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FCC's Powell vs. Howard Stern on KGO-AM
Lauren Weinstein writes "Greetings. Tuesday morning on KGO-AM radio in the San Francisco Bay area, host Ronn Owens was interviewing FCC Chairman Michael Powell when Howard Stern called in. The resulting exchange was certainly interesting. The audio clip is available via my blog.
that was fast.
I told people 6 months before his sattelite deal that he was going to jump when his contract expired and all his complaining was just an excuse for it. Now he's just keeping his name out there and his value up.
Anyone have this?
I boycott signatures
Anybody?
Who the hell would post and link to an audioclip on their server to slashdot.
Are there any mirrors? The site is already dead...
How about a transcript? I can't very well listen to audio, especially not howard stern at the office... ;)
---
Programming is like sex... Make one mistake and support it the rest of your life.
Anyone have the transcript? I can't listen to the audio file right now.
For a mirror of the mp3, sans all the anti-bush garbage, go http://www.blurr.net/mirror/powell-stern-2004-10-2 6.mp3Here.
drunk chemists
The funny part I heard on the radio this morning was Michael Powell denying his family connections had anything to do with his appointment. I would have more respect for him if he had combined his answer 'look at my resume' with an acknowledgement that all political appointments are just that -- political.
but even I know that Howard Stern + FCC chairman = fireworks . Shame (but not unexpected) that the blog is down already.
:)
Maybe the FCC pulled it?
-- james
up in smoke... Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Today's lesson: Thou shall not post links to 2.8MB files on slashdot, unless they're bittorrent ones.
Ok, anyone got a mirror of this audio-clip?
How is that off topic? Howard does rule, and the little black midget dude is the shit.
Jive-ass moderator turkey ain't got no brains nohow.....
Go figure.
here
what the FUCK is *INDECENT* jr?
don't like something someone else says? one freedom (which by some odd mystery we still do have) is the freedom to not listen. change the channel
instead, we have militant christian fundamentalists in office, part of some very weird brotherhood, bent on christian domination of world gov'ts.
vodka, straight up, thank you!
but not the audio clip...
Couldn't you have hosted a torrent or something? I'd have loved to hear this. Stern's poor-me martyr act is all about gaining publicity, of course, but still entertaining none the less.
Was the submitter really stupid enough to think his blog would stand up to a slashdotting?
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
it's also linked on GKO's front page:
kgoam810.com
They have streams for Windows Media Player or Real Player
howard asked nothing major and powell answered everything reasonably. stern comes off as unthoughtful (surprise!) and powell comes off as a politician (surprise!).
as an aside, why doesn't stern organize mass complaint filings the way the evangelicals do? just sit down, watch oprah (brrrr) and pummel the FCC with letter on her "indecency". sit back and see what happens. then if the fcc takes no action on thousands of letters, he can genuinely talk about hypocricy.
just go here
/ in dex.html
http://www.cnn.com/2004/SHOWBIZ/10/26/stern.fcc
Watch the Teaser Trailer for "The Lightning Thief" Her
Oprah didn't get fined for talking about tossed salads on her show, Bono didn't get fined for saying the horrible F word on live TV. But after janet's nasty boob popped out, they pulled a 3 year old tape of the stern show and deemed it indecent, then fined Viacom the biggest indecency fine in history. The point is, how are radio people supposed to jnow what's indecent, when they pull 3 year old stuff to fine you with? Michael Powell is the head of the FCC, and is responsible for this nonsense. I hope he's replaced very soon.
http://www.cnn.com/2004/SHOWBIZ/10/26/stern.fcc/in dex.html
Did Howard forget to bring them up? What kind of Stern shows this ?!?!
TROLL! "I'm watching gay porno" links..
Yes, I am a smart ass; it's better than the alternative.
If you're in the Detroit area, check out 990AM and 1090AM.
Analysis before clicking shows they're not gmail invites, it's a link to something else. Dun trust it :P
{} ------ When I think of a good sig, I'll put it here
I'm watching gay porno
What does you watching gay porno have to do with gmail?
Transcript of the conversation can be found on Jeff Jarvis's Buzzmachine.
(Sorry Jeff)
Come on, seriously now, who HASN'T gotten at least one job from a friend/family member/spouse/etc. I understand that this is a bit bigger, but powell saying he got the job because of his resume and not his father is like Paris Hilton saying she's famous because she's pretty. There are a lot of unfamous prettier people and a lot of more qualified candidates for this position not named Powell.
Let's get one thing perfectly clear, I did not vote for George W Bush, and I do not endorse what he does or says.
"
The important issue for us is Content. What is legal? by copyright or by context (e.g., obscene, community standards, etc.).
The FCC has a lot of control over this in term of what is Obscene. Howard has a good point that some talk shows can do topics and not be fined but his show is.
In NYC women are not required to wear shirts; that is it's legal to show breasts in public. Thus Janet Jackson's nipple is legal to be seen here. Why is a nipple Obscene in the first place? IMHO telling women that a nipple is Obscene is about the same as telling them they have to keep their legs and face covered.
We say the USA is a free country but if you taken in to context the Comstock laws and now the Powell FCC Board some aspects of personal expression are very limited.
http://www.hawknest.com/
"The audio clip is available via my blog."
That's a self-negating statement if I've seen heard one.
yes, we have no bananas
Stern: First question, how did you get your job? It is apparent to most of us in boradcasting that your father got you your job... I really don't think you're qualified to be the head of the commission. Do you deny that your father got you this job?
Powell: I would deny it exceedingly. You can look at my resume if you want, Howard. I'm not ashamed of it and I think it justifies my existence. I was chief of staff of the anti-trust division, I'm an attorney, I was a clerk on the court of the United States, I was a private attorney, I had the same credentials that virtually anyone who sits in my position does. I think it's a little unfair that just because I happen to have a famous father, and other public officials don't, that you make an assumption that that's the only basis on which I serve in my position.
http://www.blurr.net.nyud.net:8090/mirror/powell-s tern-2004-10-26.mp3
It was a call-in show. Stern called in and ambushed him on the show.
As much as I like Howard Stern's radio show, he's really hurting his own cause at this point.
Accusing Michael Powell of nepotism will get him air time on the Today show, but it hardly has the same impact of Jon Stewart taking on the Crossfire hosts on the actual ISSUES in media.
By the way, I strongly suspect that's what's happening here...Jon Stewart is getting a lot of positive attention appearing on other people's shows, 60 Minutes, Crossfire, so Howard Stern jumped on the bandwagon. There's a huge difference, though. Jon Stewart made valid, well thought out points, backing them up with facts, even quotes from his show, even though he certainly had an axe to grind.
Howard just called Michael Powell names. I'd expect that from Stuttering John.
One more year and Howard will be off the terrestrial radio and onto my Sirius - then the FCC can go after Oprah all it wants. Supposedly they truly are investigating her. Sure.
He should just stop this childish behavior for now and leave things alone, he's not helping his case at all.
Because the bandwith is limited and the government is forced to regulate the airwaves to keep the marketplace orderly, radio and TV are fundamentally different than cable TV or the internet. Consumers who want access to the information have fewer choices.
Stern is a professional asshole. I listen to him regularly, but pushed the envelope to make money folks. I'd like to show up with a septic truck and dump 2000 gallons of raw sewage on his doorstep to give him a taste of his own medicine.
Freedom of speech isn't an absolute freedom. With any RIGHT come a corresponding RESPONSABILITY. Stern and his ilk never accept responsability for their actions.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
Here is the link to the Windows Media Player feed from the radio station's site:
http://rope.kgoam810.com/archive/kgo09.asxStern starts in about half way through. Enjoy.
-KSPowell handles himself well: he can talk sense on the fly. I'd say he has a lot upstairs. Much of what the FCC has been doing is pretty wrong, but that's what politicians do, and we can't even give Powell all the blame, since he's not the only FCC commissioner.
Stern didn't make much sense, and didn't want to hear anything that didn't fit his conspiracy theories. He sounded spiteful and small. At least his ``good luck to Michael Powell'' sounded sincere. Maybe he realizes that without the notoriety the FCC has given him, he probably wouldn't be moving to satellite radio.
See what I've been reading.
Including "Bababooey! Bababooey!" and "Sit down! Shut up!"
Here's another mirror in case the others go...
Mirror
I got nothin'.
Please dont represent it as one.
I guess if you were expecting someone to call in saying, "Hello, Powell? Baa baa booey baa baa booey, Howard Stern's penis! Baa baa booey!" your expectations can only go up from there.
