Jury acquits Minneapolis man in self-defense shooting

Back in May of 2020 a group of men in a plain white van drove through the streets of Minneapolis shooting at people, injuring several. One man, Jaleel Stallings of St. Paul, who was struck by one of the bullets, returned fire in self defense. For that, the men then climbed out of the van and proceeded to beat Stallings, calling him a "worthless piece of shit." These are undisputed facts.

But there's so much more to the story. The militants in the van were actually Minneapolis police officers who were enforcing a nighttime curfew in the days after the George Floyd murder, committed by officers of the same police force. For daring to defend himself, police arrested Stallings for attempted murder and assault -- charges which prosecutors had the nerve to pursue. But thankfully jury sided with the victim and acquitted him.

Police will tell you that they used "less-lethal" bullets, but in video footage recently released by Stallings' attorney, distinguishing rubber from lead is nearly impossible.

In a story published by The Associated Press, rubber bullets used in this attack on protesters and the working press, were referred to as "nonlethal," but tell that to the 53 people who were killed by them, or the 300 hundred left permanently disabled, between 1990 and 2017. Police routinely use "less-lethal" measures, like firing taser hooks and rubber bullets, as punishment for daring not to capitulate to their power and authority.

Cable and Satellite carriage Election by local TV: To Consent or Must-Carry

Most cable-TV and satellite customers experience local TV black-outs from time to time because of breakdowns of contract negotiations between their providers and the local television stations carried on pay-TV channel lineups.

To be clear, the blackouts are the direct result of a deliberate choice.

Viewers and advertisers are made to suffer.

The rhetoric you see is often along the lines of "(insert name cable or satellite provider) is taking away your access to your favorite (network) programming," as though the it's all the provider's fault. But here's the truth.

Broadcasters always have the option of carriage on cable & satellite systems

The FCC instructs broadcast television station owners to assert carriage election status every 3 years. Their choices are either Consent Agreement or Must-Carry. If the station elects for Must-Carry status, the cable & satellite providers are forced by the FCC to carry that station on the channel lineups.

On the other hand, TV stations are also allowed to force cable & satellite providers to enter into costly consent agreements or be denied permission to retransmit those TV signals. This is where the breakdowns occur.

Why did the FCC make this rule in the first place?

The Communications Act of 1934 forced broadcasters who used programming of other broadcasters to get permission (or consent) from the program originators. That makes sense from an intellectual property standpoint, but back then there were no television stations, nor any multi-channel programming aggregators. However, in 1992 the FCC decided to extend this requirement to cable and satellite systems who were actually providing a valuable service to broadcasters by vastly improving picture quality.

Initially large community antennas would pick up TV stations and carry broadcasts the last mile to the home by a hardwired cable connection. These were capable of receiving better signals than the typical rooftop & rabbit-ear antennas.

In any case, maximizing availability of television signals across all platforms is clearly in the domain of Public Interest, a foundational axiom flouted by the government since the commission was created by Congress. Maximum carriage of TV also benefits the industries advertisers by maximizing the reach of their commercial messaging.

The blacking-out of TV stations to wide swaths of cable & satellite subscribers is counter-intuitive; broadcasters deliberately diminish their audience size.

So there you have it. The next time to hear a local television station whining that cable & satellite systems are the ones denying their views access to their favorite programming, you can confidently call BS!

To buy MS Editor, or not to buy?

I'm old. I bought a lot of software before my 30-year-old son was 10 and I still use most of it.

I bought programs. That's what we called apps back then. They were discounted because I'm too cheap to pay full price. I have Paintshop Pro Anniversary Edition for less than $100. Cool Edit 2000 was another bargain at $99.95.

One of my newer programs is MS Office 2013 and that was offered through an employee purchase program for $19.95. Before that I was using Office 2003. Today I noticed a popup notification on my Windows 10 machine that said "We recommend Editor." I had to google that. "Editor" turns out to be a spell & grammar checker.

I think I'll pass, though. They want to charge me by the month for the privilege of keeping it at the ready, and I figured out that if I keep it for 9 years, like I have Office 2013, it'll cost me $754.92. I'm way too cheap for that!