Wireless companies would love to charge each app a different fee to access the Internet.
Source: Imagine a world where every app has its own data plan | Ars Technica
Category: Government, Policy, & Politics
Senator: New net neutrality plan worse than “doing nothing at all” | Ars Technica
Senator Al Franken says net neutrality rules that exempt wireless broadband and permit paid prioritization could cause “more harm than doing nothing at all.”
Source: Senator: New net neutrality plan worse than “doing nothing at all” | Ars Technica
If you haven’t written your congressmen about this yet, this is about your last chance to do so. Given the difficulty and rarity of serious changes to federal policies, you are going to have to live with the results for the rest of your lives.
WikiLeaks US Diplomatic Cable Leak
There is a public interest in understanding how the world works and what is done in our name. There is a public interest in the confidential conduct of foreign policy. The two public interests conflict.
Source: US embassy cables: A banquet of secrets | Timothy Garton Ash | Opinion | The Guardian
US embassy cables leak sparks global diplomatic crisis | US news | The Guardian
• More than 250,000 dispatches reveal US foreign strategies
• Diplomats ordered to spy on allies as well as enemies
• Saudi king urged Washington to bomb Iran
Source: US embassy cables leak sparks global diplomatic crisis | US news | The Guardian
There is a difference between lying and being polite/diplomatic; also there is a difference between the public face of a country and the individual private beliefs and feelings of its citizens, even those employed by the diplomatic services.
Continue reading US embassy cables leak sparks global diplomatic crisis | US news | The Guardian
Stonekettle Station: The Election: What Does It All Mean?
For every well educated, informed, conscientious voter who puts the needs of the nation above their own petty concerns (and really, let me know if you find this person), there is one ignorant uniformed moron, one party hack, one perpetually angry asshole whose only goal is to gum up the works, one guy who votes at random, one guy who forgot to vote, one guy who didn’t vote in protest, one guy who didn’t vote because he was stoned, one guy who didn’t vote because he figures it doesn’t matter, one guy who didn’t vote because he was in prison, and one guy who didn’t vote because the space alien Jesus in his head told him voting booths are really experiments by government scientists to steal our precious bodily fluids.
Source: Stonekettle Station: The Election: What Does It All Mean?
From comments:
not only do monarchies work, they are probably among the most successful and stable forms of government known to humanity: they are compatible with multiple other forms of government through constitutions (democracy and democratic socialism), and they provide a core of civic tradition and sense of shared history which, if harnessed appropriately, is massively conducive to productive democratic participation.
— anonymous