(Ob. Family Guy quote where Peter testifies against Clarence Thomas pending...someone else can post it)
It would be cool if it didn't suck.
Stern: Ronn, hi.
Owens: Is this who I think it is?
Stern: Yeah, and I want to say hi to the commissioner and a friend of mine told me the commissioner said he was going to be on the show....
The commissioner has fined me millions of dollars for things I have said and consistently avoids me and avoids me and I wonder how long he will stay on the phone with me.
Owens: Go ahead and ask your questions.
Stern: Hi, Michael, how are you?
Powell: Hi, Howard, how are you?
Stern: Does it make you nervous to talk to me?
Powell: It does not....
Stern: All right, so well, I've got about ten zillion questions for you because you honestly are an enigma to me.
The first question being: How did you get your job? It is apparent to most of us in broadcasting that your father got you your job. And you kind of sit there:
You're the judge, you're the arbiter, you're the one who tells us what we can and can't say on the air and yet I really don't think you're qualified to be the head of the commission. Do you deny that your father got you this job?
Powell: Well, I would deny it exceedingly. You can look at my resume if you want, Howard. I'm not ashamed of it and I think it justifies my existence. I was chief of staff of the antitrust division, I'm an attorney, I was a clerk on the court of the United States I was a private attorney I have the same credentials that virtually anyone who sits in my position does and I think it's a little unfair that just because I happen to have a famous father and other public officials don't that you make the assumption that is the basis on which I sit in my position.
Owens: Caller already asked this question so move on....
Stern: So out of all the people that sit on the commission, you were moved to the head of the class. I don't buy your explanation but OK.
You know, the thing that amazes me about you is, you continually fine me but you're afraid to go to court with me and I'll explain myself if you give me a second:
Fine after fine came and we tried to go to court with you to find out about obscenity and what your line was and whether our show was indecent, which I don't think it is. And you do something really sneaky behind the scenes. You continue to block Viacom from buying new stations until we pay those fines.
You are afraid to go court. You are afraid to get a ruling time and time again.
When will you allow this to go to court and stop practicing your form of racketeering that you do by making stations pay up or you hold up their license renewal?
Powell: First of all, that's flatly false.
Stern: It's not false. It's true.
Powell: I'm afraid it is. There's no reason why Viacom or any other company who feels that they have been wrongly fined can't sue us in court. We have no basis whatsoever to prevent them from going to court.
Stern: You're lying. I've lived through your fines, Michael. And Mel Karmazin came to me one day and said, Howard, we're gonna have to pay up some sort of cockamame (sp?) bunch of fines that we don't we're wrong because we can't get our paperwork done. We are finding it increasingly difficult to boy radio stations. I know you're not telling the truth. And I question why you are selected to be one who is the FCC commissioner....
I'm going to Sirius satellite radio....
Owens: That's the question I was going to ask. Now he's going to go to satellite. One of the things that I read is that there are people who said cable TV, satellite radio, that ought to fall under the aegis of the FCC that content there...
Stern: Nobody's saying that... That's not going to happen. Michael knows that. This is the guise of the public airwaves. Michael's a Republican He knows that the marketplace....
Owens: By the way, weren't you appointed by Clinton?... No, no, no, no, he was appointed head of the FCC by George W. Bush.
Powell: Howard, the only thing I would ask is that if we're going to b
Best Windows Freeware
I read the transcript. Regardless of whether you agree with him, Powell held his own with dignity and respect. Stern's used the "Big Lie" strategy: Repeat something enough, and it seems like truth. Fine for entertainment, appalling for matters of law. Top that with ad hominem attacks and stonewaling, and you get quite a performance.
I'm disgusted, and hope he loses big.
Tom Geller
Lest anyone think that that link is a stable server. He mentioned something at the end ,in code, indicative of a certian useless internet fad. And a Boba-booey to you all!!!
--I'm not talking about dance lessons. I'm talking about putting a brick through the other guy's windshield.-
you only get part of the recording.
I find it amusing that they deny that Howard has been singled out by the FCC... meanwhile, he received over 50% of the fines that the FCC slapped on broadcasters over the past five years.
;-)
Now you tell me if that isn't showing that they are trying to use him as an example!
"Never give up, for that is just the time and place when the tide will change." -Harriet Beecher Stowe ^_^
why doesn't stern organize mass complaint filings
He did.
He did.
then if the fcc takes no action on thousands of letters, he can genuinely talk about hypocricy
He did. That was the clip you were commenting on.
"What if the result of more people voting is exactly the opposite of what you want?"
Like if, say, the Iraqi people overwhelmingly voted for a Muslim theocracy....
The problem with some proponents of democracy is that they're the very same people who are first to add "conditions" to the results thereof. (Not talking about you, ratamacue, just bringing up a point.)
Same with freedom of speech. Those who would claim themselves to be conservatives kicking three women out of a rally for wearing "offensive" t-shirts. The offensive message? "Protect Our Civil Liberties". Great. How about requiring those "loyalty oaths" before attending Bush events? Sound a little Stalinist? Anyone seeing irony here?
I laugh again at those claiming the title "conservative" while throwing all that it means down the toilet, willingly and with a village idiot's smile.
Democracy and freedom - "You keep using those words. I don't think they mean what you think they mean."
...to ask for links to Howard Stern show recordings. I don't get him where I am currently living. Anyone know where I can find these?
sod off.
Howard was as self controlled as ANYONE could get confronting someone that is specifically targeting them personally.
Powell IS unfairly doling out his "justice" and certianly is trying to make stern into an example.
As I said earlier, I am no Fan of Howard, but he has some very legitimate points.
Personally, Howard was very nice and acted well for a person finally getting to confront his tormenter.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
The courts have been pretty damned clear on this. The Miller test may not be as free speech friendly as I'd like it to be, but it does say that to regulate speech the work must be considered "as a whole" and be found "obscene". I have a hard time believing that a Per Incident fine structure would stand up as constitutional.
He's attacking the person because he knows that the fines were legit based on policies that were already in place at the FCC prior to Powell getting his position. If he wants to argue about the policies then that would be a valid arguement but personally attacking Powell simply for enforcing them when that's what he's paid to do is out of line IMHO.
+5 Informative
Everyone needs to remember that the purpose of the airwaves is to serve society and the public at large. Broadcasting something that 70-80% of the public at large finds patently offensive does not serve the public interest.
That public would say the same thing about all those "Vote for Candidate X" ads running over the airwaves right now. If you listen to the people running these campaigns, it's not just a battle for the White House but a moral crusade against the forces of evil right now. Each side is so convinced that the other will bring chaos and ruin to our society that they get a good Two Minute Hate in every time the other party's ads come on. So to let the current administration decide what should or should not be broadcast over the public waves that, in your words, "...the public at large finds patently offensive" is a dangerous course of action.
Do I listen to Howard Stern? No.
Do a lot of people I know listen to him? Yes.
Should I be able to dictate to them what they should or should not listen to based on my personal opinion of him? No.
It's a classic case of "I may despise what you say, but I'll fight to the death to protect your right to say it". If we censor Stern (who is strongly anti-Bush, if that's a coinsidence I'll eat my shoe) today, who do we censor tomorrow? Jon Stewart? Any dissenting voice that the administration feels is a danger to the country? I live in NYC, I remember the peaceful protestors around the RNC this year, and how they were prevented from holding an organized event because of the politics of our city. It disgraced our city, and our way of life, and condoning such totalitarian behavior only makes things worse.
As for these "militant Christians bent on world domination" I just don't see it.
Is it because you are traveling outside the United States?
The law provides ways to raise or lower the limit and enforce it. If you do not agree with the law it provides means in which to change them.
Means for whom to change them? The citizens or the big corporations? If an authoritarian measure has bipartisan support, how do you expect voters to oppose it effectively?
Ok, this is the link to the KGO radio archive, the Stern call comes up at about 30 minutes into it.
http://rope.kgoam810.com/archive/kgo09.ram
~~~Please pass the salt, I hate unsalted MD5s
Here is another mirror http://www.mundenisgod.com/powell-stern.mp3
n/t
Does anyone know what Stern if referring to at the end of the conversation? Stern,"Ask him about the billion dollars of computer equipment and he knows what they're talking about". Computers? Inside contract? Powell doesn't answer it and the idiot host doesn't bring it up again.
I dont' know why Howard Stern doesn't contest the charges and fines in court.
