Tea Party, Libertarianism, and Christianity

A friend of mine posted this article on Facebook yesterday:

How Christian is Tea Party Libertarianism?

I do not have anything to do with the Tea Party, but do consider myself to be a libertarian. I wasn't aware that libertarians ever proclaimed any interest in being Christ-like with regard to government.

That being said, there is an interesting point to debate about people who claim to be Christians being in the Tea Party - that they are being hypocritical by having a political conviction that is opposed to their religious one.

I reject this argument. Government can be secular, impartial, and unemotional, allowing the individual to be the opposite of all of those in any way they desire. In fact, I think this inherently allows an individual to be however they want and co-exist with others that are different.

I also reject the constant accusation of racism as a core element. I am not so naive to think that there aren't people negatively motivated by a black president, but I truly don't believe this is a motivation of significance at large. I see the political philosophy as having more of a haves vs. have-nots element - a matter of socio-economics and not race. Although the demographics are changing somewhat, the haves are still overwhelmingly white. To me, that's why the movement is overwhelmingly white. Labeling someone or a movement as racist makes it easy to dismiss them. Also, correlation does not necessarily imply causation.

Cutting cable is gaining momentum

Cutting the Cord

I'm a solid two months plus in and have no regrets to this point. I can't quite get all of the over-the-air channels over my indoor antennas at the same time, but I'm close.

I'm beginning to wonder whether I'm going to have to switch ISPs at some point though. I still have Comcast Internet and I would have to think they're not going to put up with this for too long. Also, there's a 250GB maximum per month that I'm beginning to worry about.

Live sports is the real kicker. ESPN is going to have some massive leverage over the next handful of years. I wonder which direction they should go: embrace Internet streaming or blackmail the cable/satellite providers.

Use of Government

I'll borrow one of Bill Maher's signature bits because it seems appropriate:

New Rule: Americans should stop trying to use the government to further their own agenda.

This is a fundamental problem. The government is all powerful. They make and enforce the laws. They print and control the money (or at least delegate it). They can tax at will. People know it and try to make it a tool for their own agenda. They think their use is just and right, whereas other uses are abuses of power.

The more powerful you are, the more influence you have in government.

Why not have a government that is there to prevent/punish criminal activity (including fraud) and settle civil disputes? Most everything else is a co-opt of the government's power for personal gain.

Journalist, journalist, wherefore art thou?

Obama clears way for oil drilling off US coasts

I don't necessarily have a problem with President Obama approving more drilling. What gets me is that if this had been George Bush, he would have been crucified by the media. Then again, sometimes it takes a "Nixon to China" move to get things done. I haven't looked closely at it (so I might very easily be wrong), but Obama seems to be taking a reasonable stand on energy: Let's try to get the long-term right, but understand the realities of the present as well. We need to get off of foreign oil for security purposes. We need to get off of oil for environmental purposes.

... but back to the journalism complaint...

Journalism seems to be a dead art form now. It's like the Jerry Springer Show and the National Enquirer have merged to form our national media. The ability to report in-depth and honestly has lost its importance. I'm a capitalist, so I understand that they're feeding the wolves what they want. However, what happened to non-partisan journalism? It's ironic to me that BBC News seems to be one of the most reliable, unbiased news source, yet they are a government-sponsored organization. Where's our wonderful, investigative, private, free press?

This may be a stretch to connect poor journalism with this article and Obama's energy policy, but it's the obvious bias that set off the rant.

Opposing Obama doesn't make you a racist

One thing that has been irritating me recently is the tactic of declaring that opposition to the President is because of racism. This is done through either outright accusations or implied statement. How is this any different/better than when the Republicans questioned people's patriotism (or worse) when people opposed Bush? I think that the "righties" would be acting this way to Hillary, Edwards, or any other Democratic president had they won. Bill Clinton was opposed vehemently by the (far) right. There was so much anti-Clinton rhetoric on talk radio that there was a common belief that conservative talk radio would cease to exist after Bush won because they wouldn't have anything to talk about.    

