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FCC to Fine Curses More Than Nuke Violations
DiZNoG writes "With Congress debating new higher fines for broadcast indecency in the wake
of last year's 'wardrobe malfunction' and Howard Stern's antics, Rolling
Stone has published
an interesting perspective on things. Rolling Stone did a review of fines
levied by other federal regulatory bodies, and has found the new indecency fines
disproportionately large compared to other fines. According to the article,
if the bill passes then 'for the price of Janet Jackson's 'wardrobe malfunction'
during the Super Bowl, you could cause the wrongful death of an elderly patient
in a nursing home and still have enough money left to create dangerous mishaps
at two nuclear reactors.' The article further states the largest fine the
Nuclear Regulatory Commission levied last year was $60,000, this new bill would
allow broadcast indecency fines up to $500,000. Glad I keep my broadcast cursing
to a minimum, now if I could only get a handle on those pesky dangerous nuclear
mishaps."
Shit
piss
fuck
cunt
cocksucker
motherfucker
Lots of people see and hear things they term "indecent" when those things are broadcast over TV or radio.
And that results in lots of letters to Senators, Congressman, and the FCC.
It's democracy in action. Otherwise known as the tyranny of the masses.
Isn't wrongfully causing a death the same as murder?
What do you call the person who graduated last from medical school?
Doctor!
I have always thought most of the sentences handed down for drug crimes are completely out of whack as well. People convicted of marijuana possession seem to get more time than ones convicted of, what seems to me anyway, far more serious crimes. So why should fines being handed down by two separate departments make much sense when compared.
They compared the two because they're both government organizations, and as a demonstration of how simply stupid the bill is.
from the punishment-fits-the-crime dept.
You mean the punishment-fits-the-bra dept.? I think this says a lot, though, about the hypocrisy of our country--we bomb others who have nukes, we punish nuclear gaffes for a lot, but we allow violence over sex and must punish boob-revelations and the like for 4* as much? *sigh*...I apologize, I just still don't get it.
You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
The entertainment industry brings in far more capital than a powerstation does.
This is just an example of proportionate fines. Like charging a person for speeding based on their income. Why should someone not fear the penalty if they can easily afford the fine? I see no problem with this practice.
0110100100100000011000010110110100100000011000100
Playboy magazine had an article some years back during the war on drugs (boy, I'm glad we killed all those drugs and only have partially nude pop stars and terrorists to deal with) comparing typical prison sentences for murder and rape vs. selling LSD to an undercover cop. Guess who the government thinks is more dangerous --- as measured by length of time served?
The best thing WE can do is to contact the FCC and let them know that we disagree (yes, use the American Family Association's website against them). The bulk of the feedback they get tells them that showing a naked breast on TV or speaking a certain word is the most horrific thing that could happen to the populus.
-S
--- What parts of "shall make no law", "shall not be infringed", and "shall not be violated" don't you understand?
Well if fines for indecency are going up in price then so should fines for the other "more serious" matters. A company that has a nuclear accident through negligence (just one example) should not be $60,000 --- it should be more like $6,000,000.
smile, it makes everyone else wonder what you're up to
...this is an indication that those responsible for nuclear reactors have their act together to a greater extent than the media.
It just goes to show you where our (since I live in the US) priorities are.
We are a puritanical society.
When it comes to sex, language, drugs, and violence, the US will always favor violence over sex and language any day.
Violence directly helps the NRA & gun lobbyists.
Drugs directly help the pharmaceutical companies.
You don't see Hugh Heffner making big contributions to campaigns do you? Or the porn industry in general.
Ergo, there's no money in sex as far as politicians are concerned (other than paying for it.)
Even methamphetamines help the pharmaceutical companies. Who do you think makes methadone?
As for the nukes... well, our religious leaders yearn for all our children to be born in nuclear families. What do you expect?
The article mistakenly compares the proposed maximum fine of $500,000 to the largest fine actually levied by the NRC last year. What they should have told us was how the NRC's maximum fine compares to the FCC's maximum.
"Look out honey, 'cause I'm using technology" -- Search and Destroy -- Iggy Pop
$500,000 is a lot to you and me. But it's not a HUGE sum of money to a broadcast corporation.
It's like, if the only punishment for speeding was a $50 fine... It would probably still keep me from doing it, because I'm a poor bastard, but Bill Gates in his V12 armchair wouldn't care, because to him, $50 is well worth the enjoyment derived from driving fast.
And the nuclear thing... So what if that was the biggest fine issued last year... Maybe there weren't any violation deserving of their bigger fines.
You're joking, right? I don't think our country can easily afford to have our own special Chernobyl.
Safety issues should be part of doing business for a nuclear powerplant. If a power station can't compete with other energy sources and maintain safety, perhaps they shouldn't be doing business at all.
Congress makes the law and determines the possible min and max fines for various violations. Congress decides what a maximum fine for a nuke violation will be and what a maximum fine for a indecency violation will be. In many cases, the fine levels were set decades ago and have not been updated.
The regulatory body (like FCC or NRC) simply looks at the particular instance of violation and decides where it falls in the spectrum set by Congress.
So if you have a beef with how Congress decides to make a law, you have two options. Persuade your current congressman to support new legislation now, or failing that show up at the polls November 2006 to elect one who will.
Maybe the American government should stop trying to solve problems through money. AOL-Time-Warner or whoever can easily afford $500,000, just the same as they can afford $500. It doesn't affect them, they'll find a way to make up the losses from share holders.
StrayByte.Net
The please provide a link to the rules so people know what is and isn't allowed.
Showing a breast on national TV... $500,000
Killing an elderly person...$100,000
Screwing up at a nuclear power plant...$60,000
Running a red light...$250.00
Getting your story posted to Slashdot...Priceless
If "disco" means "I learn" in Latin, does "discothèque" mean "I learn technology"?
There's a nice unbiased source of information if I've ever seen one . If we're going to start using sources like this, shouldn't these topics be on politics./.org?
In Soviet Russia, Chuck Norris will still kick your ass.
... they'd be fucking loaded, a single 30 minute show would net them about $20m, the fines would soon equate to the combined GDP of all the third-world nations combined. US guests are sometimes amazed with what's being said, Jonathan Ross seems to faze them most... imagine Stern doing the Letterman at 8pm primetime on the biggest network... saying whatever he fucking likes and without no bloody adverts!
I thought it odd that Radio 1 now says during certain shows "this show contains strong language, if you easily offended please turn off your radio, if NOT please turn it up!"... now that's unreasonable, they just to do all that without warning or apology before, it's a bloody outrage... cunts.
Much as I loathe some of the stupid things the FCC does, and makes broadcasters do, they're not the ones to blame here.
Congress is pushing the stepped-up enforcement.
Congress is responsible for the raise in fines.
If you've got a problem with this, write your two senators, and representative.
Furthermore, there is one group who are responsible for 99.9% of the FCC indecency complaints. Perhaps there's a problem not with the government, but with some ninnies who have nothing better to do than worry about what people are watching on TV, or listening to on the radio.
(Yes, I am a broadcaster, no I'm not speaking on behalf of my employer, yadda, yadda, yadda).
I'm not religious. But I'm right. :-P
I still kept Kerry out of the W-house.
Why is anything that a left-winger or European (Ha!) disagrees with immediately decided to be the workings of the mystical "religious right"? None of my family is religious. But none of us voted for Kerry. Are we just seriously fucked up then? On top of that, since when is being religious a bad thing?
I think the think general idea is that the broadcasters, the studios, etc., have a lot more money than some of the other federal agencies.
Really the entertainment industry, while it is very in our faces and seems to be a dominant industry, is chump change in the overall financial world.
Regarding the deterrent factor, most, or many, nuclear power plants are privately owned and operated. While they are heavily regulated, ultimately it can be hugely beneficial for them to skirt a few regulatory corners wherever possible, and it can mean tens of millions of dollars in saved expenses. In the environmental realm, huge mega companies reaping in billions save millions skirting environmental laws, and again the federally mandated punishment is usually laughable.
Ultimately the FCC fines are all about one single thing - placating the bible belt. There's a bitter paradox that TV can be full of crime and brutal violence, just so long as you don't show a boob or utter a profanity.
No, they compared the two because it was an easy way to play with statistics and obtain hyperbole out the other end. You can use the exact same rationale to determine that one Peyton Manning is, as a human being, worth about 500 waitresses.
One of the people on the FCC who keeps pushing for these fines is a Democrat. Not that the facts matter in your little rant as you forget all the laws that Liberman has supported. It is much easier to just blame one side, when both are guilty I mean we can't hold OUR SIDE to the same rules as the BAD GUYS, now can we?
After all, you can for copyright infrigement and redistribution (aka, copying bits and bytes when not authorised) get a stiffer penalty and prison stay than , say, when doing a rape or killing somebody.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
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visit randi.org
Perhaps more like the tyranny of the conservative-supported Parent's Television Council, which makes between 21-99% of complaints against TV indecency.
I do agree with their unsuccessful "'a la carte' programming option" plan though; hopefully soon I won't have to pay for a bunch of channels I don't need.
You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
XM does use the public airwaves.
True, but the broadcast isn't open to the public. That said, XM might very well be regulated (as strictly as FM) one day, and probably should be.
I'm sorry but doling out fines based on capitol that a company or an agency is total crap. So with that logic lets say a local mom and pop pharmacy accidentally gives out the wrong prescription. We should fine them only $1000, but if Walmart does the same thing well they are a big company and they should get fined 1 million. What needs to happen is the government takes a hard look at finable offenses across the boards and does a total revamp based on severity/consequences of actions or inactions.
News Reporters Make Tasty Polar Bear Treats!
Wasn't Stern going to Sirius, not XM?
Fines are a deterrent to bad behaviour. Sure, the "average" nuclear accident might be small and non-lethal, but if the fines aren't large, there's no incentive to keep standards high to prevent a huge accident. If a bad nuclear accident was to happen, the total cost on the environment and human lives would be far greater than what one TV or Radio show was worth or could affect.
In the UK the price of a human life is about 5 years in prison, maybe let off to 3 years with good behaviour. But rob a bank (i.e. go against the state) you will be looking at a minimum of 25 years in prison.
Same sort of story there.. You get less time if you actually commit a crime and steal a cd then if you commit a copyright violation and copy the same thing.
Its all about who has more money..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Michael Powell (son of Colin Powell) was appointed as chairman by GW Bush in his first term, though he was made a commisioner of the FCC (but not chariman) by Clinton.
Michael K. Powell is Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission. Chairman Powell was nominated by President William J. Clinton to a Republican seat on the Commission, and was sworn in on November 3, 1997. He was designated chairman by President George W. Bush on January 22, 2001.
a phy.html
http://www.fcc.gov/commissioners/powell/mkp_biogr
Don't be so quick to blame things on those who oppose your views.
I wonder how much it would cost to broadcast Eric Idle's FCC Song after this...
You're right. XM is the name of the Company, not the band, I keep getting confused on that one.
...
Profit!
It would be cool if it didn't suck.
Make sure the FCC knows you want them to keep their grubby paws of satellite radio. The religious right are coming after satellite radio as well.
And it gets worse. The terresterial broadcasters are now saying that they won't be able to compete against satellite unless the FCC levies the same restrictions against satellite that they do on regular radio.
I'm a very happy XM subscriber and I'd hate to think that they might get sucked into this rediculous quagmire as well.
-S
--- What parts of "shall make no law", "shall not be infringed", and "shall not be violated" don't you understand?
That's a strong statement, very interesting. Can you point to some references to back it up? Would be intriguing to see these stats, plus some other crime ones for the UK.
So with that logic lets say a local mom and pop pharmacy accidentally gives out the wrong prescription. We should fine them only $1000, but if Walmart does the same thing well they are a big company and they should get fined 1 million.
I don't see what would be so horrible about that, but you've pointed out an even bigger difference between the two. What the broadcasting companies are doing is intentional (if not directly then via the doctrine of respondent emptor).
Indeed. I thought fines were supposed to be a punishment. What kind of punishment is it if the fine is only 0.5% of your annual income? For me, that would be a fine of $50. Do you think that would stop me from doing anything that would get me $500?
Both of the "sides" you mention are "the BAD GUYS". Not everyone in America buys the myth that Democrats and Republicans are our only choices. Some of us are Greens. Others are Libertarians.
We vote with our conscience because we cannot stomach the neo-fascist posturing and legislating done by Bush, Ashcroft, Cheny, Kerry, Liberman, Clinton, etc.
"Your admirers in the street
Got to hoot and stamp their feet
in the heat from your physique" -King Crimson
I say we build a power plant next to the FCC offices and eliminate NRC fines altogether.
This year sucked BAD! The game sucked, the comercials sucked, the half-time show sucked... and I blame it all on her wrinkled old tit.
The use of curses has always been a freedom taken for granted by most geeks on Unix systems. Next thing you know they'll be going after CUPS as well.
:-)
Oh! You mean those #*&@%ing curses. Well, I better look out when the feds start spying on my WiFi network
I think for me, it's about risk. The risk of my heart going into defib due to looking at Janet Jackson's nipples is pretty small. The risk of a nuclear accident causing death, cancer, and birth defects is somewhere above that.
I also tend to feel that just because something didn't happen yet doesn't mean it's not going to happen in the future.
Finally, I'm not anti-nuclear power by any means. France has done a great job keeping it clean and safe over the years. I also feel that the cost of coal and oil powerplants don't reflect their true cost in pollution, deaths from respiratory disease, and contribution to global climate change.
Because it, by and large, is.
Yay.
Boo.
You may be suffering from the "'Mrrica are teh great" syndrome.
Since the first guy who couldn't explain a lightning bolt decided it had to be some m4d 1337 invisible guy tossing those around as punishment for getting into other people's preserved mammoth.
That being said, would you like to buy a flower to benefit our temple?
Marxist evolution is just N generations away!
The broadcasting companies and the on-air personalities are not necessarily intentionally breaking FCC rules. Now there are people like Howard Stern who push the limit and go over knowingly, but in their defense the FCC does not clearly define what is allowed and disallowed. (A good example of this is that some DJ's are afraid to even make fart sounds on air because it may be deemed offensive). The FCC should come down and make a very clear ruling on what they consider offensive and what is finable and what is not. Also the broadcasting companies are also fined if the callers use inappropriate language or say something offensive on the air. (Yes there is a delay button, but if the caller is persistent then they can get around the delay because it has to reset.)
News Reporters Make Tasty Polar Bear Treats!
If you want a comparison between the US and the UK take on the whole Boobsgate incident just take a look at the BBC news website every time the whole thing gets another airing (no pun intended!). They will, without doubt, put a picture in the story of said exposed breast. Every time they do it in a story regarding the fine or the 'outrage' they reall y do seem to be saying 'hey guys, c'mon! It's just a breast for goodness sake. Look around you at the world you are living in. Is it really worth making such a fuss about?!'
:)
It's things like this that make me appreciate the BBC all the more
RikF
The fine is intended to hurt just enough to keep them from doing it again. If Wal-Mart can soak up a $1000 fine, but still save more by not changing their policies and procedure then the fine did nothing at all. Mom and pop will probably be hurting after the fine and try their best to make sure it doesn't happen again.
DVD players and computers giving off radio signals don't significantly impair our radio waves. And even then, regulating language wouldn't make any sense, because people don't regularly interpret those signals. The FCC does regulate your DVD player and computer. But they don't regulate what language gets transmitted by them, because the transmission of language is unintentional.
Even ignoring the TEMPEST issue, if XM can and should be regulated as strictly as FM then why shouldn't the internet be regulated that way as well.
Because the internet is a private resource. The cables carrying the content are privately owned (I suppose there are some public portions, and to that extent the government could presumably regulate the communications going over them, but if that happened it would be trivial to route around them).
I don't know how wide the band is for XM/Sirius, so maybe there's enough to go around. There certainly isn't very much contention for the band compared to FM, which in many cities is essentially full, and that's probably why the FCC hasn't regulated it as strictly.
this would be the case if networks were violating obscenity regulations intentionally, thinking "eh, we'll swallow the fines, the ratings will be worth it" This hasn't happened yet. If it did, I would understand raising the fees. As it is, all this has served to do is scare broadcast affiliates away from broadcasting more controversial programing. Most notably, many affiliates refused to show Saving Private Ryan, when it recently aired uncensored on network television.
