The single biggest problem facing consumers in the world of technology is the high cost of cable television, according to the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission.

This dolt, whose I won’t honor with a name, goes on to say, “The average family has very little choice as to what channels are included, yet they’re having to pay more and more for those same channels.”

WTF? Is he serious? I’m utterly stunned that he would even suggest that cable television ranks in the Top 100 of consumer tech problems. Has this FCC moron loooked around at the world? At the incredible damage done by the surfeit of wasteful consumer technology? Maybe he should take a wee look at cell phones or Wi-Fi (Germany urges all citizens to avoid it, due to very possible cancer-causing elements). Or, oh, products like the iPod and iPhone with batteries can’t be easily removed, meaning TENS OF  MILLIONS of nasty heavy metal pills cannot be recycled and end up in our water supply. How about the lack of recycled content mandates that allow billions of new consumer tech gadgets to enter the supply chain each year, all made of virgin materials? Think maybe that’s a consumer tech issue of significance? Nope…high cable bills, that’s his top call. Jesus.

High among his complaints is the fact that, if one wants to watch one channel, one may have to buy other channels one doesn’t want as part of a bundled package. Yes, this is annoying, but does it really rate as a national level crisis? The NUMBER ONE consumer tech issue? What a friggin’ jackass. And he’s the chairman of the FCC. Thanks George, for nominating a genius like this to control the airwaves.

Oh, and Mr. Ostrich? Please stop calling U.S. citizens “consumers”. It’s utterly insulting. You may call us “voters” as this pays homage to the fact that we are, in fact, your employers, but never, ever consumer. It’s the language, brothers and sisters, that keeps us down as much as anything else.

Well, this is another huge bummer in a series of unending planetary bummers. It seems huge areas of ‘dead’ water, in which no life can grow (meaning, no life-sustaining life) are cropping up in all parts of the world’s oceans due to fertilizer runoff.

According to a new study in Science, the rest of the world fares no better—there are now 405 identified dead zones worldwide, up from 49 in the 1960s—and the world’s largest dead zone remains the Baltic Sea, whose bottom waters now lack oxygen year-round.

What’s really sad is that people/governments are talking about bioengineering their way out of the problem. Yes, they’ll use GMO crops that fix more nitrogen (but, thanks to Monsanto and Dupont who develop them, will self-terminate each year) as well as huge engineering projects to pump air into dead zones. Umm, how about we change the way we harvest food? How about eliminating many of the novelty crops that are not required for human consumption but are grown for their value as gourmet foodstuffs? I can think of a lot of things to do that don’t require any sort of sci-fi engineering.

The rest of the depressing story…

I found a great random image generator. I don’t know where it sources photos, but I set it to deliver three choices…and picked this one. This may be a recurring topic for me….as the results are clearly amazing.

WHAT IS HAPPENING HERE?

Glad you asked. I’ll take a guess.

This is a shot of a Tamil Tigers (Sri Lankan rebels) training camp. The blond kid? He’s the son of an Austrian diplomat, abducted as an infant by the Tigers. He’s also cut down over 40 “enemies of the people” in his short career. Can you imagine looking down the barrel of that gun, into the eyes of that wee toehead and understanding that he is the last thing you’ll ever see?  More on the Tigers here.

And a song for you. The ‘Tiger Theme’ from the Infesticons: [audio:TIgerTheme.mp3]

Now, I don’t make a habit of reading Xtian writer blogs, but Sharon K. Gilbert has one worked up a doozy of a connect-the-dots regarding the recent death of Anthrax researcher Bruce Ivins. Call me nutty, but I think it’s pretty clear the man was picked off by our beautiful government.

CHECK THE ORIGINAL POST HERE AT GILBERT’S SITE

(From THE BEST book on how to create a sustainable future)
RAISING ENERGY EFFICIENCY IN A NEW MATERIALS ECONOMY - Part II*

http://www.earthpolicy.org/Books/Seg/PB3ch11_ss6b.htm

Lester R. Brown

There is a vast worldwide potential for cutting carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by reducing the use of materials. This begins with the major metals–steel, aluminum, and copper–where recycling requires only a fraction of the energy needed to produce these metals from virgin ore, and with the recycling and composting of most household garbage. It continues with designing cars, appliances, and other products so they are easily disassembled into their component parts for reuse or recycling.

Germany and, more recently, Japan are requiring that products such as automobiles, household appliances, and office equipment be designed for easy disassembly and recycling. In May 1998, the Japanese Diet enacted a tough appliance recycling law, one that prohibits discarding household appliances, such as washing machines, TV sets, or air conditioners. With consumers bearing the cost of disassembling appliances in the form of a disposal fee to recycling firms, which can come to $60 for a refrigerator or $35 for a washing machine, the pressure to design appliances so they can be more easily and cheaply disassembled is strong.

Closely related to this concept is that of remanufacturing. Read the rest of this entry »