What do you think of Jessica Simpson’s new haircut?
The busty blonde — who often wears and even produces her own line of hair extensions — TwitPic’d a pair of images of a new short cropped ‘do, crafted by mane man Ken Paves.
Although Jess’ new look was most likely achieved with the help of a wig, it’s still a drastic change for those of us who have never seen the blonde swap her super-long locks for a ’60s-inspired cut.
Now we are talking business! Sony Europe announced today a new and improved Sony Wearable and Water Resistant Walkman in their W series. Yup, you heard it Sony NWZ-W250 is actually water resistant, something that its cousin W202 has had issues with.
|
| From Sony W Walkman |
You also get a new look, a new stand and of course Sony acclaimed superb sound. NWZ-W252 will also have 4 Gigs to store your techno or whatever music you like to work out to.
Key technical specifications
| NWZ-W250 series | |
| Capacity | NWZ-W252: 2GB
NWZ-W253: 4GB |
| Supported file format | MP3/WMA/AAC/Linear PCM. (NB: iTunes DRM files not supported) |
| Headphone type | 13.5mm EX (in-ear) |
| Playback functions | ZAPPIN™ song search, Playlists,
Folder Skip, Shuffle |
| Other functions | Water resistant (IPx5 rated) – see footnote *1 above |
| Charging time | Quick charge: 3 minutes charge gives 90 minutes playback |
| Battery life | Up to 11 hours music playback
(MP3@128kbps) – see footnote *3 above |
| Available colours | Black, White, Pink, Lime Green |
| Weight (approx.) | 43g |
| Supplied accessories | Charging and Transfer Stand with USB cable, Holder, Ear buds (S,L), Operation Guide, Content Transfer software (in main unit) |
Check out the full press release below:
• Stylish, wire-free WALKMAN® MP3 player for sport and active lifestyles
• Water-resistant design can be worn as you train, in the rain or even in the shower1
• Superb WALKMAN® sound quality with 13.5mm EX Comfort fit earphones by Sony
• Easy to use with ZAPPIN™, playlists and folder skip to create your soundtrack effortlessly while you exercise
• Easy transfer of music content from a variety of sources
The latest ‘wearable WALKMAN®’ from Sony lets you work out to your favourite tunes in more comfort and style, whatever the weather.
Designed for today’s active lifestyles, the WALKMAN® NWZ-W250 series is the first wire-free MP3 player from Sony that resists rain splashes or the sweat of a gruelling gym session. After exercising, just rinse under the tap2 – or even keep listening to your WALKMAN® during a post-workout shower.1
Available in four sporty colours, the light, all-in-one design eliminates the tangle of headphone wires that can slow things down when you’re working out, running or dancing. 13.5mm EX Series headphones offer clear, powerful WALKMAN® sound plus total comfort and a secure fit during physical activity.
It’s easy to create the perfect soundtrack as you exercise, allowing you to focus on your workout rather than fiddling with menus. Playlist support lets you pick your favourite songs in advance, ordering them to match your activity profile from warm-up to wind-down. Press the jog lever and skip to the next folder, selecting a different artist or album to change the mood instantly.
Looking for inspiration? ZAPPIN™ technology scans through stored tracks, playing a short sample from each song to help you find the right music for that moment.
If you’re in a hurry to get active, a quick 3-minute charge gives enough power for 90 minutes listening time. A fully charged battery offers up to 11 hours3 uninterrupted listening time – more than enough for that all-day walking expedition.
The supplied charging stand doubles as a USB dock for your PC, allowing you to load up WALKMAN® with your favourite tunes before hitting the streets.
Using the supplied Content Transfer software that comes with your WALKMAN®, it’s easy to move music files straight from your PC or iTunes™ library (not including DRM files) – even playlists. Just click on a file, then drag and drop into Content Transfer. Popular format support makes the Walkman W250 the ideal second digital media player, dedicated to sport.
Available as an optional accessory, the CKS-NWW250 soft carry case protects WALKMAN® while slipping easily into a gym bag or holdall.
The WALKMAN® NWZ-W250 series is part of the full line-up of MP3 and MP4 players by Sony. The WALKMAN® range includes the high-performance X series with touchscreen and Digital Noise Cancelling technology; the ultra-slim A series with wide 7.1cm (2.8”) OLED screen; the S series with built-in speakers; the compact, great-sounding E series; and the convenient, easy-to-use B series.
Coming soon and designed specially for great performance with all compatible WALKMAN® models4, the JBL On Stage III dock is a great way to release your music. Offering a generous 10W+10W output power, this stylish dock that features a striking curved design can be powered by batteries for go-anywhere entertainment. Supplied with a handy remote control, it also charges WALKMAN® while you’re listening (when powered from the mains). Available from late Spring 2010.
The new WALKMAN® NWZ-W250 series of MP3 players from Sony is available from late May 2010.
Catch up on latest WALKMAN® news, images and chat at the official Facebook fan page www.facebook.com/walkman
With most agreeing that a rate hike from the Bank of Canada is imminent, the talk now turns to the exact timing and extent of the central bank’s policy changes.
Governor Mark Carney made a “conditional” promise to keep the benchmark interest rate at 0.25% through the end of June 2010. However, one way to keep to this expiry date and provide markets with a jolt would be an initial rate hike of 50 basis points on July 20, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch economist Sheryl King.
“Futures markets are only partially pricing in that possibility so it would be a shot across the bow to be sure,” she said in a note. “The strongest argument against this tack in our view is that the market would immediately rush to the conclusion that all future hikes will be similar in size.”
The economist thinks a 25 basis point hike on June 1 is the most likely scenario.
Meanwhile, Ms. King feels a 25 basis point hike on July 20 is the least likely scenario. She noted that this expectation is already fully priced into the Eurodollar and overnight index swap (OIS) markets. “If the Bank wants to elevate the risk premium in the bond market, validating market pricing cannot be the way they will go.”
The economist said that with growth running 40% faster than the Bank of Canada’s January forecasts, a rollover in unemployment and core CPI “frustratingly high,” there is justification to move a bit early. She added that moving early rather than large would help build up that needed risk premium without having 10-year notes move above the 6% mark that a normalized risk premium of 1.8% and a neutral overnight rate of roughly 4.5% would command.
The main arguement against a June 1 rate hike is that it comes ahead of the June 30 expiry commitment and puts the Bank’s credibility in the market at risk. Ms. King insists that credibility in achieving the central bank’s 2% inflation target is “very arguably the more important badge to maintain.”
“All along, the Bank has warned investors the commitment to not touch rates was not a promise and earlier rate hikes possible if conditions warranted.”
