HOW ABOUT SOME OBAMAINTERNET TO GO ALONG WITH YOUR OBAMAPHONE

This article sells this idea as if it is no big deal. They try to convince you that the Obamaphone meme is false. They declare it was a program started during the Reagan years. It’s the usual progressive liberal bullshit about the poor not having access to cell phones.

Here are the facts:

This program cost $800 million per year before Obama entered office.
This program now costs over $2.2 BILLION per year after Obama and his minions advertised the availability of these Obamaphones and begged their voters to get one.
You, the working taxpayer, pays $2.50 per month on your cell phone bill so the free shit army can call in their drug deals for free.
Obama and his minions also thought it was a good idea to give out these subsidies without making anyone prove they were eligible. Easy peasy. The corrupt phone sellers were thrilled. And the free shit army’s eyes lit up.
After the blogosphere began revealing the massive fraud and cost to the American taxpayer, the FCC was forced to make people prove they met the eligibility requirements.
In a shocking development 41% of the Obamaphone recipients could not or would not prove their eligibility. That puts the annual fraud amount at around $900 million.

As you can see, this is another highly successful government program. So what do you do with a program racked with 41% fraud? If you are Obama, you expand it to cover internet service for the free shit army. You have to hand it to the liberals, they know how to solidify their core voting base. Just keep doling out more free shit.

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FCC proposal would extend Lifeline voice subsidy to broadband

Grant Gross

IDG News Service

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission will consider including broadband within a controversial program that subsidizes telephone or mobile service for poor people.Recipients of the FCC’s Lifeline program, which provides a US$9.25 monthly subsidy for voice service, could use that money to purchase broadband service instead under a proposal from FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler. Eligible households would continue to receive one $9.25 monthly subsidy, and they could choose whether to apply the money to traditional telephone service, mobile service or broadband, FCC officials said Thursday.Conservative critics of Lifeline call the program Obamaphone, and they portray it as an attempt to give poor people free mobile phones in exchange for votes for President Barack Obama in past presidential elections. A single YouTube video from the 2012 election season drove part of the misconception about the program.

Continue reading “HOW ABOUT SOME OBAMAINTERNET TO GO ALONG WITH YOUR OBAMAPHONE”

FOURTH TURNING – THE SHADOW OF CRISIS HAS NOT PASSED – PART THREE

In Part One of this article I attempted to illuminate the concept of generational theory as articulated by Strauss and Howe in The Fourth Turning. In Part Two I provided proof this Crisis is far from over, with ever increasing debt, civic decay and global disorder propelling the world towards war.

Seeds of Crisis & War

“The seasons of time offer no guarantees. For modern societies, no less than for all forms of life, transformative change is discontinuous. For what seems an eternity, history goes nowhere – and then it suddenly flings us forward across some vast chaos that defies any mortal effort to plan our way there. The Fourth Turning will try our souls – and the saecular rhythm tells us that much will depend on how we face up to that trial. The saeculum does not reveal whether the story will have a happy ending, but it does tell us how and when our choices will make a difference.” – Strauss & Howe – The Fourth Turning

When you accept the fact history is cyclical and continuous linear progress is not what transpires in the real world, you free yourself from the mental debilitation of normalcy bias and cognitive dissonance. Things do get worse. There are dark periods of history and they recur on a regular cycle. And we are in the midst of one of those dark periods. This Crisis will not be resolved without much pain, sacrifice, bloodshed, and ultimately war. Catastrophe is a strong possibility. The core elements of this Crisis – debt, civic decay, global disorder – are coalescing into a perfect storm which will rage for the next ten to fifteen years. The rhythms of history only provide a guidepost of timing, while the specific events and outcomes are unknowable in advance. The regeneracy of society into a cohesive, unified community, supporting the government in a collective effort to solve society’s most fundamental problems seems to have been delayed. Or has it?

Maybe the answer can be found in the resolution of the last Fourth Turning. The seeds of the next crisis are always planted during the climax of the previous crisis, when the new social order is established. The American Revolution Crisis created a new nation, but left unresolved the issue of slavery. This seed grew to become the catalyst for the Civil War Crisis. The resolution of the Civil War Crisis greatly enhanced the power of the central government, while reducing the influence of the States. The rise of central authority led to the creation of the Federal Reserve, the implementation of income taxes to fund a vastly larger Federal government and the belief among the political class that America should intervene militarily in the affairs of other countries. The Great Depression was created by the monetary policies of the Federal Reserve; the New Deal programs were a further expansion of Federal government; FDR outlawed the ownership of gold; and America’s subsequent involvement in World War II created a military and economic superpower.

