connecting*the*dots

Crazy Logic from the mashup mind of DJ Arty Fufkin.

(via BoingBoing)

Jay Ovittore — the newly elected President of the The Young Democrats of Guilford County (congrats again, Jay) — caught the telcom and cable lobby once again spinning more lies about net neutrality.

If you’re still unclear as to why net neutrality matters, I highly recommend you take a minute to watch the following clip from The Daily Show.

Now that you’re armed with this foundational knowledge, put yourself in the shoes of cable executives (and their executive partners in the telcom industry) and think like these guys do for a minute. If you can make that leap into the pits of capitalism, it’s not too difficult to understand why they want to turn the internet into a toll road.

The Little Internet That Could

The first pass of the web (circa 1994 to 2001) wasn’t much of a threat to existing cable and media business models. We might have placed video online back then, but it was time consuming, costly and, relatively speaking, not viral at all.

Sure, once in a while clips like Dancing Baby caught the attention of the masses, but without the benefit of mass email spam between friends, they had to be sparked by inclusion in traditional mainstream media (in the case of Dancing Baby, the hit show Ally McBeal proved to be the tipping point).

Such crossover instances of viral exposure/marketing were few and far between and proved to be an intangible strategy that neither individuals or media professionals alike could leverage to spread their message, music, movies, etc.

All that has changed with the recent developments in viral infrastructure.

With the rise of video sharing sites (like YouTube or Revver) and millions of decentralized blogs — all pre-enabled to deliver embedded video at no cost — media networks are beginning to move content to these new distribution channels at a pace to keep up with the consumption patterns of today’s generation who are moving away from the boob tube.

(originally uploaded by Ian Chase)

It’s only a matter of time until advertising models are developed to monetize this organic delivery of non-programmed content and that’s when the great media exodus from TV to Web will occur. I’m not saying TV will go under completely, but the future of pre-programmed cable TV — the Golden Goose of of executive revenue — is not looking as viable as it did just 5 years ago. As a matter of fact, it’s beginning to look quite bleak.

So how do these old media distribution channels respond to such change? They don’t attempt to build anything useful for people to use that fits their new media habits, instead, they try to lobby for control to carve this new media distribution pie — a pie that they had *no hand* in innovating, evangelizing or iterating.

Capitalism 101.

If this isn’t enough information for your appetite, check out this archive of net neutrality goodness. Or simply run a search here, here or here.

If net neutrality is legislated away, you just might be paying for those searches in the not so distant future.

(originally uploaded by SqueakyMarmot)

Overheard in New York
NewsFlash: Eccentric Dean of Electoral College Invokes Little-Known Constitutional Provision

Hobo: Attention, attention! I’m playing this saxophone to raise money for my spaceship!

Plays a horrible rendition of “Pop Goes the Weasel.”

Hobo: I’m going into space, and I’m taking George Bush with me!

Fellow passengers cheer.

–1 train

UPDATE: We just got back from the campiest film of all-time. A few memorable quotes (all Sam Jackson):

“Great, snakes on crack.”
“I’m sick and tired of mothafuckin’ snakes on mothafuckin’ planes!”
“After surviving that, how’d you like me to buy you dinner?”

A must see!

UPDATE II: David Weinberger has a great perspective on why the SoaP phenomenon is so cool. Here’s an outtake:

[…]

With Snakes on a Plane, we’re flexing our muscles in a new way. We’re not insisting that JarJar be killed in the sequel, although we did write the movie’s most quotable line. But that’s cool only because it means with SoaP we’re messing with the audience’s relationship to the movie, and not just - as with Rocky Horror - during the time when the movie unspools in the theater. Rather, with SoaP the audience has taken over the meaning of the movie. This is very different from being asked to design Indiana Jones’ new outfit or write witticisms for the next James Bond movie. We, without being asked, have insisted on what this movie means to us.

[…]

(originally uploaded by Mr Case)

Translation: “You… and how many more?”

All that we the people ask is that warrants are issued before tapping phone lines. That’s all the law asks as well.

Read Judge Anna Diggs Taylor’s ruling for yourself.

If the Democrats win back the house this November, they’d better apply some accountability to this executive branch.

ABC News: Judge orders halt to NSA wiretap program
Hammer of Truth: Freedom Wins a Round
Salon: The Bush doctrine under surveillance
The Discerning Texan: Runaway Judge attempts Coup d’Etat over Bush Wirtetaps

Another milestone in Iraq has come and gone. As of yesterday, America’s occupation in Iraq has officially eclipsed the length of time America spent in World War II.

No matter your personal view on the potential of terrorist tactics, we’re not at war to stop an advancing fascist or an existing genocide dead in its tracks (such as modern-day fascist Kim Jong-il of North Korea or the current genocide in Darfur).

There’s only one similarity between WWII and the occupation of Iraq; in both cases, it took an attack on US soil to rally and motivate the American public to back entering an armed conflict. Of course, the attack on Pearl Harbor directly emanated from the ongoing conflict of WWII, whereas the emotional ties between the events of 9/11 and the perception of Iraqi leadership remain simply that — emotional.

Iraq has never been an immediate threat to our nation; no weapons of mass destruction ever threatened our safety from afar. Could that situation have changed for the worse over time? Sure, but so could any number of scenarios in the world, which is exactly why the tactic of preventive war is considered state-sponsored terrorism in many people’s eyes.

Fact: The combined death toll from all major, classically defined terrorist activities over the past twenty years pales in comparison to the loss of life at the hands of the Nazi fascist state.

This administration twisted false stories of Iraq hunting for yellow cake in Niger into a narrative that fit our administration’s desire to go to war in Iraq and delivered this false case to Congress to justify an invasion.

In a post-9/11 America still freshly licking its wounds, we all should have known what would happen within our political arena:

Who Lied To Whom?: …”Two days later, Secretary of State Colin Powell, appearing before a closed hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, also cited Iraq’s attempt to obtain uranium from Niger as evidence of its persistent nuclear ambitions. The testimony from Tenet and Powell helped to mollify the Democrats, and two weeks later the resolution passed overwhelmingly, giving the President a congressional mandate for a military assault on Iraq.”…

When that cover was blown by, well, reality, our government simply began to whisper false ties to 9/11 to go after a client-state that refused to play nice anymore, all beginning with its 1991 invasion of Kuwait.

What we have “accomplished” in Iraq since the occupation began in 2003 is quite amazing, actually. A Shi’ite majority has now been voted into power — something that no US planner would have hoped for, but constitutes a perfect example of what democracy at the end of the barrel of a M-16 will get you.

Essentially, we’ve backed the formation of a government and a constitution that leans in the opposite direction from modernity and strengthened the potential for a collaborative, radical mid-east region, at the cost of more than 2 billion dollars per week, while losing close to 3,000 US patriots and killing at least 50,000 Iraqi civilians.

One can only imagine how that loss of life is going to be avenged.