Photo: Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney listens to a question during a news conference upon the release of the Monetary Policy Report in Ottawa January 21, 2010. The Bank of Canada repeated its pledge to keep interest rates at current levels until the end of June, so long as inflation remains in check, and declined to forecast rates beyond June. (REUTERS/Chris Wattie)
Filed under: Coupe, Videos, BMW, Luxury
The BMW 6 Series could probably be considered long overdue for a serious makeover, and this one looks to be it. We got spy shots before, but an intrepid user at the Bimmerpost forum has tracked the thing with a video camera, and the rolling stock looks like it will add to the 6 line. Notice the front is much sleeker, and we’re especially interested in how the rear seems angled slightly upward.
Power from the new 7 Series engines will keep the action brisk, as you’ll see in the vid, but we still aren’t sure how (or if) BMW plans to get an R8 fighter out of this. Follow the jump for two minutes of spy action.
Gallery: Spy Shots: 2011 BMW 6 Series
[Source: Bimmerpost]
Continue reading Spy Video: Next BMW 6 Series caught on the run
Spy Video: Next BMW 6 Series caught on the run originally appeared on Autoblog on Mon, 12 Apr 2010 09:17:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Gizmodo (via Bloomberg) is reporting that HTC might be interested in buying Palm, who, as you might know, is in financial difficulty after the poor sales of their latest handsets (Pre and Pixi). The assumption is that HTC would want to grab Palm not for the brand, the handsets, or WebOS but the portfolio of patents. These would be very useful in a counterattack against Apple.
It is said that Lenovo is also looking at Palm (market value worth $870.8 million) but the article on Bloomberg points out that the Chinese ZTE and Huawei Technologies would also be interested bidder to expand, with the Palm brand, their international markets, both have few Android devices in their portfolio.
More on this as we can piece it together. Maybe in the near future we will see Android on Palm devices! Would you like this? Please let us know by leaving a comment.
White House officials today will begin their investigation of the horrific explosion that killed 29 miners in Southern West Virginia a week ago. But, as in similar cases in the past, most of this process will almost certainly be closed to the public, even as Massey lawyers — who will likely be representing a number of the miners interviewed by investigators — are allowed to sit it on the proceedings. The Charleston Gazette’s Ken Ward Jr. wonders today why this process isn’t more transparent.
All of the secrecy might make sense, if MSHA and state officials didn’t almost always allow coal company lawyers to sit in on the interviews. The only good argument for secrecy in these interviews is that allowing openness tips off the company to the direction investigators are headed, allowing them to thwart things like potential criminal prosecution down the road.
But if the company lawyers are in the room, well, what’s the point of the secrecy?
Good question. Still waiting for the Obama administration’s answer.
When Microsoft bought Danger, the company behind the Sidekick line of phones, speculation began at once that we’d see Redmond producing its own line of phones. The company denied that would be the case, but the rumors of Project Pink just kept fanning the flames. Microsoft has invited press members to a special event today, and memory maker SanDisk spilled the beans that it is indeed an announcement of the “Pink” phone(s).
The email I received on Friday from SanDisk was specific:
As you know, Monday marks a big day for Microsoft as the company will be unveiling its long-awaited “pink” mobile phone. As you gear up to cover this news, I wanted to remind you that SanDisk microSD cards are the ideal companion for mobile devices and provide phones with room for just about anything.
This statement told me there is indeed going to be a Pink phone announced today, and that it will have a slot for memory cards. I doubt Microsoft was happy with SanDisk for sending this blanket email out to those of us covering the technology space, thus spoiling their secret announcement.
A Pink phone from Microsoft will be unusual for several reasons. While it is believed the handsets will be produced by Sharp, Microsoft has been involved in all aspects of the design and production of the phone. The Danger team at Microsoft is believed to have controlled all aspects of Pink, making this Microsoft’s own line of phones. This can’t sit well with its partners in the Windows Mobile/ Windows Phone 7 space, as Microsoft will now be competing directly with them.
These phones are expected to be the next generation Sidekick given the Danger participation. This would put the Pink phones in a nether world between the feature phone and the smartphone. There’s no reason to believe the phones will serve any purpose not already served by either high-end feature phones or smartphones. The Sidekick was a popular line of communication phones — especially among young people — but it debuted before smartphones became so prevalent in the market (and so cheap).
The Microsoft event kicks off today at 10 AM PT, and we’ll be watching to see what the company is launching. You can follow Microsoft’s own live stream if you just can’t wait for Pink.
The Leader to Leader Institute, a nonprofit organization whose focus is to strengthen the leadership of the social sector, invites students to submit videos documenting their leadership experience as part of its Emerging Leader Video Challenge. The most inspiring videos will be displayed on the Leadership Dialogues website along with already established leaders and one especially inspiring student will be invited to our annual Leader of the Future gala this Fall to have their video screened at the event.
Cookbooks tend to have one particular format that goes something like ingredients, instructions and photos. I can buy a cookbook on the recipe titles alone, but sometimes the same old thing gets a little, well, boring. That is not the case with Bite Me: A Stomach-Satisfying, Visually Gratifying, Fresh-Mouthed Cookbook. How many cookbooks can you think of that include a photo of a cookie crushed over the head of a luchador action figure as an illustration for a recipe? Not many others, to be sure.
This cookbook lives up to its subtitle as a fun, yet satisfying, book to read and tool to use in the kitchen. Visually, it is very appealing, with lighthearted and dramatic images of gogo dancers, action figures playing with food and Elvis impersonators. There are plenty of great photos of the food, too. The book covers a wide range of recipes, from appetizers, soups and salads, to sides mains and desserts, and offers colorful commentary in addition to the colorful photos. For instance, you might find a quick conversation between the two sister-authors introducing a recipe, or a few reminiscences about childhood favorite foods. There is so much going on in the book, that it is actually very difficult to boil it down to just a few words!
Getting past the visuals, the recipes are very good. They’re in a large font (as some readers always like to see in books!), with well laid-out ingredient lists and clear, numbered directions. They’re easy to follow along with, but the recipes don’t take shortcuts. You’ll be making Caramelize Onion and Goat Cheese Pizza with fresh cheeses, fresh veggies and fresh herbs, and Gooey Monkey Bread with Caramelize Glaze with a from-scratch dough. There is a lot of variety, both new and familiar flavors, and it’s easy to have fun cooking along with this book. And it is always nice to be able to have fun in the kitchen.
MTV’s runaway smash Jersey Shore is getting the parody treatment — sort of –on tonight’s edition of CSI: Miami.
The forensic team splits up to investigate three different murders during spring break on the Shore-inspired episode of the CBS drama. There’s even a character named “The Program” — obviously a play on Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino’s nickname on the popular reality series.
Too bad real Floridians aren’t as impressed with Snooki, JWoww and the rest of the gang. Word is the cast of Jersey Shore has been banned from a number of Miami hotspots since arriving in South Beach earlier this month. to shoot scenes for the second season of the series.