Continue reading “FOURTH TURNING – THE SHADOW OF CRISIS HAS NOT PASSED – PART THREE”

WTF IS THE FCC DOING?

I received an email from a reader informing me about an interesting email she had just received. According to this email from the CEO of an independent TV station, the FCC is using your tax dollars to buy up every independent TV station in the country with the purported purpose to “improve” cell phone service and video on demand. My bullshit meter immediately flashes red.

We already know five corporations control 80% of the broadcasting outlets in this country and collude with the government and Wall Street to keep the sheep ignorant with ruling class sanctioned propaganda. We also know the government wants to control the internet through the FCC, using SOPA. Now we find out the government is using your tax dollars to buy up and eliminate independent TV stations across the country. They couldn’t possibly be attempting to squelch dissenting viewpoints from reaching the public. Could they?

Do you think your tax dollars should be used to reduce your ability to hear dissenting opinions?

Last week, we conducted a series of conference calls regarding MiND’s role in the broadcasting community, offering a unique combination of international, music, documentary and short-form programming. As we are contemplating some changes, we have decided to schedule two more viewer-input telephone conference calls and two public forums to be held at the MiND office. I hope you will find an hour to join us (the schedule is below).

Recently, the FCC (the Federal government agency which controls TV and radio licenses) contacted every TV station in the U.S. The FCC wants to purchase many TV broadcast licenses in order to supply wireless telephone carriers (such as Verizon, Sprint, AT&T, etc.) with additional bandwidth. This bandwidth will enable better cell phone service and improved video-on-demand on mobile devices.

As you may know, our TV license is owned and operated by a nonprofit organization. The decision to continue as a broadcaster will be made by our organization’s Board of Directors. This is completely our organization’s decision. The government agency is simply making an offer to all television stations in the country; some stations will choose to accept the offer, and some will not.

The television industry is changing. Many of the programs seen on MiND’s channels are available from other sources. As a result, we are asking questions about the best way to serve the public interest: in the digital era, operating a television station is one of several available options.

If we decide to stop broadcasting, we plan to invest the funds to develop new and exciting forms of public media for television, the Internet and other venues. Regardless of whether we continue to operate a TV station, our mission remains the same: to help people learn and understand the world.

And if we decide to stop broadcasting, we plan to find a new home for most of the programs and MiND channels so that you will be able to continue to watch them with minimal interruption.

If you are interested in joining us for one of these conversations by phone or in person, please send an email with the subject line “Public Forum RSVP” to [email protected] and include the following information:

(1) Name

(2) Zip Code

(3) Email address

(4) Session you would like to attend:

If you have questions, or would like to schedule an individual conversation with me, please send an email to the above address and we’ll set up a time to talk.

Thank you for watching the MiND channels, and for your willingness to participate in this important decision.

Best,

Howard Blumenthal
CEO, MiND: Media Independence

ANOTHER KICK IN THE NUTS OF FREEDOM

Someone please explain to me why corporations, if they are ‘people’ according to the Supreme Court and Shit Romney, cannot be imprisoned for activities such as this? Please, do tell.
5 Free Handjobs from Smokey to anyone who can post the physical address of the company responsible and a list of executives for public review.

Your Smartphone Is Spying on You

By Adam Clark Estes | The Atlantic Wire – 18 hrs ago

An Android developer recently discovered a clandestine application called Carrier IQ built into most smartphones that doesn’t just track your location; it secretly records your keystrokes, and there’s nothing you can do about it. Is it time to put on a tinfoil hat? That depends on how you feel about privacy.

The reason for this invasive Android app seems reasonable enough at face value. Even though it’s on most Android, BlackBerry and Nokia devices, most users would never know that Carrier IQ is running in the background, and that’s sort of the point. Described on the company’s website as software to gain “unprecedented insight into their customers’ mobile experience,” Carrier IQ is ostensibly supposed to help mobile carriers and device manufacturers gather data in order to improve their products.

