Hate Confusion, Bathroom Crimes, and the Noble North.

This Is making the rounds on Facebook. I’ll make this short.

Perry Noble is either lying or he’s just repeating what his wife’s friends’ deacon buddy thought he heard on Louder with Crowder when he says SF Mayor Ed Lee called HB2 a hate crime. Here is the mayor’s official statement.

Noble says in his post: “... however, being told to go to the restroom that matches your biological gender is far from what people experienced in the Civil Rights movement, or even the Holocaust.” Thanks for being on, literally, the only side of this argument which keeps invoking the Holocaust. You’re one of those people making conservative Christians look like hateful kooks.

Ultimately Noble thinks he’s saying something novel or that he’s discovered some new nugget of understanding that hasn’t already been argued to death by both sides and center about HB2. I’m not going to tell anyone not to say their peace but I do wish people would stop trying to imagine cute little scenarios where they ‘wake up one day’ or ‘decide when they get to the gym’ that they want to say that they ‘feel like a woman’. Hey Perry... oops, I mean Taylor, you are actively marginalizing people with that kind of language, and don’t pretend you don’t know what that feels like, because the news is stuffed to exploding with christians who are ‘tired of their christian nation telling them where they can pray’.

Mr. Noble -- I think I’ll respectfully redact my earlier statement... Shut the hell up with the accusations of pedophilia and rape. “Reefer Madness” is bullshit, “Boys Beware” is demonetization, and ‘letting trannies into the women’s room is going to lead to your wife and child getting raped’ is stupid. If you were really worried about sexual assault you wouldn’t focus on a group of men, most of whom have been chemically castrated, without equal measure of concern for the boys who would be in danger in their toilet -- or are you already fighting to force catholic priests to use the teacher’s restroom?

Lastly, you hateful jerk, no one is being called hateful because of their support of lack thereof for HB2. Us, or them. People are being called hateful because NC passed this bill without the people’s vote, and because people keep calling trans* people ‘it’ or worse, and tacitly accusing them of being the worst type of people on the planet. Laws in the nature of HB2 were put to the vote in Texas -- and failed. There was not near as much push back or threats of the type we are seeing in NC. If you don’t think that’s really the reason, I invite you to strike up a conversation concerning state’s rights and the US civil war.

Everyone is tired of fighting battles where on one side of the red line stands god’s law and on the other man’s. This is a continuation of those battles. From either side the view seems to be simplistic and straightforward, but from both sides and every angle these ‘new civil rights’ battles are not being confronted in that manner. They’re being sensationalized and used as a cudgel to shout down and scare off anyone who dares to have a different opinion. And that is the kind of idiocy and behavior that everyone agrees is the kind of politics for which everyone keeps voting NO.

Lately on YouTube

    

A "blog" that hasn't been updated in a long, long time?! NO! You don't say. 
So why haven't I updated a blog on the Internet? Borderlands, Borderlands 2, Fallout: New Vegas, Fallout 4, iZombie, Scorpion, Moonshiners on Discovery, well, pretty much everything on Discovery... and lots of other junk including books on feminism, god, science and beach books like "Girl on the Train". 

What I'm saying is this: It's tough in the world that I (we) occupy today to sit down and create something whole-cloth simply to be published in text form. It seems that we are able to consume the medias that help us to identify ourselves, then, while full of confirmation of our beliefs from others we... what?

Do we search for someone who has an answer to the argument that we just witnessed? Do we send messages to our friends asking what their perception is? Or do we click or flip to something else, something that will again re-enforce what we think we already know? 

It seems that the YouTube algorithms are beginning to recognize that most people are simply clicking on videos that help to re-enforce the the ideas that people already have and are sneaking things into the recommendations that might be contrary to the user. Be careful out there or you may be exposed to someone who disagrees with you more eloquently than you agree with yourself...

(either that or I've just discovered that I like to analyze contradictory opinions)

The long tail of the Credit Card B.S.

A short one today, because I find it tiring to examine stupidity:

Back in April the President decided that it was a horrible, horrible thing that the Credit Card Companies could Possibly have high rates and fees for different types of customers. $35 for a late fee! That's NOT FAIR!!! Well in May, the Senate, hoping that they could distract the public from real news, passed a bill restricting the kinds, and amounts of fees that the Credit Card companies could charge.

