Internet Freedom Restrictions (Brent's nightmare)

Under the clever guise of the Internet Freedom Act of 2009, John McCain recently introduced a bill into senate that would drastically change how the internet functions (1). In its current form, the internet has an infinite number of sites and given an infinite amount of time an individual could visit each of them, regardless of his/her internet provider (e.g., Comcast). The IFA ’09 has the potential to treat internet sites like DirectTV, Comcast, Qwest, and Time Warner treat cable channels. For instance, if you have DirectTV you may have HBO and the Big Ten network, however, if you have Comcast you may have Showtime and the NFL Network. This could be the future of the internet. Let's keep an eye on this.

Telecommunications donated over 3 million dollars to McCain during his campaign (2). Interesting for someone who is a self-proclaimed internet illiterate.

Sources:
1) http://mccain.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressOffice.PressReleases&ContentRecord_id=7ccc25b5-9d63-321c-0238-805ed7bafc6b

2) http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/industries.php?cycle=2010&cid=N00006424&type=I

Pre-book review

I'm currently reading Cannibals All! Slaves without Masters by George Fitzhugh:

http://reactor-core.org/cannibals-all.html#fitz33

It's an argument for slavery and I think toward socialism at the same time. I'm reading it mainly because a quote by Eric Foreman in an episode of House where he said all the masters thought they were doing slaves a favor (and for hundreds of years slaves apparently did not mind). I really want some insight into the mind of the average slave. I think our society currently may have it about right (where young people working their way up go through a semi-slave phase where they do equal or greater work than adults but receive little to no pay). If I were designing a society, this is probably how I'd do it. Quinn objects to this of course and makes a strong argument against it, but I believe the argument in favor of young-slavery is just as strong + is tradition so it is the prevailing system.

Newspaper Assessment: La jornada

This is a segment on nuclear proliferation from a talk Noam Chomsky gave earlier this month:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3kAld2YwgU

He mentions La Jornada and seems to give his recommendation for it, maybe. He does say that it's independent and maybe the only independent newspaper in the hemisphere (of course none in the United States).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Jornada

Should journalists have a licensing examination?

Communications is arguably one of the easiest majors at university. Currently in the United States, virtually anyone can become a journalist (while most major at a university in journalism, mass communications, or English). There is no licensing as there are with most other professionals (and those without licensing tacitly favor PhD's). Let's try to imagine how journalism would be different if such licensing existed.

Jonas Salk

I was aware of his work with polio (per med school and college and high school) and then was reminded of him in Michael Moore's Capitalism, but did not know anything of his philosophy:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonas_Salk

I would recommend reading this article in its entirety before discussion, at which point I'll try to find a book which covers him.

Rosh was wrong about the gays!?

Utah scientists hard at work:
http://videos.howstuffworks.com/sciencentral/696-reversing-sexual-orientation-video.htm

We know from embryology that we all start out as women (see SRY gene for more details) so the line between heterosexuality and homosexuality is fuzzy from the beginning. Also recall Ron White's standup where he says he prefers porno where the guy has a big throbbing $#%@ instead of a small one. There's a bit of woman in each man and probably a bit of man in each woman.

Rosh's argument was that homosexuality is a choice. It almost certainly isn't a (conscious) choice. What's interesting here is that even if it's largely genetic, it may be changeable through gene manipulation. And then this becomes an ethical question: would we want to change the genetics of babies before they are born (which would actually be the mother/father) to favor heterosexuality? Let's discuss this aspect of the nematode experiment.



Also, what's up with that scientist's hair? I didn't think that sort of hair was allowed in Utah.




Note: Labeled under human science even though experiment was carried out on pseudocoelomates.

Culture of Corruption

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=113816661&ft=1&f=3

connect to this book

http://www.lucifereffect.com/

by zimbardo aka the guy who conducted the stanford prison study