During times of universal deceit, telling the truth
becomes a revolutionary act. ~ George Orwell

Is Daylight Savings Time Dangerous?

Wait-for-it...

Grateful Dead, The Other One ~ Oakland Auditorium 12-28-1980 via Davidaron

the shamans journey ( renegade/ grateful dead remix ) via doctor whom

Adoração cristã na África do Sul, Joyous Celetration via glauko santos

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Tabloid Nation

Boston Legal ~ Tabloid Nation (Alan Shore) via Diogo Carneiro

Closing Argument

Alan Shore: When the weapons of mass destruction thing turned out to be not true, I expected the American people to rise up. Ha! They didn't.

Then, when the Abu Ghraib torture thing surfaced and it was revealed that our government participated in rendition, a practice where we kidnap people and turn them over to regimes who specialize in torture, I was sure then the American people would be heard from. We stood mute.

Then came the news that we jailed thousands of so-called terrorists suspects, locked them up without the right to a trial or even the right to confront their accusers. Certainly, we would never stand for that. We did.

And now, it's been discovered the executive branch has been conducting massive, illegal, domestic surveillance on its own citizens. You and me. And I at least consoled myself that finally, finally the American people will have had enough. Evidentially, we haven't.

In fact, if the people of this country have spoken, the message is we're okay with it all. Torture, warrantless search and seizure, illegal wiretapping's, prison without a fair trial - or any trial, war on false pretenses. We, as a citizenry, are apparently not offended.

There are no demonstrations on college campuses. In fact, there's no clear indication that young people seem to notice.

Well, Melissa Hughes noticed. Now, you might think, instead of withholding her taxes, she could have protested the old fashioned way. Made a placard and demonstrated at a Presidential or Vice-Presidential appearance, but we've lost the right to that as well. The Secret Service can now declare free speech zones to contain, control and, in effect, criminalize protest.

Stop for a second and try to fathom that.

At a presidential rally, parade or appearance, if you have on a supportive t-shirt, you can be there. If you are wearing or carrying something in protest, you can be removed.

This, in the United States of America. This in the United States of America. Is Melissa Hughes the only one embarrassed?

*Alan sits down abruptly in the witness chair next to the judge*

Judge Robert Sanders: Mr. Shore. That's a chair for witnesses only.

Alan: Really long speeches make me so tired sometimes.

Judge Robert Sanders: Please get out of the chair.

Alan: Actually, I'm sick and tired.

Judge Robert Sanders: Get out of the chair!

Alan: And what I'm most sick and tired of is how every time somebody disagrees with how the government is running things, he or she is labeled un American.

U.S. Attorney Jonathan Shapiro: Evidentially, it's speech time.

Alan: And speech in this country is free, you hack! Free for me, free for you. Free for Melissa Hughes to stand up to her government and say "Stick it"!

U.S. Attorney Jonathan Shapiro: Objection!

Alan: I object to government abusing its power to squash the constitutional freedoms of its citizenry. And, God forbid, anybody challenge it. They're smeared as being a heretic. Melissa Hughes is an American. Melissa Hughes is an American. Melissa Hughes is an American!

Judge Robert Sanders: Mr. Shore. Unless you have anything new and fresh to say, please sit down. You've breached the decorum of my courtroom with all this hooting.

Alan: Last night, I went to bed with a book. Not as much fun as a 29 year old, but the book contained a speech by Adlai Stevenson. The year was 1952. He said, "The tragedy of our day is the climate of fear in which we live and fear breeds repression. Too often, sinister threats to the Bill of Rights, to freedom of the mind are concealed under the patriotic cloak of anti-Communism."

Today, it's the cloak of anti-terrorism. Stevenson also remarked, "It's far easier to fight for principles than to live up to them."

I know we are all afraid, but the Bill of Rights - we have to live up to that. We simply must. That's all Melissa Hughes was trying to say. She was speaking for you. I would ask you now to go back to that room and speak for her. ~ Boston Legal ~ Stick It ~ Season 2 ~ Episode 19 ~ [Video at link] ~ Written by David E. Kelley & Janet Leahy ~ Directed by Adam Arkin.

How It Could have been, had it not been for
Debbie Democrap & her Vicious DNC Band

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KAUYUMARI El Venado Azul via Saiki Studio ~ Inspired by Amestizo, Shaman

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'Surprise' bus-sized asteroid skims past Earth at 21,000mph

The near-miss asteroid was discovered on Christmas Day and came closer to Earth than the Moon is.

Sky News Source + Artist impression at link

A "surprise" asteroid which NASA only spotted on Christmas Day has skimmed past the Earth.

The asteroid, named 2017 YZ4, came its nearest to Earth at 3:56pm GMT on Thursday, missing us by a mere 140,000 miles (224,000km).

In comparison the moon is 238,000 miles (384,000km) away.

It was travelling at approximately 21,000mph (34,000kph) - 16 times faster than a rifle bullet, covering the distance between London and New York in roughly 10 minutes.

It is the 52nd asteroid to skim past the Earth by a distance less than that of the Moon this year.

Lindley Johnson, Planetary Defense Officer at NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington DC told Newsweek that there are thousands of similar objects in space.

"As of December 25, there are 17,506 known Near-Earth Objects (NEOs), in orbits around the Sun that could come close to our planet; 17,400 are asteroids and 106 are comets."

Asteroids and comets are differentiated based on what they are mad of. Asteroids are composed of metals and rocks, while comets are mostly made up of ice and dust.

Boney M ~ Rivers of Babylon via Hasan Mahmud Khan

Steven Leech ~ Boptime + Legends of Wilmington Jazz

On Saturday's Boptime Boptime we begin at at 6am (EST) with the recording of the Weavers 1955 Christmas eve Carnegie Hall concert. After a winter season program at 7am (EST) we’ll welcome in the New Year. At at 8am (EST) it’s Rockabilly Ridge with Michael Ace, then on Beatlemania at 9am (EST) we’ll hear the soundtrack of the Beatles’ Magical Mystery Tour followed by selections from some of the best new albums from 1967, including Jimi Hendrix, Doors, Cream, and Jefferson Airplane. Unfortunately, because of internet copyright rules, portions of the Weavers concert and the Magical Mystery soundtrack will not be streamed, and be substituted by WVUD’s Basement programming. ~ Steve

BOPTIME: Saturday, 6 AM Eastern time, 3 AM Pacific time
Go To: http://www.wvud.org/?page_id=24
Click on a listening link below the WVUD logo:

Steven has also provided Genesis and Harbringer.pdf; part of Dreamstreets #56, located at: http://www.dreamstreetsarchive.com/

Do Children Murdering Politicians Belong In Jail?

So, Who voted for
Illegal Iraq War?

It was widely known before the Iraq war

over 50% of the Iraqi population
were children under the age of 15,

The war began with this sheer act of cowardice by a
Republican Administration with Democrat Support;
based on a lie sent to a President, January 26, 1998?

1,455,590+ innocent Iraqi’s were
murdered to eliminate one man!

The Iraq war will cost little, and Iraq oil will pay for it. Then.....

http://watchingthewatchers.org/news/624/iraq-war-cost-little-and-iraq-oil

Did Cheney and the Oil Bigs Plan the Iraq War Before 9/11?

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2008/07/did-cheney-and-the-oil-bigs-plan-the-iraq-war-before-911.html

O'Neill: Bush planned Iraq invasion before 9/11

http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/01/10/oneill.bush/

Hours after 9/11 attacks, Rumsfeld allegedly said, 'My interest is to hit Saddam'

https://www.rawstory.com/news/2007/Hours_after_911_attacks_Rumsfeld_allegedly_0502.html

ENRONGATE: The Enron-Cheney-Taliban Connection?

https://www.alternet.org/story/12525/the_enron-cheney-taliban_connection/

2Pac ~ Life Goes On ~ Tupacsquiat (BoomTrap Remix) Produced By !llmind via D K

Red Pill: Knowledge, freedom and the (sometimes painful) truth of reality

Redshift: In physics, redshift happens when light or other electromagnetic radiation from an object is increased in wavelength, or shifted to the red end of the spectrum. In general, whether or not the radiation is within the visible spectrum, "redder" means an increase in wavelength – equivalent to a lower frequency and a lower photon energy, in accordance with, respectively, the wave and quantum  theories of light.

The Rolling Stones | Doom and Gloom via Trunk Animation

Blue Pill: Falsehood, security and the blissful ignorance of illusion

Blueshift: A blueshift is any decrease in  wavelength, with a corresponding increase in frequency, of an  electromagnetic wave; the opposite effect is referred to as  redshift. In  visible light, this shifts the color from the red end of the spectrum to the blue end.

Nobody for President Gallery @ CreativeResistance.org via Sharon Paltin, M.D. Visit Gallery

Sweetwater Sessions w/ Nicky Hopkins, Jimmy McCracklin, Ry Cooder, Wayne Bennet via Jesse Block

Van the Man from S. E. Hall

Alpha Blondy: Wish You Were Here re-edit via Niehs8 Productions, viz Amestizo, 12/24/2017

Mad Cow Wishing Everyone a Happy New Year from the Crew @ FlyingSnail.com

A Welfare to Christmas via Jumbo Group

AT&T Lays Off Up to 1400
Employees Just Before Christmas

by Karl Bode Friday Dec 22 2017 14:10 EST, DSLReports Source ~ Reddit Comments

Up to 1400 AT&T employees are getting coal in their stocking courtesy of AT&T. The installers tell the New York Post they received pink slips despite numerous promises by AT&T that it's dedicated to "creating jobs" thanks to the death of net neutrality and a lower tax rate courtesy of the Trump administration. The layoffs come as AT&T begins shifting its attention from traditional TV delivery methods (DirecTV satellite, AT&T IPTV), and toward streaming video services like DirecTV Now. AT&T is also planning another new, wireless-centric streaming video effort to be launched sometime in the new year.

The cuts came just as AT&T was busy promising it would create jobs in the wake of the Trump administration's new tax plan, which prioritizes giving tax breaks to giant companies like AT&T. 

"We adjust our workforce based on changing market dynamics, which vary from region to region," AT&T says of the cuts. "In some regions we are hiring these same resources and many of the affected employees have the opportunity to transfer to those locations. Those who are unable to find another job with the company will receive severance benefits."

This isn't likely to be the last of cutbacks at the company's traditional video operations. The company has stopped directing new customers to the company's IPTV service, formerly known as U-Verse TV. It's likely only a matter of time before that service is shelved completely, allowing AT&T to repurpose IPTV bandwidth to help it increase broadband speeds in fiber to the node and VDSL markets. 

While originally reports indicated 700 layoffs, some AT&T workers indicate to DSLReports.com that this number is being under-reported by as much as half.

"Just in the Southwest region we had 700 legacy AT&T employees get surplussed or laid off," says the worker. "I think reports from all districts put it close to 1400 or so just for the AT&T side."

AT&T appears to have tried to hide the layoffs beneath the announcement that the company was doling out $1,000 bonuses thanks to, allegedly, the GOP's tax plan (which dramatically reduces AT&T's base tax rate) and the repeal of net neutrality. 

But some industry observers noticed that at least part of the bonuses were actually tied to the recent deal AT&T struck with its union employees. Others highlight that while nice, a $1,000 bonus isn't the same as a real raise, and is likely a pittance when compared to the billions in additional revenue AT&T will glean from the net neutrality repeal, the repeal of broadband privacy rules, and the significantly lower tax rate AT&T will enjoy in the decades to come courtesy of the Trump administration.

