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My access is limited to one hour per day at the public library. I can't afford home Internet. I rely on web-sites for diversity from around the world. I can join a chat-room or web community (such as Thom's) and communicate with someone from the other side of the globe or from across town.
How can someone mentally ill plan to purchase guns and do something like in Power 8 Aurora and Tucson last year?
I live in the UK and I'm about to sign up for internet at £19.99 ($31.75) per month. This is not an introductory offer.
Speed:
72 Mbps download (guaranteed - not 'up to')
20 Mbps upload
Limit of 250gb per month (no limit from midnight to 8.0am)
At the moment I'm getting 9mbps (of an 'up to' 24 Mbps) down and 1.8 mbps up for £20.46 ($32.50) per month with an unlimited down/upload allowance.
I lived in the USA from 2005 to 2007 (got 1.5 Mbps for about $60 per month in those days) and have relatives in Chicago - looks as if Comcast is 3 to 4 times more expensive
As more people rely on the internet for their news due to the abrogation of major media's responsibility to cover real news instead of the cultural flotsam and jetsam that passes for important and worthy of attention in an empire circling the drain; quick and uncensored access to the internet should be the right of an informed citizenry. Or maybe internet impedance is just another way to keep the sheeple grazing in pastures depleted of any nutrient that might stimulate the brain.
I live in Hillsboro OR, home of Intel in the NW (and many other hi-tech industries). We have fibre-optic throughout most of the city. I get 25 mb up and down but it's not cheap, certainly a lot more than Korean prices! I remember reading serveral years ago that Korea and Japan had a median download speed of 40-50 mb (now probably higher). Bob Metcalfe, who invented Ethernet, and a rather right-wing kind of guy once wrote (about 10 years ago) that there's only one thing worse than a govt. monopoly and that's an unregulated private monopoly, referring in his editorial in InfoWorld to the monopoly the Telcos still have on local access. He stated at that time that most of all the fibre installed is still 'dark' (I forget the figure but it was more than 2/3). LIke almost anything else in this "great" country we lag far behind the rest of the world.
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No, my Internet connection is through AT&T. Out Internet System is not the only part clinging to the 20th Century, take a look at our Train Rail System and tell me that there is something wrong. We are captives of the oligopolies. I agree, it's time that we start enforcong the Serman Anti-Trust Act in America again.
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Funny with all that great stuff in South Korea people still would rather live here. What am I missing.
I was denied the right to vote and to participate in our democracy. Because of a county election clerk's error and an ommision on a voter registration application I was told that technically I'm not here.
I have been registered to vote here in Santa Cruz Ca since mid 80's. Errors or ommissions should not be reason to deny us our rights. Time should not run out for us. Federal laws with a process of protection would solve these disparities.
I could not run for city council as planned. bushforsccouncil.99k.org But, I have to say that I am here. I have an EBT card. I buy food here. The govt. can track where and what I consume for food. They can't get a voter application right? Technically I'm not here?
We need a federal law to declare election day a federal paid holiday. So we can celebrate our democracy rather then stand in the rain after work to vote. We need weekend long voting. Remember the day when the republicans stole our election of Gore. Remember when chief justice Reinquist with his "Cheshire" cat smile spoke, "Did you really think we were going to allow you to count the votes"? This is an assault on our democracy. We must protect our rights to vote!
According to the netindex, the top 10 cities in the world does not include the US for internet average bandwidth over the past 6 months. In fact, the US is 33rd from the top. The allcountries graph shows a relatively constant (only a slight increase) bandwidth at 14.90 Mbps for the US. Hong Kong tops the list at 42.08 (but has more than doubled their bandwidth in the last 6 months)...followed by Lithuania at 33.50 Mbps then South Korea (33.30 Mbps) ..which has been fairly strong over the past 6 months with some slight variations.