This is just part of the general corruption of the U.S. government.
From the article: Free expression and First Amendment rights are the real target of this legislation," declared Rep. Bernie Sanders (Ind-Vt.) during the debate over the bill. "This is not what America is about."
A better description is that the real target is anyone who might say things that are not accepted by those who control the government.
Also, large fines for using negative words gets votes from those who think they are superior because of their religion. Such people and their anger are easily manipulated.
The government is being sold to anyone who has the money. Huge amounts of money are being borrowed and transferred to the pockets of those in power. The U.S. government is now far more in debt than ever before: Debt Clock. If you are a U.S. citizen, you are expected to pay. Those who want corruption in the U.S. government want the government to borrow. The corrupters find ways to transfer the money to their pockets.
The origin of the present problems was in the 40s and 50s, when U.S. government leaders made two decisions. It is likely that those in power then did not understand that their decisions would eventually corrupt the entire government. At the time, the decisions seemed logical.
First, the government decided that it could act in other countries in secret. Second, the U.S. government decided it could act in secret to protect U.S. businesses in other countries.
What probably no one realized then was how much that would come to be a corrupting influence on the government. Probably no one realized then how much additional profit big multinational businesses could make by arranging, in secret, for U.S. taxpayers to pay for the security arrangements needed by U.S. multinational businesses.
Soon huge businesses were arguing that the U.S. government should subvert democratically elected leaders, as the government did in Iran in the 70s. Soon U.S. businesses would arrange unfair contracts with corrupt leaders, and when there was a protest, call for U.S. government intervention in the name of patriotism.
That's partly how we got to the present situation, where two men, whose family and business associates and friends have extensive investments in global oil businesses, are president and vice-president of the entire U.S. government, even though there is conflict of interest in such an arrangement.
The nuclear industry doesn't have that many violations outside of an unexpected reactor shutdown in which case it's either the operator's fault for pressing the wrong button or a pump fails and the secondary systems come online and the reactor defaults to shutdown. Other than that, there are NRC personnel at EVERY commercial reactor site that help to ensure compliance. That and the level of training given to personnel at a power plant is far above any other industry I've seen. That and with the entertainment industry, it makes them more money for pushing the envelope while in the nuclear industry, it does quite the opposite.
They're not seperate Congressional oversight. Both are part of and set fines based on laws passed by the Federal government. Do you really think a curse word or a bare breast deserves a fine in excess of killing a person or allowing nuclear radiation to leak?
"On top of that, since when is being religious a bad thing?"
.... I could go on and on.
Since religion was used as an excuse to fly planes into skyscrapers?
Since the Salem Witch trials?
Since it was used as an excuse to enslave and convert native people?
Since the Crusades?
Since it is used as an excuse to mutilate body parts of children?
Since the Inquisition?
Since the latest rash of obviously covered up molestation scandals?
Since the systematic persecution of homosexuals (and other minority groups)?
Since mostly looking the other way during the worlds worst genocide?
Since
When does following a worldview or belief system which is responsible for such acts become ethically and moraly indefensible? Those are some pretty bad things if you ask me. It seems that blind faith in all its many forms, including religion, is a very dangerous thing indeed.
- "Hear that?! The percolations are imminent! Cease your ingress!"
Wasn't that 500,000 a total for the fines of a large number of affiliate stations that carried the boob incident?
A couple of weeks of the Italian equivalents of Saturday Night (Nite?) Live and 11 pm talk shows would cover all expenses for N. Korea, Iran and Syria cleansing.
Only last night, I think I heard at least 10 top-notch curses, then I saw a nice pair of boobs covered only by half-inch dots on the nipples. The girl was in an infant-sized thong, too.
That was all in mainstream network television... Funny thing is, our channels have self-regulated and agreed not to air prophanities or naked bodies before 11 pm. We're protecting the children, here, not the 50-year-olds.
Violating decency rules is intentional. Accidents at nuclear plants are accidents. Accidental deaths at nursing homes are also accidents.
Why shouldn't the punishment for a deliberate action be higher than for an accidental one?
Ah, now you're just blaming what some religious people did on religion itself. I tend to blame the people. Not the religion. The church out here (Which I used to attend) isn't full of people who burn old women, hijack airplanes, or mutilate children.
People can use anything as their cause and taint that cause, but it doesn't necessarily make that cause a bad thing.
The article states the largest fine the Nuclear Regulatory Commission levied last year was $60,000
That doesn't mean that 60,000 is the largest fine possible, it is, perhaps a fine made for some sort of oversight. It may also be a small fine in comparison with the largest fine possible.
Of course, half a million dollars for using the F word is still idiotic. Is that how we instill "morals" in this country? I would hate to see a future similar to "Demolition Man".
They're seperate of any nuclear commission. Why compare the two?
Perhaps you missed the "wronful death" comment...
The FP author compared the two because they both exist as government regulatory agencies, and, in a more abstract sense, they both act to protect the public from what they oversee.
Now, if you consider what they actually protect us from, you'll understand why the fines levied appear vastly disproportionate to the public risk of the violation....
Janet's breast, no public risk ("But think of the kids!" Yeah, the same kids that started life sucking on a pair of the same things) - $550,000 fine.
Three mile island, by comparison, did release quite a bit of radiation into the nearboy Middletown area, and came within half an hour of rendering half of Pennsylvania uninhabitable for the next 20,000 years - $155,000 fine.
Howard stern discusses topics with the maturity of a group of 3rd-grade boys. Fined $495,000 and, on the bigger issue of immature radio hosts, Clear Channel gets whacked for 1.75 MILLION dollars.
The Hanford site in Washington, which had a rather lengthy history of very serious "accidents", releases 25,000 gallons of water contaminated with plutonium in 1997. Fined? $140,625.
Things like THAT leads us to wonder just how far the FCC has its head stuck up its netherregion. "Turn the earth to sand, and still commit no crime", but don't you dare use any colorful four-letter words, or show any perfectly natural humal parts not shared by both genders...
Good for you. Seriously.
Marxist evolution is just N generations away!
The size of the fine should have to do with the severity and impact of the offense and the difficulty of preventing an accident.
If the nuclear power industry is better at following government guidelines, that shows that it is easily possible for the industry to follow government guidelines. Since violations have severe consequences and are then obviously avoidable through proper management, the fines should be more severe, not less so, because an offender not only caused lots of damage, but could have easily prevented it by following common practice.
To highlight that a breast is of more concern in modern day america than nuclear problems.
Bush and Blair ate my sig!
I was talking about the present especially strong corruption.
True, but the FCC is actually a part of the Executive Branch and is therefore ultimately responsible to Bush and his staff. I'm sure Powell knows which way the wind blows.
The problem isn't soley Bush nor is soley Powell. They're just lightning rods because they're easily identifiable. The problem is the whole puritanical attitude of the entire administration. While Bush has real power, in many cases he's also a figure head because one doesn't get elected President of the United States by himself; it's a massive team effort. The Prez is only one person out of many that is guiding this administration and setting priorities. It's reasonable to assume that if Gore had been elected, the FCC's marching orders might have been a bit different.
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To have any fines at all for displaying nipples on television is ridiculous.
Ni, Peng, Neee... Wom!, and Neeeow...Wum...Ping, debate is still continuing on whether or not to ban the word it.
(\_/)
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(> <) to help him achieve world domination.
this would be the case if networks were violating obscenity regulations intentionally, thinking "eh, we'll swallow the fines, the ratings will be worth it" This hasn't happened yet.
Not true. Infinity Brodcasting paid $1.7 million in fines rather than cancel Howard Stern's show or force him to tone it down, because the amount of revenue generated by his show justified the expenditure. When you've got a guy who makes your company millions of dollars by violating FCC regulations, you view the fines as operating costs.
I am Sartre of the Borg. Existence is futile.
I mean, they sound like a snack, man.
bun-fhuinneog agam!
I've always found it hilarious what they actually *beep* out of a British TV show... They can curse all they want, but they can't say: "Oh my G*beep*"
What's in the 'G' word that's so offensive?
The broadcast is open only those those who tune it in. Don't like Stern? Don't listen. It's not like he's standing on your front step shouting cuss words, you have to explictly choose to listen.
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You cannot wash away blood with blood
They're seperate of any nuclear commission. Why compare the two?
Because the relative severity of the punishments meted out gives us a good idea of how seriously those crimes are perceived by the government.
I am Sartre of the Borg. Existence is futile.
Right now, there are pre-broadcast editors at some places who will edit the small time buffer between the live person and the broadcast.
:-)
Get one of these "pre-editors" to mark a spot in the buffer as possibly offensive. An audio mark is played exactly 2 seconds ahead of the offensive word in the broadcast. This causes the stream of new "smart-receivers" to "rot13" the audio or video.
This gives an audio signal (like a doorbell) that can warn people that something is coming and for them to mute their sound, turn away, or otherwise cover their small-minded heads or eyes. If this is done in a consistent manner, new "smart-receivers" could recognize the warning sound and automatically do an audio or video equivalent of rot13 on the signal beginning two seconds from receipt.
Being a country of free-speech this would be the default rather than scrambling the signal and having smart-receivers unscramble it.
Admittedly the use of technology to solve what's fundamentally a morality issuehasn't worked well in solving other morality issues, but it would cause the target group to massively upgrade (be it Pat Robertson branded radios for encoding offensive words or Howard Stern branded radios for decoding them). It would cause a massive upgrade cycle.
*Heh* I can imagine an iPod attachment that plays "uncensored" Howard Stern radio. It could be a very popular plug-in
The broadcasting companies and the on-air personalities are not necessarily intentionally breaking FCC rules. Now there are people like Howard Stern who push the limit and go over knowingly, but in their defense the FCC does not clearly define what is allowed and disallowed.
In the two biggest examples, Stern and Jackson/Timberlake, both are alleged to have acted knowingly. In any case, even if they didn't know they were breaking the rules (and at the least Stern acts in careless disregard for the rules), they still were acting with a higher level of mens rea than something which would be completely accidental. They said/did what they said/did on purpose (in the Jackson/Timberlake they are allegeged to have done it on purpose though they deny it). There are many levels of mens rea, from negligence to recklessness to intentional to knowingly. In the vast majority of cases the broadcasting companies are acting at least recklessly.
The FCC should come down and make a very clear ruling on what they consider offensive and what is finable and what is not.
I believe they don't because this would be a "prior restraint" of free speech and thus unconstitutional. As long as they do it afterwards it isn't a prior restraint. See FCC v. Pacifica Foundation.
Also the broadcasting companies are also fined if the callers use inappropriate language or say something offensive on the air. (Yes there is a delay button, but if the caller is persistent then they can get around the delay because it has to reset.)
A call should be cut off if the station even runs out of delay. In any case, a station wouldn't be fined the maximum for such a simple mistake. We're talking about the maximum fines here.
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. "
'nuff said...
At the bottom of the endless pile of paper work which characterizes all regulation lies a gun.
Alan Greenspan
What's amusing about all this is that ClearChannel has been seen as heavily pro-Bush. But it seems that Bush's "activist FCC" may not be good for business, as they reported a huge one-time loss. That same article reports that their radio business is stagnating. Frank Rich said it best: Basically, FCC regulation is on the upswing, but you get between the people and their "Desperate Housewives" at the risk of your business model.
But religion gives those who would do those things a hotline to people's hearts.
What do you think would fly better:
"I want to ban gay marriage because I don't like them"
"I want to ban gay marriage because it says so in the bible"
There's nothing wrong with religion, but the world would be a much better place if it were not organized.
They can't "regulate" Sirius/XM for the same reason they can't "regular" HBO/Skinamax and a bunch of porn channels on cable TV.
Cable TV uses cables, not airwaves. That's why the FCC can't regulate it. Sirius/XM on the other hand, they are regulated by the FCC.
Do a google search on Davis Besse. Its the nuclear power plant that nearly let their containment vessel rust through.
As for the profitability of power companies versus media companies, First Energy, the owners of Davis Besse and some coal fired power plants cleared $878 million in profits just in the first quarter of 2004, and that was while they were stuggling to repair Davis Besse. Energy companies, thanks to deregulation, a blind eye from the FERC and the Bush administration, and a carefully managed shortage of power can charge as much as they want for electricty.
First Energy's name may sound familiar because they are also suspected to have been responsible for the blackout on the east coast.
Also reference Enron's scam to nearly bankrupt California by artificially inflating the price of electricity. California pled for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to step in since it was obvious Enron was colluding with several other energy traders to extort billions of dollars from Californians for electricty. Their illegal activity, since proven by tapes of their energy traders planning the scam, bankrupted PG&E, hammered California's economy and is still hammering it due to the still high cost of electricity, and of course helped put the Republican's in to the governorship. Now there was a situation where some regulation, fines and criminal charges were called for and to date the Bush administration has done nothing about it, and many suspect were in fact colluding with Enron to commit this gigantic fraud, both to help Enron's profitibility and to force a Democrat Governor out of office.
All in all these fines are just the New Republican Party and the Religious right waging war on New York and Hollywood liberals and striving to inflict their puritanical values on everyone. Meanwhile they are letting their rich friends and big corporate backers rape, loot and pillage the public in order to make handsome profits.
@de_machina
I would hate to see a future similar to "Demolition Man".
Likewise. I never could figure out those three sea shells.
Ah, America - Home of the puritans.
:).
In Denmark we can say anything we want on TV, and we do - i hear the word 'fuck' & 'shit' daily when i watch 'Boogie' a music show for young ppl that runs around 4-6pm. Primettime for the kids to learn new words
And travelling around europe, this is how it works most places, maybe perhaps with the exception of Germany (i wouldent have understood it if they used profanity anyways)
I thought puritans died out with the last victorians - but they just sailed to America it seems, heh.
But seriously, cant you sue the FCC for violating the freedom of speech? It would seem obvious that they are enforcing censorship.
And let's not forget "All restaurants are Taco Bell."
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Here we are in an information age that demands the unrestricted flow of information. Yet all to many people are trying harder than ever to controll the free flow of information. It seems to me that it's just the same poor belief system poping its head up in another ugly way.
You seem to miss the point that media giants are disproportionately wealthy and that $155,000 fine is absolutely nothing in the face of spending $2.7 million for 30 seconds of publicity. Really, a hundred and a half K is enough to tell a reactor manager, "wow, a couple of those and we won't have a reactor to run". Pepsi will spend that money at the drop of a hat. THAT is why the fines are disproportionate.
Yeah, I guess I'm funny like that.
The broadcast is open only those those who tune it in.
There's a difference, but I agree it shouldn't make a difference on the regulation. I suspect the real reason for the difference in regulation is that Sirius/XM are paying a lot more in licensing fees than FM broadcasters. I just looked it up and FM broadcasters only have to pay $500/year. Still haven't found how much Sirius is paying, but if it's anything like the cell phone companies (who also carry private communications), it's a lot more than $500/year.
It's not like he's standing on your front step shouting cuss words, you have to explictly choose to listen.
No more than I have to explicitly choose to download and read spam.
"Chairman Powell was nominated by President William J. Clinton to a Republican seat on the Commission"
Slashdot rule #13: if the government does anything bad, make it degenerate into a republican/democrat mudslinging match.
It the same government folks, no matter which figurehead is trying to run it this year.
It's not that they have more money, it's that the nuclear power plants are all subsidized by the government. Congress has budgeted over 16 Billion for the development and construction of 6 plants by 2014. Substantial private investment in this industry doesn't exist, so the govt pays for it. Now tell me why they don't get fined? Because the govt doesn't fine itself very much, or very often.
"The Hanford site in Washington, which had a rather lengthy history of very serious "accidents", releases 25,000 gallons of water contaminated with plutonium in 1997. Fined? $140,625."
But is that a comment against the FCC or a comment against the Nuclear regulatory authority?
That fine seems to be 100 times too low to me.
If it was $14 million fine, that would be 28 times more serious and much more in proportion to a major industry putting people at risk.
