*** Had meant to publish yesterday. Apparently I am a blogging slacker***

Today marks the two year anniversary of the day that hurricane Katrina made landfall and immersed eighty-percent of the city of New Orleans in water, as high as 20 feet in some areas. To mark the event, President Bush, in a disgustingly typical political move, went down to visit the city and even ventured to the still painfully devastated neighborhood of the Lower 9th Ward, touring The Ninth Ward charter school, which two years ago was under 18 feet of water. Full article from the New York Times.

The reality of this visit can be summed up by this passage from the article:

"To get to the school, the president’s motorcade crossed a canal with new white cement wall that had “Hindsight” painted in large red letters. Along the route, considerable damage was still visible, with boarded-up houses and lots strewn with debris."

However, President Bush was not the only politician that chose, two years later, to care about a city that has been virtually forgotten. Every hopeful presidential candidate seems to be jumping on the Katrina bad wagon, from Barack Obama to John Edwards and Hillary Clinton. As the Times Reports, New Orleans has become a 'new' element of the 2008 campaign.

Of course, despite my cynicism, this is good. Even Bush's little trek to the city puts New Orleans back in the news. At this stage, as suicide rates and crime skyrocket in the city and many people still have yet to see a dime of financial assistance from the federal government, any coverage of what is really happening is absolutely a godsend. But where have these 'interested parties' been for the last two years?

Posted by Cat at 02:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

After reading the article Online Activism: Media Stereotypes and the Rise of Smart Mobs by Robin Good, I went to check out the site mentioned in the article, Avaaz.org (which I must admit I had not heard of before). Avaaz was co-founded by Res Politica, a global advocacy group and MoveOn.org, a US based internet advocacy community. The first thing I did was check out some of the campaigns advertised on their site, which range in subject matter from climate change to the war in Iraq. I then decided to sign up. The problem I found was that, short of asking me for my credit card information to donate to them or campaigns they have advertised and invite my friends, I did not really find any examples of how I could personally use the site. There is no home page that identifies me as an individual member of the site or any way for me to actually network and communicate with other members.

Apparently, Avaaz has been enormously successful in obtaining global interest for their various campaigns. For that I commend them, although it is unclear as a newbie to the site how they achieved this. It seems like if they added in some more social features, they may be even that much more successful.

Posted by Cat at 11:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Original article from CNET. As someone who has a friend whose husband is overseas and where one of their means of communication is through myspace, I think this is insane. One of the reasons sited is bandwidth issues, which is also insane. Lets see, we have enough money to fight a war but not enough to provide our soldiers with an adequate internet connection that allows them to communicate with their friends and families. Forget about the obvious censorship issues involved here, this is just blatantly wrong! Such bullshit happening all around us....

Posted by Cat at 04:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

From the article:

> By Peter Sayer, IDG News Service for reporting on it.
>
> March 06, 2007
>
> The French Constitutional Council has approved a law that criminalizes the filming or broadcasting of acts of violence by people other than professional journalists. The law could lead to the imprisonment of eyewitnesses who film acts of police violence, or operators of Web sites publishing the images, one French civil liberties group warned on Tuesday.
>
> The council chose an unfortunate anniversary to publish its decision approving the law, which came exactly 16 years after Los Angeles police officers beating Rodney King were filmed by amateur videographer George Holliday in the night of March 3, 1991. The officers' acquittal at the end on April 29, 1992 sparked riots in Los Angeles.
>
> If Holliday were to film a similar scene of violence in France today, he could end up in prison as a result of the new law, said Pascal Cohet, a spokesman for French online civil liberties group Odebi. And anyone publishing such images could face up to five years in prison and a fine of €75,000 ($98,537), potentially a harsher sentence than that for committing the violent act.
>
> Senators and members of the National Assembly had asked the council to rule on the constitutionality of six articles of the Law relating to the prevention of delinquency. The articles dealt with information sharing by social workers, and reduced sentences for minors. The council recommended one minor change, to reconcile conflicting amendments voted in parliament.
>
> The law, proposed by Minister of the Interior Nicolas Sarkozy, is intended to clamp down on a wide range of public order offenses. During parliamentary debate of the law, government representatives said the offense of filming or distributing films of acts of violence targets the practice of "happy slapping," in which a violent attack is filmed by an accomplice, typically with a camera phone, for the amusement of the attacker's friends.
>
> The broad drafting of the law so as to criminalize the activities of citizen journalists unrelated to the perpetrators of violent acts is no accident, but rather a deliberate decision by the authorities, said Cohet. He is concerned that the law, and others still being debated, will lead to the creation of a parallel judicial system controlling the publication of information on the Internet.
>
> The government has also proposed a certification system for Web sites, blog hosters, mobile-phone operators and Internet service providers, identifying them as government-approved sources of information if they adhere to certain rules. The journalists' organization Reporters Without Borders, which campaigns for a free press, has warned that such a system could lead to excessive self censorship as organizations worried about losing their certification suppress certain stories.
>

