7.24.14 DEATH BLOW MY ASS
This article originally appeared in the 7.24.14 issue of Metroland.
Net
Neutrality Update: Well, the FCC
received well over a million comments on its “Notice of Rulemaking” to consider
ways to destroy the internet. Last week
so many comments were coming in that the FCC’s servers crashed, twice, forcing
the FCC to push the comment deadline out a few more days. I suspect the vast majority of comments
demanded that the FCC create strict and real net neutrality rules, not the half-ass
pretend neutrality that FCC Chairman Wheeler has floated as a possible outcome. I’m sure there were plenty of Astroturf
form-letters written and financed by the segment of the corporate internet
world that wants a better internet for them, and a crap internet for us. And Techdirt
reports that some guy filed a dishwasher user manual as his comments. I wanna party with that guy.
Anyway, now
there’s a period where folks can file comments on comments that have already
been filed. This lasts until September
15, so get busy. After that, the FCC
could: issue a new rule, decline to issue a new rule, hold hearings to discuss
new rules, or, believe it or not, ask more questions for the public to comment
on. Yes, this could go on forever.
Moving
on. One totally geeked-out article
caught my eye last week. As you may have
heard, there’s rumors that AT&T is in talks to acquire Direct TV, the
satellite television giant. Now, history
teaches us that mega-mergers like this are almost never in the public
interest—the stockholders and transactional lawyers get richer, then lots of
people lose their jobs (in corporate-speak this is called things like
“increased synergies and efficiencies”) and then prices go up and service
quality tanks.
But this
article, buried in a high-tech news feed, suggests that there may be reasons to
want this merger to happen. To really want this merger to happen. The tech part of this is way over my head,
but it goes something like this:
AT&T has a wireless broadband technology that it hasn’t been able to
use here because it hasn’t had the right wireless bandwidth or a delivery
system to make it feasible. This
technology delivers super-fast wireless broadband by the truckload, and it
can’t be metered, and even if it could be, it’s so fast and plentiful it
wouldn’t make sense to meter it.
According to the article, AT&T has recently acquired the right part
of the bandwidth spectrum for this service, and Direct TV’s infrastructure,
with a little tweaking, could deliver it.
I hate the term “game-changer” but it sure seems apt here. Stay tuned.
In my last
article I was bitching about the horrible misreporting of the Washington
Redskins trademark debacle. Well here we
go again. Yesterday almost every news
outlet screamed things like “Judges Deal Death Blow To Obamacare” and “Court
Guts Obamacare.” This did not
happen. What happed was that a panel of
the DC Circuit Court, a federal appeals court, ruled 2 to 1 that the Obamacare
legislation did not provide for subsidized health care in states that declined
to set up their own health exchanges (36 states, all with Republican governors,
shamefully refused to lift a finger to help their citizens get affordable
health care). It was, by any measure, an
insane ruling, supported by two Bush appointees who, like some of their
brethren on the Supreme Court, are agenda-driven toads hell-bent on destroying
the New Deal and establishing a corporate-controlled fascist state. Koch-churian judges.
Significantly,
a few hours after the DC Circuit made its ruling, the 4th Circuit
Court of Appeals made the opposite ruling on the exact same issue.
So what
does it mean? Immediately, it means
nothing. The DC Circuit’s ruling will
not go into effect until the appeals process plays out. So does this mean it’s headed for the Supreme
Court, where insane rulings like this have become the order of the day?
No, it doesn’t. The
government can (and will) ask for the DC Circuit to reconsider this decision en banc, meaning instead of a three-judge
panel, all of the active DC Circuit
judges will decide the matter. There are
eleven active judges. One was appointed
by Bush I, three were appointed by Bush II, three were appointed by Bill
Clinton, and four were appointed by Obama.
I hate the term “do the math” but it sure seems apt here.
And if the en banc panel rules like we know it
will, there won’t be a split among the circuit courts and the Supreme Court won’t
likely pick it up. It’ll be over, and
Obamacare will be fine.
This isn’t
rocket science. You’ve been subjected to
shoddy sensationalist journalism. At the
highest level of what passes for journalism these days. The internet isn’t killing journalism. Lousy journalism is killing journalism.
Paul Rapp is a local
IP attorney who invites you all to the 37th annual Monterey Fire
Company Steak Roast in Monterey, Massachusetts this Saturday from 5:00 to
7:00. Really tasty swordfish will also
be available for you pantywaist communists.
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