federal government

Religion in the Courtroom

~ randyaa ~ 5 Comments

bibleThe recent story of a Texas jury who consulted the Bible before sentencing a man to death got me thinking.

DISCLAIMER: I AM COMPLETELY FOR SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE

I agree when people complain about the 10 commandments in the courtroom and when they demand ‘in god we trust’ be removed from our money or ‘under god’ be removed from the pledge of allegiance.  All of that stuff creates a direct tie between our government and a specific religion which I don’t agree with, regardless of my political or religious beliefs.  I just don’t think a country founded mostly due to religious discrimination has any right to associate itself with a specific religion when it claims it’s open to all people regardless of belief.  That’s like saying “Sure come on in, but we’re better than you.”  It just doesn’t jive.

Religion is a moral guidance tool.  People lean on it when something happens they don’t understand or if they don’t know what to do about a situation.  Whether it’s the Christian Bible or the Muslim Qur’an, It defines right and wrong and the consequences for those who believe its lessons.

To me, this Jury story is different.  The people in the JURY consulted the bible, not the JUDGE.  They were looking for moral guidance.  I don’t have a problem with this.  A jury should be made up of your peers.  It’s pretty safe to assume that a certain percentage of your peers are going to be Christians or have at least grown up in a Christian household.

The Jury would be leaning on its’ teachings whether they actual read a passage during deliberation or not.

Time Warners Timing is Everything

~ randyaa ~ 7 Comments

Eric Massa held a town hall meeting in Pittsford NY today which some Time Warner representatitves attended.

We couldn’t have a better representative than Eric Massa gunning for us against Time Warner.  He really understand the issue and he seems well informed.  He brought several new pieces of information to light, for example, the federal government subsidizes a large portion of any internet infrastructure enhancement work, also billions of dollars in the economic stimulus plan have been dedicated to projects just like that.

Ironically enough about 20 minutes after the meeting began Time Warner released a new press release containing new/different tier information.  The following is a breakdown of the new plans.

Plan Name Cap Price Speed Overage Charges Current Equivalent
Lowest Tier 1Gb $15 768Kbps Down, 128Kbps Up $2/Gb NONE
Lite 10Gb $30 ?? $1/Gb NONE
Basic 20Gb $40 ?? $1/Gb NONE
Standard 40Gb $50 ?? $1/Gb NONE
Turbo 60Gb $55 ?? $1/Gb NONE
Turbo XL 100Gb $75 10Mbps Down, 1Mbps Up $1/Gb RoadRunner – $40/Month, Unlimited, 10Mbps Down 380Kbps Up
?? ?? ?? ?? ?? RoadRunner TURBO – $50/Month, Unlimited, 15Mbps Down 1Mbps Up

Their new plan does offer unlimited service but for a hefty price.

Overage charges will be capped at $75 per month. That means that for $150 per month customers could have virtually unlimited usage at Turbo speeds.

This means that for the Low Low Price of $150/month you can have exactly the same as what you get for $40/month right now.  That’s right, their TURBO speed is slower AND you’ll be paying almost 4x as much as you do right now.

My friend Dean threw together a great graph illustrating the Monthly Cost vs Bandwidth used per plan.

graph

From the graph it would appear that the lowest tier would always be the best, but we know that the lowest tier is crippled (most experts agree that 768Kbps shouldn’t be considered broadband at all).  We really need to get speed information regarding these plans but they have yet to release those figures.  Given that TURBO appears to be crippled according to their current speeds, don’t hold your breath for good numbers.

massaThe feeling couldn’t be scrubbed that the new press released was perfectly timed with the town hall meeting and Time Warner did it this way in order to claim during the meeting that “We just recently released a new press release which has a drastically different pricing scheme and which you may be happy with.”  They did say this and I suspect they timed it this way to quiet some of the more vocal people in the town hall.  Luckily, some of those who had mobile devices had already read the new proposal by the time they announced it in the meeting and they were quite vocal that the new plan did nothing for anyone (I also spoke up to that effect).

Eric Massa suggested we convene at a latter date to discuss the Time Warner issue specifically.  It was interesting to see because it felt like Massa was throwing down and challenging Time Warner to just try to cross his line in the sand.  The Time Warner representatives seemed to agree to this on the spot (whether they have the authority to do so is still to be determined so time will tell) so I suspect we’ll be seeing another event soon.

In summary, it’s great to have Eric Massa with us but Time Warner’s new proposal is laughable at best.

Your move TWC!