Friday, June 13, 2008
Tim Russert and my car died on the same day. RIP.
For those of you who know me, know that there are two things that I truly love in life. Politics and Betsy my car. Politics is a passion of mine that I follow closely like some who follow the lives of celebrities. One of the most important figures in American politics, Tim Russert, has passed away today. This is truly a loss to this a nation as Tim Russert brought forth some of the greatest political analysis that was impartial and fair. Something that this country greatly lacks.
I heard about this on the radio around 1 PM driving my blue 1989 Toyota Corolla with 280,000 miles. While most saw my car as a piece of crap, I saw it as a wondrous and dependable means of transportation. Until today. While driving on the freeway to a job interview at Pomona College, my car suddenly struggled to shift to 5th gear. It began to grind and I knew something was wrong. I struggled to pull over to the side of the road to take a look under the hood. Everything was hotter than normal so I poured water on i in attempt to cool it down. I was thinking i was simply overheating. After 15 minutes I started my car up without any improvement. That's when I began to have a bad feeling about the future of my Betsy. So I decded to find an Autozone or Pepboys to see if they could take a look at it. On my way I stopped at an AmPm for directions. Again on my way, informed with directions to a car parts store, my car struggled to make it still driving at decent speeds. But once I got 20 feet from the store an explosion ocurred from my engine and the car began to smoke up. I quickly arrived but it was too late. The permanent damage had been done. A man came out of the store wondering about the noise and he took a look a my engine and gave me a look that meant, I'm sorry kid.
His look had crushed me with a dose of realization kicking in. He told me a place to have it looked at more right down the road. My car sped by at 5 mph to get there signaling drivers to go around me. They put it more eloquently, as to the status of my car. "Your engine has a big hole in it," the car technician told me. He told me that it wouldn' be worth getting a new motor because it would be more than the value of the car. So he suggested I take to the last place where a car sees daylight, a junkyard. While on my way there, still barely moving while signaling people to go around me, it pooped out right in the middle of the road. I tried to start it up again but to no avail. I walked across the street for some help and they suggested I call the junkyard to pick it up. 25 minutes later the tow truck arrived and carried me and my car off to the yard. I then waved goodbye as it was taken to the place where all cars go to die. And that is where the story of Betsy's life shall end. RIP Tim Russert and Betsy the car. You will both forever remain all our hearts.
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
this is why corporations shouldn't rule the world...
this is why corporations shouldn't rule the world anymore. they monopolize the world and take on way too many customers and eventually they get overloaded and the customers get screwed with the bill.
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080602/tec_time_warner_cable_internet.html?.v=4
"AP
Time Warner Cable tries metering Internet use
Monday June 2, 5:37 pm ET
By Peter Svensson, AP Technology Writer
Time Warner Cable starts customer trial with metered Internet access in Texas
NEW YORK (AP) -- You're used to paying extra if you use up your cell phone minutes, but will you be willing to pay extra if your home computer goes over its Internet allowance?
Time Warner Cable Inc. customers -- and, later, others -- may have to, if the company's test of metered Internet access is successful.
ADVERTISEMENT
On Thursday, new Time Warner Cable Internet subscribers in Beaumont, Texas, will have monthly allowances for the amount of data they upload and download. Those who go over will be charged $1 per gigabyte, a Time Warner Cable executive told the Associated Press.
Metered billing is an attempt to deal fairly with Internet usage, which is very uneven among Time Warner Cable's subscribers, said Kevin Leddy, Time Warner Cable's executive vice president of advanced technology.
Just 5 percent of the company's subscribers take up half of the capacity on local cable lines, Leddy said. Other cable Internet service providers report a similar distribution.
"We think it's the fairest way to finance the needed investment in the infrastructure," Leddy said.
