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THANK YOU!! Finally, somebody who gets it.

It's not just about ratings. The real reason news sucks so bad is far more insidious. The oligarchy uses the media to maintain their control over us. No matter how stupid they look doing it.

Pop quiz, everybody: What's the difference between America and every other brutually oppressive empire that has ever stained the earth?

Answer: America has better PR.

THANK YOU!! Finally, somebody who gets it.

It's not just about ratings. The real reason news sucks so bad is far more insidious. The oligarchy uses the media to maintain their control over us. No matter how stupid they look doing it.

Pop quiz, everybody: What's the difference between America and every other brutually oppressive empire that has ever stained the earth?

Answer: America has better PR.

This must be the obligatory "I hate Comcast" thread. Well guess what, just like everyone else in the known universe I HATE COMCAST!! Those lying fuckers deserve to go the way of the dinosaur. Here's my story:

Why does Comcast suck? Oh, I'm glad you asked; let me explain. Long ago, in a time known as 2005, things were good. I had a fast internet connection through Time-Warner. It was about 6 Mbps and it set me back about 43 bucks a month.

Then, I get a letter informing me that Comcast swapped all of Time-Warner's Minnesota subscribers (like me) and that I would now be a Comcast customer. Okay, this is where the creepy, ominous music kicks in.

The letter makes clear that there will be no price adjustments. In fact the FAQ is still online, which says exactly:

Will my monthly fee change with Comcast High-Speed Internet?
Price adjustments will not be required because of this change. All prices reflect the increased value of our service, new product enhancements, and investments to continually improve the quality of our network and customer service. Any price adjustments going forward will be planned and communicated to customers well in advance of any change.

You can see where this is headed, can't you?

"Price adjustments will not be required" -- weasel words, if I've ever read them. Fucking liars. Despite the promises, both of stable prices and advanced notice, it turns out that Comcast is run by a bunch of lying, thieving scumbags who exist only to squeeze every last dime out of their unwilling customer base in order to fatten their own undeserved bonuses at the end of the year -- you know the bonuses, I'm talking about. They're 10 times the size of their average employee's yearly salary.

I must say that every Comcast employee I dealt with -- 3 customer service reps and a technician who picked up my modem -- were great. Fine folks, didn't lie to me any more, and were very apologetic. But the fact remains that they work for fascist goons who are planning to rape, pillage and plunder this fresh, unearned subscriber base in an apparent effort to show just how stupid and short-sighted management teams can be. They're going for the gold medal in poor decision-making skills. Bravo.

So, do I even have to tell you what happened? Isn't it obvious from my venom? Well, I'll tell you anyway. Comcast sent me a notice, dated December 26th (yes, the day after Christmas -- "Happy holidays from Comcast! Fuck you!") informing me that my rates were going up to 60 bucks a month -- plus modem rental (3 bucks a month), starting.... February 1st! Yay!

So the lying fuckers tried to squeeze me for 20 bucks more a month and gave me only a month notice. This left me no choice. I wasn't going to stand for this shit. 20 bucks isn't much, but 20 bucks every month adds up to quite a lot. It's almost $250 more per year. I am not that rich, Comcast. But idiotic, greedy ploys like this explain how they can afford to pay their CEO 27.8 million dollars a year. I guess I know where my $250 would've went.

And so, instead of sending them a check for 40-some bucks a month they managed to convince me to send them a whole lot of nothing every month. Congrats, Comcast. Your short-sighted greed and stupidity has only managed to cost you subscribers like me. Fucking morons.

Instead of collecting money from people like me, Comcast managed to piss away subscribers like a drunk after a night of drinking cheap domestic beer. Instead of getting my money every month they've assured Qwest of my business instead. Bravo, fuckheads!

Check out MNspeak for an awesome thread full of pissed off former subscribers. Comcast's goose-stepping management team deserves an award for monumental stupidity. It's hard to motivate internet-addicted people like me to do without and overcome the inertia required to make the switch. But Comcast managed to fi

There are many reasons why pot is illegal, including it's perception-shaping abilities. But at the end of the day it all comes down to dirty politics, and what agency is more synonymous with "dirty" than the CIA? The whole drug war is convenient way for the CIA to raise money for their black ops without having to go to Congress.

The government knows damn well that cannabis is not harmful; they don't care. Criminal hypocrisy is embedded into our government to the point that there's no way to end the drug war without ending the government with it (because of the truths that would be revealed). A perfect example is Afghanistan. Look at the numbers and tell me which government was really anti-poppy, the Taliban or the US gov's puppet regime. Under Karzai the heroin yields have never been higher.

