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POPSMonopoly Capitalism Is the Root of All of America's Problems The indoctrination is that we live in a market economy that determines globalization and everything else. I don’t know why this generation of Americans was more gullible. I can’t understand that. But it’s just a fact and we need to wake up. This systemic risk is a result of monopolists preaching efficiency because they want to take cash out of the system. For example, let’s say they have two machines, and sell one. They get money for the machine they sell, and then the one left over will be more expensive to use so they can charge more for its use. They pocket the money from the machine they sell and get more money off the one machine they have left. The problem, though, is they only have one machine left. If something goes wrong, we can have huge systemic failures. Treasury to dole out USD 3.8 billion more for GMAC
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POPSU.S. Ranked 36th Freest Press in the World 
Who Controls the U.S. Media? For the most part, the media spreads a lot of misinformation and corporate propaganda. This is not at all surprising considering that Time Warner, Disney, Murdoch's News Corporation, Bertelsmann of Germany, Viacom (formerly CBS) and General Electric's NBC are the top owners of the entire media industry, which includes everything you read and hear in newspapers, magazines, TV and radio stations, books, records, movies, videos, wire services and photo agencies. In the last 15 years alone, your sources for news have shrunk drastically. Whereas in 1983, 50 corporations ruled the U.S. news media, by 2004 this number decreased to a minuscule six corporations! As you might imagine, with just six corporations deciding what’s worthy of news and what’s not, you end up with sensationalized tragedies, celebrity features, and anything else that will capture people’s attention. There is virtually no competition in the media market today whatsoever, and this s
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POPSThe Prez, The Press, The Pressure "It's an enormous financial cost when the president replaces one of those prime-time hours. The news divisions also have mixed feelings about whether they are being used." "It's an enormous financial cost when the president replaces one of those prime-time hours. The news divisions also have mixed feelings about whether they are being used." Tensions have been building behind the scenes. Some television executives say the Bush administration informally floated possible news conference dates in advance, while Obama officials basically notify the networks of their plans. Such an approach prompted calls between White House officials and the top executives at each network, and a meeting between Gibbs and the Washington bureau chiefs. But little changed. White House officials essentially dictated the timing when they decided to hold an evening session on the 100th day of Obama's term and again on July 22.
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POPSViacom Abuses DMCA to Silence Criticism Someone criticizing your shitty racially cleansed movie? Well the DMCA can help you! Send that hosting site a DMCA take-down notice over something clearly fair use, I'm sure no one will notice! Sure, it's unethical and probably illegal, but hey, give it a shot! -- Assholes.
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POPSMegacorps Agree To Stop Being Dicks At least for the moment. As someone who would've been screwed by this money grab, I'm glad they've come to an agreement. However, I think this shows why regulation needs to be brought back and brought back hard.
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POPS"1984" George Orwell Knew Google/You Tube Another attempt to usurp our privacy rights. Viacom claims copyrights. I'm all for the American dream. I am also for the right of individuals privacy, part of that same American dream. Viacoms fight to win access to the personal data from You Tube goes too far. Better for them to to use the technology to create filters, blocks, screens that will keep their info from being hacked than from having access to personal information. If they can't keep safe their own content what makes anyone think they can protect the content they are wanting to have the freedom to acquire? If you have any doubts about what is going on just reread George Orwell's 1984 novel. For the last few years in the name of security our rights have been slowly but surely diminished. We live in a global community. It's time for everyone to realize that and treat each other with the same accord, respect we share with those closest to us.
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POPSIs That Judge Crazy? Viacom vs Google Judgement This is great. I love the comment htread on this one. Are they just palin nuts or just stupid? "12TB on paper I worked out to be about 5 billion pages. Now I don't know how long that will take to print, but if they wanted to print it all in, say, a month, they would need to print nearly 125,000 pages a minute, constantly until then. Personally, I vote that it is spread over loads of floppy disks, all labelled and then mixed into a large pile... 'Please insert disk #2363234' " HeHee!
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POPSGoogle, Viacom, YouTube and You? A high stakes game of "king of the hill" is being played out in the courts with your right to privacy being ignored. Information on you and your viewing preferences are being transferred from one giant, Google, to another, Viacom. What you can do about it? Zero, nada, niente, no a friggin thing.