Metered usage is common overseas, and other U.S. cable providers are looking at ways to rein in heavy users. Most have download caps, but some keep the caps secret so as not to alarm the majority of users, who come nowhere close to the limits. Time Warner Cable appears to be the first major ISP to charge for going over the limit: Other companies warn, then suspend, those who go over.
Phone companies are less concerned about congestion and are unlikely to impose metered usage on DSL customers, because their networks are structured differently.
Time Warner Cable had said in January that it was planning to conduct the trial in Beaumont, but did not give any details. On Monday, Leddy said its tiers will range from $29.95 a month for relatively slow service at 768 kilobits per second and a 5-gigabyte monthly cap to $54.90 per month for fast downloads at 15 megabits per second and a 40-gigabyte cap. Those prices cover the Internet portion of subscription bundles that include video or phone services. Both downloads and uploads will count toward the monthly cap.
A possible stumbling block for Time Warner Cable is that customers have had little reason so far to pay attention to how much they download from the Internet, or know much traffic makes up a gigabyte. That uncertainty could scare off new subscribers.
Those who mainly do Web surfing or e-mail have little reason to pay attention to the traffic caps: a gigabyte is about 3,000 Web pages, or 15,000 e-mails without attachments. But those who download movies or TV shows will want to pay attention. A standard-definition movie can take up 1.5 gigabytes, and a high-definition movie can be 6 to 8 gigabytes.
Time Warner Cable subscribers will be able to check out their data consumption on a "gas gauge" on the company's Web page.
The company won't apply the gigabyte surcharges for the first two months. It has 90,000 customers in the trial area, but only new subscribers will be part of the trial.
Billing by the hour was common for dial-up service in the U.S. until AOL introduced an unlimited-usage plan in 1996. Flat-rate, unlimited-usage plans have been credited with encouraging consumer Internet use by making billing easy to understand.
"The metered Internet has been tried and tested and rejected by the consumers overwhelmingly since the days of AOL," information-technology consultant George Ou told the Federal Communications Commission at a hearing on ISP practices in April.
Metered billing could also put a crimp in the plans of services like Apple Inc.'s iTunes that use the Internet to deliver video. DVD-by-mail pioneer Netflix Inc. just launched a TV set-top box that receives an unlimited stream of Internet video for as little as $8.99 per month.
Comcast Corp., the country's largest cable company, has suggested that it may cap usage at 250 gigabytes per month. Bend Cable Communications in Bend, Ore., used to have multitier bandwidth allowances, like the ones Time Warner Cable will test, but it abandoned them in favor of an across-the-board 100-gigabyte cap. Bend charges $1.50 per extra gigabyte consumed in a month."
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080602/tec_time_warner_cable_internet.html?.v=4
"AP
Time Warner Cable tries metering Internet use
Monday June 2, 5:37 pm ET
By Peter Svensson, AP Technology Writer
Time Warner Cable starts customer trial with metered Internet access in Texas
NEW YORK (AP) -- You're used to paying extra if you use up your cell phone minutes, but will you be willing to pay extra if your home computer goes over its Internet allowance?
Time Warner Cable Inc. customers -- and, later, others -- may have to, if the company's test of metered Internet access is successful.
ADVERTISEMENT
On Thursday, new Time Warner Cable Internet subscribers in Beaumont, Texas, will have monthly allowances for the amount of data they upload and download. Those who go over will be charged $1 per gigabyte, a Time Warner Cable executive told the Associated Press.
Metered billing is an attempt to deal fairly with Internet usage, which is very uneven among Time Warner Cable's subscribers, said Kevin Leddy, Time Warner Cable's executive vice president of advanced technology.
Just 5 percent of the company's subscribers take up half of the capacity on local cable lines, Leddy said. Other cable Internet service providers report a similar distribution.
"We think it's the fairest way to finance the needed investment in the infrastructure," Leddy said.
Metered usage is common overseas, and other U.S. cable providers are looking at ways to rein in heavy users. Most have download caps, but some keep the caps secret so as not to alarm the majority of users, who come nowhere close to the limits. Time Warner Cable appears to be the first major ISP to charge for going over the limit: Other companies warn, then suspend, those who go over.
