cyrus.mortazavi

“I have known cops who haven’t had a racist bone in their bodies and in fact had adopted black children, they went to black churches on the weekend; and these are white cops. They really weren’t overtly racist. They weren’t consciously racist. But you know what they had in their minds that made them act out and beat a black suspect unwarrantedly? They had fear. They were afraid of black men. I know a lot of white cops who have told me. And I interviewed over 900 police officers in 18 months and they started talking to me, it was almost like a therapy session for them I didn’t realize that they needed an outlet to talk,” – Constance Rice, civil rights attorney.

NSFW, but safe for NSFW Saturday:

Adam Sternbergh asks why there’s a “tendency in modern mainstream movies to treat sex as something that happens elsewhere, offscreen and unspoken of”:

Part of the reason is because of the internet, that perpetual digital orgy, which has busted the movies’ monopoly as the place where we go to glimpse naughty things. (That sexy scene in Moscow on the Hudson? The whole movie’s currently streaming on Hulu.) And part of the reason is because Hollywood, in the blockbuster age, has succumbed to the self-neutering gospel of the four quadrants — by which the world is split up into increasingly gory R-rated action and horror films; fun-for-the-whole-family superhero epics (superheroes, it’s well known, have no genitalia); animated films for the kid in all of us; and movies by Nicholas Sparks.

In the era of Top Gun, The Big Easy, Body Heat, or other steamy Hollywood thrillers, the goal was to appeal to both men and women with the promise of (among other things) onscreen sex.

(Ergo the fabled “date night” movie.) Now the goal is to appeal to adults and their 12-year-old kids with the promise of the absence of sex. As for more serious films, flipping back through the Best Picture nominees from the last few years — films like Argo and The King’s Speech and Inception — the only ones with truly memorable sex scenes are Black Swan and The Wolf of Wall Street. Yet in the former, the sex (between Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis) plays out like a nightmare; and in the latter, the sex feels like a porno directed by Hieronymous Bosch.

But the real cultural shift — as any with a pay-cable subscription will tell you — is that the small screen has finally steamed over. After decades spent as Hollywood’s prudish country cousin, TV now brings televised sex of near-Caligulian variety and inventiveness into our homes. There’s even a term, sexposition, created specifically for moments when characters are communicating information while also having, or watching, sex. TV, in particular pay cable, has claimed this ground in part because it can — there’s no MPAA threatening to slap censorious NC-17s on True Blood every week.

Of course, Dan Savage has been trying to reverse this trend for years with his amateur porn festival:

So I’m not the only one who sees the super-uptight era of “privilege-checking” and “micro-aggressions” as inherently deadly to comedy and to democratic debate. Chris Rock notices exactly the same thing in a terrific interview with Frank Rich:

What do you make of the attempt to bar Bill Maher from speaking at Berkeley for his riff on Muslims?

Well, I love Bill, but I stopped playing colleges, and the reason is because they’re way too conservative.

In their political views?

Not in their political views—not like they’re voting Republican—but in their social views and their willingness not to offend anybody. Kids raised on a culture of “We’re not going to keep score in the game because we don’t want anybody to lose.” Or just ignoring race to a fault. You can’t say “the black kid over there.” No, it’s “the guy with the red shoes.” You can’t even be offensive on your way to being inoffensive.

When did you start to notice this?

About eight years ago. Probably a couple of tours ago. It was just like, This is not as much fun as it used to be. I remember talking to George Carlin before he died and him saying the exact same thing.

Meanwhile, a reader insists we provide more of a balanced perspective:

As you despair of PC on the left, you completely ignore the PC of the right and what, to their minds, cannot be criticized and is almost beyond discussion. An incomplete list: Reagan, any action taken by the police, the Iraq War, the War on Terror, any action taken in relation to 9-11, CEOs, business in general, torture by Americans, God, the Bible, Judeo-Christian religion, middle-American culture, the flag, the Pledge of Allegiance, guns, getting tough on crime, Manifest Destiny, creationism and the denial of global warming or its man-made causes. If you’re going to call out what you call PC, please consider the identity politics of the right as well, with your normal even-handedness.