First, MS has reguarly broken the law (criminal and civil) because they will delay having to pay until they have made large profits. Consider how they acted towards Dr-Dos and then paid 1/2 billion (mere pennies for what dr-dos could have made).
The penalties access against a nuke plant, an environmental disaster, or a death at nursing home are also meant as a way of discouring future issues. When Exonn Valdez crashed, Exonn was fined huge. Just recently, there was a major release of oil up there equal in amount to the Valdez. And yet, IIRC, the company is to be fined far less than Exon was.
The real moral of all this: be sure to leave no survivors or just get in good with the admin
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Really, a hundred and a half K is enough to tell a reactor manager, "wow, a couple of those and we won't have a reactor to run".
A couple of those and they won't have quite so many customers eager to soak up that energy, either.
Quantum materiae materietur marmota monax si marmota monax materiam possit materiari?
That might be one factor, but you can't ignore two other big ones. Nuclear power plants have less money, and what they are fined for is accidental, whereas what Howard Stern does is intentional.
Well, I mean, come on. Goverment agencies. Both of them, same government.
OK, apples and oranges you may say, but since these are just words...simple words over the airwaves. Words in and of themselves are harmless. No word has ever physically harmed anyone in the history of mankind. Actions taken by people against or because of words, that's a different matter. But simply seeing a naked boob or refering to that boob as a "tit" on the airwaves means nothing.
But yet, this goverment (granted, two different offices that have nothing to do with each other, but still, under the umbrella of "the goverment") wants to put a fine up to (and when they say "up to" they really are going to use the max for the first couple of slobs that try to challenge this) 500,000 bucks. 500,000 bucks for saying words. That's all they're doing, talking and speaking certain words or certain subjects and getting whacked for half a million PER INCIDENT.
On the flip side, the fines handed out by this same government (see above about both agencies under same government blah blah) to nuclear mishaps, which CAN be deadly, which CAN harm others, is relatively low.
So in essence...you know, I'm not going to sum it up, I mean utlemming, you KNOW all this. You can't seriously not understand this. It's not a red herring (which by the way, is a term that's misused here).
It boils down to this, there shouldn't be ANY fines from the FCC. The FCC should just be there to hand out broadcast license and SHUT THE FUCK UP! If you don't like Howard Stearn or Rush Limbaugh, DON'T LISTEN TO THEM! Case closed. Go change the channel. But no, we have to fine everyone...how DARE they say tit on the radio!
"Leo Fender was in a 'state of grace' when he designed the Stratocaster." -- Paul Reed Smith
While I agree that religion is (thankfully) going out of style, I don't think most of those are fair points. In fact, most of those have more to do with politics than with religion; religion is just used as a scapegoat to avoid the real issues. Or maybe you are just looking at the glass as half empty. Billions upon billions of people over the millenia have been devout believers in one religion or another. While the points you bring up are atrocious, they account for only a very tiny percentage of all worshippers. What you're saying is similar to calling driving stupid because a small percentage of people drive drunk and kill people. Driving in itself is not a bad thing, and neither is religion. It is only when the wrong person becomes involved does shit happen. It is a shame that your comment is modded up, although I would expect nothing less on Slantdot.
While the vast majority of human beings have differing beliefs and viewpoints on almost everything, the one thing that they all have in common is that they believe in or practice a religion. When you don't understand the real reason for something, it is easy to blame religion because it is so widespread and diverse. Maybe the death of religion would be a good thing because it would (hopefully) force us to look at the real issues of the world.
Just looked it up. Sirius payed $83.4 million for its slice of the radio network. XM payed $89.9 million. For all intents and purposes, it is a private resource, not a public one (just like your backyard).
Why does the report compare maximum fines for one violation with levied fines for another? Wouldn't it be more interesting to compare maximum fines with maximum fines. Then we'd have something to talk about. (well,.. some of us) \\Greg
This isn't where the fine is levied...it's aimed at the guy that says the dreaded words over the airwaves. The broadcast corporation get's fined, sure, but the DJ or "on air talent" or whatever you want to call them is also hit with a $500,000 fine. These people, unless your Stern or Limbaugh, don't have that kind of dough. And the fine is per incident. AND the corporations aren't going to let the guy back on the air until he pays the fine...so he's screwed and the FCC and the religious right are all happy because they've "cleaned up the airwaves".
"Leo Fender was in a 'state of grace' when he designed the Stratocaster." -- Paul Reed Smith
Because it gets nuke fetishists like you to consider the government priorities, without dividing it up into the bureaucracy that hides these blatant contradictions in public policy. Would it make more sense to you if we said "you do more time for cracking your online phone bill than for rape", because two different police organizations enforce the laws? Of course not, to you, because those have nothing to do with showing how bad nuclear regulation is.
--
make install -not war
On the other hand, twat should be included. Unlike the othere words, twat has no other meaning.
I'm no fan of homosexuals. However, I can't quite bring myself to say "You can't be married." because I have no satisfying (to me) answer as to why that should be so. There is a moral that has been instilled in me that there is something wrong with homosexuals. If I were religious, I could point to the bible, which is a physical object where one could derive their morals.
To me, religion serves two purposes... it gives someone meaning to life, and it is a source of basic morals.
I am the same as any religious individual who wants to ban gay marriage, except I can't point you to where my morals saying "This is wrong" came from.
The government a LONG time ago got into the act of legislating more than just basic morality. Those morals have to come from somewhere, and for a lot of people, that place is the bible. Whether that's better or worse than anyone else's set of morals, is a moral question, is something that varies from person to person. But in any case...
The FCC is the government's wing of legislating what is morally acceptable and unacceptable to be on public television during (I assume) daylight hours.
The set of morals they use will either be mine, which you find ridiculous, or yours, which I find inappropriate. Morality is typically not something you simply hold for yourself, you want your whole world (country in this case) to be moral.
Is there anything wrong with showing hardcore porn on channel 8 at 11:00am when I used to be getting ready to go to school? What about romantic sex? What about dry humping? What abound fondling? What about talking about it? What about talking about it scientifically? What about talking about love?
You have to draw a line somewhere... Where you draw that line is dictated by your morals, not your logic, though sometimes logic is used in an attempt to justify or disprove someone's morals.
I have forgotten what I was responding to.
Right. XM is the name of the company, not the band. The term I was looking for was "S Band".
You seem to miss the point that media giants are disproportionately wealthy and that $155,000 fine is absolutely nothing in the face of spending $2.7 million for 30 seconds of publicity.
Disproportionately wealthy? Do you have any idea how much money the "energy" industry pulls in? From CNN, "Exxon Mobil, the world's largest publicly traded oil company, just missed $300 billion in sales for the year". By comparison, from the Motley Fool, "Few if any Wall Street watchers believe that AOL Time Warner will make its aggressive $40 billion sales goal and $11 billion EBITDA goal this year". Yeah, I'll agree that seems fairly disproportionate, but I think you have the balance off by just a tad.
Even ignoring how much they make, though, what about how much damage they can cause?. Outraged parents and Christians aside, most otherwise-sane people would agree that a 1.5 second nipple shot doesn't cause all that much "damage" to anyone, not even to uber-horny early-teens males.
On the other side of that, would you consider turning half of PA into an uninhabitable nuclear wasteland as some pretty serious damage? Would you consider Bhopal (not in the US, but the same thing COULD happen here) as something worth some pretty hefty "preventative" fines to avoid?
I thought that was rule number 12? Rule number 13 is "Any large organization is always out to get you."
That's so screwed up.
Even if it was my car I'd settle for a _new_ car + damages + pay for my transport costs (till I get the car), in lieu of jail for him. If I really was pissed off - car had sentimental value etc. I'd just be happy with a max 1 year jail time (coz jail time often means a bigger mark in your record).
I don't see how it benefits anyone to send him to jail for 22 years 8 months. Even the min 7 years is rather long.
If you set fire to 3 people, to me that'll be really different. But 3 SUVs?
While random damage to property should be discouraged, I think the judge is doing a lot more damage than Jeff did to the SUVs and the owners.
If the judge can't tell the difference between the seriousness of damaging cars and directly damaging people, I think the judge should be put in prison to keep the public safe from him.
Because over the past few decades the religious nuts have highjacked the republican party, which used to be a great party...on the same token the tree-huggers and hollywood morons have highjacked the democratic party.
And since you asked, when is being religious a bad thing? I guess by itself it isn't a bad thing...but considering that more people have been killed in the name of God then anything else (go back and look at history...a few examples there), it can spiral out of control to where it IS a bad thing.
But if there is someone out there that is religious and they keep it to themselves and practice it without harming or condemning or judging others, hey, you're my kind of people. Haven't met that person yet though.
"Leo Fender was in a 'state of grace' when he designed the Stratocaster." -- Paul Reed Smith
didn't it come out that ~99%+ of all complaints to the fcc regarding objectionable content are from one special interest group. they are responsible for the staggering growth in complaints over the lastr couple of years which is the ratinale this sudden hike. while i am sure this is costing the fcc dearly to follow-up on the complaints, imho it makes more sense to fine this group for their abuse of the system.
their is a serious definciency in logical thinking in the us today.
sum.zero
To me, religion serves two purposes... it gives someone meaning to life, and it is a source of basic morals.
I can't imagine feeling that a mythology is my only sense of morality. That to me is right up there with consulting a a Superman comic book for guidance whenever you are given the opportunity to do evil. I can't help thinking that most people would find the guy with the well worn Superman comic to be a bit less than sane-n-stable.
Quantum materiae materietur marmota monax si marmota monax materiam possit materiari?
You didn't answer the question at all. The OP asked what's wrong with being religious.
Since religion was used as an excuse to fly planes into skyscrapers?
Religious fanaticism is not "being religious" any more than liking sex makes you a pedophile.
Since the Salem Witch trials? Since it was used as an excuse to enslave and convert native people? Since the Crusades? Since it is used as an excuse to mutilate body parts of children? Since the Inquisition? Since the latest rash of obviously covered up molestation scandals? Since the systematic persecution of homosexuals (and other minority groups)? Since mostly looking the other way during the worlds worst genocide?
Again, this completely avoids the question. Nobody claims that groups of people don't make mistakes. Why would religious groups be any different? Look at the horrors committed under Stalin in the name of atheism... how is that any different--or better?
When you talk about religion you're missing something very important. The word "religion" has two separate definitions: religion as a system of beliefs and religion as an institution, which consists of fallible men. Judging Christians on the basis of immoral actions of the institution of Catholicism is like you accountable for the actions of the United States under George W. Bush.
Are all religions (as systems of beliefs) are equal? No. Obviously some are better than others. And some are undeniably evil. But to group them all into a single group called "religion" and classify it as "morally indefensible" is unfair.
It seems that blind faith in all its many forms, including religion, is a very dangerous thing indeed.
And living in despair without purpose or reason isn't?
-Grym
No, that's rule 14. Rule 13 is "No poofters!"
Quantum materiae materietur marmota monax si marmota monax materiam possit materiari?
I don't remember bring up oil companies, but since they came us, I'm pretty sure I remeber the fine for the Exxon Valdez spill being more that $155,000. Fines proportionate to wealth. It's not perfect, but that's the model.
Yeah, I guess I'm funny like that.
...and check out that stellar typing. And spell check couldn't even save me. I don't remember bringing up oil companies, but since they came up, I'm pretty sure I remember the fine for the Exxon Valdez spill being more that $155,000. Fines proportionate to wealth. It's not perfect, but that's the model.
Yeah, I guess I'm funny like that.
I suppose you're right, there. I'm in in the TV world, so I don't pay much attention to radio. I think it's pretty silly to fine Stern, though. I mean-- the argument for censorship of broadcast television and radio is that, being on our airwaves free for anyone with a reciever, people might be offended by content the FCC deems obscene. These regulations are left over from the days of NBC Red and Blue, when there was no listener choice-- currently, though, there are many coices for the consumer. When someone tunes in to Stern, they know what they're getting.
I understand the fines are meant to keep a lid on how far the shock jocks go, but i think it's time we ask ourselves whether or not the government ought to have the right to decide what too far is for us. Can't the market dictate that? If Stern had gone too far, his advertisers would have withdrawn support.
Take me with a grain of salt, though. Being in Hollywood, I'm probably fairly disconnected with the moral pulse of America.
Nobody claims that groups of people don't make mistakes. Why would religious groups be any different?
Because the true believers think their deity gives the green light for such activity, and that even if the government doesn't sanction it, they're still good with their buddy upstairs and will be rewarded with eternal paradise. That makes these people particularly dangerous.
Bzzzzzt WRONG!
HBO, Skinemax, et al, ALL use airwaves.
You think they run a point-to-point line from HBO to your local catv affiliate?
No, they use... satellites. Any questions, drive past your local provider's main office, and look at all them big dishes in the back.
help me i've cloned myself and can't remember which one I am
Exactly. That extreme disrespect for another government caused many of the problems that came later: History surrounding the U.S. war with Iraq: Four short stories.
The U.S. government's CIA calls the problems caused by their involvement, "blowback". United States taxpayers pay for both the initial involvement and the blowback.
Living in your incredible arrogance is pretty bad. I am agnostic - I do not believe that in the absense of any evidence in either direction that we can make statements about a deity or deities. Of course, many people try to spin scientific discovery (or lack thereof) to suit their own interpretation of the facts but the bottom line is that no one has ever proven or disproven the validity of any religion. To do so would really cheapen the whole thing, because it's not about fact but about faith.
Some people seem to need something to cling to, and there is always a religion around waiting to take advantage of and profit from that particular element of the human condition. In return the religion offers the sheeple a support network and a sense of well-being. Basically every organization exists to fulfill this purpose. The thing I find amusing about religion is that it asks you to accept something unprovable. In other words it operates on the irrational side of existence which makes it particularly attractive to those who are experiencing a life crisis.
However, every time someone engineers some system like this, there are people who are taken advantage of. And, of course, there is stratification. If the goal of Catholicism were as stated, to save souls and help people, then there wouldn't need to be a pope dressed up in gold and silk. You might still have a pope but he could be in an office building for all that matters. The most important realization to come to about religion is that it is not about spirituality when it is wrapped up in complex trappings. It's about control, and the people on top getting what they want. You don't need all that shit to make a statement about spirituality. I'm not sure what's so special about gold and jewels that they should adorn religious icons anyway; they're pretty but most precious metals have only specialty uses. Using them for corrosion protection seems a bit excessive and, well, arrogant.
Even religions which do not amass wealth like the Catholic church are still about controlling people and making them behave in the way the founder(s) desire(d). Do you really need someone else to tell you how to connect with your spiritual self?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Why would not knowing result in you assuming one specific hypothesis is true? You may be a scientist in certain realms of your life, but not in your magical beliefs.
If you look inside yourself and cannot honestly determine the basis for your prejudice against homosexuals, you may want to consider the possibility that you have been brainwashed. I've known some homosexuals, and they generally had the same types of strengths and weaknesses that anyone else has.
Don't forget that dems brought us "PARENTAL ADVISORY: EXPLICIT LYRICS" stickers, too. Both parties are constantly trying to control our thoughts. Dems want us to be PC and reps want us to be good lil' christians. In either case it's to make us easier to control; if the whole fold is on the same side of the field it's easier to line 'em up for shearing.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
That is why profanity is punished--because those in control want to stay in control. Profane political speech can be very moving. By removing profanity from public politics, they make most people apathetic about politics. Which means less people vote. Which is what they want.
eat shiat and bark at the moon
But the article is comparing apples and oranges in one important respect: it's comparing the highest fine actually issued by the NRC last year, to the highest fine allowed for the FCC to issue under the new regulations. That's as deceptive (deliberately or not) as saying "I'm selling these PC cases at $120 each! You might think that's expensive, but just look at my competitor! Items in his store can cost up to $75,000!!" That may be completely technically true -- but it doesn't tell you what the competitor's price on PC cases is, just that there is something you could buy from the competitor which is $75,000.
If people are to respect the law, perhaps the law should begin by respecting the people.
