“Net Neutrality” is a popular buzzword nowadays in the political world, yet very few people know exactly what it is or what it means in relation to the internet. But it’s very, very important.

The term “net neutrality” refers to the idea that everyone should have equal and ultimately unrestricted access to the internet, period. It means, ultimately, that no matter where you are, what ISP you have, and how much you pay, you get access to the very same internet, with the same websites, tools, and equipment. Your speed is determined by technical factors only, and the amount of speed you get from your ISP is determined merely by the amount you pay them and the contract between you two. Long story short? You pay for the internet, and what you do with it is your business.

Seems fair, right? Except internet companies don’t like it, for obvious reasons. You see, back 5 to 10 years ago, ISPs (Internet Service Providers, like Time Warner, Comcast, Earthlink, etc) had a pretty good money making machine going — they had a lot of high powered equipment that could easily serve their consumer base. Few people really used their download speed constantly, so they could oversell servers and make a tidy profit by banking on the fact that few people used the internet heavily. The problem is, as you can imagine, people began to use the internet for more and more — gaming, YouTube and other streaming video services, and the like — and such shoddy business practices became unstable.

As a result, ISPs are now gunning for largely any sort of way they can milk money out of the internet-using consumer base. Be it “turbo” additions (for extra down/up speed), “business services”, or other sorts of packages, the idea is to figure out a way to monetize on the internet in a new way. The problem is, the internet doesn’t lend itself to that easily — that is, unless you find a way to make people pay for what they use already. This idea — “tiering”, or artificial control of the internet — would make you pay for using different parts of the internet in order to make more money on what you do. Basically, it’s taking what you have for free now and charging for it.

So, for example, a company might establish a “basic package” that could only access websites like Google or Yahoo, and then a “premium package” that included the entire web, and so on. Or, even worse, they could charge you for using certain services — like online video games — by the minute or the gigabyte. Roughly, it would be similar as if the power company didn’t just provide you power, but if they also came into your house, made an inventory of your electricity-using items, and then charged you $10 extra for having a breadmaker. They might even slow down (or outright block) your connection to websites that don’t pay them a fee. It could even go so far as for companies with specific political ideologies to prevent people from accessing radical websites — for example, they could block this very article because it speaks out for net neutrality. It’s unfair, nonsensical, and really, really corrupt. It would be the same thing as if the government began charging you extra money for using certain state roads rather than others (like a $20 “highway fee” per month) for no other reason than just to make money off of you.

The further worry is that it could very well be a slippery slope into federal control of the internet (ironic, given a good part of the internet isn’t American anyway). Like the horrible, failed, expensive, and terrible Australian attempt to “censor” the internet, this could mean that the government has ultimate control over what you see, read, and even say — and you’d have no idea how it was being manipulated. Once companies have the right to manipulate the data between you and another party on the internet, the government could very well do the same. You could literally be banned from reading websites that complain about the government — Big Brother would be watching.

Of course, these companies like to say this would “never” happen — but that’s absolute trash. The economy does not operate on the “trust system” — we don’t let companies have huge amounts of freedom on the tenuous promise they won’t exploit it. Furthermore, it’s pretty damn questionable, legality-wise — implicitly, by “tiering” the internet, the companies would be profiting off others’ work, particularly in that they would be making money on people wanting to access websites unaffiliated with the company. It would be the outright, unquestionable, unstoppable end of the internet as we know it.

Net neutrality fixes this. If Congress passes a net neutrality bill, it would make it illegal for companies to “tier” the internet at all, or do anything like what I mentioned above. They’ve already begun to try to “prioritize” (“tiering” lite) the internet, and it’s not going to get any better any time soon. It will essentially set a very clear standard for internet use that makes it similar to other utilities, like water or power, allowing companies to control your usage and charge you for it, but not how you use it. It sure as hell may not be super-profitable on the side of the ISP, but it’s ultimately fair, and it makes everyone play by the rules.