Everyone outside the Beltway, and/or in possession of more than two brain cells to rub together, warned of the "long tail" of that action and the fallout that it would cause; and urged The People to tell as many friends and family, as well as the Senate to vote NO! Well, one of the biggest stories in today's news -- If your rates haven't increased yet, they're about to. Sometimes I just wish people would pay some freaking attention. Also, not letting Senators serve past the age of 65, not letting them leave D.C., and keeping them away from mainstream media and lobbyists would help. Because when Senator Dodd is allowed to say something like:

"This is a victory for every American consumer who has ever suffered at the hands of a credit card company,"

you have to worry. Suffered At The Hands...? If a credit card company forced people to use their services, sure, I may fall for that crap. Besides, if anyone bothered to Read The Freaking Contract that they signed, they would know from the beginning that credit card companies are evil.

A response to Alex Jones, author of "Losing the News".

I just listened to "Fresh Air" from yesterday, August 18, 2009. In that episode Alex Jones, a small newspaper owner and Pulitzer Prize winning reporter is featured. He was on the show to promote his new book "Losing the News." The idea behind his book is that within the next few years, unless something drastic is done, The News as we know it will cease to exist. It will be replaced by a field of opinion-based commentary, with no objectivity in sight. My question: "What's wrong with that?"
Many commentators and industry pundits these days are fretting over the loss of the "News Industry" and laying the blame at the feet of the Internet. These people believe that the Internet has 'taken' their paying customers away. That's simply not true. After all, no new market can form where the old one is doing its job. No, the internet simply presented the opportunity for the new market to provide what the old media refused to (or didn't want to) for decades. What, then did the internet provide? Why is the internet taking over the business of distributing news?
I'd like to start somewhere besides the old and tired argument of it's FREE, but since that's almost impossible, I'll just debunk that argument as I address three examples -- much like Mr. Jones does in his book. Let's take a look at "The Wall Street Journal", a reporter and investigator of financial news; "The Huffington Post", an aggregator of already reported news with commentary (who recently added an investigative branch); and "The Onion", a creator and aggregator of original fictitious news, with commentary. Each of these outlets represent one of Mr. Jones arguments, and their success belies any argument. To be fair, he admits that Pay Walls are not the answer. He uses the already tired cliche of "The genie is out of the bottle on that one." And he freely admits that he doesn't know how to prevent the dismal future of news which so many see on the horizon. Well, and here's my chance to dredge up a bad cliche, far be it from me to assume that I can out think a news paper owner, and Pulitzer Prize winning reporter, but I know exactly what the News Industry needs to stay solvent. I think that Mr. Jones may too, but doesn't want to admit it. As Shunryu Suzuki put it: “In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, in the expert's mind there are few." So What is the answer? A few quick examples will point us right to it.
First the rise and fall, and rise? of the blog. In the mid 1990's the blog was hands-down the most popular way to get information on the web. Blogs first began to eat away at the mainstream media from day one. From political and lifestyle blogs to classified ads, every form of media was under attack by this new form of news aggregation. They became popular because they were everything that the talking heads on TV weren't. They were politically polarized, opinionated and approachable. No one ever really met or talked to the bloggers at "Drudge" or "KOS", so really, they could be your neighbors. Once comments became the norm, the traditional news media seemed to be old and stodgy, handing out the only acceptable truth from on-high, never to be questioned. But the blog began to fail... (But, Jason you said it was coming back!) Trust me, I'm going somewhere with this, and if you follow, I think you see the same answer I did, in the same way.
We'll come back to the internet in just a moment, but it is very important to note that while the bloggers were fully ignoring the mainstream media, (All of it remember -- from music and movies, to TV and news declined in the past decade) the mainstream media noticed something was amiss. Panic set in. Hirings, firings, re-hirings! Then, amidst all the panic, the idea that news needed to be masked in objectivity began to fall away. News networks began to take sides, slowly at first, and later, without regard to the consequences. Ratings began to soar again. People wanted to see their reporters red-faced with anger over the same issues they held dear. It was (*sigh*) The Beginning Of The End.
Meanwhile back at the Internet: The popularity of the blog has fallen to an all-time low. The early bloggers who chided the Live Journal users were now themselves the target of ridicule. "Oh! You've got a blog? So what's your cat's name?" But those days are coming to an end. Blogs lost popularity to the social web because people could spend less time reading other's opinion and more time telling everyone about their own. Blogs became passe because most people realized that no one cared what they had to say. The social web, MySpace, Facebook, Twitter led people to believe that that all of those followers and friends were actually reading what you write. -- Sorry kid, Calacanis really doesn't care that you have ten iBook 12-inchers ready to go in case of emergency. And out of the fringes of the tech world, the weekly blog post is starting to take hold once again. Any douche with an iPhone a G1 can use twitteroid and have the appearance of being connected to their fans, but more and more the demand of attention is swaying back towards waiting for that one glowing post from 'your friend' that fills in the blanks left by: "OK, am back with organic tomato. I'll have to burn this shirt. also, what is best detergent for smell of burnt flesh?"
OK, so what's the moral of this story? I promised you an answer -- Here it is. What has been the failure of all successful ventures since the dawn of man? Moderation. A happy medium. Mr. Jones, remember him, seems to be on the right track. He has seen the success of Hyper-Local. Those ultimate news geeks who act as the CSPAN for Hackensack New Jersey. But he dismisses the likes of O'Reilly and Olberman who take the facts they like and use them to beat the opposition over the head. The happy medium, and the answer, is the type of thing you get with Colbert and Stewart. They are funny, adhere to a strict form of integrity and are immensely entertaining. Every state could have a Colbert or Stewart, (or some actually-right-leaning-ne'er-do-well) every city an Onion -- with a boring "Actual News" section. Or vice/versa if you prefer. We are given a perfect example from this week's politics on health care reform:
I can scream at the top of my lungs all day that the White House and Congress haven't passed a reform bill, and no one will listen. But if I say that they haven't passed a bill, and it's Rush Limbuagh's fault, It'll open a can of angry bees.
I'll finish with what I think is the most expansive and soul-searching statement that the News Industry could ever hear, and I'm proud to say that its uttered here first. It comes down to this: Information is free. Objectivity is overpriced. The Business of the News is no longer just to present us with the information, it is to entertain us with the facts.