All throughout history tyrannical leaders have been limiting their subjects' access to information in order to keep them productive. It's the mushroom principle: If you keep them in the dark and feed them shit they will grow nonetheless. Then you can consume them. "The Church" used to discourage people from reading the bible, pretty much up until global literacy was a real concern at which point you couldn't stop people any more. Rule #1 of command is to never give an order that won't be followed. Slave owners would punish their slaves for learning to read to prevent them from being able to organize. I'm not sure what's being served by preventing people from seeing a televised breast, but it'll come to me eventually.
Information is power. In the case of copying media illicitly, I guess it's the power to be freed from being a "consumer". You are not a consumer, you are a citizen. You are a person. I'm not sure ultimately how I feel about the morality of copyright laws, though I know that the current system is broken. Just keep in mind that we're discussing the morality and not the legality.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I don't know where you get that idea. A 2GW nuclear site produces 48 million kilowatt hours per day; that's ultimately sold at retail for about $4 million per day, or about $1.5 billion per year.
A few thousand in fines is a drop in the bucket compared to that total revenue.
Excluding the people who disagree, and then saying "everyone agrees" really doesn't tell us much. Not that I don't agree with your basic point, I just think you need to work on your argument a little.
Normally, I would agree - That sentence counts as an invalid argument.
In this case, however, it forms a central theme to the argument... Namely, we CAN disagree on whether or not Janet's nipple actually hurts anyone. We can throw various developmental psych theories back and forth, each supporting our point of view more-or-less equally well.
You can measure radiation levels. You can calculate economic damages based on evacuating and totally closing an area off indefinitely. You can count the dead birds in Alaska.
It strikes me as absurd that we would punish something that some people find vaguely "offensive" at anywhere near the level we would punish an objectively damage-causing act (It actually baffles me that we would punish the former category at all, but that gets into an entirely different topic).
True, my choice of phrasing committed a fallacy. But, IMO, a very revealing fallacy, once corrected.
Playboy has articles written by some fantastic writers, and of course fantastic naked women. I have oftenthought that Playboy should market a second magazine with the same articles, but without the distracting images, that make reading it in public something of an impossibility these days.
I used to have a cool sig, back when I cared
A few of them do think so, yes. Stop making absurd generalizations.
Karma: Segmentation fault (tried to dereference a null post)
While applicant of low pressure to a rooster might be an odd job description, who knows if these people exist, and how much pride they might take in their work?
"I was a cock-teaser for Roosterama. I used to enrage the bantams."
- Firesign Theater
The problem is, if you are using what religious people/institutions did as a way to attack religion, you should look at what atheistic people/institutions did as well.
Remember Stalin? Mao Zedong? Just more than a few notable atheists who have participated in crimes against humanity.
Newsflash: Most doctrines can be abused to support whatever you want to do. Religion doctrine and the lack of religion doctrine can as well. Did Stalin kill millions because he was an atheist? Or did he kill millions because he was an evil man who chose a system of personal philosophy that he could use to justify it?
Any institution of power can be abused. While there isn't many traditional institutions that promote atheism, some 'religions' could be considered atheistic -- most notably, some sects of Buddhism, Confuscianism, and Taoism. Unfortunately, my knowledge of the dogma of the 'Eastern' religions is weak -- so I can't tell you when specific groups did horrible things while not believing in any sort of deities. But I have no doubt that if those institutions had power, some people used that power to abuse others.
Humanity, isn't it great?
Footnote: I don't want to imply that every system of religious philosophy or atheistic philosophy is evil -- there are notable atheists and religious people who have done a great deal of good.
I'm pretty sure the FCC wouldn't approve of that! And I don't think either Letterman or Stern swing that way.
Maybe the show generates that and makes it worth it, maybe it doesn't. The reason Infinity paid those fines is because the FCC was holding up paperwork for licenses when Infinity was trying to buy several radio stations back during the big radio consolidation crunch. Things were being "lost" even though the FCC isn't supposed to be able to do this, and Infinity at the time had plans to contest the fines in court. One might be able to argue that Clear Channel came into such power because the FCC effectively sidelined Infinity at this time, but that's another can of beans.
All these complaints about the FCC and "freedom of expression" on /. are completely bogus. Ask yourself: who's freedom of expression is the FCC curtailing? Yours? No, you are just the boob sitting in front of the tube. You aren't expressing anything. Janet Jackson's? Justin Timberlake's? Howard Stern's? No, they aren't the ones that the FCC is fining.
The FCC is fining corporations, not individuals. Do corporations have a right to freedom of expression? Of course not. They don't even have a right to broadcast. What (a few) corporations do have is a license to broadcast. Licensing of broadcasters is absolutely necessary, because the broadcast spectrum is limited. Licensing broadcasters in a controlled way is what allows broadcast to work in the first place.
You may argue (you corporation-lover you) that, even though licensing is necessary, the FCC should not include regulate content in any way. But the broadcast spectrrum is a public trust, no different that any other public trust. As such, it must be controlled so that the public - the entire public - retains safe and effective use of it. You can not dynamite Mount Rushmore, you cannot erect a sculture in the middle of a highway, and you cannot broadcast just anything you want. "Won't somebody think of the children?" Do you think that it'd be okay to broadcast a cartoon about a team of White Supremicist superheros making the world safe for whitey? Maybe it'd be funny to create a show telling children about the tasty flavors of the cleaners stored under the kitchen sink! Or, since you are a corporate shill and all, maybe you think that all cartoons should be 30 minute ads for toys or cereal with no educational content whatsoever?
Or perhaps you're really shedding all your tears over poor Howard Stern (or Janet Jackson and Justin Timerblake, who will never get another shot at a superbowl half-time show). Well, dry your eyes, bucko - the FCC didn't fine or censor those folks, the corporation did. And that is really the point, isn't it. Because in the end, nobody has ever had the right to say whatever they want on the broadcast channels - the content of the broadcast channel is completely under the control of the corporate licensee! If you don't believe me, try to get a few minutes on the CBS evening news some time based on your "freedom of expression". Good luck! Howard Stern does not and should not have any more rights than you have, so neither of you has a right to be broadcast.
Now what's left over for you to complain about? I suppose there's always the specifics of the FCC regulations themselves. Perhaps you think there should be more ads, or maybe more violence, or more profanity. Good for you! I happen to disagree, but I believe in democracy - let's vote on it.
Oops, too bad. Sorry that didn't work out for you - maybe next time! In the meantime, I feel just awful that there is nowhere you can go to get all the ads and porn that your heart desires. Maybe If we just sit here and think a while, maybe just maybe we can think of somewhere....
"Lord, grant that I may always be right, for Thou knowest that I am hard to turn" -- A Scots-Irish prayer
ohh dear god no!!
...A "nuclear mishap" won't gain the power company more young male viewers.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
How about:
"Homosexuals are mentally defective, and guess who gets a trip to the mental hospital/gulag?"
Worked for more than one (officially atheistic) communist state.
HBO, Skinemax, et al, ALL use airwaves.
You think they run a point-to-point line from HBO to your local catv affiliate?
Of course satellite is regulated completely differently from broadcast. I suppose they technically use airwaves at some point in the process, but it's far from the same thing as broadcast stations, who use airwaves which were given to them specifically for use in the public interest.
Anyone who lets a book, or their spiritual advisor (or their government, for that matter) do their thinking for them is dangerous because they have traded reason for the illusion of safety.
if I shout "Fuck the FCC motherfuckers up their shitty asses with rubber cocks!" on TV or radio?
Does that count as political speech, or would I (and/or the station) get fined?
Entergy Corp- a nuke plant operator 909.5 Million
Clear Channel Communications- a media conglomerate, former owner of Howard Stern 845.8 Million
Right A read an artcile (linked from /. IIRC) that analyzed that if you take out the complaints filed from this SINGLE ORGANIZATION that the number of complaints is barely higher than before the "nipplegate" incident.
http://politics.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/12/ 06/231234&tid=153&tid=219Found it
A 2GW nuclear site produces 48 million kilowatt hours per day; that's ultimately sold at retail for about $4 million per day, or about $1.5 billion per year.
Clearchannel had $9.4 billion in revenue last year. Of course, revenue has nothing to do with net worth. Clearchannel is worth $845 million. I'll leave looking up the net worth of the highest fined nuclear site to you.
you left out mekrob
I'm sorry, wrong number. The market cap of Clearchannel is 18.78 billion. The book value is 14 billion.
Clearchannel is worth slightly more, but I suppose the other factors are more important than how much money the company has.
Here are some more comprehensive numbers, courtesy yahoo finance
Market Capitalization by Industry:
Broadcasting & Cable TV: $503B
Motion Pictures: $24B
Oil & Gas Integrated: $1.6T
Oil & Gas Operations: $437B
Oil Well Services & Equipment: $253B
Natural Gas Utilities: $155B
Electric Utilities: $659B
Because there are only big broadcasters. Or do they make such things precisely to squash small players?
Analogies don't equal equalities, they are merely somewhat analogous.
Religion is the result of the fusion of several social behaviours and which, according to me at least, is part of human evolution (as a social result not a biological feature). One of the more primitive social phenomenon still present in religion being magic, i.e. the imaginary explanation of reality. One aspect of religion, that I think is both paramount and its primary function, is that it teaches the masses lessons without the people actually learning them from their own experience. The "good" thing about it is that people can behave in a sensible way without being sensible themselves. Religion is the most common form that experience has taken to pass on to the next generation. The sensible behaviours that I have already mentioned I ritualised so that a huge amount of individuals can adopt them and benefit from them when their original motivations have been lost for years. But there comes the harmful side of it, if those behaviours are unhistoricised and repeated in a mechanic way, then there is no possibility of adapting them when they are obsolete. The consequence is that religion can be the vehicle of an enormous proportion of useless, if not harmful, attitudes. I suppose that what I am trying to explain will not be clear until I give an example. So let us consider the case of marriage and fidelity a feature which is common to at least all Judeo-Christian religions. We can assume that the original motivation for fidelity is to prevent the spread of VDs. I believe (notice the choice in the term) that it is anterior to religion as we know it today. It is first present in the old testament, VDs being explained by demons and the alleged impurity of the female body, especially "loose women" (see magic explanation). The idea is developed in parallel with the concept of marriage and fidelity, being "good", i.e "God's will", i.e "what you should do, even if you don't know why". As an illustration of the split between ritual behaviour and actual motivation, we can notice that no direct and explicit link between VDs/demons and fidelity is made - to my knowledge. From that point, we can understand how religious "advices" may be misinterpreted, so that instead of thinking that unfaithful people will be punished because demons will possess them, believers come to think they should enact God's will themselves by stoning unfaithful people (generally women). Still in the sexual area and for the same reasons, thousands of years later, when society and technology have evolved so much that VDs can be prevented (condoms, for those a bit slow on the uptake), we can understand why the commandment "be fruitful, and multiply" (Ge:1:28) can be harmful when the fidelity aspect is considered as a given. This was only a very brief introduction of my views on religion and is criticisable, which is a good thing since I am open to critic. I developed what I considered to be the most important point of my opinion and stop there for the time being because it must be tedious to read already. I hope that I made myself clear and that I will not be misinterpreted myself.
Wouldnt eliminating exclusive contracts for stuff like the super bowl eliminate this problem. Like for example howard stern dont like it dont listen to it but with the super bowl, cant really do that. If there was a 'christian right' channel that showed it as well with their own halftime show / ads etc...
Most of the land mass in modern day america (whether or not you include south america, or just the rest of north america) couldn't care less about the stupid "wardrobe malfunction"... and we're all laughing at the hypocrites in the US who think its a big deal. There are far more sigificant and real problems with US borders that need attention, a wee bit of boob isn't a threat to anyone.
Up here in Canada, where we aren't ruled by a legacy of prudes, our general view is along the lines of "Fuck the FCC. Fine this, assclowns! <pelvic thrust>".
perl -e 'print $i=pack(c5, (41*2), sqrt(7056), (unpack(c,H)-2), oct(115), 10)'
I want to ban gay marriage because it says so in Sloshdat"
Hmm, both of those sources are more authoritative than the Holy Bible, but you are right, they don't have the same ring to them.
Oh well, what the hell...
Since the rightest admenistration is lowering taxes and increasing spending too much money on stupid things (war, helping the RIAA, Bush's propaganda mailings) they have to make money sdomehow. What better to do than make Pat Robertson, Jerry Fallwell and friends happy, and at the same time refuse to cure real social injustices and dangers to society. I hope I can get out of this country while leaving it without a millitary passport is still legal.
Religion is the result of the fusion of several social behaviours and which, according to me at least, is part of human evolution (as a social result not a biological feature). One of the more primitive social phenomenon still present in religion being magic, i.e. the imaginary explanation of reality.
One aspect of religion, that I think is both paramount and its primary function, is that it teaches the masses lessons without the people
That makes perfect sense, except that we don't live in a country where things work that way. Bill Gates and myself would still be fined just as much (in theory anyway) for driving thirty miles over the speed limit.
Quantum materiae materietur marmota monax si marmota monax materiam possit materiari?
Beautifully put. Using rational arguments against religious institutions without degrading to insults. I could not have said it better myself.
Grandparent poster seems to live under the "us and them" delusion that anyone who does not share his unprovable beliefs must be a sad, sorry wretch. Parent poster puts him firmly but politely in his place.
With the way things are going, all those pesky laws will be voted away pretty soon.
What?
Market capitalization is pretty meaningless with respect to fines. Fines are paid out of revenues.
Don't get me wrong, I probably have a lower opinion of Clinton than most here. He's almost as bad as Bush. But Powell did his damage under Bush. Who knows what Clinton was thinking (more likely schemeing) with this appointment?
And living in despair without purpose or reason isn't?
I hope you're not seriously arguing that this is the case of non-religious people.
The quickest way to become an atheist is to study the Bible thoroughly.
Sigh. Here we go again:
Religion requires some spiritual belief. Belief in a god or gods is used as an example.
If there is a scientific test that could be performed to confirm the existence of god(s), that belief would no longer be spiritual, and so would not help religion/faith.
If there is no scientific test to confirm the existence of god(s), then their existence is completely undetectable.
A completely undetectable god or gods is exactly equivalent to no god(s) at all.
Gore Vidal was working on his surrealistic follow-up to Myra Breckinridge when the US Supreme Court ruled that 'communities could set local standards' for naughty words. Since the same book would be on sale everywhere, this presented a problem of being exposed to legal action on the whim of any local prosecutor.
He approached this problem by substituing the names of the Supreme Court judges for the naughty words. Burger, Rehnquist, Powell, Whizzer White and Blackmun became nouns and verbs for, well, you know.
Brilliant. Text came out like this:
"He Burgered her lustfully. His mighty Rehnquist thrusting deep into her forbidden, intimate Blackmum. She tried to stop him by grabbing his Powell's. She enjoyed it in the Whizzer White, but detested Burgering as against nature..."
Future versions of Myron, and foreign editions, lacked this feature. But it was wild in the original hardback.
Am I safe to assume that this only applies to English-language swearwords? After all, there are plenty of curses in plenty of languages, and the FCC would be none the wiser...or...?
People say I'm crazy, I got diamonds on the soles of my shoes...
Is airwaves any more of a public resource than newspapers?
Any more? One is a public resource, one isn't even a resource.
Why do they have to be regulated?
Because we can't all use the airwaves at once. Demand for the airwaves exceeds supply. We choose to let these broadcasters use the airwaves in exchange for them acting in the public interest. It's not in the public interest to hear curses and fart noises.
Regulating free speech is reason enough to hang your local conrgessmen from a lamppost in town square for not standing up for your rights.
This isn't about free speech. It's about regulation of a finite resource. Freedom of speech doesn't mean I can go into a public library and start yelling out obscenities.
Oh yea, I liked that part. I meant the part about being automatically fined for "obscene language", or whatever the charge was.
It is much easier to just blame one side
Yes, it is. There's Liberman and the guy on the FCC. How many other Democrats can you name that are luddites? Here's some Republicans I can name off the top of my head: Powell, Santorum, Fallwell, Bennett, Hatch, Coburn. Want to take any bets on the political affiliation of groups like the Parents Television Council? Next I suppose you'll imply that Democrats are as much to blame for the gay marriage hysteria because there are a couple of Democrats who supported the bans.
