day when fires were raging all over Southern California, readers who wanted to be awed by the events were greeted with a very awkwardly placed Macy’s ad on the Los Angeles Times web site. Right next to the photo gallery that showed the awesome destruction that the Marek fire was causing Simi and San Fernando valleys was this strangely cheerful Macy’s ad for a Columbus Day Sale. 

Yes, the internet is taking over everything, but there clearly remain many, many kinks to work out. It’s highly unlikely that Macy’s wanted this event advertised on this particular page.

Then again, maybe the average Angeleno responds to disasters by shopping at Macy’s.

Macy's may not have wanted its ads on this Los Angeles Times Page
Macy's may not have wanted its ads on this Los Angeles Times Page

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CNN: We are Not a News Agency

CNN’s Citizen Journalism Goes `Awry’ With False Report on Jobs | Bloomberg.com: U.S.

CNN describes iReport as a place for “unedited, unfiltered news” and said it “makes no guarantee about the content or coverage.” The site was started in August 2006 as part of CNN.com and became a standalone Web site in February. As such, CNN’s iReport is probably the dumbest ratings stunt in the history of broadcast news. And, it is surprising to see that CNN proudly boasts about the collective stupidity of its employees in this graphic from the iReport web site.

No boundaries? You won't believe it? Perhaps you <b>should not</b> believe it.
No boundaries? You won

One really wonders how a “reporter” who is not subjected to fact checking, to proper editorial oversight and strict ethical conduct could be considered a reporter. Anyone with a sense of what journalism means knows that CNN abandoned all ethics and morals years ago when it decided to pursue ratings rather than stories. 

It comes as an insult, nevertheless, that the network manages to pass off rumor, innuendo and outright prevarication as “news” reported by its “citizen journalists”, who are nothing but anonymous cowards, as the above cited link regarding the Steve Jobs rumor amply demonstrates.

Perhaps CNN management should extend this ploy to other avenues of their lives. They ought to seek auto repair from “citizen mechanics”, legal advice from “the citizen judiciary” and medical advice from “citizen physicians”. Evolution thus implemented may well provide the citizenry with better journalism.

It certainly seems as if they are getting their editorial advice from “citizen editors”. And, while they are getting advice apparently from “citizen lawyers”, I shall endeavor to start a class action suit against them for negatively affecting Apple shareholders, a group to which I belong.

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The Microsoft Zune: Are You Playing It or Is It Playing You?

Microsoft May Build a Copyright Cop Into Every Zune | Bits | Technology | New York Times Blog

As if Microsoft had not provided its users sufficient reasons to abandon the Windows platform, it has now provided the ultimate reason. Microsoft is contemplating building a digital rights management scheme that will disable or erase content whose provenance it cannot verify. In other words, if your Zune player or Microsoft Windoze Vista cannot verify that you obtained your music or movie “legally”, it will prevent you from playing this content. Of course, “legally” in this context means through Microsoft’s proprietary means of ascribing legality: whether you bought it through Microsoft or not.

This report is very much on the rumor mill level of things, but it is entirely credible because it is not such a drastic departure from the existing Microsoft DRM schme. if it proves true, then every Microsoft user will have to register every CD she or he owns with Microsoft so that she or he can play it on the computers that she or he has authorized. Indeed, every Microsoft user will have to ask Microsoft for permission to play anything on her or his computer or Zune player.

“Thank you, sir. May I have another?” is the phrase that may be relevant to Microsoft users at this juncture. And, apparently, they do want to have another, and Microsoft is all too happy to deliver the blows.

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Dinner Time

Noted outside a fancy resaurant and nightclub at the corner of Broadway and Ocean in Santa Monica. Apparently, the subject of the times when dinner is to be served was a matter of dispute.

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