Apple confirms they
purposely slow down older phones

Reddit Source / Comments

Disclaimer ~ # 6

6. If we want world peace, we must let go of our attachments and truly live like nomads. That's where I no mad at you, you no mad at me. That way, there'll surely be nomadness on the planet. And peace begins with each of us. A little peace here, a little peace there, pretty soon all the peaces will fit together to make one big peace everywhere.

Steven Leech ~ Boptime + Legends of Wilmington Jazz

We’re in the Holiday mood on Saturday's Boptime by starting off at 6am (EST) with Duke Ellington’s rendition of Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite followed by John Coltrane, Eric Dolphy and crew and their version of My Favorite Thing, topping the hour off with Jimmy Smith’s Jingle Bells. Beginning at 7am (EST) and for the remainder of the program, we’ll play a slew of Christmas songs through the years, from the 1930s to the '60s while providing an historical and social context for them. ~ Steve

BOPTIME: Saturday, 6 AM Eastern time, 3 AM Pacific time
Go To: http://www.wvud.org/?page_id=24
Click on a listening link below the WVUD logo:

Steven has also provided Genesis and Harbringer.pdf; part of Dreamstreets #56, located at: http://www.dreamstreetsarchive.com/

Welcome Winter solstice

Shortest day of the longest night ~@~

Trilogy performing the Pulp Fiction Soundtrack (Misirlou) via violinTRILOGY

Song of the Last Place via Gary Yost

Comcast, Cox, Frontier All Raising
Internet Access Rates for 2018

by Paul Resnikoff, December 19, 2017, Digital Music News Source

At least three major ISPs have already announced significant price hikes for 2018.  News of the increases come just days after the FCC voted to roll back net neutrality protections.

The timing of this couldn’t be worse.  But maybe that’s not a concern for major ISPs.  Accordingly, at least three major ISPs have now announced rate hikes for 2018.

That is, January, 2018.  So customers have very little time to react, modify their plans, or even cancel their accounts.

Just this morning, Karl Bode of DSLReports caught wind of numerous increases at mega-ISP Comcast.  But that is simply the latest in a string of planned increases by the likes of Cox, Frontier, and even DirecTV and Dish Network.

In all cases, these are increases for essentially the same services, with Bode noting that American will be stuck paying ‘significantly more money for the same service in the new year’.  In many cases, the changes are padded into existing bills, with most consumers failing to see the changes.

+ FCC Chairman Ajit Pai Faces Multiple Copyright Infringement Lawsuits — Starting With ‘Harlem Shake’

In the case of Comcast, increases are happening across the board.

That includes rates for conventional cable TV, but also a range of internet and internet-based services.  “Even Comcast’s streaming TV service Instant TV, barely a year old, is seeing price hikes,” Bode noted.

“Users that subscribe to this service can expect to pay $3 to $3.50 more per month in the new year.”

Additionally, Comcast is jacking up its modem rental fees by 10%.  “Modem rental fees will be bumped $1 to $11 per month, while missed payment fees are also being increased fifty cents to $10,” the report continues.

That’s likely the beginning of far broader increases.

Another major ISP, Cox, is increasing the rates for all of its internet service packages.

Here’s a quick rundown of those increases, based on a notice sent to Cox subscribers.

Starter will change from $34.99 to $36.99.
Essential will change from $52.99 to $55.99.
Preferred will change from $67.99 to $71.99.
Preferred 100 will change from $72.99 to $76.99.
Premier will change from $79.99 to $82.99.

That’s on top of a range of other increases affecting Cox’s cable TV packages, and are effective as of January, 2018.  The rates were officially announced on December 9th, just days before net neutrality provisions were officially scrapped.

Similarly, Frontier Communications is tacking on a sneaky surcharge for internet customers.

Specifically, Frontier is wedging a $2 ‘Internet Infrastructure Surcharge’ onto most accounts.  That includes promotional deals, which are advertised as being cheaper, but leave out a lot of hidden fees.  “Beginning with this bill, customers not on an Internet Service term agreement, price protection plan or subject to other exclusions will be assessed a $1.99 per month Internet Infrastructure surcharge,” a Frontier notice states.

Other shoes dropping soon.

Both DirecTV and Dish are enacting heavy increases for most packages in 2018.  At this stage, we’re not sure if packaged internet deals are getting affected (at least for 2018).  Eventually, we’re betting they will.

We haven’t seen any (recent) changes from Charter, Verizon, and AT&T’s U-verse.  But maybe they’re waiting until after Christmas.

Merry Saturnalia

Saturnalia or Brumalia
A Winter Solstice Ritual

by Apollonius Sophistes

YOU ARE A PAGAN IF:

YOU BUY A CHRISTMAS TREE AND DECORATE IT

The evergreen tree is a symbol of the green to come at the re-birth of Mother Earth. In ancient Egypt they laid gifts under Palm Trees during the winter celebration. In ancient Rome they used the fir tree (called the Baal Berith) as a testimony to the Pagan messiah, Baal Tamar.

YOU EXCHANGE PRESENTS DURING DECEMBER

The Babylonians celebrated the birth of the God Tammuz on the Winter Solstice and God Nimrod would visit the evergreen trees of the people and leave gifts upon them.

The early Christian Church frowned upon the exchange of gifts because of its Pagan origins. People refused to give up the customs of their old Pagan religions, though. Ultimately, around 700 years ago, the Christian Church decided to attribute the gift exchange to symbolize the gifts given to Jesus by the three Wise Men. It took the Church over 1,300 years to finally "borrow" the Pagan ritual of gift exchanging and call it their own.

YOU KISS SOMEONE UNDER MISTLETOE

The Romans and Saturnalia celebrations are even credited with the tradition of kissing under the mistletoe. Mistletoe was used as a means to get a pretty girl to kiss you during the celebration and ultimately instigate an orgy. The Druids in Scotland and Ireland also believed that mistletoe was a symbol of fertility; a husband and wife desiring a child would hang the mistletoe around their bed during intercourse.

YOU BURN A YULE LOG

The Yule log and Yule Day have Babylonian origins. Yule is the Chaldee name for an infant or little child. December 25th was called Yule Day by Pagan Anglo-Saxon ancestors. The night preceding Yule Day was known as Mother's Night.

YOU CELEBRATE DECEMBER 25th

Roots of All Religion via FLS ~ At some point we must question our beliefs and always question authority.

The Bible does not tell Christians to celebrate the birth of Jesus. The Bible doesn't even tell us when Jesus was born. Of course we can look for "clues" within the gospels to when Jesus might have been born, and people have done that. The assumption of course is that these "clues" are authentic and not stolen from other Pagan mythology.

When the angels appear to the shepherds of Bethlehem to advise them of the birth of Jesus, the shepherds are feeding their flocks at night in the open fields. From late October to early March in Palestine one will encounter bitterly cold weather, icy rain, and sometimes even snow. Tending the flocks, much less tending them at night, is not what one finds Shepherds doing in Palestine (Bethlehem) in the middle of winter. The climate of Palestine dictates that flocks are in the field at night no later than late-October or mid-November and no sooner than early to mid-March. If we base the birth of Jesus on that clue alone, then Jesus would have been born sometime between March and late October.

It is also interesting to note that the Qur'an in Surah 19 talks about the birth of the prophet Jesus. The mother Maryam shakes the trunk of a palm tree (Qur'an 19:25) so that ripe dates fall upon her. Dates ripen in Palestine in the summer.

The Watchtower in December of 1991 stated, "The date of December 25 does not correspond to Christ's birth but to the feast of the Natalis Solis Invicti, the Roman sun festival at the solstice."

The celebration of Jesus' birth on December 25th did not start until 354 CE when Pope Gregory proclaimed the date as that of The Nativity.. Prior to 354 the Church had even guessed Jesus' birth to be in April. After the Church changed the date to December, there were Christians that refused to worship Jesus' birth in December and continued celebrating it in April. They became known as "April's fools."

Why did the Christian Church change the date to December 25th? They changed it because they were having a difficult time converting Pagans that did not want to give up their celebrations of Saturnalia, Natalis Solis Invicti, and Mithraism (among other winter solstice celebrations). Basically the change was made so Christians could say, "Hey look! We have a party, too!"

Another reason for the change to December 25th was not just to coincide with the five-day Pagan festival but also with Hanukkah. Hanukkah occurs on the 25th day of the Hebrew month of Kislev, which occurs usually in December. So by creating a Christian holiday around the same times as Hanukkah and the winter solstice, the early Christian Church was able to convert Pagans and Jews with the lure of a "grand party" to replace the one that the Pagans and Jews already celebrated.

Happy Chanukah ~ Puritans banned Christmas in England
during 1552 and you read the disclaimer, didn't you ???

PEACE ON EARTH

And now a word from Self Serving Politicians

John Ashcroft [Bush War Criminal, U.S. Attorney General, 2001-05] as Santa: a Ben Sargent cartoon

They/Them ~ Patriot Act ~ Telecom Crimes & Punishment ~ Drop Dead

Undone Lullaby, dj schmolli via Dave

Continue reading at "Myths of Mass Deception:"
http://www.flyingsnail.com/christmas.html

KILLING NET NEUTRALITY HAS BROUGHT
ON A NEW CALL FOR PUBLIC BROADBAND

by Zaid Jilani December 15 2017, 2:17 p.m. The Intercept Source

THE FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS Commission’s 3-2 vote to repeal net neutrality rules has many worried that internet service providers will now build the same sort of tiered internet that some other countries have — where individual providers can collude to throttle traffic to certain websites and services in order to shake money from consumers or the companies themselves — or both.

For instance, in Morocco last year, multiple internet service providers worked together to briefly block voice chat services like WhatsApp and Skype, in what was interpreted by some as an attempt to push consumers to subscribe to their phone subscriptions instead.

But Seattle’s Socialist Alternative Council Member Kshama Sawant — the prime mover of the city’s successful bid to enact a $15 an hour minimum wage — has another idea. She wants her city to simply build its own broadband network to compete with the private providers, guaranteeing a free flow of unthrottled information.

It may sound radical but it’s not unheard of. Today, around 185 communities in the United States offer some form of public broadband service. Because these services are controlled by public entities, they are also accountable to the public — a perk that anybody who has tried to get a broadband company on the phone can appreciate. (In November, residents of Fort Collins, Colorado, rejected an industry fear-mongering attempt and voted to authorize the creation of a citywide broadband network.)

In a Facebook post written Thursday night, Sawant urged the state and city to act.

“The FCC is doing the bidding of big business like Comcast, not the voters of either party, because public opinion is clear: 76% favor net neutrality, even including 73% of Republican voters,” she wrote. “Olympia should urgently pass net neutrality legislation in Washington State, and Seattle must invest in building municipal broadband, so no internet corporation has the power to prioritize making money over our democratic rights.” ~ [Continue Reading at The Intercept Source ~ Reddit comments]

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The FCC's 'Harlem Shake' video
may violate copyright law

The agency apparently didn't get permission to use the song.

by Timothy J. Seppala, @timseppala in Politics

[Continue Reading at engadget Source ~ View Reddit comments]

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The USDA Rolled Back Protections For
Small Farmers. Now The Farmers Are Suing

by NANCY MATSUMOTO December 14, 20174:28 PM ET ~ NPR Source

An organization representing the interests of small farmers across rural America fired a legal salvo Thursday aimed at a Trump administration they feel has let them down.

