frenzy

Whenever we hear about the government trying to regulate internet providers, the right gets in a frenzy. They start screaming about “government takeover” and “interfering in private business”. Perfect examples of this can be seen in Rand Paul speeches.

Now a new report shows that internet providers routinely lie about the speeds you get from them, and in most cases they inflate the speeds by about 50%:

After crunching the data, FCC wonks have concluded that ISPs advertised an average (mean) "up to" download speed of 6.7Mbps in 2009. That's not what broadband users got, though.

"However, FCC analysis shows that the median actual speed consumers experienced in the first half of 2009 was roughly 3 Mbps, while the average (mean) actual speed was approximately 4 Mbps," says the report. "Therefore actual download speeds experienced by US consumers appear to lag advertised speeds by roughly 50 percent."

Internet speed isn’t something you can test before you buy. You won’t know your actual speed until you have signed up and have the equipment installed. After that you can actually test your speed and find out the disappointment, but at that point it’s usually too late. You are now stuck in a contract for a year and face huge fees if you cancel.

In the National Broadband Plan, the FCC has started outlining details on how to fix this crime against consumers. One of the recommendations is a labeling requirement, similar to those we have on food, appliances and cars.

(Updated below the fold)

The Justice Department has subpoenaed indymedia.us for it’s visitor logs for a certain date. While this raises big flags regarding online privacy, something else happened with this action that is very odd. They recipient of the subpoena was told she could not talk about it unless authorized by the Justice Department – an essential gag order.

Of course news like this would send the right into a full frenzy that Obama is trying to silence the media, even a left leaning site like indymedia. Here’s Hot Air’s take on it:

Did the White House try to open up a two-front war on the media?   Before the Obama administration launched an all-out battle with conservative-leaning Fox News Channel, the Department of Justice demanded the records of all visitor information of left-leaning Indymedia.us in an remarkable subpoena of a media outlet, for one specific day.  No one can recall any precedent for such a wide-ranging probe into the records of a media website, but it may provide a challenge to a national-security law if the DoJ presses hard enough:

But there’s a problem with this “blame Obama” mentality. The original source of the article is the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and this is what they say about the subpoena:

The right is all in a happy frenzy over this from FOX:

On the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, just minutes before learning of the terrorist attacks on America, Democratic strategist James Carville was hoping for President Bush to fail, telling a group of Washington reporters: "I certainly hope he doesn't succeed."

Carville was joined by Democratic pollster Stanley Greenberg, who seemed encouraged by a survey he had just completed that revealed public misgivings about the newly minted president.

"We rush into these focus groups with these doubts that people have about him, and I'm wanting them to turn against him," Greenberg admitted.

Hmmm, well there is a difference between telling a focus group and telling a nation audience on public airwaves the same thing, but that isn’t what really caught my eye. Check out the next part of the article:

Minutes later, as news of the terrorist attacks reached the hotel conference room where the Democrats were having breakfast with the reporters, Carville announced: "Disregard everything we just said! This changes everything!"

So once a national disaster struck, instead of political pettiness, the Democrat puts country ahead of party and backs the president.

Aren’t we in a nation disaster now? What about the economy, which provoked the unprecedented act of a presidential candidate from a major party suspending his campaign to fly back to DC in order to try and help fix it? Republicans and Democrats have been calling the economy a disaster, but that doesn’t matter when it comes to bashing the President.

Wow Republicans, thanks for pointing this out and proving which party puts country first.

Andrew Sullivan raises a great point by asking that very question. The right is in a frenzy over the article I posted earlier about the released Gitmo detainee that was involved in the U.S. embassy attack in Yemen. What they are trying to do is create a strawman here. If our prisons are so at risk for these people to escape, then we have much bigger problems. Terrorists go for these big glamorous attacks. They take a lot of planning and resources to pull off, meaning there is more time to catch them. That is actually a lot better than some serial rapist or mass murder who would escape and just go out and start doing his crimes all over again instantly.

I still believe there is some serious questions regarding the detainee released from Gitmo. First and foremost, it really casts a dark shadow on the intelligence community that Bush was supposed to have overhauled. Why did they let him go if he was really such a bad man? There is also a chance that he wasn’t so bad when caught. Perhaps this guy was actually innocent, but the treatment he received at Gitmo forced him over to the bad side. I would love to see the Obama administration really dig into this to find out, as I wouldn’t be shocked one bit if that did happen. We have been warned that could happen for years.

