Randomly Relevant

abaldwin360:

For years, the key rationale given by broadband providers for implementing data caps was that it was the only way they could deal with “congestion.” Of course, for years, independent researchers showed that this was bogus, and there was no data crunch coming. If you actually caught a technologist from a broadband provider, rather than a business person or lobbyist, they’d quietly admit that there was no congestion problem, and that basic upgrades and network maintenance could easily deal with the growth in usage. But, of course, that took away the broadband providers’ chief reason for crying about how they “need” data caps. The reality, of course, is that data caps are all about increasing revenue for broadband providers — in a market that is already quite profitable. But if they can hide behind the claims that they need to do this to deal with congestion, they can justify it to regulators and (they hope) the public. 

Of course, enough people have been calling this explanation out as completely bogus that it appears that even the broadband companies’ own lobbyists may finally be dropping this line of reasoning. Former FCC boss Michael Powell, who is now the cable industry’s chief lobbyist (president of the National Cable and Telecommunications Association — NCTA), has finallyadmitted caps aren’t about congestion:

Michael Powell told a Minority Media and Telecommunications Association audience that cable’s interest in usage-based pricing was not principally about network congestion, but instead about pricing fairness…Asked by MMTC president David Honig to weigh in on data caps, Powell said that while a lot of people had tried to label the cable industry’s interest in the issue as about congestion management. “That’s wrong,” he said. “Our principal purpose is how to fairly monetize a high fixed cost.”

Of course, as Broadband Reports notes, Powell is jumping from one myth (congestion) to another (fairness) that is just as ridiculous. If it was true, we’d see at least some prices going down. But we don’t.

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I saw a comment on this story elsewhere on the internet that suggested another big reason they cap data is to basically “punish” people for watching movies/tv shows through sources other then their TV channels.

I’m inclined to agree, I probably wouldn’t use the word ‘punish’ but it’s certainly a way to try and discourage it. 

abaldwin360:

(The National Memo) - The tourniquet applied by the outgoing Congress to the economy allows a two-month breather before we are consumed by the next deadline. The president and his party can allow themselves a brief moment of celebration for imposing higher taxes on the richest Americans, but the next stage in fixing the nation’s fiscal problems may not be as easy. By the end of February, lawmakers must find enough cuts in public spending to allow the debt ceiling to be raised. Two more months of uncertainty will prevent businesses and consumers from making spending decisions that would bolster the economic recovery.

The devil is not so much in the detail of the arguments to come as the big picture that frames the debilitating running debate. While the difference between the sides is ostensibly over taxes and public spending and borrowing, the more profound division is over where government should begin and end. For many of the Republican Party’s Tea Party insurgents, the choice is even more fundamental: whether there should be a government at all. Their unbending position, demanding an ever-diminishing role for the federal government, has levied an enormous unnecessary cost on everyone else.

Since Republicans regained control of the House in the 2010 midterms, when the Tea Party tide was in full force, they have attempted to freeze the size of government, coincidentally putting a brake on economic recovery. They have vetoed attempts at further economic stimulus, encouraged America’s economy to be downgraded by the ratings agencies by threatening not to extend the debt ceiling, and tried to veto any and every tax increase in the fiscal cliff talks. Their aim is to shrink government by starving it of funds. Such uncompromising absolutism has led to the dampening of business confidence and investment that would have created jobs.

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I originally ran across this article because of something it mentions on the second page; The average cost of American health care is $8,233 per person per year, the most expensive in the developed world. In comparable Western countries such as France, which has a private health insurance mandate administered by the state, it is $3,974. In Britain it is $3,433.

agender-queer:

There’s nothing “morally controversial” about sex work or any variation of the phrase.

What’s morally controversial is the way women are treated in comparison to men. And the way race and class only heighten these differences leaving poor women with few options. (And on that note, talk about how white feminists are morally controversial because we’re quick to ignore race issues and present this image that woc receive the same pay as white women. And then look at those sex positive feminists who are pro sex work but assume that sex work is a way to get out of poverty when really it’s only a way to survive but still remain in poverty) What’s morally wrong is leaving people with no other choice. Sex work shouldn’t be a topic of moral debate when you have to choose between staying alive and fucking some guy for money. 

What’s morally wrong is how trans* people are forced into sex work because there’s not a place for them to have the resources they need. When LGBTQ people are kicked out of their families and homes because they’re not accepted (let’s talk morals with the cis white gay men who think marriage equality will solve this problem) It’s wrong to make a queer person choose between living in a household that’s dangerous and doing sex work or making someone decide whether it’s worth it to be a sex worker in order to pay for a place to stay, hormones, or surgery. Because for a lot of people, you transitioning is necessary for survival. 

How about people struggling with addiction but can’t get the help they need and are trapped in a destructive cycle because anyone with a problem is treated as if they brought it on themselves. When they’re struggling with addiction and use sex work to pay with it but can’t get treatment? That is what’s morally controversial. 

If you want to talk morals, you need to talk about how capitalism breeds the perfect environment for sex work because it keeps people poor and transient. No one notices if a sex worker goes missing. But luckily, there will always be someone to take their place. Our education system feeds into this by forcing (incorrect) facts down our throats without preparing us with information that we really need to know so that we are doomed to fail (and then turn around and blame it on us). Or pushes people into college and then makes it so they can’t afford college. And then sex work becomes a way to take care of the debt that was piled up. 

Talk about the way a person’s body is so policed that it’s not even their body anymore. 

These are the things that are morally controversial and this is what needs to be discussed when you’re talking about sex work because sex work is not the problem. It has never been the problem and it will never be the problem. 

(via alexandraerin)