From what I've heard some radio stations have tried to do this, not necessarially over Howards particular case but for other fines the FCC has levied. When these sorts of things have gone to court in the past the FCC has used tactics that end up costing the radio stations a fortune and the possibility of them losing their licenses to get them to give up. One standard practice apparently used by the FCC is to put all license renewals on hold for whoever is involved. So if Infinity Broadcasting, for example, challenged a fine in court they could find all FCC reviews of the 100+ radio stations they own held up indefinitely. And since the FCC is a government body it doesn't cost them anything to drag these sorts of things through the courts as slowly as they can. It ends up costing the radio stations piles of money in lawyers, etc. So it's a no-win situation for the radio stations.
Stern has repeatedly challenged the FCC to face him in court over his fines without pulling these sorts of tactics. He's never gotten a response from the FCC.
The problem with "Right or wrong, you broke the law" is that they won't define what the law is. The fines levied against Clear Channel for what Stern said were for comments he made years before they levied the fines. They refuse to specifically define what is obscene or indecent couching it in undefinable ways based on context and community standards.
Never once has anyone on the FCC said what you can and cannot say on the radio. The only clear standard is the Supreme Court's 7 dirty words, and Howard has never said them on the air.
The timeline of the most recent fines demonstrates that it has nothing do to with indecency and everything to do with politics:
Even though on the surface it seemed like Clear Channel was the one being punished, this back door deal actually gave them much greater flexibility in the radio market then Viacom.
As an aside, Clear Channel is a major backer of President Bush.
While they say that they are just enforcing the law, what they are doing is protecting the interests of the President and his corporate allies.
No artist tolerates reality. -- Nietzsche
When did americans forget what democracy was? I guess Bush has done a great job of helping us forget. This guy is a public offical and he's accountable to the public. We have the right to question his job and he has to answer to us..the public, his boss.
Am I the only one that has a 'interesting' problem with the archive file? At around 29:30, right after a station advertisement, it cuts to almost silence... just a touch of noise. At around 30:10 there's a brief moment of softly played guitar music, and then silence again.
Silence continues until about 32:00
Dear /.ers,
Thanks for teaching me about substance and appearance so I can go out and vote for Bush next week.
I have learned from you that whether you like and respect somebody is much more important than protecting first amendment freedoms. You have taught me that if you are slick and dignified in the way you stick your dick up your enemy's ass, people will respect you for it.
If you misbehave and look and act like a pig and fail to respect authority, you get dicked, and that if people are so wimpy and liberal as to defend your freedoms, they must qualify it by mentioning that you look and act like a pig, so their defense of your freedom can be more easily drowned out by the chorus of agreement about the qualifier.
Now, where are my ruby slippers? I need to click them together three times!
For those that want to make nepotism comments, keep in mind that Powell was appointed to the FCC by Clinton and not Bush
The war with islam is a war on the beast
The war on terror is a war for peace
WTF are you on? Viacom owns a bajillion stations, MTV and other cable properties - and they are "effectively out of business" because they temporarily cannot BUY MORE stations?
How is this "insightful?" It's just stupid hyperbole.
It wasn't publicly promoted as a face off between stern and powell, although that's what ended up happening. Owens said this morn on the Stern show that the Powell's handlers (he has handlers?) accused the show of setting it up, to which Owens replied that if you're a producer, how do you not put Stern's call through. It is a talk show and it certainly was entertainment to hear.
I personally would rather see naked women, then dead men on my TV
OK, naked women I can understand, but why the hell would you want to see dead men after you've seen the naked women?
Do you have some gay necro fetish you have to satisfy in order to finish off?
Peter Griffin [testifying before a Senate commitee]: And that's when Clarence Thomas forced me into his chambers and showed me lewd pictures...
:D
Judge: Mr. Griffin, we have indisputable evidence that not only have you never been in the same room as Clarence Thomas, you've never been in the same state. How do you respond to that?
Peter Griffin: Baba-booie baba-booie, Howard Stern's penis! Baba-booie, Baba-booie! Baba-boo..[several police officers wrestle him to the ground]
gotta love DVD subtitles, straight from the horse's mouth
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. - Aldous Huxley
I heard Howard and Michael live on KGO Tuesday. Ronn Owens mentioned it's off of KGO's web site. Here is a link to his own site:
http://ronn.com/
Howard and Michael were on for 14 minutes. Ronn apologized to the listenership today (Oct. 27) for being a bit sleepy, becuase he'd been awakened at 3:30 AM PDT to do 10 minutes on Howard's show. Ronn said Howard was "as nice as could be."
Anyone have a link for Ronn's appearance on Howard's show?
The clearance system sounds logical. It is not. It is completely arbitrary. -- John Bolton
Do you realize that KGO is read 'cago' meaning "I shit" in Spanish?
...doesn't mean he's the autocratic ruler of the FCC. Last time I checked, the committee was 5 Ds and 5 Rs. Michael is no more in control of the FCC than Colin was of the combined armed forces of the US. And like others have already said, just because Stern is screaming "nepotism" over and over again doesn't make it true. (Course, ALL politics is nepotic, but I don't think Powell's appointment was any more so than any other dealings on the Hill.)
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. - Aldous Huxley
Powell: I would deny it exceedingly. You can look at my resume . . . I'm not ashamed of it and I think it justifies my existence.
.
Poor guy, I guess he's having a hard time just justifying his existence . .
Love him or hate him, Howard has a huge (and contrary to what someone else said, educated) audience. He is just as brilliant at times as he is moronic, just as insightful as he is disgusting. This morning wasn't one of those times.
The issue, which he has more eloquently explained so many times before, is twofold; there is little to nothing, besides the famous 7 dirty words document, that actually defines what is indecent, and there is no effective way to combat fines and charges levied against someone who is judged indecent.
Personally, I find the damn Wiggles indecent. But that doesn't mean they are. It does feel that the current board of the FCC is pushing this type of indiscretionary judgment on broadcasters ever since Janet whipped a boob out. The issue is getting out of control, truly, and even though Howard is trying to do something, this morning wasn't one of his finest uses of an opportunity.
-
cleverly disguised as a responsible adult ||
Is your mind now a detritus?
Thank you for censoring howard sterns speech for me. You're an idiot. The fucking fascist lies to you. He commits treason. And you want to censor the bad things people say to him.
YOU ARE THE PROBLEM WITH THIS COUNTRY. You want to censor everyone who differs in opinion from you.
If you're voting strategically, then I hope you're a very very rich person. While you're sacrificing your morals and intelligence for money, at least you stand to possibly gain from more anti-american(citizen) actions by George W. Bush.
If you don't have at least ten million dollars in the bank, then you need to take your head out of your ass:
Saddam is not part of Al Queda.
Saddam didn't have anything to do with 9/11
Saddam does not have WMD's.
Saddam did not have WMD's.
Bush lied to you about WMD's in the same way that LBJ lied to the American people about the Gulf of Tonkin.
Bush betrayed the trust of the world, and the trust of the American people by attacking Iraq. We have no reason to be there, we had no reason to go there.
How you can support someone who on one hand will not support stem cell research because he apparently has moral issues, and yet at the same time will send my generation and my brothers generation to war without reason?
If you support George W. Bush for re-election, then you should also be making a call to your local recruiter for the armed service of your choice and join up.
"The law says (and for some time has said) that the airwaves are public and as such should bend to the public will. "
But Michael Powell is not the public will. He's an appointed official who answers to no one.
So the public will in this case is *actually* the ratings. Whoever has the highest ratings BY DEFINITION represents the people's will.
So what was your argument again?
Oh yes:
"I don't like stern and I know a lot of other people who don't either. Therefore, its not a good use of the public airwaves".
Fascist.
"The standards of decency are clearly defined. "
Are they? Where are they defined.
Can you give us the #1 tennent?
You are "talking out of your ass". There is no such decency standard. You're making it up.
"Howard just called Michael Powell names"
He didn't call him any names. Are you talking "out of your ass" again?
You certainly didn't listen to the tape to come up with a falsehood.
The only name he came up with was "Michael". But I think that's his actual name isn't it?
"...54 percent [of Iraqis] said a parliamentary democracy would be acceptable, 42 percent said they would accept a council of elders and 20 percent said they would accept an Islamic theocracy. One percent said a Taliban-style regime would be acceptable." [1]
"...73 percent of respondents said a new government should have freedom of religion..." [1]
Also:
"57 percent of [Iraqis] said life was better now than under Saddam, against 19 percent who said it was worse and 23 percent who said it was about the same." [2]
"When asked what Iraq needs in five years, people were more likely to say an Iraqi democracy, 42 percent, followed by "a single strong leader," 35 percent." [2]
[1] Source [cnn.com]
[2] Source [cnn.com] Oxford Research International National Survey of Iraq [bbc.co.uk]
but he has some very legitimate points.