The red myTouch slide picture has just been leaked. This device is indeed the rumored Espresso from T-Mobile that will sport none other than HTC’s Sense UI. Just a few days ago this device made its rounds over at the FCC and now we get a better look at the handset.
I sure hope that this phone will pack in a 1GHZ CPU and some impressive RAM. We are long overdue for an Android with a keyboard and some second generation power. This device is rumored for a May 19th release and from the looks of it, it’s almost ready for prime time. Guess HTC is going with the optical track pad this year for their future Android devices, the capacitive keys resemble those found on the Nexus One. I can’t wait for more leaked pictures and especially the specs. I hope they don’t disappoint.
[via tmonews]
La mala noticia del día es que el IVA del libro electrónico se quedará en el 16%, por 4% del libro físico; la buena – por decir algo – es que esta vez la decisión de lastrar y entorpecer la adaptación de la industria editorial – que ya de por sí sigue en la fase de la negación – no es sólo española, sino de Europa en su conjunto (Nación Red, Expansión). A la habitual contradicción entre el mensaje de nuestros políticos (ya saben, que si innovación, que si nos adaptamos, que si cambio de modelo) y lo que aprueban, podemos sumar la escusa perfecta de que “es cosa de Europa”. En los próximos años recogeremos los frutos de medidas como esta y de la negativa de la industria del libro a establecer una oferta seria en internet, cuando ya sea tarde vendrán las lamentaciones y las peticiones de que controle más la red.
Relacionado: Leqtor y la necesidad de una gran tienda de libros electrónicos en España
Com lançamento marcado pra acontecer no Salão do Automóvel de Beijing (Pequim), a Ferrari 599 GTO acaba de ganhar um configurador online antes mesmo de sua estreia oficial. O configurador do superesportivo, que qualquer um pode manusear e configurar a seu gosto o modelo, é acessado nesse endereço.
Nele é possível escolher a seu gosto a cor do superesportivo, layout de sua pintura incluindo a de modelos históricos das pistas, três tipos de roda, uma ampla aplicação de fibra de carbono, todos os detalhes de seu interior como cor dos bancos e carpetes, além de poder escolher individualmente itens numa extensa lista de opcionais.
Depois de personalizar sua Ferrari 599 GTO, é hora de conferir seu visual completo rotacionando em 360° o modelo. Este modelo acima é o que escolhi para estar na minha garagem.
O superesportivo pesa 1.495 quilos e vem com um motor V12 de 6.0L com 661 cavalos de potencia, acelerando de 0 a 100 km/h em apenas 3,3 segundos e atingindo uma velocidade máxima de 335 km/h. Veja mais detalhes da Ferrari 599 GTO.
Fonte: Ferrari
Abandoned foreclosure animals continue to increase in number in major areas of the U.S. According to property inspectors and real property agents, unhealthy animals and flea-ridden pets can be found in deserted houses all around the country.
As revealed in the April 2010 property market statistics, almost 150,000 home foreclosure filings were made in the U.S. The numbers are expected to result in more pets abandoned in foreclosed residences and in the streets. Animal shelters are also expected to get overrun by homeless animals and are not expected to be able to accommodate all of them.
Foreclosure reports also revealed that California became the state with the highest number of foreclosures for the fourth successive month. These reports also highlighted houses with swimming pools, particularly in the Sacramento area, as places where mosquitoes are thriving. These mosquitoes, according to public health representatives, can be carriers of the dreaded West Nile virus.
Real estate agents and local authorities have stated that some home owners get frustrated over losing their homes that they deliberately ruin the place before leaving them vacant, with their pets right inside it with no food and water for days.
These abandoned foreclosure animals can sometimes get lucky as some real property agents, local police or passers by find them before they die of hunger and take them to animal shelters or adopt them. However, a much bigger number end up on the streets and eventually die from diseases or from hunger.
Pets, according to real estate market observers, have become casualties of home foreclosures. Most owners feel that they have no choice but to leave them behind when they get evicted, while others just do not bother finding alternative shelters for their domestic animals as they prioritize the people in the household over everything else.
Public health officials have warned that the trend of leaving animals in foreclosed properties will create health problems that are expected to escalate further as the number of abandoned homes continue to rise.
Local authorities around the U.S. are encouraging home owners to avoid contributing to the growing number of abandoned foreclosure animals by calling animal shelters if they need to leave their homes or to get their pets spayed or neutered to prevent animal overpopulation.
[JURIST] A Moscow City Court judge known for presiding over cases involving neo-Nazi groups was killed Monday morning while leaving his apartment. The murder of Judge Eduard Chuvashov is suspected to be a contract killing in light of the death threats he faced after presiding over the trials of members of neo-Nazi gangs. Last week, Chuvashov sentenced members of the Ryno Gang, a group known for attacking non-Russian immigrants, to 10-20 years in prison for the racially motivated killings of Central Asian immigrants between 2006 and 2007. In February, Chuvashov sentenced members of another ultra-nationalist organization, calling themselves the White Wolves, for committing similar crimes. On Monday, Chuvashov was set to begin the trial of a former police officer accused of plotting to bomb national monuments in Moscow.
In August 2008, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) called on Russia to take action against growing instances of ethnic violence and neo-Nazi activity within its borders. CERD said that Chechens, Roma, and other ethnic and religious minorities are the most common victims, and noted allegations that Russian police frequently refuse to intervene to stop such attacks. A January 2008 report issued by the SOVA Center rights group found that hate crimes in Russia rose 13 percent in 2007, but also found that police have done little to stop attacks. In June 2007, Human Rights First reported that hate crimes are on the rise throughout all of Europe, after conducting a study examining recent hate crimes in France, Germany, Russia, Ukraine, and the United Kingdom. That study found that Russia has a “proliferation of violent hate crimes directed against ethnic, religious and national minorities.”
Response to the New York Times Editorial on Southern Comfort and the Confederate Heritage
Dear Mr. Azikiwe:
I research the neo-Confederate movement. I am a co-editor of
“Neo-Confederacy: A Critical Introduction,” University of Texas Press, 2008. http://www.utexas.edu/utpress/excerpts/exhagneo.html
The “New York Times” article you have on your blog actually has a sly
defense of Confederate “heritage.”
I note this paragraph in the “Times” article.
“But after the Supreme Court allowed segregation in Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896, Jim Crow was basically secure. There was less need to rally the troops, and Confederate imagery became associated with the most extreme of the extreme: the Ku Klux Klan.”