Los Angeles is 10.5 Mbps. We are not the worst, but we really should be first and not stuck near the middle. Houston is 11.16 Mbps. Chicago is 12.19 Mbps
http://www.netindex.com/download/allcountries/
We should amend the Constitution to treat every part of the District of Columbia as part of the state that ceded it. Currently that would all be Maryland, so the residents of DC would be districted for approximately 1 House seat, and would participate in voting for MD's senators. If the rest of the 10-mile square were ceded by Virginia (again), that area would vote and be districted as part of VA. These areas would also vote for President as parts of those states.
How exactly did Bill Clinton get a balanced budget passed through Congress if no Republicans voted for it? The Republicans controlled the House for the last 6 years of his presidency.
We need to move to a system like what exists in Canada. There is a database of every citizen over the age of 18. If you are in that database, you vote. No need to change registration every time you move within the country.
Voter "registration" does work just fine, but when that "registered" voter goes to the polls, that's where the problems start, thanks to the Republican voter suppression laws requiring specific types of ID to vote, which in some states a gun license takes precedence of a passport as "legal". After $74,000,000 and 7 years of GW Bush trying to find voter fraud, they found 35 over that period of time, so it's not reasonable for states to spend millions of taxpayer dollars on these laws to prevent a problem that's almost virtually non existent. May well benefit us more to work on election frauds, which seem to be rampant.
The FBI and Homeland Security are going to spy on you anyway regardless if you are a owner of an
apple computer. Your cell phones are being monitored and the surveillance cameras all over
the major cities in this country part take in these acts. What different would it make if apple is this spying?
"in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily" - "Mein Kampf" by Adolf Hitler.
When Corporations take over the government, we have totalitariam Fascism.
Any scoundrel who can't defend his or her own opinions and arguments, without claiming he or she speaks for some "god" or another, has no right to any respect whatsoever. They are all delusional, imposters or charlatans. NOBODY has any idea what any such gods might say, if they even bothered with us. -- It's universally a cheap scam that falls on it's face.
I believe that facebook is now censoring what some people have to say even if it does not violate their stated rules of conduct....or maybe it is some sites like yahoo, which uses facebook and twitter, that is censoring things. I've heard that facebook and twitter and the other social internet sites are being monitored heavily by federal agencies...but I didn't think they would go so far as to censor them. I have read that the Feds have sock puppets with multiple personalities that are being paid to go to these web sites to sway people's thinking in the direction of supporting government or military or corporate memes....but when posts don't even get posted... maybe it is censorship.
While some of us are concerned about individual privacy, millions of others flock like lemings to social-network sites on the Internet (Facebook, LinkedIn, Google Circles, etc) freely posting their complete dossiers for any and all to see -- and all-knowing database to gather. Combine the Feds, Google, Facebook and Insurance files, and you have way-more data than most individuals have for themselves. Time was you could always screw-up, move and start over; now, that'd be tough.
I presume the Universal Database is already a long-done-deal; though that's no justification for voluntarilly facilitating the process.
Just got my Driver's License renewed -- and there was no Birth Certificate requirement -- the only proof of birth-citizenship. Grandfathered for decades, I don't think I've ever had to prove birth in the US for a licence to drive.
And I don't think anything in my Voting Registration History File is based on any "Birth in US" citizenship. Fact is, if randomly stopped on the street, I could NOT prove my US Citizenship -- not with any ID that I carry. I'd have to find, or apply and pay for copies of my birth-papers.
I helped a guy who'd lost all his ID. (Like many older citizens he was generally doing okay without it). It took us more than $50 and 3-months to recreate his paper-trail -- overcoming two Catch-22 bureaucratic blockages. IE: To get a State photo-ID you need "your Sosh" CARD, (an unsecure printed reminder); and to replace your Social Security reminder card ("Not for Identification"), you need a State Photo-ID. GOTCHA.
the scotus says there is no constitutional right to vote
says money is speech -
isn't your vote speech?
to get a driver's license you need 3 forms of id
yet those 3 forms of id
aren't good enough to vote -
you need a driver's license
You truly sound like a non American.