He only needs one point: The First Amendment.
Learn something new.
"Stern didn't make much sense"
Sorry, he made absolute sense. He pointed out that Michael Powell has a personal vendetta against him.
Powell's well thought out response?
"I do not!"
Howard pointed out that Michael got his job as a polical favor to his father.
Powell's well thought response?
"That's unfair"
Sorry if your hatred of howard is blinding you to the fact that Michael Powell is dangerous to free speech.
Sorry if it takes HOWARD STERN to point out the obvious to people as slow as yourself. Life must piss you off.
...in saying no one has a right to a platform. Ironically, by being moderated a troll, mods are denying the poster a platform. Is it thier intention to declare Stern not be denied a platform but the poster who dislikes Stern should be?
Stern probably doesn't know, or didn't have time to mention, that the biggest slam against Powell is this: His profession was lobbying for the giant communications conglomerates to eliminate Federal oversight of radio and TV station ownership. He is one of the many foxes put in charge of the regulatory henhouses by Bush's pro-business ideologues. He the LAST person that should be in charge of changing the ownership rules. It is a horrendous conflict of interest, and it shows in his work. And after his boss loses, he will once more go back to work as a lobbyist.
"It's for the children!"
Of course, those children are all being forced to listen to the shows by their parents. Because Mommy has to listen to Lesbian Jeopardy on the morning trip to school, little Johnny is being exposed to morally objectionable material.
Noone is forcing children to see anything at all except for their own irresponsible guardians! People get upset because their child may have seen a breast, but they refuse to tell their home-schooled larvae that sex leads to babies, so they go out and get knocked up at 13. It's absurd.
This is good argument for disbanding the FCC, but what would you put in it's place?
Clearly the head of the FCC is acting as if laws don't apply to his personal decisions, at least to the ones that can be made to appear as ex-officio. Blocking court appeals is the best proof of this that we're likely to get. So the current system, which allows that kind of centralized authority/bigotry is broken. But some kind of regulation is needed.
Ah, but WHAT kind? That's the sticking point. ICANN has proven that a charter is no defense. Democratically chosen ICANN representatives didn't significantly happen.
I assert that it needs to be a design allowing for local control, with some (unspecified) mechanism for enforcing coordination between local agencies. BUT ONLY COORDINATION!
That said, nothing's perfect. The local government where I live is corrupt. But it doesn't have the power to suppress criticism. So by local control, I definitely don't mean control by the local governments. Just what I do mean is undecided, but I've seen few people in a position of power that I though deserved respect. They were nearly consistent in abusing the power for their own personal (including ideological, religious, etc.) ends.
Things are so bad that my latest scheme calls for the selection of the leaders by random choice with easy recall elections. This would, at least, keep the schemers from having an unfair advantage.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
I understand that this is a bit bigger
You obviously don't.
-Valiss
this is about american's rights to speak about anything that they want to discuss. You may not agree with Stern, but you better damn well defend his right to say it.
Stern: You're the judge, you're the arbiter, you're the one who tells us what we can and can't say on the air and yet I really don't think you're qualified to be the head of the commission. Do you deny that your father got you this job?
Powell later replied, "Yes." When asked to clarify, Powell said "no", slapped a fine on the station the reporter was from, and went back to his bunker to review, for the 147th time, Janet Jackson ripping off her bra. He was reported to have said, "We're really close to resolving this problem of costume failure. We think really big fines might do it."
Later, after 11:00 PM he was heard to utter "#@#$$# you @##@-sucking mother-@#$#er" -- all of which did NOT refer to the actual act of having sex.
IANAL, but I've seen actors play them on TV
I listened to Howard Stern almost daily for the last 12 years. I wasn't the biggest fan of Stern's, I wasn't the longest running fan of Stern's, but I bought several of his videos, pay per view, both books, the soundtrack he put out, saw his movie in the theater and at home and even liked watching him on the E! network.
I haven't had anything to do with Stern for the last 6 months or so, though. He's just not funny anymore. I would say about 70% of his show is dedicated fully to politics - more specifically, hatred for Bush when for the first half of Bush's presidency all he could do was praise the job he was doing. Of the remaining 30%, it's constant political snipes among the dick jokes. Can't he just go back to 100% dick jokes? I mean, that's really what he's good at.
I'm a big tall mofo.
The FCC should not have any power over the content of media broadcasts. Regulation of station location and power to make sure they don't interfere, first come, first serve license allocation, that should be the beginning and the end of their little feifdom.
As it is, the FCC is just the (very) sticky little fingers of a wildly out of hand government. Blatant promotion of superstition over reason, inspiring fear of the power structure using fines and jail and confiscation as tools, supporting business monopolies for content management, and exercising broad control over rank and file sexuality and speech - this is what the FCC does in the domain of audio and audiovisual broadcasts. They have usurped the role of the parent and blunder madly about the broadcast media space, restricting speech and content left and right.
We can't do anything about it, either. Well, short of lively revolt, we can't. In the USA, citizens can't create law, can't dispense of bad law, and can't vote on created law. Nor can citizens elect anyone who might be able to effect such changes. That's what we get for letting them foist off a republic on us.
Bend over, Mr. Stern. Just about the time you get on satellite broadcast, no doubt in my mind at all they'll be regulated by the FCC as well.
Why do I say that? Intuition, driven by this experience: Every time I hear the boneyard (XM channel 41) guys say "fuck", I cringe, knowing some religious wacko out there is writing a letter to Michael Powel and crew. You watch. I'm not much for predictions normally, but I think this one, you can take right to the bank.
Sirius is exactly like XM in this context - exactly. You have to realize that satellite isn't like cable. It is not locked to a physical location; it is broadcast through the air, and anyone can hear it emanating from a car, from a boombox in some kid's hand, out of a business's doors, etc. I should know. I own five of the darned things. I'm one of the people that the sound of satellite radio hangs around like a raucous, crazed aura. I bought my kids XM receivers, and told them it was the "sound of freedom." I also pointed out that it wasn't likely to be allowed to persist, that they should enjoy it while they could.
My advice to everyone is get satellite radio now, while it is still the wild west of broadcast media. It is tons more fun than terrestrial sources at this point in time; but I don't think it can continue this way. You can bet your last dollar that the controlling elements that run the system are planning to legislate XM and Sirius into line with the rest of the censored media. Then what you'll have is simply higher fidelity blandness. The gold rush is now. That's exactly why Howard Stern is making the transition. But just as he sees the gold, so does the government, and it is absolutely certain, 100% supported by US history, that they don't like free speech. At all.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
added a mirror on my site:o well-st ern.mpeg3
http://kawaii-girls-want-to-s3x0r.us/tmp/p
just rename it to mp3
I read the site and then pulled up the FCC's charter - where exactly did it specify a President *must* pick a given a person of a given politican affliation?
Oh yah - it doesn't, you made that part up to support some vague political agenda, and the lemming mods duly rewarded you - typical.
Disappointing... but typical.
Dave - You've used CNN to back up a point stating, in essence, the Iraqis are better off because of the actions of the american military under the present administration?
How the hell did CNN let that slip through?
"Like most things there is a clear right and a clear wrong with some gray area in between."
... I have what some people consider a pretty kneejerk reaction to quite a few things (drugs should be legal, school should be voluntary and private, mayonnaise is a strong emitic), but I'd say "most things" is too big a field to call. Most things to me would seem to cover a territory within which personal philosophy / ethics would inform your decision about whether something is right or wrong. Should the U.S. have assasinated Hitler? Is it OK to clone babies to harvest stem cells? Is the death penalty ever a just punishment, and if so, when?
Most things? I dunno
"In this case trying to argue that the Howard Stern show was in the grey area between decency/indecency requires a complete departure from common sense."
Certainly a lot of people find the show colloquially, vernacularly (if that's a word) "indecent." The humor is often a new grade of low-brow, not family listening in *my* family, though not necessarily the same is true for everyone. But the *legal* idea of decency / indecency is that's being talked about here, not just whether you or I think it's indecent in casual language. I'd rather that Howard Stern be on the air than, say, shows that I think actively rot the brain, like most children's cartoons.
"The standards of decency are clearly defined."
No, they're not. If they were, the FCC would have very little to do in a case like this one, too. "Community standards" alone mean that there are lots of loopholes and arguments, especially for media that can be rebroadcast, or reach areas with widely varying community standards, when / if those can even be boiled down at all. And let's just go with the idea that these standards *are* clearly defined: even if standards are defined, if enforcement is arbitrary, then the defined standards aren't very useful unless an actor has fully internalized the ethics they represent. That is, if you think a rule ("a law") is silly, unhelpful and arbitrary, you will probably act so as to not get caught (in your own estimation) rather than kowtow humbly to it. YMMV.