Happy to – and I do my bit to chip away at these rigid certitudes when I can. And humor is a great way to cut right through these things. What are the subjects right-wingers cannot take a joke about? Ditto the lefties. Get the answer to that right and you’ve figured out what’s really going on.

Okay, here is the latest rumor on the Doctor Strange movie. Latino Review is saying that three actors are being considered for the role of the Ancient One. Previously we were told that this would not be an origin story. So how much of a role the Ancient One is remains to be seen. Also there was a tease over a month ago from director Scott Derrickson about the graphic novel Doctor Strange: Into Shamballa where the Ancient One is already gone and a trip back to his home leads to the Doctor meeting the Lords of Shamballa.

So the three names that are rumored to play the potentially small but important role are: Ken Watanabe, Bill Nighy and Morgan Freeman. The choice of Watanabe wouldn’t surprise anyone and would please most. Nighy would also be a good choice. Freeman would only seem right if they were making it a large role.

Now, outside of the above rumor is the fact that Al Pacino who has said he would do a Marvel movie and we are getting reports that he has met with Kevin Feige… I think he would be an interesting Ancient One.

Whether these rumors are true or not, now we can now spend the weekend thinking of Freeman and Pacino saying, “By the hoary hosts of Hoggoth!”

Doctor Strange starring Benedict Cumberbatch hits theaters November 4th, 2016.

[Source: Latino Review]

Who Will Play The Ancient One?

So, today’s Axis will give you two big spoilers. You may already suspect both are coming. But they do have wider impact….

The first, occurring midway through the comic, appears to be setting up the future of Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver. Wanda and Pietro Maximoff.

First introduced in 1964 in X-Men, they were part of the Brotherhood Of Evil Mutants and the children of Magneto. Later they would reform, join the Avengers and would then have a fractious relationship with a variety of other Marvel members.

Recently both Fox and Marvel Studios seem to have been warring over who has the right to use the characters in their films. Originally introduced in the X-Men, which Fox has perpetual rights over, they gained prominence in Avengers, which Marvel claims the rights to. And so the un-codenamed siblings appeared in X-Men First Class, and in different forms at the end of Captain America: The Winter Soldier. – with larger roles to come in Avengers: Age Of Ultron.

But how? Well, at NYCC it was announced that in upcoming Uncanny Avengers, Quicksiler and Scarlet Witch would no longer be mutants. The idea is that they may be Inhumans all along. But how?

Well, today’s Axis #7 gives us the first step. With the inverted Scarlet Witch casting a very specific spell.

Basically, if you are related to Scarlet Witch, then…

…it’s not going to be good. And poor Quicksilver….

But what about daddy dearest?

Magneto is not the father of Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver, even though he clearly thought he was.

Retcon alert! Retcon alert!

So… are Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch Inhumans rather than mutants now that they are no longer the children of Magneto? What’s Lorna going to say now?

Oh and for the second spoiler? It’s the final page of the comic… well, I’m not going to run that here. I am, however, going to link to a previous story. Your choice whether to click or not….

Axis #7 is published today by Marvel Comics. Comics courtesy of Orbital Comics, London. Hosting a Becky Cloonan signing and artist commentary on Gotham Academy tonight.

How Today’s Axis #7 Will Retcon Scarlet Witch And Quicksilver Forever. Spoilers, Obviously.

Last night was the first of the two-part crossover event between The Flash and Arrow. It contained a lot of fun and action and it was definitely more than a fluff piece for ratings as it moved the narratives of both hows along a bit. We get our first glimpse at Firestorm, a jump start to finding Sara’s killer and a reminder of a potential bombshell in Ollie’s future. Though the number of people who know the Arrow’s secret identity is getting almost Batman level ridiculous. And a note to the shows producers… next crossover should be a team up of Quentin Lance (Paul Blackthorne) and Joe West (Jesse L Martin).