Senators and Congressmen are better than you.

Of course, the Daily KOS doesn't talk about Senator Kennedy's section of the plan allowing Congress and the Senate to Opt out of the National Health Plan. The KOS just points out the things that the Liberals can wrap themselves in like a warm blanket -- the things that promise to punish the rich for being successful by taking their money and giving it to those poor, poor people who are being exploited by "The MAN" One-Hundred and ten thousand dollars for a family of four?! Really? Sixteen-thousand in Medicaid for every person -plus- paying the doctor's Medicaid fees directly; With a 10% premium!

This is why we all want transparency. This is why we all wanted bills posted for review five days before the president signed them. It's why a campaigning Obama promised his administration would do so. We simply don't need more spending, we need more cutting. Maybe letting Senators and Congressmen Opt out of the Government plan is how they plan to cut spending? After all, most of those men and women are old, some are feeble, and paying for their final years of life, and their death, could cost hundreds of thousands of dollars! I think I'm starting to get it. Good show Senator Kennedy! Now that's how you look out for the little guy.

Then again, Senator Kennedy does plan to tax insurance benefits as a tax. So there's some extra cash flow for the plan. But Don't count on the Unions helping out. Now with the health care plan anyway. They won't pay any tax on their health benefits because all of their money already goes to the author(s) of this plan in the form of campaign contributions.

This is it people. This is exactly what no one wants. Hopefully the Kennedy version of this will die. Its only provision to actually cut costs seems to be in creating a new oversight board to investigate waste. I guess their first investigation would lead to themselves?

Kennedy's *AHEM* Senator Kennedy's outline can be seen here.

Dow Jones' digital distribution

From Crain's New York, Via Boing Boing:
Wall Street Journal Dow Jones Calls Google 'Digital Vampire'
First, Please note, that even though The Wall Street Journal was mentioned in this article, it is the Chief Executive of Dow Jones who is making these statements.

The Chief of Dow Jones still believes that news outlets are in competition with Google.

On the surface this seems simply like another swipe at the search giant. And Google is just that: a Search Giant. Sure, they have added features that drive their users to the ads, (which is the real business of any search giant,) but the news publishers really don't seem to grasp, or don't want to grasp, that linking to their news stories is simply one of those added features. Newspapers are failing not because of competition from Google, but also the competition from bloggers, Craigslist, podcasts, AM radio, e-mail, water cooler conversations etc. etc. At least Google always links to the source. Google is simply not the enemy. In fact quite the opposite is true, Google should be the newspaper's best friend.

And so when we look at the best thing to come out of this story:

"Dow Jones is just at the end of developing a new platform from which to conduct business on the Web. Imagine this future: the Journal is one of the many newspapers you might buy in one place and with one payment… Watch for it.

There, friends, is the real news story. The Dow Jones is going to fight Google by createing a... a NEWS STAND! (probably digital)

Many news outlets are going to gloss over the juiciest statement of the news clip. That statement could be plumbed for speculative fiction for months. What is Dow Jones doing? Who is involved? What do they hope to accomplish?

Well, Mr. Hinton is hinting, (groan) that Dow Jones is working to create a unified method of collection and distribution for the content that Dow Jones produces. Here's the rub, if they are trying to create an entirely new service they are fools, and it will fail. No ifs, ands or buts. If they try to compete with Google, Craigslist, Twitter, Kindle and other RSS based technologies they have no hope. However, if they unite with those business to harness that technology they just may have some success.