"Entertainers that encroach [sic] the grey area do so knowingly feeling that the risk of a fine is worth the benefit of pushing the evelope."
I'm sure you're right -- at least sometimes. As stern pointed out though (and he's not the only example -- most big U.S. cities have titillating morning shows of the same basic flavor, and then there's that terrible "Don and Mike" show, if it's still by some anti-miracle still on the air) the standards are enforced inconsistently and (seemingly) arbitrarily.
"The FCC is not trying to shut down indecent entertainers."
Either they're trying to shut them down, or milk them for cash, or play censor. None of the above impress me.
"They are trying to allocate the public resource of electro-magnetic spectrum to those services that provide some benefit to the public. There are plenty of non-public-resurce-consuming methods of distribution/broadcasting that these entertainers can choose."
Three basic responses: 1) the current allocation system is cumbersome, slow, and itself a contributor to the scarcity that the FCC claims as one of its reasons for existence. Current technology certainly allows for more channels in the same space (and the FCC is part of turning over the current spectrum to an all-digital system). The FCC's power Congress-granted power is entirely defined by its ability to control the medium, and it moves like a slug. Change is dangerous. The FCC likes to pretend that it's enforcing the Laws of Nature, which is not entirely true. (e.g. there could be lower power limits to allow more local stations, there could be narrower spectrum slices to allow more stations of slightly less fidelity, or we could have gone all-digital quite a few years ago.)
2) Who ought define what constitutes "benefit for the public"? Me and a circle
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
Janet Jackson lets one wayward tit slip out accidentally on CBS: $750000 fine.
F oxOpps.html
Fox puts hard-core porn on the air:
http://homepage.mac.com/mjsmitho/FoxNewsPornSlip/
Nothing. Nada.
Must be nice to be connected.
Powell was remarkably self-composed in dealing with a bit of an unexpected situation, and talked without hesitation, as though he was definitely in the right. Stern, too, demonstrated a great deal of restraint. Impressive stuff.
Ya know, it's typical - I have mod points for a few days with nothing going on and the day I see something worthy to mod up I lose them.
This is exactly right. I can remember listening to Howard from Rochester and putting up with his raves of Bush and the war on Iraq. Then, (hallelujah!) he's come back from a vacation saying that he's read and loved Al Franken's book "Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them" and he's now one of those anybody-but-Bush guys. Shortly afterwards, he is dropped from the Rochester market from Clear Channel - Bush cheerleaders extraordaire. Thank goodness he's back on the air here.
Happy people make bad consumers.
We live in a world where very small inority of viewers and listners determin what is aired, ratings wise.
So if the people who are used to determine what gtes rating all happen to like farm porn, do we allow it?
OF course not.
Yes that was an extreme example, but it was too make a point.
I don't have TV in my house, yet my children are still influenced by it. When they go to school., children are reapting what the see and hear in there homes.
So simple turning off the TV doesn't make it's effect go away.
Those are just two reason on why public airwaves need to be held to a standard.
Now, the current FCC chairmen has his head pretty far up his ass. With any luck Kerry will win and toss his ass out.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Pull your collective heads out of your asses. The parent isn't a "Troll." He was pointing out that the links in the OP are NOT GMail invites, but instead redirect to some childish site that locks your browser and plays a "Hey everyone, I'm looking at gay porno!" audio clip.
A few things you didn't consider here:
That, and when you say He should just stop this childish behavior for now... I mean, come on.. This is Howard Stern, man.
Sig (appended to the end of comments you post, 120 chars)
Apparently they didn't read the transcript any more than you did. The "can't renew" part came from Stern, the "can't buy" is what he then said his boss told him (thus contradicting himself).
And even if this were true (unlikely) licenses come up for renewal every seven years, they're not ALL going to come up for renewal at the same time, and no matter what Viacom still owns CBS (which has dozens if not hundreds of affiliates not under their ownership), MTV and all the other cable properties. Losing a few stations isn't going to put Viacom out of business anytime soon - "effectively" or at all.
I guess I'm going to have to go back to meta-modding. It's getting ridiculously bad around here. Be glad when this damn election's over, "the party line" is glaring.
I think it's more like the situation with cryptography or prohibited internet content. US laws only apply inside US borders, but unless you have guards at every inch of the borders, the laws have no real effect. We can't stop people from crossing our borders, so how the hell is the FCC going to keep out electromagnetic radiation? Not that they wouldn't try.
Yes, they could outlaw XM or Sirius receivers, but it's hard to find a passive device like a receiver. Someone want to explain how the UK TV Nazis can tell if you have an unlicensed TV in your house? Or how a radar detector can be detected? Not my area of expertise.
Si la vida me da palo, yo la voy a soportar Si la vida me da palo, yo la voy a espabilar
The proper role of the FCC should be to prevent broadcast entities from creating interference and stealing the frequencies of other broadcasters. It does not and should not have a say in what actually goes onto those magical "public" airwaves. If content is indecent, don't listen to it. Believe it or not the marketplace will then determine what people want.
Don't like the fact that other parents let their children listen to such garbage? Maybe you should pay more attention to who your child spends time with. It is not the job of government to raise children, it is the job of parents. You can't control every single input that goes into a child's mind, and the attempt would be ultimately destructive to a child anyway. But no matter how you cut it, the proper way to combat indecency is to be decent yourself, and demonstrate to your children proper behavior by being a role model.
Between the hours of ~10PM and 4AM, profanity is allowed. I don't know all the specifics, but I do know that after a certain hour we had to read a disclaimer:
And then we could play whatever the hell we wanted. What's wrong with playing "dirty" words after kids should be in bed? Adults have certainly heard those words before, and can change the station if they are offended.Si la vida me da palo, yo la voy a soportar Si la vida me da palo, yo la voy a espabilar
Only 3 can be of a particular political party.
But facts are ugly and expose your ignorance, so you pretend like they don't exist.
>host Ronn Owens was interviewing FCC Chairman Michael Powell when Howard Stern called
This smells like a setup where the FCC Chairman was not told that a public person such as Stern was calling in.
Depending on your politics you may cheer or pan this but consider:
1. John Kerry interviewed by Larry King when someone opinionated as Rush Limbaugh just 'concidentally' calls in.
2. George W. Bush interviewed by Larry King when someone opinionated as 'Al Franken' just 'concidentally' calls in.
If someone wants a debate then they should invite all parties and make it well known in advance.
is the decision on which the FCC's ability to levy fines is predicated is woefully out of date. (not that it wasn't suspect at the time it was made) The reason the FCC can regulate the airwaves, was radio stations weren't very common, and were typically significantly outnumbered by the newspapers of a given community. They can't regulate what is decent in a newspaper because theoretically people had a lot of choice. While the argument went, this wasn't true for radio, and if the programing of a radio station was well outside the norms of the day people were left with the choice of listening to it, or not listening to the radio at all.
Well I don't know about your market, but in mine there are far more radio stations than newspapers. Hell there are more TV stations that newspapers.
You have to realize that satellite isn't like cable. It is not locked to a physical location; it is broadcast through the air
So is DirecTV. And they sure as hell show hardcore porn on there.
The regulating factor is, quite simply, if you pay for it, they can broadcast whatever you want. You pay for porn. You pay for Pay-Per-View. You pay for cable. You pay for XM.
Cable channels technically can broadcast whatever they want, because it's not technically a "broadcast" so much as it's a "transmission". This is why comedy central can get away with showing "Bigger, Longer, and Uncut" in its uncut form, complete with Uncle Fucker et. al. If the food network wanted to have a show called "The Swearing Chef", they could, without the FCC getting into it. Viewers would no doubt write in and complain, which drives the process, but the FCC doesn't have regulatory jurisdiction over pay services.
Technically, the FCC can only regulate things that go over the literal airwaves, and is not encrypted, hence NBC, Fox, ABC, CBS, FM radio, AM radio are all regulated. Basically, if you can get it with bunny ears, it's under the FCC's umbrella. Satelite gets around this by requiring specific pay-for-use hardware to decrypt.
~Wx
The people most vocal are not necessarily the most numerous.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
It was obviously a stunt to keep his popularity.
Although, at the same time I think the FCC are a bunch of Fascist Nazi Jerks.
I want my 1st, 2nd, 4th, and 10th rights back.
You should be allowed to say, listen, express, look, and feel any way you want.