Ditching cable (part 5)

I haven't done anything new on the existing issues, but thought I'd write about the costs to this point:

Hauppauge HVR-1250	$50
NVidia GeForce 9400 GT	$50
Windows 7 Home Premium	$0 (thanks to a friend)
1GB RAM	$40
PlayOn	$30
Digital antenna	$30
Power Phone Shipping	$15
Second digital antenna	$70
Digital->Analog converter box	$40

I did purchase a 32" LCD digital TV for $350, but could have easily just gotten a converter box for $40. So, there's $310 of unnecessary expense there. Additionally, I can get my second antenna for about half of the $70 I paid somewhere else. I need to do a return/purchase of that.

I need to take back my $70 antenna and $40 analog converter box, get two antennae and a different converter box. My basement TV has no tuner in it, but is digital ready. The box I got is actually an analog converter. I also need to get a Roku box for down there.

Ditching cable (part 4)

Cable is gone. I still have some work to do with my antenna signal and WiFi, but cable is gone. Internet service cost a little more than I realized because there is a discounted rate if you have cable TV. So, the updated costs are:

$58 - Internet
$15 - Phone
$9 - Netflix

Total = $82 + some taxes. I'll follow up with how much money I spent to get to this point, but I am at a savings of $70 per month. I'm now inspired to tackle other recurring expenses. I'm thinking that insurance (house, car, life) is probably the next thing to look at.

Ditching cable (part 3)

Well, I'm having some struggles. First of all, I went to a Terk HDTVa indoor antenna because the other, cheaper ones (passive from Philips and amplified from RCA) just weren't cutting it. I can't seem to find a good position to get all of the "over the air" channels. I really don't want to put one outside. That opens up a whole host of things that I don't want to do - aesthetics and wiring issues. I'll play with this a little more and report back. Ultimately, I get most channels, but can't get my PBS and NBC stations without compromising the rest of the channels. These both provide 3 stations that are all watched in our house.

The other, larger problem is that I'm using WiFi to stream content from PlayOn for Netflix, Hulu, and other sources. I get very frequent pauses in playback to the point where I consider it unwatchable. I'm pretty sure that the problem is with WiFi because I have some movies ripped to ISO on a NAS box that have a similar problem. I'm going to investigate ways that I can optimize my WiFi capabilities. I'm also looking into dropping Ethernet into my living room and basement.

The Windows Media Center I have upstairs is hard-wired. Its streaming is perfect. I still have antenna issues with over-the-air TV, but I haven't put the Terk antenna on it yet.

I really want this to work, but don't know how much leash I'll have with the family. For the moment, I'm not even worrying about the basement TV (which is the best one of them all). Also, I'm not sure what I'll do with the TVs behind the bar (and their wall mounts) down there.

Ditching cable update

Well, I'm cranking along. I actually called to cancel cable yesterday. I missed some fine print on the bundle I was looking to go do (Internet + Phone) even after I looked for the fine print. I am not eligible for that bundle, so the unbundled price was not as attractive.

Existing pricing:
$130 for TV/Internet/phone
$15 for HD-DVR
$5 for cable modem rental
($150 total + tax)

The unbundled pricing:
$43 for Internet
$40 for phone
$5 for cable modem rental
$9 for Netflix (part of the cable replacement)
($97 total + tax)

Not to be deterred, I told them I would look to cancel all of my Comcast services if need be. They offered me $20/month for 6 months off of my current pricing. Whoop-dee-doo!

I found a cheap, but well reviewed, VoIP provider Phone Power. I signed up for their month-to-month plan for $20. If I'm satisfied, I will go to their $15 plan or even one of their "prepaid for a year" deals.

Comcast Internet is good. I'll keep it, but I already have my own Linksys cable modem. I had to rent one because of the phone service. Without their service, I can drop their cable modem.