Luddites are now the dominant wing in the dominant Republican party. Take away those few Democrats, and nothing would change - you'd still have Republicans in Congress trying to pass huge fines. Take away the Republicans, and this issue goes nowhere.
Does this mean I excuse Liberman for being a luddite? No, of course not. But I do have a sense of proportion and know where to put most of the blame.
Clearchannel owns a good chunk of the overall market by itself.
Which in itself is a big reason why it is fined so heavily.
Market capitalization is pretty meaningless with respect to fines. Fines are paid out of revenues.
Fines are paid out of cash on hand, which is part of book value, not revenue. Revenue, ie gross income, is pretty meaningless. I can have trillions of dollars in revenue and not make a penny.
Divide all the fines levied against nuclear sites over the years by the number of nuclear sites in operation. That will give you a clearer idea of the deterrent power the fines exert against any single plant.
Quantum materiae materietur marmota monax si marmota monax materiam possit materiari?
Anyway, asserting that a $100K fine levied on the operator of a nuclear power plant is going to have any significant financial impact whatsoever is just silly.
The Union Carbide Bhopal Incident was #1. a PRIVATE company #2. a CHEMICAL company As opposed to GOVERNMENT-RUN NUCLEAR plants.
This country has completely lost it's perspective (if it ever had any). The fine amounts reflect a level of desire in the country to stop a particular activity. Nobody would argue that boobs are more harmful than nuclear waste, yet the fines indicate that we DO think that. How does a country, or it's government anyway, get so ridiculously out fo touch with reality?
more like sex obsessed.
The words "I got a hard-on over that tittie shot and I ain't not letting anyone impeach me for this." could be overheard from the Whitehouse as congress went in to vote.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
Well, when Stallone said three bad words and three paper citations appeared from a dispenser in the wall ... and he used them for toilet paper I was rolling in the aisle.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Yes, and this is exactly what everyone who claims religion thinks.
Yup, you do. The above senario - speaking out of your ass to explain things you don't understand - is the basis for every religion.
You want to know why people of some religions think the way they do? Research it.
And your point is...what? They're all variations on thunderbolts and mammoths.
If you do that, you're bypassing the scientific method and coming to a conclusion you cannot uphold.
What, like buying a bunch of crap that was made up by people living thousands of years ago?
My faith comes from not knowing all the answers. I hope nobody claims that position, because if you do, I can guarantee that you are dead wrong.
I don't know if you noticed, but your faith (Baptist) is all about telling people what the answers are. That's what religion does.
I think that your comments sum up the argument between those who are conservative and those who are liberal. (Since I am a conservative who expresses his opinion, I fully expect to be moderated down for this. Slashdot's moderation system does a good job of political censorship for conservative thought.) The main disagreement is over the power of words and images. I maintain that words and pictures have power over the viewers (for example, there is evidence that pornographic material is more addictive than cocaine -- exposure to pornography causes a release of endorphines, and a chemcial dependency on natural endorphines happens). If people are exposed to certain things, then their tendency to do those things increases. If you are trying to prevent violence, then limit the exposure of violence. The argument that you can simply change the channel works to a point. It may work for adults who know what they want to watch and not watch. But when teenagers who are away from their parents are exposed to salacious and violent material, that is a different story. So then the parents can opt not to have a TV or try to controll their children better. There is no way to effective turn off technology for you unless you move to a third world country or become Amish. With the FCC regulating indecency, it is preventing a minority of people (i.e. Hollywood) from inposing indecency on the majority that disagree (most parents don't want their children exposed to violent, pornographic material). Which, by the way is not political censorship. The Supreme Court has ruled that the government has the right to prevent indecent material from being shown, and even created the "Community Standards," test. The FCC regulates publicly owned airwaves. That is the reason they can regulate the content. People who want to express indecent ideas, topics and presentations should adopt a forum that is not regulated. Like Howard Stern did. Until the public opinion shifts to where it does not want the FCC to regulate indecency, then people should play by the rules. The broadcasters know the rules. They should abide by the rules, even though they think they are stupid.
It biols down to this: should government take a role in enforcing the moral attitude of the majority on publicly owned airwaves? Or should the government have no say in the moral attitudes on publicly owned airwaves? Since I think they should, I estimate ten minutes before I modded down to "overrated," or "flamebait," or "troll".
The views expressed are mine own and do not express the views of my employer.
I'm a fan of Howard Stern, but at the same time I can understand why we have an FCC. The airwaves are a public resource, and as such they pretty much have to be regulated.
Except inthis case regulation flys directly in the face of the first amendment.
Is airwaves any more of a public resource than newspapers?
Yes. If I don't like what your newspaper has to say, or it has naked people or something and I don't want my family to see that, I just won't buy it. If I don't like what your broadcast TV or radio station has to say, too bad - the signals are in my house whether I want them or not, and unless I throw out my TV and radio, my family will be able to see whatever's being broadcast. Maybe kids are cursing a lot, but who are you to decide that that makes it okay for my (theoretical) family?
I do think the fines for indecency are kinda high, and we do have more important things to worry about than Janet Jackson's chest. At the same time, though, I feel that the fines are necessary: many stations would see them as a necessary cost of business and ignore them otherwise. That's probably not the same with, say, nuclear reactors; the bad publicity alone (not to mention the threat of being totally shut down and, if the owners have any decency at all, the threat to people's lives) is reason to for people to keep your reactor safe. INAL, but I'm assuming that when there's a problem at a reactor, the people running it get a lot more than a fine.
I produce electronic music and write little games. Have a look.
Censorship
By Luke Green
Our constitutional right to freedom of speech has been under fire for quite some time now, often with the support of the people. This attack is what we call censorship, and it is damaging our society. When was the last time you watched TV show with a bigot yelling profanities at another man with your children? Why? If your answer is that you want to protect them, that is definitely a good answer, but a flawed reason for censorship, as I will attempt to show.
It is hardly intelligent to attempt to mandate morality, because what one person may find immoral, another may find completely harmless, and vice versa. For example: showing a man eating a hamburger on television is relatively commonplace. PETA (People for Ethical Treatment of Animals), however, regards this as highly immoral. Does this mean we should ban showings of such things? No, because it is not unanimously agreed that eating animals is immoral. Most people enjoy it every day.
The FCC regulates broadcasting in the U.S., often fining broadcasters for "indecent" broadcasts. Certain words are blacklisted, even though not everyone agrees that these words are immoral, and many people use them in everyday conversation. What if suddenly you were disallowed to use words that you feel are completely benign, would you be okay with that? Would you be fine with other people controlling how you communicate?
There are many reasons we should have absolute freedom of speech, the clearest of all being that we don't want government controlling what we can and cannot say, hear, or read. There is another, less obvious reason we should have this great freedom: so that we may be able to view, and understand the fallacies of the ignorant. I contend that if we do not expose our children to the ignorant, they may become unable to identify ignorance. The common counter-argument to this is that people want to preserve their child's innocence. Innocence is when a person is free from guilt, not when a person is free from understanding guilt.
Would you say that a person who does not understand that theft is wrong is more or less likely to steal? Clearly they are more likely to steal, because a person who doesn't realize the damage it may cause is more carefree when it comes to theft. This has a perfect analogue with censoring "bad" material. If you do not show them what is bad, they will be left to figure it out completely on their own, which may result in the exact opposite of what you intend.
Censorship is interfering with your right to decide what your child can and cannot view. I know that it seems like the censors are on your side, but in reality you are a tool that helps them keep their jobs, and impose their moral beliefs on future generations.
In conclusion, a person of character will stand up for what they believe in, but a truly great person will stand up for everyone's individual right to believe whatever they want to believe. So please feel free to preserve your child's innocence, but please do not damage their moral acuity by supporting censorship.
There is no such thing as a containment vessel, it's a pressure vessel. In a PWR, the pressure vessel holds the volume around the core at an elevated pressure so coolant (water) doesn't boil. This is much different from the containment around the outside of the entire reactor and primary coolant system. Were there a hole in containment, the health physics staff would know about it well before it ever happened because there are more radiation detection systems in place that you can imagine. A hole or fissure in the pressure vessel is much harder to locate since it's in an extremely high radiation area that staff cannot stay in for very long otherwise they'll go well over their dose limits (even while the reactor is shut down). So they only have two chances a year to find something like that, during refueling. So during the slew of checklists that are completed during a refueling, you're expecting the staff to find a needle in a haystack since these problems can occur anywhere in the primary coolant system. Maybe the union of concerned "scientists" would like to address the fact that a coal plant releases more radiation into the environment than any western nuclear plant ever has (obviously excluding chernobyl which had no containment). All plants have engineering issues just as any engineering project does, we still drive our cars eventhough we get those little recall slips in the mail ever once in a while. I don't know about you, but I'm much more likely to die on a highway to work than at work (guess who works in the nuclear industry).
My organization is mobilizing people to speak up and fight back. We have two current actions -- those of you who are pissed off, well, do something about it.
First, you can write your Senator and ask them to vote against the Broadcast Indecency Enforcement Act. (http://speakspeak.org/senators/)
Then, you can help put a stop to the Parents Television Council's hijacking of the complaint process. (Remember the PTC? They're responsible for 99.9% of FCC complaints? Ring a bell?)
Anyway, they're currently pushing for the maximum fine against CBS and all of its affiliates as punishment for the CSI episode that ran on 2/17. We're fighting back with a letter explaining why the episode was not indecent. http://speakspeak.org/letter/
The FCC is required to evaluate indecency complaints using "contemporary community standards." If the only community they hear from is the PTC, we're all screwed.
So, fight back. Please.
#1. Broadcasters are private companies. #2. Power plants and chemical plants are owned by private companies. They are still REGULATED BY THE GOVERNMENT.
It's not so much the government regulation that's always scary though. What happens if one or two wholly corporate-owned radio stations with nationwide reach have usurped local broadcasting? That's a lot of power in few hands. And consider that to enter this market you have to get a satellite on a rocket into space? This is exactly the situation the FCC had a mandate to prevent with its ownership rules, and has ignored it in favor of splashy big-fine-cleaning-up-the-airwaves headlines.
This is bullshit. Of course, both sides are to blame, but it's pretty fucking clear based on TFA what the priorities of the current administration are. There are many hardworking people in the US government who just want to do their jobs well, but how can they with such PURE incompetence above them?
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
Sure, when compared on the basis of public harm, the FCC's fines look silly next to the the NRC's finger waggling efforts that were hard coded into what, 1950's dollars? Why all the focus on FCC anyway? Does anyone really enjoy most of the garbage offered as entertainment?
Fines for "indecency," raise 'em! Provide incentive to develop meangingful programming... Socially valuable content renders expletives useless, and if you like p(.)rn there's no shortage. Educational content and thoughtful social commentary doesn't usually appeal to stupid consumers? Good.
Focus on governmental agency tactics for a minute. Fines are the poor man's control "schtick." Seems like it should work, but it's past facto and even the death penalty doesn't serve as a deterrent for those who can't see past their hormones or the next 5 minutes.
That having been said, negative incentives work best when they are levied upon the correct individuals and proportionate to the wealth of the violator. See that happening anywhere? In the U.S., we don't fine the shareholders. Without that ability NRC's fines would be little more than token bones to public perception because they would be passed through to consumers as a price increase.
(Witness the multiplier effect of an increase in the cost of energy. Cost of consumption is going up people! Of course if you are heavily diversifled enough you don't take the hit.)
The only reasonable way to get at the problems of nuclear power, without a revolution, is to make clean alternatives financially viable while requiring enforcement of health, safety and environmental law.
IN the mean time focusing on such trivial conversation, just like network programming does, you serve only to deflect focus from more important issues.
Grow Up Slashdot
He has the marginal value of 500 waitresses :-)
English is easier said than done.
The thing is, what public wants this? Public opinion? The FCC has already stated that 90%, yes 90% of ALL it's complaints are from one, single source...the Parents Television Council.
Since the FCC goes by complaints, it follows what this small group pretty much decides what does and doesn't get put on TV. No one calls the FCC and says "I really enjoyed Janet Jackson's boob". No, they only get the complaints. AND they won't even rule on what is indecent and what isn't. You may remember when some TV stations were going to run, unedited, "Saving Private Ryan". The stations asked the FCC if it was ok to run it, or would they be fined....The FCC said they couldn't tell them either way, but if they got a complaint, then they would be fined. WTF?
But anyway, your arguments are null when you realize that you DO have a choice in turning off the TV or radio...you do NOT have to let your kids watch or listen to it and how DARE you or the government say what is moral or not.
Also, you seem to lump every "teenager" into one place where they will automatically go to and do "salacious and violent" material because it's over the airwaves. And if they do, so? How are you going to regulate what they say to other people or what their friends say to them? Let's put all the rules and regulations in force...the tv is clean now and the airwaves are clean...then what? What about them just talking? You know, talking with one another and they talk about "salacious and violent" things...or they talk about sex. Hey, they talk about sex no matter what. Wither they have sex magazines, or videos, or books or NOTHING they will still talk about it. What then? Put muzzles on all our kids so they don't say or hear anything from anyone else that may sound indecent?
Ok, going off the tracks here. Bottom line, you can NOT regulate morality. What is with people that think that if a kid sees a boob or hears the word "fuck" they're going to turn into some sort of degenerate. Do you REALLY believe that?
Also, do you REALLY want the government taking a role in what is moral and what isn't? What if, for instance, they deemed that what you say isn't good for "the children"? They get around it by saying "oh no, the constitution says you have the right to free speech, we're not taking that away, we're not censoring you...but you just can't say this and that or write this and that and you certainly shouldn't READ this and that...but we're not censoring anyone at all, it's for the children!" You really want someone else telling you and regulating what you can and can't say or see? Not regulating driving or guns or airplane licences or what-not..but what you fricken SAY? You really want this?
"Leo Fender was in a 'state of grace' when he designed the Stratocaster." -- Paul Reed Smith
Three mile island, by comparison, did release quite a bit of radiation into the nearboy Middletown area, and came within half an hour of rendering half of Pennsylvania uninhabitable for the next 20,000 years - $155,000 fine.
Actually, it did neither.
Is the FCC being unreasonable? Sure, but they get tons of letters from people who write their Congressional reps, unlike most other regulatory agencies.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
People can use anything as their cause and taint that cause, but it doesn't necessarily make that cause a bad thing.
The problem with religon is that forcing people to convert to said religon. Just this morning I had people harrasing me (even after I told them never to return again) to convert on my own property. In Columbus' time, many people were forcably converted in South America and Africa and here in America. This was church policy, not just 'some people.' See also the Inquisition.
What if I use ncurses? I've been using ncurses for years now and actually prefer it to curses. Can I still get fined for using this?
You have to draw a line somewhere... Where you draw that line is dictated by your morals, not your logic, though sometimes logic is used in an attempt to justify or disprove someone's morals.
Please, explain why you have to draw a line somewhere. Explain why, if you don't want to see those things at 11am why you can't just avoid those channels. There are plenty of ways you can avoid it; v-chip, using tv.yahoo.com to see what programming is on, almost every TV today allows you to 'list' the channels you want to cycle through as you press Up and down. Why do you have to force what you dislike off the air, when there are so many means available to you to avoid it if its there?
You may not like those things, but you shouldn't be trying to force your morals on others. Believe it or not, you can derive morals from logic as well, and my logic says 'leave other people alone.'
No, it was probably modded flamebait because of your utterly retarded statement that "Society has to have some standards of decency or we're right back to caveman civilization."
While I agree with your point I'd also like to point out that the US did the EXACT same thing sometime between the 20s - 60s.
In some circles you cant even make a very bleak curse while in some you are completely ignored even if you are expressing yourself that may cause most people to turn their heads.
From my point of view I find the censoring that occurs in some TV shows more indecent than it they had been showing the real thing or broadcasting the real expression instead of a -beep-...
