Netflix will pay millions of dollars annually to stream its content via Comcast. The article doesn't tell us whether Netflix will pay Comcast more or less money than it currently pays the intermediary corporations who deliver Netflix content to Comcast; the agreement essentially gets rid of those intermediaries. But this is how the internet begins to end -- soon, only the biggest content providers being able to pay for their own "on-ramps," which do not differ from "paid prioritization," no matter what the Times says.
Exxon CEO joins lawsuit against construction of a water tower for fracking near his Texas home, citing the potential loss of property values. Naturally, the rest of the time, Mr. Tillotson heavily promotes fracking, pooh-poohing folks worried about dirty water and dirty air and increased risk of cancer; his interest in the lawsuit mentions none of these, so I suppose he's not a hypocrite per se. But that's a damn small thing to bring to the pearly gates.
Kevin Drum finds the case of Julie Boonstra -- featured in an anti-Affordable Care Act ad funded by Americans for Prosperity -- so wanting that he wonders if anyone is "truly being harmed by Obamacare." Ms. Boonstra will actually pay a little less under her plan, will keep her doctor, will even get better treatment -- yet still went along with a right-wing plan to destroy a right-wing health care reform law. I know stories are more powerful than carefully-reasoned arguments, but that doesn't explain why the "liberal" media eats up these horror-stories-that-aren't, while caring little for success stories.
Wired's David Kravets finds AT&T's release of government surveillance requests wanting, as the report apparently omits requests for metadata. The Obama Administration released guidelines in late January for corporations to release records of government requests for information -- and, it seems, left bulk metadata collection out of the guidelines, hence (perhaps!) AT&T's failure to release them. I guess they're hoping that we get fed up with all the confusion, but if it looks like dung and smells like dung, we ought to just call it dung.
Finally, Yes! magazine explodes "the myth behind public school failure." Spoiler alert: we face "not an education crisis but a manufactured catastrophe," only exacerbated by 30-plus years of privatization. Chris Hedges explains it pretty well, too -- there's all this money governments spend on education, "and the corporations want it." Note well that corporatist solutions to the education "crisis" don't actually save the public any money.
Comments