The other big news from yesterday wasn’t in the show, but the story from MTV that Slade Wilson (Manu Bennett) will be returning to Arrow in the 14th episode of the season. No word on how he will return, whether its just a cameo or if they are bringing Deathstroke back into the mix for a while.

Here is the trailer for the second part of the crossover event on tonight’s Arrow:

Click here to view the embedded video.

A Peek At Tonight’s Arrow And Word Of A Major Villain’s Return

They were as thick as thieves at San Diego Comic Con. Frank Miller and Scott Snyder. The greatest Batman author from the past and the greatest from the present.

We’ve had Before Watchmen and Sandman Overture recently from DC Comics, but there’s one seminal work of the eighties that’s been missing from the sequelitis that has affected DC Comics’ greatest work.

Of course, The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller and Klaus Janson already had a sequel from Miller, Dark Knight Strikes Again or DK2, published by DC Comics in the noughties, though not as well received as the original.

But then the original is one of the seminal comics work of the eighties that, in many ways formed both the current comics hemisphere but also significantly influenced movie making as well. Telling the story of a retired Bruce Wayne brought back into service after a particularly nasty mob starts causing trouble in Gotham, his re-emergence inspires The Joker to also return, and eventually for the government to turn against Batman – including using Superman himself. It is a social and political satire, a treatise for the responsibility of man and an exploration of his dark side, and the failings of government. DK2 took that scenario further into the future, a gaudy satire of further consumer excess and corruption of power.

But now it appears that it is time for the threequel. It is certainly being discussed, and it’s Miller’s plan that Dark Night Three be written by himself and Scott Snyder, the current bestselling writer of the Batman monthly comic, who has taken the monthly title to the heights of critical acclaim with Court Of The Owls, Death Of The Family, Zero Year and the current Endgame.

The story, I am told, would concern Carrie Kelley, the Robin of Dark Knight, now in her elder years. She is now in a similar position to that of Bruce Wayne in the original Dark Knight, and she is seeking her own successor to protect Gotham.

I am told that Frank Miller is too unwell to draw the book, so new artists are being sought. DC co-publisher Dan DiDio, and those above him, want multiple issues with multiple artists, including the likes of Greg Capullo, Jim Lee, Andy Kubert, Marc Silvestri and the like.

I’m also told that Scott Snyder prefers a stand alone title, akin to Sandman Overture, without the many spinoffs that Before Watchmen got. And that his artist on The Wake, Sean Murphy, is a favourite artist choice.

But that’s even if it gets made and I understand there are many other aspects to consider first, including Frank’s health.

With the movie Batman Vs. Superman on the way, with its central conflict modelled on that from Miller and Janson’s original Dark Knight Returns, there’s certainly an opportunity to be had. Whether the people involved decide it’s right to take it, is another matter entirely.

Frank Miller And Scott Snyder Planning To Write Dark Knight 3 Together

In talking with RadioTimes.com, Mark Gatiss said of the upcoming fourth season of Sherlock: “You can always expect tragedy as well as adventure, that’s just how it goes.” Gatiss is the co-creator of the series with Doctor Who showrunner Steven Moffat as well as playing the role of Mycroft Holmes.

Now that may mean the death of John Watson’s (Matin Freeman) wife Mary (Amanda Abbington), as that is what happens in the original Sir Arthur Conan Doyle stories. But Gatiss says don’t be so sure: ”Just because it’s in the stories doesn’t mean it’ll happen in the series because there’s an awful lot of changes and an awful lot of places to go and things to do. It should be clear by now that while, of course, Doyle is our absolute god, we have gone quite a long way away as well – we’ve introduced Sherlock and Mycroft’s parents [for instance], I don’t think they’ve ever been seen in any adaptation – so there are lots of surprises to come.”

But if they do go along and kill Mary, then the next thing that happens in the Doyle stories is Watson returns to Baker Street and to crime solving with Sherlock (Benedict Cumberbatch). I think that would make fans happy.

