Ratings?
My Rankings In The Top Entertainment Blogs.
Ok, now that I did just to see where my blog stood among the ever-expanding world of The Blogosphere. I was never one to consider myself much of a blogger. I've always been the type that has wondered just who, if any, wanted to put their personal journals online for all to see? Were we really that into that level of voyeurism?
Then I saw them, the editorialists, the columnists, the journalists...all those that mainstream media wouldn't take because some of us never earned our degrees. We circumvented the system. We divided and we are conquering at an alarming rate.
Who have we alarmed? Big Telecoms who want your internet. Seriously.
Now more than ever, each and every one of us need to push our representatives, senators, congresspeople and our people in Poly-Tricks for Net Neutrality.
Why? Imagine this for just a moment:
On one hand you have certain sites that are your faves. They might be The American Idol site, music sites like KrushRadio.com or even just your run-of-the-mill chatsite. Today you can visit any site on the web. You can use Google to find whatever you want. You have the whole world at your fingertips.
Tomorrow, when you wake up, you try to access a few sites. Mostly weather and news if you don't care to watch TV to wait for them. After that, you go about your daily routine. You go to work, you talk with friends and you can't wait to get home to take a listen in to Launch on Yahoo and otherwise surf the net for oddball and rather off-beat sites that you wanted to see. Now maybe you're not huge on big government but that one site called The Propaganda Remix Project really had you laughing. You try to access it and, suddenly...nothing. No 404 Errors, no This Damned Browser Connection Timed Out, just nothing. So, you try it again. Same story. Odd, isn't it?
Then you get a bill or a hefty charge comes out of your bank account to some big telecom. You call their 800 number and you get a representative.
"Hey," you asked, trying to remain polite, "What is this charge for?"
"Your website," they answer.
You try to explain to them that the domain you purchased is current until next year and all the hosting fees are up to date as well. That's when they explain to you that the way it works now is you are paying this hefty fee on top of that (if it doesn't replace the domain/hosting/design costs altogether) to have your site on the net.
"Okay," you relent, "do you protect my site from hackers?"
"No," they answer, "That's the webhost's responsibility" That is...if it is anyone's at all
Now you ask questions...big time.
Is the net having connection problems? Why can't I access these sites? Why is it taking so long for some sites to load? Why do some sites not exist all of a sudden? Why is it only the corporate sites are loading so quickly and some of the simple blogs I like to read are not?
Let me give you the answer they won't tell you. The big telecos will own the internet. It will be called Internet 2 and it will have these features:
All the corporate sites (ex. Yahoo, MSN, etc.) those will load without fail.
Small Internet-based businesses just getting started or making just enough to cover site costs and maybe a little extra profit? Gone...they can't afford to keep their sites now. Elimination of competition. Free Enterprise will be a thing of the past.
Internet sites that offer "alternative news?" Gone as well. These sites will be deemed inappropriate by some government branch. Why? The telecos used their money to buy out some poly-tricksters to actually pass yet another bill that reins in Freedom of Speech and believe me when I say, this is the last bastion of it.
How about eBay? One of the best auction sites on the web? Gone as well. They're not going to charge outrageous sums of money to users just for this so-called "privelege to auction/buy/sell and trade."
See where this is heading? Internet 2 will be the ultimate censorship and the blogosphere helped us in ways but it became a double-headed axe ...and yours is in trouble too.
If these telecos don't want you emailing someone? guess what, they'll block, intercept or make it a helluva frustration to send that email. Imagine people coming up to you at work, pissed that you blocked their email. It can happen.
Where we have hope is that our representatives will hear us. Deluge their emails...practically inundate them. Let them know you will not be ignored. We used to have to write letters and now, it's all at our fingertips. Let's keep our voices free in at least one area. Let's keep having fun with our blogs. Let's keep our free-thinking society by sharing our commonality, enjoying our differences and bringing our experiences and our learning to the table.
Let's teach a new kind of system...one that will forever keep us free in this nation. Let's remember the three "R"s that founded us; Rise, Refuse and Resist.
