August 9, 2010 archive

Tragic and Shambolic Pakistan

In almost every way, human tragedies play out in Pakistan just like anywhere else.

There isn’t much difference between this house, which floods destroyed in Pakistan yesterday, and similar rubble in Gaza or Afghanistan…

Flood1

…and likewise as a surge of flood-water descends dam by dam along the Indus River, and these guys join more than 42,000,000 other refugees all around the world.

Flood2

42,000,000 refugees right now, and now 3,000,000 more in Pakistan, and almost all of them fighting for food and water in miserable camps like this camp in Peshawar.

Flood3

But as soon as we move beyond the level of universal human experience, the politics of Pakistan exhibits its own more or less uniquely shambolic individuality, as brilliantly illustrated by the following shambolic two-step.

“Alternative Internet?” Verizon CEO Says “No, it’s a Specialized Network”

cross-posted from Sum of Change

If Verizon and Google were trying to show support for net neutrality, they sure dropped the ball today. On a conference call with media just a couple hours ago, Verizon CEO, Ivan Seidenberg began explaining how companies might want to use a different network to send information. He took offense when Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Land termed it “alternative internet,” but his further explanation did little to counter the naming. Here is Mr. Seidenberg’s further discussion of the “alternative internet” after questioning from Erick Schonfeld of TechCrunch:

More to heaven and earth …

… than one could imagine in one’s philosophy.

(h/t Digital Tibetan Buddhist Altar)

Inconceivable problems require inconceivable solutions, I’ve always said.  Well I never said that before now, but what the hey.

Open 88

Photobucket

News at Noon

From Reuters

Fiorina, Hurd: no practitioners of “The HP Way”?

By Alex Dobuzinskis

August 9, 2010

(Reuters) – Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard would not be amused.

The founders of Hewlett-Packard — some say Silicon Valley itself — built their empire on a people-centric management model they christened “The HP Way.” But author and veteran tech journalist Michael S. Malone says that mantra has come under siege in past years, culminating in the exit on Friday of CEO Mark Hurd following a sexual harassment inquiry.

Stanford alumni Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard in the 1950s outlined the tenets of a corporation that embraced performance bonuses, employee shares, ground-level decision-making, even tuition aid and allowing workers to leave early to get to Little League games. Business 101 today, novel at the time.

Related Stories

Analysis: HP to signal direction with choice of new chief

DREAM Now Letters to Barack Obama: David Cho

Originally posted on Citizen Orange.

The “DREAM Now Series: Letters to Barack Obama” is a social media campaign that launched Monday, July 19, to underscore the urgent need to pass the DREAM Act. The Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act, S. 729, would help tens of thousands of young people, American in all but paperwork, to earn legal status, provided they graduate from U.S. high schools, have good moral character, and complete either two years of college or military service.  With broader comprehensive immigration reform stuck in partisan gridlock, the time is now for the White House and Congress to step up and pass the DREAM Act!

Dear Mr. President,

My name is David Cho and I’m undocumented.

I will be a senior studying International Economics and Korean at UCLA this upcoming Fall. While most of my friends will enter the workplace after graduation, I will not be able to even put my name down on a job application because of my status. I’m a hardworking student with a 3.6 GPA and I am the first Korean and actually the first undocumented student to ever become the conductor, the drum major of the UCLA Marching Band in UCLA history.

and so it begins… again [updated]

UPDATE: Presser at 1:30pm EST (now-ish) SFGate live blog HERE.

UPDATE #2: okay it’s over, Ill look for analysis I guess…. I have no idea what they said. ;-/  There’s a very long joint statement here.

UPDATE #3: Okay, kids, the Orwellian spin machine is set to … spin. Here ya go: Google, Verizon CEOs announce pact for no wireless net neutrality rules, some paid prioritization [more at WaPo]

Summary: Google CEO Eric Schmidt and Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg announced a joint agreement on how traffic can be controlled on the Internet. Here’s the joint policy statement on Google and Verizon’s Web sites.

In short: what you’ve read about so far about the deal is true:

1) no net neutrality rules for mobile networks, except for a “transparency” requirement that makes public how traffic is managed.

2) greenlight on “managed services” that would allow for special priority for some content on other parts of the pipe, but not the public internet.