[Source: Radio Times]

Mark Gatiss Says To Expect Tragedy In Sherlock Season 4

“may your righteous claws rake the guilty flesh from our lawless bones”

recommended by @ianboothby. i only used a fragment of his tweet

The official synopsis have been released for the crossover event between the CW / WBTV’s superhero shows The Flash and Arrow. In the description for the Flash’s half, there is mention of an emotion altering villain named Roy Bivolo. In the comics Roy G Bivolo is the colorblind painter turned Rogue Rainbow Raider. If IMDB is to be believed, he will have a different name: Chroma.

The other half of the crossover gives us Captain Boomerang / Digger Harkness and ties into the Suicide Squad.

Actor Paul Anthony (Fairly Legal) will play Bivolo while Nick Tarabay (Spartacus) will be Harkness.

“Flash vs. Arrow” 

PART ONE OF THE EPIC CROSSOVER EVENT WITH THE FLASH AND ARROW — Barry (Grant Gustin) is thrilled when Oliver (guest star Stephen Amell), Felicity (guest star Emily Bett Rickards) and Diggle (guest star David Ramsey) come to Central City to investigate a case involving a deadly boomerang. Excited about teaming up with his friend, Barry asks Oliver if he’d like to help him stop Ray Bivolo, the meta-human Barry is currently tracking. Bivolo causes people to lose control of their emotions and has been using that skill to rob banks. Unfortunately, the superhero partnership doesn’t go as smoothly as Barry expected. When Oliver tells Barry he still has a lot to learn, Barry sets out to prove him wrong by attempting to stop Bivolo alone. However, when Bivolo infects Barry and sets him on a rage rampage, everyone is in danger, and the only one who can stop him is the Arrow. Meanwhile, Iris (Candice Patton) is furious when Eddie (Rick Cosnett) tries to get a task force to stop The Flash, Joe and Dr. Wells (Tom Cavanagh) agree the Arrow is a bad influence on Barry, and Caitlin and Cisco deal with a new team in S.T.A.R. Labs. Glen Winter directed the episode with story by Greg Berlanti & Andrew Kreisberg and teleplay by Ben Sokolowski & Brooke Eikmeier (#107). Original airdate 12/2/2014.

“The Brave and the Bold” 

PART TWO OF THE ARROW AND FLASH CROSSOVER EVENT — Oliver (Stephen Amell), Arsenal (Colton Haynes) and Diggle (David Ramsey) track down the location of a boomerang-wielding killer named Digger Harkness (guest star) but are surprised when they come face to face with an A.R.G.U.S. team. Diggle asks Lyla (guest star) why A.R.G.U.S. is involved but she defers until Harkness attacks the building, killing several agents and targeting Lyla. The Arrow joins the fight and gets help from an old friend – The Flash (guest star Grant Gustin). Harkness manages to get away and Oliver teams up with Barry again to find him before he can get to Lyla. When Harkness plants five bombs in the city that are timed to explode at the same time, both teams must come together to save the city. Jesse Warn directed the episode with story by Greg Berlanti & Andrew Kreisberg, and teleplay by Marc Guggenheim & Grainne Godfree Schwartz (#308). Original airdate 12/3/2014.

The Flash And Arrow Crossover Includes An Unexpected Villain

Mark Bristow writes for Bleeding Cool,

Dr. Harrison Wells is Barry Allen, approximately 15 years older.

The Flash has been swerving viewers into believing Wells to be a sort of villain (Zoom?), but it’s only that: A swerve. We know that it’s likely that Eobard “Eddy” Thawne is Zoom, using a first name alias that sounds accurate to the times.

All of Wells’ actions have been geared towards securing a certain future and Wells has a suspicious knowledge of how Barry’s powers work. Viewers assume he’s using calculations, but Wells is rarely shown doing so. The answers just come from the top of his head.