The lawsuit, filed by the Organization for Competitive Markets — a small-farmers think tank based in Lincoln, Neb. — and three farmer plaintiffs, did not shake the halls of Congress. Nor will it go viral on social media. But to the 40,000 contract poultry farmers, 900,000 cattle ranchers, and 70,000 hog farmers in America's heartland whose interests it seeks to represent, the lawsuit represents the tip of an iceberg of financial and emotional despair.

At issue is the Trump administration's withdrawal of two Obama-era rules designed to protect small farmers, who say they are being exploited by the meatpacking companies they supply.

The suit, filed on behalf of OCM by the Capitol Hill legal watchdog Democracy Forward, charges U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue and his agency with "arbitrary and capricious" behavior in rolling back those two rules. One of them would have made it easier for individualfarmers to sue for anti-competitive behavior.

Many of the farmers affected by the rollback supported Donald Trump for president, believing his promise to look after their interests. Now, the disillusionment is setting in. ~ [Continue Reading at NPR Source]

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Commuters lose transit, parking,
biking benefits in tax bill

by Joan Lowy AP News Source

WASHINGTON (AP) — Count commuters among the losers in the Republican tax bill that the House and Senate are expected to vote on next week.

The final bill agreed to by Republican negotiators and released late Friday eliminates the tax incentive for private employers that subsidize their employees’ transit, parking and bicycle commuting expenses.

Currently, companies can provide parking or transit passes worth up to $255 a month to employees as a benefit to help pay for their commuting expenses, and then deduct the costs from their corporate taxes. That amount was set to increase to $260 a month on Jan. 1. ~ [Continue Reading at AP News Source ~ Reddit Comments]

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'Intentional' event redirects cloud traffic
from Apple, Google & others through Russia

By Roger Fingas ~ Thursday, December 14, 2017, 06:52 am PT (09:52 am ET) ~ AppleInsider Source

Internet traffic coming into and out of Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and other companies was briefly redirected through a Russian provider on Wednesday, in what appears to have been a deliberate move.

The incident involved the Border Gateway Protocol, or BGP, which funnels high-level traffic through nodes like internet backbones, according to Ars Technica, citing reports by monitoring services BGPMon and Qrator Labs. BGPMon recorded two three-minute hijacks, affecting 80 address blocks in total. Qrator Labs said the incident spanned two hours, with the number of address blocks fluctuating between 40 and 80.

Some reasons for suspicion include the prominence of the impacted companies, and the fact that IP addresses were split into smaller blocks than those announced by the companies —something that doesn't normally happen with a BGP configuration error.

The autonomous Russian system that performed the hijack, known as AS39523, was previously inactive for years except for another BGP incident in August that involved Google. 

It's unknown what might been done with data if the latest redirect was deliberate, since much or all of it would've been protected by encryption that has yet to be defeated, at least according to public knowledge. An attacker could conceivably have figured out decryption, attempted to crack it, or may be storing the data for future attacks. ~ [Reddit Comments]

Paul Krassner ~ The Realist, Investigative Satirist

He Was No Hippie:
Remembering Manson, Prison, Scientology, and Mind Control

As I was diving into my research, I received a letter from Charlie himself.

By Paul Krassner / AlterNet / Article Source ~ November 26, 2017, 7:08 AM GMT

When Charles Manson was a prison inmate, he got introduced to Scientology by fellow prisoners, and his ability to psych out people was intensified so that he could zero in on their weaknesses and fears. In 1967, he was released and went to the Scientology Center in San Francisco. A friend who accompanied him there told me, “Charlie said to them, 'I'm Clear – what do I do now?'”

But they expected him to sweep the floor – shit, he had done that in jail. However, in Los Angeles, he went to the Scientology Celebrity Center. Now this was more like it – there he could mingle with the elite. I was able to obtain a copy of the original log entry: “7/31/68, new name, Charlie Manson, Devt. No address. In for processing = Ethics = Type III.” The receptionist – who, by Type III, meant “psychotic” – sent him to the Ethics office but he never showed up.

At the Spahn Ranch, Manson combined his version of Scientology auditing with post-hypnotic techniques he had learned in prison, with geographical isolation and subliminal motivation, with sing-along sessions and encounter games, with LSD and mescaline, with transactional analysis and brainwashing rituals, with verbal probing and sexual longevity that he had practiced upon himself for all those years in the privacy of his cell. He was also raped by fellow inmates.

Ultimately, in August 1969, he sent his well-programmed “family” off to slay actress Sharon Tate, some friends, and her unborn baby. Tate's husband, film director Roman Polanski, was in London at the time. A few months later, when the family members were captured and charged with homicides, Manson was portrayed by the media as a hippie cult leader, and the counterculture became a dangerous enemy. Hitchhikers were shunned. Communes were raided. In the public's mind, flower children had grown poisonous thorns. But Manson was never really a hippie.

He had grown up behind bars. His real family included con artists, pimps, drug dealers, thieves, muggers, rapists, and murderers. He had known only power relationships in an army of control junkies. Indeed, Charlie Manson was America's Frankenstein monster, a logical product of the prison system – racist, paranoid, and violent – even if hippie astrologers thought that his fate had been predetermined because he was a triple Scorpio.

Now, on their black-painted bus, they visited the Hog Farm commune were all in a circle, chanting “Om,” which somehow caused the visiting Manson to start choking and gagging, so his family began counter-chanting “Evil.” It was an archetypal confrontation. Charlie even tried to get Hugh [later Wavy Gravy] Romney's wife, Bonnie Jean, in exchange for one of his girls. But they finally left, mission unaccomplished.

Manson had convinced himself and his family that the Beatles' songs – “Helter Skelter” and “Blackbird” – were actually harkening a race war, which he wanted to hasten by leaving clues to make it appear that black militants had done the killing. Stolen credit cards were deliberately thrown away in a black neighborhood. Healter (sic) Skelter was scrawled with a victim's blood on the refrigerator, and the word WAR was scratched onto a victim's stomach.

Roman Polanski put a $10,000 contract out on Manson's life.

Meanwhile, Black Panther Eldridge Cleaver was still on the lam. He had gone from Cuba to Algeria. Having been arrested for possession of marijuana, Timothy Leary escaped from prison to Algeria with the help of the Weather Underground, only to be imprisoned by his host, Cleaver. Leary escaped from Cleaver’s clutches only to be arrested by American agents and taken back to the States, then put in solitary confinement at Folsom prison, in a cell right next to Manson's. The two “hole-mates” couldn't see each other, but they could talk. Manson didn't understand why Leary had given people acid without trying to control them.

“They took you off the streets,” Manson explained, “so that I could continue with your work.”

*   *   *

Coincidentally, as I was diving into my Manson research, I received a letter from Charlie himself. He had seen in prison a copy of The Last Supplement to the Whole Earth Catalog, co-edited by Ken Kesey and me. During the trial, I had published an apocryphal piece in The Realist about Manson’s stay at Boys Town: “Charles Manson Was My Bunkmate” by Richard Meltzer. A defense attorney read it to Manson and he got pissed off. He complained, “You know how long I stayed in Boys Town? Two days!”

In response to his letter, I mentioned that the article had been intended only as a satire of media exploitation. He replied: “Yes, brother, the world is a satire and I did see all sides of your story, ‘Charlie's Bunkmate.’ But I think in Now with no cover. Most people take into their minds bad thoughts and call it joking. Some lie and call it funny. I don't lie.” Shades of Trump.

In pursuit of information, I visited Warren Hinckle. He was my editor at Ramparts, and after that folded, at Scanlan's, which also folded, but he had been planning to publish an article on the Manson case in Scanlan's, and now he brought me to former FBI agent William Turner, who had checked out Doris Day. The only connection she could possibly have with the Manson case was that her son, record producer Terry Melcher, had met Charlie and was interested in his music, and that Melcher was a former tenant of the Beverly Hills mansion where the massacre took place. Aha! I realized that could be the focal point of my satire – a torrid affair between Doris Day and Charlie Manson – a perfect metaphor for the coming together of the image and underbelly of Hollywood. Just for the hell of it, I wrote to Manson and asked if he ever had sex with Doris Day.

His reply: “Yes, and I also f**ked [the Hollywood dog actor] Rin-Tin-Tin and the Virgin Mary.”

I continued to absorb whatever details I could find out about the Manson case. A prison psychiatrist at San Quentin told me of an incident he had observed during Manson's trial. A black inmate said to Manson, “Look, I don't wanna know about your theories on race, I don't wanna hear anything about religion, I just wanna know one thing – how'd you get them girls to obey you like that?”

Manson replied, “I got a knack.”

Hinckle also brought me to the renowned private investigator Hal Lipset, who informed me that not only did the Los Angeles Police Department seize pornographic films and videotapes that they found in Sharon Tate's loft, but also that certain members of the LAPD were selling them. Lipset had talked with one police source who told him exactly which porn flicks were available – a total of seven hours' worth for a quarter-million dollars. Lipset began reciting a litany of porn videos. The most notorious was Greg Bautzer, an attorney for Howard Hughes, with Jane Wyman, the former wife of then-Governor Ronald Reagan. There was Sharon Tate with Dean Martin. There was Sharon with Steve McQueen. There was Sharon with two black bisexual men.

Lipset recalled, “The cops weren't too happy about that one.”

He told me there was a videotape of Cass Elliot from the Mamas and the Papas in an orgy with actors Yul Brynner, Peter Sellers, and Warren Beatty –  Brynner and Sellers, together with John Phillips of the Mamas and the Papas, had offered a $25,000 reward for the capture of the killers..

I had felt that there was some connection between Charlie's executioners and their victims before the murders took place. I finally tracked down a reporter who told me that when she was hanging around with L.A. police, they showed her a porn video of killer Susan Atkins and victim Voytek Frykowski, even though, according to the myth, they had never met until the night of the massacre.

But apparently the reporter mentioned the wrong victim, because when I asked Manson directly – “Did Susan sleep with Frykowski?” – he replied: “You are ill advised and misled. [hairdresser victim Jay] Sebring done Susan's hair and I think he sucked one or two of her dicks. I'm not sure who she was walking out from her stars and cages, that girl loves dick, you know what I mean, hon. Yul Brynner, Peter Sellers . . .”

I came across Billy Doyle's name in Ed Sander’s book, The Family. Doyle was Cass Elliot’s boyfriend. He was also the drug connection for two of the victims, Voytek Frykowski and his girlfriend, coffee heiress Abigail Folger. Sanders wrote:

Sometime during [the first week in August] a dope dealer from Toronto named Billy Doyle was whipped and video-buggered at [the Tate residence]. In the days before his death, Sebring had complained to a receptionist at his hair shop that someone had burned him for $2,000 worth of cocaine and he wanted vengeance. Billy Doyle was involved in a large-scale dope-import operation involving private planes from Jamaica.

And Dennis Hopper was quoted in the Los Angeles Free Press:

They had fallen into sadism and masochism and bestiality – and they recorded it all on videotape too. The L.A. police told me this. I know that three days before they were killed, twenty-five people were invited to that house to a mass whipping of a dealer from Sunset Strip who’d given them bad dope.

Naturally, Billy Doyle felt it was rude of Sebring and Frykowski to tie him to a chair, whip him, and then f**k him in the ass while a video camera taped the proceedings before a live audience. When folksinger Phil Ochs and Yippie Jerry Rubin visited Manson in jail, Ochs asked him if he knew Doyle. Manson, who had been quite glib up to that point, flinched, then hesitated, and said, “No.”