Some examples: The OCC(Orange County Choppers) has a poster on their wall, which is blurred by somebody because it is indecent or something. Same goes with some blurring of soda cans in the Mythbusters series. So what if they are using Pepsi or Coke... I wouldn't care less. The Janet Jackson incident isn't worth more than a yawn from me... So if some kids were watching, well they can probably see more in some magazines. It seems to me that some naked bodyparts are more annoying to some people than cutting someones throat during dinner.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
These are terrible things, but don't so much have to do with being religious as having large, organized religion. Usually these occur when people ignore the teachings of a religion (for example, the Christian Bible says "Love your neighbor as yourself") and try to justify it to the masses. If religious leaders weren't seen as infalliable as they often are, then the situation woulodn't be so bad. There is an important differnce between being religious (believing in God) and following a religious leader blindly, without checking to see if he practices what he preaches. The bad stuff usually happens in the latter case. I will agree that blind faith in religious leaders is bad, but that isn't true of all religous people.
SAILING MISHAP
Here's the deal. None of "us" consider Liberman to be on "our" "side". He is DINO, big time.
====
Crudely Drawn Games
Fines aren't set according to somebody's idea about their relative importance. They are set to the level that encourages compliance. For nuclear industries and such, that level does not need to be enormous. After all, the whole point of regulations in those industries is prevent harm. If they really accomplish that, most members of the industry will already try to comply with most regulations most of the time even without fines. After all, if real harm should occur, the costs to the organization through civil lawsuits and perhaps even criminal prosecution would be enormous - much larger than any regulator fine would be.
For those industries, the benefits of regulatory fines are two-fold: first, they ensure that every organization in the industry lives to the same standards, thereby leveling the playing field and reducing the competitive pressure to cut corners on safety; and second, they provide a financial incentive to fund compliance activities. After all, if it costs $100,000 to comply, and $200,000 in fines if you don't, what industry wouldn't comply?
On the other hand, in the broadcast industry, the only incentive that the industry has to comply with regulations is the FCC and it's fines. What, do you think it would be possible to win a lawsuit alleging harm against a broadcaster? No matter what they broadcast, any suit like that would lose. Don't believe me? Look at how long and difficult it was to win against the tobacco industry, one which provably harms the public health! Do you think that the anti-fast-food lawsuits and anti-handgun lawsuits are going to succeed? The harm done by both of those industries are more direct and provable than the harm done by ads, porn, and violence TV content.
Because the FCC fines have to enforce compliance all by themselves, those fines have to be pretty high. If not, then they are little more than slaps on the wrist - worse, actually: they become little more than advertisements.
A personal story: my father was raised in a dry county back in the woods of Tennessee. Like a lot of boys back then (this was during the Great Depression), he collected bottles and jars, and sold them to the local moonshiner. One day he asked the man what he thought about the sheriff, who periodically busted up his still. According to my dad, the old man just laughed, and said that, since the newspaper published his name and address every time he got busted, that in his opinion the product that he lost, the damage he had to repair, and the fine he had to pay were all cheaper and more effective than any ad that he could run.
So comparing fines in on industry against fines in another is like comparing apples and haircuts. If the fines in the nuclear industry work at one level, and the fines in the broadcast industry have to be much higher to make them work, so be it. They have no relationship to one another.
"Lord, grant that I may always be right, for Thou knowest that I am hard to turn" -- A Scots-Irish prayer
A lot of this ironically, has to do with one organization with an exaggerated membership, that peddles smut on their own web site that systemmatically harasses the FCC over these issues. The goofy, right wing, Parents Television Council, whose leadership seem to primarily sit around all day and watch/document every sleazy media moment they can get their sweaty eyeballs on.
At last! Does it apply to ncurses too? What about S-Lang? newt? Can we be rid of turbo vision, too?
in the case concerned, it wasn't even going to cause the premature expiration of any kittens.
See my journal, I write things there
You are correct about Exxon. They got fined a helluva lot. reference: $900 million over 10 years to the state of Alaska in settlement of criminal charges. $250 million in fines, of which $125 million was waived against public opposition. $5 billion in punitive damages, which was overturned, however, in 2001 All in all, they did end up paying just over $1 billion in various fines, but they did $2.1 billion in damages. The system is fines in proportion to damage, not wealth. A guy I went to high school with burned down eight newly built but vacant homes in his home town, total damages topping $900,000. He was fined $750,000 and put in jail for umteen years. The guy made barely $20,000 a year and had a family. If the fines were in proportion to wealth, then he would have been fined around $0.25 by measuring against Janet's boobies.
How about when totalitarian atheist regimes such as Stalin's USSR and Mao's PRC systematically suppress dissidents, indoctrinate children, and disappear millions of people? I don't think it's fair to blame those atrocities on atheism any more than it is fair to blame the various atrocities on religiousness in general. Perhaps if you blamed all these atrocities on belief in something absolute (such as existence or non-existence of deity), you'd have an argument. However, if you don't believe in any absolute truth at all, can you make a moral argument?
"On top of that, since when is being religious a bad thing?"
Since religion was used as an excuse to fly planes into skyscrapers?..Crusades...molestation scandals...Those are some pretty bad things if you ask me. It seems that blind faith in all its many forms, including religion, is a very dangerous thing indeed
Flying planes into buildings was an anti-US thing. They didn't fly into the vadican to kill the pope or get back at any countries that had crusades against them. It would've happened even if the US was a predominatly muslim nation. Americans like to blame religion for this rather than admit the real reason was because people hated the US.
Just because religion has been used as mask for doing some pretty horrible things doesn't mean it is bad, just that it can't really transform people. Absolute power corrupts absolutely, whether you're a King or a Pope. I don't think the christianity or muslim relgions have sections in their books saying it's ok to ignore the rules about not killing and start wars... Bad things happen. Wars happen. There have been plenty of wars, searches for scapegoats, and invasions not in the name of xxx.
Molestation happens with sports coaches, scout leaders, teachers, or even weathly pop stars. Molestation isn't done in the name of xxx and no religion I'm aware of supports any form of it. Just a case of bad people who happened to be religious.
Basically your list seems to be a reflection of human nature. And with traditionally religion playing a major part in people's lives it was incorporated into those events. With the soviets they tore down many beautiful churches in the name of removing religion from the state. Then they went are their own inquisitions in the name of totalatarism and communism as it was the major thing at the time. Like you said, blind faith.
I guess what I'm getting at is how does that largely historical list relate to people's lives today? There was only one valid example in your list, discrimination of homosexuals and it is fortunately changing.
What about the good things people do in the name of religion? In my city of 2million probably 75% of the free meals to homeless are provided by the Church or xxx or St. somebody's chunch. My vehicle has been broken into a couple times. I'm pretty sure that theif isn't worried that there is an all seeing being (be it god or santa's elves) that saw him do bad stuff and will give him an afterlife of burning in fire for eterinity for sinning.
In my contact with religion it generally makes people do good things like give time to charities and not do bad things like steal. I'm not worried about walking around late at night and being mugged by a christian, jew, muslim, or buddist.
The hypocrisy of fining people for swearing - it makes absolutely no sense unless they also fine you for swearing in the street - some kid could be walking along and someone could say 'mother fucker' because their car wouldn't start or something and the kid would hear that and be totally scarred for life and the person would totally get away with it! what if you shout it in a crowded area? what if you shout it on a PR system? people should be fined for swearing in public otherwise the whole thing falls apart.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
Since it was used as an excuse to enslave and convert native people?
If I remember my history classes correctly, the conquerors didn't force the natives to convert, they had a fair chance to say no (or course, then their head would be chopped off, but that's another story - about a strange link between religious freaks and murdering disbelievers).
"It's too bad that stupidity isn't painful." - Anton LaVey
Most people murder because they have an immediate an extremely personal problem. Once they murder they remove the problem and they don't do it again. There are excetions such as Dr. Shipman. Thieves tend to do so again and again.
See my journal, I write things there
I hope you're not seriously arguing that this is the case of non-religious people.
No. It was a rhetorical point. The parent suggested that believing in religion led to blind faith, which is dangerous. I'm saying that atheism, can lead to feeling as if your life has no meaning or purpose, which is equally dangerous.
My point wasn't to declare that being religious was somehow better. I was just point out that such a criticism is unfair.
-Grym
Since the FCC and the NRC have nothing whatsoever to do with each other, is this supposed to be anything other than a pointless comparison?
No post I've read on this so far said that some things need more regulation than others. But I would suggest that a bigger portion of the nuclear industry is self regulating than the super bowl.
A power company produces enemies, bad will, downtime and maybe other financial impacts when they have a mishap. There is no upside there. The super bowl on the other hand may lose some viewers that are mad their kids happened to be watching when the boob pops out but there may be potential for getting more new pervert viewers than lost christians. It could become a business decision to purposely break indecency laws.
"Hey boy, you'd better fine those filthy hethens or I'm gonna show you what Colon Pow is all about!" - Colin Powell
the farther left you go, the closer it comes to wraping around to the far-right.
Both ends are just plain crazy.
How is this 5+ Insightful? It's 5+ "preaching what Slashdot wants to hear" but that doesn't make it factually sound.
1 c
>Janet's breast, no public risk ("But think of the kids!" Yeah, the same kids that started life sucking on a pair of the same things) - $550,000 fine.
Three mile island, by comparison, did release quite a bit of radiation into the nearboy Middletown area, and came within half an hour of rendering half of Pennsylvania uninhabitable for the next 20,000 years - $155,000 fine.
A quick google * yielded fines of $1.5 million, and $80 million in medical settlements. A tad bit more than $150,000, don't you think? And of course, lets not take into account any new laws or regulations in the past 20 years. That wouldn't help your argument either.
*http://www.ohio.com/mld/ohio/news/8296741.htm?
I agree that a nuclear disaster is a bigger problem (only an idiot wouldn't), but to claim that a nuclear disaster would cost _less_ than swearing on television is just as idiotic. Contrary to what you might believe, people aren't that retarded. _Nobody_ can be that stupid.
I happen to agree with your political observations, FuturePower, but in this case a little clarity (and charity) would go a long way.
-kgj
-kgj
The Iran coup was actually in 1953 with the removal from power of democratically elected Mossadegh and his replacement with the shah.
Correct.
See my further comments here.
-kgj
However, every time someone engineers some system like this, there are people who are taken advantage of. And, of course, there is stratification. If the goal of Catholicism were as stated, to save souls and help people, then there wouldn't need to be a pope dressed up in gold and silk. You might still have a pope but he could be in an office building for all that matters. The most important realization to come to about religion is that it is not about spirituality when it is wrapped up in complex trappings. It's about control, and the people on top getting what they want. You don't need all that shit to make a statement about spirituality. I'm not sure what's so special about gold and jewels that they should adorn religious icons anyway; they're pretty but most precious metals have only specialty uses. Using them for corrosion protection seems a bit excessive and, well, arrogant.
I'm not defending organized religion. Where in my post did I try to defend the excesses of the Catholic church? I, in fact, declared that the Catholic church, being an organization made by fallible men, has undeniably made mistakes. In fact, on that point, I'm fairly certain that all religions as institutions have made mistakes.
I'm not so sure where, on this point, you're disagreeing with me. The OP was saying that "being religious" was a "bad thing," because being religious required faith which is dangerous. Such a statement could just as well apply to agnostics as it could to Christians.
Even religions which do not amass wealth like the Catholic church are still about controlling people and making them behave in the way the founder(s) desire(d).
Not necessarily. What about Taoism? If someone chooses to live a certain way of their own free will, how is that a system of control or domination?
Do you really need someone else to tell you how to connect with your spiritual self?
Me? Right now? No. But, unfortunately that isn't the case for all individuals all of the time.
First of all, self-reflection is a skill, and something that I think gets lost in these types of discussions among learned individuals is that not everyone is capable of productively exploring their faith on their own. Interacting with others in their religious community benefits these people greatly by providing perspectives that they, otherwise, may not have experienced.
Moreover, life isn't easy. Sometimes, it's easy to lose your faith/spirituality when you're upset or depressed. A religious community can really be of a benefit and help you keep things in perspective by being there when times are rough.
-Grym
You're absolutely right that no one has ever proven or disproven the validity of any religion. However, facts and faith are not mutually exclusive. I have faith in many things because of past experience or facts that have been taught to me. For instance, I have faith that things in the physical universe (such as gravity and mass) will continue to work the way I've experienced before or how others have observed them (and expressed in laws of physics). When I observe something that doesn't fit in my mental model, I don't throw out the laws, but try to find where my observation or interpretation was flawed.
I agree with that analysis for most religious organizations. However, please let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater. Sturgeon said 90% of everything is crud", which applies to religions just like anything else.
Are you saying that it could never be valid for an organization to ask people to accept something unprovable? Do you think no one should accept anything as true unless it is an absolutely hard, provable fact? I don't think it's humanly possible to operate that way. Consider how much progress in science and technology has taken place based on Newtonian mechanics, which we now know to be false (or at least incomplete). Though F=MA was once thought to be an absolutely proven fact, it has since been disproven.
Though most religions are indeed about control (as are most large human organizations), a valid religion, IMHO, is one that has as its goal to connect people to God, and therefore with their spiritual selves. Christ
It is true that people who want to rape pillage and kill will tend to do so, and religion only provides the excuse, but it is a powerful excuse. Raping heathens that are going are dammed anyone is nearly as bad as raping women from your own religion. Killing people who are not the direct decendents of G-d to save the direct decendents of G-d is surely not a bad thing. Denigrating half of the population is perfectly reasonable when you have book that says it is the natural order of things.
From a rational humanist point of view, all these things are bad. Even though they are sometimes justfied, the responsibility for the justification is on the individual, not diluted into some large group with a common mass insanity. The fact is that most people will not commit the horrible act, but that does not mean they do not approve, at least tacitly. Most would not kill a million people, but many say the tsunami was devine retribution. Most would not say the 9/11 attacks were divine retributions, but we have seen muslims and christians come together in agreement on this, as some muslims use this as the excuse, and Falwell seems as rich as ever.
So until i see chritians in the street protesting against Bush's stance on the death penalty(it is the providence of the lord to judge and kill, not humans), or his hypocrisy in prayer(from the text:
i will continue to blame the religion itself as a structural impediment to an enlightened world that does not go about opressing people just because some old book said it is ok to so do."She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
On one hand: yeah, so? on the other hand, exactly!
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Bwahahaha! It never ceases to amaze me how easily people are swayed by big words and authoritatively presented pseudoscientific claims, and the depths to which certain political activists will sink in abusing this. A basic understanding of neuropharmacology and neuroscience isn't hard to acquire. Given that good resources, such as Medline, are freely available to anyone on the net via Entrez (google for "PubMed"), you'd think more people would have take advantage of them.
Yes, I know about that little bit with the religious whackos testifying before Congress; it made it to Slashdot. It was a fascinating amalgam of lies by omission, misleading claims, and outright falsehood. I'm not surprised some people took it seriously, but I am surprised that the people we elected to run the country didn't exercise a bit more skepticism and maybe consult some actual experts in the field.
Here's a clue for you. Most enjoyable experiences cause release of endorphins and/or release of dopamine in the ventral tegmental area (VTA). That's how and why we perceive them as enjoyable! Other examples may include (depending on the individual): intense exercise, sex, snuggling, sports (notably "extreme sports"), socialization, various aspects of religion, games (from the most ultra-violent video games to monopoly), food, and music.
Another claim from that abyssmal congressional incident, as I recall, was that porn images are encoded into memory and associated with pleasure. Which places them in the same category as every positive experience to which you pay attention. Thanks for playing.
It should be patently obvious that pornography is nowhere near as addictive as cocaine. The number of people who view pornography exceeds the number of people who use cocaine by an order of magnitude or two. So where are these vast hordes of porn addicts whose lives are so impaired by their addiction they cannot hold down jobs, lose pleasure in all other activities, and are willing to commit acts of violence to support their habit? Why can't we get people to kick cocaine by providing them with pornography as an alternative? The utter lack of neurophysiological evidence that pornography stimulates the VTA to anywhere near the same degree as cocaine is also telling.
Of course, "more addictive than cocaine" is just a scare tactic, dredging up the public's vague memories of poorly-conducted rodent studies and impressions from biased samples. When you hear someone say that X is "more addictive than {cocaine,crack,heroin}", keep your hand on your wallet and engage your skepticism.
However, should you desire to continue to claim a neuropharmacological support for your personal distate for pornography, you should have no trouble finding references to peer-reviewed studies in Medline. Put up or shut up.
