“I know, because I won both of them.” get on Obama’s shade level

Arguably the best line of the night, most likely adlibbed. The 2015 State of the Union address was, well I had low expectations. Ok, so here’s the thing. I’m not happy, and I know that is because I’m tired, old, and cranky, but this whole President Obama gives no fucks thing needs to stop. It needs to stop because Obama does in fact have fucks to give. You can tell by the way he didn’t threaten to veto a 20 week abortion ban during the speech, which he did that morning. He didn’t say, I’m pro-choice, and I’m going to veto any anti-choice bills. No he said, “We still may not agree on a woman’s right to choose, but surely, we can agree it’s a good thing that teen pregnancies and abortions are nearing all-time lows, and that every woman should have access to the health care that she needs.” Yeah, we can’t all agree that women should have the right to make their own medical decisions. Well, I don’t care people disagree with me, and a man giving no fucks wouldn’t either. Just saying.

What else was missing, well women at large. You’d think I’d be used to it. Also, couldn’t say NetNeutrality? Oh, and Ferguson “We may have different takes on the events of Ferguson and New York. But surely we can understand a father who fears his son can’t walk home without being harassed. And surely we can understand the wife who won’t rest until the police officer she married walks through the front door at the end of his shift.” Now, I don’t want the police murdered, but I’m not sure the murder of children and the deaths of police are on the same level, after all, police sign up for a dangerous job while black boys are just going out for some skittles. #BlackLivesMatter, not all lives matter. Of course, everyone matters, but the point of #BlackLivesMatter is to draw attention to the murder of people of color by the police, which isn’t happening to white people.  And of course the phrasing isn’t mutually exclusive, by saying the lives of black people matter isn’t the same as saying all other lives do not matter, or more specifically, white lives.

All that said no one throws shade quite like our President, and that I can respect. While, I’ll never be on that level of shade throwing, I’m going to need the Obama administration to get on my level when it comes to progressive issues because this shit is weak. 

Photo of the night: 

How is the debate on Net Neutrality still happening?

Anyone know?

John Oliver explains net neutrality

Comcast's customer service is rated below that of GM. Just think about that for a minute.

And we’ve pulled the plug on Net Neutrality

I read Kevin Drum’s take for Mother Jones on Thursday morning. Apparently, the Wall Street Journal is reporting the FCC has thrown in the towel on finding a legal way to enforce equal access and is moving on to propose rules that explicitly allow broadband suppliers to favor companies that pay them:

“The proposed rules would prevent the service providers from blocking or discriminating against specific websites, but would allow broadband providers to give some traffic preferential treatment, so long as such arrangements are available on ‘commercially reasonable’ terms for all interested content companies. Whether the terms are commercially reasonable would be decided by the FCC on a case-by-case basis.

“…The FCC’s proposal would allow some forms of discrimination while preventing companies from slowing down or blocking specific websites, which likely won’t satisfy all proponents of new neutrality, the concept that all Internet traffic should be treated equally. The Commission has also decided for not against reclassifying broadband as a public utility, which would subject ISPs to much greater regulation. However, the Commission has left the reclassification option on the table at present.”

Naturally this means, some large corporations are going to pay for speedy service, while others can’t compete, ‘Merica’s capitalist battle cry. We’re probably looking at Netflix (obviously), Google, and probably Amazon will get great speeds, and everyone else can use whatever is left. Of course Drum notes that ISPs can’t deliberately slow down traffic (which has been suggested in the past), but that is the last thing left from net neutrality. We’ve approved two-tiered service, and we all know what that means. Those who can pay get good service (usually at the exploitation of others), and those who can’t pay get the shaft.

What in the fresh hell is this?

Oh Comcast, I hate you so. I hate everything about you. Your pseudo monopoly on the Mid-Atlantic. Your shitty service. The way one of the service guys you sent out spent an hour in my apartment during which he took a break to get stoned. But I am bound to you if I want Internet access in my apartment, but you will get no more money from me. Which is why I’m pissed about your relationship with Netflix. Netflix, who I pay for a service.

I’m not an expert on much of anything, let alone net neutrality, but that is what I’m going to attempt to write about. Edward Wyatt and Noam Cohen write about the Comcast and Netflix service deal for The New York Times. Comcast as you know may be the corporate manifestation of a lesser devil, has announced an agreement on Sunday that Netflix will pay Comcast for faster and more reliable access to Comcast’s subscribers. This is new because previously content providers didn’t have to pay for access to customers of broadband providers.

However, the broadband companies are growing more and more powerful, and then they increased their leverage over sites whose traffic takes more of the network’s capacity. Think Netflix and YouTube specifically being pushed around by Comcast, Verizon, and AT&T. I’m not asserting that Netflix and YouTube have no power or responsibility here, but the broadband providers appear to be the cause. Of course this agreement comes 10 days after Comcast agreed to acquire Time Warner Cable for $45 billion, this will make Comcast the provider to about one-third of American homes as a cable provider and they’d be the high-speed Internet company for 40 percent.

So does this agreement between Comcast and Netflix violate net neutrality? A definitive we’re not sure, and that isn’t just me who has a limited understanding of how the Internet works outside of my connection. Refresher net neutrality pretty much allows all content providers to have equal and free access to consumers. People close to the deal are on the side of this is pretty common for a middleman to carry traffic to a broadband provider, which then moves it to the consumer’s home. We don’t know how much the agreement is worth. The press release notes that “Netflix received no preferential network treatment under the multiyear agreement.”

However, there are skeptics such as Tim Wu, a Columbia Law School professor and advocate for net neutrality. He says this is the first of such agreements where broadband providers can extract payment for sending specific content through its network. One of the fears here is that wealthy companies will be the only companies that can afford to pay for these deals so it stifles new companies.

The agreement follows that January ruling from the federal appeals court which said the Federal Communications Commission overstepped its authority with the net neutrality rules. Had the court upheld the rules this deal might not exist. The broadband providers are playing down their role in service problems. They’ve been blaming middlemen who in their opinion are “trying to shove too much data through too small a pipe.”

*Side eye* Netflix will no longer use an intermediary to deliver content. So the Comcast-Netflix deal is “paid peering” which is a deal struck between companies that manage the plumbing of the Internet, usually invisible to consumers. This shouldn’t be confused with “paid prioritization” which is a net neutrality violation where companies pay to be moved through the pipes more quickly.

So obviously I’m opposed to Comcast growing even more, I think they have enough. I’m also a proponent of net neutrality. There is no reason some companies content should be prioritized over others for a fee. I just can’t get past the implications of that on alternative media. At this point we’ll just have to wait to see how this works in the long run and what other companies begin cutting deals like this.