So, yeah, fuck this day.

[WilliamPitt]

Last edited Tue Jan 14, 2014, 03:32 PM - Edit history (1)

So, let's see...guy shot by retired cop for texting during previews in a movie theater...Post columnist calls Newtown "convenient" in print...the new spending deal cuts funds for Wall Street watchdogs...another school shooting...net neutrality is all but dead, killed by a court with a conservative bent because Congress wouldn't let Obama's appointees come up for a vote...people in West Virginia still can't drink the water because of a spill at a site that hasn't been inspected since 1991, yet the House Speaker says we have enough regulations already...

Yeah, not what I'd call a banner day here in America.

Don't mind the noise. I'm just breaking things.

[daleanime]

1. K&R....

[Baitball Blogger]

2. Some days it really sucks to be a newsjunkie.

[CherokeeDem]

3. Lately....

That could be said about every day.....

[snooper2]

4. You really shouldn't be breaking things

that isn't healthy for the baby to watch-

[ChisolmTrailDem]

5. So, about that net neutrality thing you mention...

I work from home as the ecommerce admin and manager of a website that sells solar and wind power systems. We're a small business with sales offices on both coasts.

Will this net neutrality business cause us harm? I've been doing this job for seven years and am hoping to continue doing so for the foreseeable future...at least 20 years even. I am also handicapped with arthritis and can no longer work in my primary trade, which is commercial construction. Should I be worried that our website will not be able to operate as it has since 1998 and should I be prepared to be unemployed due to net neutrality?

[2banon]

24. Just a lay person here, but net neutrality I don't think will impact your job in the solar industry.

one way or the way. Someone more knowledgeable might answer your question better, but this is in part about freedom of access to all information and sources on the internet, sans control from big telecom and media corporations or other agents.

[jeff47]

49. You have that backwards.

this is in part about freedom of access to all information and sources on the internet, sans control from big telecom and media corporations or other agents.

That's what the situation was, when the FCC enforced net neutrality. "Big telecom and media corporations" had to treat all Internet data the same way, regardless of where it came from and where it's going.

This ruling ends that.

[2banon]

51. Yes, I understand your point, I just wasn't clear in my explanation

[jeff47]

48. Yes, it could harm your business.

The goal of bringing this case was to allow ISPs to "speed limit" or outright block Internet content.

On the consumer side, think of it like a cable TV package. You want to get to Facebook? That's an extra $5/mo. You work from home? Well, you'll need our "Telecommute" package. That'll be an extra $50/mo.

On the business side, they also intend to shake down the businesses. So Time Warner can stop by and say "if you want your potential customers on our network to see your web site, you'll need to pay us. Even though we aren't your ISP."

[2banon]

52. Thanks for making that clear Jeff47

[ChisolmTrailDem]

55. A scenario such as you describe will kill our business. And countless other businesses too. If

that happens, I would rather die exacting my rage than die in a street gutter, which is where I will end up if that happens.

[Egnever]

63. I would say it has the potential to cause you harm.

However I doubt it will.

This is really about streaming or content sharing. These activities eat up huge amounts proportionally of the available bandwith. The telecoms need to build out infrastructure to handle the demand regardless of if you just use the web to surf or if you constantly pound the thing.

I doubt your business would ever trigger the things they want to charge for but, this ruling lets them if they decided they wanted to.

It has the potential to have providers pick and chose winners and losers on the net simply by throttling speeds available to them. Make the site they like or pays for it fast to load and the one they don't creep slowly.

I dont think this ruling will stand. I might be in denial.

If it does stand legislation needs to be passed to ensure net neutrality.

The thing is most of the tech industry is for net neutrality so the push back on this judgment should be pretty loud and forceful.

[Eleanors38]

75. I hope you are right. I'm not sure the "tech industry"

has all that much power compared to the "providers," the courts are aligning with our corporate state, and Congress? Congress? That is the theater of the CS.

[Fiendish Thingy]

71. In the future, your IsP could charge you more to make your website load faster

If you choose not to pay the extra fee, your site would load at dial up speed , while your competitor who paid the fee would get broadband loading speed. Just one example how this could affect the net.

[aggiesal]

74. This is what I believe will happen . . .

Your ISP is going to raise rates, then their going to tell you that unless you pay the higher rate, your website will run off the slow server (think dialup), and your customers won't be able to load your website as fast, get frustrated look for a company who agreed to pay extra to load their site as fast as possible (broadband), and you lose that customer.