Phone companies are less concerned about congestion and are unlikely to impose metered usage on DSL customers, because their networks are structured differently.
Time Warner Cable had said in January that it was planning to conduct the trial in Beaumont, but did not give any details. On Monday, Leddy said its tiers will range from $29.95 a month for relatively slow service at 768 kilobits per second and a 5-gigabyte monthly cap to $54.90 per month for fast downloads at 15 megabits per second and a 40-gigabyte cap. Those prices cover the Internet portion of subscription bundles that include video or phone services. Both downloads and uploads will count toward the monthly cap.
A possible stumbling block for Time Warner Cable is that customers have had little reason so far to pay attention to how much they download from the Internet, or know much traffic makes up a gigabyte. That uncertainty could scare off new subscribers.
Those who mainly do Web surfing or e-mail have little reason to pay attention to the traffic caps: a gigabyte is about 3,000 Web pages, or 15,000 e-mails without attachments. But those who download movies or TV shows will want to pay attention. A standard-definition movie can take up 1.5 gigabytes, and a high-definition movie can be 6 to 8 gigabytes.
Time Warner Cable subscribers will be able to check out their data consumption on a "gas gauge" on the company's Web page.
The company won't apply the gigabyte surcharges for the first two months. It has 90,000 customers in the trial area, but only new subscribers will be part of the trial.
Billing by the hour was common for dial-up service in the U.S. until AOL introduced an unlimited-usage plan in 1996. Flat-rate, unlimited-usage plans have been credited with encouraging consumer Internet use by making billing easy to understand.
"The metered Internet has been tried and tested and rejected by the consumers overwhelmingly since the days of AOL," information-technology consultant George Ou told the Federal Communications Commission at a hearing on ISP practices in April.
Metered billing could also put a crimp in the plans of services like Apple Inc.'s iTunes that use the Internet to deliver video. DVD-by-mail pioneer Netflix Inc. just launched a TV set-top box that receives an unlimited stream of Internet video for as little as $8.99 per month.
Comcast Corp., the country's largest cable company, has suggested that it may cap usage at 250 gigabytes per month. Bend Cable Communications in Bend, Ore., used to have multitier bandwidth allowances, like the ones Time Warner Cable will test, but it abandoned them in favor of an across-the-board 100-gigabyte cap. Bend charges $1.50 per extra gigabyte consumed in a month."
Friday, May 30, 2008
death and taxes...
While death and taxes are the only certain things in life, how you get there and who gives them out, is not.
Who knows it could be a tornado or a freight train careening off the tracks and somehow, with lots of moment, make it to your bedroom. but that's neither here nor there. what is also not certain is who is handing out those taxes. as the republicans like you to think, taxes have been around for a long time. according to wikipedia (i know, but this is not college anymore), the first recorded use of taxes has bee by the ancient greeks in 3000 b.c. Yes, taxes were even recorded in the bible. I know its hard for the Religious Right to think of their own ancient peoples as doing the cardinal sin.
" But believe it! In Genesis (chapter 47, verse 24 - the New International Version), it states 'But when the crop comes in, give a fifth of it to Pharaoh. The other four-fifths you may keep as seed for the fields and as food for yourselves and your households and your children.'"