Police investigators eliminated Doyle as a suspect in the murders. However, on the Friday evening just a few hours before the massacre took place, Joel Rostau – the boyfriend of Sebring's receptionist and an intermediary in a cocaine ring – visited Sebring and Frykowski at the Tate house, to deliver mescaline and coke. During the Manson trial, several associates of Sebring were murdered, including Rostau, whose body was found in the trunk of a car in New York. So it appeared that the Manson family had actually served as some sort of hit squad for a drug ring.

Voytek Frykowski's father had financed Roman Polanski's first film. He and Abigail Folger, were staying at the Polanski residence. She was paying the rent and supplying him with the money for their daily drug supplies. In July 1969, Billy Doyle promised Frykowski a new synthetic drug, MDA, made in Canada. I had tried MDA a few times – it felt like a combination of mescaline and amphetamine, acting as an extraordinary energizer and, if you were with the right person, a powerful aphrodisiac. The plan was for Frykowski to become the American distributor of MDA. He was hoping to sell a screenplay, but it's always nice to have something to fall back on.

Peter Folger was the coffee tycoon whose daughter Abigail had been one of the victims. She supported Tom Bradley as the first black candidate for mayor of Los Angeles, despite the objection of her father, who had a reputation as a fierce racist. While Ed Sanders was researching his Manson book, he received a Mafia kiss from a lawyer for Peter Folger.

Within a week after the murders, there was a dawn raid on the Spahn Ranch, with a grand-theft-auto search warrant. The Manson group had been stealing Volkswagens and turning them into dune buggies. Manson and four family members – Linda Kasabian, Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkel and Leslie van Houten – were arrested, then released in three days. But, while they were in confinement, Atkins told her cellmate about the murders, and when the cellmate was released, she informed the Los Angeles police.

By this time, Manson and the others had moved to another ranch in Death Valley, where they were arrested again. Preston Guillory, a former deputy sheriff at the Malibu Sheriff’s Department, aided the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department in the original raid of the Spahn Ranch. Guillory had participated in that raid, and I interviewed him at an apartment in San Francisco. He stated:

We had been briefed for a few weeks prior to the actual raiding of Spahn Ranch. We had a sheaf of memos on Manson, that they had automatic weapons at the ranch, that citizens had complained about hearing machine-guns fired at night, that firemen from the local fire station had been accosted by armed members of Manson’s band and told to get out of the area, all sorts of complaints like this.

We had been advised to put anything relating to Manson on a memo submitted to the station, because they were supposedly gathering information for the raid we were going to make. Deputies at the station of course started asking, “Why aren’t we going to make the raid sooner?” I mean, Manson’s a parole violator, machine-guns have been heard, we know there’s narcotics and we know there’s booze. He’s living at the Spahn Ranch with a bunch of minor girls in complete violation of his parole.

Deputies at the station quite frankly became very annoyed that no action was being taken about Manson. My contention is this – the reason Manson was left on the street was because our department thought that he was going to attack the Black Panthers. We were getting intelligence briefings that Manson was anti-black and he had supposedly killed a Black Panther, the body of which could not be found, and the department thought that he was going to launch an attack on the Black Panthers.

Manson was a very ready tool, apparently, because he did have some racial hatred and he wanted to vent it. But they hadn’t anticipated him attacking someone other than the Panthers, which he did. Manson changed his score. Changed the program at the last moment and attacked the Tates and then went over to the LaBiancas and killed them. And here was the Sheriff’s Department suddenly  wondering, “Jesus Christ, what are we gonna do about this? We can’t cover this up. Well, maybe we can.”

I bet those memos are no longer in existence. The memos about what Manson was doing. Citizens’ complaints. All those things I’m sure have disappeared by now. It shows the police were conscious of the fact that he had these weapons in violation of his parole. You’ve got at least involvement here on the part of Manson’s parole officer, on the part of the Sheriff’s Department, probably the sheriff himself, and whoever gave him his orders. Manson should have been [imprisoned] long before the killings, because he was on parole, period. He was living at the Spahn Ranch with an outlaw motorcycle gang. I feel that, to say the least, the sheriff of Los Angeles County is an accessory to murder.

The raid was a week after the Sharon Tate thing, and the intelligence information was coming in for about three weeks prior to the raid. They just didn’t want any arrests made. It was obvious they wanted the intelligence information we were gathering for some other reason. Three days after they were arrested, seventy-two hours later, they were all released – lack of evidence – after this mammoth raid. This raid involved two helicopters, 102 deputies and about twenty-five radio cars, and all the charges were dropped against everyone.

It appeared to me that the raid was more or less staged as an afterthought. It was like a scenario that we were going through. There was some kind of a grand plan that we were participating in, but I never had the feeling the raid was necessary or that it required so many personnel. Now, if you were a police official and you were planning a raid on the Spahn Ranch, utilizing 102 deputies and helicopters and all that, one would think that with all the information coming out a month prior to the raid, wouldn’t you have them under fairly close surveillance? If you did have them under fairly close surveillance, wouldn’t you see them leave the Spahn Ranch to go over and kill seven people and then come back?

So the hypothesis I put forward is, either we didn’t have them under surveillance for grand-theft-auto because it was a big farce, or else they were under surveillance by somebody much higher than the Sheriff’s Department, and they did go through this scenario of killing at the Tate house and then come back, and then we went through the motions to do our raid. Either they were under surveillance at the time, which means somebody must have seen them go to the Tate house and commit the killings, or else they weren’t under surveillance.

You have to remember that Charlie was on federal parole all this time from ’67 to ’69. Do you realize all the shit he was getting away with while he was on parole? Now here’s the kicker. Before the Tate killings, he had been arrested at Malibu twice for statutory rape. Never got [imprisoned for parole violation]. During the Tate killings and the Spahn Ranch raid, Manson’s parole officer was on vacation, so he had no knowledge of Manson being incarcerated, so naturally Manson was released, but why wasn’t a parole hold put on him?

It’s like Manson had God on his side when all these things are going down, or else somebody was watching every move he made, somebody was controlling from behind the scenes. Somebody saw that no parole hold was placed. Manson liked to ball young girls, so he just did his thing and he was released and they didn’t put any hold on him. But somebody very high up was controlling everything that was going on and was seeing to it that we didn’t bust Manson.

Prior to the Spahn Ranch raid, there was a memo – it was verbal, I would have loved to Xerox some things but there wasn’t anything to Xerox – that we weren’t to arrest Manson or any of his followers prior to the raid. It was intimated to us that we were going to make a raid on the Spahn Ranch, but the captain came out briefly and said, “No action is to be taken on anybody at the Spahn Ranch. I want memos submitted directly to me with a cover sheet so nobody else can read them.” So deputies were submitting memos on information about the Spahn Ranch that other deputies weren’t even allowed to see. We were to submit intelligence information but not to make any arrests. Manson was in a free fire zone, so to speak. He was living a divine existence. We couldn’t touch him.

And so it was that the presence of racism had morphed the Sheriff’s Department into collaborators in a mass murder. But who was the higher-up that gave them the order to leave Manson alone? I was certainly prepared to believe that’s what occurred. I had been gathering piece after piece of a mind-boggling jigsaw puzzle, trying to make them all fit snugly into one big cohesive picture, but without having any model to pattern it after.

Tex Watson, the Manson family member who led the others on the night of the massacre, had played a bigger part in planning the massacre than generally believed. Charlie had instructed the girls to do whatever Tex told them. When Manson was charged, Watson was also charged, but federal authorities held Watson in a Texas prison with no explanation – not even his own lawyers were allowed to see him – while Vincent Bugliosi prosecuted the Manson trial in California.

In order to find Manson guilty, the jury had to be convinced that Charlie's girls were zombies who followed his orders without question. However, in order to find Watson guilty, another jury had to be convinced that he was not a zombie at all and knew exactly what he was doing.

In the course of our correspondence, there was a letter from Manson consisting of a few pages of gibberish about Christ and the Devil, but at one point, right in the middle, he wrote in tiny letters, Call Squeaky, with her phone number. I called, and we arranged to meet at her apartment in Los Angeles.  On an impulse, I brought several tabs of LSD with me on the plane.

Squeaky Fromme resembled a typical redheaded, freckle-faced waitress who sneaks a few tokes of pot in the lavatory, a regular girl-next-door except perhaps for the unusually challenging nature of her personality plus the scar of an X that she had gouged and burned into her forehead as a visual reminder of her commitment to Charlie.

That same symbol also covered the third eyes of her roommates, Sandra Good and Brenda McCann. “We've crossed ourselves out of this entire system,” I was told. They all had short hairstyles growing in now, having shaved their heads completely. They continued to sit on the sidewalk near the Hall of Justice every day, like a coven of faithful nuns being witness to Manson's martyrdom. Sandy had seen me perform stand-up at The Committee in San Francisco some years previously. Now she told me that when she first met Charlie and people asked her what he was like, she had compared him to Lenny Bruce and me. It was the weirdest compliment I ever got, but I began to understand Manson's peculiar charisma.

With his sardonic rap, mixed with psychedelic drugs and real-life theater games such as “creepy-crawling” and stealing, he had deprogrammed his family from the values of mainstream society, but reprogrammed them with his own philosophy, a cosmic version of the racism perpetuated by the prison system that had served as his family. Manson stepped on Sandy's eyeglasses, threw away her birth-control pills, and inculcated her with racist sensibility. Although she had once been a civil rights activist, she was now asking me to tell John Lennon that he should get rid of Yoko Ono and stay with “his own kind.” Later, she added, “If Yoko really loved the Japanese people, she would not want to mix their blood.”

The four of us ingested those little white tablets containing 300 micrograms of acid, then took a walk to the office of Laurence Merrick, who had been associated with schlock biker exploitation movies as the prerequisite to directing a sensationalist documentary, Manson. Squeaky's basic vulnerability emerged as she kept pacing around and telling Merrick that she was afraid of him. He didn't know we were tripping, but he must have sensed the vibes. I engaged him in conversation. We discussed the fascistic implications of a movie, The French Connection, and he remarked, “You're pretty articulate – ”

“For a bum,” I completed his sentence, and he laughed.

Next we went to the home of some friends of the family, smoked a few joints of soothing grass, and listened to music. They sang along with the lyrics of “A Horse with No Name”: In the desert you can't remember your name, ’cause there ain't no one for to give you no pain. I was basking in the afterglow of the Moody Blues' “Om” song when Sandy began to speak of the “gray people” – regular citizens going about their daily business – whom she had been observing from her vantage point on the corner near the Hall of Justice.

“We were just sitting there,” she said, “and they were walking along, kind of avoiding us. It's like watching a live movie in front of you. Sometimes I just wanted to kill the gray people, because that was the only way they would be able to experience the total Now.” That was an expression Charlie had borrowed from Scientology. Later, Sandy explained that she didn't mean it literally about killing the gray people -- that she had been speaking from another dimension. She told me that prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi once snarled at her as she kept vigil outside the courthouse: “We're gonna get you because you sucked Charlie Manson's dick.” The girls just sat there on the sidewalk and laughed, because they knew that oral-genital relations did not constitute a capital offense.

When we returned to their apartment, Sandy asked if I wanted to take a hot bath. I felt ambivalent. I knew that one of the attorneys in the case had participated in a ménage à trois with Squeaky and Sandy, but I had also been told by a reporter, “It certainly levels the high to worry about getting stabbed while fucking the Manson ladies in the bunkhouse at the Spahn Ranch – I've found that the only satisfactory position is sitting up, back to the wall, facing the door.”