Though orthogonal to the above, I do at least agree with you on one point: the public airwaves are a limited resource "owned" by the government, much like public land or highways, and as such I think it's appropriate they be regulated differently than private resources (e.g., cable or satellite channels). That said, I think the fact that Europe hasn't sunk into social chaos should be a hint that perhaps it is violence, not sex and naughty words, that ought to be the primary focus of regulation.
If you are trying to prevent violence, then limit the exposure of violence.
It's a pity it's breasts and swear words, not violence, which is being regulated then. I would rather see a nipple for a couple seconds than be exposed to the violence that is allowed on TV everyday. That said, I'm not about to complain about it, because changing the channel, choosing not to watch TV is, in fact, quite easy. Want to know how my parents prevented me from watching unwholesome television as a child? They encouraged me to be more amused by things other than television. They encouraged me to read, play outside, play games with my friends.
----- "Type theory is like pretzels on crack." -- random friend
Personally I believe that if you took a public vote of whether or not the list of banned words should be allowed on broadcast tv, and everyone voted, it would come out by far against it. Is that hard to believe when in the last election even the hispanic vote shifted to 50% bush because they lean conservative on social issues?
Check out Ken Silverstein's "The Radioactive Boy Scout". Seems that David Hahn, a Michigan teenager managed to build a neutron gun with some americium he'd gotten from over 100 smoke detectors, and some berillyum a friend at a local college had purloined for him.
He also purified enough thorium from gas lantern mantles to represent some seriously radioactive stuff. He was trying to build a breeder reactor.
The interesting part of the book is how the NRC didn't know how to deal with an unlicensed nuclear reactor. To this day, I bet they still don't know. In Hahn's case they just hauled it all to a nuclear waste dump, including the potting shed in which he did most of his nuclear experimentation.
I cannot believe we're more concerned with what is carried over the RF band than what potential nuclear threats exist. For example, you could bombard the the thorium with neutrons to create fissionable material. Nice huh?
Plus, from my perspective, the feeling of meaning or purpose provided by religion is illusory (notably, it's reported by people of different, mutually exclusive religious views, which suggests that it's the belief itself, and not the content of the belief, which is responsible). Yes, it feels nice to believe in a comforting illusion, just as it feels nice as a child to believe in Santa Claus, but I'd much rather have my eyes open even if it means a little despair every now and then.
But that's just me. I don't really care what you believe, so long as you don't use those beliefs as a basis for public policy, or try to convert people against their will (whether "for their own good" or not). If it makes you happy, and being happy is that important to you, by all means go for it.
Lieberman is not a liberal. He may technically be a democrat, but that doesn't mean his actions reflect the views of the left.
In fact, I think Liberman does more harm than good to the left. Every time he sides with conservatives, the result gets called "bipartisan", when it is really the Republicians and Lieberman.
Yeah, that was a great gag.
[SIG] It's like putting a moose in the blender -- a recipe for disaster!
Thanks! It was a typo. I totally missed what he was saying, that I had written 70s, and the CIA action was in 1953. I don't know how "70s" crept into what I wrote.
The energy industry isn't even the worst. Sites like this show just how useful Americans consider their drinking water as compared to truly important things like, say, family television and missile defence pipe dreams.
And before anyone points out "They don't only have to pay a piddling sum in fines, they have to pay $x million to fix the problem"...there never should have been a problem in the first place. None of these places is operating at a loss, I guarantee you. That's like saying "He's a much better person then you- he has to fight every day against the urge to murder someone, and you don't even have to try!"
When did we start caring more about things that offend us than about things that can hurt us?
Less controversial. I feel the same way though.
- "Hear that?! The percolations are imminent! Cease your ingress!"
Cash on hand != market cap.
Thanks for the lesson. I never said it did, though.
Except inthis case regulation flys directly in the face of the first amendment.
Interesting thought process. Fortunately the Supreme Court disagrees with you. You have the right to speak whatever you want. You don't however have the right to use the public airwaves to promote that speech.
The FCC has already stated that 90%, yes 90% of ALL it's complaints are from one, single source...the Parents Television Council
Actually, it was more like 99.8%. The FCC received a good half million complaints, all but a few hundred of which were carbon copies of each other from the PTC.
Dyolf Knip
Demand for the airwaves exceeds supply.
What does this have to do with regulating WHAT is said using those airwaves?
It's why the airwaves are a public good, which in turn is why they are regulated.
We choose to let these broadcasters use the airwaves in exchange for them acting in the public interest. It's not in the public interest to hear curses and fart noises.
And you get to decide that for everyone?
Of course not. I'm not a member of the FCC.
Why not let the public decide by letting them choose which stations to listen to.
How does not listening to a station make up for the fact that these people are using my airwaves?
It is about free speech; the fact that spectrum is limited does not justify that only what YOU think is appropriate should be broadcast over that spectrum.
But it does. If you want to use my airwaves, then what I think is appropriate matters.
You can't choose what you hear in a library. You CAN choose what you hear on the radio. Don't tune into stations you don't like.
As I've said, not listening to the radio doesn't allow me to use the radio spectrum for other things. The government has given the radio stations exclusive rights to that portion of the radio spectrum. In return they have to promote the public good.
The fact is that people like you are facists and want to control what OTHER people are doing even though it causes no harm to you.
It does harm me. I can't use the FM spectrum to broadcast my radio station because of them. I can't create a point to point internet link using FM because of them. To say that Clearstation doesn't harm me by broadcasting its crap is nonsense.
I didn't say it was a good thing or a bad thing. I sad that's how it is, and it IS how it is.
I hear you on the voters, I don't get upset at any of this anymore, clearly the voters want the kind of government they vote for over and over, I just sit and watch it all in amazement. Crazy world we live in but you're absolutely correct, the citizens actively fuck themselves over, and seem to enjoy it.
"...you're expecting the staff to find a needle in a haystack since these problems can occur anywhere in the primary coolant system."
Not sure it was your intent but you are basicly saying pressure vessels are inherently dangerous?
" don't know about you, but I'm much more likely to die on a highway to work than at work"
The problem is if you die in a highway accident the societal impact is minimal. A serious accident at a nuclear reactor will lead to widespread devastation. So you have high probability, low consequence versus low probability high consequence.
I'll grant you coal is bad too but you didn't make a good case for profession if that was the intent of your post.
@de_machina
Sometime someone is going to have to explain to me hows the Greens policy of a MAXIMUM wages isn't fascist.
Mostly good examples of religion being used for the wrong purposes there. One nitpick though (and I'm sure I'll be flamed big time for this.) The haulocaust was not the world's worst genocide. Terrible yes, but compared to other recent genocides, it was hardly in the top 5. It is definitely the world's most publicized genocide. Sadly, it's the only one most people in America have ever heard of.
Interesting thought process. Fortunately the Supreme Court disagrees with you. You have the right to speak whatever you want. You don't however have the right to use the public airwaves to promote that speech.
And unfortunalty sometimes the Supreme Court is wrong. I'd think that the airwaves would be a great place to exersice free speech, but I guess there's only room for speech that matches majority opinion.
Lieberman is one of those people who really needs to change parties, Zell Miller too. Remember how when walking out from the State of the Union George W. practicly French kissed him.
I suspect that they are really Republican moles. The Republicans early in their lives started paying them under the table to join the Democratic party and then spend their entire career being whiny, pathetic and embarrassing just to see how much damage they could do to the Democratic party from inside. I suspect that Lieberman, probably more than any other single person, helped insure George W. won the 2000 election. And so I've explained the mystery behind the kiss at the state of the union. It was a big fat, belated, thank you for helping getting George W. elected in 2000.
Zell Miller did his part in 2004 by his lunatic ranting at the Republican convention, saying things that Republicans were reluctant to say out loud, but were delighted to give their mole prime time to rant at the top of his lungs stuff that was basicly slander.
@de_machina
As opposed to the classic "Let's attack a highly-rated post on a controversial topic and hope the few mods who strongly disagree with it will toss me a few points"?
Difference here, I gave accurate information as corroborated in multiple locations. As far as I can tell, you completely made yours up.
A quick google * yielded fines of $1.5 million, and $80 million in medical settlements. A tad bit more than $150,000, don't you think?
If you could support it, yes. Instead, you posted a registration-required link and mentioned Google.
But, lest I commit the same erro myself, here you go:
Or how about a choice line from the PA governor's address on the problem? And what did they end up paying in fines?
and $80 million in medical settlements.
"Liability" for damages does not equal "fines". I can find no source for that $80M claim, but even if I could, it wouldn't much matter, since it doesn't fall into the category of "punitive" actions. The same holds true for...
And of course, lets not take into account any new laws or regulations in the past 20 years.
Just because it might end up bothering those it directly affects, new laws do not directly punish someone, they merely (attempt to) improve the overall situation, for all players.
Of course not. I'm not a member of the FCC.
I see, so any small special intrest group or large mob gets to decide by complaining endlessly to the FCC. Why is it that setting strict guidelines violates the First amendment, but knowing that you could possibly be fined if you cross some aribtrary lines isn't considered a restriction? Many people have compared FCC fines to speed limits, but then turn around and say FCC fines dont restrict speech, even though thats the purpose of fining for speeding.
How does not listening to a station make up for the fact that these people are using my airwaves?
You don't hear the speech over the airwaves that you don't want to hear. Oh, and they aren't your airwaves. If they belong to anyone they belong to the public at large.
But it does. If you want to use my airwaves, then what I think is appropriate matters.
Since they are my airwaves also, what I think is appropriate matters too. And I think that unrestricted speech over the airwaves is appropriate.
As I've said, not listening to the radio doesn't allow me to use the radio spectrum for other things. The government has given the radio stations exclusive rights to that portion of the radio spectrum. In return they have to promote the public good.
And you're right..my whole point was that the content broadcast over the airwavs doesn't hinder in any way your using them for other purposes. There are other frequencies available. Does it matter if a station plays audio of hardcore sex or the teachings of jesus? Either way, YOU won't be using that band. Your nonsense about the public good is your way of saying 'i want to censor what is on the airwaves.' Censoring never serves the public good.
It does harm me. I can't use the FM spectrum to broadcast my radio station because of them. I can't create a point to point internet link using FM because of them. To say that Clearstation doesn't harm me by broadcasting its crap is nonsense.
Guess what, no matter what Clearchannel broadcasts, you won't be using that band. for some reason though you feel that taking away that band because you don't like the content will open it up for your uses. It won't.
You could use ANOTHER part of the band if you really wanted your own FM station. You have other bands for setting up point to point internet. Use those.
What exactly is your arguement? That you don't like smut on the radio, or you don't like not being able to use the FM band at all? You think that if a station does broadcast smut YOU should get the band b/c YOU don't like it? What about the people that do? Stern is still on because he has ALOT of fans. Get over yourself, if you don't like him don't listen. Either way, it won't transfer thier FM license to you.
And unfortunalty sometimes the Supreme Court is wrong.
True, but this isn't an example of it.
I'd think that the airwaves would be a great place to exersice free speech, but I guess there's only room for speech that matches majority opinion.
Use of the public airwaves is a privilege, not a right.
I mean, come on, those fines didn't put a dent in the pockets of the major networks. I wouldn't call them unreasonable. Fines for dangerous situations at nuclear powerplants being only 60k, on the other hand, is a situation that needs to be remedied.
Fine 'em!
True, but this isn't an example of it.
Oh, well I see now how wrong I am. Good thing you were here to point that out to me.
You could have tried to explain why you feel the supreme court is right in their decision to allow censorship, but you just keep going with the 'I'm right you're wrong' argument.
Use of the public airwaves is a privilege, not a right.
Use of public property (which, by definition, everyone owns) is a privlege? Tell me, how does use of something that I am supposed to own only a privledge, especially when I'm using it to exercise one of my rights?
"In all seriousiness, how does comparing a nuclear reactor indictant relate to the FCC? The two agencies, as pointed out by the parent are two different agencies, and the scope of inpact is significantly different."
It's about government regulated behaviour, and the comparitive weights we apply to them.
Somebody thought they were very comparable: the government. The government decided that two vastly different types of behaviour, i.e. obscenities and careless treatment of nuclear energy, could both be regulated by fining undesirable behaviour. The government has countless ways of regulation at its disposal, but for these two vastly different things it chose the exact same instrument.
It could be argued that "what do you think is worse, X or Y?" is an unfair question, or one that cannot be reasonably answered, but that would be merely your opinion. I am willing to bet that you will find millions in the USA who are not only willing to answer such a question, but will do so without hesitation, and without thinking the question odd.
As for the scope of the impact of these fines, sure, it would be hard to compare them. How would you go about it? Or would you refuse to evaluate the government's fining policy simply because you think it cannot be done?
- Krusty: Here are the names of some funny places: Walla Walla, Keokuk, Kookamunga, Seattle!
- Homer: Bhahahhahaha! Seattle
What the fuck?
I don't think the parent's comment was trying to lessen the horrors of "female circumcision". Just draw attention to the fact that "the other circumcision" is also not a good thing.
Flamebait? Fuckwits...
I've never been to the USA, but all this hysteria over more than a year has me wondering - is it illegal for women to breast feed in public in the USA? That would explain a few things, weird stuff like it's OK to see strippers but only if they have little stickers named after Cornish miners pies on their nipples.
Lieberman is no Democrat.
Lieberman is loyal only to the Likud-wing of the Republican Party.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Yes. The amount of U.S. government intervention in the governments of other countries is so extensive that it is difficult to document it all. And that's just the intervention that has become known. The U.S. government has become one of inability to make effective relationships and secrecy and adversarial behavior.
Fuck off. Uh oh, I just got myself fined into oblivion! OH NOES!
I am scientifically inaccurate.
Being politically conservative, I support ironclad enforcement of a few, reasonable laws. Once we decide that something "shouldn't be done," the penalty for doing so should not be so light as to be considered a "cost of doing business." This threshold might well be different for the entertainment industry than for other industries. On the other hand, I think that the FCC's obscenity standards are unreasonable. Stern's shows make money, because people seem to enjoy his antics. (I'm not a fan, but I'm not anti-Stern, either)
Being an economic conservative, I tend to view the Bush administration as favoring a few select businesses (his campaign contributors), as opposed to supporting an economic environment conducive to business in general. The FCC seems to be strongly favoring Cable television and Satellite radio over traditional broadcast media. The majority of the public seems to prefer a boob or a cuss word here and there, and are willing to pay for a subscription, rather than get "boring" content for free. The economically conservative view would be to relax the broadcast standards, and let radio and television stations provide content to meet market demand, as they see fit.
After all, if you owned a cable or satellite business, wouldn't you want (free) radio and TV to be as boring as possible? Wouldn't you contribute to a candidate who promised to do so?
I see, so any small special intrest group or large mob gets to decide by complaining endlessly to the FCC.
Complaining certainly is within your First Amendment rights.
Why is it that setting strict guidelines violates the First amendment, but knowing that you could possibly be fined if you cross some aribtrary lines isn't considered a restriction?
One is a prior restraint, the other isn't.
Many people have compared FCC fines to speed limits, but then turn around and say FCC fines dont restrict speech, even though thats the purpose of fining for speeding.
I think you're taking two different comments out of context. FCC fines are similar to speed limits, in that they are a regulation over use of a public good. They do restrict speech, I suppose, but they don't violate the First Amendment.
You don't hear the speech over the airwaves that you don't want to hear.
I don't care about whether or not I hear the speech.
Oh, and they aren't your airwaves. If they belong to anyone they belong to the public at large.
Then the public at large has a right to determine what is done with them.
And you're right..my whole point was that the content broadcast over the airwavs doesn't hinder in any way your using them for other purposes.
Yes it does. It's called interference.
There are other frequencies available.
Not frequencies which propagate well for certain types of purposes. And all of those frequencies are equally regulated anyway. The only one you can use for pretty much anything is MURS, and that is a very narrow band.
Does it matter if a station plays audio of hardcore sex or the teachings of jesus?
Of course it matters. If it didn't matter, then broadcasters would have no problems broadcasting what the government wants them to broadcast.
Either way, YOU won't be using that band.