Therefore, when you hear idiots like Michelle Bachmann call Net Neutrality an “Obama administration plot” to “censor the internet”, ignore her, she has no idea what she’s talking about whatsoever. Net neutrality is freedom — it is inherently anti-censorship, anti-monitoring, and pro-freedom. It allows everyone equal ability to say anything they want without any sort of corporate or political censorship. No matter the party, you should support it — your right to even read this website depends on it. Republican or Democrat, demand that your Congressman/Senator pushes for it — it’s fundamentally rooted in your right to say anything at all.

According to the News & Observer, all of North Carolina’s federal representatives voted against the possibility of a Congressional pay raise except for one person: NC-12′s Mel Watt.

The bill, HR 5146, would for all intents and purposes entirely prohibit a Congressional pay raise in January, which is usually standard procedure to accommodate cost of living changes. The salary amounts, according to the News & Observer:

[...] $174,000 for rank-and-file members, $193,400 for the House and Senate majority and minority leaders and the Senate president pro tempore, and $223,500 for the House speaker. Other top federal salaries are $400,000 for the president, $230,700 for the vice president, $223,500 for the chief justice, $213,900 for associate Supreme Court justices, $199,700 for Cabinet officers, $184,500 for appellate judges and $174,000 for district judges.

In colloquial terms? A whole big chunk ‘o change. Of course, that doesn’t mean most Congressmen are rolling around in cash — between having two residences (one back home, which is required, and one in DC) and having to pay for typically expensive DC food all the time, typical Congressmen typically don’t have exorbitant amounts of cash on hand. However, when the economy drops (like it’s been doing now), Congressmen can live like kings — after all, things become cheaper. That’s not even considering the fact that most (not all) Congressmen usually have significant nest eggs from prior jobs (as most were well paid before they became Congressmen), meaning they do pretty well for themselves. No matter how you twist it, though, $174k is a lot of money — why does Watt suddenly want more, especially when there is no inflation to adjust for?

And, thankfully, everyone in NC, on both sides of the aisle, voted for the block — that is to say, they refused the pay raise. Except for Mel Watt. Watt’s not poor by any stretch — he attended Yale Law and practiced law for over 20 years. Watt’s also pretty notorious for being pretty shady with money — just last year, he ran seriously afoul of Rep. Ron Paul after cutting out lots of parts of a Federal Reserve auditing and transparency bill, which he edited to protect shady practices on the part of banks (many of which comprising his campaign donors).

I have no idea what Watt’s rationale for voting for a pay raise is — by all means, it likely doesn’t matter, as it has already passed the House and the Senate. Still, I’d like to know why in the world he thinks $174k isn’t sufficient pay when a huge percentage of his state doesn’t even have a job in the first place.

I have nothing wrong with protesting against laws — it’s constitutional, sometimes effective, and a great way to voice dissent. However, I don’t think disagreeing with a law gives you carte blanche to violate that law, especially en masse. And that’s specifically what is going to happen in Raleigh on July 28.

On July 28, the Raleigh Amphitheatre and Festival Site will be hosting “Cauzin’ Vapors…Legalize It 2010 Summer Tour” — that is, a pro-Marijuana legalization music festival, like Woodstock with (maybe) more pot. While the booking was not explicitly done by the state (it was done by the company Live Nation), one can already see the issue with the tour: it pretty much encourages consumption of illegal drugs. Of course, the hilarity of this is that the aforementioned convention center is right across from a Raleigh Police Department. Still, it’s pretty clear the entire city of Raleigh can’t mobilize to babysit a bunch of concert goers — so what’s a city to do?

In my opinion, something needs to be done to plan for issues like this. I’ve honestly never understood how local governments could willingly stand aside and watch the law being flagrantly broken just because of the lack of police force. Be it by fining people or by increasing police force on days when such “tours” go on, the government needs to be willing to uphold the laws to everyone, even if a lot of people are violating the law at the same time. Put simply, there is no (and should be no) “group discount” for crime. I’d much rather see an entire concert shut down than to allow it to continue when illegal actions are being implicitly condoned.