But there is still something to think about here. This guy didn’t escape Gitmo, like Frank Lee Morris of Alcatraz fame. Instead he was released. That is a key word that seems to be missing from the wingnut argument, like this one from Gateway Pundit:

Again, there are at least 61 former Gitmo detainees who returned to terror.
Barack Obama wants to close Gitmo.

Or this one on Pajamas Media:

Closing Guantanamo and the court decisions granting enemy combatants access to the US legal system will jointly make it impossible for the US to detain prisoners again.

These people are so dunk on the Bush/Cheney era Kool-Aid that they can not comprehend the most serious issue here. Our military, under the command of George W. Bush, let this guy go into the wild. So I need to ask again – was this a failure in our intelligence and military court system, or did our system actually create this guy through the treatment he received? This isn’t an attempt to take a jab at the former administration or Gitmo, but rather it’s a very serious question that should be asked so it doesn’t happen again.

Obama in no way said he was closing Gitmo and letting everyone go. On the contrary, he wants to investigate every legal option we have available to bring them to justice. The report by the New York Times is not bad news for the Obama administration. On the contrary, it is supporting evidence that our system under George Bush was flawed – fatally flawed. Obama wants to overhaul that system, and this report is just the proof he needs that the system does need overhauled.

And I do stand by my former statement that having all these people in the same closed facility is much more dangerous than having them separate and spread throughout the world. People learn to communicate in prison, regardless of any rules or separation. That means again reaffirms my earlier notion that this detainee could have actually been innocent, but became a “product of the system”. In other words – we created this terrorist by the very actions President Obama wants to get rid of and the right wants to keep.

(Updated below the fold)

The AP has taken a big look into the ‘hundreds’ of racial threats and crimes that have occurred since Obama became our President-elect:

The wingnuts are in a frenzy over Obama's ad mocking McCain's lack of technical intellect. They are all coming to his defense saying he can't use a keyboard because of injuries he received as a POW. That is an interesting argument, but if he can't use a full sized computer keyboard, then how can he use a cellphone or blackberry? Well there's pictures of him using those devices on the Huffiington Post.

I also find it really interesting that Glenn Reynolds, the tech man of the wingnut blogosphere, also is playing so deep into this. Shouldn't someone who is so into the tech world realize there are plenty of alternate input devices made for people that have disabilities such as this? There are special mice, keyboards and even voice recognition.

Of course there is one other key piece that really punctures a hole in the new outrage by the wingnuts. That hole is McCain himself. He admitted in July of this year that he is now trying to learn to use a computer. Now why would McCain admit to that when he could simply claim POW instead? It sounds like even McCain doesn't believe what is coming out of the wingnuts now.

Wesley Clark was on Dan Abrams last night standing behind his statement that John McCain being shot down and held prisoner is not a qualification for being President. Good for him. The right is in a frenzy over Clark's statement of truth regarding McCain.

John McCain bases everything in his run on his experience in the military. As MissLaura reminds us at DKos, McCain even tried to link his time as a POW to healthcare. In other words - McCain exploits what happened to him.

What I find most ironic is some of the people complaining the loudest about Clark's statement are some of the same people who jumped on the swift boating bandwagon against John Kerry, and a few who questioned Clark's service to our nation. Let's stop acting like Clark is a nobody. He was shot up pretty badly in Vietnam. Does he use that as a resume builder? No. He uses the fact that he stayed in the military and moved on to become one of the top leaders as a resume builder. Funny how being a general and the commander of NATO doesn't qualify someone to be President, but being shot down and captured does.

If McCain wants to set the record straight and use his military experience as his main qualification for being President then it's time for him to release his military service record. Include in it how many planes he actually lost. Let the people judge on facts, not on assumption or rumors. If McCain doesn't want to do that then we have every right to question his military service and we should. We also should question the mental health of someone who was held prisoner for five years. I'm sure McCain has some hidden issues from his time as a POW and the American people need to be certain those won't interfere with his job as Commander in Chief.