If someone else is using that band for something that benefits the public, then I'm OK with not using the band myself.
Your nonsense about the public good is your way of saying 'i want to censor what is on the airwaves.' Censoring never serves the public good.
Clearly I disagree.
You could use ANOTHER part of the band if you really wanted your own FM station. You have other bands for setting up point to point internet. Use those.
The licensing fees for those bands are actually more than those for FM radio.
What exactly is your arguement?
My argument is that the radio broadcasters have taken a public resource away from the public by promising to use it for the public good and then they complain whenever the FCC tries to enforce that promise. They can't have it both ways. Either auction off the bands to the highest bidders and let them do whatever they want with them (i.e., the end of free radio), keep things the way they are now (i.e. government regulation), or just leave it as a big free-for-all where whoever can yell the loudest wins (i.e. tragedy of the commons).
You think that if a station does broadcast smut YOU should get the band b/c YOU don't like it? What about the people that do? Stern is still on because he has ALOT of fans.
I myself am a Howard Stern fan, as I've said above. That's not what this is about. This is about corporations stealing things from the public with lies.
Get over yourself, if you don't like him don't listen. Either way, it won't transfer thier FM license to you.
At least it will cause them to lose their license so that a company that is working in my best interests can get it.
1) The frequencies being used by the satellite companies are not very useful for terrestial broadcast, and therefore most of the general public.
2) Satellite frequencies are not public, they were bought by the companies which broadcast them for millions of dollars. To call them public would be like calling your backyard public.
Oh, well I see now how wrong I am. Good thing you were here to point that out to me.
I don't care to prove you wrong. Read the court cases.
You could have tried to explain why you feel the supreme court is right in their decision to allow censorship
You haven't explained why you feel the Supreme Court is wrong. Any attempt for me to prove you wrong would be a strawman argument. The government clearly has the right to regulate the broadcasts of these companies, as they are engaged in interstate commerce. You claim this regulation violates the First Amendment, but you haven't explained why. I don't see it.
Use of the public airwaves is a privilege, not a right.
Use of public property (which, by definition, everyone owns) is a privlege?
In this case, yes. Though I wouldn't say everyone owns it, I'd say no one owns it.
As the great George Carlin has said, words themselves are harmless. It is the emotion behind those words that is offensive. He has also made mention that effectively banning racial slurs is what gives them such power.
n 1: a man who is a stupid incompetent fool [syn: fathead, goof, goofball, bozo, jackass, goose, cuckoo, zany]
Complaining certainly is within your First Amendment rights.
I agree; its when those complaints are then used to justify censorship is where I have a problem.
One is a prior restraint, the other isn't.
Is the net result not the same for both?
I think you're taking two different comments out of context. FCC fines are similar to speed limits, in that they are a regulation over use of a public good. They do restrict speech, I suppose, but they don't violate the First Amendment.
Would you care to elaborate how you can restrict speech without violating the first amendment?
I don't care about whether or not I hear the speech.
Then why do you care what they are broadcasting? Oh, you don't want anyone else to hear it either..i see.
Then the public at large has a right to determine what is done with them.
And most of the public is fine with Stern, or what happened at the 2004 superbowl half time.
Yes it does. It's called interference.
No, it doesn't. Broadcasting Christain rock or howard stern still 'interferes' the same way. However you only want to elimate the interference when the latter is being broadcast.
Not frequencies which propagate well for certain types of purposes. And all of those frequencies are equally regulated anyway. The only one you can use for pretty much anything is MURS, and that is a very narrow band.
Then are you in favor of eliminating all FM band broadcasts? Or just the ones you don't like when you listen to them? If your issue is the bands then you have another gripe that has nothing to do with content.
Of course it matters. If it didn't matter, then broadcasters would have no problems broadcasting what the government wants them to broadcast.
So you're saying then that it is ok for the gov't to censor and violate the first amendment?
If someone else is using that band for something that benefits the public, then I'm OK with not using the band myself.
Do you fail to see that maybe other people disagree and feel that the stations are ALREADY using the band for public benefit?
Clearly I disagree.
Ahh, i see you can't hand anything that is outside your narrow view of the world. If you disagree, you want to block it. Perhaps you'd be more comfortable in China, where the gov't does control broadcasts?
The licensing fees for those bands are actually more than those for FM radio.
So get the fees changed. Funny how i've setup point to point wireless internet without paying a cent for the spectrum.
My argument is that the radio broadcasters have taken a public resource away from the public by promising to use it for the public good and then they complain whenever the FCC tries to enforce that promise. They can't have it both ways. Either auction off the bands to the highest bidders and let them do whatever they want with them (i.e., the end of free radio), keep things the way they are now (i.e. government regulation), or just leave it as a big free-for-all where whoever can yell the loudest wins (i.e. tragedy of the commons).
YOU are saying that you don't believe its in the public good, others disagree. Why do you want to bend everyone to use only your definition of 'public good?'
I myself am a Howard Stern fan, as I've said above. That's not what this is about. This is about corporations stealing things from the public with lies.
What exactly then is the public good the radio stations are supposed to be serving if not to broadcast content? Obviously people feel the stations are serving a public intrest, or wouldn't be listening, at which point the stations would go under and the FM band would be open for others to license. What exactly are the 'lies' you're talking about? Did they promise 'clean wholesome fun for the family?'
At least it will cause them to lose their license so that a company that is working in my best interests can get it.
You should just admit that your problem is free thinking,and you hate the others don't have offensive the same content that you do. You want to control what they see and hear.
You haven't explained why you feel the Supreme Court is wrong.
I feel the Supreme court is wrong because they ignored the first amendment.
The government clearly has the right to regulate the broadcasts of these companies, as they are engaged in interstate commerce.
Few radio station broadcasts cross state lines. Even so, regulating so that each station doens't try to overpower its competitors by boosting power is quite different then saying what content is allowed over the band.
You claim this regulation violates the First Amendment, but you haven't explained why.
I didn't think that it wasn't clear how censorship violates the first amendment. People have the right to speech, it doesn't matter if the listeners find what was said offensive or in bad taste.
Use of the public airwaves is a privilege, not a right.
Really? I didn't see any right granted to the feds or the states in the constition about the use of airwaves. Therefore, it falls to the people.
Would you care to elaborate how you can restrict speech without violating the first amendment?
We have all kinds of laws restricting speech. Copyright laws, trade secret laws, harrassment laws, spam laws, fraud laws, disturbing the peace laws, false advertising laws, etc. Are they all unconstitutional?
I don't care about whether or not I hear the speech.
Then why do you care what they are broadcasting?
I'd like them to broadcast something useful.
So you're saying then that it is ok for the gov't to censor and violate the first amendment?
It's OK for the government to censor if the entity enters into an agreement to be censored. It's not OK to violate the first amendment.
Do you fail to see that maybe other people disagree and feel that the stations are ALREADY using the band for public benefit?
Of course not. If you think listening to fart noises benefits the public, feel free to write to the FCC and say so.
And most of the public is fine with Stern, or what happened at the 2004 superbowl half time.
I'm sure most of the public is not fine with Stern, and I doubt most of them are fine with the Superbowl half time either.
Broadcasting Christain rock or howard stern still 'interferes' the same way.
Sure, but broadcasting NPR doesn't.
Then are you in favor of eliminating all FM band broadcasts?
It'd be better than the system we've got now.
If your issue is the bands then you have another gripe that has nothing to do with content.
I don't have a gripe with the content. I have a gripe with FM broadcasters who want exclusive rights to the bands and no restrictions on content, all for just $500 a year.
Perhaps you'd be more comfortable in China, where the gov't does control broadcasts?
Between the government controlling broadcasts and Clearstation controlling them, I'll take the government. At least I get to elect government officials.
So get the fees changed.
I have no power over the fees. Haven't I told you already, I don't work for the FCC.
Funny how i've setup point to point wireless internet without paying a cent for the spectrum.
It's possible. 1) Maybe you're not in the US. 2) Maybe it's a really slow connection using MURS. 3) Maybe you've got a ham license. 4) Maybe you're breaking the law.
YOU are saying that you don't believe its in the public good, others disagree.
I have said no such thing.
What exactly are the 'lies' you're talking about? Did they promise 'clean wholesome fun for the family?'
They promised to follow the FCC regulations.
I feel the Supreme court is wrong because they ignored the first amendment.
Read the cases again, they certainly didn't ignore the first amendment. They discussed it in length.
Few radio station broadcasts cross state lines.
All of them do.
Even so, regulating so that each station doens't try to overpower its competitors by boosting power is quite different then saying what content is allowed over the band.
How do you pick which competitors are allowed to use the frequencies in the first place, then?
I wonder what the total fine would be for broadcasting this on the air...
. swf
http://www.stfunoob.com/movies/Fuck%20Shit%20Piss
-- Game Developers: Stop porting badly-textured games from crappy console systems!
YOU FAIL IT
Free Mac Mini Yeah, it's
> Instead, you posted a registration-required link and mentioned Google.
a fe =active&c2coff=1&q=Beacon+Journal+%7C+03%2F28%2F20 +04+%7C+Three+Mile+Island+still+a+symbol&btnG=Sear ch
The link didn't demand registration when I found it.
>If you could support it,
Google cache, anyone?
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=lang_en&s
Click cached on the first link.
>And what did they end up paying in fines?
Meet:
>The companies paid federal fines of $1.5 million for the accident.
Where cultural taboos dictate the covering of ankles, naked ankles are considered erotic. Likewise, it is only our cultural taboos against topless women that make breast appeal to our prurient interests. Hang out around nursing mothers for any length of time, and you'll see breasts popping out all over the place... and lets face it, they're just not that interesting!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Read the cases again, they certainly didn't ignore the first amendment. They discussed it in length.
And in the end chose to ignore it. I'm sure there is a long winded explaination as to why it didn't apply in their minds, but ultimately they allowed censorship. The fact is without the ability to fine, you WOULD hear 'objectionable' content on radios.
All of them do.
If thats true, I should be able to hear the Nerve from rochester NY here in VT. But I can't. So not all of them can.
How do you pick which competitors are allowed to use the frequencies in the first place, then?
You allow the FCC to license the use of the airwaves, most likely on a first come first serve basis. But the CONTENT of said broadcasts should not be the concern of the FCC.
The fact is without the ability to fine, you WOULD hear 'objectionable' content on radios.
And here I thought I had the choice not to listen.
If thats true, I should be able to hear the Nerve from rochester NY here in VT. But I can't.
I'm sure you could with a good enough receiver, and VT is not the only state near rochester (parts of PA are closer). And most importantly, the fact that there are other stations talking louder over top of the Rochester one. The Rochester station may not come in clearly, but it's still interfering with stations in other states.
You allow the FCC to license the use of the airwaves, most likely on a first come first serve basis.
First come first serve doesn't work. There is already more demand than supply in many areas. And it's not fair anyway. Why should some company get eternal rights to a frequency just because it was there first?
But the CONTENT of said broadcasts should not be the concern of the FCC.
If the content of the broadcasts were not the concern of the FCC, just know there wouldn't be free radio. It'd be encrypted, and you'd have to pay for it. And all the money for subscriptions would go to Clearstation, just because they got there first.
The companies paid federal fines of $1.5 million for the accident.
Alright, now that I can read your link, it does indeed say that. I retract the bulk of my vitriol. However, in the interest of finding out the "right" answer, I looked around a bit more...
The Washington Post says "Oct. 25: The NRC fines Metropolitan Edison, TMI's operator, $155,000."
From reasonably trustable sources, I couldn't find any other sites supporting either of our numbers, though personally I would consider the Post the best of the three.
However, I think I can explain the number your link gives... It seems that TMI itself has received numerous fines over the years for its chronic safety problems. I found one at $210k, a few at $55k, a few at $50k, possibly one at $160k. I suspect these probably all add up to somewhere around $1.5 million. "The" Three Mile Island incident we all know about only earned Met Ed a $155k, but it only counts as one of many.
As an aside... Did you somehow edit your post to which I responded one round back? I would have sworn it contained another sentence when I first read it the other day, but when I went to quote it just now, I found it not there.
Wierd...
And here I thought I had the choice not to listen.
Wow...you're purposely being dense. Replace would with could, ok?
I'm sure you could with a good enough receiver, and VT is not the only state near rochester (parts of PA are closer). And most importantly, the fact that there are other stations talking louder over top of the Rochester one. The Rochester station may not come in clearly, but it's still interfering with stations in other states.
No, I could not. There's a station here on the same frequency...not to meantion the mountains in between which cut down greatly on reception of a signal. Honestly I don't really care about this point, I never said the FCC shouldn't be able to work out disputes, I've only indicated I have problems with their ability to fine over content.
First come first serve doesn't work. There is already more demand than supply in many areas. And it's not fair anyway. Why should some company get eternal rights to a frequency just because it was there first?
What do you propose then? How many radio stations gave up their license for a band anyway? The fact that supply is lower then demand is just the nature of the technology; and future digital radio sounds like it could free the spectrum crunch anyway.
I'd rather FCFS over taking away licenses because of censorship.
If the content of the broadcasts were not the concern of the FCC, just know there wouldn't be free radio. It'd be encrypted, and you'd have to pay for it. And all the money for subscriptions would go to Clearstation, just because they got there first.
I doubt people would have paid for radio to begin with. It would have died right away, just like I'm sure TV would have.
The fact is that people ARE willing to pay for radio and TV; they prove by paying for sat. radio and cable TV. Besides, why wouldn't things happened just as they did with advertising supported radio?
I doubt 'let me sell you this brand new technology that will forever lock you into just us and you'll be paying monthly for also' would have gone over too well.
What do you propose then?
I'd give part of the band to non-profits under essentially the same rules as they have now, and auction off the rest to the highest bidder (and charge an annual fee somewhere around 2% of that bid). Then let the winners of the auction do whatever they want with the frequencies. If they want to broadcast internet over them, go ahead. If they want to broadcast subscription radio, fine. If they want to go with free radio, that's fine too.
I doubt people would have paid for radio to begin with. It would have died right away, just like I'm sure TV would have.
Perhaps, but now the vast majority of people do pay for TV.
The fact is that people ARE willing to pay for radio and TV; they prove by paying for sat. radio and cable TV.
Sure, I'm not saying this would fail. Some people would pay for it. Most probably wouldn't, though. Radio just isn't as important as television to most people.
Besides, why wouldn't things happened just as they did with advertising supported radio?
Because broadcast television and radio are required by law to be broadcast unencrypted (there have been some relaxations of this for HDTV recently, but for the most part the broadcasters are still required to provide free television). That's part of the deal the broadcasters make when they get to use the frequencies. Another part of the deal is that they have to broadcast at least three hours per week of educational and informational programming for children. Another part of the deal is that they can't broadcast profane or indecent material between the hours of 6AM and 10PM.
You kidding? That was fucking hilarious!!! ;)
BZZZT... negative.
They were BOUGHT by those companies in the EXACT SAME WAY that a terrestrial radio or TV station BOUGHT their frequencies. I ought to know - I've bought a few.
Airwaves are airwaves - the law does not concede "ownership" of them... only exclusivity in transmit rights. Big difference.
help me i've cloned myself and can't remember which one I am
They were BOUGHT by those companies in the EXACT SAME WAY that a terrestrial radio or TV station BOUGHT their frequencies. I ought to know - I've bought a few.
Broadcast radio stations pay $500/year as a regulatory fee to the government. XM radio paid over $90 million at auction for its frequencies, and it pays hundreds of thousands a year in licensing fees. It's not the EXACT SAME WAY. Not even close.
Airwaves are airwaves - the law does not concede "ownership" of them... only exclusivity in transmit rights. Big difference.
Exclusivity in tranmit rights, on a permanent basis, including transferrability of those rights, is ownership. It might not be the same as ownership of chattel, but it's almost identical to the ownership of real property. What does it mean when I say I own my backyard? It means I have exclusive rights to that backyard. It's precisely the same thing as how XM Radio owns the frequencies which they bought at auction. The exclusive rights that KYW has over its frequency on the other hand is quite transient. They are completely dependent on the FCC renewing its application every year. They don't own the frequency, at best they lease it.