"The News" is the new MP3. For a long time the only way you could get news was the paper, TV and Radio. Music was the same, except where there was paper, there were CDs. Then, along came the internet: it all went digital. It became easy to get that same content without having to buy a paper, or wrestle with newsprint in your cubicle. It was easier and more convenient.

And it's that convenience that's killing the news business as a whole. If it was ever more convenient and worth the cost to pay an official outlet for news you would have. But Just like the music industry, instead spending time and money to cash in on digital information, they just ignored it until it started eating their profits.
So here is the million dollar question: If Dow Jones is building a digital news stand, how will they do it? Will they partner with Amazon and the Kindle; with Google, Yahoo and Bing? Will they try to put every newspaper website in the nation behind a pay-wall? Will they attempt to charge search engines to link to their content? If so, how will they respond? Do search engines need the content of the Dow Jones partners? (That Link will take you to Dow Jone's partnership page. Take a moment to look at all of the content that Dow Jones owns.)

With all of the content that Dow Jones either directly or indirectly controls they have a lot of leverage. If they choose to bypass the established digital distribution methods and search engines it could get nasty.

Speaking of security...

Speaking of security, if you are wandering the web with Internet Explorer Six Please, for the health of the entire internet, stop using it, and upgrade to one of the following:

The current version of Internet Explorer;
-- Using your new version of IE

Firefox;
-- Firefox switcher's guide

Chrome.
-- Chrome switcher's guide

Thanks from me, and the rest of the internet.

More U.S. sensitive data found on hard disks in African junk shops

Hard disks found with sensitive U.S. Gov Contractor data... Again.

What is it with the repeat stories today?

Found via Boing Boing, hard disks with sensitive data turned up in Ghanain junk-markets. The data belonged to Northrup Grumman, a U.S. Government contractor.

I'll make this one short and sweet. OS X, Vista, Windows 7 and Linux all include Whole Disk Encryption technology. It's time to make it mandatory.

I'm not one to force people into behaving in a certain way, but this issue stretches far, far beyond simple security. If every modern disk was encrypted and could only be un-encrypted and read through the use of a token on your thumb drive or smart card worms, viruses, email hoaxes, money scams and most every other type of garbage that we all deal with on a daily basis would, if not simply disappear, become so expensive to create that we would hardly ever encounter it. So what are we waiting for?

Hate Crimes again?!

Holder Urges Hate Crime bill.

Again, I'm all for protecting people from violence. But that's why we pay police, arm our citizens, teach self-defence, etc. Protecting people has nothing to do with passing so-called hate crimes bills and their enforcement doesn't reduce those types of crimes. Meanwhile these "Hate Crimes" are decreasing -- and will continue to decline as baby-boomers die and the Thirty-Something crowd takes their place. The same goes for bigotry and intolerance for the disabled. Why? Because this is as close to an "ignore it and it'll go away" situation (there is no such thing, really) as we'll ever have. Children are not taught tolerance, they are taught intolerance when adults behave like, and enforce stereotypes. We simply need to teach our children that some people can't help the way they are -- we accept that people are different; and also that some people can help the way they are -- we accept that some people are just assholes.

Creating and supporting hate crime bills only serves to return us to a time of Separate but Equal.

And that's just stupid.

Boing Boing pointed to a response from Howard Knopf to Richard Pofhl, who wrote a response to a piece that Geist wrote on the 8th of this month. *whew* You can read the whole exchange: follow the links.. My insight is below.
Michael Geist June 8
Richard Pofhl June 12
Howard Knopf June 17
– Compared to the rest of the world, Canada’s file sharing has decreased as its broadband ranking has decreased. In other words, other parts of the world are getting faster speeds and are using those faster speeds to download.
This is the perfect corollary as to why ISPs in the U.S. refuse to – or even admit the need for – upgrade their networks. “Upgrading isn’t the problem” they say. “Traffic is the problem.” That’s a classic cop-out. Instead of upgrading their service, they buy their competitors so that no one can offer better service. All of this is done for one specific reason.
Anyone who says that the ISPs can’t see the future is blind. They know where all of this is going. Eventually, every form of media will be served across TCP/IP (the internet). They are biding their time. If they don’t upgrade their networks, and continue threatening to cut off people’s access, they hope to wait until the media companies are prepared to distribute across their pipes. Then they’ll cut exclusive deals and collude with the biggest ISPs to transform the internet into the technologies it replaced – television and radio.
That is why the ISPs continue to focus on traffic, piracy and bandwidth caps rather than network capacity and transfer speeds. They are not going to build a fast network until they can fully control the traffic that travels across it. And perhaps not even then.

http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/WiMhsipu9DM/truth-about-myths-ab.html
http://www.thestar.com/comment/columnists/article/647038
http://www.thestar.com/article/649521
http://excesscopyright.blogspot.com/2009/06/more-myths-about-myths-about-file.html

Why Michael Moore is a Moron (today)

Michael Moore, June 1 2009.