It's all a scam. The DEA and local PDs put people in jail for decades for nonviolent drug offenses while the CIA takes a cut from drug smugglers in exchange for protection. Drug money is laundered through US businesses on Wall Street and elsewhere using CIA front companies. If you don't know about Iran-Contra, Barry Seal or Gary Webb I urge you to dig deeper. Things are not what they seem and ignorance of the crimes of traitors will slowly poison what's left of our republic.

As a former US Marine I so often get discouraged by the hatred so many Americans have fostered for their country.

Hatred? I hate what America has become, not what it once was and what it once stood for. I have only hatred for those who have tried to poison the well of democracy and usurp liberty. I love my country, and fuck you for implying otherwise. I don't give a damn if you were a Marine; you have apparently failed in your duty to protect the Constitution. You'd rather defend the status quo. The two are not the same.

Like a lot of military men you have an idealized, movie-inspired view of reality. Do you really think that all of the "bad guys" are "over there"? Do you really think every evil person is clearly labelled by his swarthy complection and his turban? The truth is much more insidious and horrifying.

The truth is that powerful men in our country are often much more interested in power than democracy. The most powerful and terrifying enemy we face today is not al-Qaeda or any other mythical terrorist group. No the enemy was born here, was raised here, is mostly white, mostly Christian and looks and acts just like the rest of us. They are the very people we look to for guidance: Our leaders.

Modern Republicans are almost uniformly fascists (Ron Paul is an exception), and modern Democrats are mostly sniveling cowards and sellouts. What do we have left? In a country where the media is almost exclusively corporate controlled we have virtually no chance of electing a 3rd party candidate -- yet they are our only hope.

I pray we will wake up before it's too late.

Municipal WiFi is bad after all.

At least the people of Boston have a chance to throw the bums out in the next election. If you're encountering censorship by a cable company given a legal monopoly to "serve" a certain region, you have virtually no recourse unless such a thing was specifically planned for and written into the contract. I know that my city has no control over my cable provider's rates, allowing them to jack prices through the roof. I don't know if there is similar deregulation in the case of censorship, but I wouldn't be surprised.

In the end it's best to have as many choices as possible. So far as I know, having municipal wireless does not preclude the existance of DSL and cable providers.

So, who got a check from the government last year to make up for all the money you lost to inflation? Anyone?

Whenever topics like this come up all the libertarians, fascist/corporatists and foaming-at-the-mouth capitalists come out of the woodwork to say that "anybody can make it in America!" even though none of them have been poor, black, suffering from disease and fleeing from hurricanes while still succeeding in business. Hey, I like kool-aid, too, but this is total horseshit. Let me be absolutely clear:

THE RICH "CREATE" POVERTY. Clear enough? Without rich people actively trying to fuck over poor people we wouldn't have the income disparity that we presently have. To see it in action, all you have to do is look at the Republican party and their collaborators in big business. They try their best to cut taxes for the rich and slash spending on social programs, no matter what the human cost. The Democrats help by increasing federal spending to obscene levels thereby necessitating increased taxation. We get fucked from both ends, like a double-sided dildo.

As amusing as it is to read white-bread, middle-class slashdotters talking about how easy it is for anybody in America to become a captain of industry, I feel compelled to take a shit on your Capitalism Cake. Fascism is alive and well in this country, which should be no surprise to anyone who knows what Fascism is: Corporatism. Basically, it's the merger of the state and big business. Fascism is the governmental system that is most favorable to business, bar none. Big Business is fascist not because they believe in Hitler's aryan fantasies but because they stand to gain from a government hopelessly devoted to improving market conditions for greedy multinationals.

The income gap is not a new thing because greed is as old as humanity. There is no such thing as being "rich enough." There is only MORE. More money, more power, more disparity. And how do you really know that you're rich unless somebody else is poor? How can you really enjoy being wealthy unless you have servants? The rich mindset is dead set on creating inequity because the rich benefit from it, and like I said, there is no limit to their desires.

This is aided, abetted and made possible by the Federal Reserve System. Each year the Fed increases the money supply, and each year money becomes worth less and less. That's the problem with fiat currency. Since it's not backed by gold the dollar bill has no intrinsic worth. It is just paper. Since it's just paper/electrons it can be created with a flick of the wrist. And so it is. When that money is created, who gets it? You? Does the government/private industry send you a check each year to account for inflation? No, the money is simply stolen from you by those who create it: The bankers. Bankers are the Kings of Capitalism. They are the new aristocracy, the ruling class that maintains control with an iron fist. They control the corporations and our government.