This paragraph is a total falsehood. The Confederate groups promoted white supremacy in the “Confederate Veteran,” the official publication of the United Confederate Veterans, Sons of Confederate Veterans, United Daughters of the Confederacy, and the Confederate Southern Memorial Association. Not only did they promote white supremacy, they also praised the Ku Klux Klan of Reconstruction, and allowed the early 20th century KKK to march in one of their annual reunion parades.
Confederate imagery was used to promote white supremacy through out the Nadir.
Confederate “heritage” has always been about white supremacy from the end of the Civil War into the 21st century.
I am not surprised when the mainstream press to give neo-Confederacy a free pass, but it is disappointing when the African American press, particularly those who pose as critical challengers of the existing system, uncritically accept a free pass for neo-Confederacy.
Regards,
Edward H. Sebesta
Dallas, TX
http://newtknight.blogspot.com/
Introduction: Neo-Confederacy and the New Dixie Manifesto (Euan Hague, Edward H. Sebesta, and Heidi Beirich)
Neo-Confederacy
Contemporary neo-Confederacy made its first mainstream appearance on 29 October 1995 when the Washington Post published the “New Dixie Manifesto.” The authors were Thomas Fleming and Michael Hill, two of twenty-seven people who had founded a new nationalist organization, the Southern League (later renamed League of the South), on 25 June 1994 in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
Identified by the Southern Poverty Law Center’s (SPLC) Mark Potok as the “ideological core” of neo-Confederacy, the League of the South (LS) advocates secession from the United States and the establishment of an independent Confederation of Southern States (CSS). The CSS would contain fifteen states—four states more than seceded to form the Confederate States of America (CSA), which led to the Civil War (1861-65), the additional states being Oklahoma, Missouri, Kentucky, and Maryland.
The New Dixie Manifesto was a clarion call to arms in which Hill and Fleming described themselves as representing “a new group of Southerners . . . calling for nothing more revolutionary than home rule for the states established by the U.S. Constitution.”
Comparing “American Southerners” to, amongst others, Scots and Ukrainians, the manifesto charged that the United States had treated “American Southerners” with “exploitation and contempt,” and that a “renewed South” was both necessary and achievable.
Among its specific points, the manifesto espoused the following:
-home rule for “Southerners”
-states’ rights and devolved political power
-local control over schooling, in opposition to federal desegregation decrees
-removal of federal funding and initiatives from Southern states
-a Christian tradition in opposition to modernity
-support for Confederate symbols
In addition, the manifesto expressed the following views:
-that “Southerners” are maligned as “racist” and “anti-immigrant” by hypocritical, prejudicial Northerners
-that the South should be left alone on the issues of race
-that race relations are better in Southern states than in Northern ones
-that the United States is a “multicultural, continental empire” run by elites in Washington, Wall Street, Hollywood, and the Ivy League.
The New Dixie Manifesto proclaimed that education policies, historical interpretations, federal programs, and opposition to Confederate iconography together constitute efforts to “rob” “Southerners” of their very existence, an active project of discrimination resulting in “cultural genocide.”
Letters critical of the manifesto soon appeared in the newspaper, one stating that Fleming and Hill had presented “questionable arguments.” Another claimed that the vision of the U.S. South that the manifesto proposed would require a process of “ethnic cleansing” to change the demography of the region, which, like much of the United States, is “polyglot, eclectic, syncretic and generally mixed and messy.” Whether or not by coincidence, the topic was revisited in the newspaper six weeks later on the occasion of the death of Andrew Lytle, one of the Southern (or Nashville) Agrarians.
The conservative syndicated columnist George Will introduced readers to the heirs of the Agrarians’ intellectual tradition, namely the Southern League and one of its founding directors, Clyde Wilson, a conservative academic at the University of South Carolina and a leading proponent of neo-Confederacy. Will praised the Southern League’s “admirable seriousness about the intellectual pedigree of a particular cultural critique of American modernity,” and told readers how to contact the organization for those who “believe America is becoming too homogenized, that regional differences are being blurred and ancient passions are growing cold.” In addition, Will recommended the League’s publication, Southern Patriot, which “bristles with quirky agitation against ‘Yankee hegemony.’”
Four months later, on 5 May 1996, National Public Radio’s Weekend Edition broadcast an interview with Southern League president and manifesto co-author Michael Hill. In response to Diane Roberts’s questions about democracy, Hill said:
You know, the South has never bought into the Jacobin notion of equality. The South has always preferred a natural hierarchy. You’re always going to have some violations of people’s rights, for whatever reason, but we just believe that a natural social order left to evolve organically on its own would be better for everyone.
Hill’s position, as we review in Chapter 4, is consistent with not only neo-Confederacy, but a nineteenth-century notion of social Darwinism. Explaining the neo-Confederate movement in London’s Guardian newspaper, Roberts later wrote:
The Southern League [is] a burgeoning organisation of mostly middle-class, often academic, certainly angry, white men. . . . Their mission is to alert like-minded “neo-Confederates” to “heritage violations.” . . . The Southern League’s agenda is, as their board members describe it, “paleo-conservative.” They want the South to return to the “order” it once had before the “disruption” of the Civil Rights Movement.
Critical of this emergent neo-Confederacy ideology, and exposing some of its more unpalatable tenets, Pulitzer Prize-winning author and journalist Tony Horwitz described neo-Confederacy in his book Confederates in the Attic as a “loosely defined ideology” that pulls together “strains of Thomas Jefferson, John Calhoun, the Nashville Agrarians . . . and other thinkers who idealized Southern planters and yeoman farmers while demonizing the bankers and industrialists of the North.”
After a conversation with neo-Confederate Manning Williams in Charleston, South Carolina, Horwitz concluded that much of neo-Confederacy’s discourse and ideology was “little more than a clever guide around race and slavery, rather like the slick-tongued defense of the Southern ‘way of life’ made by antebellum orators.”
Another journalist who has written on neo-Confederacy is Peter Applebome, who, in his book Dixie Rising, identified its proponents:
In hoary, century-old Confederate organizations and freshly minted, modern-day variations on the same theme, at conferences and Civil War reenactments, in cyber-space and the real world, the South is full of Lost Cause nostalgia, angry manifestos, secessionist verbiage, and assorted movements harking back to various elements of the Dixie of old. . . . The neo-Confederate groups are not a monolith. They range from hard-right and overtly racist politics to a relatively benign mix of monument polishing, history, nostalgia, and agrarian conservatism suspicious of both big government and big business.
We concur with Applebome’s evaluation, except for his assertion that some of these groups are benign. James W. Loewen and others have demonstrated the perniciousness of monuments to white supremacy throughout the United States: such commemorative efforts, however nostalgic, aid in the construction and maintenance of what geographer Richard Schein identifies as “racialized landscapes—American cultural landscapes that are particularly implicated in racist practice and the perpetuation of (or challenge to) racist social relations.”