Micheal Moore declared Monday that he is glad that GM has failed. (This may feel familiar to Limbaugh fans.) While he does stress and, I imagine sincerely, wish that GM would have changed the way they do business, he doesn’t go out of his way to acknowledge the great things they did for this country – and I don’t disagree. Like the scientific and mathematic contributions of the Muslim world, most of GM’s contributions are memories of a bygone era. But, like all Michael Moore pieces, once he sets up the premise, he goes wildly off track, pretending that we all live in the type of imaginary socialist commune that only a Liberal could dream up.

In his dream world, the oil companies are fleecing us, and don’t care that they are literally burning through the last reserves of fossil fuel available on the planet. This half truth is one of the few connections to the real world Moore makes on his journey. While they may or may not be ‘fleecing’ us, it is not them, but us, who are burning through the world’s oil. And why shouldn’t we? The faster it’s used the faster we get clean energy! People won’t go out of their way to replace something that is already available. And don’t make the mistake of believing that people could harm the earth beyond repair. It’s a common fallacy for the Liberal to assume that ‘Mother Nature’ needs our help. In reality, it’s the opposite. That reality, in fact, is why I find it hard to agree with most of the suggestions Moore presents in this piece.

His first ‘suggestion’ -- he calls them suggestions; in reality they are actually regurgitated Liberal straw man talking points -- I've touched on already, and his second I agree with. The U.S. cannot survive with a service industry economy alone. We need people making things, putting objects into the economy that will encourage our people to work and spend. That’s the basic tenant of a functioning economy. But, ignoring the basic tenants of everything, i.e. common sense, seems to be Moore’s strong point, and the evidence lies in the rest of his post.

Points three thru six are the same pie in the sky disproven ideas of the type that Liberals love to talk up to rally their supporters. This one in particular, mass transit, is a once and future failure. Time and time again, advocates of bullet trains and mass transit serve up the example of Japan and Europe as a success story for the U.S. to emulate. Never mind the fact that no one will choose a 17 hour train ride over a four hour flight. Moore only makes a passing remark to address the fact that no one wants to use public transportation in his 6th suggestion with this gem: “It will take a few years for people to get used to the new way to transport ourselves…” Mr. Moore, people have had the option of public transportation for more than “a few years,” and it is certainly not “new.” Trains and buses have been available for as long as the car. Again and again, people vote with their dollars for the car. Even in large metro areas like New York, people vote for cars every time they hail a taxi. If you really cared about this nation, and had any understanding of technology, you would realize that the future isn’t mass transit, but individual transit. Autonomous vehicles, powered by the highway grid they travel, which gets its energy from wind, water, solar and nuclear sources. In other words, if you are going to dream; dream forward, not in reverse.

His 7th suggestion is forward, convert those unused factories, and new government workers into a green-energy production workforce. Well, sort of forward. At least it’s an idea – and idea the new owners of GM should seriously consider. And with that, there is no more forward thinking for Mr. Moore, and no insight used to parrot his last two points: Create a tax, and give the proceeds to those willing to do as their told. His example, a two-dollar tax on gasoline. Collect and give that tax revenue to people who retrofit their houses to be more energy efficient. I can’t help but laugh at this idea when I see where our fuel tax ends up in California, or the Social Security tax ends up nationally. And retrofitting? It’s cheaper to bulldoze a house and rebuild it from the ground up with the right technology than it is to retrofit it. But really, with his party in power, why should Mr. Moore base his ideas in reality?

Because reality is what the Democrat party hopes to destroy. For example, what happens if every home in the country goes ‘off-the-grid’? (Which isn’t possible, by the way.) If it were possible, and it did happen, the party of Mr. Moore would be called upon to bail out the energy companies. Can you imagine what would happen in that scenario? Don’t worry, you won’t have to, this is reality, right?

Kindle, Free Economy, and how they are connected.

