Debunking conspiracy theorists' paranoid fantasies about Net Neutrality
By Katherine Smith PhD
When Verizon announced in December that its newest smartphone — the Samsung Galaxy Nexus — will not carry the Google Wallet app, it spawned a number of these ludicrous “net neutrality” fairy tales. And as always, there is - sadly - a small but gullible percentage of the population eager to lap up these tall tales, regardless of facts or rational analysis.
One of the wilder stories circulating about Google’s business deals, and the one that has attracted something of a cult following amongst the Public Knowledge and Free Press Advocacy conspiracy groups is that Verizon, their longtime foe in the Capitol Hill net neutrality policy battle is “blocking” Google Wallet customers from downloading the application, and therefore exhibiting “anti-competitive, anti-consumer” behavior.
Conspiracy theorists were never a group of people to be bothered by facts. These crackpots even contend that Verizon is practicing carrier limitation and that the agreement had nothing to do with an existing business deal.
“When Google’s own business deals with Sprint precluded it from being featured in the new Verizon smartphone and even more interesting that these kooks seem to have missed is that Google requested that Verizon not make the wallet function available with its upcoming round of Samsung Android phones because Google is locked into an existing exclusive business deal with Sprint, therefore any dummy would understand that Google Wallet would only be available through Sprint.” “Net Neutrality” on The Daily Caller
Michael J. Morris thinks that the Net Neutrality proponents are delusional [I agree] because there really isn’t a Net Neutrality problem. He points out:
“If Verizon starts slowing content from Google, you can bet AT&T will be beating down Google's door to sell them bandwidth. At the consumer end, there is DSL, cable modem, wireless, and others. Only collusion of major ISPs (illegal, see Sherman Act) could have a global Internet effect.”
In other words it’s the Marketplace, stupid.
"Net Neutrality Proponents Must Rely on Hypotheticals. Yeah, it sounds bad....scary. Too bad it hasn't happened yet. Five years later with the explosion of Google, Youtube, Facebook, and the millions of other websites and videos, and still no "slowing" on the Internet by ISPs. Amazing! No problem ever existed and the free market mentality of the Internet has kept it that way.”
No problem ever existed and the free market mentality of the Internet has kept it that way.
Michael Morris should have written: No problem ever existed because the Internet market mentality of FREE, has kept it that way.
Wordpress, Firefox and Google supports the “law of free supply and demand:” When the supply is free, it creates nearly ubiquitous demand. [1]
Are you confused? Don’t worry so is everyone else because the Internet and cell Phones, which are FREE, economically make no cents.
Why are surfing, texting, talking and emailing virtually free? Where are the Pigs at the trough, and why isn’t Wall Street shafting Main Street?
We are conditioned to believe everything is about money, power, greed and corruption. Therefore we are not aware of the great lengths to which the six companies that control 96% of the media go to sell a Corporatocracy (a non-conspiracy term) driven agenda.
An agenda, to make sure we never suspect electromagnetic pollution is the goal and not the unintended consequence of the World Wide Web and Cellphonemania. [2]
The 1%ers spent $1 trillion because they are determined (supported below) to collapse the Earth's magnetic field with a magnetic dipole field reversal.
The net and your smartphone, powerful enough to send a man to the moon, are electromagnetic nightmares for the Earth. [3]
Below is the image of the Earth's magnetic field with a healthy dipole:
Healthy
PermalinkRussian v. US Elections
by Stephen Lendman
Russia's December 4 elections filled 450 State Duma seats, Russia's Federal Assembly lower house.
Claims of electoral fraud followed. All elections have irregularities. At issue is whether results are comprised. Election monitor Golos accusations were spurious. America's National Endowment for Democracy (NED) funds it. It supports regime change in non-US client states.
It backs opposition groups, conducts propaganda campaigns, and does openly what CIA operatives do covertly to destabilize sitting governments.
Its mission is subverting, not promoting democracy. It operates with State Department funding and direction. It serves US imperial interests destructively against targeted countries.
Grim 2012 Economic Outlook
by Stephen Lendman
Yearend isn't just about holiday season binge shopping, parties, and over-indulgence. It's also when economic predictions surface.
The Wall Street Journal publishes consensus views. On December 23, it headlined, "Risks Cloud Outlook for Economy in 2012," saying:
"The economy is poised for another year of muddling through. Most private economists forecast a modest 2% growth rate for the US....with a pace subdued by housing woes, a lackluster job market, and cuts by government."
An idiot’s overview of why Western capitalism is crashing
Alan Hart
The idiot of the headline is me in the sense that I am not an economist and have never had any formal association with study of the theory and practise of economics, but... I began to understand why what is today called Western capitalism was bound to crash way back in the early 1970’s when I was researching and producing an epic documentary on the everyday reality of global poverty and its implications for all.