Facist Bush vs. Fascist Kerry
Choose Libertarians for Liberty.
Bush appointed both Powells to their current positions on the same day, coincidentally. Nothing to see here. Bush didn't notice the resemblence. Bush also doesn't remember who Ken Lay is.
News is reported as FACT.
Everyone talking is RUMOR.
I was not talking about bush or kerry anyway and purposefully chose a non-political example of lying media.
That Kerry shot fleeing, wounded, vietnamese boy in back and lobbied for a medal OR that Bush missed his physical because they instituted drug testing and he had been snorting cocaine (which evey fighter pilot knows makes you fly MUCH better than that military issue dexedrine) doesn't have much bearing on my election decision.
It happened THIRTY YEARS AGO!
It's what they have done since that counts.
As for morality. I only see democrats getting violent and destroying property...
Daddy was on the Seattle Intelligencer explaining that he never helped sonny boy get the job, and that he will deploy our strategic arsenal all over the ass of anyone who says otherwise.
... a one-termer!
In other news, any C student at Yale can become President, not just ones whose Daddy was
There ought to be a way to see who modded your post, and their address... and an offer for cheap plane tickets.
You say:
"Blatant promotion of superstition over reason,"
Most people don't realize that's what's happening. Its under the guise of "promoting christian values".
What it means is "My god's magic juju said not to do that".
Look, believe in what you want, but why am I forced to take part in your religious experience? You wacko christian extremists make fun of the wacko muslims, but you're ultimate exactly the same: You want to live in a world controlled by your "god", and you espouse his magic "juju" to justify it.
It happens every day with bush. That's why we have no stem cell research. God spoke with george one night and said it was bad. That's why we invaded iraq. God spoke to george one night and next thing you know 10's of thousands of people are all dead.
You people are nuts.
***>Powell's response was simply, "Right or wrong, you broke the law".
Actually, Powell didn't claim stern broke any laws. In fact, Stern hasn't broken any laws; he broke an FCC administrative "test". Once that there is nothing really written down about. If the commisioners find it "offensive" it gets fined. So if they're in a bad mood, you get whacked. If they're in a good good, they let it slide.
What Powell did in fact was just say Stern wasn't being "fair".
Something that I find extremely ironic.
"If this bothers you, consider that God made the world to begin with."
If you watched a movie where a coke bottle fell out of the sky, and some aborigine thought it was a sign from god, you'd think it was hilarious.
Now you come on slashdot, wave your rattle and tell us god created the world.
***AND YOU WANT US TO TAKE YOU SERIOUSLY***
I'll bet you don't see the delicious irony there.
I worked in a congressional office many years ago. Let me tell you that shit rolls downhill. Most politicians personally don't care what Stern says, or whether Janet bares her nipple.
;-)
But the old people call and complain. THOUSANDS OF THEM. And they vote. So the congressmen call the FCC.
If you want to fix things, we need some serious Logan's Run action.
Powell is pretty damn good. Did anyone see his appearance on TechTV's The Screen Savers last year? He talked up TiVo and Vonage. He's not some reactionary idiot defending outmoded business models. Last time I checked it looked as if he *IS* using quite a bit of capital against the telecom interests.
Be a little grateful you asshats.
-- "The reward of suffering is experience." - Aeschylus
http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/consumerfacts/obscene.html
http://www.fcc.gov/eb/Orders/2001/fcc01090.html
Simple people talk of people, better people talk of events, great people talk of ideas.
I've taken the liberty of setting up a torrent of the clip. This is a version my friend found on the usenet and I'm not sure if it's the same one that was linked in the /. posting. This is a 24kbps MP3
Torrent
(Only one seed as of this posting, but I just put it up now...)
This message brought to you by Jack Schitt's Previously Shat Shit
And.. so? Letter-writing from one nut doesn't make Michael Powell sit up and bark. You reveal your own bigotry in your remark, however.
Have you tried to call somebody a "fag" recently? Described something as "totally gay"? You should try that sometime in a coffee shop, or on DailyKos or something similar. Hate-speech legislation and the like are here, now, as well as restrictions on political speech in the form of "campaign finance reform". Your lone letter-writer is a fiction you've invented from your own closet of anxieties. Here's some free advice--the Christians aren't out to get you, stop obsessing over them.
Potato chips are a by-yourself food.
"Someone want to explain how the UK TV Nazis can tell if you have an unlicensed TV in your house? Or how a radar detector can be detected?"
The vast majority of radio receivers utilise a system called a "superheterodyne" circuit. In this system, the incoming radio signal is mixed with an internally generated radio signal from a circuit called a "local oscillator" or "LO". Unless special (and costly) design techniques are used, some portion of this LO signal radiates back out the receiving antenna or directly from the receiver circuitry. Because the LO signal frequency is mathematically related to the signal frequency being listened to, someone with a scanning receiver tuned to the LO frequency can know exactly what channel you are listening to/watching. And a highly directional antenna can be used to pinpoint your location.
In the case of TV receivers, other signals are radiated as well, primarily from the horizontal sweep circuitry.
Remember "News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters"? Help make it a reality again! http://soylentnews.org
I find the timing very suspicious, which is why I'm comparing it to Jon Stewart. Another person stealing Howard's thunder. I mean - come on - a local show in San Francisco?? This was solely done for the press attention it would generate.
The FCC did go after Howard - no arguing there. However, they have not harmed his business. He's going to do quite well on Sirius - did you see those numbers? He's making a fortune.
And Stern, for all of his pranks, really does have intelligent, rational thought behind things he says....sometimes. Obviously, not now.
Don't get me wrong, I would never defend Powell, I think he's a twit. But I also think that calling him names is doing more harm than good.
Umm, you're pretty much right except for the biased religious whacko and parent crap. Frankly, you probably also think the religious types are late adopters and luddites, which would beg the question why you think they'd be listening to satellite radio broadcasts in the first place.
The people who would complain are those with the income and desire to purchase the hardware and spend time listening. There are more soccer moms or feminists who would write in than the religious types. There are far more parents who complain about the lack of FCC parenting than proponents of free speech who write to the FCC thanking them for allowing the freedom of [insert favorite radio talk show host] to voice their views.
Frankly, you seem more like someone who hasn't gotten out much. Speech in this country is pinned by both liberals and conservatives because it IS a political issue; there is advantage sought on both sides to infringe on speech. Conservatives may be inclined to complain about perceived morally inept statements while liberals have no problems bashing in hate groups, slur speech (fag, nigger), et al.
The sooner you get your head screwed on straight (wait, is that offensive to you?), the sooner we can have that free speech you talk about. Then again, you've probably blamed religious types for a crapload of problems, but have never written to the FCC thanking them for not railing on some radio host.
I listened to the online recording of the conversation. I've also been listening to stern for over a decade. Allow me to explain the extortion that exists because of these fines.
Viacom and other networks that carry Stern's broadcasts are unable to fight the fines in court. Fighting anything in civil court (this would NOT qualify as a criminal case) will take several years and can take over a decade if the litigants drag their feet enough. During this time, the FCC can punish Viacom by holding up any license renewals, applications, or acquisitions relating to Viacom business. Viacom is a public company that has to answer to the stock market. Investors will pull their money out of Viacom if it sees the company get into a quagmire of a legal battle with the FCC that is stunting the company's growth. Because of this, it's been cheaper to simply pay the fines and keep broadcasting.
Real conservatives believe the FCC is an abuse of government power. It's an unneccesary bureaucracy that expands government intrusion into our lives. They agree with Howard Stern that the airwaves should be ruled by the market and not a group of appointed moralists. The modding you are describing is not based on 'party lines'. Here's an interesting commentary from the National Review on the topic of the FCC:
Consider this hypocrisy: A child can go into a public library and check out a book that contains passages using the word 'fuck' and describes sex acts. This same child may stand on a street corner and read the book aloud. The child can copy words from the book onto a t-shirt or even print posters featuring quotes from the book. But the child may not walk into a radio station and review the book over the air by reading excerpts that include those 'indecent' words.
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
Amazing! Most infants of less than 24 hours in the world cannot even sit upright, much less attempt cogent sentences at a keyboard!
If any of this were happening (which, your wholesale swallowing of the conspiracy koolaid aside, I very much doubt) then viacom need only press for a TRO demonstrating the FCC's acitons present an immediate and vital threat to its health. They don't have to wait ten years for a judgement on this issue because the entire point is to remove the immediate threat while allowing litigation to continue.
Again, this isn't new or unusual, it's done quite often. But I'm sure you'll ignore any further attempts at introducing oddities like logic and realism into this discussion, so I'll leave you to enjoy the rest of your flight into Howard's fantasyland.