This is not going to be a popular announcement among advocates of net neutrality, particularly public interest groups. Google said it doesn’t want to play in the sandbox of managed service. “We like the public Internet,” Schmidt said in the call. But some say this will give an unfair advantage to companies that are able to pay for priority access (imagine a Netflix channel on FiOs offered at better quality).

LL

“The death of democracy is not likely to be an assassination from ambush. It will be a slow extinction from apathy, indifference, and undernourishment.” ~ Robert M. Hutchins

So after the dumbing down, which they’ve had pretty good success with so far, next up is the shutting down. They learned. They don’t have to gun us down, like in the 60’s and 70’s. No. This (lockdown) is way more effective. Because they know…

“Anger is more useful than despair.” T-101, Terminator 3

Despair = apathy and indifference. And that “undernourishment” …. sigh … man, I’m hungry.

Josh Silver is angry (sign a petition via that link).

Al Franken is angry.

If we learned that the government was planning to limit our First Amendment rights, we’d be outraged. After all, our right to be heard is fundamental to our democracy.

Well, our free speech rights are under assault — not from the government but from corporations seeking to control the flow of information in America.

If that scares you as much as it scares me, then you need to care about net neutrality.

A ha! This just in: mcjoan is angry. Phew. Saved. I’m sure if we all call the White House Hotline, it’ll all be okay.

:-/

He that lives upon hope will die fasting. ~ Benjamin Franklin

The King of Open Threads

Hat tip to Nicole Belle at Crooks and Liars

Docudharma Times Monday August 9




Monday’s Headlines:

Caught in America’s legal black hole

Eri Yoshida wins plaudits as first Japanese woman in US baseball league

USA

As oil spill cleanup shifts gears, gulf residents fear they’ll be forgotten

Guardians of the nation’s attic

Europe

Rail plan could be terminal for Merkel’s coalition

Medvedev reaffirms Russian support during visit to Abkhazia

Middle East

Gaza flotilla raid inquiry calls Binyamin Netanyahu as first witness

Asia

Indonesian cleric Abu Bakar Bashir arrested over links to terrorist group

Kashmir youths take on the Indian state as separatist struggle starts again

Africa

Polls open in Rwanda’s presidential election

Newspaper circulation blossoms in Kenya

Latin America

Venezuela, Colombia presidents to meet

Muse in the Morning

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket
Muse in the Morning

Like a cowherd

driving cows off to the fields,

so old age and death

take away the years from the living.

–Dhammapada, verse 135

Phenomena XXXIII:  aging


Spectacle

Speculation

One day

maybe

the world will be

as I envision it

But that will be

in some far distant

day to come

and this is now

It is improbable

that I will see

and experience

my vision

Change occurs

too slowly

or perhaps

aging occurs

too fast

–Robyn Elaine Serven

–March 9, 2008

Late Night Karaoke

Fox News? LOL!



Fairly Unbalanced

Steve Doocy – Fox News

It’s hard work promoting bigotry these days, I guess.

Fox News Online Poll – 71% View Anti-Gay Marriage Proposition 8 as Unconstitutional

by Steve Clemons of The Washington Note

Is it possible that even the center-right tilting viewing audience of Fox news programs is also open to significant upgrades of gay civil rights?  That is what a surprising new, unscientific survey of a Fox web audience seems to be showing.

With pleasure, I direct you to this interesting Fox News online poll in which at the time of this posting 300,499 votes had been cast.

The poll poses the following issue and question:

A federal judge ruled on Wednesday that Prop. 8, California’s gay marriage ban is unconstitutional. Do you agree with the judge’s decision?

Kudos to Fox for asking this important question straightforwardly.

Although Fox notes that this is not a scientific poll, the response thus far strongly affirms the decision by Judge Vaughn Walker to strike down the California anti-same sex marriage Proposition 8.  

Republican California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has now filed a brief with the courts calling for gay marriages to immediately resume.

Here are the current responses to the Fox poll:

Yes — Prop. 8 violates the Constitution. 71.1%  (213,547 votes)

No — Marriage is an institution between a man and a woman. I don’t care what the judge thinks about the Constitution. 24.8% (74,455 votes)

I’m not sure but shouldn’t the voters views count for something? 3.6% (10,812 votes)

Other (leave a comment). 0.6% (1,685 votes)

Total Votes: 300,499

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