See. At least you don't have to give 1/5 of all your crops! That's 20 percent! In the United States, we pay 35 percent of our income to taxes. In Denmark, the citizens there pay 56 percent of their income to taxes. That's over half. Sweden is about the same. I have seen some statistics as high as 68 percent, but I'm not sure I can trust those numbers. I will admit that the United States does have one of the highest tax rates in the world, and surprisingly has one of the highest corporate taxes in the world. I think that's a strange factoid that I don't really understand considering how filthy right some of our corporations and how poor so many people are in this country. But the point I was trying to make after I got caught in the web of a tangent, is that what is not certain, is who gives out the taxes. One thing for sure is that taxes have consistently increased over time to an extent. Regardless of whether the Democrats or the Republicans had the power of the purse. It switched back and forth for the last century, even when the Republicans were in power. Taxes are a fact of life. And increasing taxes is a part of life. If we are society that wants to live the way we do, with one of the highest living standards in the world, you're going to have to pay for it. So Republicans stop whining about it. They are here and they are queer. Second is, Democrats stop finding everything to tax.
Here's a funny story for you though to end this chat of ours.
"Sex sales tax: Sin got pricier in Utah last July, when owners of sexually explicit businesses where "nude or partially nude individuals perform any service" began paying a 10 percent sales and use tax on admission and user fees as well as the sales of merchandise, food, drink, and services.
That would be on top of the 4.75 percent sales tax the state already imposes on most transactions, sexually explicit or not. Not that the measure will raise much money. So far only one or two businesses in staid Utah are actually wild enough to be subjected to the tax." - http://money.cnn.com/2005/02/18/pf/taxes/strangetaxesupdate/index.htm
Who knows it could be a tornado or a freight train careening off the tracks and somehow, with lots of moment, make it to your bedroom. but that's neither here nor there. what is also not certain is who is handing out those taxes. as the republicans like you to think, taxes have been around for a long time. according to wikipedia (i know, but this is not college anymore), the first recorded use of taxes has bee by the ancient greeks in 3000 b.c. Yes, taxes were even recorded in the bible. I know its hard for the Religious Right to think of their own ancient peoples as doing the cardinal sin.
" But believe it! In Genesis (chapter 47, verse 24 - the New International Version), it states 'But when the crop comes in, give a fifth of it to Pharaoh. The other four-fifths you may keep as seed for the fields and as food for yourselves and your households and your children.'"
See. At least you don't have to give 1/5 of all your crops! That's 20 percent! In the United States, we pay 35 percent of our income to taxes. In Denmark, the citizens there pay 56 percent of their income to taxes. That's over half. Sweden is about the same. I have seen some statistics as high as 68 percent, but I'm not sure I can trust those numbers. I will admit that the United States does have one of the highest tax rates in the world, and surprisingly has one of the highest corporate taxes in the world. I think that's a strange factoid that I don't really understand considering how filthy right some of our corporations and how poor so many people are in this country. But the point I was trying to make after I got caught in the web of a tangent, is that what is not certain, is who gives out the taxes. One thing for sure is that taxes have consistently increased over time to an extent. Regardless of whether the Democrats or the Republicans had the power of the purse. It switched back and forth for the last century, even when the Republicans were in power. Taxes are a fact of life. And increasing taxes is a part of life. If we are society that wants to live the way we do, with one of the highest living standards in the world, you're going to have to pay for it. So Republicans stop whining about it. They are here and they are queer. Second is, Democrats stop finding everything to tax.
Here's a funny story for you though to end this chat of ours.
"Sex sales tax: Sin got pricier in Utah last July, when owners of sexually explicit businesses where "nude or partially nude individuals perform any service" began paying a 10 percent sales and use tax on admission and user fees as well as the sales of merchandise, food, drink, and services.
That would be on top of the 4.75 percent sales tax the state already imposes on most transactions, sexually explicit or not. Not that the measure will raise much money. So far only one or two businesses in staid Utah are actually wild enough to be subjected to the tax." - http://money.cnn.com/2005/02/18/pf/taxes/strangetaxesupdate/index.htm
another one
i have another thing that all americans have in common, whether you are a republic or a democrat. is that we all care about and support our brave troops. that should never be a political issue. don't forget, you republicans who feel like democrats don't support the troops, don't forget that World War I and II, the greatest wars America has been involved with, with Democratic commander-in-chiefs. Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. And we treated our troops with honor and respect both times. so one thing that dems and repubs can and should ever engage in politically is about supporting our troops.