But still, it may be that this “tour” manages to get by without a single joint — which would be the ideal situation, as unlikely as it would be. The best protesters are those who not only are able to articulate their dissent on a subject, but those who are also able to display that they do so not out of selfishness or greed, but rather simply by reason. There are a lot of remarkably interesting arguments out there that promote legalizing marijuana — “we do it anyway” isn’t one of them.

The North Carolina Department of Revenue, in a clear attempt to find NC residents and further tax them for online purchases, has recently demanded that the online megastore Amazon.com turn over information regarding over 50 million purchases made by NC residents between 2003 and 2010. Amazon.com, knowing the full ramifications of giving the NC the ability to retroactively tax its citizens, is refusing to turn over the information, and has filed a First Amendment lawsuit in federal court. The NC DoR, in turn, has threatened to sue as well, pending Amazon.com fails to turn over their records by April 19. Long story short? If Amazon.com wins, your privacy online is maintained, and you don’t have to pay state taxes on stuff you purchased in 2003. If the NC Department of Revenue wins, you’ll not only have all of your dirty laundry viewed by tax men, but you’ll probably be charged for it too.

These taxes are the kind that are ultimately destructive to consumer rights, tax law, and our freedom as a whole. The NC DoR already has an “Amazon Tax” in place — but it’s anything but fair. The Department of Revenue has absolutely no right to begin to search retroactively through buyer records online to start taxing its citizens further: that’s an unjust way to make a dollar, and it’s a quick way to make online retailers positively scared of North Carolina. Heck, even taxing people for online purchases in the first place is highly underhanded and questionable — it undermines commerce and fundamentally exploits companies that do not even exist in the state. Perhaps worst of all, retroactive taxes of online goods would set a precedent for NC taxes to extend to many things in your past — meaning those “tax free” purchases you made 5+ years ago may come back to bite you in a new and very irritating way.

The “Amazon Tax” concept is not entirely original. The taxing of online retail has been implemented in states like New York and Rhode Island for quite some time, and it has caused a great deal of controversy in these locations. In fact, according to the Tax Foundation, Rhode Island has actually lost money, because Amazon responded to their “Amazon Tax” by dropping available programs and thus halting a lot of commerce. In New York, the tax was upheld in a court, but legal battles continue to this day. Because of its size and power, Amazon.com is not afraid to punish a state for being too hasty with taxes — and they’re likely to punish North Carolina (and implicitly North Carolina citizens) if the Department of Revenue begins to retroactively tax online purchases.

Let’s just hope Amazon wins this little war. North Carolina citizens can’t afford to be taxed on stuff they purchased over 7 years ago.

When I say “Life Imprisonment”, most people think that means literally life imprisonment — that is, imprisonment until death. Life imprisonment is a serious punishment for serious crimes, and it is used in part to prevent criminals from re-entering society and posing a threat to normal citizens.

But if the NC Supreme Court has anything to say about it, that may no longer be the case.

The long story short is that the NC Supreme Court is considering allowing things like “good behavior” credits to factor into the presumed 80 year sentence they believe comprises a “life sentence” — meaning, in layman’s terms, some really well behaved “lifers” might be able to get out with only 30 year sentences. This would make it possible for over 24 people serving a life sentence in North Carolina right now to be freed immediately.

It will be interesting to see how this goes. On one hand, “good behavior” credits and parole are a pretty normal part of the justice system — it’s a good incentive to keep order and to ensure the prisons remain relatively open. Furthermore, I’m sure there is a legal precedent that allows releasing prisoners — the NC Supreme Court is almost certainly not establishing a new precedent. Still, this could easily become a PR nightmare. It’s very hard to have to explain to normal, tax-paying citizens why the state is allowing people who were thrown into jail for life — meaning they committed a heinous crime and were deemed largely dangerous — out onto the street once again.

