Right Wing = Duh

I don't have time for a big post, and it's frankly a little late for my best work, but in watching TV this evening in a hotel room in Austin Texas I observed two particularly stupid opinion pieces A.K.A. 'news' clips on the local TV that to me highlighted again the shocking gulf between right wing thinking and reality.

The first was regarding a program in Texas that has cost the taxpayer around $26m in the past ten years.  The program allows prisoners to receive an education, even a degree while inside.  Of course, as part of the latest round of cuts and attacks on 'social programs' and 'government waste' this program is now in jeopardy.  It's not enough that we slap petty criminals with a record that relegates them to living on welfare, crime or the worst jobs in society for the rest of their life, we are now looking to cut spending on a program that offers inmates a second chance.

On the surface, which is where all Republican thinking tends to exist, this seems like a reasonable cut.  After all there are probably some programs for law abiding citizens that should get priority right?  But of course, yet again, this is simply stupid logic.  In fact, not logic at all.

You cut programs designed to allow prisoners to rehabilitate, reintegrate, and become productive members of society, and you force them into welfare or re-offending once they have been released.  So you cut back on a program that has cost on average $2.6m per year for the last decade, but you lose the tax the law abiding and now educated former con may have paid, and you have to pay for police, lawyers, courts, and prisons once the repeat offender bounces back into the system.

I just don't understand how this is rocket science to some people.  They want to cut a program to save money, on the grounds that most people don't object when you talk about cutting benefits of criminals.  But they completely ignore all the scarcely hidden costs of making such a cut.  Their stupid policies waste money, create more criminal acts, more victims, and raise the likelihood of normal law-abiding people becoming a victim of crime.

The second story was about certain politicians in Texas getting mad that companies like Amazon.com don't collect sales tax on their sales.  They were touting stupid figures of money they 'should' have collected if sales tax had been charged just like with B&M store.

They were demanding that justice be done and we force these companies to pay their share.  Oh if only this were actually the philosophy of American politicians throughout the country!  There are companies making billions of dollars who pay little to no tax because of the giant tax loopholes.  We're not 'broke' because we didn't force Amazon.com to charge sales tax.  We are 'broke' because we keep giving tax gifts to millionaires, billionaires, and powerful corporations.

If we were taxing companies and millionaires at a reasonable level, there'd be plenty of money to go around.  But now Republicans want to tax relatively new companies like Amazon.com who are creating employment, and helping the economy of the United States and many other countries where they have a presence.  It's almost like Republicans are mad at Amazon for selling books, which allow people to educate themselves.

As we watch Republicans in action in 2011, I am constantly amazed and re-amazed with their smoke and mirror bullshit they constantly use to vilify legitimate reasonable organizations, while ignoring the big herd of elephants in the room that really affect our economy.

I guess I shouldn't be so surprised.  This is the political strategy they have chosen to adopt and they are pursuing it relentlessly.  It doesn't make any logical sense, it does not better society.  But they are banking on the stupid among us to ignore their actions and support them like a rabid fan supports a sports team.

I just hope that in the next election the intelligent can defeat the stupid who love to vote against their own self interests, and continue to let these assholes fuck our country just for their own personal gain.

Wisconsin Situation

Some wise words from Michael Moore, talking about the richest 400 Americans who now have more money than 50% of all American people.

Republicans continue to push disgusting policies that will cripple ordinary Americans so that the richest millionaires and billionaires can continue to amass obscene amounts of wealth, at the expense of everyone else.

The piece he reads is entitled, "America is NOT broke!"

Digging Dish!

At the end of last year I was so disgusted with Consolidated Communications and their third rate cable TV I decided to give DirecTV a try.  I had such high hopes, and frankly anything would have been an upgrade over Consolidated.  Their service was (and still is) so atrocious it was hard to imagine how it could get worse.  A massive lag when using the remote, the ability to only record one channel at a time.  Low def looked like 240 most of the time.  Their pay for view movies looked like they were pirated with a camcorder.  Their HD was just a fucking joke with pixelation and interference so often, I'd argue that even calling it high definition would be a fraudulent claim.

To their credit Consolidated did try repeatedly to make me happy and ended up bribing me with discounts and credits, which made the pain of paying them a little easier to take.  But I was still very disappointed when DirecTV came out and told me that they just couldn't quite see their satellite from my balcony, and therefore were unable to offer service.

Time passed, I almost gave up on having satellite TV, especially since the DirecTV installation guys thought that the Dish satellite I would need to use was only standard definition.

At the end of February I was still hating Consolidated service.  Their DVR acted like an abusive drunk step parent, that seemed to simply refuse to record shows out of spite.  The final straw came when I paid $4.99 to watch a movie, and the image quality looked like an animated GIF file.  It was beyond pathetic.  So I thought I may as well try calling Dish.

Their eager and polite salesman informed me that they had more satellites in the sky than DirecTV and so there was a much better chance of things working out.  I didn't get my hopes up too much, and remained a little skeptical.

They were able to schedule installation the following day, something DirecTV had been unable to do.  And unlike DirecTV the installation guy was both early (he called first for permission) and local (the DirecTV guys were from over 1,000 miles away).  From the start he was gung-ho about being able to do the installation, and sure enough in an hour or so I was set up.

To say that Dish is about six years or so ahead of Consolidated would be an understatement rather than an exaggeration.  I've had the service just under 48 hours, but already I am totally sold.  It's really quite amazing.

I only needed service in the main room, with a secondary service in the master bedroom.  As a result, Dish only needed to install one controller box.  This box feeds both TVs, the primary big screen in glorious HD which is easily 50% better than Consolidated could deliver on their best day.  I'd say every channel I watch is in HD too, including BBC America.

The half terabyte DVR works incredibly well, recording up to two shows at a time, which is far more industry standard than Consolidated's one.  Not only that I can play back DVR shows in the bedroom now, even though the bedroom TV is SD, and the show was recorded in HD.  I can schedule recordings from either room or even my laptop, desktop or iPhone.

Consolidated required two boxes, and they didn't talk to each other, so if I recorded a show in the bedroom, it had to be watched in the bedroom.  I guess they were going old school and trying to remind me of a VCR.  Certainly their picture quality did.


Dish are very good at keeping me informed, even downloading a welcome to Dish program onto my DVR over night.  They've also thanked me for joining their email list, and signing up for paperless billing by sending me five free pay for view movie coupons; and shockingly I can watch them in HD, what a concept.

So far I could not be more impressed.  It is everything I hoped it would be and more.  Slick customer service, delivering more than I expected, an outstanding service that works flawlessly so far.  Did I mention it is CHEAPER than Consolidated too?

I guess if I had to whine, the box they brought me was clearly refurbished, as a scratch had been repaired on the top of it.  Personally, I'd have expected new, as a new customer.  Although that hasn't affected performance thus far.  The box runs a bit hot, is supposedly sensitive to being moved around, and they recommend against putting other components on top of or below it.  They had a better box available; one that would allow you to watch TV from anywhere in the world via the Internet, but it would have cost $199, which I am not prepared to pay for right now.

Frankly, my gripes are especially nit picky.  So far so good, and I am so glad to be taking my antiquated shitty Consolidated boxes back to their office on Friday and dumping them on the counter.  Dish must be laughing out loud at their competition, at least where I live, because the only customers they are going to retain are people who just don't know how much better the alternative is.  I'm kicking myself that I didn't do this when I moved in last year.

So thank you Dish.  You're wonderful!  Please don't ever get shitty and outdated like Consolidated!