If you pay close attention, it seems Wells has seen all of this before. This is known history to him.

We know that in 2024, the Flash vanishes in a Crisis.

In reality, he only vanished because he was chasing Thawne back in time to try to prevent his mother’s death.

Something happens that leaves Barry stranded in 2014 without any super powers. He’s only left with a ton of time to prepare for the future, knowing that he will encounter his younger self soon and debut as the Flash.

Wells has suggested to other characters that he wants to reclaim what he’s lost. Viewers assume he means his natural mobility, but he’s actually referring to his speed powers and his mother.

We recently learned that Barry Allen is 25 years old.

Do the math. 25(2014)+10 years=35(2024).

If Wells has been trapped in the past from the moment Zoom killed Barry’s mother, add another 15 or so years to it.

35+15=50, approximately the age Harrison Wells appears to be.

There’s also the issue of his name.

In the past, Barry has listed The Time Machine as his favorite book…

Who’s the writer of that book? H.G. Wells.

This is Barry being a dork about his clever alias of Dr. Harrison Wells.

Dr. Wells’ glasses and wheelchair are there as a disguise. A cover. He didn’t start using the chair until he anticipated meeting Barry Allen and having people witness their interactions. He’s trying to increase the difference between their similarities while still remaining familiar to the people who’ve known him for the past 15 years.

What jumpstarted this theory? I was using the Flash as background noise and found that I was confusing Dr. Wells and Barry’s lines due to the similarities in their voice and delivery.

Then I compared their faces. Their nose, their mouth, their ears and hair..Their build. The actor was obviously cast due to his similarities to Grant Gustin (if aged close to 50) and has been delivering his lines similar to Gustin.

Dr. Harrison Wells is Barry Allen, aged 50ish, having gotten stranded in the past at age 30, around 15 years ago, while pursing Zoom back in time to save his mother.

Flash Facts?

The Great Flash Conspiracy Of 2024?

Comic stores will be getting this mini-poster, advertising the upcoming line of Star Wars titles from Marvel Comics. Front and back… shops will get a batch on the 3rd of December if you fancy grabbing one.

Here Are The Star Wars, Darth Vader And Princess Leia Marvel Posters Coming To A Store Near You

“yes, but how will this help solve the case?”

“in due time. now constable i shall need absolute privacy for approximately 4 minutes”

Helen Rittelmeyer looks back to the origins of lowbrow conservatism, surveying the “pamphleteers, satirists, and hacks” who took up Edmund Burke’s critique of the French Revolution and its defenders, like Thomas Paine, in the 1790s:

[A]nother lawyer thought that it would be better to answer Paine than to muzzle him. This was John Reeves, an ultra-monarchist barrister andjournalist who in 1792 founded the Association for Preserving Liberty and Property Against Republicans and Levellers. (If only the modern Tea Party had resurrected that name.) Later, when Reeves was charged with seditious libel for having written a pamphlet so fulsomely pro-monarchy that it appeared to reduce parliament to a mere appendage, Burke wrote eloquently in his defense, claiming that while the pamphlet had probably gone beyond what was strictly orthodox, its author was guilty of nothing more than a few ill-chosen metaphors.

Within a year of the Association’s first meeting—in a tavern, the Crown and Anchor—there were more than 1,000 clubs spread throughout the kingdom, their mission to halt the spread of Jacobinical ideas among the British public. Modern historians have focused on the Association’s more rambunctious pastimes, like burning Tom Paine in effigy and throwing the occasional radical in the local river, but far more of their effort was spent distributing loyalist literature. Reeves loved the excitement of publishing more than the practice of law, and he took great relish in reprinting suitable tracts—such as the Rev. William Paley’s unselfconsciously titled Reasons for Contentment, Addressed to the Labouring Part of the British Public—and, later, in accepting unsolicited submissions from amateur scribblers eager to help the cause. Prices were kept low partly to entice poorer buyers and partly to allow rich sympathizers to buy literature in bulk and hand it out for free. One pamphlet was listed at “Price only ONE HALFPENNY, or 3s. per Hundred to such as give them away.”