The other result will be that your ISP will be able to control what you see, if it affects their business, like another ISP trying to move into their market, they'll make it impossible for their customers to research the new ISP.

But it will have secondary affects like Cox, TimeWarner, AT&T, Comcast. . . because each have cable TV business, they'll try to limit your access to Netflix, Hulu or any other video entertain service that eats into their profits.

This is a big deal.

[CrispyQ]

77. Why aren't more businesses speaking out against it?

It sounds like it will benefit the ISPs & those with deep pockets to pay the ISPs.

The little guys get fucked all the time.

[aggiesal]

82. The lack of empathy in the country amazes me . . .

Businesses don't know how it will affect them and won't care until it hits their bottom line.

That's why they are not speaking out against it.

[shenmue]

6. :(

[mindwalker_i]

7. But Beavis

Everything DOES suck

Yeah, this country is pretty fucked up right now. I think, however, that my policy henceforth, when people complain about it being fucked up, will be to tell them to shut up and go back to watching Friends on TV.

[RoccoR5955]

25. That depends on your perspective.

From one side it sucks, from the other, it blows!

Either way, we are screwed!

[mindwalker_i]

28. Pressure or lack thereof is often a relative matter :)

However, when you get down to the vaccuum of outer space, which is a pretty hard vacuum, then you have to deal with zero-point energy. That gets in to the energy driving cosmic inflation and it can be said, without any doubt at all, that that truely does blow.

[City Lights]

8. Sad to say, but the US SUCKS! nt

[Shampoobra]

9. Thank you. Your post has inspired me to...

...turn off this computer and go do something a little more productive than process why everything sucks so badly.

This could be seen as a head-in-the-sand attitude, but in my defense, I did ingest all this bad news before walking away from it (rather than ignoring it all, then walking away from it).

It hasn't been all bad, though. Did you see where Rachel showed that Christie was denying federal Sandy funds to mayors he didn't like, while almost doubling the cost of a commercial - one that was paid for with those same funds - by going with the firm who featured himself and his family in the ads? If you've ever seen Homer Simpson lusting after a doughnut, then you've seen the look on my Christie-loathing face when I learned that.

[lame54]

10. You look cool in those shades...

you got that going for you

[xchrom]

11. du rec.

[tridim]

12. Well, maybe today is the day the Republican voters will realize...

that the people they vote for over and over again have caused, and will continue to cause 99% of the problems that we all face every day.

Maybe.

[temporary311]

16. ...

[img][/img]

[dgibby]

34. Not a snowball's chance in hell of that happening.

It's a cult, they're true believers, they cannot be reasoned with, and they wouldn't recognize the truth if it walked up and slapped them in the face.

[Enthusiast]

66. They are incapable of processing such information.

It would result in a short circuit.

[xxqqqzme]

13. And in my backyard

2 cops are acquitted of the beating to death of a mentally ill young man. Yesterday was a horrific day in my backyard.

[progressoid]

14. Alan agrees...

[Demeter]

42. which film is that from?

[progressoid]

53. It's from a thing called "Epic Tea Time with Alan Rickman"

It was originally an 11-second video slowed down to seven minutes. With the song “Mind Heist” from Inception added...

Created by:
David Michalek

Description:
The film of Alan Rickman is from the project, Portraits in Dramatic Time by David Michalek.

For more information please visit:
http://www.davidmichalek.net/

The project featured an array of glacially paced performances of theater artists and actors all genres and nationalities. With artists featured both singly and in groups, the piece offered a unique and secret glimpse into some of the world's greatest performing artists.

Here's the original normal speed film:

[Demeter]

54. Poor thing....maybe if the water had been hot

he wouldn't have had an explosion....

even for Alan Rickman, that's pretty avant garde....

[sinkingfeeling]

15. Don't forget the SCOTUS screwing farmers in their fight against GMO

seeds and Monsanto.

[nolabear]

17. Hard not to feel helpless rage, I know, but we are making effective inroads.

Not everywhere, and not as fast as we'd like, but we have to hold on and not let the bastards get us down.

[ananda]

18. Thank you Will Pitt!

This OP expresses my sentiments exactly.

It's wrenchin me in the gut, all this bad news.

[Warren Stupidity]

19. John Goodman's character's unraveling in treme was perhaps his best acting moment so far.

[LibDemAlways]

20. Don't leave out the Orange County jury who

acquitted two cops who beat a mentally ill homeless man to death.