Visions of the famous shower scene in Psycho flashed through my mind, but despite the shrill self-righteousness that infected their true-believer syndrome, they had charmed me with their honesty, humor, and distorted sense of compassion. They sensed my hesitation, and Squeaky confronted me: “You're afraid of me, aren't you?” she asked.

“Not really. Should I be?”

Sandy tried to reassure me: “She's beautiful, Paul. Just look into her eyes. Isn't she beautiful?”

Squeaky and I stared silently at each other for a while – I recalled that Manson had written, “I never picked up anyone who had not already been discarded by society” – and my eyes began to tear. There were tears in Squeaky's eyes too. She asked me to try on Charlie's vest. It felt like a perverted honor to participate in this ceremony. The corduroy vest was a solid inch thick with embroidery – snakes and dragons and devilish designs including human hair that had been woven into the multicolored patterns.

Sandy took her bath, but instead of my getting into the tub with her – assuming she had invited me – I sat fully dressed on the toilet, and we talked. I was thinking, You have pert nipples, but instead I said, “What's that scar on your back?” It was from a lung operation. Brenda asked for another tab of acid, to send Manson in prison. She ground it into powder which she then glued to the paper with vegetable dye and the notation, Words fly fast, explaining that Charlie would know what it meant. She stayed up late that night, writing letters to several prisoners with the dedication of a polygamous war wife.

Squeaky visited me a few times in San Francisco. On the way to lunch one day, she lit a cigarette, and I told her about the series of advertisements by which women were originally conditioned into smoking: a woman standing next to a man who was smoking; then a woman saying to the man, “Blow some my way”; and finally a woman smoking her own cigarette. Squeaky simply smiled, said “Okay,” and dropped her cigarette on the sidewalk, crushing it out with her shoe.

Another time, when I attempted to point out a certain fallacy in her logic, she responded, “Well, what do you expect from me? I'm crazy!”Once, she told me she had been beaten up by members of the Mel Lyman family from Boston because she wouldn't switch her allegiance to them, even though they'd had plans to break Manson out of jail, by means of a helicopter, while his trial was taking place. She said they were “well organized.”

Squeaky mailed me her drawing in red ink of a woman's face with a pair of hands coming out of her mouth. Written in script was the song lyric: “Makes me wanna holler, throw up both my hands . . .” In 1975, Squeaky tried to shoot President Gerald Ford. She was wearing a Red Riding Hood outfit, and I sent her a note in prison, teasing her about fading into the crowd. I never heard from her again.

Read more of Paul Krassner at PaulKrassner.com

Steven Leech ~ Boptime + Legends of Wilmington Jazz

On Saturday's Boptime we begin at 6am (EST) with the Broadway musical Redhead, on stage on this day in 1959. We round out the hour with jazz from the same year from Ornette Coleman and Miles Davis. At 7am (EST) we continue with more from this day from 1959, including some new Christmas tunes from that year, what was playing in local movie theatres, what was on television and other events. At 8am (EST), and for the remainder of the program, we’ll head back to this day in 1945. There were no new significant Christmas tunes for the year, but there were new beginnings, new trends in music, and a readjustment to a post war world. ~ Steve

BOPTIME: Saturday, 6 AM Eastern time, 3 AM Pacific time
Go To: http://www.wvud.org/?page_id=24
Click on a listening link below the WVUD logo:

Steven has also provided Genesis and Harbringer.pdf; part of Dreamstreets #56, located at: http://www.dreamstreetsarchive.com/

California, Washington, NY
take steps after net neutrality vote

After the FCC voted down the Obama-era rules, lawmakers
and attorneys general in three states say they're ready to fight.

BY TERRY COLLINS, MARGUERITE REARDON DECEMBER 14, 2017 12:09 PM PST ~ CNET Source

The Federal Communications Commission may have voted to roll back net neutrality rules, but some state lawmakers and attorneys general say they'll battle the feds to make sure online traffic is treated equally.

Politicians from California, Washington and New York said Thursday they'll use a mix of legislative action and legal moves to fight the FCC's repeal of net neutrality regulation, which was voted onearlier in the day. ~ [Click to Continue Reading]

FCC's net neutrality vote
delayed due to security threat

Reddit Comments

Dr_Ghamorra: Unfortunately the courts will only deliberate the legality of issue. I.e. does the FCC have the authority to decide on the matter.

jfudge: The question in the courts is almost certainly not going to be whether the FCC has authority to make the decision, as the FCC repealed a rule it created itself. I can't think of a single ground on which this would not be permissible, unless somehow a court found that the FCC didn't have authority to make the original rule in the first place (which would make the repeal moot).

The real legal battle is likely to be whether the FCC followed the necessary legal guidelines for an administrative agency in creating a regulatory rule - essentially, the question is going to be whether this decision was made in an "arbitrary and capricious" manner. I don't know administrative law well enough to go into much detail on it, but when you consider the vast number of fake comments (with no investigation by the FCC) and the strong public outlash against the change in policy, there should be a fairly strong argument that the rule change was in fact arbitrary and/or capricious. But we shall see.

quests: The internet's dreams are crushed.

Disclaimer ~ # 5

5. It is true. As we go through life thinking heavy thoughts, thought particles tend to get caught between the ears, causing a condition called truth decay. So be sure to use mental floss twice a day. And when you're tempted to practice tantrum yoga, remember what we teach in Swami's Absurdiveness Training class: *Don't get even, get odd.*

Net Neutrality is ending, meme economy may collapse!
Invest in physical meme trading, save your profits!!

Submitted by MatthaeusMaximus, Meme Economy, Reddit Source

If we start mailing our memes we will save money and keep the memes flowing across the country. It would still be memeing, just physical and slower.

We are running out of time to save the economy from total destruction if net neutrality falls, prepare for the future my fellow trades! ~ MatthaeusMaximus

In my day, we had to sit around the fire and act out our memes. ~ wormee ~ [Continue Reading]

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Click to view remaining: zunfinishedstory

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From: http://www.yogaesoteric.net >News & Events >Articles >Source

UFO experts warn of «cosmic false flag» event
claiming deep state will fake alien invasion to
achieve totalitarian control over humanity

As our world become ever more strange by the day, numerous UFO experts are warning about what might be the most bizarre event in human history: A "cosmic false flag” where, they claim, desperate governments of the world stage a massive fake alien invasion to finally complete their goal of ensuring total human obedience under a never-ending "the aliens are coming" false hysteria. It may sound crazy to the unknowing, but listen to the experts below before making up your mind, and check out the Washington Post’s coverage of some of the technology that can help make this happen.

Such an event, the experts say, could be pulled off by a combination of advanced human-made exotic aircraft, advanced holographic technology and a complicit global media already practiced in the art of engineering elaborate fake news (CNN, Washington Post etc.) to propagandize gullible viewers. Truth be told, most humans believe whatever they’re told to believe, even it’s based on no supportable evidence whatsoever (case in point: the global climate change hoax).

Based on what we’ve seen from humanity so far, people don’t even need holograms to fall for a false flag. Most people will literally hallucinate whatever images the mainstream media is trying to put into their heads, literally fabricating false visual memories to fit the narrative they’ve been exposed to in the controlled media.

Dr. Stephen Greer of Sirius Disclosure

One of the best known researchers who speaks publicly about a "cosmic false flag” event is Dr. Stephen Greer of Sirius Disclosure, an organization dedicated to unveiling the truth about real extraterrestrials as well as organized human hoaxes intended to trick the masses.

According to Dr. Greer, many (but not all) of the so-called "UFO” events being witnessed around the world involve craft that are manufactured by humans. He furthermore asserts that the "military industrial complex” consists of a power structure far beyond the reach of even the U.S. President, and that such interests are planning a "cosmic false flag” event to trick humanity into thinking an alien invasion is taking place.

[Video at Source]

Claim: A global power structure will pursue the radical depopulation of the planet in the very near future via "scripted Armageddon”

According to Dr. Greer, if people across the planet become too awakened and start to challenge the status quo power structure, an "alien invasion” will be staged through the deployment of convincing "alien” aircraft that have actually been developed, tested and perfected by secretive weapons companies like Northrup, Grumman and Boeing. With the help of the fakestream media – CNN, NYT, WashPost and other presstitutes – any narrative can then be pushed as "fact”.

Now that a mass global awakening is accelerating by the day, the staging of this "cosmic false flag” seems imminent, warn researchers.

"If someone tries to stage an event, we’re all going to call it out as the hoax that it is… and not go along with that what I’m calling ‘scripted Armageddon’.” says Greer. He explains that the "cosmic false flag” may be the cover story to engage in a partial extermination of humanity:

“They would love to see a shut down of our civilization and the extermination of about five billion people, through a conflict that they will stage, and they will manufacture Armageddon. And that’s the big deep plan that has been in place since the 50s. Those people in the intelligence community who know of this… I can’t even put in words the extent to which they are devastated when they learn this. Because they know how these folks are utilizing religiosity, racism, alienism, division to keep the fire burning. But the big one is going to be the launch of a hoaxed attack on the planet that would look 100% like an extraterrestrial event… and it is not.”

The technology already exists to pull it off

The technology already exists to carry out a massive fake alien attack that can convince most people of its authenticity. As the Mark Dice video explains below, the Washington Post even ran a story in 1999 detailing how the U.S. military planned to stage an "appearance of God” in Iraq in order to make the people there fall into line.

That WashPo story, which also describes how the U.S. military was able to perfectly fake the voice of any person saying anything they wanted, is still published here.

Note that this technology already existed in 1999. It is now 18 years later. Imagine the applications for a massive "cosmic false flag” roll out that fakes the voice of Donald Trump…

[Video at Source]

The false flag "alien attack” can also be augmented, other experts say, by present-day audio projection technology that can literally project full human speech (and other sounds) into the heads of large groups of people. It’s called a "radio frequency hearing effect”. Search for it on the internet to learn more. The following video provides a quick demonstration of this technology at work as part of a city billboard marketing campaign:

[Video at Source]

“Unacknowledged” documentary in the works

Dr. Stephen Greer is working on a new documentary called Unacknowledged. It is described as "a groundbreaking film providing the best available evidence in regard to free energy suppression, illegal UFO secrecy, and Government coverup”.

In the trailer, he explains: "The most dangerous thing going on, on the planet today, isn’t ISIS, it’s not Iraq, it’s not Russia, it’s not China. It’s an out of control covert group that is not being overseen by the People, Congress, or the President, who have developed these technologies and are recklessly using them to track and target extraterrestrial vehicles.”

[Video at Source]

Former Canadian Minister of Defence Paul Hellyer shares his own warning

In a similar warning, former Canadian Minister of Defense Paul Hellyer warns about the "deep state” power of corporations, intelligence agencies, the U.S. military and weapons manufacturers. "Their collective power is incalculable. And it is their plan, is an empire greater in size and power than any empire before it. They call this the New World Order,” he says in his video.

"It will end all government pretense of government of, by and for the people. It will be a dictatorship… of the privileged elite” he warns.

Watch his warning here, where he also describes the "cosmic false flag” that he warns is coming soon:

[Video at Source]

Is any of this true? That’s for you to decide. Just make sure the things you believe have a basis in fact and aren’t elaborate hoaxes, illusions or deceptions you’ve been tricked into believing. If any of the warnings cited above turn out to be true, discernment is about to become a crucial survival skill. ~ yogaesoteric March 19, 2017

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Government of The People by the corporations, for
the corporations, will not perish from this earth. ~@~

Alpha Hotel Says What?

