DebateGate
General Category => 3DHS => Topic started by: BSB on December 14, 2011, 12:02:52 AM
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FCC acts to quiet blaring TV commercials
Reuters
6:24 PM EST December 13, 2011
U.S. communications regulators cracked down on excessively loud TV commercials on Tuesday, implementing a bill passed last year to quiet commercials to the same volume as the programs they accompany.
The Federal Communications Commission has been fielding viewer complaints about loud commercials almost as long as commercial television has existed, the agency said.
The commission voted unanimously to require TV stations and cable and satellite operators to ensure that the average volume of a commercial does not exceed the average volume of the programming around it.
Commercials for OxiClean stain remover, ShamWow towels and HeadOn pain reliever "will never be the same," FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell said at the agency's open meeting.
Commissioner Mignon Clyburn added that the agency's latest rulemaking will put an end to the "frightening decibel levels that resulted in considerable alarm, anger and spilt popcorn."
The order adopted on Tuesday implements the CALM Act, authored by Representative Anna Eshoo and signed into law last December.
The California Democrat told Reuters her idea for the bill started after "being subjected to the blast of the high volume of advertisements" while watching a football game with family.
After discovering that loud commercials had been the top complaint to the FCC by consumers for decades, Eshoo said she drew up the bill, never anticipating it would garner such an overwhelming response from consumers and fellow lawmakers.
"While this certainly doesn't resolve the huge challenges that are facing the country ... we may get some peace and quiet in households across the country," she said, adding that the FCC's action came on her birthday.
The new FCC rules enacting the CALM Act will go into effect in a year, giving TV providers until Dec. 13, 2012, to comply.
Using certain equipment and getting certifications from distributors for ads imbedded into programming will satisfy compliance requirements.
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http://news.mobile.msn.com/en-us/articles.aspx?afid=1&aid=45660862 (http://news.mobile.msn.com/en-us/articles.aspx?afid=1&aid=45660862)
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It's a good thing we have a federal government to take care of things like this.
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So true. Those remotes were getting so bothersome. Thank God our tax dollars are being used so wisely
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I just don't buy stuff from the seen on tv marketers, nor the car dealers with their come on down schtick.
Lately i have been watching Korean TV and just reading the subtitles.
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I've been watching almost exclusively online content that has had the commercials stripped out.
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This costs virtually nothing in tax dollars. it is a good thing.
They ought to jerk the licenses of those stations that only run infomercials. Every station should be obliged to run something educational or entertaining and people applauding mops and hawking bogus exercise machines are neither.
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Every station should be obliged to run something educational or entertaining?
Quit your control-freakism.
If you don't like it...dont watch it...turn the channel.
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As I said, those remotes are getting so bothersome & "technical". Thank God our tax dollars are being used so wisely
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Speaking of near criminal use of tax dollars......tangent alert.........
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Cost to tout train that may never be: Millions
Under current plans, the city of San Diego won’t be connected to the proposed California High Speed Rail system until after 2033.
State officials, however, already have spent millions planning for that day.
According to invoices obtained by the Watchdog, the California High-Speed Rail Authority spent more than $3 million on planning for the Los Angeles-to-San Diego corridor in fiscal year 2010-11, even though the agency announced in November that the segment won’t be included in the first phase of the rail system.
One-third of that – $1 million — was for public relations.
Given that opposition to the high speed rail is growing, there’s a real chance phase one may never be built, let alone phase two. All that money may be wasted.
The Watchdog asked Rachel Wall, spokeswoman for the California High Speed Rail Authority, to explain why millions were spent on a piece of the project that won’t begin construction for at least 22 years. ”I know that’s how it looks,” she said, but there were logical reasons why the authority spent the money.
First, she said, just because construction isn’t slated to begin for years doesn’t mean there isn’t work to do in the meantime. A project of this size requires a lot of environmental and engineering paperwork. All that takes time.
Which brought her to the second point: The authority wants to get as much work done as possible in case private investors want to jump in and fund some part of the project. At this point, the high speed rail project has no private investors, but officials remain optimistic they’ll join once the project gets going. Wall’s point is that the authority needs to be ready if those investors arrive and want to fund the Los Angeles-to-San Diego segment.
Incidentally, 30 percent of the money budgeted for the San Diego leg in 2010-11 went to public outreach. Once again, Wall said there was a simple reason for it.