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POPSCourt Ruling Will Expose Viewing Habits of YouTube Users
The Logging database contains: for each instance a video is watched, the unique “login ID” of the user who watched it, the time when the user started to watch the video, the internet protocol address other devices connected to the internet use to identify the user’s computer (“IP address”), and the identifier for the video. In any event, the court ordered production of not just IP addresses, but also all the associated information in the Logging database. Whatever might be said about 'an IP address without additional information,' the the AOL search history leak fiasco shows that the material viewed by a user alone can be sufficient to identify the user, even with neither a login nor an IP address. The Court's erroneous ruling is a set-back to privacy rights, and will allow Viacom to see what you are watching on YouTube. We urge Viacom to back off this overbroad request and Google to take all steps necessary to challenge this order and protect the rights of its users.
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POPSYoutube Users and Viewers BEWARE!
Now every minute you Spend on youtube, you will be feeding the Big Brother machine the Bush admin. has robustly doctored until BB became a strong, very potent bouncing baby for the neocon belief system. Their rule-of-thumb on freedom is "We Will Tell Them They Are Free... FREE TO DO WHAT THEY ARE TOLD TO DO OR ELSE"! All their doings has been leading up to this day... The beginning of the end of Lincoln's eloquent words used during his Gettysburg Address that afternoon of Thurs., November 19, 1863 "government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth." In just over two minutes, Lincoln enforced the principles of human equality supported by the Declaration of Independence and redefined the Civil War as a struggle not merely for the Union, but as "a new birth of freedom" Hmmm, I wonder what President Lincoln would say about all the shredding of same Declaration by 8 years of Neocon Rule. I'm sure he would be deeply saddened, for sure. :mad:
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POPSMetallica to Debut Song on Rock Band I'll admit I'm not really a Metal fan (that's why I play Rock Band and not Guiltar Hero), but I give major credit to Metallica for being the first band to assist in the creation of a new music distribution model. Rock Band (or some future incarnation) could become the new studio system/record label/radio if it that's where people go to hear new music first. Hope someday it is open-sourced so any band and submit tracks to be played on a toy guitar and drumset.
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POPSCBS Asks Judge to dismiss Dan Rather's suit CBS said it was in his contract and "CBS did not breach any obligation to rather" Isn't that what the suit is to determine? The suit was filed more than a year after the New York State statute of limitations expired,CBS said they were mystified by the suit. Looks like Dan Rather Might be going Federal. He doesn't seem the type to let the Statute of Limitations Stop him. If CBS aren't careful they'll get a lot more than $70 million dollars worth of bad publicity. They fired the wrong man.
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POPSYouTube gives up user data in media lawsuit Music company lawyers first warned and then sued individual users who downloaded their songs. Now it looks like piracy hunters for the movie studios are using the same technique against YouTube users. YouTube's decision to help Paramount track down Moukarbel stands in stark contrast to the philosophy of Google, which has fought the U.S. Justice Department over attempts to access data about consumers who use its search services.
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POPSSmoking Prohibited 50 Feet from San Francisco Muni Bus Stops I spoke to Muni's Accessibiltiy office, and was told that Mayor Gavin Newsom signed this last year. The trouble is, no one knows about it, and there are no No Smoking signs at the bus stops. Muni told me over the phone that they have asked Viacom to put No Smoking stickers on the bus shelters, but so far they have not. As a person suffering from a respiratory disease, I put it to you all collectively: How can we get the word out that smoking is no longer permitted at Muni bus stops? How can we protect the respiratory health of Muni passengers, especially the very young, the very old and the medically vulnerable like myself, at Muni stops, in a humane and respectful way? I favor education over enforcement, myself :) I am receptive to any ideas you all may have to accomplish clean, heathy air/smoke-free bus stops in San Francisco, and I am willing to help! Weigh in if you are, too :)
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POPSMicrosoft Hits Google's Use Of Books Online The speech comes as Google is under fire for alleged copyright violations on a number of fronts. TV companies, including Viacom Inc., have recently accused the company's YouTube video-sharing site of profiting from copyright infringement by not sufficiently cracking down when consumers put video clips on the site without owners' permission. YouTube removes clips when their owners request it -- which it says protects it from liability under copyright law -- and says it is working on systems to give copyright owners more control over the appearance of their clips on the site.
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POPSCartman, Kenny and Kyle Grow Into Media Giants South Park has grown from a crudely animated "adult" cartoon into a powerhouse of marketing potential. It is hard to believe that this show will be starting its 12th season in October. I am a big fan of this show and I am happy to see that such anarchic and subversive humour is being accepted by mainstream audiences. It shows that there are a good number of thinking people out there in TV land.
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POPSParamount to drop Blue-Ray High-Def DVDs Looks like the split between Blue-Ray and High -Def is working out. Blue-Ray for games, Hi-Def, for movies. Keep Parents, and Kids in separate rooms, with separate formats, so they wont be as likely to mess wtith each others 'programs'
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