Governor Bev Perdue is now calling on the NC Legislature to pass a $17m small business assistance package, entitled JobsNOW, that will offer a lot of tax credits and assistance from the local government to small businesses. The idea is, of course, to focus on smaller NC-based businesses, particularly for state contracts, and to avoid putting too much precedent on bigger multi-state corporations that (supposedly) do not bring in as much cash to NC residents. You can read all of her plans on her website, but the long and short of it is that she wants to provide a cornucopia of tax incentives for new businesses and businesses looking for capital, as well as reinforce main street business and tourism, two somewhat dying industries in NC.

Because of lavish, highly inappropriate spending by the national GOP, NC GOP chairman Tom Fetzer is demanding that national GOP chairman Michael Steele resign. This all comes after the revelation that one or more staffers (including Erik Brown) of the GOP went to an erotic bondage nightclub in Los Angeles, spending over $2,000 on the GOP dime. As you can imagine, the above scandal is incredibly offensive, especially to donors who gave money to the party recently.

Clearly, despite their behavior attempting to indicate otherwise, the GOP still has some serious internal issues that make it appear to be more of a lewd old boy’s club than an actual political party. It’s not too hard to see the move being made by the NC GOP — disassociate themselves with the national scandals and save themselves from being dragged down by them. The big question, of course, is how effective this will be: the GOP has done very well at rallying a base for the November elections, but scandals like the whole bondage club issue run the risk of destroying all their progress. The NCDP might have a chink in their opponent’s armor.

If you haven’t heard, a sizable number — more than a dozen thus far — of states are planning to sue the federal government regarding the recent health care legislation. According to their actually rather well constructed arguments, the health care bill recently passed — officially the “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act”, termed by Republicans “Obamacare” — is a gross abuse of the Interstate Commerce Clause and an infringement of states rights and, thus, unconstitutional. Virginia Attorney General Kenneth Cuccinelli is particularly angry about the legislation, as it allegedly tramples on legislated Virginia law prohibiting mandatory insurance, and he has been at least figuratively heading the charge.

So, the question is, should North Carolina get involved?

First of all, to be clear, this is not an actually pertinent question: North Carolina Attorney General Roy A. Cooper is a Democrat, who would never so blatantly attack his own party, meaning the question is moot. This argument is, fortunately or unfortunately, more theoretical than literal. But it’s still important.

With that being said, why sue the government and implicitly reject the health care reform?

First off, I will agree with Cuccinelli — there is something inherently troubling about the federal government’s arrest of state rights via health care. The audacity of the government to step in and essentially take over the entire system when individual states can fix these issues in a manner better tailored to their needs is rather troubling. I won’t lie, I find it incredibly worrisome that the federal answer to an industry problem is to simply seize the industry and destroy large swaths of it without much input from states. Call me paranoid, but I’d much rather have my state government make such decisions based upon the individual needs of my state rather than have the federal government make blanket statements for everyone.

Of course, the implied issue with the above is that there is a significantly high chance that states will have to foot a lot of the bill for the legislated health care reform, particularly in terms of the legislated insurance “exchanges”. Like it or not, federal changes to the health care system cost states money, especially in terms of having to accommodate new rules, potential loss of business from insurance companies, and even from something as ridiculous as the 10% tax on tanning. This kind of issue seems to be a big player in this lawsuit: from a state government perspective, this 2010 health care reform is not merely the federal government taking away control, but it’s the federal government taking away money as well.

So does this mean we should expect (or even want) our Attorney General to sue the federal government? Well, no. Honestly, they have better things to do, and it’s a massive waste of state funds and state funded lawyer time to be working on such a project. Attorney Generals have better things to do.

