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Paul Krugman calls those against Waxman-Markey climate change bill treasonous against the planet

Posted on June 29th, 2009 at 6:36pm by bile Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments »

http://www.nytimes.com/…

So the House passed the Waxman-Markey climate-change bill. In political terms, it was a remarkable achievement.

But 212 representatives voted no. A handful of these no votes came from representatives who considered the bill too weak, but most rejected the bill because they rejected the whole notion that we have to do something about greenhouse gases.

And as I watched the deniers make their arguments, I couldn’t help thinking that I was watching a form of treason — treason against the planet.

To fully appreciate the irresponsibility and immorality of climate-change denial, you need to know about the grim turn taken by the latest climate research.

I keep fairly up to date on the latest information regarding climate change and I’m still not convinced of the extent to which humans have influenced the climate. The lists of scientists which oppose the politically correct version of anthropogenic global warming climate change grows larger and larger all the time. Regardless of whether or not global climate change is man made the solution is more freedom and property rights protection rather then less. It is fascism and collectivism which has lead to the increase in pollution and use of oil. The government is the largest polluter, excuses other polluters and subsidizes organizations which the free market likely wouldn’t had invested in.

 

FCC to probe exclusive handset deals, enhance diversity in the radio business

Posted on June 22nd, 2009 at 8:53am by bile Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

http://arstechnica.com/…

Likely Federal Communications Commission chair Julius Genachowski has promised Senator John Kerry (D-MA) that he’ll give due attention to a petition asking the FCC to investigate exclusivity arrangements between handset manufacturers and wireless carriers. The most famous of these is AT&T’s deal with Apple for the iPhone. The White House’s pick to run the Commission also pledged to take action if the agency concludes that these arrangements hurt consumers.

The long standing request for action on this issue came from the Rural Cellular Association (RCA), which charges that they shortchange rural areas. “Yes, if confirmed, I will ensure that the full record on the RCA petition is reviewed, and act accordingly to promote competition and consumer choice,” Genachowski declared in a set of formal responses to questions posed by Kerry.

Genachowski also responded to four other questions posed by Kerry, albeit with circumspect answers that probably stem from a desire not to commit to too much, too soon. To a query about addressing the “shocking lack of minority voices in media markets today,” he promised to develop (take a deep breath here) “constitutionally permissible strategies to ensure that there is a wide dissemination of licenses so that women-owned, minority-owned, and small businesses have ample opportunity to compete, innovate, and contribute their voices to the national and local media marketplace.”

The nominee did agree with Kerry that the agency should, as part of its National Broadband Plan, conduct a comprehensive inventory of all available spectrum and the ways that it is currently being used. Kerry has introduced a bill that would make a survey of spectrum use between 200MHz and 3.5GHz a requirement of the Communications Act. And, while Genachowski didn’t sign on to Kerry’s proposal to extend the Universal Service Fund’s “Lifeline” program to broadband, he called it “an idea that I am very interested in learning more about.” At present the fund only subsidizes telephone service.

Kerry’s Lifeline question acknowledged that there is “considerable disagreement” about how the White House’s $7.2 billion in broadband stimulus money should be spent, specifically whether it should allocated to broadband rollout in rural areas, or to “demand side” programs (such as Lifeline) that encourage more consumers to buy high speed Internet.

“My concern is that we are funding projects that are sustainable beyond the 2 year window of funding availability—” Kerry told Genachowski, “the worst thing we could do is pour this money into projects that 2 years from now will not be viable.”

Putting the unanswered questions aside, no one should be surprised that RCA is quite happy about Genachowski and Copps’ comments regarding exclusive handsets.

“It is RCA’s expectation that the FCC will find that there are significant consumer and competitive harms caused by such deals,” Todd Lantor, the group’s attorney told us. “It is RCA’s hope that the Commission will move promptly on this item and ultimately decide that banning exclusive handset agreements is what the public interest dictates.”

Iterfering with contract, monopolizing the radio spectrum, treating people differently due to their class, being successfully lobbyed by small companies looking to interfere with volunary actions of other companies, advocating wealth redistribution. Can they stop pussyfooting around and just roll out the socio fascist red carpet? This bloodletting of anything resembling freedom is painful.