If you are okay with the FBI or the CIA or any other fascist arm of the government listening to every word you use or where you go on the internet, then you truly are not using your frontal lobes to understand the meaning of free speech. I can almost understand a Canadian citizen not understanding the full meaning of freedom hear in the lower 48, as we have been called, but to continue to condone the constant spying on of its citizens by the government in the name of safety, is completely against everything American freedom of speech stands for! We have heard the same old bull from our government that it is necessary to keep us safe from terrorism to monitor everything. Well, guess what, the terrorist have won the battle to change America into a country that has succumb to what they wanted, when they pulled down the twin towers in New York, a place where freedom has been destroyed by our enemies. Hitler wanted the same thing for Europe and the World, to be under complete scrutiny and compliance of the state or government. Hell, Stalin is probably completely happy in Hell knowing our freedoms have been circumvented by tyranny of the state. It is time we let the spy and political communities in Washington know, we will not stand for this behavior against our own citizens. If we have too, it is time to pull down the arms of tyranny that are out to destroy American freedoms at whatever the cost may be. If I have to be afraid of what I say to my friends and fellow citizens, because I might be in the scope of a DHS or FBI listening apparatus, then our freedoms here in America have lost their true meanings and we are no longer a democracy, just another country that has been brought to its knees by the internal powers that be. A very sad scenario for the future of American free speech. Am I dreaming or is this actually 1984? P.S., our personal beliefs of God do not belong in American politics. That concept was not lost on our forefathers who created this great nation. They knew what dangers lie in forcing our personal beliefs of religion on fellow citizens. Long live the Republic.
Funny, you should mention Bat Man. I just got back from finally watching that new Bat Man movie (and hoping no crazy person bursts in to kill us all....all of about 6 people in the whole theater...but I was ready for them...I was armed with the dangerous weapon that is normally used to read captions...the base in that thing, that fits into the cup holder, is very heavy).
I got the strong impression that the movie was trying to make some kind of a statement...something, perhaps, to make people a little less apt to think about rebelling against the rich. Yes, Gotham was seething with opulent wealthy people that didn't seem to care a whit about poor people and, of course, orphans.
And then what should appear...a scary hockey-masked man who was so tough that he could snap a man's neck by just thinking about it. He was made to look like, perhaps, someone of middle eastern lineage...and of course we all know that that automatically makes him the devil.
Then there is the billionaire "liberal" woman who spends all her time at fundraisers to help underprivileged people. She's full of surprises but will add to the "hate liberals" theme before the movie is over.
The whole city of Gotham was planted with tons of explosives and destroyed much of it...to be topped off with the nuclear warhead that was constantly transported around the city in a lead lined truck so it couldn't be located.
Looks like these sinister villains were about to blow up millions of Gotham's residents. And Bat Man had to not only overcome this sinister masked man because of his superhuman strength but because Bat Man was practically an invalid in the beginning of the movie recovering from some previous adventure.
I got to tell you that I was rooting for the "evil" masked man, most of the time, because he was fighting the even more evil....rich people that were partying it up while p1$$ing on every one else. Crashing into that NYSE was most enjoyable to watch! Yes, it would be too bad to have also made all the poor people suffer the same fate as the rich people. That is the only drawback to a 100% rooting for the "evil" masked man. Too bad these people can't figure out a way to deal a blow exclusively to the rich people and leave the downtrodden alone. But then that would have put a dent in the "evilness" that the movie producers were trying to impress on everyone. Take someone with a good cause and mix it with a bad one and you have tainted the good cause. (Good cause: rebelling against the wealthy. Bad one: making non-wealthy suffer as well.)
This seemed to be a propaganda movie that just would not have mustered an empathetic, as originally planned, audience unless they were all billionaires or millionaires or their useful idiots who can't see how their minds are being messed with through this kind of low-key propaganda.
"No proof, no god!" Makes a lot more sense than "There just has to be a god because how else do you explain our existence?"
Voting rights shouldn't be left to individual states because political extremist will stop at nothing to win.
As I said before as a 50 year old Canadian I can honestly say I don't what religion any of our Prime Ministers where. Religion has no business in Government. As far as my Government spying on me no problem it is there job to keep us safe. If you put anything on the Internet you don't want anybody to see you are a fool.