Jun 28 2011
Our regular featured content-
Welcome back ek hornbeck from the mud pits
These featured articles-
This is an Open Thread
Jun 28 2011
Illegal copying in some form is undertaken by 96 per cent of 18 to 24-year-olds surveyed, falling to 89 per cent of those aged 14-17.
And now if the RIAA or MPAA decide for reasons they don’t really have to explain to anybody that you’re a really naughty pirate, your days of surfing the internet could be over!
Participating ISPs are given plenty of choices on how to respond to the toughest cases. They can select from a “menu” of responses outlined in the plan, such as throttling down an accused customer’s bandwidth speed or limit their access to the Web. For example, a suspected pirate may be allowed to visit only the top 200 Web sites until the illegal file sharing stops. The subscriber may also be required to participate in a program that educates them on copyright law and the rights of content creators. In the past, a graduated response was also supposed to lead to a complete termination of service for chronic file sharers.
But…
Kicking someone off a network is not required under the proposed agreement, the sources said.
Hurrah?
And of course and as always our Dear Leader is fighting for the corporations.
White House Helps Shepherd Deal
In addition to the NCTA, the White House was also instrumental in encouraging the parties [RIAA, MPAA, and the ISP’s] to reach an agreement, the sources confirmed. President Obama has said intellectual property is important to the country’s economy and has vowed to step up the fight against piracy and counterfeiting.
This plan was hatched way back in 2008 by yet another “Democratic friend of the little guy,” former New York State Attorney General and now Governor of New York Andrew Cuomo.
Under the plan, which was brokered by New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, the music industry will not know the customer’s identity. What this means is that ISPs have now gone into the enforcement business, and this has always been one of the greatest fears of those who have wanted ISPs to remain neutral.
“This is very troubling,” said Cindy Cohn, legal director for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a group that advocates for Internet rights. “Creating lists of people who can’t get Internet access based on allegations of breaking a law that hasn’t been evaluated in a court of law.
“Lists of people who can’t get Internet access based on allegations of breaking a law that hasn’t been evaluated in a court of law!”
No due process! No appeal!
Welcome to the future.
Jun 28 2011
While watching the Women’s World Cup in soccer today, I decided yet again to raise a familiar question. Why don’t people follow women’s sports like men’s sports? Before I even started thinking about formulating something of an answer, I decided I would not make arguments that cast the distinction in strictly biological terms. I think they exist, but I don’t think they’re nearly as integral to the issue as we might think. Our visceral reaction to the action going on before us may provide information that is far more helpful.
Jun 28 2011
Afghans Build Security, and Hope to Avoid Infiltrators
By RAY RIVERA
For someone who had once joined an insurgent group, and whose family was tied to a top Taliban commander, Akmal had a strikingly easy path into the Afghan National Army.
The district governor who approved his paperwork had never met him. A village elder who was supposed to vouch for him – as required by recruiting mandates – did little more than verify his identity.No red flags went up when, after just six weeks in the army, he deserted. He returned more than three months later with the skimpiest of explanations and was allowed to rejoin. “I told them I got sick,” Akmal recalled.
Jun 28 2011
 Muse in the Morning |
Time for a break from poetry…in order to create some art.
| Sleep my little baby-oh Sleep until you waken When you wake you’ll see the world If I’m not mistaken… Kiss a lover Face your life –Neil Gaiman |
Bang |
Jun 28 2011
If you do not get Current TV you can watch Keith here:
Jun 28 2011
Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette
Once again the corporate owned, conservative Supreme Court has struck down the 1998 Arizona Campaign Finance Law provided escalating matching funds to candidates who accept public financing. How the Roberts’ court decided that law violates the First Amendment rights of these corporation is truly a backbreaking twist if logic and the constitution.
The vote was again 5-to-4, with the same five justices in the majority as in the Citizens United decision. The majority’s rationale was that the law violated the First Amendment rights of candidates who raise private money. Such candidates, the majority said, may be reluctant to spend money to speak if they know that it will give rise to counter-speech paid for by the government.
“Laws like Arizona’s matching funds provision that inhibit robust and wide-open political debate without sufficient justification cannot stand,” Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote for the majority. Justice Antonin Scalia, Anthony M. Kennedy, Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. joined the majority opinion.
What about the under funded candidate’s right to be heard under the First amendment? The reason for the law, which was written after a corruption scandals rocked the state’s election financing during the 90’s, was to foster free speech:
The idea was to encourage candidates to forgo the scramble for money, with all its inherent invitations to corruption — to spend more time speaking to the electorate, and less time speaking to potential funders.
In that sense, its goal was very much to increase genuine political speech. But to the Roberts court, money as speech takes precedence over speech as speech.
The court’s majority clearly telegraphed its antipathy to the Arizona provision during oral arguments in March. The only real suspense was whether they would go further, and use the case to cast doubt on public financing generally.
So there was a sense of relief in the good-government community Monday.
“This is not the death knell of public financing. This ruling affects only one mechanism of public financing, and there are numerous ways to fix it,” said Common Cause president Bob Edgar in a statement. “Today, in the wake of Citizens United, it is more critical than ever that we change the way we pay for our elections by moving to a small donor system that gives the public a voice back in our government. Nothing short of our democracy is at stake.”
Well, thank these corporate shill justices for that.