“There are 38 million people in the State of California who need to be informed about what high-speed rail is, the project status, where the alignments and stations will be located, and the impacts to communities across the state,” Wall said in an email. “In particular, because Californians voted to support Prop 1A it is incumbent upon our Authority to inform the residents of this state how this project will affect their communities and how the dollars they allocated will be spent.”
The San Diego segment, Wall said, just happened to be at the point in the process where the authority needed to solicit public comment for some planning documents.
This year, spending for the San Diego segment is budgeted to go way down, to $475,000, with 27 percent going to public outreach.
Is this a good use of money? You decide (http://taxdollars.ocregister.com/2011/12/13/cost-to-tout-train-that-may-never-be-millions/144319/).
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I set my volume to a certain level and some advertising company, in order to push fattening food, or car insurance, over rides it, in my own home no less. Advertise all you want but don't turn up the volume on MY TV in MY house.
A mans home is his castle. You late to the party Republicans don't seem to understand that. It is the governments job to help insure, to the best of their ability, that my home stays my castle. What isn't the governments business is whether or not my wife, or girlfriend, or sister, has an abortion. You RINOs have it all back asswards.
BSB
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The airwaves do not belong to the damned exercise machine and phony real estate wheeler dealer industry, they belong to the people of the USA, and should offer something to the people in return for being allowed to use the airwaves. They can rent cable channels, they can advertise on YouTube.
If every highway were so polluted with billboard so that you could not see anything but ads, I suppose you would tell me to take a plane or something.
I am all for getting the volume down on commercials as well.
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I don't care if yours have an abortion. Just don't ask me to pay for it.
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That might be a reasonable request. It might not be also. But I don't have any relatives, that I know of, who couldn't afford to do it on their own. At the moment anyway.
BSB
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I don't care if yours have an abortion. Just don't ask me to pay for it.
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The fact is that if a woman has a child it will cost you as a taxpayer more for eighteen years or so than if you paid for that abortion.
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Not necessarily. It will cost the baby's daddy more than it will ever cost me. But that isn't the point. Why should i as a taxpayer have to pay for her elective surgery. What next, boob jobs? or penile enhancements?
I have no problem if pro-choice groups choose to fund these procedures on a sliding pay scale, i just don't see why it is the governments job to pay for it.
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not all abortions are elective. entopic pregnancy requires it to save the mothers life
reconstruction surgury for survivors of accidents like that model who walked into a plane recently
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not all abortions are elective
No "only" about 98% are!
.3% of cases caused by a rape or incest
1% of cases caused by a medical risk to the mother
0.5% of cases caused by fetal abnormality.
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just pointing out exception to the rule.
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(http://images.onset.freedom.com/ocregister/gallery/lw95vu-b78891832z.120111215075734000gk31472ln.1.jpg)
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Honest to God I don't what you guys are complaining about? The Hyde Amendment restricts the use of federal funds for abortions down to rape and incest. States can use their own money to grow the eligibility, but none do really from what I can tell. So what's the problem? By reading your posts you'd think medicaid was running a 24 hour abortion clinic on the corner of every poor neighborhood in America. That isn't the case.
BSB
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I am certainly on the side of not letting any tax payer dollars (whether it be federal, the state i live in or the local governments that have jurisdiction over me) go to funding abortions or for that matter other elective surgeries.
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So what's the problem? BSB
Planned Parenthood is the largest provider of abortions in the U.S.
For example in 2009 Planned Parenthood performed 332,278 abortions/killings.
Planned Parenthood receives about $360 million a year from the government.
Yeah by law, federal funding cannot be allocated for abortions/killings,
but allocating money to Planned Parenthood for the provision of
other medical services "frees up" funds to be re-allocated for
Planned Parenthood's abortion mill and thats why 6 states have
already passed legislation to defund the murderers at Planned Parenthood.
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Does Planned Parenthood make or loose money providing abortions?
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Planned Parenthood is a charitable organization. It largely is funded by donations.
The teenage pregnancy rate has fallen a lot in the last several years.
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Planned Parenthood is a non profit organization that is funded by donations at 40%- governmental funding at 30% (350 million)and charges for services rendered. In 2007-2008 annual report they showed a profit (revenues in excess of expenses of 85 million on an operating budget of just over 1 billion.
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Are the employees and officers of Planned Parenthood well compensated?