New pricing:
$43 for Internet
$15 for phone ($20 initially)
$9 for Netflix
($67 total + tax)

I purchased a 32" LCD with a digital tuner to replace my downstairs 23" CRT. That was a bit of a splurge at $350, but a decent price. I also got one digital converter box for my 51" basement TV and two antennas for these two TVs. My DVR will be solely on the upstairs 32" TV running from Windows Media Center. There may be a way to stream that to my other media players, but I haven't investigated that yet.

To run Netflix and Hulu (via PlayOn), I am going to bring my original Xbox with XBMC up from the basement to go onto the new LCD. Its wireless is a bit shaky from there, so I'm hoping that moving it closer to the access point upstairs will make it better. It's possible that the Xbox doesn't have enough processing power. I'm hoping that's not the case. My backup is getting a Roku box (or two).

The Wii will move downstairs to the basement as the source for PlayOn. Allegedly, a Netflix CD will become available for the Wii which should make that interface better. PlayOn will be used for Hulu and other things at that point.

More to come...

Ditching cable...

... I think ...

Every month, I look at the cable bill and think I don't need it. A friend posted this link on his Facebook page and I checked it out.

CancelCable.com

He is a single guy that, presumably, only has one television. He has no children.

I am married and have children. I have six televisions in my house, although I only regularly use three of them for general viewing. Only one is HD - a 51" rear-projection, with no tuner at all, in the basement. The other two are a 32" CRT (upstairs playroom) and 23" CRT (downstairs living room). The 23" has a Wii with it. The 51" has an original Xbox with XBMC on it. None of them have a digital tuner.

I currently have Comcast cable. I have direct coax for each of the TVs, except for the 51". It has a Comcast HD DVR attached to it. Overall, I've been fine with Comcast's service and channel offerings. It's the price that I'm getting tired of. I looked at satellite and it's not much different.

So, why now? Well, Comcast is in the process of going all digital. I stuck with them all these years because I could hook a coax into any regular TV and get service - no box, no extra cost. This is about to end. Now, I have to either have a digital tuner or one of their converter boxes for each TV. They will give me two at no additional cost, but I have to pay more for my other TVs. I have zero TVs with a digital tuner. This is not the end of the world, but it's been enough of a push to get me off my butt to investigate the ideas in the above website.

I decided to experiment this past week with the 32". This is because a couple of months ago, I had fitted one of my PCs with a digital TV card (Hauppauge HVR-1250 - $50) and a video card with an S-Video out (NVidia GeForce 9400 GT - $50). Using Vista Media Center, I was watching digital cable, including HD, on my TV as a second monitor. There were a lot of logistical problems though with video, remote, mouse, and sound. It worked ok if nobody was on the computer, but it got ugly when they were.

Having this hardware already gave me the perfect opportunity to sample what the website suggests, which is to use digital over-the-air and a Roku box. I simulated the Roku box with Media Center. I decided that the PC needed to be dedicated to avoid my initial problems. I had a third PC downstairs that I wasn't really using. It was a "throw-away" from my mom when she bought a new one. I brought it upstairs and moved the video and TV card into it. It only had Windows XP on it however. All of the new, cool Windows Media Center stuff seemed to be focused on the Windows 7 Media Center. I have a friend at work that was able to hook me up with Windows 7, so I installed it.

I bought a digital antenna ($20 at Wal-Mart) and attached it to the digital tuner. I signed up for a trial Netflix membership. Since Hulu is another biggee, I added it though a software called PlayOn. PlayOn allows streaming of Hulu and Netflix (among others) to various devices. There is a WMC add-on called PlayIt for PlayOn. It also allows my Wii and XMBC on XBox to play Hulu and Netflix on the other TVs.

I've been in test mode for the last day. I'm cautiously optimistic. The Wii's graphics are a little weak and I haven't tested XBMC yet. On WMC though, it's fantastic.

So far, the overall negatives are:

- Can't just sit and channel surf. You can with the locals, but that's pretty limited.
- It's not as simple as sitting and turning on the remote.
- I'm not using a uniform interface. That means it's different for each TV.
- I haven't solved the "most watched" cable channels: ESPN, Disney, and Nickolodeon.
- Tolerance for TV being down if the Internet is down will be interesting.

... more to come!