Ajit Pai Thinks You're Stupid Enough to Buy This Crap [One of the 7 Things Is Dancing With a Pizzagater]

I think it’s important to stress that the FCC is opening the door for ISPs to interfere with U.S. citizens’ first amendment rights.

Limiting our access to certain websites and certain media makes accessibility of the rights granted to us by the Constitution more difficult and here’s how:

They threaten our freedom of speech, by not allowing our voices to be heard on a platform (social media) where millions could be reached, effectively silencing us.

They threaten the freedom of the press by limiting their ability to disseminate information necessary for the public to assess the government.

They threaten freedom of religion by opening the door for ISPs to give preference over which sites moral and spiritual beliefs align with their own.

They threaten our freedom to protest by making it difficult to reach out to each others and organize a formal rejection against the practices of our government.

They’ll argue that they do no such thing, that they do not violate our rights because there are other means through which we can retain those rights without the internet. But this is not an excuse for why they should make our access to these rights more difficult.

This is not just a fight for NN, but a fight to stop these companies from breaching the constitution and stealing Americans’ rights. That’s something that can and will concern every legislator in Congress, and should concern every U.S. citizen. My rights and your rights are being blatantly attacked with the repeal of NN. ~ dmoral25 ~ Source via battleforthenet.com

Stuff

The Ghost of Tom Joad, Bruce Springsteen & Tom Morello via Jason Fraley

World's witnessing a new Gilded Age as billionaires’ wealth swells to $6tn
Not since the time of the Carnegies, Rockefellers and Vanderbilts
at the turn of the 20th century was so much owned by so few

The Republican Tax Bill Provides Huge Benefits to People Who Don’t Work. But Only if They’re Rich. ~ Reddit Comments

Sen. Collins locks office doors, refuses to answer to constituents on secret GOP tax scam. ~ Reddit Comments

“No Jones? No Vote.” Americans flood Senate halls to stop GOP from ramming tax bill. ~ Reddit Comments

Right-Wing Conspiracy Theory About Alabama Election Gets A Brutal Reality Check ~ Reddit Comments

Roy Moore, saying ‘immorality sweeps over our land,’ declines again to concede ~ Reddit Comments

Roy Moore refusing to concede Alabama Senate race, says 'battle rages on' ~ Reddit Comments

The Republican Tax Plan Is A Recession Waiting To Happen ~ Reddit Comments

The FCC is about to create an 'internet for the elite' ~ Reddit Comments

The Republican Nightmare is Just Beginning ~ Reddit Comments

[Ed Note: All headlines stating Anonymous plans 'destructive cyberattack' on FCC are
fake news and total bullshit. It is alleged this is political speak, and if it happens, will be
done via corporations or politicians who have hired massive botnets = Not Anonymous.]

An Analysis of Net Neutrality Activism on Reddit

TL;DR: Concerned humans. Lots of them.

COMMUNITY • Staff • December 11, 2017

Michael Gardner & Jessica Ashooh

Data Scientist & Director of Policy

The past several weeks have seen multiple surges of activism on Reddit as our users rally to save net neutrality from the FCC’s plans to gut it. In a political climate where talk of bots and astroturfing has sometimes caused skepticism when it comes to online activism, we wanted to look into the pro-net neutrality activity on the site to make sure that Reddit wasn’t being gamed by outside actors looking to manipulate our platform.

The results of this analysis were so overwhelming that we wanted to share them with the public on this day of action in support of net neutrality. Not only did we find the activity to be an authentic, truly grassroots phenomenon, but it represented some of the most fervent organic activity we have ever seen on the front page in all of Reddit’s twelve year history

The bottom line is that real people—millions of them—care about preserving the free and open internet, and they are taking to Reddit to express themselves. Whether through telling us their personal stories or by raising an upvote for the members of Congress who refused to sell out their interests, redditors are making themselves heard on this issue. It is up to all of those in Washington who represent us to listen. ~ Continue at:

https://redditblog.com/2017/12/11/an-analysis-of-net-neutrality-activism-on-reddit/

---

H.R.4585 - To prohibit the Federal Communications Commission from relying on the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking in the matter of restoring internet freedom to adopt, amend, revoke, or otherwise modify any rule of the Commission.

Summary: https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/4585

---

---

T-Bone Walker ~ Call It Stormy Monday via Andy Minnes

Roy Moore
& the new Republican Pedophile Party?

Oh Fox, you make treason seem so festive

Who is Roy Moore?
Don't forget, nothing is new, click on Party.

I know he raped you, Sally. But what's really important is the Senate seat. ~Republican Jesus

Yes, my son, it's OK he's a pedophile. We need his vote on a tax bill.

Hindsight...

How Politics Could Have Been,
or why a stupid Democrap Party Sucks too:

Debbie Democrap & the DNC Band Cheated!

They put their Fingers on the Scales and
Mr. Sanders got kicked out of the political race.

PPRS ~ Pacific Packet Radio Society Historic, 1st U.S. Wireless Digital Communication

Pacific Packet Radio Society
37th Anniversary

Wireless Digital Communication was introduced (in the United States) by Dr. Hank Magnuski (Co-founder PPRS), when his historic KA6M-1 Digital Packet Radio Repeater began operation on December 10, 1980.

Pacific Packet Radio Society gateway | history | photos | papers | links | packet audio | video

Steven Leech ~ Boptime + Legends of Wilmington Jazz

On Saturday's Boptime we begin at 6am (EST) with the Broadway musical The Whiz. At 7am (EST) on The Legends of Wilmington Jazz you’ll hear Clifford Brown backing singers Dinah Washington, Sarah Vaughan, and Helen Merrill, plus some rare live recordings including some with Brownie speaking in his own words. At 8am (EST), and for the remainder of the program, it’s Clifford’s Corner with guest hosts Larry Williams and Kitty Mayo, during which we’ll play a batch of rare jazz and R&B fit for the holiday season. ~ Steve

BOPTIME: Saturday, 6 AM Eastern time, 3 AM Pacific time
Go To: http://www.wvud.org/?page_id=24
Click on a listening link below the WVUD logo:

---

---

THE INDIGENOUS AMERICAN ~ Uncategorized ~ Goodbye 1st Amendment:

New Bill Seizes Assets of Anyone
Who Plans or Participates in Protests
that ‘Disturb the Public Peace’

by theindigenousamericans_6i2sru ~ Article Source

Imagine having all your assets seized because you planned a peaceful protest that disturbed the peace? That could be a reality under SB1142, which just passed the Arizona state senate.

Under SB1142, Arizona’s racketeering laws are expanding to include rioting. This gives the state government the right to criminally prosecute and seize the assets of everyone who planned a protest that turned violent and everyone who participated.

The bill also redefines what constitutes a rioter as any person who “uses force or violence or threatens to use force or violence, if such threat is accompanied by immediate power of execution, which EITHER disturbs the public peace OR RESULTS IN DAMAGE TO THE PROPERTY OF ANOTHER PERSON.”

The vote was 17-13. One of the 17 that voted for this, Sen. John Kavanagh, gave the following justification for this absurd, unconstitutional new law: “You now have a situation where you have full-time, almost professional agent-provocateurs that attempt to create public disorder. A lot of them are ideologues, some of them are anarchists. But this stuff is all planned… I should certainly hope that our law enforcement people have some undercover people there. Wouldn’t you rather stop a riot before it starts?”

Who defines what is considered a ‘violent’ protest?

Who determines what ‘disturbs the public peace’? Does profanity, shouting, or loud music constitute disturbing the peace?

The opponents of a protest could just hire agitators to make protests violent, then the authorities could use this as an excuse to seize the assets of all the protesters.

You are peacefully protesting and some guy starts throwing rocks at windows. Not only are you arrested on racketeering charges, but then the cops come and seize your house, car, and belongings? Good luck affording a lawyer to defend you in court!

If this succeeds and is signed into law by the Governor of Arizona, you can bet a similar nationwide law will be on its way not long after… ~ Please visit: THE INDIGENOUS AMERICAN

https://www.battleforthenet.com/

Inspirational Scene from Malcolm in the Middle via Natasha Joibi

Mario Savio, December 2, 1964 via mariosk

Amestizo [Randy CrazyHorse] ~ Shaman

The Siege of Chaco Canyon - Indian Country Media Network

Stop Fracking New Mexico Petition - Native Voice Network

Fracking Versus Ancient Astronomy in Chaco Canyon

Fracking and drilling near Chaco Canyon challenged by Begaye, Nez

Frack Off Greater Chaco

Don't Frack Chaco Canyon

The Treasures of Chaco Canyon Are Threatened by Drilling

River Healers: New Mexico Chapter

Fracking Boom Surrounds Sacred Chaco Canyon

Fracking threatens the Chaco Canyon World Heritage Site

Will Fracking Be the Demise of Chaco Canyon National Historical Park?

Fracking Boom Expands Near Chaco Canyon, Threatens Navajo Ancestral Lands and People

More than 165,000 Deliver A Message to New Mexico Politicians: Stop Fracking in the Greater Chaco

Written on the Landscape:Mysteries Beyond Chaco Canyon

BLM Defers Fracking Near New Mexico’s Sacred Chaco Canyon

Stuff Deemed Important

Pedophile Child Molesters, The New Republican Party / GOP Image? via Donald J. Trump / @realDonaldTrump

Democrats refusal to give even one vote for massive Tax Cuts [for the rich] is why we need Republican Roy Moore to win in Alabama. We need his vote on stopping crime, illegal immigration, Border Wall, Military, Pro Life, V.A., Judges 2nd Amendment and more. No to Jones, a Pelosi/Schumer Puppet!

Women Are Getting Banned from Facebook for Calling Men ‘Scum’ via Taylor Lorenz

Women had accounts banned from Facebook for responding to male trolls with sentences like ‘men are trash,’ in part because the company classifies white men as a protected group.

Doesn't believe in Climate Change, Believes in Noah's Ark via 2DeadMoose

How computers are made via Petaaa

The death of the internet: If we lose this, we lose everything.
The Outline via Michael Rahmani

2CELLOS: They Don’t Care About Us by Michael Jackson via breno

Net Neutrality

Nothing else matters, Metallica arr. Karianne Brouwer violin, Maaike Schoenmaker cello

An update on the fight for the free and open internet

Hi All,

If you spent any time on Reddit last week, you may have noticed a common theme in the posts on your front page, so we wanted to take a moment to recap what’s happened so far in the fight for net neutrality, underscore how important this issue is to Reddit, and share how we plan to continue to stand up for an internet that remains open and free.

On Tuesday, FCC chairman Ajit Pai announced his intention to vote on a full rollback of the 2015 net neutrality rules. While the pre-Thanksgiving timing of the announcement might have helped the news sneak by over the holidays, you all have helped prevent that from happening. Aside from ensuring that net neutrality was discussed IRL around Thanksgiving tables across the country, you brought the conversation about the open internet to almost every community on the site, from r/dataisbeautiful to r/trashpandas. You’ve made high-quality gifs, flooded the meme market, explained the issue to people who are out of the loop, and given a history of why net neutrality rules are essential. 

In just one week, you made 50,000 unique posts and over 350,000 comments related to net neutrality, generating over 21 million votes. While Tuesday’s news hits close to home, we are grateful that the Reddit community cares just as much about net neutrality as we do at Reddit HQ.

As many of you know, the FCC’s vote will happen on December 14 and is expected to pass. However, the vote is also expected to be challenged almost immediately in court, likely kicking off a long process that will take years to work through. During this time, Congress will likely try to legislate a fix. As a still-small company that owes its existence to net neutrality’s giving us a fair chance in the marketplace, we will take every opportunity to share our perspective and give constructive input to this process. The data says that Americans don’t see this as a partisan issue, and neither do we.