(Image of John Reeves by Thomas Hardy, 1792, via Wikimedia Commons)

It was a question I came across a few times after the announcement of the Black Panther movie by Marvel. What Black Panther comics to read? Marvel promoted the Reginald Hudlin run the most but some found it lacking.

Well, Amazon now has the answer, with a listing for Black Panther by Christopher Priest: The Complete Collection Volume 1.

A series of trade paperbacks with around twenty issues in each, collecting Priest’s run on the book. One of the stellar casting decisions of Jimmy Palmiotti and Joe Quesada, Priest on Black Panther was wonderful. It got a little choppy towards the end, but at the beginning with Mark Texeira, it was pure damn brilliant and worked as a perfect companion to his Quantum And Woody comic with Mark Bright (also now available in Omnibus form).

Playing with the narrative form, with a writing style that emulated the hot drama of the day, The West Wing, Priest gave us a royal leader being brought down to earth by his unfortunate associated, and a variety of events beyond the ken of man, but he always seemed to be planning one step ahead.

If the eventual movie turns out half as good, we’ll have a better film than Guardians Of The Galaxy and Winter Soldier combined.

Of course, we don’t need that film. All we need are the comics…

The Complete Christopher Priest Black Panther, Out Next Year

Big Hero 6 is a smash of a film. And some folks know it was based on the original Marvel comics, even if it’s something Marvel would rather not remind anyone of, letting Yen Press and Joe Books publish new comic books featuring the characters, and keeping the original versions out of print..

But we can go even further back, before their planned first appearance in Alpha Flight, the original designs, the very first drawings ever ofHiro and Baymax from 1998 from Steven T. Seagle and Duncan Rouleau, now of Man Of Action Entertainment, running a new sketch every day this week!

As for those comic books? Alpha Flight #17 just sold for $192…

The Original Hiro And Baymax Designs For Big Hero 6 From 1998

This Wednesday, the highly anticipated Django/Zorro #1 from Dynamite Entertainment, will be in comic shops. Considered the official sequel to the hit film, the comic series is being written by Quentin Tarantino and Matt Wagner, with art by Esteve Polls and a main cover by Jae Lee.

For more information on Django / Zorro #1, click here.

Progress Art – Jae Lee’s Django / Zorro #1 Cover

Yesterday, the president threw his full support behind the principle of net neutrality, urging the FCC to reclassify broadband Internet services as a public utility:

Obama’s argument explicitly rejects proposed rules that FCC considered earlier this year to allow paid prioritization, a plan by which content providers can make deals with ISPs to get faster service to their websites. (Those rules are still under consideration and have not been finalized.) The White House proposal calls for no paid prioritization, no blocking of any content that is not illegal, and no throttling of Internet services, where some customers have their Internet speeds artificially slowed down. The proposal also asks that any new rules include mobile broadband, which is already the primary access point for many users.

As the president himself reminds us, the FCC does not answer to him, and does not have to listen to (or even consider) his suggestions. So there are no guarantees that any of these rules will even come to pass. However, an endorsement by the White House would be the strongest push yet toward an FCC that treats all Internet traffic as equal.

Phillip Bump calls this politically smart:

[S]iding with people against Comcast (which actually is subject to a higher standard on neutrality than other companies for now) and other cable providers is hardly a political misstep. (Do you love your cable company? Right. Thought so.)

It also helps repair relationships with the tech community that were splintered in the wake of the National Security Agency’s spying revelations.

When leaks from Edward Snowden revealed the extent to which the agency was infiltrating social networks, it put firms like Facebook and Google in an awkward commercial position. The administration reached out to the companies as it planned revisions. But an embrace of net neutrality –backed by big companies that don’t want to have to pay more to push out their content — is a big win for for tech. It could use one; its marquee midterm race went poorly.