Our sense that Applebome’s identification of the influence of neo-Confederacy is somewhat downplayed in these comments is confirmed just a few pages later. Exploring the close working relationships between advocates of neo-Confederacy, such as Southern Partisan owner Richard Quinn, and high-ranking members of the Republican Party, such as Ronald Reagan and Strom Thurmond, Applebome explains that “it’s hard to know these days where the Confederacy ends and the Republican party begins.”
Thus neo-Confederacy may be more closely entangled in the corridors of power in the United States than it first appears. In the late 1990s, the Washington Post’s Thomas B. Edsall revealed a series of connections between elected Republican Party officials and the Council of Conservative Citizens (CCC), including Georgia congressman Robert L. Barr Jr.’s keynote speech to the CCC meeting in Charleston on 6 June 1998. After initial denials, Barr admitted he had spoken to the CCC and distanced himself from the group, whose members, Edsall explained, “view intermarriage as a threat to the white race” and propose deporting nonwhites from the United States.
Edsall described how other leading Republican politicians, including Mississippi senator Trent Lott, North Carolina senator Jesse Helms, and Mississippi governor Kirk Fordice, had ties to the CCC. When the story broke, Lott initially stated that he had “no firsthand knowledge” of the CCC, but evidence emerged that in 1992 Lott had attended the group’s meeting, telling those present in his keynote speech that they “stand for the right principles and the right philosophy.”
Lott subsequently tried to distance himself from the CCC, members of which confirmed that Edsall’s stories were accurate before articulating their opposition to immigration, racially integrated schools, affirmative action, and their fight to protect “such symbols of southern heritage as Confederate monuments and public displays of the Confederate flag.”
Despite such mainstream media attention, the debate over neo-Confederacy was perhaps more in evidence in alternative media sources and on the Internet. The focus in such forums often extended beyond neo-Confederate views on race and states’ rights issues. Richard Shumate, writing in Southern Voice in 1994, warned that “some of the people who are leading the charge to preserve Confederate heritage, known collectively as the neo-Confederate movement, are often openly, and passionately, homophobic.”
Citing the overlapping interests of the Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV), Georgia’s state representatives, and outspoken conservative leaders such as Pat Robertson and Pat Buchanan, Shumate explained that “while neo-Confederates leaders labor long and hard to veil any racist sentiments among their members (though in many cases, the veil wears pretty thin), disdain for gays and lesbians is, in contrast, often expressed openly and boldly.”
Writing in the Jewish newspaper Forward in 1995, Ira Stoll reviewed the major magazine of neo-Confederacy, Southern Partisan, a publication of the Foundation for American Education (discussed in Chapter 1). Highlighting its interviews with well-known Republican Party figures such as Trent Lott, Dick Armey, and Phil Gramm, Stoll explained:
Some experts say the ties between politicians and the neo-Confederate movement offer insight into the Republican attempt to shift power to the states—an effort consistent with Confederate ideas. The Southern Partisan connection, they say, raises the prospect that the new GOP leadership and the presidential candidates may lend credibility to a group tinged with racism and historical carelessness.
One of Stoll’s experts was Princeton University historian James McPherson, who said: “If this neo-Confederate point of view begins to forge back into the mainstream, it could undercut support for civil rights.” Brian Britt, in the on-line forum Z Magazine, concurred, explaining that neo-Confederacy was a worldview that
encompasses history, literature, museums, reenactments, monuments, battlefields, and organizations dedicated to the principles and founders of the Confederate States of America. Neo-Confederacy intersects with white supremacy, the Christian Right, the Populist Party, and the states’ rights movement.
To an increasingly diverse set of Americans, neo-Confederate culture supplies a regionally- and historically-grounded message of right-wing righteousness and urgency. Neo-Confederate culture presents two faces to the world: one of heritage and another of hate. Heritage bespeaks the mythical past of the antebellum South and its valiant defenders, but this gentility often adjoins angry right-wing extremism.
At the time neo-Confederacy was evidently becoming a factor in U.S. politics. In a hotly contested Senate race in Illinois in 1998, the Republican challenger Peter Fitzgerald defeated incumbent Democrat Carol Moseley-Braun, an African American, but not before a Moseley-Braun campaign advertisement showed Fitzgerald standing beside a Confederate battle flag.
Fitzgerald “angrily denied Moseley-Braun’s allegation that he [was] associated with neo-Confederate groups such as the Rockford Institute.” In Georgia, congresswoman Cynthia A. McKinney, also an African American, identified her 1996 electoral opponents as “a rag-tag group of neo-Confederates,” and in Alabama, state senator Charles Davidson joined the neo-Confederate League of the South.
“Make no mistake,” David Goldfield subsequently warned in his book Still Fighting the Civil War, referring to elected officials such as Davidson, “these are not the much-maligned ‘redneck’ elements; these are southern leaders proving that the shelf-life of southern history extends considerably beyond its expiration date.” Examining neo-Confederate magazines like Southern Partisan, Goldfield explained that these publications romanticized the Old South and distorted the events of both the Civil War and Reconstruction, producing a neo-Confederacy that valorized white men, “as well as the racial and gender implications derived from those views.”
Neo-Confederacy thus was seen to comprise a belief in, and the need for, social hierarchy, be this racial or gendered, with white men being dominant. To this, we contend, should be added hierarchies based on class, religion, and sexuality. Believers in neo-Confederacy, Goldfield explained, “are not fringe people.” Their worldview and activities have “a broader white support in the South, within the Republican Party and among some evangelical Protestants.”
One of the most sustained encounters with this iteration of neo-Confederacy did not come in the South. The city of Rockford, Illinois, just ninety miles northwest of Chicago, became embroiled in a lawsuit about racial segregation and unequal school funding in the late 1980s.
Federal Judge P. Michael Mahoney stated that through sophisticated tracking of student performances, school administrators in Rockford had “raise[d] discrimination to an art form,” and ruled that Rockford must desegregate its schools, hire more minority teachers, build new facilities, and implement a host of other requirements.
Rockford had to levy additional taxes to pay for the costs. These measures attracted the attention of the Rockford Institute and its leader, Thomas Fleming, co-author of the New Dixie Manifesto.
On 16 February 1998, Fleming and his colleagues hosted a rally denouncing taxation, school integration, and the federal court’s rulings. Alongside school board members at this event was one of the city’s most prominent politicians, Republican congressman Don Manzullo. Exposing Fleming’s neo-Confederate beliefs and founding membership in the League of the South, the Rockford Register Star explained that Fleming “compared the school desegregation case with historical injustices that caused acts of banditry and insurrection.”
The newspaper subsequently revealed that “three members of the Rockford School Board say they will use whatever stage is offered to denounce court-ordered school taxes and judicial interference in local school systems. To them, it doesn’t matter if the offer is from the founder of a neo-Confederate organization that has been accused of implicit racism.”