Can they be motivated by their carreer to defend and expand their company for the sake of career?
Do they employ a lobbyist?
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Are the employees and officers of Planned Parenthood well compensated?
Highest executive is about $400k. Many others are over $200K, and a large number over $100k.
Can they be motivated by their carreer to defend and expand their company for the sake of career?
That's a given.
Do they employ a lobbyist?
14 of them, actually. Also well paid.
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This isn't Saudi Arabia. We are a secular nation, governed by laws, we are not governed by beliefs such as abortion is equal to murder. Abortions are legal under the law. If you like Big Government, that meddles in your personal affairs, become a communist, or move to some Islamic country ruled by Sharia Law where women are shackled to a stove, can't drive a car, and have no reproductive freedom choice.
Again, you RINOs/pretend-conservatives don't get it. We open the door in this country, we let the fresh air in, we allow people to make tough personal decisions on their own. We don't make them for them. If the execution of their decision is legal, they're allowed to proceed undeterred. It shouldn't be any other way.
BSB
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Until their decision is illegal, or that their rights are infringing upon anothers, as governed by our Constitution, not Saudi Arabia's
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Sirs, you wouldn't know what freedom was if it bit you in the ass. It's a shame so many good people died to protect your rights when you don't even know what those rights are.
BSB
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Sorry, trying to pull the "I fought for this country, so you can't possibly know what freedom is" card, only works on the ignorant. Here's a hint, its founded in what we call the constitution and rule of law. You should check it out some time
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This isn't Saudi Arabia. We are a secular nation, governed by laws, we are not governed by beliefs such as abortion is equal to murder. Abortions are legal under the law. If you like Big Government, that meddles in your personal affairs, become a communist, or move to some Islamic country ruled by Sharia Law where women are shackled to a stove, can't drive a car, and have no reproductive freedom choice.
Again, you RINOs/pretend-conservatives don't get it. We open the door in this country, we let the fresh air in, we allow people to make tough personal decisions on their own. We don't make them for them. If the execution of their decision is legal, they're allowed to proceed undeterred. It shouldn't be any other way.
BSB
The only choice i am denying would be aborters is the option of having the government pay for it.
If they want an abortion, they can pay for it on their own.
If their insurance company pays for it, so be it.
If the father of the child chooses to pay for it, so be it.
If her friends and relatives want to chip in, so be it.
But i just don't see paying for elective surgery as a viable option for the federal, state or local governments. And my vote will not go to any legislator who thinks otherwise.
Just to be clear.
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>>Sorry, trying to pull the "I fought for this country, so you can't possible know what freedom is" card.<<
Big mistake.
I didn't say a word about me. People who have never been in the service talk about those who died for our freedoms all the time. Serving isn't a pre-qualification. I didn't even imply that it was. Further, I understood freedom long before I went in the service. My parents lived it, and I watched them.
That's why I ignore you, Sirs. You're a snivelling little liar, and a phoney, who post only to agitate.
BSB
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No, YOUR mistake is to erroneoous claim someone doesn't have a clue what freedoms are, because they didn't fight for this country. Here's a news flash, my Grandfather GAVE HIS LIFE for this country. His sacrafice was the greatest one could give for our freedoms to exist and continue to do so. So don't even try pulling the crap that just because someone dares to not agree with you, that they can't possibly know about the freedoms that our serveicement have fought for, and have DIED for, so that you and I can continue to argue about anything and everything that se see as wrong with this country
If there's any "BIG mistake, that'd be it
(here's a other hint that demonstrates how wrong you are...name 1 lie, much less some endless parade, you claim I perpetuate?? Where is this supposed "phonieness"?? Without any examples.....well, we'll leave the liar label for others to apply)
And ironically, the only one here caught posting to simply to agitate, is the one I'm responding to.
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"No, YOUR mistake is to erroneous claim someone doesn't have a clue what freedoms are, because they didn't fight for this country."
There's a phoney lie right there. I never said anything about you serving or not serving. I never said anything about serving making you more aware of our freedoms. In fact the truth is you could have served for 20 years, Sirs, and still not understand freedom. It isn't in your DNA. You don't get it, period.
So, as you just proved again, you're a phony, a liar, and you post only to agitate.
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The problem is BT, from my vantage point, is that if abortion, as a reproductive control, is legal, how can we say that if you can't afford it, you can't use it?