[Tikki]

21. Plus the Kelly Thomas verdict…so very sad...

Raising a preteen with aspects on the autism spectrum and lower cognitive abilities
I fear for him out on the streets when he gets older…but, we can't make him stay within our
home borders forever.

What, every little thing, do we tell him about police officers?



Tikki

[lunasun]

37. I would . My kids do not have lower cognitive abilities but they know about police and what they can

do............and to be very careful

They saw them in action @ OWS/nyc so they know we ain't kiddin
.............................

At first, the cops tried to say he was on drugs. But the toxicology reports came back clean. Their other excuses also fall flat. The bottomline is this is the case of a pair of pigs who hassled a homeless man for no reason and then beat him to death in cold blood.

Despicable.

Here are the aforementioned images — click the right arrow to see everything. At the end, we have embedded the video that shows the uncalled for beating:

Read more: http://www.everyjoe.com/2014/01/14/crime/kelly-thomas-death-photos-uncensored-crime-scene-video/#ixzz2qQqkLjPp

[Tikki]

38. Oh, I know what happened..and it is criminal that they got away with murder.

We have told our grandson that he can contact us anytime, at school, out at activities, wherever and
we have 5 phone numbers set on a special speed dial to go one number after the other until answered.

But they are told in school that the police are their friends and I am sure most police would want
to help him if he needed help…but not all police are trained or care to understand differences in
behavior that may not be aggressive but doesn't appear typical.

As he gets more freedom in movement we are going to have to add police on the list of things he needs
to learn to be cautious of.


Tikki

[onenote]

23. Two of the three judges in the network neutrality case are Clinton appointees

Not sure how you can blame the "conservative bent" of that court due to the ostruction of President Obama's nominees. Rogers and Tatel are hardly lapdogs for corporate America. Both have stood up to corporate interests, particularly in cases involving environmental protection issues. Tatel also wrote the opinion affirming the voting rights act in 2008 and Rogers ruled in favor of the rights of a whistle blowing government employee.

The problem with the network neutrality decision wasn't the court that heard it -- it was that the case for the FCC's jurisdiction was always pretty tenuous given its unwillingness to characterize Internet Service as a "Title II" (common carrier) service.

[legcramp]

30. And the third one was a Reagan appointee. But hush up. the guy is on a roll here.

You know, most of the American population would never have been aware of the London blitz had Edward R. Murrow not done his live from London reports from atop the rooftops as the bombs fell.

"This is London."

Mr. Pitt is becoming the Murrow of our time, just ask him.

[Warren DeMontague]

26. There have been some REALLY lousy rulings out of the DC Circuit Court, recently.

Bleh.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

27. john goodman....

Worth the price of admission alone.

[Brigid]

29. I find myself using this smilie waaay too much lately:

[JustinBulletin]

31. AMEN, and THANK YOU!

I always read your posts---you are too good! You express my feelings exactly and I always seem to learn something from your posts. Thanks!

[Warpy]

32. Stop the country!

I want OFF.

This ride is just getting too nuts for me.

Let every insecure gunloon out there pack his gun at all times because the poor things feel naked without them, what could possibly go wrong?

Four cops repeatedly taze and beat a mentally ill man to death but it was justified because he sassed them and resisted the beating. Poor guys, they've got such a tough job to do, boys will be boys, jury acquits.

Face it, this land wasn't made for you and me. This land was made for crazy people and they've completely taken over.

[Enthusiast]

68. +1 a whole bunch.......nt

[Triana]

33. My sentiments exactly. n/t

[Rider3]

35. well said

I couldn't have said it better myself.

[NMDemDist2]

36. don't forget another school shooting today

less than 100 miles from my house too

http://abcnews.go.com/US/student-shotgun-shoot-students-roswell-mexico/story?id=21526542

A middle school student opened fire in his gym with a shotgun today and critically wounded two students in Roswell, N.M., according to authorities.

The injured were a 13-year-old girl and a 12-year-old boy who were "simply sitting in their gym waiting to go to class," New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez said. The shooting occurred shortly before class was to begin at Berrendo Middle School.

The Eastern New Mexico Medical Center confirmed it treated two patients, who were then air lifted to the University Medical Center in Lubbock, Texas, located about 175 miles from the middle school.

A spokesperson for UMC said the boy, who the governor said was 12, is out of surgery and is listed in critical condition. The girl, 13, is also being treated at the hospital and is listed in serious condition, according to the spokesperson. A school staff member suffered a minor injury and declined treatment.