The individuals who should be pursuing such a lawsuit should be individuals — people who don’t want to be part of the system — not politicians. All a good health care lawsuit would really require is for an individual to simply refuse to pay for health insurance and to refuse to pay the subsequent penalty. This is not to say this would be a perfect method, as it is not entirely guaranteed to gain enough traction to make it to where it would need to be (the Supreme Court) to revoke the law — but it’s a start, and certainly a more appropriate one than allowing an Attorney General do it. At least in my mind, it is far more respectable for an individual to do so and stand up for his rights than for a politician, angry about the opposing party, to inappropriately use his position as an Attorney General to levy against a bill he doesn’t like.

If you haven’t seen it on the national news, you’ll hear it here – an interracial couple in Lowell has been the subject of frequent racist attacks on their home, including “We will burn you out” spray painted on the side of their home and a noose with a note being left in front of their door. Apparently the messages have been pretty standard and expected, though frightening for 2010 — one message said “We don’t approve. End it,”, further claiming “If your daddy knew what you was doing he’d flip over in the grave”. Backwoods racism has not left NC. One can only hope that the police in the area catch these people (who supposedly may not even live in Lowell) and prosecute them as quickly and as harshly as possible — behavior like this doesn’t help NC look good on the national stage.

The North Carolina Energy Office has decided to launch an Energy Star rebate program, which will, from April 22-25, provide 15% off the purchase of select Energy Star labeled appliances (specifically washers, dishwashers, refrigerators, and freezers) from any store participating in the program. The money for this program comes from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which provided $8.8m for the campaign. The North Carolina Energy Office estimates that 49,960 “Energy Star” appliances will be purchased, “saving enough electricity to power 536 homes for a year”.

Sounds great, doesn’t it? Except it’s a horrible, horrible idea.

First, allow me to make the obvious argument: $8.8 million could go to help a lot of families. Sure, there’s always the “trickle down effect”, and supporting local businesses is valuable to the community, but $8.8 million dollars could go to helping a lot of families stay afloat for a good amount of time. Certainly, it wouldn’t be many families, and it might not keep them afloat for very long — but it’s still significant. I don’t mean to be eco-unfriendly, but the ability to eat and sleep on an everyday basis in my mind takes priority over energy savings.

The second argument? Energy Star is a very questionable program, especially when funds could go elsewhere.

The Energy Star program was initiated in 1992 as a method to encourage appliance manufacturers (particularly appliances that suck down a lot of power, like dryers) to design appliances that used less energy, and thus taxed less on the grid and lower greenhouse gas emissions. Without going into too many details, the theory of encouraging people to switch to Energy Star appliances is pretty simple: it saves everyone (electricity-related) money and the environment in the long run, and in the short term it helps encourage appliance sales.

The problem is, it’s not quite as cut and dry is that. For a variety of reasons, the Energy Star program is questionable, at best. For one thing, very recently, government investigators revealed that the program would literally accept a space heater with a feather duster and fly strips attached and label it “Energy Star” without even seeing it in person or investigating it. Appliance makers could very well be lying about energy efficiency and no-one would be the wiser. Even on the most basic level, “Energy Star” rated appliances can cost double the price of non-rated appliances, as well as can be a heck of a lot more difficult to work with. Furthermore, on a technical level, lots of the “Energy Star” appliances out there are using cheaper materials, which obviously break easier and, in some cases, simply contribute to landfills and require the customer to purchase a replacement. And, of course, the statistics are usually inflated about the effectiveness of the “Energy Star” program — meaning those wonderful numbers mentioned in the beginning of this article are likely just drawn from thin air. Clearly, the program has its flaws.

This is not to imply that going non-energy efficient is better — rather, it’s simply an indicator that going “Energy Star” does not necessarily benefit the consumer, the environment, or the government. It may benefit the energy companies, but only in small doses. And, of course, this is presuming that consumers would be replacing non-”Energy Star” appliances with “Energy Star” appliances — there is very likely the case that someone could replace a rated appliance with another rated appliance, meaning absolutely nothing to the government!

Of course, we can’t blame the NC Government too much for this — it’s federally handed down money, tagged for a specific purpose. Still, I can’t help but to think it’s sad that we spend so much money on such an unproven project when people in the state desperately need the money to survive.