But the child may not walk into a radio station and review the book over the air by reading excerpts that include those 'indecent' words.
A twofer! Wrong not once, but twice - on your only two attempts at a point! That child (clearly we are talking about Howard here, huh?) can most certainly do exactly what you say. No one is going to put that child in prison for those actions (as is not at all uncommon in places like Russia, Ukraine, China, Cuba, etc) nor are the police even likely to "investigate."
Fining the licenseholder for their actions is not censorship. Fact is, until recently (when the fines were raised substantially) those fines were simply regarded by these corporate outlets as one more cost of doing business.
Censorship is when they are silenced. Censorship would be something like... refusing to renew station licenses over programming content in the absence of community complaints. In any market where Howard plays, however, this is altogether unlikely and the FCC probably could produce a whole stack of complaints submitted by outraged community members. If you really want someone to blame, blame embarrassments like the wild man of Tupelo. Thus, when "the people" get on a rallying cry and rebuke someone for their offense, it is the FCC's responsibility to act in the appropriate manner. If their action is wrong, that's what we have courts for.
I normally wouldnt reply to a troll like this, but honestly, i saw this whole story as an attempt to get an anti-bush site viewed (ie. why not just link to the mp3 directly rather than to all the bush hating) so i put up a mirror for everyone and posted just the mp3 (i wouldnt mirror the rest of the junk as it had nothing to do with the story). Funny how it went from +5 informative to 1 overrated so fast, and this idiot gets moderated interesting... he didnt read that i'm not canadian, that i dont really care between Bush or Kerry, and just repeats teh same drivel heard over and over again... boo to you slashdot moderators, i'm really disappointed in you...
drunk chemists
It was Democrats from the South, not Republicans who passed Jim Crow laws and voted against the Civil Rights Acts. Democrats didn't loose the south until the 1990s. The 14-16th Ammendments were supposed to make blacks equal under the law and were passed post-civil-war, not during the 1960s. The reason Democrats get credit for black civil rights is because a Democratic president signed the 1964 Civil Rights Act (with heavy opposition from many in his own party.) (It never would have passed without the support of the minority party in congress (republicans)).
----- Question authority, but not ours. Hate the man, but we're not him.
Married women (30-65) tend to vote more Republican and more more likely to be "prolife". Single women of that age group are much more likely to be "prochoice" and vote for Democrats. Of course the numbers fluxuate with different candidates, but that is the general lay of the land.
----- Question authority, but not ours. Hate the man, but we're not him.
The FCC responds on a case by case basis, just as the courts are asked to do. They respond case by case because their job is to help the community maintain standards local to the community. This is nothing new, it's not something that started with Powell. Yellow journalism has always been profitable, all that's new is Howard has become the poster boy for the profitability of idiocy.
> So is DirecTV. And they sure as hell show hardcore porn on there.
They do? I've been afraid to spend $6.99 to buy one of those channels on DirecTV for fear of getting stuck with softcore. Are there some of each? Which are which?
Amazing! Most infants of less than 24 hours in the world cannot even sit upright, much less attempt cogent sentences at a keyboard!
Because of the tone of your post, I will not continue this dialogue. If you want to communicate your thoughts to people, you'll be better received by not calling them infants. Why don't you go berate the folks at the National Review for their opposition of the FCC? Start off by calling William F. Buckley an infant and see how seriously they'll take you.
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
Hmmm, actually, in California, citizens can create laws and frequently do. All they need to do is get 1 million signatures and it's on the ballot no matter how crazy. Maybe we need something similar at a national level
*This message is from a long time Opie and Anthony fan so it may seem biased, but iIfeel its true and my prediction on how this may turn out* Ever since Opie and Anthony came to WNEW radio, Stern has been censoring them.(Infinity owns both WXRK and WNEW) He told Mel Karmizin to prevent them from mentioning his name or any subtle reference to him. They had to listen because obviously Stern is the bigger name and has more power over the company. When they were fired, he than started attacking them by name. This showed a lack balls on his part by kicking them when they were down. During their hiatus, the Super Bowl debacle happened and the FCC began cracking down in indecency. Stern was the obvious target when he was thrown off of Clear Channel. He began his crusade as a "freedom fighter" for free speech. He began supporting Kerry and making himself out to be a martyr of President Bush's "moral crusade" Opie and Anthony than signed with XM radio I think some time in June or July of 2004. They came on XM on October 4, a few days after, the announcement that Stern was going to Serius for a 500,000 million (yes MILLION) dollar contract beginning in 2006. On his show he is making himself out to be the "innovator" and even saying he will be the first jock of his kind to be on satellite radio. [that's the Jock end of it, now ill get into the companies] Serius and XM are the two big players in the satellite market. Serius has a series of radios that must be mounted to a dashboard with screws and is very large compared to the XM radio. Serius sighed a contract with the NFL to play all their games and XM signed MLB. Now think of it in this way, the NFL is mainly played on Sundays, a time when most people do not have work and are home to watch the games. Baseball is played everyday of the week, and is a lot more radio friendly due to its slower pace. XM yesterday announced a walkman like radio about the size of an iPod. Serius is supposed to announce a walkman like radio, but rumor has it that it will require a backpack to carry around the satellite receiver. Ok that's my little rant about the two companies and their business dealings, But my main argument is that Stern will not only be bringing himself down by constantly making himself out to be a free speech martyr, but he will be bringing down Serius radio for their overinvestment in him. He will turn into a modern day Lenny Bruce, but with out the actual title of being a martyr, just a man way passed his prime and the reasoning for a company to collapse. [and isn't a 55 year old man talking about lesbians and hot girls a little creepy???]
"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro"
Heh.
There are pretty much 3 "groups" of channels.
One is Playboy. Don't bother, either subscribe or skip it. It's fun to watch, and pretty sexy, something you could watch as a couple. The nightcalls and the reality series are fun to watch.
One is the softcore Spice channel. Not really impressive for anyone. Boring.
Then, there's the three other channels that are Spice-related. You know, the ones that you buy one, and you get all three (for 3 hours or whatever). They are relatively hard core. I've never seen anything extreme on them (no anal, bondage, hot wax, or midgets), but they do have pretty quality sex, on at least one of them. That's the thing, though. Buy, and expect to flip between the three of them in order to find the one that's acceptable to watch.
(I crashed with a friend for a week or two, and he had ill-gotten complete direct tv)
No, can't say that I have. Certainly not in a perjoritive manner, anyway. I'm not in the least concerned with other people's sexuality until/unless they insist on forcing me to deal with it after I've politely declined. Which has never happened - straight or not, every person I've ever met that I wasn't up for has responded well to a polite "that's very flattering, but I'm in a committed relationship." From the standpoint of a straight guy, which I definitely am, the more gay fellows there are, the less competition for straight females there is for me. Why would I object, or try to make their lives more difficult in any way? That'd be stupid.
Now, I think (unless you'd care to point out something subtle that snuck past my conciousness) that the only thing that remotely resembles "bigotry" that you can find in that post is showing as a presumption that religionists are pushy idiots who think I ought to behave as they think they are supposed to behave. If that was what you detected, and you think that's bigoted, then yes indeed, I am bigoted, and not of the opinion this is a bad thing. Personally, I don't call it bigotry, because it is a real reaction to real things they do that screw up my life and people's lives around me.
Speaking to Christians: If you want to worship (whatever), that's fine. I don't care. I really, really, don't. However...
As soon as you put "in god we trust" on my money, and then tell me I can't use an alternative lacking your religious incantations, you're in my face. As soon as you put me in a courtroom and trust me more if I swear with my hand on what I consider to be a book of pure (and not very well written) fiction, you're in my face. As soon as you insist on prayer in the venue where the laws are made that affect my life, you're in my face. As soon as you make churches tax-free, while I have to pay, yet both the church and I have access to the same taxpayer funded services (or worse, the church gets more), you're in my face. As soon as "public service" means that a radio station gets credit Sunday morning for putting reams of dreary Christian mythology on the air, but not for putting a show on about Wicca or the history of rock and roll, you're in my face. As soon as I need medicine for my sweetheart's diabetes, but the pharmacy is closed because blue laws say they can't operate on Sunday, you're in my face. For that matter, if I want a bottle of scotch on Sunday and I can't buy it, you're still in my face (even though I don't drink.) As soon as you try to teach "Creation Science" (an oxymoron if there ever was one) to my kids, you're in my face. When you say that looking at naked chicks is bad, or sexuality on television is bad, you're in my face. Censorship in general is in my face no matter what you're censoring, because I truly believe that I'd rather know what the other person is wanting to say, watch and do than have them smoldering in a corner because some religious twit doesn't know how to parent and can't be bothered to manage television as it needs to be managed (because it is full of violence, lies and cultural dreck... it'd be funny that explicit sexuality isn't allowed, if it weren't so sad that explicit violence is - what a great message, eh?)