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
A Permanent Pair of 3D Glasses
I can't tell you what is like to have lived in the 60s or the 70s, or even the 80s. I am only 22 years old. But I get a sense of "today" and it's not a good one. A week and a half ago I graduated from college. I graduated with pure optimism ready to leave the safety and security that American colleges give to its students. For the last few years I have become more and more politically engaged with this country and others as well. My last semester I took my first political class called Campaigns and Elections, which was basically a repeat of US Government. Although I never took US government in high school, I took the equivalent at a local community college, which had the same effect as taking in high school. The one advantage of the politics class I took last semester was that we were given the task to join a political campaign. And so I decided to work on Barack Obama's campaign. Yeah, I know, typical college student working for the Obama campaign. But I've been a supporter of Obama even before it was "cool" to be an Obama supporter, so shove it. Anyway, as an Obama supporter, you probably know that you get labeled immediately as a liberal wacko, unrealistic, idealistic and so on. I have heard it all from everywhere. These names don't bother and neither should they. I know who I am and what I am. But what lies deeper is this "sense" that I mentioned before. The level at which politics exists today. Frankly I am guilty just as much as the next person. I enjoy watching Hardball just as much as I enjoy Rush Limbaugh. While these programs are incredibly entertaining as most politics nerds do, but the content of these shows is utterly ridiculous and does nothing to further political dialogue in this country.
I am not sure whether the media has shaped us to be what we are today, or have we shaped the media to be like us. I don't know if anyone knows that or can know that. But the "sense" that I get is that, we, as America can no longer engage in debate. Americans have become far too ideological. We are truly stupid people. We look for evidence to support our beliefs at all times. We watch those who agree with us and ignore those who disagree with us. You may be thinking, "so what?" The problem is that we identify ourselves so much with our beliefs that we seem to forget, or wish to forget the things that bond us together as Americans. I am guilty of this as are you an everyone you know. Why do we do this to ourselves? Why do we do this at the cost of dividing our country between red and blue. Why do we only see ourselves in red and blue as if we were all wearing a permanent pair of 3D glasses. I think its unhealthy for us as individuals and unhealthy for us as a country. I propose a challenge to you. And this is a serious challenge. I want you think of one thing, whether you are a Republican or Democrat, that we have in common. Something with a bit of thought in it. Just remember Politics is merely of the moment. issues change and policies change. Some things blow away and we forget about them and other things become so much a part of our identity as Americans that we forget where these things began.
So in response to my own challenge, I claim that both Democrats and Republicans love products sold on infomercials, especially the Magic Bullet. Now it's your turn!
I am not sure whether the media has shaped us to be what we are today, or have we shaped the media to be like us. I don't know if anyone knows that or can know that. But the "sense" that I get is that, we, as America can no longer engage in debate. Americans have become far too ideological. We are truly stupid people. We look for evidence to support our beliefs at all times. We watch those who agree with us and ignore those who disagree with us. You may be thinking, "so what?" The problem is that we identify ourselves so much with our beliefs that we seem to forget, or wish to forget the things that bond us together as Americans. I am guilty of this as are you an everyone you know. Why do we do this to ourselves? Why do we do this at the cost of dividing our country between red and blue. Why do we only see ourselves in red and blue as if we were all wearing a permanent pair of 3D glasses. I think its unhealthy for us as individuals and unhealthy for us as a country. I propose a challenge to you. And this is a serious challenge. I want you think of one thing, whether you are a Republican or Democrat, that we have in common. Something with a bit of thought in it. Just remember Politics is merely of the moment. issues change and policies change. Some things blow away and we forget about them and other things become so much a part of our identity as Americans that we forget where these things began.
So in response to my own challenge, I claim that both Democrats and Republicans love products sold on infomercials, especially the Magic Bullet. Now it's your turn!
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