Now, I supose you can say that that is a reality of life. I can't afford to buy 10,000 acres in Montana to roam around on, have a heard of Buffalo on, build a cabin on. Hey, that's my tough luck.
BSB
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BSB
I guess it boils down to whether a legal activity, by virtue of it's legality, requires that the government ( by way of tax dollars) pay for that activity, if one can not afford it.
I don't believe that is the case.
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The problem is BT, from my vantage point, is that if abortion, as a reproductive control, is legal, how can we say that if you can't afford it, you can't use it?
Beer is legal. If I can't afford it, is the government required to keep me supplied?
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Why is killing anyone equivelent to murder?
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"No, YOUR mistake is to erroneous claim someone doesn't have a clue what freedoms are, because they didn't fight for this country."
There's a phoney lie right there. I never said anything about you serving or not serving. I never said anything about serving making you more aware of our freedoms. In fact the truth is you could have served for 20 years, Sirs, and still not understand freedom. It isn't in your DNA. You don't get it, period.
Which demonstrates how it wasn't a lie to begin with, as the implication was applied in how my "inability" to undestand freedom, made those who died for them as supposedly unfortunate. Merely because I don't agree with your twisted vew of what are and aren't freedoms, doesn't preclude one from understanding what freedom is all about. As I said, it starts with the Constitution.....OURS.....not Saudi Arabia's, or anyone else's.
So, just because you DID serve, doesn't make you the expert on freedom vs not. or who does or doesn't understand what freedom is. Left to you, our freedom to own firearms, guaranteed in the Constitution, would be suppressed, possibly to a point of outright banning from anyone owning a firearm, outside of law enforcement and/or military
Believe me, you won't win this fight on who supposedly does or doesn't grasp the point of freedom. And hint, it's not a DNA thing
But thanks for contining to demonstrate no examples of these supposed lies or posting just to agitate, which again, the only one being caught doing so, and apparently given a "time out" for it, was the person to which I'm responding to. Will let others discern where the "lie label" should be applied
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The problem is BT, from my vantage point, is that if abortion, as a reproductive control, is legal, how can we say that if you can't afford it, you can't use it?
Beer is legal. If I can't afford it, is the government required to keep me supplied?
touche'
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This is how I see it. The better off among the female half of our population were always able to get a reasonably safe, albeit illegal, abortion. There were well meaning, responsible, well trained, Harvard Medical School type, doctors who would perform the procedure, even at venerable institutions like The Mass General, before Roe vs Wade. The poorer among the female half of our population, however, often had to take far greater risks if they wanted the same procedure. Is that something we want to continue?
Now, yes, an abortion is elective, but so aren't most, if not all, medical procedures. Ted Kennedy died of a brain tumor. However, he prolonged his life by having a risky operation. While life saving, momentarily anyway, it was still elective. So, in my mind anyway, the electivity of a procedure doesn't minimize its importance.
As for the use of tax payer money, VA hospitals perform "elective" medical procedures, at tax payer expense, everyday. Many of the procedures having to do with correcting poor life style decisions such as smoking, obesity, alcohol abuse, and so forth.
I'm just not convinced that paying for an abortion, for those who truly can't afford one, puts an unfair, or unethical, burden on the tax payer. The question is more one of how many, and what kinds of, limitations should be applied?
BSB
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I'm just not convinced that paying for an abortion, for those who truly can't afford one, puts an unfair, or unethical, burden on the tax payer.The question is more one of how many, and what kinds of, limitations should be applied?
If it is a proper role of government to pay for elective surgery, why put limits on it?
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This is how I see it. The better off among the female half of our population were always able to get a reasonably safe, albeit illegal, abortion. There were well meaning, responsible, well trained, Harvard Medical School type, doctors who would perform the procedure, even at venerable institutions like The Mass General, before Roe vs Wade. .........
.......BSB
Perhaps that is the half that needs the work.
If the rich are getting a cancer that the poor are not getting , does fairness demand that there be more cancer engendering amoung the poor?
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There are limitations, protections, so forth, written into most laws governing interactions between a government/tax-payer and the citizens at large. I see no reason why abortion should be any different. Both sides need to make sure they benefit, but are protected at the same time.
BSB
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Well thank goodness we have the Hyde Amendment for federal spending and I'm pretty sure GA and FL do not pay for elective abortions, so there is that. What other states do with their tax payers money is up to them.