Bent Corner

It looks as though the FCC isn’t waiting around for Congress to pass specific net neutrality laws.  From everyone’s favorite supermarket tabloid The Wallstreet Journal:

The Federal Communications Commission will rule that the cable giant violated federal policy by deliberately preventing some customers from sharing videos online via file-sharing services like BitTorrent, agency officials said. The company has acknowledged it slowed some traffic, but said it was necessary to prevent a few heavy users from overburdening its network.

I didn’t even know there was such a thing as violating federal policy.  I thought something was either a federal law or it wasn’t.  I do think it is a case of fraud when you sell someone something called unlimited broadband Internet and then proceed to limit it.

I’m not sure what took so long, but the FCC has finally agreed to allow Sirius and XM to merge into one satellite company.

I used to have XM, but I got rid of both my radios and switched to Sirius a few months ago.  I decided that I would rather listen to Howard Stern in the mornings then Opie & Anthony.  I felt like their show had gone down the tubes since they made the jump back to regular radio.  When they weren’t going to commercial, they were complaining about other radio shows getting better ratings then them.  It got boring.

Howard Stern on the other hand has been Howard Stern.  He’s as great as he has ever been.  In fact, he’s actually better then ever.

The music channels on Sirius are better then the music channels on XM.  I find myself listening to a lot of channel 22 First Wave.  They play a lot of classic alternative and new wave.  I also enjoy channel 29 Punk Rock.  They play nothing but new and vintage puck rock.

One of the things I don’t understand about this merger is one of the stipulations forced on Sirius and XM by the FCC.  The two companies had to agree that after they merge, they will not raise prices for three years. If the government can do that with satellite radio, why can’t they do that with gas?

Earlier I blogged about something Reverend Jesse Jackson said about Presidential candidate Barack Obama. The various mainstream news organizations would not actually quote the good Reverend, even the ones on cable TV where they are free of the constraints put down by the FCC.

I now know what he actually said. What Reverend Jackson said was that he wanted to violently mutilate Barack Obama’s genitalia. Specifically, he stated his desire to cut Barack Obama’s testicles off.

I’ll be honest. I’ve always been a big fan of the Reverend Jesse Jackson. I’ve always admired the way he lived his life. The man has dedicated his entire life to teaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Not only with words, but with his actions. A man with his talents and abilities could have chosen a much different path in life. He could have been a captain of industry or an entrepreneur. Instead he chose to live a life dedicated to Jesus.

With that said, I cannot support Reverend Jackson regarding his desire to mutilate Barack Obama’s genitalia. If he has an issue with Barack Obama, he needs to find a way to work it out that doesn’t involve a knife and Barack Obama’s testicles. There must be another way.

Ron Paul claims that he’s been excluded from a New Hampshire January 6 Republican debate being organized by Fox News. This is the weekend before the New Hampshire Primary. Ron Paul says he is being excluded because Fox News is scared of him. Why is Doctor Paul constantly questioning everyone’s bravery? First a recipient of the Congressional Medal of Honor and now a cable news network.

Ron Paul’s Internet fans aren’t taking this exclusion sitting down. They are organizing a boycott against any company that advertises on Fox News. They have a list. They are getting the word out to all followers of Ron Paul to not to buy products from these companies.

One of these companies is Gold Bond. That means if a Ron Paul fan were to get a rash in an embarrassing place, they would have to turn elsewhere to get some instant relief. Let’s just hope that they go rash-free.

What’s even funnier is that some Ron Paul supporters are also advising fellow Ron Paul supporters to contact the FCC and complain. This is from a post on a Ron Paul message board:

I’m actually surprised that I haven’t seen this tactic posted yet. Along with advertisers, this is the other major weakness of broadcasters/networks.

