I guess they thought I wouldn't notice

Compost, my Internet provider, did their usual Comcraptastic job and raised my Internet bill by $3 this month. I had looked at the rate hike sheet and had not seen a rate hike for Internet-only service, but apparently I was looking at it wrong, because Comcast certainly raised my rate.

Because I'm now paying more for Internet service without receiving any better service, I guess it's time for me to switch to the competitor, uhm... err... what competitor? Comcast has a monopoly on Internet service in my area! Not a government-enforced monopoly, mind you -- our local government has encouraged AT&T to expand DSL availability, for example, and has been very helpful to ClearWire in getting towers up and encouraged a WiFi startup too -- but none of these have "taken" for the reasons that I discussed earlier in this blog -- i.e., that the primary cost of providing Internet service is infrastructure, infrastructure is a fixed cost regardless of how many people use it, and there just aren't enough customers to pay for twice the infrastructure given that the current rates are already less than that. A competitor simply wouldn't be able to recoup their investment in duplicating Compost's infrastructure, so they won't do it.

So I will take my bitter pill of an unregulated monopoly up the ass without lube, just like a good American, because what choice do I have? No Internet? Yah, this Libertarian "no regulations" thingy is workin' out *real* good...

-- Badtux the Sore-bum Penguin

President Obama blames the victims

Hey, don't got a job? Want a job? Well, gosh darn it, there's a reason you don't have a job. It's got nothing to do with there being more than four unemployed workers for every job opening. Nope, it's you. You're a moran, see, who simply lacks the brains and skills to get a job. Or at least that's what Preznit Hopey Changey basically sez, saying that training folks for manufacturing jobs that don't exist is going to cure the jobs problem. I mean, that's always worked in the past, right? Never been a boondoggle for politically-connected private school operators who rake in billions in taxpayer money, load students down with oodles of unpayable debt, then the government ruins their life for the rest of their lives all for the benefit of fat cat Wall Street types who run big corporatized trade schools with glossy ads that teach nothing, nosirree, that's *never* happened. Instead, Preznit Hopey Changey's jobs program is gonna get manufacturing jobs to come back here from China because... because... because he's got Magic Negro fairy dust to sprinkle all over it, yo!

And oh yeah, as JzB sez so often: WASF.

-- Badtux the Waddling Penguin

Welcome to the list of declining nations, Canada

Oh, Canada. Are you going to get it for the next five years now that the neo-cons have full power in your country too. Say goodbye to your reputation as a peaceful tolerant prosperous nation, because that nightmare of peace and prosperity you had under Liberal governments and managed to hang onto during the coalition government is going to seem as distant a memory of an earlier paradise by the time the neo-cons are through with you as the Clinton administration seems today to Americans. (And that's said as someone who didn't even particularly *like* the Clinton administration, which I felt sold out poor Americans by shredding the social network with its GOP-written "welfare reform" bill).

Canada. It was a nice experiment, but seems that the corporate masters figured out how to deal with that too. So it goes.

-- Badtux the Wistful Penguin