Screaming Penguin - Source Does Matter

For all I have wanted to post something truely disrespectful about the death of Ronnie, this is as close as I am going to come because I just can't resist.

First, a little background on spectrum in the US:

The US has never had a BBC. We have PBS and NPR, both of which receive a HUGE minority of their money from the government (I actually agree with Bill O'Reilly -- NPR should cut the ties to the guvment so the 0.02 percent of their operating budget that comes from the Federal Government just so it would shut him the fuck up.). However, for many years, to receive government licensed spectrum you had to agree to certain terms: equal time (or fair time for all political views), educational programming (or a certain percentage of your programming for the kids). Now, during Reagan we saw "Educational Programming" become G.I.Joe with a "Now you know!" spot at the end., the same way Ketchup became a serving of vegatables in your school lunch. Eventually he managed to ditch "Fair time" so that Rush and Hannity and O'Reilly's ilk could rise up. Say what you want about the "so called" liberal media, but every media outlet is controlled by GOP backer.

Now, after we have gutted the purposed of the FCC we have the computer press calling for its abolition. The FCC is not the problem, its the FTC and our galactically stupid PTO that gives Microsoft a patent on the doubleclick or Apple a patent on Stream on Demand audio. "Unique and Non-Obvious" means less than "fair time" does to the FCC.

Frankly, if someone wants to ACTUALLY enforce the law with Stern, I don't give a FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK (my website :P). However, if we are going to enforce a little bit of the law, lets go the whole way. Lets bring back the pre-Reagan agreement about what the public airwaves are supposed to be about (Fuck you and your Bush-ass-fucking Clear Channel). Lets bring back REAL educational programming. Lets enforce ALL the laws or NONE of them.

Otherwise, lets address the REAL problems in our industry and stop coddling to special interests. And yes, I mean you CNET.

And let's be serious here, its not like broadcast spectrum matters anymore, You can push out whatever content you like. However, media ownership regulations (which we have allowed Fox and the Moonies to piss all over) have become serious issues, partially because the "So Called Liberal Media" is so overwhelmingly dominated by 3 companies it isn't even funny. Don't get me wrong, I don't think you can show me an example of deregulation that has ever worked, be it Water, Gas, or the Ma Bell breakup. Now fucktards are telling me that the last bit of regulation we have over this space isn't needed? Tell that to Earthlink who has to barter bandwidth with either Time/Warner/Turner/AOL or Bellsouth. There is certainly still a monopoly issue in telecom that needs to be addressed as certainly as there is a monopoly issue in OS's and sticking your head up your ass won't change the role of the FCC in regulating it. Frankly, we NEED the FCC to step in and check Microsofts shit and not let them buy their way into telecom sectors until there is a fair market for Operating Systems the same way we do with Baby Bells.

I have always had a lot of respect for Declan, but he is so far off base it is comical here.