When I reflected on what I had witnessed and learned while researching in 120 countries (as well as at the World Bank and many UN agencies) and filming in 69 of them, I let commonsense be my guide. It led me to the conclusion that capitalism was not of itself the problem. It was the short-sighted and stupid way Western capitalism was managed.
Now I’ll put some flesh on that bone.
Spoiling for a Fight with Syria and Iran
by Stephen Lendman
Syria remains the region's only independent secular state. Washington aims to replace its regime with a client one.
Libya's model was replicated. Months of externally generated violence followed. So far it's short of war. For how long is uncertain. Obama can't wait to wage another one to keep ravaging the world one country at a time.
Israel's Repressive Permit System
by Stephen Lendman
Under South African apartheid, pass laws segregated blacks from whites, restricted their movements, required pass books be carried at all times, and be produced on demand or face arrest and prosecution.
Evolving from the 18th and 19th century until their 1986 repeal, they restricted entry to cities, forcibly relocated blacks, denied them most public amenities, many forms of employment, and became apartheid's most hated symbol.
Settlers run rampage in West Bank
By Khalid Amayreh
Burning mosques, burning vehicles, settlers appear to have a blank cheque to harass and aggress Palestinians, writes Khaled Amayreh in occupied Jerusalem
Nazi-like Jewish settlers have continued to attack mosques and churches in the West Bank as part of a seemingly concerted effort to force Palestinians to leave their homes.
The government-backed settlers often describe their frequent attacks on Palestinians and their properties as "price tag" reprisals against the Israeli army for daring to dismantle some isolated Jewish settler outposts.
Obama Year Three: Continuing His Rogue Agenda
by Stephen Lendman
In 2011, Obama continued the destructive pattern he followed in years one and two. Throughout his tenure, he's done what supporters thought impossible.
Across the board on domestic and foreign issues, he governed to the right of George Bush. He's waged multiple imperial wars, plans others, looted the nation's wealth, wrecked the economy, consigned growing millions to impoverishment without jobs, and institutionalized tyranny to target dissenters challenging political corruption, corporate crooks, or abuse of power lawlessness.
Merry Saturnalia and Happy Winter Solstice
Christmas is a pagan holiday: there is no getting around it. Jesus wasn’t born in December. Shepherds don’t hang around their sheep in the fields on those bitter cold Judean nights.
The Christian historian Sextus Julius Africanus had identified the 25th as Christ's nativity. Chronographers reckoned that the world was created on the spring equinox and four days later, on March 25th, light was created.
March 25 + 9 months = December 25th
Christians should call their holiday Merry Immaculate Conception.
In Rome, the Winter Solstice was celebrated many years before the birth of Christ. The Romans called their winter holiday Saturnalia, honoring Saturn, the God of Agriculture [which is why growing trees all year that we toss in the dump after New Years day drives me crazy]. In January, they observed the Kalends of January, which represented the triumph of life over death. This whole season was called Dies Natalis Invicti Solis, the Birthday of the Unconquered Sun. The festival season was marked by much merrymaking.
Do you know who is really celebrating the 2012 Winter Solstice?
Answer: Gaea, Mother Earth. The economic collapse, a consumer’s nightmare, is an environmentalist’s dream.
The 2008 October meltdown, the end of the beginning of the end of our consumer society is an environmental dream. 150 million Americans who feel stress over the prospect of joblessness and homelessness don’t trash the planet by going shopping for useless toxic Christmas gifts. I hear people talking about recycling last-years gifts and some of us, Satan forbid, are making their own! Click here to read why Satan wants us to be consumers.
Steven Kopits, managing director of Douglas-Westwood, estimates that the earth is “benefiting” from the 2008 recession at the rate of 1,500,000 barrels per day. That’s 1,500,000 barrels of the earth’s vital fluids that are staying where they belong: in the Earth. Of course there are some who don’t care about Crusextraction of the earth. Click here to read why driving your mobile pollution device crusextracs the earth. [1]
Merry Saturnalia and Happy Winter Solstice
A Doomsday View of 2012
James Petras
Introduction
The economic, political and social outlook for 2012 is profoundly negative. The almost universal consensus, even among mainstream orthodox economists is pessimistic regarding the world economy. Although, even here, their predictions understate the scope and depth of the crises, there are powerful reasons to believe that beginning in 2012, we are heading toward a steeper decline than what was experienced during the Great Recession of 2008 – 2009. With fewer resources, greater debt and increasing popular resistance to shouldering the burden of saving the capitalist system, the governments cannot bail out the system.
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