A Cynical Look On The Death of the Internet

This might be it, the internet may be about to end as we know it.
Things like this picture you love may all be gone...
The internet chapter of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, a secret copyright treaty whose text Obama's administration refused to disclose due to "national security" concerns, has leaked. It could destroy the fabric of the internet as we know it. In summary, it says:

* That ISPs have to proactively police copyright on user-contributed material. In other words sites like Youtube, or Blogger, or Flicker, or Facebook, or any website that material can be uploaded onto would be practically impossible to run. They would have to hire mountains of lawyers to watch and read every second and letter of all material uploaded before it could actually be posted. These sites have enough trouble as it is with profitability, and under these circumstances making a profit would be absolutely impossible. On a site like youtube, over 28,800 hours of video are uploaded every single day. They would have to hire roughly 3550 people, probably closer to 5000 if they need to report on them, in order to do nothing but watch videos 8 hours a day for seven days a week.

* That ISPs have to cut off the Internet access of accused copyright infringers or face liability. This means that your entire family could be denied to the internet -- and hence to civic participation, health information, education, communications, and their means of earning a living -- if one member is accused of copyright infringement, without access to a trial or counsel.
There is no habeas corpus here, all that has to happen is that someone ACCUSES you of copyright infringement. As others have noted, this could easily be abused into a form a censorship.

* That the whole world must adopt US-style "notice-and-takedown" rules that require ISPs to remove any material that is accused -- again, without evidence or trial -- of infringing copyright. This has proved a disaster in the US and other countries, where it provides an easy means of censoring material, just by accusing it of infringing copyright. Sites like google and yahoo could be easily locked down because someone accused them of copyright infringement, even if they had done no such thing.

* Mandatory prohibitions on breaking DRM, even if doing so for a lawful purpose (e.g., to make a work available to disabled people; for archival preservation; because you own the copyrighted work that is locked up with DRM)
That's right, you can buy something, and if the DRM doesn't work properly, you will not be allowed to fix it. Leaving you in the unfortunate position of having spent money using up file space on your hard drive.

Right now, our only hope is that all of this negative attention gets picked up by the main stream press.
Until then, I hope you don't post something that some random person on the internet wouldn't like, because you could find yourself banned from the internet for copyright infringement.

If you want to read more about it go to http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/4510/125/ who writes from Canada.

A Cynical Look On Competition: Government Style! Part 1

Ahh, time to pass a few more bills through congress before anyone gets a chance to read them.
Actually, this is admittedly part of the strategy being used to pass the new Health Care Bill. The new Health Care bill is "on schedule" to be voted upon during this session of congress. Liberal legislators fear that if it does not pass before Congress goes out of session, the bill may become unpopular.
Hmm, interesting
Perhaps because people will figure out what's actually in the bill?
No, I suppose that wouldn't be good for the bill's popularity.

Evidently, Obama's plan is good because it creates competition. At least, according to advocates of the bill.
"Ahh yes, competition! Now we have the free market cornered! We'll beat them at their own game and prove that capitalism doesn't work!"
Unlike corporation, the government doesn't actually have to play by the rules.
You see, Corporations actually have to make a PROFIT. To say the government is competing when it is allowed to break the only primary rule is just plain stupid.
It's like a race in the ocean between a Tuna fish and a Human, where the finish line is 2000 feet under water. The fish can go down into debt as much as it wants, but the Human is stuck with the lungs of bankruptcy.
On top of that, the Health Care bill unleashes a plethora of new taxes against insurance companies. It's as if the fish get's to break the man's legs before the race starts.
It's not really hard to see who the "winner" of this competition will be. When all is said and done though, the man may have broken legs, and the tuna might swim better, but whom do you trust more to treat your flu.

A Cynical Look On Chores and White House Kids.

In an interview with Barbara Walters, Obama announced that his daughters will do chores in the white house. That is just great for them, maybe they will learn some discipline or values... or something.

How does this help us?
Well, it doesn't.
What would change for America if they let someone else do their chores?
Well, not a heck of a lot.

The headlines on this are all over the internet and the newspapers. But I write not about the chores they will do, how they will do them, or why they will do them. I write because I don't care. I don't give a rats fecal matter that Obama's children make their beds, or that they do their homework. My attention is far better served elsewhere, and so I hate it when I see these kind of headlines over and over just because a bunch of morons that live on a couch watching abc news, like some kind of obsessive World of Warcraft player glued to the computer, think that they hold some kind of special significance.

This is not nearly the first time that the kids in the White House have attracted undue attention, it happens practically every term a kid is in the white house. A good example are the front page headlines over Amy Carter (President Carter's daughter) being late for school one day in the 70's. One, who cares? And two, kids are late for school all the time!

This kind of news getting that much attention is not only insulting to the media, but to all of America. Would the information be there if nobody was interested? Possibly. However, I don't think it would make the mainstream headlines.

A Cynical Look on Universal Healthcare Part 2

Universal Health Care (UHC), or socialized health care, some may say, is viable. They could point to countries like Canada and Sweden. I, however, must say that it isn't viable at all. I'm going to use countries like Canada and Sweden, mostly Canada, to disprove the myth that UHC can work.

Yes, I realize that it is possible to opt out of public care. My post is on public care, however, because that is what is recognized as UHC.

In both those countries the wait for medical procedures is far too long for real emergency surgeries, like removing a potentially deadly brain tumor. This wait is prohibitive because UHC guarantees health care to everyone. Since the health care guarantee is there, people can go to doctors for everything from a stubbed toe to a runny nose. Obviously all this essentially meaningless work for the doctors ensures a longer wait for those who actually have problems. Waiting for a potentially deadly illness to be diagnosed because Timmy has a runny nose is something that nobody desires, but UHC promotes.