It may be old news now, but because I was looking for "thirtysomething" on DVD, I've been exposed to Amazon's capitulation to the publishers by removing "text to speech" from some books that have already been purchased. While I imagine that this is covered in some obscure "License Agreement" I still thing it's crap.
[Texas: EULA -PDF File-] Here, a Texas court decided that when you click "I accept" in a terms of service that you should have to click "I accept" again if changes are made to that service.
For example: If your ISP decides that they are going to start selling your data to third parties, the fact that the original EULA says "You consent to any changes" is complete crap.
I wonder if Amazon's EULA for the Kindle would hold up to this kind of scrutiny?
But, that's only part of the story. In the end it comes down to the fear of the free economy.
When the publishers complained to Amazon about the Text-To-Speech function of the Kindle, it opened up a huge can of bees.
1. Amazon had to decided if they were going to fight the suggestion that having an inanimate object speak words in a poor imitation of a human voice was going to provide them with a win. If Amazon had fought, they surely would have won, but at what cost?
2. While fighting, Amazon could have been subject to fines, or sanctions that forced them to disable the Text-to-speech in every one of their books. (As it stands, publishers can opt-out. And it seems that many, many of them are.)
3. While fighting, many publishers would refuse to offer their books in Kindle format, citing the short-sighted and obtuse objection that having a robot read a book is piracy.
In the end, even if Amazon won the legal battle the publishers would come to see Amazon's Kindle as an aggressor, and move to products such as Sony's reader.
As far as that goes, I can see the boardroom where this decision was made. Presented with the option of losing publishers, and a huge amount of revenue, or not really loosing any revenue to people who have already bought a Kindle... Well, I think we could all see where that choice would naturally go, I'm sad to say.
How does this apply to the Free Market? Kindle owners are rabid, jealous, cutting-edge, techno-nerds. They are the ones that will sell this product to the mainstream. And if the mainstream catches wind of something like this and interprets it in the wrong way, the Kindle will fall apart as simply another product and company that has no other interest in mind but its own. And we already have enough of those.

more to come...

My last post was in June of 2008. That was shortly before I left for Iraq. I have returned to a new president, old promises, and plenty of the same Faking Normality that has plauged United States politcs in the past. I'm looking forward to reving this blog back up to speed. Actually, I'm looking forward to converting it into a media empire! Fingers crossed. If you're reading this, you will have a unique view from the ground up.

Who is supposed to be the dumbest generation?

Today's laugh comes from Lewis Lazare at the Chicago Sun-Times. He posts a quick blurb with his insight about how "The Dumbest Generation", a book from Mark Bauerlein, which decries the Digital Age and warns of the future collapse of society, will affect the world of advertising. I haven't read the book yet, but Lazare's few paragraphs are pure comedy gold. Here's an example:

"...She polled 1,300 students at the University of Illinois-Chicago about their favorite Web destinations. At No. 1 was Facebook (78.1 percent) followed by MySpace (50.7 percent). Only 5 percent of those polled regularly checked a blog or forum on politics, economics, law or policy."

For some reason Lazare believes that this simple poll result contains any information at all, and worse, that the information is relevant to anyone. Notice that the poll asked what their "favorite destinations" are, but the argument used talks about "checking" political or news blogs. If you asked me what my favorite sites are, none of the news or political sites that I read multiple times every day would even be on that list. My "favorites are sites like Wired, Ars, Techdirt, etc. But debunking stupid pools isn't why I'm here. I simply find it laughable that our younger generation is Dumb.

As I mentioned I haven't read the book, but now I'm eager to do so. I think it's ignorant to assume that the under 30 crowd is anything but smarter, faster, and more intelligent than the rest of us. Through his fretting over the advertising industry, Lazare has even given us proof. Advertisers are doing worse and worse, because their targets are getting better, and better at avoiding their content. In short, the advertisers are being outsmarted. Now, which generation is supposed to be "Dumbest?"