But this system, which appears impossibly strong from the outside, is actually rotting from within. Things are falling apart. If there was a run on the banks our economy would collapse into a pit that would make the Great Depression look like a tea party. That's because of the deposits vs. cash-on-hand ratio. Banks are able to create money simply by making loans. How? Well, they don't really have your money in the vault, you know. For each dollar you put in your savings account the bank is able to lend 10 dollars out because bankers have figured out that they only need to keep 10% of their total deposits on hand at any given time. (I'd like to have a 9x or 10x multiplier on my wealth. Maybe I should start a bank and screw you people over! It's the American way!) The Fed backs them in case of a run, but they don't have the money either. The money doesn't exist. It's imaginary. It's not backed by anything

The video and the actions of the cops are certainly disturbing -- even frightening. But what scares me far more is the reaction of so many regular people (on this board, on YouTube, Digg, etc.), which seems to be that "He was acting like an asshole, therefore he deserved to be tasered multiple times."

What the fuck kind of reasoning is this? Making a scene is not an arrestable offense. Being rude, loud and obnoxious is not an arrestable offense. Bring up the Patriot Act while you're being tortured/arrested is not a taze-able offense. What the hell is wrong with you people?

The cops were clearly out of line. This is NO excuse for tasering a handcuffed person. NONE. All of you authority-worshiping psychopaths who are justifying the cops' actions need to look deep inside yourselves. Is this the kind of country you want to live in? Where people who step out of line (a trivial offense - not having an ID card after hours) deserve to be tasered repeatedly? If that's the kind of law&order country you want to live in, I suggest moving to North Korea where the officers don't have to worry about any pesky civil liberties getting in the way of things. Much more efficient that way.

Personally, I'll take an inefficient democracy over an efficient fascist government any day of the week. We must accept certain limitations when we embrace freedom. One of those is the right of others to behave in a way we don't like. The whole point of freedom is giving others a wide degree of latitude as to how they act.

Please don't respond with any diatribes beginning like this: "but, but, he broke THE LAW!!" No, he violated school policy, which shifted under his feet. He felt he was being racially profiled. Besides, there are so many laws on the books that it's almost impossible not to violate one per day (which is part of the creeping fascism reflected in this video). I bet almost every person here has broken a law today. Did you speed on the way to work? Download a song/movie? Did you make a complete stop at that stop sign? Well, I guess we should all be tasered repeatedly since that's how we're handling problems now.

Maybe I'm old fashioned, but what happened to talking to a person (note, I didn't call him a "perp", a "suspect", a "criminal" or a "foreigner"), instead laying hands on him right away? These cops used tasers because their brains weren't up to the task. They used a taser for their convenience, rather than for our safety. This should have been a non-event. Kid makes big stink. Cops ask him to run home and fetch his ID. End of story. Instead, Officer Idiot decides he needs to be a Big Man and manhandle this kid. The kid isn't having it, so Officer Idiot whips out his taser to compensate for his tiny penis. Then he threatens to taser anybody who asks for his badge number. That is ASSAULT.

These fucking cops should be sitting in a jail cell right now. How can you defend these scumbags?

More rantings/info on my blog. Please don't taser me if you disagree with my opinions.

I'm hearing a lot of talk about drug legalization, but people aren't thinking about the people who would be most affected by legalization.

I'm talking, of course, about the CIA.

Shouldn't we be concerned about the CIA's feelings? How are they supposed to assassinate people and overthrow governments without their black ops slushfund? You know, the one mostly composed of illict drug money from the CIA's drug smuggling activities?

Won't somebody PLEASE think of the CIA??!!!

Here is but one example of the government attacking a group of peaceful protesters with choke-holds and other violent means. A completely unnecessary show of force, if you ask me.

This new weapon will be abused; it's simply a matter of time. It's an unfortunate reality that the authorities tend to have less respect for peaceful dissent than most citizens. We have the right to protest, but the government does not seem to protect that right very vigilantly. In fact, the actions of the current regime are closer to that of a dictatorship. The future of America looks dark.

What man? Oh yeah, sorry, I'll turn that shit down. It's no problem, we were just rockin' on a new jam, and we may have gotten a little carried away. What? Oh yeah, I dunno how the fireworks and golf clubs got involved. Maybe we shouldn't've lit the mattresses on fire for effect. I'm sorry; it won't happen again...

...tonight.