The names of the shooting victims have not been released.

[fishwax]

39. on the plus side -- Oklahoma's gay marriage ban ruled unconstitutional

I've been too busy to follow most of the news today, and once I finally got the baby to sleep and had the chance to check things out, this is the first item I saw in the news feed. Gave me a rather different impression of the day

http://www.cnn.com/2014/01/14/justice/oklahoma-gay-marriage/

[Marie Marie]

40. Ditto that Mr Goodman.

[NuclearDem]

41. I'm going to go repeatedly smash my head between two cinder blocks

In the faint hope that the trauma will cause the neurons which formed these recent memories to malfunction and die.

[Mopar151]

44. Don't do it, dude!

You could lose that really nice day from last fall, a little girl's birthday, or just a rainy afternoon chillin' with the dog.

What you NEVER lose - the memories of dental extraction, flashbacks to your former employer's imbecilic relatives, or a permanent brainworm of Discount Bob's commercials.

[flvegan]

43. Nice Yauch-rage. (use of Yauch)

Top .gif.

[OnyxCollie]

50. +1.

RIP, MCA.

[Barack_America]

56. Was just thinking of him yesterday.

In any case...

[flvegan]

57. Not a day passes that I don't think of him.

[Barack_America]

58. Yeah, it's funny...

Everyone talks about Cobain, but that had zero effect on me. But with Yauch, the world stopped there a bit for me, and didn't start back up quite right. Beasties were my metric for "cool" for as long as I can remember, and Yauch in particular such an influence on how to live a life worth something.

Definitely felt like my youth went with him. Oh well, I guess it was time to let it go, lol.

[hrmjustin]

45. K&R!

[Skip Intro]

46. Bad things happen every day, Will.

So do good things.

Few things are as black and white as they seem.

I'm thankful for my time here nonetheless, as perhaps you should be.

[aikoaiko]

47. Take heart in today, Will.

For tomorrow may be worse.

[Barack_America]

59. Hey man, there's still good in that cute little face in your avatar.

The rest of it, well...

[raven mad]

60. And I was going to complain......

Because our power was out and it's 14 below zero. Jeez, what a country. Thanks for helping me keep perspective.

[uppityperson]

61. Welcome to DU

Where interior are you? Happy sun is coming back time.

[raven mad]

62. Near Fairbanks.

Sorta. Yes, "Here Comes the Sun" is the Interior's anthem!

[nikto]

64. 1st 34 seconds say it all...

[lunasun]

70. I still try to Feel Good despite it being quixotic at this point .....

Although if power, excess and living in ivory towers makes one feel good it won't be long before they find themselves prisoners of the doom too
Those who think $$ or power. or a badge will save them are just in a delay mode imo

[nikto]

83. Good response

[Enthusiast]

65. WilliamPitt, these fucks...................

These fucks are the most dangerous enemy this nation has even faced. I mean that most seriously.

[B Calm]

67. Just another day in the wonderful land of Oz!

[Hotler]

69. I have no hope. I see no future. n/t

[L0oniX]

72. ..and in the future the word "fuck" will get your post hidden.

The war on Democracy is ongoing in our country. The left seems to be the only ones who really care ...but (TPTB) Hillary is inevitable.

[Eleanors38]

76. We ARE in the corp. state. The debate is when the police state arrives.

Are the bastards competent and gutsy enough to effect the next step. Curiously, with power so completely in the hands of the CS, it will HAVE to carry out the next step. Plan accordingly.

[kelliekat44]

78. The corporate state is the police state. Remember, the corporate state pays their salaries. nt

[Theyletmeeatcake2]

81. Fuck!!!!!! I hope not!!!!!!

This is how I feel after watching just about any show on FOXNEWS !!!!!!!
I like that bug thing you have at the bottom of your post....I still end up trying to wipe it off the screen!!!!

[davidthegnome]

73. Yeah...

I don't know about you, Will, but I'm running out of ideas - and hope. A lot of it is the result of the political situation - but poverty really, desperately sucks.... and I expect that it will continue to get worse for a whole lot of us. Especially in states that managed to elect republican governors.

Wish I could do something to change this political situation - but all I can do is vote, and occasionally write about it. It's not enough to really make the difference we all need, but I'm just barely getting by myself... have to keep my mind on what pathetic little money I have, until there is none left.

[grantcart]

79. DU has an app for that.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=forum&id=1267

[indepat]

80. Look for many more bad days for such is the inevitable fruits of right-wing governance