ISPs and the music industry

In this article, Ars takes a stab at point out why an ISP would want to get into bed with a media company.
Of course, it's all about the money. In this case the money comes from one place -- subscribers. The ISPs want to put music on their networks exclusively, and charge through the nose for it. This is one of the things that could destroy the idea of a neutral Internet. For a neutral Internet to happen ISPs have to become dumb pipes. There really is no exception. For true network neutrality, one ISP cannot receive exclusive deals that another does not have similar access to. A similar comparison would be the iPhone's exclusivity on AT&Ts network. If you want an iPhone, you have to go to AT&T, no (legal under the DMCA) exceptions. There's no problem with that, really, it's just circumstance. However the problem that can arise is that to get that iPhone, you have to plan to sacrifice either 2 years or $200 to AT&T. View that through the lens of media and it becomes clear that an exclusive deal between an ISP and a movie or music company could turn out to be more nefarious than an early termination fee, or having your entire DRM'd collection of media suddenly not work.
The big thing with ISPs these days is to try and get into your head so that they can force and replace advertisements on the websites that you visit. Falling revenue streams are forcing ISPs to concern themselves less and less with legalities, privacy, customer concerns and worst of all, the Internet itself. Where then would exclusive media deals lead?
Imagine a world where competing ISPs who have competing media distribution deals are forced to come up with new ways to generate profits. Aside from raising subscription fees, which is easy to imagine, will soon happen every quarter, the only other option is to tighten the reigns on what the users of the ISPs are allowed to do. ISPs, cocooned in the idea that exclusive deals are the way to go will start down the road to the past, forcing themselves to look more and more like the AOL of the early 90's. (Meanwhile, those 'exclusive partnerships' between ISPs and media companies simply become 'branded deals' as the media companies realize ISPs are on a sinking ship.)
It won't take long for ISPs to realize that users are finding ways around the walled garden Internet provided them. The ISPs will suggest, then force, then petition Congress to allow ISPs to deny access to the Internet and their services unless users install software that cripples the Internet to the ISPs will, prevents media piracy, and reports all activity for monitoring, and Ad targeting.
If this sounds like a "Slippery Slope", that's because it is. But this one doesn't suffer from the fallacy of lack of truth. ISPs are gearing up to only allow access to authorized services already (they say that its only packet shaping and bandwidth management, but also hint at piracy prevention). Simply imagine what they would implement when profit motives and losses can't be measured by simple numbers like bandwidth, but instead rely on the notoriously devious "loss" numbers from the likes of the RIAA, MPAA and BSA.
For further proof, here is a link to exactly what I'm talking about. Entire sections of the Internet being blocked by ISPs. Of course, that is being done to "protect the children." How long before the proposed "G-rated" internet becomes law -- to protect the children?
So, here's the deal -- loosely. ISPs should only be able to enter into non-exclusive deals with any media, or advertising company. If one ISP gets a deal, they all get the option to sign up. This could create some complications, but no one ever said business was easy. The "Perfect Storm" is brewing just off the coast of Internet Neutrality, and we need to brace for impact.

Advertising Free Zone could help advertisers? You bet.

I saw this today, and though what a great idea... for everyone! Found on BoingBoing, original is Here.
Mass advertising is restricted. Billboards are categorically banned; advertising in subways, buses, removed. Towns take up "Advertising-Free Zones."
Think about if this actually happened. At first blush it seems like a really bad deal for anyone trying to advertise. However, looking into the future of such a situation, called the long tail on the Internet, It becomes clear that reducing the amount of advertising space available will increase the value of it. This is called scares goods. A long time ago, advertisers had what is revered to as a captive audience. If you were watching television and an ad came on, there wasn't much of an option for avoiding it. Ditto for the first few years of the Internet. Now, the Internet, and your local commute are starting to look like Times Square. There are lots of people who aren't happy about that.
This brings us to the discussion. How can restricting advertisements actually help the advertisers such as the cola companies and car manufacturers? Lets assume that the downtown areas of a large metropolis is an Ad-Free zone. While there is a loss for the advertisers there, that first billboard on the way out of downtown is going to be one of the highest visibility Ads in the city. The shock of leaving the Ad free zone and seeing that first Ad on the way out could certainly boost your awareness of the product. The cost of that single billboard may be higher, but without putting ads on every street downtown the cost may actually be less. So, maybe an Ad free zone would be a good thing. Maybe it's an idea whose time has come.

The FCC and the 400 pound cat

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080615-save-the-red-lion.html
Today seems to be all about communication. Red Lion what?!

Red Lion, as I learned today, is a decision made by the Supreme Court that falls in lock-step with the defunct Fairness Doctrine. You may remember from a few months back that several left-wing groups stated beating the grass, in hopes that they could raise enough ire amongst the people and force the FCC to re-adopt the Fairness Doctrine. Why? The left was desperately afraid of AM radio, which then, as now, was ruled buy the center-to-right wingers.

What's happening in this story, is that there are several "pro-family" groups that want the Supreme Court to leave the Red Lion decision alone. The Supreme Court is discussing how best to address the FCCs Fleeting Explicative rules and as they do so, the Court may come to realize that the way that the FCC has been handing out fines reveals that either the FCC doesn't know how to enforce a policy, or is biased as hell towards some broadcasters.

Red Lion is brought up because these Puritanical Nanny groups are worried that if the Court looks too closely at the powers that the FCC has they'll realize that it is too powerful, and it wields those powers in a manner that's completely disconnected from reality, and out of line with the will of the people. The thing is, these groups are smart enough to realize that as the world moves away from television entertainment, the powers of the FCC should grow smaller and smaller.