Most of the activism right now is focused on driving messages to Congress and the FCC before December 14 (including a protest in DC the day before the vote). The FCC has received a record 22 million comments on net neutrality but has indicated they have not reviewed comments that don’t introduce new facts into the record or make serious legal arguments. Additionally, they believe a number of the comments are fake. While we are unlikely to change the FCC’s decision, we encourage you to follow Commissioner Rosenworcel’s suggestion and continue to “make a ruckus” to let the FCC hear your individual stories on the importance of net neutrality. 

A few months ago, u/kn0thing asked you to leave comments explaining why net neutrality is important to you, and thousands of you delivered. Today, we’re asking you again to leave personal stories that we can use in the battle ahead. When we shared these stories with members of Congress this past July, we saw firsthand how effective they are at humanizing an issue that is too often perceived as an abstract battle between big corporate interests. 

We will continue to share these personal testimonials with more members of Congress, with the media, and potentially file them in court briefs. Our goal in this effort is to keep the personal dimension of the open internet top of mind for everyone who wants to repeal net neutrality. We know how powerful redditors banding together for a common cause can be, so our focus will continue to be on amplifying your voices, from Capitol Hill to — if it comes to it — the Supreme Court. 

So, please tell us in the comments:

How would your life change if internet service providers started blocking or throttling certain internet traffic, or creating paid prioritization channels for certain content?

Include as much detail as you feel comfortable sharing. Generally, the more specific, the better. Mentioning your state and Congressional representative is especially useful.

Thank you.

u/ArabScarab (Jessica Ashooh, our Head of Policy), and I will hang around to answer questions.

Update: Thank you, everyone! We were in touch with Congressman Mike Doyle's office yesterday sharing some of your great stories from his home district in Pennsylvania (thanks, u/Bones_MD!), and they've heard you loud and clear. They are leading an effort to get Congress to ask the FCC to delay their December 14 vote, but they need as many Congressional members as possible to sign on. You can help them by calling or writing your member of Congress (look them up here or through www.battleforthenet.com) and specifically asking him or her to sign onto Representative Doyle's letter to the FCC. We'll be doing the same. Keep it up, we're being heard!

Corruption is Legal in America via Doku Mentor

FCC Releases Net Neutrality Killing Order,
Hopes You're Too Busy Cooking Turkey To Read It

by Karl Bode Wed, Nov 22nd 2017 11:21am

Broadband ~ Filed Under: ajit pai, fcc, net neutrality, techdirt Permalink, Short link from the nothing-to-see-here dept

As we noted yesterday, the FCC is trying to use the Thanksgiving holiday to distract the press and public from its blatant handout to one of the least liked and least competitive industries in America. As we also noted yesterday, trying to bury such an epic middle finger to consumers behind the cranberry sauce is an obvious underestimation of just how unpopular this plan is, and the policy, political, and cultural backlash it's going to generate for years.

That said, all six of you not currently driving long distances, buying turkeys and potatoes, or otherwise distracted by holiday preparation can now read a fact sheet provided by the FCC (pdf) explaining what Ajit Pai and his lobbying friends in the telecom industry have planned for you.

To Ajit Pai's credit (and I'm using that term loosely here), the rules do pretty much everything he promised they would, including rolling back the Title II classification of ISPs as common carriers that gives the FCC its ability to enforce net neutrality. Without that authority, the FCC can't really protect you as giant broadband providers abuse the lack of competition in the last mile (a lack of competition Ajit Pai refuses to acknowledge, much less actually fix). ISPs have been very busy trying to claim that gutting this authority doesn't kill net neutrality protections, though we've already explained at length why that's nonsense.

Throughout the order, the FCC repeatedly tries to claim that the very real harms we've seen in the broadband sector thanks to a lack of healthy competition are entirely "speculative" and "hypothetical":

"Because of the paucity of concrete evidence of harms to the openness of the Internet, the Title II Order and its proponents have heavily relied on purely speculative threats. We do not believe hypothetical harms, unsupported by empirical data, economic theory, or even recent anecdotes, provide a basis for public-utility regulation of ISPs.428 Indeed, economic theory demonstrates that many of the practices prohibited by the Title II Order can sometimes harm consumers and sometimes benefit consumers; therefore, it is not accurate to presume that all hypothetical effects are harmful."

You know, speculative instances like that time AT&T blocked customer access to Facetime in order to drive them to more expensive mobile data plans. Or the time AT&T throttled users then lied about it (something AT&T's still fighting a lawsuit over). Or that time Comcast applied arbitrary and completely unnecessary usage caps and overage fees to its broadband service (again, thanks to a lack of competition), then exempted the company's own content from those caps while still penalizing competitors. Or how about that time Verizon blocked competing mobile wallets from even working on its phones to give its own payment platform an advantage?

There's plenty more very real, very non-speculative examples where that came from, and the problem gets worse if you look at the bad behavior by ISPs on the privacy front (also caused by a lack of competition). Like when AT&T decided to charge users hundreds of extra dollars a month just to opt out of snoopvertising, or the time Verizon was busted covertly modifying user packets to track users around the internet without telling them -- or letting them opt out.

If you think these very real market harms are "speculative" you've been in a coma for the last decade. Yet this argument that net neutrality is an entirely theoretical problem sits at the heart of the FCC's order. It's an order that makes it abundantly clear that the real goal is to completely dismantle the FCC's authority over broadband mono/duopolies, then shovel any remaining authority to an FTC that's technically incapable of actually policing abuses in the sector. Anybody framing this as anything other than a grotesque example of crony capitalism is either viciously misinformed -- or intentionally lying to you for personal financial benefit.

One thing of particular note in the Orwellian-named "Restoring Internet Freedom" order is the fact that the FCC wants to ban states that try to protect net neutrality and consumer welfare in the wake of the federal handout to industry. The agency doesn't specifically spell out how it intends to do this, but it's something ISPs like Comcast have been lobbying for for several months. ISPs have similarly been lobbying the government to ban states from protecting your broadband privacy after the GOP and Trump administration rushed to kill fairly basic broadband privacy protections earlier this year.

For years, ISPs have quite literally been allowed to write awful protectionist state laws that prohibit towns and cities from building their own broadband networks, or even striking public/private partnerships with companies like Google Fiber. Even in cases where the private sector refuses to. When folks pointed out that maybe giant uncompetitive duopolies shouldn't be allowed to write shitty state law, ISPs and their pay-to-play allies insisted this was an assault on states' rights. But when these same states try to protect consumers, you'll notice these concerns magically disappear.

Another thing to note: the FCC's original net neutrality order contained some very useful transparency rules that required that ISPs be entirely candid about what kind of traffic management they're using on your connection. And while Pai and his friends at Comcast have made a big deal about how they'll be retaining some of these protections, the order itself makes it abundantly clear that they intend to strip out most of the enforcement mechanisms that actually make these transparency protections work. For example, the order proclaims:

"Our enforcement changes will ensure that ISPs will be held accountable for any violations of the transparency rule.

But then proceeds to point out how it intends to eliminate most of the safeguards in place to ensure these requirements are actually adhered to:

"We eliminate the formal complaint procedures because the informal complaint procedure, in conjunction with other redress options including consumer protection laws, will sufficiently protect consumers. Additionally, we eliminate the position of Open Internet Ombudsperson because the staff from the Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau—other than the Ombudsperson—have been performing the Ombudsperson functions envisioned by the Title II Order. We also eliminate the issuance of enforcement advisory opinions, because enforcement advisory opinions do not diminish regulatory uncertainty, particularly for small providers. Instead, they add costs and uncertain timelines since there is no specific timeframe within which to act, which can also inhibit innovation."

The FCC's order also makes it clear that it wants to do away with protections governing interconnection. You'll recall that as people got wise to how ISPs were trying to throttle or otherwise hamstring competitors, ISPs got more creative -- and began intentionally letting interconnection points with transit operators and companies like Netflix get congested. Why? ISPs like Comcast and Verizon hoped to 1) kill the common practice of settlement-free peering, and 2) force companies like Netflix to pay an additional toll if they wanted video packets to reach subscribers on time, and intact (aka "double dipping" or more bluntly, extortion).

Unnoticed by many in the lawsuit by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman against Charter over slow speeds was the fact that Charter executives were busted candidly discussing this strategy to drive up costs for competitors and transit operators. When the FCC passed its 2015 net neutrality rules, this behavior mysteriously and magically ceased. Not surprisingly, the FCC is eager to eliminate any protections for this kind of anti-competitive behavior, insisting said protections were "unnecessary" and could magically be resolved by "market forces":

"We believe that applying Title II to Internet traffic exchange arrangements was unnecessary and is likely to inhibit competition and innovation. We find that freeing Internet traffic exchange arrangements from burdensome government regulation, and allowing market forces to discipline this emerging market is the better course. Indeed, the cost of Internet transit fell over 99 percent on a cost-per-megabit basis from 2005 to 2015.

In short, the FCC's plan to dismantle net neutrality rules is every bit as bad as most people expected it to be, and potentially a little bit worse. It opens the door to all manner of anti-competitive behavior by AT&T, Verizon, Charter and Comcast, while mindlessly dismissing the very real harms a lack of broadband competition is having on numerous industries. It tries to ban states from stepping in and filling the void in the face of obvious federal regulatory capture, and opens the door to giant, unaccountable ISPs to do pretty much whatever they'd like as they take full advantage of the broken residential and business broadband markets.

It's easy to be disheartened by this grotesque handout to duopolists, but users should take heart in the fact that this FCC order is so aggressively vile and obnoxious as to be potentially legally indefensible. In court, the FCC will have to prove that the broadband market has changed so substantially in the last two years as to justify such a brutal reversal of consumer-friendly policies. It will also have to defend the fact that it ignored 22 million, largely oppositional public comments on the FCC effort, and turned a blind eye to numerous instances of fraud and abuse of the comment system in order to downplay the massive backlash to its plan.

Even if the FCC does manage to win in the courts, it then has to stop the inevitable political backlash that is likely to eject Ajit Pai and friends from power. That's why you'll likely see an ISP effort in the new year to try and pass a new net neutrality law ISP lackeys and sockpuppets will breathlessly claim "solves" this problem once and for all, but will be integrated with so many loopholes as to be effectively useless. It's real purpose: to prevent the FCC from revisiting this subject down the road under the guise of "putting this issue to bed once and for all."

The problem for ISP lobbyists is that we're entering an election season, and countless politicians are going to be tripping over themselves to distance themselves from the unpopular policies of the current administration. You're not going to find a more unpopular policy than this myopic assault on net neutrality and the health of the internet.

That said, it's important to remember that net neutrality isn't a fight that magically ends with the passage or elimination of consumer protections, strong, weak, or otherwise. Since net neutrality violations are just a symptom of a lack of competition in the broadband market, it's a battle we're going to have to fight in perpetuity -- or at least until somebody in the United States government discovers the fortitude and courage to actually stand up to AT&T, Verizon, Charter and Comcast and begins implementing policies that finally attempt to actually fix our obvious competitive logjam.

Net Neutrality Activists Do Protest Posting On Reddit:

This is my senator. He will NOT sell you out to the telecom lobby. Keep this guy in office.

This is my senator. He refused to be bought out and is fighting to keep Net Neutrality.