Tons of applications do this, and you’re probably used to those boxes that pops up on your screen and ask if you want to help the company by sending your data back to them. If you’re concerned about your privacy, you just tap no and go about your merry computing way. As security-conscious Android developer Trevor Eckhart realized, however, Carrier IQ does not give you this option, and unless you were code-savvy and looking for it, you’d never know it was there. And based on how aggressive the company has been in trying to keep Eckhart quiet about his discovery, it seems like Carrier IQ doesn’t want you to know it’s there either.

Eckhart first raised a red flag about Carrier IQ about two weeks ago when he started investigating reports that a software update on the HTC EVO 3D included “user behavior logging” code. The code had worried some geek bloggers when it showed up a couple months ago, but HTC and Sprint insisted that it wasn’t much different than normal error-logging software and certainly didn’t gather granular data like “contents of messages, photos, videos, etc.” Eckhart wrote an exhaustive blog post about his startling findings — CarrierIQ collected lots data, including keystrokes, and there way for the user to opt out “without advanced knowledge” — and CarrierIQ flipped out. The company sent Eckhart a cease-and-desist letter demanding that he keep his mouth shut and threatening legal action. But after the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) took a look at the case and determined that Eckhart was working within his First Amendment rights, it backed off but still denied that they recorded keystrokes.

This week, Eckhart fired back with a 17-minute long video showing in painstaking detail how much data CarrierIQ collects, effectively undercutting the company’s denial. It was even logging contents of text messages! Wired posted the video on Tuesday night and cemented its status “as one of nine reasons to wear a tinfoil hat.” The magazine explains how CarrierIQ even undercuts other companies’ security measures:

The video shows the software logging Eckhart’s online search of “hello world.” That’s despite Eckhart using the HTTPS version of Google which is supposed to hide searches from those who would want to spy by intercepting the traffic between a user and Google. … It’s not even clear what privacy policy covers this. Is it Carrier IQ’s, your carrier’s or your phone manufacturer’s? And, perhaps, most important, is sending your communications to Carrier IQ a violation of the federal government’s ban on wiretapping?

Oh, we’re definitely in tinfoil hat territory now. CarrierIQ and the carriers have yet to respond to the latest claims — we’re doing our best to chase them down — but if past smartphone tracking scandals are any precedent, they could end up answering to Congress.

Like many things in life, there are a couple of different ways to think about smartphone tracking. One way approaches privacy from a forward-thinking, technology-trusting and, heck, even progressive perspective. GPS-equipped smartphones are incredibly powerful tools that enables mankind to do all kinds of amazing things, thanks to the perpetual stream of data from the Internet. However, that stream runs both ways, and sometimes, the folks that build and maintain the network sometimes need to monitor your data in order to improve the technology. Who wouldn’t want better service?

This brings us to the second approach. Tracking is creepy. In an Orwellian kind of way, it makes people nervous — especially Americans — that the government or the corporations or the system is closing in on them and stealing their freedom. Of course, not everybody feels so strongly about privacy, but as long as you can opt out, it’s fine. Last week, Sen. Charles Schumer spoke out about a program at some malls in Virginia and Southern California that were anonymously tracking shoppers’ movements by tracking their cell phone signals, and the only way to opt was by not going to the mall. Schumer did not approve. “Personal cell phones are just that — personal,” the New York senator said in a statement. “If retailers want to tap into your phone to see what your shopping patterns are, they can ask you for your permission to do so.”

The CarrierIQ software is not dissimilar to the shopper tracking program. In fact, it’s arguably worse since it follows you everywhere. In the age of social media, everybody is becoming increasingly aware of and often angry about the amount of private data companies are scooping up with or without their consent. This week, the Federal Trade Commission and Facebook came to an agreement that the social network must make all of their new programs opt-in so as not to break the law by violating users’ privacy. Even Mark Zuckerberg admitted in a sincere-sounding blog post that his company had “made a bunch of mistakes” on the privacy front in the past. He went on to detail how “offering people control over the information they share online” was a top priority. This is Mark “Privacy is Over” Zuckerberg we’re talking about here. With Facebook reportedly building its own mobile phone platform, wouldn’t it be super ironic if people started defecting from the Android army and switching to the Facebook phone in the name of privacy?

Your move, Google.