As a creator of a web site that focuses on mobile posting, and as someone who has worked directly with organizations whose aim was to find ways to broadcast citizen journalism online, this ruling is incredibly frightening. There is no question that the situation of 'happy slapping' is a huge problem but, as in many situations, attempts to end certain behavior out of fear cause ruptures in the system of free speech. I wonder if the ruling will hold up.

Posted by Cat at 04:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

As reported on ZDNet, the Senate panel has proposed a net users 'bill of rights', a provision in the latest draft of the sweeping Consumer's Choice and Broadband Deployment Act which would allow the Federal Communications Commission to police subscribers' complaints of "interference" in their Internet activities and to levy fines on violators.Specifically, the bill would require all Internet service providers to adhere to nine basic principles of fair use that include: allowing consumers to access and post any lawful content they please; to access and run any Web page, search engine or application that they choose (including voice and video programs); and to connect any legal devices they please to the network..

This latest draft, scheduled for an intial committee vote on Thursday afternoon, still fails to address the most important complaint of net neutrality advocates, that network operators should give equal treatment to all content traveling across their pipes. Advocates would rather see the passage of a bill introduced by North Dakota Democrat Byron Dorgan, Maine Republican Olympia Snowe and seven other Democrats that would bar broadband providers from being able to block, interfere with, discriminate against, impair or degrade" access to content or to prevent users from attaching devices of their choosing to the network. Network operators would also be barred from making special deals with content providers to ensure speedier delivery or improved quality of service and would be required to offer all Internet material on an "equivalent" basis.

Some form of this particular proposal will likely be offered as an amendment to the Senate bill at the committee vote. But its prospects may not be good as a similar, Democratic-backed amendment was soundly defeated in the House, and Senate Republicans have indicated strong opposition to the idea.

Continue reading for information on how to contact members of the Senate Commerce Committee to vocalize your opinions.

Continue reading "Fight for Net Neutrality is now in the Senate" »

Posted by Cat at 11:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I read this posting this morning on Smart Mobs, originally posted by the Nation. Admittingly, I haven't done extensive research on this issue, but it seems to me that by passing the Communications Opportunity, Promotion and Enhancement Act (COPE), the House did not go far enough to protect the internet. The Markey Amendment, which would have prevented broadband providers from rigging their services to create two-tier access to the Internet failed, causing many democrats to agrue that the act fails the non-descriminatory history of the internet. George Ou on ZDNet, argues that the overwhelmling backlash against the possible passing of this act is merely scare tactics, stating that internet service providers are already providing traffic prioritization today in various forms and that Google already provides better search placement for additional cost at the expense of companies who can't afford to pay and the internet has not ceased to exist. He also states that net neutrality is more of an issue of technology, asking his readers how they "believe the politicians are capable of regulating the routers on the Internet when they have no clue how the Internet actually works."

First, I think that politicians are perfectly capable of regulating things they don't understand, they do it all the time. And whether or not this SHOULD be the case, as David Berlind points out in his response, politics played a role in Net neutrality long before "Net neutrality" even became a catch phrase. In addition, I think it is quite ridculous to state that simply because their is currently a certain amount of 'unfairness' and corporate prioritization online means that we should continue along that path. I certainly wouldn't want the internet to become like cable TV where a handful of massive companies decide what you can see and how much it will cost. The fight will now move to the Senate

If you agree that the internet should not be a road paved with tolls sign the petition.

Posted by Cat at 11:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

And I received a little email thanking me for my support in signing the petition. This is definitely good news. Despite your feelings on homosexuality on a personal, emotion or psychological level, it is unacceptable, in my opinion, for the government to step into the bedrooms of anyone and institute laws that, in effect, pass judgement on who you sleep with (relationships are confusing enough). If two consenting adults have the courage to dedicate themselves to each other who has any right to stop them? The traditional marriage between men and women is so 30 years ago anyway.

Posted by Cat at 11:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)