 

You can’t have it both ways: FSF not happy with Amazon’s usage of FOSS

Posted on June 19th, 2009 at 1:01pm by bile Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment »

http://blog.internetnews.com/…

As my colleague Michelle Menga is reporting, Amazon is now making new source code available for its Amazon Kindle. Basically what it represents is, Amazon’s responsibility to make the GPL licenced source code that is used in the Kindle available to others.

That’s part of the GPL license and Amazon is doing its part.

Digging into the code that Amazon is now making available, provides some really interesting insight into the underlying structure of the Kindle.

For one, Kindle (at least the DX) is using a modified Linux 2.6.22 kernel. This is a kernel that originally was released by Linus Torvalds in 2007. Is it a surprise that the Kindle is Linux powered? (not really).

Where there is LInux there are always some key Linux tools. In the Kindle’s case that’s the GCC 4.1.2 release for code compilation. In GCC terms that’s now an older release (originally out in 2006), so I would hope that Amazon moves to the newer GCC 4.4 over time as it could yield some performance gains for them.

Amazon is also using BusyBox (how can you not if you’re running embedded?), so it’s a good thing they’ve released that code – BusyBox has been active in recent years by way of the Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC) in making sure that vendors that use their code actually comply with the GPL.

That doesn’t necessarily mean that those that back the GPL are entirely thrilled with Amazon. In fact the Free Software Foundation (FSF), actually refers to the Kindle (somewhat less than politely) as the ‘Swindle’.

“It’s good that Amazon is complying with the licenses and not behaving illegally, but this is hardly something praiseworthy,” John Sullivan operations manager at the FSF blogged. “Amazon benefited from the freedoms passed on to them by other free software authors, and that benefit comes with an obligation to convey that same freedom to their users — to share alike.”

This isn’t about all supporters of FOSS but the many who are anti DRM.

For those of you… you are inconsistent. DRM is based on copyright laws. Intellectual property is both the justification for government enforced DRM (like the DMCA) and free and open source licenses. If you can use the government to force Amazon to abide by the usage rules set by authors of the Kindle’s software then Amazon can use the government to force you to obey the rules regarding the hardware and media they provide you.

People like Richard Stallman don’t understand freedom in a consistent way. They want the ability to do what they like with the physical and digital things in their possession but use the threat of violence to make others unable to do the same. Intellectual property is not actual property and can not be owned. It is inalienable. Nontransferable. Scarcity only applies to it’s ability to be transferred and not itself. To threat or actually aggress against someone in order to keep a monopoly on an idea is just as illegitimate and ridiculous as waging a war on a tactic.

Trying to have it both ways is intellectually dishonest and antithesis to the rule of law or a free society. If you use the guns of government to create this artificial monopoly power you will forever be fighting for control over it.

 

Think Twice News: Episode 5 – Smoking Bans, and some technical issues

Posted on June 17th, 2009 at 8:33am by bile Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

 

Cindy Sheehan on Alex Jones Show: she’s has come a long way

Posted on June 13th, 2009 at 1:27pm by bile Tags: , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment »

Part 2, Part 3, Part 4

 

Vote for the post Bureaucrash website name

Posted on June 10th, 2009 at 12:25pm by bile Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

http://abcaction.wordpress.com/2009/06/10/vote/

Vote on New Site Name

A couple of days ago we solicited names from you and other freedom fighters to potentially use on the new post-Bureaucrash website. And you responded. As you can tell from the comments section there, where name suggestions were left, we received a lot of submissions. We took some time to narrow down that list, removing those that were explicitly anarchist — as we want the site to be welcoming to non-anarchists — and those for which the domains were already held by others.

Also, you’ll see that you’re able to not just choose your favorite name or your top three names but indicate whether you like or dislike each name. That’s because we’re using approval voting, which will allow us a community to decide upon the best name together.

So, please let us know our thoughts on the new sites name and feel free to pass this post to those in your sphere. Note that this poll will close at noon EST this Friday, June 12th.

TAKE THE POLL!!

 


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