Paladin144
Always Rockin'
Trees Eat People

This is not just a trivial issue about browser "preference" and such. This is about complete market domination. And with domination comes submission. In case the implication wasn't obvious, we'll be the ones doing the submitting.

Yes, maybe I'm bitter. I've created a website that works fine in every other browser that I've tested it on, but sucks in IE. So I'm maybe not your average surfer, but I think this topic is much more important than surfing for porn or stock quotes (or stock quotes of porn companies).

I couldn't help but think of the not-so-distant future when reading this topic. I'd say the web is an important part of my life now, but in the future, the web could be extremely important to everyone's life. It could bind cultures and peoples together or tear them apart. It is becoming our main source of information and communication. It is changing the way we think, do business, and approach our world.

If Microsoft continues to set the standards for the web, there is absolutely no doubt that they will abuse their position. They are right now, by not innovating, and ceasing in their bug-squashing efforts (chortle). Soon, there will be no standards-compliant HTML, there will be only Microsoft-compliant HTML. Apparently, CSS will never work right. The W3C will be a joke. People without IE will be locked out of important sites, and alternate platforms will be totally screwed, since development has stopped for the Mac, and there isn't IE for Linux, to my knowledge.

We need to view this as a war, 'cause it is. If we cede this battle, we've lost. We're at the breaking point right now, since Micro$oft has almost complete market dominance. We can't turn to the courts. The business world sees monoculture as a good thing, and IE as a defacto standard. They haven't been burned by it; yet.

I think guerrilla warfare is the only way. Any successful geurrilla movement must win the hearts and minds of the villagers/people. That means we must be honorable with them, and calmly educate them about the dangers of our mutual oppressors. But what are the dangers? Do they care about monoculture and standards? Probably not; that's a web developer bitch. Most web developers will sympathize with our plight. How then, do we win over the common people?

Features.

Microsoft has given us an opening, and we must take it. Since they've slowed down work on their browser, now is the time to redouble our efforts. We need browsers with cool features beyond popup-blocking. Innovative browsers, that work. Microsoft has given Apple a free pass. Safari rocks; I'm using it right now. Firebird is another great browser, and it works on every major platform. We need to support these browsers and get people to change over. When people check their site and see less than 80% of their users are using IE, then they will have to design for and support other browsers. Only idiots and crazy people can afford to lose 20% of their business.

Increased speed, and lots of features will be great, but nobody will know about it unless we spread the word. Get your Windoze-using friends to switch to Firebird or any other browser. Even better, get them to switch to Linux or the Mac. But we need to get the word out and convince people to change, one person at a time. I think we'll find there's a lot of discontent out there.

Anyway, sorry about this long-ass rant. But I feel strongly that something must be done about Microsoft's crappy-yet-dominant browser. Don't even get me started on their OSes.

I've been recording my band for a couple of years now. I have a Digidesign ProTools setup, with my Digi 001 doing all the I/O. It's got 8 tracks, which is more than enough for most of our stuff. Eventually, we will have to upgrade since I could use 8 mics on the drumkit alone and we like to record live.

Still, I just love being able to lay down 8 tracks (at 24 bit, 48 kHz) at time (I think I can have 24 or 32 total tracks with ProTools LE 6.1) for about $800. And that was a few years ago! Now, you don't even need a PCI slot since FireWire has really matured to the point where it's all you need for connectivity. I believe most FireWire systems are still using 400 megabit ports, too, since 800 really isn't necessary unless you have more tracks.

Now the biggest problem we have to worry about is just where in the hell we're going to practice/record. We're kind of loud, so not just anywhere will do. So far I've been getting away with the cardinal sin of recording with the Mac in the same room, and it doesn't sound too bad as long as we're appropriately thunderous, but I must admit that a PowerBook would be handy for its near-silence.

Practice space is expensive where I live (Minneapolis/St. Paul), running at around $200 a month for a decent space. I'm poor as piss and I just don't know what to do. I'm glad I can record anywhere I can drag my Mac, but a band still needs space to play - my bedroom ain't cutting it. In that sense, I think recording studios still have a role to play, if only because they are designed for good acoustics, they're soundproofed so the neighbors don't get pissed, and they have full control boards, often with powered faders (sweeeeeet...). Still, they're too expensive for practice, and if you have some recording gear like me, why bother? I'm wondering if anybody knows of a new hybrid I've been lusting after - basically a recording studio style space at a practice space cost (preferrably with a small control room). That, I think, is what bands need nowadays; most of us are living in apartment buildings where recording live drums is just not an option. I wonder if anybody has any experience/ideas on this matter.