The other critical items we can influence directly are the FCC broadcast license for each affiliate, AND FCC approval for station purchases/mergers/trades. By specifically targeting FCC approvals, your comments will have a LOT more long-term weight. Endangering the local affiliate’s license with enough negative comments in the right way will change their attitude from “It’s the network, nothing we can do” and largely ignoring you to actually calling the NewsCorp on your behalf saying “OMG, fix this NOW!”

Remember, the FCC threatened to hit EACH broadcast station with a 6-figure fine for the half-second “wardrobe malfunction” at the SuperBowl*.

This is funny for two different reasons. First, Ron Paul represents a political philosophy that believes a big federal government is bad. If he had his way, not only would the FCC cease to exist, so would the IRS, the Department of Education, the CIA, the FBI, and a whole host of other federal agencies. What do Ron Paul supporters do when they think their man has been slighted? They whine about it to a government agency.

It makes you wonder why they are Ron Paul supporters in the first place.

Secondly, the FCC doesn’t have any jurisdiction over Fox News. It’s a cable network, not a broadcast network. Whining to the FCC about something a cable network is a waste of time. Then again, why should that stop a Ron Paul supporter?

And why is Fox News excluding Ron Paul from the debate? Because there is no debate. It was canceled three weeks ago because of it’s close proximity with another similar event. Ron Paul had been invited to attend, but reportedly his staff never got back with the event organizers to confirm that he would attend.

Why would Fox News exclude someone like Ron Paul from the debate? Including Ron Paul ensures more people will watch. Not only his rabid die hard fan base, but people like me that think he’s a loon. I would watch just for the entertainment value. Who knows what he would say.

I strolled over to Geek News Central the other day to see what Todd was railing against these days. Big surprise, he is upset about how the FCC will handle the auction for the 700 MHz frequency spectrum. That’s the area of the frequency spectrum currently used by old fashioned analog broadcast TV. Starting in 2009, TV stations wont be broadcasting analog signals on the 700 MHz spectrum and will instead be forced (kicking and screaming) to switch to broadcasting a digital signal on frequencies other then the 700 MHz range.

This leaves the 700 MHz spectrum open for other things such as cell phones or wireless Internet. Signals in the 700 MHz spectrum can travel up to four times farther then signals transmitted on the current wireless frequencies. They are also better at going through walls and they don’t kill bees like microwave cell phone frequencies do.

Some have been advocating that the entire spectrum should be completely open-access. The FCC announced that only a third of the 700 MHz spectrum will be open-access.

This is what Todd had to say:

I am severely pissed off. Sure, the rules state that the spectrum must have Open Devices and Open Applications but the FCC threw out the baby with the bath water when they reversed course on what could have been the most positive wireless spectrum development since the invention of the radio when they closed the door and are going to allow CLOSED SERVICES and CLOSED NETWORKS.

I am truly unhappy and I hope you are as well. I encourage you to pick up the phone and call anyone and everyone you know with influence and tell them how you really feel about this.

The problem is that the majority of Americans are quite content with these companies getting their way every time. It is beyond criminal to say the very least.

I don’t know who exactly Todd is accusing of criminal activity. Is it the FCC? Verizon? Sprint? Google? How about AOL? They don’t have a stake in this, but Todd often sets his sights on AOL, even going so far as to encouraging people to sell off all their shares in AOL. Never mind that AOL is part of Time-Warner and there is no such thing as AOL stock.

Who exactly then is the criminal here? I really don’t know. I left a comment on his blog yesterday asking just this very question, but it never appeared. Todd is one of those bloggers that runs a CLOSED SERVICE blog. He personally must approve each and every comment that appears. I can only assume that is why most of his blog posts have 0 comments. Maybe people are leaving comments, but their comments don’t pass muster.

I’ve never really understood why some bloggers feel the need to engage comment moderation on their blog. What are they afraid of? That someone will disagree with him?

The ironic thing about this is that he is all for openness when it comes to radio frequencies, but not when it comes to the comment section of his own blog. That’s kind of sad.

Does Todd know what throwing out the “baby with the bath water” means? I don’t see how the expression actually applies.