Manzullo stated that he had no knowledge of Fleming’s neo-Confederate connections, although a year earlier, in February 1997, he had criticized the Rockford desegregation ruling in Fleming’s Chronicles magazine. Chastising “activist federal judges,” Manzullo advocated limiting the power of the judiciary to make decisions “that would have the effect of raising taxes.”
Manzullo again appeared in Chronicles three months prior to attending Fleming’s February 1998 anti-taxation rally, this time attacking the United Nations as an organization that hindered U.S. sovereignty and had “outlived much of its usefulness and overreached its bounds.”
Manzullo’s claim of ignorance about Fleming thus seems disingenuous, particularly given Fleming’s repeated assertions of his advocacy of neo-Confederacy in the mid-1990s. Writing in the National Review in July 1997, for example, Fleming outlined his reasons for membership in the Southern League (League of the South) and argued that “secession is as American as bootleg whisky and draft riots.”
After listing numerous secessionist movements in U.S. history, Fleming maintained that “the United States remained, basically, a federal union down to the 1960s, when activist judges and ambitious politicians of both parties decided that the Constitution had outlived its usefulness.”
It was evident that something was happening in U.S. political culture that was fusing separatism, nationalism, Confederate heritage, and a politics that looked through a lens of race and ethnic identity. This neo-Confederacy, Christopher Centner explained to readers of Skeptic magazine, not only united a range of political positions, but was also pulling together numerous factions whose members often overlapped.
These included the “heritage defenders” in groups like the Sons of Confederate Veterans and United Daughters of the Confederacy, “agrarian romantics” who positioned themselves as the intellectual heirs of the 1930s Southern Agrarians, libertarians connected with organizations such as the Ludwig von Mises Institute, “Christian soldiers” who voiced a fundamentalist religion and a belief in biblical literalism, and “racists.”
Researching Neo-Confederacy
It was this emerging example of nationalism and racially coded politics that led us (Hague, Sebesta, and the Southern Poverty Law Center) to pursue a sustained collaboration examining neo-Confederacy. Our research was first published in 2000, when Sebesta’s essay in Scottish Affairs argued:
Neo-Confederacy is a reactionary movement with an ideology against modernity conceiving its ideas and politics within a historical framework of the U.S. Civil War (1861-1865) and the history of the American South. This includes more than a states’ rights ideology in opposition to civil rights for African-Americans, other ethnic minorities, women and gays, though it certainly includes all these things. Opposition to civil rights is just a part of a world view desiring a hierarchical society, opposed to egalitarianism and modern democracy.
Later that year the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), an organization well known for its monitoring of, and legal contests with, militia, patriot, and other racial supremacy groups, identified the League of the South as a “hate group.” This designation by the SPLC was made on the basis of a group’s ideology as expressed in official publications or by the group’s leaders. Hate groups, the SPLC maintains, have beliefs or practices that attack or malign an entire class of people for their immutable characteristics.
The SPLC argued that the neo-Confederate League of the South, founded by Michael Hill, Thomas Fleming, Clyde Wilson, and others in 1994, is racist in its belief that African Americans are inferior to whites and is therefore a hate group. Further, the SPLC report identified the League of the South at the forefront of a neo-Confederate movement that also included the CCC and sections of the SCV and UDC. It noted that the 1990s neo-Confederacy had precedents in, and connections to, the White Citizens’ Councils of the 1950s and in this most recent version, neo-Confederacy was “unabashedly political and beginning to show its naked racism.”
This revitalized neo-Confederacy, anthropologist Paul Shackel explains, began to inform numerous debates, most prominently about the placement of Confederate flags in states like South Carolina. It also influenced efforts by the SCV to reinterpret the Civil War as a struggle for national independence and sovereignty, a reinterpretation in which SCV authors “never mention slavery.” When politicians in the South did mention slavery, and condemned it, furious neo-Confederate sympathizers bombarded local media outlets.
In April 1998, Governor James S. Gilmore III of Virginia criticized slavery in a statement that also proclaimed Confederate Heritage Month. Patrick S. McSweeney, a former chairman of Virginia’s Republican Party, joined the neo-Confederate Heritage Preservation Association (HPA) in disparaging the governor’s remarks. Led in Virginia by R. Wayne Byrd Sr., who stated that Gilmore’s comments were “an insult,” the HPA was formed in 1993 and was, Shackel explains, “one of the first nationwide neo-Confederate organizations to develop in the post-civil rights era.”
With members in forty-nine states, the HPA actively lobbies state officials, often successfully, to declare Confederate Heritage months. Through these and other similar groups, best-selling political commentator Kevin Phillips noted, “southerners have bred a new cultural and political phenomenon: neo-Confederates,” whose “upsurge goes beyond mere nostalgia.” Although it is this recent neo-Confederacy that forms the major part of our analyses, neo-Confederate activism has a lengthy history in the United States.
Neo-Confederacy: A Recurrent Practice
It may be a truism to say that neo-Confederacy is practiced differently by different people in different places at different times. Although the latest version of neo-Confederacy emerged in the mid-1990s, the term “neo-Confederate” has an extensive history.
James McPherson, for example, has described the efforts of “Neo-Confederate historical committees” operating between the 1890s and 1930s to make sure that history textbooks presented a version of the Civil War in which secession was not rebellion but rather a legal exercise of state sovereignty; the South fought not for slavery but for self-government; the Confederate soldiers fought courageously and won most of the battles against long odds but were finally worn down by overwhelming numbers and resources.
These committees were drawn from members of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, the United Confederate Veterans, and the Sons of Confederate Veterans. Another historian, Nancy MacLean, has utilized “neo-Confederacy” to identify the reactionary right-wing politics that coalesced in the 1950s in opposition to Supreme Court rulings mandating racial desegregation.
Both usages are consistent with our own: McPherson’s as it refers to major proponents of neo-Confederate beliefs and the central components of neo-Confederate understandings of the Civil War, and MacLean’s referring to similar actors in conservative politics, whom we examine in Chapter 1.
Despite these varied attributions of “neo-Confederacy” from the period immediately after the Civil War to the present, there are a number of consistencies in neo-Confederate thought—its racist, patriarchal, heterosexist, classist, and religious undertones—that form the basis of a conservative ideology that centers upon social inequality and the maintenance of a hierarchical society.
At the core of neo-Confederacy is an active promotion of the political legacy of the short-lived nineteenth century Confederate States of America, comprising states whose secession resulted in the Civil War. Proponents of neo-Confederacy regularly look to these events, the Confederacy’s leadership, and the pre-Civil War “Old South” for theological, philosophical, and cultural precedents and, in many cases, behavioral role models.