Ok, now that I did just to see where my blog stood among the ever-expanding world of The Blogosphere. I was never one to consider myself much of a blogger. I've always been the type that has wondered just who, if any, wanted to put their personal journals online for all to see? Were we really that into that level of voyeurism?
Then I saw them, the editorialists, the columnists, the journalists...all those that mainstream media wouldn't take because some of us never earned our degrees. We circumvented the system. We divided and we are conquering at an alarming rate.
Who have we alarmed? Big Telecoms who want your internet. Seriously.
Now more than ever, each and every one of us need to push our representatives, senators, congresspeople and our people in Poly-Tricks for Net Neutrality.
Why? Imagine this for just a moment:
On one hand you have certain sites that are your faves. They might be The American Idol site, music sites like KrushRadio.com or even just your run-of-the-mill chatsite. Today you can visit any site on the web. You can use Google to find whatever you want. You have the whole world at your fingertips.
Tomorrow, when you wake up, you try to access a few sites. Mostly weather and news if you don't care to watch TV to wait for them. After that, you go about your daily routine. You go to work, you talk with friends and you can't wait to get home to take a listen in to Launch on Yahoo and otherwise surf the net for oddball and rather off-beat sites that you wanted to see. Now maybe you're not huge on big government but that one site called The Propaganda Remix Project really had you laughing. You try to access it and, suddenly...nothing. No 404 Errors, no This Damned Browser Connection Timed Out, just nothing. So, you try it again. Same story. Odd, isn't it?
Then you get a bill or a hefty charge comes out of your bank account to some big telecom. You call their 800 number and you get a representative.
"Hey," you asked, trying to remain polite, "What is this charge for?"
"Your website," they answer.
You try to explain to them that the domain you purchased is current until next year and all the hosting fees are up to date as well. That's when they explain to you that the way it works now is you are paying this hefty fee on top of that (if it doesn't replace the domain/hosting/design costs altogether) to have your site on the net.
"Okay," you relent, "do you protect my site from hackers?"
"No," they answer, "That's the webhost's responsibility" That is...if it is anyone's at all
Now you ask questions...big time.
Is the net having connection problems? Why can't I access these sites? Why is it taking so long for some sites to load? Why do some sites not exist all of a sudden? Why is it only the corporate sites are loading so quickly and some of the simple blogs I like to read are not?
Let me give you the answer they won't tell you. The big telecos will own the internet. It will be called Internet 2 and it will have these features:
All the corporate sites (ex. Yahoo, MSN, etc.) those will load without fail.
Small Internet-based businesses just getting started or making just enough to cover site costs and maybe a little extra profit? Gone...they can't afford to keep their sites now. Elimination of competition. Free Enterprise will be a thing of the past.
Internet sites that offer "alternative news?" Gone as well. These sites will be deemed inappropriate by some government branch. Why? The telecos used their money to buy out some poly-tricksters to actually pass yet another bill that reins in Freedom of Speech and believe me when I say, this is the last bastion of it.
How about eBay? One of the best auction sites on the web? Gone as well. They're not going to charge outrageous sums of money to users just for this so-called "privelege to auction/buy/sell and trade."
See where this is heading? Internet 2 will be the ultimate censorship and the blogosphere helped us in ways but it became a double-headed axe ...and yours is in trouble too.
If these telecos don't want you emailing someone? guess what, they'll block, intercept or make it a helluva frustration to send that email. Imagine people coming up to you at work, pissed that you blocked their email. It can happen.
Where we have hope is that our representatives will hear us. Deluge their emails...practically inundate them. Let them know you will not be ignored. We used to have to write letters and now, it's all at our fingertips. Let's keep our voices free in at least one area. Let's keep having fun with our blogs. Let's keep our free-thinking society by sharing our commonality, enjoying our differences and bringing our experiences and our learning to the table.
Let's teach a new kind of system...one that will forever keep us free in this nation. Let's remember the three "R"s that founded us; Rise, Refuse and Resist.
posted by Lord Genocyde at 7:23 AM
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