For those who don’t use WP, there’s a collection of new blog post links at the bottom of the admin dashboard. While I was playing around with the settings, I saw a post about holding a day of blog silence for the Virginia shooting victims. I considered simply posting the image and timestamping it for the 30th (after all, I just learned how, it’s easy, and it’s not like it makes a huge difference either way – I’ve never been a daily poster), but as I read the comments in the thread, I changed my mind.
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Religious/Political/Philosophical
Silent Witness or Vocal Action?
United States of China
Senate panel backs telco bill, no Net neutrality
But the panel narrowly rejected attempts by some lawmakers to strengthen safeguards on Internet service, which had pitted high-speed Internet, or broadband, providers such as AT&T against Internet companies like Google Inc.
In a room packed with lobbyists representing companies and consumer groups, debate raged over whether broadband providers can charge more to carry unaffiliated content or to guarantee service quality, an issue called Net neutrality.
The bill included provisions aimed at preserving consumers’ ability to surf anywhere on the public Internet and use any Internet-related application, software or service, similar to a bill that passed the House of Representatives.
Maine Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe and Sen. Byron Dorgan, a North Dakota Democrat, tried to add further protections by barring discrimination of content or service based on origin, destination or ownership, but it failed to get a majority vote. The final tally was 11 to 11.
“That means for the first time we are going to have a two-tiered Internet,” said Snowe, who bucked her party. “Broadband operators will be able to pick winners and losers, they will be able to choose the Web sites of their choice.”
Other Republicans countered that further protections were not needed because there were no complaints about consumers being denied access to services or content. Adding rules would hobble competition, innovation and deployment, they said.
“We haven’t seen anything yet that indicates there is discrimination,” said Ted Stevens, chairman of the committee and an Alaska Republican. “If this amendment is adopted, this bill will never come out of conference (with the House).”
The bill would not prevent cable and telephone companies tacking on an extra charge for content that requires more Internet bandwidth than others, such as movie downloads.
The panel also approved a permanent ban on taxing Internet access and handily rejected an amendment to encourage cable providers to offer consumers the ability to pay only for the cable television channels they want, known as a la carte.
I’m so mad, I’m speechless.
Issues with Reporting and Opining
A couple of weeks ago, Joy’s link to this had me shaking with laughter and adding yet another person who never heard of me to my friends’ list. Checking another of my friends’ LJs last night, I came across another post by this guy that had me laughing out loud, and led to me checking his main page. That brought me to this, which was kind of funny, sure, but thought provoking, especially considering certain recent developments in my life (that I won’t go into in a public post). His comments led to this post, which continues to be thought provoking.
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Something to Think About
A couple of weeks ago, ![[info]](http://stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
trekwriter’s link to this had me shaking with laughter and adding yet another person who never heard of me to my friends’ list. Checking another of my friends’ LJs last night, I came across another post by this guy that had me laughing out loud, and led to me checking his main page. That brought me to this, which was kind of funny, sure, but thought provoking, especially considering certain recent developments in my life (that I won’t go into in a public post). His comments led to this post, which continues to be thought provoking, but it’s tending toward religio-philosophical things, so I think I’ll go ruminate and pontificate over there for a while.<p
Gay Marriage and the Culture War
A few weeks ago, following a link from Writer’s Weekly’s freelance jobs page, I signed up for regular updates from MediaBistro’s job list (free membership required to view jobs). What can I say? Despite my degrees in cinema & video production, I seem to be better at writing than getting film gigs. Anyway, the “freelance” job that came in today’s email was 1) not really what I consider freelance, since it requires working in the publication’s office, mostly as an assistant, not a freelancer, and 2) not really writing, anyway. (Isn’t there anybody monitoring the job posting? What is with all these people posting what are essentially internships as freelance?) I did what I always do when I check these posts, and clicked on the Online/New Media Jobs link, where I found something more interesting.
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