Canadian health care has a fundamental, to steal Barack Obama's favorite word, problem. Everyone gets health care. That, you may say, is a good thing. It's not. If everyone gets health care, then there must be enough supply to satisfy everyone. There is the problem. The demand is infinite, while the supply is not. Therefore there are dangerous waits, sub-optimal access, and an overarching lack of competition, which causes lack of development. While Canadians enjoy care, they get to wait for it.

Canadians also do not have access to the best doctors in the world in their health care system. The system inherently encourages the best doctors, surgeons, nurses, janitors, and everyone with any possibility to make more money elsewhere, to leave. Therefore, Canadians enjoy mediocre health care with long waits. Do the the fact that a system which forces some people to wait over a year for surgeries, has understaffed emergency rooms leaving patients lying on gurneys, and has doctors and patients opting out of it. It's easy to cynically conclude that Canada does not, in fact, have a great health care system.

A Cynical look on the Press Conference

The market has suffered violent and volatile movement over the past few days. The first two days after the election, the DOW lost an entire 10%.
Today, Obama had his first press conference as the President-Elect. During this time the market was in free fall as he talked about more bailouts for dried up, bureaucratic companies and more handouts or stimulus packages at the cost of the taxpayer. One sentence he uttered changed all of this however.

"I think that the plan that we've put forward is the right one, but obviously over the next several weeks and months, we're going to be continuing to take a look at the data and see what's taking place in the economy as a whole."

As commented upon by CNBC news reporters, many hope that this means he will hold off on raising the capital gains, as well as other taxes, for a time. The mere hope that Obama might not raise taxes the second he steps in office not only reversed the direction of the market, but sent up the DOW to positive territory to close at +248.02 8943.81. Obviously, this show us a very proportional correlation between market direction and taxes,but it also lets us know what direction we are going in as a whole. Although people hope he will not raise the taxes, he most certainly will. Higher taxes on the wealthy was one of the key points of his agenda.

The Bush administration promised a smaller government, and instead what we got was a vast increase in government spending. These failures have been so great that we have been wallowing around in our own wasteful spending for quite some time.

So we have finally gotten "The Change We Need"
In other words, we have replaced our dirty diaper with a new one. Maybe what we really need is to grow up and start using the toilet.

Note: Copy of full speech transcript in comments.

A Brief Cynical Look at the Economic Condition After the Election

Remember remember the 5th of November...

Today I will focus on the immediate economic implications of the election.
To the surprise of many Obama supporters, and especially to the media which seemed to ignore the connection, the DOW closed 486.01 lower to rest at 9,139.27. Influenced almost entirely by the election, which is evidenced by the inactivity of the past couple days leading up to the election, the market lost an entire 5.05% of it's value.

Oddly enough, even many Eco-friendly businesses that would benefit from an Obama presidency in the form of subsidies took a dive in stock price:

Evergreen Solar, Inc. NYSE: ESLR 4.39 -.90(-17.01%)

SunPower Corporation NYSE: SPWRA 32.99 -17.51(-34.67%)

Solarfun Power Holdings Co., Ltd. (ADR) NYSE: SOLF 7.36 -1.59(-17.77%)



Based on simple economic principals, it would make sense that the market did not like Obama winning the election.

-Raising Taxes In general,harms the Economy.(As agreed on by at least 95% of Economists)

-Capital Gains Tax (It was shown during the Clinton Administration, when the capital gains tax was lowered, that the Capital gains tax has such an impact on how much people invest that when this tax is raised the government actually takes in LESS money. So in addition to harming the economy, the government takes in less in tax revenues: A lose, lose situation)

-Income Tax (Biggest Increments on the Highest Tax brackets)
-Dividend Tax
-Inheritance Tax (I hope you weren't hoping of leaving anything for your family)

Although some liberal media would like to tell you differently, Obama is in favor of the largest tax increases in history since the birth of the income tax. The capital gains tax, income tax, dividend tax, and the inheritance tax are all on his agenda for large hikes. In addition, he would like to propose a few taxes we never had before:
-Extra taxes on any home over 2400 Sq ft.
-New gasoline taxes (this will make gas more expensive)
-New taxes on other natural resource consumption (Heating, Electricity, ect.)
-New taxes on retirement accounts
-Social Medicare Taxes

Based on this, we can cynically conclude that the stock market is in for hard times.

A Cynical Look on the election

Today, America has made a great step in some direction. Where that direction is, many people seem to be confused about. I'm going to take this opportunity to help these poor people clear this confusion up.
One: Obama was elected.
Two: Obama has socialist tendencies.
And therefore, Three: America has elected a man with socialist tendencies.
With these things, it's easy to tell that socialism is on the rise in America. And socialism is going to cause me to actually have money, even though I have the drive of a Lamborghini with all the parts removed. Thank you, everyone who is going to do work to supply me with my unearned money, I love you all.
You might say hey, that isn't fair, and you might be right. It's cynical, and if you don't like cynicism, you may be reading the wrong blog.

McCain has an amazingly well written concession speech for a man who a week ago predicted certain victory. It's like he didn't believe the amazing quantities of worthlessness that came out of his mouth. Though he somehow managed to take more than three minutes to say, "I lost, you're all f'd, Obama is going to doom this country." in a politicians way.

Now for two cynical predictions.
America will drift away from the capitalistic tendencies that have made this country great.
Obama will be a president that helps provide me far more to be cynical about.