This is Senator Bernie Sanders. He has not sold out to Telecoms and actively supports net neutrality. Be like Bernie.

This is my Senator Tammy Baldwin. She stands for Net Neutrality unlike our other Senator Ron Johnson.

This is my Senator. He's fought hard to protect Net Neutrality. He also likes to touch butts.

This is my senator. She will NOT sell you out to the telecom lobby. Keep her in office.

This is my Senator. She did not sell me, my fellow New Hampshirites, and this nation to the telecom lobby.

These are my senators. They did NOT sell me out to the Telecom Lobby :)

These are my Senators. They stood up for me and my states right to a free and open internet. [etc.]

---

Time for a Corporate Death Penalty?

This is Arizona Senator John McCain. He sold me and the rest of Arizona out to the telecom lobbyists for $84,125. John McCain has jeopardized our future for less than $100,000.

These are the Tennessee senators Bob Corker and Lamar Alexander. Combined telecoms gave them $130,000.

This is my Senator, Mike Crapo (R-ID). He sold me, my fellow Idahoans, and this nation to the Telecom Lobby for the bargain price of $11,000.

This is Senator Roger Wicker. He sold me, my fellow Mississippians, and the nation to the telecom lobby for $152, 000

These are our Senators. They sold our internet to the telecom lobby for a combined price of $53,650.

This is my Senator. He sold me, my fellow Hoosiers, and this nation to the telecom lobby for the price of $28,670.

This is my senator. He sold me, my fellow Clevelanders and the rest of Ohio and this Nation to the Telecom lobby for the price $89,350.

This is Arizona Senator Jeff Flake. He sold out all Arizona citizens to the telecom lobby for $27,955.

This is my Senator. He sold me, my fellow North Dakotans and this nation to the telecom lobby for the price of $25,800.

This is my senator. He sold me, my fellow South Dakotans, and this nation to the Telecom Lobby for $215,000.

This is my Senator. She sold me, my fellow Mainers, and this nation to the telecom lobby for the price of $57,550.

The 5 New Jersey Congressmen who sold you out to ISPs for as low as $6,000 and as high as $55,000.

This is congressman Jack Bergman. He sold out to the telecom companies for $21k... He is a Marine and is screwing over the country he bravely fought for.

This is my Representative Tom Emmer. He sold out me, my fellow Minnesotans and this nation to the Telecom lobby for the price of $18,500.

This is Senator Roy Blunt. He sold me, my fellow Missourians, and this nation to the telecom lobbyists for $127,500.

This is my Senator. He sold me, my fellow Kentuckians, and this nation to the telecom lobby for the price of $251,000.

This is my Senator. He sold me, my fellow Floridians, and this nation to the telecom lobby for the price of $75,535.

Pat Toomey is still a scumbag. He sold out Net Neutrality for chump change.

This is my Senator. He sold me, my fellow Kentuckians, and this nation to the telecom lobby for the price of $251,000.

This is my Senator. He sold me, my fellow Louisianians, and this nation to the telecom lobby for the price of $1,000.

These are my Senators. They sold me, my fellow North Carolinians, and this nation to the telecom lobby for the price of $41,220 (Tillis) & $58,500 (Burr).

This is Texas Senator John Cornyn. He sold me, my fellow Texans, and this nation to the telecom lobby for the price of $148,800.

This is my senator. He sold me, my fellow Iowans and this nation to the Telecom lobby for the price $135,125.

This is my Senator. He sold me, my fellow South Carolinian's, and this nation to the telecom lobby for the price of $74,522.

This is Mike Bishop, he sold us out for $40,500. Let him know that us Michiganders don't tolerate this kind of stuff.

This is my Senator, Mr. Bob Corker. He sold me, my fellow Tennesseans, and this nation to the telecom lobby for the price of $43,600.

This is my Senator. He sold me, my fellow Ohioans, and this nation to the telecom lobby for the price of $89,350.

This is my Representative. He sold me, my fellow New Yorkers, and this nation out to the telecom lobby for the price of $9,000.

This is my Senator. He sold me, my fellow Georgians, and this nation to the telecom lobby for the price of $37,000 ~ link 2.

This is Representative Gregory Walden. He sold me, my fellow Oregonians, and this nation to the telecom lobby for the price of $155,100.

This is my senator, Shelly Moore Capito. She sold my fellow West Virginians and this great nation to the Telecom lobby for $24,675.

This is my Senator. He sold me, my fellow Pennsylvanians, and this nation to the telecom lobby for the price of $143,456.

This is senator John Boozman. He sold me, my fellow Arkansans, and the nation to the telecom lobbies for $56,450.

This is my Senator. He sold me, my fellow Coloradoans, and this nation to the telecom lobby for the price of $95,023. [etc.]

https://www.battleforthenet.com ~ The time to act is now

Notes from ~@~

Carlin Step, DJ Steve Porter & Eli Wilkie from Roland Kardeby

The Great Bell Chant (The End of Suffering) from R Smittenaar

One Day, Matisyahu from 100%

Unsung Hero from Rattakarn Srithavatchai "Garn"

On the Bus, Carolyn Mountain Girl Garcia from vimeo

Karl Cohen ~ Association International du Film d'Animation SF Newsletter

ASIFA-SF December 2017 Newsletter [PDF Format]

Mike Wilhelm ~ Charlatans, Flamin' Groovies, Loose Gravel, and more

Louie, Louie ~ Mike Wilhelm & Hired Guns from ed chatham

Great MP3 Podcasts via Mike Wilhelm:

Hear The People

Sympathy for the Devil

When You Got A Good Friend

The San Francisco Rock Band
That Was Too Wild For the Sixties

by Ben Marks ~ July 19th, 2017 ~ Article Source

George Hunter of the Charlatans never shot Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead, not even once. But in the spring of 1966, on the grounds of Rancho Olompali just north of San Francisco, Garcia had reason to believe Hunter was gunning for him, causing the great guitarist to royally freak out. The misunderstanding unfolded when Hunter decided to drop some LSD and bring a loaded .30-30 Winchester rifle to a party at the Dead’s new Marin County hangout. Hunter never intended to strike fear into the heart of his genial host, but when he did, he was so high that he began to panic—perhaps he had accidentally shot someone, if not Garcia, after all. It took a long bummer of a night, and three of Hunter’s closest friends, to shake that demon thought from his troubled mind.

You’ve probably never heard of the “Incident at Olompali,” as no one has called it since, and your awareness of the Charlatans is likely limited to seeing the band’s name on scores of vintage rock posters, alongside more familiar monikers such as Jefferson Airplane, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Big Brother and the Holding Company, and Grateful Dead. [Click to Continue Reading]

Sprung ~ Harley-Davidson® Springer® Enthusiast

Ride Free II via Paul Bokhari

Steven Leech ~ Boptime + Legends of Wilmington Jazz

On Saturday's Boptime we begin at 6am (EST) with the Broadway musical My Fair Lady from this day in 1957. At 7am (EST) we continue with music from this day in 1957 when the first wave of rock n’ roll was at its zenith. At 8am (EST) we take a detour to My World on this day in 1963, followed by a visit to Uncle Richard’s Neighborhood along with some rock n’ roll you’ve never heard. At 9am (EST) on the Club Baby Grand we got some Etta Jones with Lem Winchester, Miss Justine, Gerald Price, Raye Jones with Gerald Chavis, and Aaron Walker & Imani Gonzalas. We’ll also have a short tribute to the late Wilmington jazz musician Bob Cordrey. ~ Steve

BOPTIME: Saturday, 6 AM Eastern time, 3 AM Pacific time
Go To: http://www.wvud.org/?page_id=24
Click on a listening link below the WVUD logo:

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Freedom of expression and freedom of speech aren't really important unless they're heard...It's hard for me to stay silent when I keep hearing that peace is only attainable through war. And there's nothing more scary than watching ignorance in action. So I dedicated this Emmy to all the people who feel compelled to speak out and not afraid to speak to power and won't shut up and refuse to be silenced. ~ Tom Smothers

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Develop Your Mind, Not Sacred Sites

Cree Prophecy

Only after the last tree has been cut down,

Only after the last river has been poisoned,

Only after the last fish has been caught,

Only then will you find money cannot be eaten.

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Develop Your Mind, Not Sacred Sites

In an 1868 treaty, drafted at Fort Laramie in Sioux country, the United States established the Black Hills as part of the Great Sioux Reservation, set aside for exclusive use by the Sioux people. However, after the discovery of gold there in 1874, the United States confiscated the land in 1877. To this day, ownership of the Black Hills remains the subject of a legal dispute between the U.S. government and the Sioux.

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Where Have All the Flowers Gone?

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Heyókȟa ~ Sacred Clowns

Sacred Clowns: The Heyókȟa symbolize and portray many aspects of the sacred, the Wakȟáŋ. Their satire presents important questions by fooling around. They ask difficult questions, and say things others are too afraid to say. By reading between the lines, the audience is able to think about things not usually thought about, or to look at things in a different way.

Principally, the Heyókȟa functions both as a mirror and a teacher, using extreme behaviors to mirror others, thereby forcing them to examine their own doubts, fears, hatreds, and weaknesses. Heyókȟas also have the power to heal emotional pain; such power comes from the experience of shame--they sing of shameful events in their lives, beg for food, and live as clowns. They provoke laughter in distressing situations of despair and provoke fear and chaos when people feel complacent and overly secure, to keep them from taking themselves too seriously or believing they are more powerful than they are.

In addition, sacred clowns serve an important role in shaping tribal codes. Heyókȟa's don't seem to care about taboos, rules, regulations, social norms, or boundaries. Paradoxically, however, it is by violating these norms and taboos that they help to define the accepted boundaries, rules, and societal guidelines for ethical and moral behavior. This is because they are the only ones who can ask "Why?" about sensitive topics and employ satire to question the specialists and carriers of sacred knowledge or those in positions of power and authority. In doing so, they demonstrate concretely the theories of balance and imbalance. Their role is to penetrate deception, turn over rocks, and create a deeper awareness. From Word Worlds, Where simplifying complexity becomes art.

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Nobody for President ~ NONE of the ABOVE should be a choice on voter ballots

Curtis Spangler & Wavy Gravy, Nobody for President Rally, 197610.12 ~ Photo: James Stark

American Dream, George Carlin from Ishtar [Not Work Safe] Audio Alternative from Felly

Nobody should have that much power

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Oh, I hope that I see you again I never even caught your name As you looked through my window pane ~ So I'm writing this message today I'm thinking that you'll have a way Of hearing the notes in my tune ~ Where are you going? Where have you been? I can imagine other worlds you have seen ~ Beautiful faces and music so serene ~ So I do hope I see you again My universal citizen You went as quickly as you came ~ You know the power Your love is right You have good reason To stay out of sight ~~ But break our illusions and help us Be the light ~ Message by Mike Pinder

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Why I Think This World Should End, Brandon Sloan

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Without love in the dream, it will never come true. ~ Jerry Garcia/Robert Hunter

And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make. ~ John Lennon

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The man whispered, "God, speak to me" and a meadowlark sang. But the man did not hear. So the man yelled "God, speak to me" and the thunder rolled across the sky. But the man did not listen. The man looked around and said, "God let me see you" and a star shined brightly. But the man did not notice. And the man shouted, "God show me a miracle" and a life was born. But the man did not know. So the man cried out in despair, "Touch me God, and let me know you are there" Whereupon God reached down and touched the man, But the man brushed the butterfly away and walked on.

Don't miss out on a blessing because
it isn't packaged the way you expect!

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