So Zombie Net Neutrality keeps on chugging along. Leftist opposition to it is growing because it contains one small nod to reality, letting people in one narrow case pay for what they use. Of course this hurts the companies who want to use lots of bandwidth but want to have that cost subsidized by everyone else. It’s funny how the left freaks out when some industries lobby, but for some reason Internet firms get a free pass.
Amusingly enough, these same leftys are going full Occutard and even getting FCC Democrats to waver. The goal of the radicals here is to eliminate any sort of idea that people should pay for what they use, making Internet investment unsustainable, and generate a pretext later for socialized Internet as a “human right.” Sound familiar? This is the same playbook used in Obamacare.
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Funny how Bitcoin ATM installations get all that hype, but their later flops and removals get much less attention.
They’ve got to be so desperate for good news in the Bitcoin community. Imagine being one of those suckers who bought in at $1000 or even $800, only to get hit with the steady drumbeat of Bitcoin criminality and government attacks.
And don’t forget: Bitcoin mining is getting harder all the time. As time goes on, mining is going to get so hard that the pool will thin, making it easier for a well-off team to take over 51% of the network and hijack the whole thing. If that hasn’t already happened yet. Because if you had 51% of Bitcoin, wouldn’t you… hide some of your resources under an alias so as not to scare people off?
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This is one of those nights. I did some work looking into just how foolish the idea of state-run Internet is, and now I’m out of time to do this, sorry to say. Quick links time!
The Senate is taking up STELA. Let’s hope the Democrats now don’t inject something into this virtually must-pass legislation, after House Republicans were kind enough to hold back.
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Gotta love how Rand Paul grandstands, accomplishes nothing, but then claims credit for everything.
How you can tell when it’s time for the Congress just to sit down and do nothing. When Democrats and Republicans are making uncharacteristic arguments. Isn’t it strange that Rick Perry, who famously put out a book in praise of federalism, is against federalism on gambling? I’m just going to assume there’s some fluky thing at work here and ignore this aberration from him.
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At this point, anyone claiming Edward Snowden is anything but a spy against America is being willfully blind. Snowden now attacking alleged US operations against Communist China, an act that there is no legitimate pro-American interest in. It makes us just have to wonder what else he gave them as he gives them information and propaganda material now.
It’s kinda funny how Democrats screech like harpies about a “clean” bill for STELA, trying to block meaningful retransmission consent reform, but they’re trying to tack the IMF onto unrelated bills in the Senate.
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Sprint is doing what I said Sprint would do all along. Remember when AT&T wanted to buy T-Mobile? Sprint funded a campaign by radical leftists to claim the #2 firm and the #4 firm coming together would be unbearably detrimental to competition, and would hinder American wireless.
Sprint’s new Japanese owners want T-Mobile, they want the #3 firm and the #4 firm to merge together into one, still reducing top-tier competition by one firm, according to the beancounting they used to do. T-Mobile claims it’s inevitable, but Sprint is playing an unfortunate game. They’re using all the left-wing, ridiculous talking points about Internet access in America to push their case.
The problem with that, never mind that Japan’s population density is nothing like America’s, and therefore no comparison is Apples-to-Apples. But as Jon Henke points out, now that Sprint laid out the case against a similar merger, they’re probably going to have to enter into an FCC-empowering agreement in order to get this deal done. That harms Sprint, and that harms America.
So the anti-American hate rally SXSW (in crony Democrat-run Austin) is on, though apparently some patriots haven’t gotten the message and keep going anyway. Edward Snowden stands in Russia ruled by authoritarian Vladimir Putin, and as Putin’s tanks roll into Ukraine followed by cyberwar against all who speak out against it, Snowden claims the NSA is the one attacking the Internet. I see he’s bucking for the job as the new RT America host.
And then they also let fugitive rapist (and co-conspirator with convicted spy Bradley Manning) Julian Assange speak, from his spot in the embassy of Ecuador, a country ruled for years by a leftist President and a regime conducting routine human rights violations. He made no apology for his rape, and promises more propaganda against America.
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Sometimes the cronys win, sometimes the cronys lose. They’re reportedly winning on STELA, the bill that scared entrenched, well-connected TV broadcasters because it as going to make them compete for cable dollars in a way that they never have had to in 70s-era winners-and-losers regulations. It’s still likely a good bill, but just not the pro-market bill it could have been.
The good news is the cronys are reportedly losing in Colorado, as entrenched taxi services are feeling the threat from new, innovative competitors. Let the customers decide, not government.
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ACU and other normally small-government types have bafflingly come out against the satellite TV bill STELA, and Steve Scalise’s efforts to enact Retransmission Consent reform, a cable idea first proposed jointly with Jim DeMint. This is wrong, and this is a strange supporting of laws that pick winners and losers.
You see, back in the 70s when Cable TV started to take off, broadcasters and socialists alike freaked out. Broadcasters because they were faced with competition for eyeballs where they previously had a monopoly, and socialists because it offended that someone might actually pay for TV. So they teamed up to rig the system, passing laws and regulations that prevented an open market for many broadcasts, instead creating territorial monopolies for broadcasters. These regulations have let the broadcasters get fat and happy (see also Aereo).
Pass retransmission consent reform. Supporters say without reform we “simulate” a free market, and to reform would harm “content producers.” This turns the truth on its head. Broadcasters are overpaid, underworked middlemen with government-manufactured monopolies. They produce nothing but just happen to hold a government license to spectrum. Make ’em compete. And certainly never make satellite providers buy from a propagandist like The Weather Channel.
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Remember during the height of the Edward Snowden media frenzy, how his defenders would dutifully parrot every word RT said about him? Here’s your great Snowden defender now. RT and Snowden are the enemies of liberty, peace, and the United States of America.
Bitcoin is the fantasy tool of ideologues, the 21st century version of Goldbuggery, but there turns out to be a group even more ridiculous than the Bitcoin zealots: TSA agents.
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