The major ideologues of the recent revival of neo-Confederacy are, as we outline in Chapter 1, almost all activists who identified themselves as paleoconservatives, decided to split from mainstream U.S. conservatism, and solidified their views around a vision of the South as “a priceless and irreplaceable treasure that must be conserved.”
Hostile toward today’s multicultural society and focused around organizations such as the League of the South and Council of Conservative Citizens, neo-Confederacy can also be said to inform more mainstream heritage organizations such as the Sons of Confederate Veterans and United Daughters of the Confederacy and, arguably, prominent politicians such as Trent Lott and Strom Thurmond. Proponents of neo-Confederacy also overlap with those advocating a racial, white nationalism, such as Jared Taylor and his American Renaissance magazine.
Outline of the Book
Neo-Confederacy intertwines a range of political thought, theology, and historical interpretation into a call for the recognition of a specific Southern U.S. culture and various assemblages of what that culture means for the control of people and resources. In this volume, contributors draw on documents published by neo-Confederate activists to explore how neo-Confederate ideology constructs a worldview that we contend is patriarchal, ethnocentric, intolerant, and racist, but a worldview that operates utilizing a complex discourse, a language that at face value appears to laud cultural rights and freedoms, heritage preservation and celebration, local control over institutions, and Christianity.
Due to the diversity of actors and positions within neo-Confederate organizations, this collection is not intended to be comprehensive. Rather, we hope to illustrate the kinds of activities and politics that permeate this sector of the political right. Our intention is to give readers an understanding of neo-Confederacy, its development and ideologies.
Further, we demonstrate the convergence of conservative thought with heritage preservation activism, popular commemorative processes, and theological beliefs, which together articulate neo-Confederacy at the start of the twenty-first century.
Neo-Confederate ideology influences Hollywood movies such as Gods and Generals (2003), college football games and mascots, museum displays, musical and theatrical performances, literature, religious beliefs, statuary and monuments, school textbooks, and multiple other aspects of everyday life in the United States. Many recent books about the role of memory and commemoration in the South note the growing presence of neo-Confederate interpretations of the past.
When a statue of Abraham and Tad Lincoln was unveiled in Richmond, Virginia, in 2003, for example, the event was attended by “neo-Confederates wav[ing] signs bearing the slogan: ‘Lincoln: Wanted for War Crimes.’” The Southern Poverty Law Center’s “Intelligence Reports” regularly provide details of the latest actions by neo-Confederate sympathizers.
Two theoretical understandings underpin our collection as a whole. The first, as prominent geographer David Harvey has asserted, is “that no social order can change without the lineaments of the new already being present in the existing state of things.” Neo-Confederacy is an attempt to change the social order. Proponents of neo-Confederacy argue that American cultural, educational, political, and religious practices must be changed, and the ultimate aim of the League of the South, as noted, is the secession of fifteen states to create a new Confederacy.
Such neo-Confederate contentions, however, did not appear out of the blue with the New Dixie Manifesto in 1995. We have to look to the past to understand the beliefs that coalesced into what became neo-Confederacy in the 1990s.
As examined in Chapter 1, many neo-Confederates identify themselves as “paleoconservatives” who, believing in what they consider to be authentic conservatism, became disillusioned with the direction that conservative politics took in the 1960s. In terms of religious perspectives, proponents of neo-Confederacy maintain that the Civil War was a theological struggle between orthodox Christian Confederate troops and heretical Union soldiers. This is examined in Chapter 2.
Chapter 3 traces neo-Confederate understandings of gender and sexuality to the antebellum plantation household in which the white male planter represented the head, and his family and slaves the rest of the body, in an organic conceptualization of gender and race relations. Race is the crux around which neo-Confederacy turns, which is the subject of Chapters 4 and 5.
Chapter 4 explores the self-image of many neo-Confederates, that of Anglo-Celtic ethnicity. The authors argue that this is a synonym for whiteness and show how in the 1970s and 1980s academics like Grady McWhiney were integral in developing the Celtic South thesis that understands the (white) residents of the Southern states, both past and present, to be Celtic.
Chapter 5 quotes neo-Confederate authors and publications at length, demonstrating that neo-Confederacy entails hostility toward social equality, multiculturalism, civil rights, school desegregation, affirmative action, and immigration. Utilizing ideas about ethnicity and race, proponents of neo-Confederacy maintain that ethnic and cultural groups are distinct and two or more groups cannot co-exist in the same space on equal terms.
The second part of the book examines processes of the production of neo-Confederate culture. This pertains to our second theoretical tenet, that culture is not an object that can be simply identified and then described. Rather, culture comprises on-going processes that must be explained. Saying that “culture” is the reason for something does not offer an understanding of how and why an event occurred or a belief developed. Indeed, saying something is “cultural” typically curtails rather than enhances debate.
Consequently, cultural geographer Don Mitchell argues that when examining cultures, the critical questions to ask are “who produces culture—and to what end? . . . [and] why is it produced” (original emphasis). The result of such questioning is an assessment of how the practices of politics and culture are entwined in a relationship. Thus, our examinations in Part 2 address “the production of [neo-Confederate] ‘culture’ and its use” in promoting and disseminating a neo-Confederate ideology.
Chapter 6 examines efforts to ensure that the Confederate flag remains flying high over the South, promoted by groups and activists such as the Council of Conservative Citizens, the League of the South, and controversial restaurant owner Maurice Bessinger. Bessinger’s signature barbecue sauce was removed from the shelves of national chain stores like Wal-Mart after revelations about his neo-Confederacy appeared in local newspapers following a dispute that centered on flying the Confederate battle flag without a permit.
Chapter 7 utilizes theories of nationalism that argue education is central to the reproduction of the idea of a nation. A nation does not just exist; rather, it is continuously reproduced through everyday processes, from the circulation of national heroes on currency and rallying behind national sports stars, to the mundane reproduction of the nation in banal imagery, such as television weather maps that suggest the weather stops at the U.S. borders with Canada and Mexico.
Inculcating the next generation is always critical to nationalist projects, and the need to perpetuate neo-Confederacy leads proponents to homeschool their children and to teach peers about what they consider to be the truth about U.S. history.
Chapter 8 identifies the lineaments of current neo-Confederate literature in the nineteenth-century South, examining the fiction and poetry that has become the neo-Confederate curriculum for the educational practices discussed in Chapter 7. Another area of the on-going practice of producing neo-Confederate culture is the subject of Chapter 9: music.
Here the authors review examples such as Stonewall Country, a musical about Confederate general “Stonewall” Jackson, and performers like the Free South Band, whose CDs are widely available on neo-Confederate web sites.