They worry that the Supreme Court will see the FCC for the house of cards that it is. For example, the Children's Television Policy (which mandates child friendly or educational programming) is based on the Red Lion case that these groups are so worried about. The Red Lion case was won because, at the time, the Fairness Doctrine was still enforced. These interest groups know exactly how poorly constructed and enforced the FCC's rules are and this amicus brief, that pleads with the Supreme Court to ignore a ruling based on a defunct policy, because it will affect children's television, being filed prior to a case investigating the FCC policy on expletives -- Should raise a hell of a lot of alarms.

On a side note --

This is a little late in coming, but I am NEVER, EVER going to the movie theater again. Those responsible for the Iron Man sound B.S. have themselves to thank for that; and for the $12 that I wrestled back out of the paws of my local theater. Congratulations you backwards-thinking, misguided idiots. I hope that there are millions more who think and act in the way I do.

Paul McGuiness is a moron.

From Wired:

[U2 manager Paul McGuiness is] quoted as saying he does not want to see "artists reduced to the status of employees working for glorified ad agencies."

just a quick note from the peanut gallery here, if you want to see this guy taken apart, follow the links from the story.
If a music company -- A company who promotes, and sells a product (music) isn't an ad agency, then what is? McGuiness is a moron. You -- and I had better pay attention this election season, because this is the type of person who has his hands down the pants of out Presidential candidates. This is the type of person who wants us (through higher rates and taxes on us from our ISPs) to foot the bill for the music industry's inability to market their product correctly, inability to attribute the downfall of music sales to a slow economy, and stratospheric bungling of the first round with Napster. CDs are dead. Once they come to grips with that and lay out flat rate music subscriptions in un-DRMed formats, distributed through an outlet that has not 90% of consumer good will, then we can open a dialogue about why your business is failing.
When no one bought Crystal Pepsi, Pepsi didn't cry to the government that they needed help defending themselves against water. They stopped making that stuff and came up with something better. It's time that someone locked all of these people in a room and keep them there until they've figured that out.

On Viacom and YouTube

[Here is a story from Techdirt]

I knew this Viacom thing was still going on, but I'd bet that I'm in the minority. What the story above says really, is that Viacom is cutting off their own head with this lawsuit against YouTube. If they win, it's not going to be that easy.
Viacom knows that YouTube is a valuable partner, but they simply cannot stand the fact that even a small bit of their unauthorized content would appear on the service. You, as well as I have seen that Viacom properties appear on YouTube in an authorized manner. Viacom is happy as a pig in poop about that, but they don't seem to understand how difficult that it can be to ensure that infringing content is blocked. They want us to believe that all you need to do is put up a few filters and then it's all going to be peachy. Now, do I really think they believe that? Hell no. What I can believe though, is that with the (somewhat unremarkable) success of the sites like Hulu.com that Viacom and the old media companies are wearing rose colored glasses when it comes to managing content on the web. (In truth I'm impressed with Hulu, and I use it a lot. The first time is used it I was most of the way through an episode of Firefly before I realized that I was using Firefox, and that I didn't even give up as much as an email address.)
But, what do I think is at the heart of the matter? I hope you can tell already. Viacom is the point man for war that has been going on in the music arena for more than half a decade. The television and movie companies are laboring under the assumption that if Viacom wins this suit that they'll finally be able to gain some ground on this digital piracy thing. They seem to believe that they won't suffer the same destruction to their business model that music has had to suffer through. They think that somehow, they have found this problem earlier than the music industry did, and that if they take down YouTube, people will flock to their pitiful little offerings, and the war will be over. Their strategies include forcing the hand of other countries -- through the World Trade Organization and other entities, and a promise to injure the growth and prosperity of the country being threatened if they don't comply.
Make no mistake, Viacom believes that it can win this suit if it simply changes its argument enough to suit a sitting judge. Once they do, the storm will come. Their ultimate goal is to have the Safe Harbor provisions of the DMCA scrutinized to the point that the offerings from the RIAA and MPAA will be accepted as law by Congress. The only thing standing in their way are the hugely popular and legitimate companies and business models that have enough money to fight this sort of lawsuit. If YouTube goes down it will all start to fall apart. Yes, there will fallout, and yes, there will rise from the ashes of YouTube any number of sites to take their place, but the rolling juggernaut will crush them one by one and leave new, tailored laws in their place. Then once the industry feels it's going fast enough, and is big enough, it will finally begin to attack and destroy entire protocols like BitTorrent. Within a decade, the Internet will look like the cable TV of today: Tied up in a wickerwork of regulations and FCC restrictions on use, with dwindling funds for local, and amateur access.