If Tax Cuts Haven't Killed You Yet, Surely the End of Net Neutrality Will

It’s been a little over a month since “net neutrality” regulations officially ended, reverting civilization back into those internet dark ages of 2015 we all remember. In the final days of the Obama administration's federal expansion and power grab, faceless government bureaucrats were handed the sweeping power of regulation, framed with a misleading name of neutrality, and classified the internet as a common utility under the Federal Communications Act. It gave them power to regulate Internet providers as if three dozen or so ISPs in the United States constituted some kind of nefarious monopoly.

In December of last year, FCC chairman Ajit Pai announced the repeal of heavy handed Obama era regulations. With all manner of usual leftist hysteria, Hollywood celebrities jumped to the valiant defense of their countrymen not already dead from tax cuts by voicing protest of the coming repeal, while declared the Internet over. Some frantically insisted the rule change would lead Twitter to charge users per tweet. The ACLU warned the repeal could lead to “erosion of the biggest free speech platform the world has ever known.” In typical grandstanding fashion, on July 19, Democrat politicians across the country made one final push to stop the “net neutrality” repeal before it was too late. Unfortunately for the hapless digital doomsday prophets, the new policy had already gone into effect more than a month earlier on June 11.

The skies did not darken, the earth did not quake. The repeal date came and went with little fanfare. The Internet survived. Twitter didn’t start charging per tweet. The World Wide Web persists un-eroded. Cher continues to tweet incoherent nonsense. 

The Democrats’ “net neutrality” narrative never made any sense anyway. The regulations made the Internet less free. The Internet as we know it expanded and developed unencumbered on it's own. So of course, someone sees a problem. If Democrats wanted to keep the Internet the way it had always been, they would have campaigned to repeal the regulations. But the hysteria over “net neutrality” was never about preserving the Internet we all knew, it was just another power grab. Catastrophe is always imminent according to the Left. It's their favorite tool. They warn of disaster but promise to save us if we’ll only give them more power and more money  The Democrat Party will continue to peddle their same old urine Kool-Aid through the midterm elections and beyond. Their political Armageddons will come and go, the cultists will remain.

These Kinda People Are In Desperate Need Of Help

 Thank You MJA for the Linkage!

Middle Finger Symphony Theater

* No Tuxedos Required *

Brought To You By BLUESJUNKY: Honorary Chair of Music - Middle Finger Symphony Music Director

"This One's For Earl" - BluesJunky

For Some Unknown Reason the World Now Has a Giant, Half Naked Statue of Jeff Goldblum

England would be a wonderful place if it weren't for the British who hang out there. I very much dislike all that King & Queen stuff, and Vice just gave me another reason to make sure I always vacation elsewhere...... 

"Jeff Goldblum is iconic in everything he touches, but there is no role quite so canon as his turn as Dr. Ian Malcolm in Jurassic Park, and no scene that captures his essence quite as well as that brief moment where he's sweaty as all hell and shirtless for some reason. It's been 25 years since that cinematic touchstone graced this world, and to commemorate it, London's NOW TV has constructed one of the greatest artistic achievements of our time: A 25-foot statue of a half-naked Jeff Goldblum. 

It was an audacious move on the artist's part to even try to recreate such an impeccable expression of the human form, but the risk paid off. No detail was spared: The stubble is perfectly rendered, so subtle you'd miss it if you didn't take a closer look. His hand hangs loose from the wrist in that quintessentially Goldblum-ian attitude of effortlessness, of ease with the self. And those eyes: They gleam with a confluence of fear and knowledge—a mirror image of the look Goldblum flashed the camera just after Dr. Malcolm nearly lost his life to a T. Rex. 

As hordes of admirers flock to the Mona Lisa daily or crowds jockey for a chance to glimpse the Sistine Chapel, already, a few fans have begun to express their devotion to Goldblum's massive, sweaty likeness. Those cultured enough to understand just how monumental this achievement is have made a pilgrimage to the statue, both to take in its full glory and to honor it the best way they know how. 

Sure, Goldblum isn't British, and no, Jurassic Park has nothing to do with England, but just look at that masterpiece: the fleshy bulb of the nipple, the furrows of the chest hair, the pinnacle of what a human face can be."

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According to the rules of chaos theory, there's a world out there in which this monument doesn't exist. Can someone please point me in that direction? Please.

Thank You MJA for the Linkage!

Fishnet Friday

The World Must Turn Without Me......

Today there will be no exposure to social media insanity. No over the top faux outrage of the day from the news media. No pundits in need of medication pontificating. No television, no radio.  The cellphones shall remain on the chargers. No laptop, no email, no creative decisions to be made, no directions to be issued. 

It will be morning of floating in the pool and an evening of a quiet dinner and entertaining friends, topped with a long awaited night of a warm touch on the small of my back and unencumbered, uninterrupted slumber, something that has become less and less frequent in my life and very much needed. 

See you tomorrow.... 

How DJT Withstands So Many Controversies...

The word 'treason' is now being thrown around to describe how President Trump seemed to take Russia’s side during his summit meeting with President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, Finland. But as with every major controversy that Mr. Trump has faced, it’s unclear if anything will happen as a result.

Under fire for contradicting United States intelligence reports of Russian interference in the presidential election, Trump asserted on Tuesday that he had misspoken at his news conference with Mr. Putin, and that he had meant to say, “I don’t see any reason why it wouldn’t be Russia,” rather than “would.” He added, “Could be other people, also.” Never in the modern era has the word “treason” become part of the national conversation in such a prominent way. Some who voted for Mr. Trump struggled to endorse his approach, but many are reaffirming their support.

On the subject of the prominence of the term "treason," here's a link to an article from the NYT's yesterday that says:

"John O. Brennan, the former C.I.A. director called Trump's performance “nothing short of treasonous.” The late-night hosts Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel also invoked treason on their shows. The front-page banner headline for The New York Daily News declared “OPEN TREASON.” 

Max Boot, the former Republican who has become one of Mr. Trump’s sharpest critics, noted in a column on Monday in The Washington Post that accusing him of treason was once unthinkable. No longer.... Mr. Trump returned to the White House on Monday night as protesters outside the gate shouted, “Welcome home, traitor.” 

Even Dictionary.com trolled the president, tweeting out a definition: “Traitor: A person who commits treason by betraying his or her country."

It later said that searches for “treason” had increased by 2,943 percent. By Tuesday afternoon, the word “traitor” had been used on Twitter 800,000 times and the word “treason” about 1.2 million times.

The word "treason" used in political discourse like that, brings us back to the book written in 1964 by John A. Stormer called "None Dare Call It Treason."

"The Communists have sworn to bury us. We are digging our own graves.... From where has the money come to build and finance the vast collectivist underground which reaches its tentacles into education, the churches, labor and the press?  Amazingly, the fortunes of America’s most successful tycoons, dedicated by them to the good of mankind, have been redirected to finance the socialization of the United States."

That was the deployment of the word "treason" that went big in the 60s. People who were not right-wing, of course, viewed it as anti-communist hysteria, a throwback to the McCarthy era, and that's the way I've seen the word "treason" all this time. But John Brennan threw it back into the American discourse and the hate blinded Trump antagonists have run with it.

But don't call them unhinged, that would be over the top or something....

Compliments of Ann Althouse.