The last chapters argue that neo-Confederacy is neither as benign nor as marginalized as some commentators have implied. Chapter 10 is a work of investigative journalism that demonstrates just how far neo-Confederacy has penetrated into mainstream Confederate heritage groups like the Sons of Confederate Veterans.
Many active Civil War heritage enthusiasts now identify with neo-Confederate ideology. The result is that the SCV, which has almost 30,000 members, including some prominent public figures, now espouses an increasingly activist neo-Confederate political agenda.
Finally, the afterword looks briefly at the reaction of neo-Confederates to the reelection of President George W. Bush in 2004 and notes the extent to which neo-Confederacy and neo-Confederate publications have moved beyond the South to gain a place within national U.S. conservatism. As proponents of neo-Confederacy establish think tanks like the Abbeville and Stephen D. Lee Institutes, the belief system is attracting members of the Republican Party and mainstream heritage groups like the SCV and UDC.
Given that these organizations have greater resources, in terms of outreach, membership, and finances, neo-Confederacy is a worldview that is continuing to develop and attract proponents throughout the United States. As a result, we believe it is time for a sustained analysis of neo-Confederacy.
It seems that Opera loves to stay in the news. Now that they have taken a break from releasing new products at a breakneck pace, they are keeping themselves busy by drafting self-congratulatory press releases. The latest one celebrates the fact that Opera Software reached the milestone of having 100 million users in March.
Of course, this is not a surprising news, since Opera Mini had amassed 50 million users in January 2010 itself. The desktop version was reported as having 45 million users back in December 2009.
As always, there are two ways of looking at these stats. The fact that Opera Mini has rocketed to 50 million users bodes well for Opera Software. However, its desktop browser continues to disappoint. Opera may have added 40 million active users since it went free, but its market share still pales in comparison to Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox. In fact, according to most analytic firms, Opera for desktop is still struggling to touch the 3% mark.
Opera 10.5 was undoubtedly an impressive release, but Chrome’s recent beta builds have once again highlighted the glaring omissions in Opera. In spite of being around for more than a decade, Opera still doesn’t have an intelligent form filler and the lack of an API means that others can’t build one either. Google has been incredibly smart about Chrome. Since they outset they have targeted key features and their vision is now paying rich dividends. Until Opera Software wakes up, it will continue to struggle to break out of its niche.
Yes, we realize the trailer shown above is dressed in Brawn GP livery and has Jenson’s name on the back. This team transporter and another just like it were bought by USF1 to be used for this year’s F1 season. The team has since folded, the trailers were repossessed, and now they’re up for sale on eBay. [Trailer 1, Trailer 2]
The trailers are being sold without anything to pull them, and they’re in Oxfordshire in the U.K. right now. They’re both triple-axle affairs—one is set up to haul three cars, doubling as a machine shop, and the other has an office in front and equipment storage in back. Current bids are up to about £12K and around £16K for the other, both without reserve.
If anyone’s looking to start a Formula 1 team, this could help them on their way. Then again, buying the trailers is the easy part, as USF1 has proven.
No related posts.
A federal court of appeals said last Tuesday that the Federal Communications Commission wasn’t justified when it censured Comcast back in 2008 for blocking peer-to-peer files. At the time, I said the ruling could call into question the FCC’s ability to regulate several aspects of high-speed Internet service, including network neutrality, but after talking last week to people in D.C., it became clear that the consensus is in fact that regulations guaranteeing net neutrality will survive, and the FCC will likely begin a proceeding to solidify its authority by reclassifying Internet access.
The issue isn’t that Comcast sued the FCC, but that the FCC was on weak footing thanks to previous decisions it made back in 2002 and 2005. In that series of rulings, the FCC decided that various forms of high-speed Internet access should not be classified as a transport service like a telephone line is, but rather as an information service, like Google or Facebook. In 2002, the FCC classified cable as an information service, and did the same with DSL in 2005, wireless broadband in 2007 and broadband over power lines in 2008. The agency decided that Internet access was more than transport because ISPs also offered email accounts, portals, storage and other technologies on top of the transport layer.
In a GigaOM Pro report published late Friday (sub req’d), I lay out the options the FCC has before it from a regulatory perspective, and explain how we got here and where the FCC will go next. I also outline how the ISPs will likely push for Congress to get involved, rather than see their internet access reclassified as transport, because that reclassification gives the FCC more regulatory authority over their pipes.
So keep an eye on the FCC, because we’re likely to see it issue a Notice of Inquiry in the coming weeks on the topic of reclassifying high-speed Internet access (not broadband, which may encompass the services such as email and storage that led the FCC to classify the offering as an information service rather than transport in the first place). That will undoubtedly be followed by months of comments and inflammatory rhetoric about ISPs already being committed to net neutrality and arguments saying that the FCC wants to regulate “the Internet” (it’s trying to regulate access to it, not the web itself).
Once it gets through the reclassification process, which could take at least six months, the net neutrality proceedings will stay open and the FCC will likely take up the topic once its authority is firmly in place. Also, expect the FCC to follow any of its orders reclassifying Internet access as a transport service with later proceedings where it says it won’t regulate certain aspects of high-speed Internet access such as tariffs and peering agreements.
Amid this wonky debate, keep in mind that regulating communications transport is what the FCC was set up to oversee, and the current Commission apparently intends to do it. It’s not going to be incredibly aggressive about it (otherwise it could issue a Declaratory Order saying that high speed Internet access is a transport service without going through the comment period) but eventually net neutrality regulations that do contain provisions allowing ISPs to manage their networks will be passed. So Comcast didn’t kill net neutrality, but it did delay it for a while.
Sometimes, the cellular data network just doesn’t want to play ball with your iPhone. It may not be immediately apparent, but you’ll find out when you try to load a page in Safari, for instance, and the progress bar will get stuck in one place, never moving.
To sort this out, you need to try the old ‘turn it off and turn it back on again’ cliché. Navigate to the Settings app on your phone and turn on Airplane mode (the orange switch at the top of the first settings page). This deactivates everything; the data network, Wi-Fi, GPS, etc. Leave Airplane mode on for around 15-30 seconds and then turn it back off again. This should fix the problem, and get your iPhone back on the Internet again.
If not — you know exactly what I’m going to say now — turn off the iPhone entirely and turn it on again. If, even after doing that, your phone still won’t connect to the Internet, I’d recommend contacting your network provider and asking them if they know what the problem might be.
As a side note, this works just as well with unresponsive Wi-Fi networks. If it’s happening with Wi-Fi, however, you can turn Wi-Fi off by itself by going to Settings > Wi-Fi and turning the switch to off. If it doesn’t work you can try turning the router off and on (if it’s yours), or telling your iPhone to forget the network by tapping the blue arrow-in-a-circle next to the network name and tapping ‘Forget this network.’