Get it? I'm not imagining this, these are real actions with real effects perpetrated by religionists, specifically Christian religionists, and my reaction is a straight-laced human reaction to these people screwing with my life in very real and very annoying ways. Stop screwing with my life, and I'll leave the subject of your beliefs and worship completely alone. Do you see me complaining about Astrologers? No? Why do you think that is? Because they never get in my face! I am no more interested in Astrology than I am in gay sex, but like gays, astrologically inclined people back right off if you answer "maternity ward" to th
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Now, if you think that paying for something exempts it from censorship, you're quite wrong. Not only is that not definitive, government censorship comes at many levels - for instance, New York City has recently enacted some laws that caused quite a furor down in one porn shop area. And some clever workarounds. Also, if you think that because the FCC has no regulatory authority today, it won't have same tomorrow, then you really don't understand how the system works, and you should definitely learn.
Now, you want to speak technically. Ok, let's speak technically. The constitution (amendment 8) says that "shall not... ...nor excessive fines imposed" which is perfectly clear, at least to me. The FCC just fined clear channel about half a million dollars because Mr. Stern said, or did, something they didn't approve of. I don't know what it was - I don't follow his show, I'm not a fan. Doesn't matter anyway. So apparently, one of the abilities of the FCC that you weren't aware of is to redefine "excessive" as "anything we flipping well want it to be." Interesting technical legal issue, not so? Looks like the FCC has all the room it cares to take, right down to the legal "metal", as it turns out. Exactly like the rest of the government, I should add here, just to be complete.
Finally, one of my key points, which I think you missed, was that some kid carrying a boombox emitting XM (for instance, XM41 or XM48) can be heard at a fair distance by anyone. Fuck, shit, scatologial humor and raw sexuality a-plenty pour out of these boomboxes constantly. Delphi has sold lots of boomboxes. You think this won't get under some Christian grandmother's skin at some point and work its way up the ladder to religionist suckups like Powell? It will - you can absolutely count on it. When it does, there will be a watershed event and Mr. Stern and company will (very) likely rue the day.
My previous post was about a reasonable way to run the FCC, and sounding a warning note that satellite will, in my opinion, likely be censored. I understand that today, right now, the FCC doesn't have legislation to empower it to censor satellite radio. I would only note that a few years ago, the police couldn't search without a warrant, either. Nothing "cannot happen" with regard to US law. They're just working on figuring out how to make it happen.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Then you use this utterly imaginary issue to call into question whether they'd be listening to services like XM and Sirious. Even though I clearly spelled out means for them to "receive" no matter if they wanted to, or owned the hardware, or not.
As an argumentative tactic, this is about third grade level. Maybe second. The "Frankly, you seem more like someone who hasn't gotten out much" sally was just.... well, pitiful. But if you go back, re-read my original message, and try to respond to what I actually said, instead of some imaginary junk your fevered brain has handed you, I'll respond.
In reductionist terms, I said that the FCC should operate within the limits of controlling station interference with each other, and I laid out my rationale as to why I think that censorship for satellite radio is essentially inevitable.
Think you can respond sanely to those issues? Why not try? After all, you're posting anonymously. No one will know who you are if you do fail. Again.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
I am under the impression it cannot, but am perfectly willing to learn otherwise.
The feds have another little tactic they like to use when a state does something they don't like - they withhold things like money to build roads. If California can make law that does trump federal law, do the citizens and the state government have the stones to withstand the financial pressure the feds can bring to bear?
California is such an interesting place. :)
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
No, California can't trump federal law. Which is why I suggested that it might be nice if there was a similar system for the federal law so regular people could propose new laws. I'm not hopeful it will happen though.
Of course even in California, a new law can be declared un-constitutional by the california supreme court
I seem to remember an interview or something with Matt Stone and Trey Parker in which they say that if South Park were not on basic cable, but on HBO or something, that it would not have been fun (for them) and most likely would not have been successful, because there would have been no challenge to push the limits of what was acceptable. No reaction of "I can't believe they're doing that on TV". Opie and Anthony said something similar in an interview on the Sean Hannity show regarding their move to XM Radio.
Howard Stern has been pushing the limits his entire career. That's what made him popular, and that's what made him famous. If he's on satellite radio, what limits will he be pushing exactly? What will be the point of his show? Personally, I think it's career suicide. Then again, I also don't find his show funny or interesting, so maybe I'm missing something.
* An average person, applying contemporary community standards, must find that the material, as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest;
* The material must depict or describe, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by applicable law; and
* The material, taken as a whole, must lack serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.
*---CUT HERE---*
Taken as a whole, Stern show is not obscene based on point 3.
But the fact that this is a touchy-feely open to interpretation means that there really are no standards.
This is a fig-leaf to allow the FCC to do anything they damned well please anytime they want.
And that's what they're doing.
Time for Colin Powell Jr. to go.
He's for censorship.
He's for limiting your fair-use rights on TV and Radio
He's gives away billions of dollars to corporate interest in spectrum giveaways
In any kind of civilizaed place, the guy would be in jail.
"Its a judgement call by the commission and I doubt that they ever get it perfect. But whether the commission will lean towards the conservative or liberal side of the fence will likely depend on things like voters."
Its a *judgement call*?
What does that mean? Its based on mood? The weather, or weather or not a particular entertainer just *pisses them off*?
The FCC as a whole now has:
1) A judgement call on censorship on the air
2) This censorship is based on an average person's feeling of indecency
3) But the FCC uses commissioners who are by definition not "average people" (although I argue they are less than average)
4) They have no methodology for determining what this mythical average person wants
5) They apply these standards arbitrarily
6) If there were actual rules, then they wouldn't need to make judgement calls
7) These judgements depend a lot on the commissioner's mood that morning
And then you bring up the political aspects of what voters want? How is this even applicable given the FCC's rules for obscenity?
You seem like an FCC apologist for capricious and arbitrary rulings.
Maybe you should back to how to screw the American public with another "broadcast flag" fiasco.
I hope all you buffoons over at the FCC get a horrible wasting disease and die, taking your life savings to pay for it.
If Stern were saying anything of any political, social, moral or scientific value, and felt the need to express his idea's in terms of anal sphyncters (or whatever his favorite topic of the day is), I'd stand up and agree he is being opressed.
In fact, every time I've listened, he's just mouthing off and trying to say the most offensive, disgusting thing he can think of at the time, just so he can get ratings. I listened to him all the time in college, even his "intellectual" topics were usually puddle deep.
He's hired to get people to listen, he's quite good at that. Much like corporate evil we otherwise dislike around here, he's willing to do anything at all to make money.
I didn't immediately notice that you responded to hate-speech and campaign finance reform, two real infringements on Constitutional rights, while your complaints about religion are largely illusory. Way to not answer.
Potato chips are a by-yourself food.
IANAL, just a citizen.
2 simple words which describe one way we can deal with bad law.
Jury Nullification
Despite the line you are fed about how you can only consider the facts of the case and not the law itself, a jury can ALWAYS acquit for any reason they damn well please. See http://www.friesian.com/nullif.htm for at least one take. AFAIK, the higher courts have not changed their stance on this, although several lower courts have tried to fight this concept.
"Pulling together is the aim of despotism and tyranny! Free men pull in all sorts of directions" -- Havelock Vetinari
Tip for you: When you don't know what to say, say nothing. If you say nothing, people might simply wonder about your thoughts on a particular matter. If you emit writings like the above quoted content, people will know the bounds of your reasoning ability immediately. Just leave 'em guessing. This stuff is archived forever, you know. :)
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Your loss. It was excellently done, whereas yours just makes you looks like a moron putting his hand over his ears and going "lalalalalallala I can't hear your lallalalalala."
Freedom of speech has nothing to do with how much you like what the person is saying, or how much value you think it has. No one forces you to read a book, and no one forces you to listen to a radio show.
No artist tolerates reality. -- Nietzsche
At first I thought it would be just about van Eck phreaking, which i did know about, but the additional information was also informative. Especially the software protection from van Eck phreaking. Nice to know we don't need Morse-code-blinking LEDs to protect against those kind of attacks.
Si la vida me da palo, yo la voy a soportar Si la vida me da palo, yo la voy a espabilar