Jason Koebler weighs the reaction from net neutrality proponents:

At first blush, it looks like many of the most net neutrality supporters are happy with Obama’s announcement. Tim Karr, senior director of strategy at Free Press, who has organized many of the net neutrality protests called it “huge.” Tim Wu, who invented the idea of net neutrality, called it “100 percent on target.” The Electronic Frontier Foundation also backed Obama’s statement.

Of course, in the end, this is the FCC’s decision, and chairman Tom Wheeler has already proposed a mostly maligned “hybrid” proposal that is apparently already being thrown out because of the backlash it received when its existence leaked more than a week ago. In that proposal, paid prioritization could occur between content providers and ISPs: Netflix, for instance, could pay to have its content delivered faster to consumers. In his statement, Obama said that’s no good.

David Dayen detects a message here about what kind of lame-duck president Obama plans to be:

As for the president, this maneuver signals that he’s not looking to be a caretaker in his final two years, at least on discrete issues. Net neutrality activists correctly reasoned that getting Obama involved would provide the surge of support they needed for reclassification, and they targeted him as much as the FCC over the past several months. Obama showed that he listened, and it should give some solace to other groups wanting him to use his executive authority. In other words, Obama’s action on net neutrality is very good news for those who want him to move on immigration.

Nick Gillespie remains staunchly opposed to what he calls a dumb policy:

The most likely outcome is that regulators will freeze in place today’s business models, thereby slowing innovation and change. That’s never a good idea, especially in an area where new ways of bundling and delivering content are constantly being tried. It’s a historical accident that cable companies, who back in the day benefited from monopoly contracts with local governments, have morphed into ISPs. That will not always be the case, as the rise of Verizon (originally a phone company) and Google’s rollout of its own fiber system, attest. Just a few years ago, the FCC frowned on the cell-phone company MetroPCS’s discount plan that allowed access to the World Wide Web but denied users multimedia streaming. The FCC and Net Neutrality proponents thought that was a bad thing. Customers on a budget had a different opinion.

James Pethokoukis also opposes Obama’s proposal:

Keep in mind that the Obama plan would give the FCC, according to R Street’s Steven Titich, “the widest range of alternatives for economic and technological regulation of broadband.” And, of course, make the agency an even more attractive target for the lobbying class. …

All this, then, just to lock in “net neutrality” – a situation that does not exist and never existed — despite the risk of limiting new investment and innovation, Obama wants the FCC to treat the internet like a public utility. But the Obama proposal is based on flawed model of how the internet operates. Half of the internet’s traffic comes from just 30 content providers such as Google and Facebook. And they’ve already made special arrangements by plugging directly into the ISPs. “Fast lanes” already exist. Again, R Street’s Titch: “There’s nothing about network neutrality to “preserve.” A regulation that pretends there is would serve to remove an economic incentive needed to ensure that broadband infrastructure is sufficiently robust to support the demands contemporary applications have placed on it.”

But Adam Clark Estes argues that opponents are overstating the level and nature of regulation Obama is proposing here:

If the idea of using an 80-year-old law to regulate a super futuristic communications technology worries you, you’ll be very glad to know that the president’s got your back. In his statement, there is this brief but very important line: “I believe the FCC should reclassify consumer broadband service under Title II of the Telecommunications Act—while at the same time forbearing from rate regulation and other provisions less relevant to broadband services.” (Emphasis mine.)

So the first part of it is the big reveal. Obama wants the FCC to treat broadband companies as common carriers. Telephone companies are also a common carriers regulated under Title II of the Telecommunications Act. However, this does not mean that Obama wants the FCC to apply all of the same regulations for telephones to broadband internet.

Meanwhile, here’s Ted Cruz’s response:

Yglesias tries to translate:

What, if anything, that phrase means is difficult to say. But its political significance is easy to grasp. All true conservatives hate Obamacare, so if net neutrality is Obamacare for the internet, all true conservatives should rally against it.

The asinine analogy prompted Matthew “The Oatmeal” Inman to create this explainer cartoon.

Josh Marshall declares it’s “that Democrats don’t know (and nobody else does either) how to get wage growth and productivity growth or economic growth lines back into sync”:

Democrats have toyed (and I use that term advisedly) with the issue of rising inequality for the last two elections. But let me suggest that as a political matter inequality is a loser. What is driving the politics of the country to a mammoth degree is that the vast majority of people in the country no longer have a rising standard of living. And Democrats don’t have a policy prescription to make that change.

Here is a chart we’ve probably all seen some version of. The gist is that while productivity growth has been relatively consistent through the post-war period, productivity became unchained from wages in the early 1970s. Despite a modest bump up in the 90s and another small one in the aughts it’s really never come back.

He admits that populism isn’t going to fix this problem:

Fundamentally, most people don’t care particularly how astronomically wealthy people are living their lives. It is a distant reality on many levels. They care a great deal about their own economic circumstances. And if you are not doing any better than you were 5 years ago or a decade ago or – at least in the sense of the hypothetical median wage earner – 40 years ago, that’s going to really have your attention and shape a great deal of your worldview and political outlook. …

But what are the policies that would change this corrosive trend? And how do you run on them as a party if you don’t know what they are? Minimum wage increases help those at the very bottom of the income scale and they have a lifting effect up the wage scale as the floor gets pushed up. But it is at best a small part of the puzzle. Clamping down on tax dodges by the extremely wealthy claws back some resources for the treasury and sends an important message, as might some restrictions on ridiculously high CEO pay. But again, these are important changes at the margins that do not fundamentally change the equation. Economic populism or another comparable politics with a different tonality won’t get you very far if you can get beyond beating up on the winners to providing concrete improvements to those losing out in today’s economy.

Relatedly, McArdle contends that the “lack of a clear and stable career path is … a worse problem than the wages paid by firms that employ large amounts of low-skilled labor”:

You can do anything for a short period of time, including slave away for very low wages. But for this to be true, your labors have to lead somewhere other than more slavery at very low wages. … Consumer confidence remains depressed, and it will not get un-depressed just by raising the hourly wage. Most people don’t want better unemployment benefits; they want to be able to stop worrying so much about losing their jobs. Nor do they want to spend the rest of their life working at McDonald’s for a better wage; they want to leave the hot kitchen for a better job. That’s still what’s missing.

“Many of us Canadians are confused by the U.S. midterm elections. Consider, right now in America, corporate profits are at record highs, the country’s adding 200,000 jobs per month, unemployment is below 6%, U.S. gross national product growth is the best of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries. The dollar is at its strongest levels in years, the stock market is near record highs, gasoline prices are falling, there’s no inflation, interest rates are the lowest in 30 years, U.S. oil imports are declining, U.S. oil production is rapidly increasing, the deficit is rapidly declining, and the wealthy are still making astonishing amounts of money.

America is leading the world once again and respected internationally — in sharp contrast to the Bush years. Obama brought soldiers home from Iraq and killed Osama bin Laden.

So, Americans vote for the party that got you into the mess that Obama just dug you out of? This defies reason. When you are done with Obama, could you send him our way?” – a letter to the editor of the Detroit Free Press from a baffled Canadian.

(Hat tip: Addicting Info)

Iran:

Dog lovers in Iran could face up to 74 lashes under plans by hardline lawmakers that would ban keeping the pets at home or walking them in public. A draft bill, signed by 32 members of the country’s conservative-dominated parliament, would also authorise heavy fines for offenders, the reformist Shargh newspaper reported.

Dogs are regarded as unclean under Islamic custom and they are not common in Iran, although some families do keep them behind closed doors and, especially in more affluent areas, walk them outside. Iran’s morality police, who deploy in public places, have previously stopped dog walkers and either cautioned them or confiscated the animals. But if the new bill is passed by parliament then those guilty of dog-related offences could face lashes or fines ranging from 10 million rials to 100 million rials ($370 to $3,700 at official rates).