FDIC insuring girft cards now.

A FDIC gift voucher for all

From the people that brought you GE Capital’s participation in the Temporary Liquidity Guarantee Program - FDIC is now insuring ‘Stored Value Cards’.
Exsqueeze me?
Yes, that would be Stored-Value-Cards (and other non-traditional access mechanisms). According to the definition provided by the NY Fed these are:
… one of the most dynamic and fastest growing products in the financial industry. Anyone who makes purchases with a merchant gift card, places phone calls with a prepaid telephone card, or buys goods or services with a prepaid debit card is using a stored value card.
In other words, gift voucher cards, pre-paid telephone cards and any other prepaid debit cards.

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Is it just me, or is the FDIC getting just a tiny bit overextended here?

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Getting Big and Visionary at the FCC: Break the Cable Kings

My hope is that they recognize the current possibilities and 'go big' for huge structural changes in the industry that get this country around the current bottlenecks holding us back from inexpensive broadband and video services. TTelecoms are bad, but the cable industry is in an especially corrupt arrangement. During the Bush years, this industry has become accustomed to wild and reckless behavior. One joke I've heard from people in the industry is that a cable company is a PAC attached to a billing service, and that doesn't seem too far off the mark. For instance, it appears as if various cable companies are using the transition to digital TV to rip off customers, and the FCC is asking for information to investigate the charges. Rather than complying, their conservative trade association the National Cable and Telecom Association explained that "a broad fishing expedition involving substantially an entire industry is not a legitimate investigation but an information collection that is masquerading as an investigation." In other words, the cable industry is literally uninterested in following the law, and explicitly so. MORE

Prop H8te and other lgbt issues roundup

First, you get Mad

In the week-and-a-have since proposition 8 was defeated, I've been taken to task for saying that people had the right to be angry after prop. 8 passed. I've read blog posts advising that me that "anger loses." (And, no disrespect to the blogger who wrote that post, but if one more person tells me "We all won," I might just explode. We did not "all win," some of us had very painful losses, even in the middle of all celebrating.) I've heard premature "calls for healing." I even did a double take when I saw a sign on the bus declaring "Anger is false power," but then realized it was a poster for anger management counseling.
Maybe anger management is necessary sometimes, but this time? Fuck it. There are times when anger is a natural, justified, and even powerful reaction.
Where would gay people be without anger? The event that launched the modern gay rights movement was a riot that started when the police raided the Stonewall Inn on the wrong night, queens weren't having it and fought back. Where would we be without that bunch of pissed off queens and dykes, right?MORE

Join the Impact!

Daily Kos MEGA Diary on Prop H8te Protests around the Nation (including tons of blogs and pics) Anti-Prop H8te Protests held Nationwide 10,000 in DC for Equality

Thousands Gather in Austin to Join the Impact

Hundreds Rally in Detroit for National Day of Protest

California Supreme Court Will Hear Challenges to Proposition 8

Use your heads folks. The religious right are watching us

Gays and Straight Allies Protest for Marriage Equality Across Nation

Talkin' 'bout a Queer Revolution Roundup

Via Andrew Sullivan
The View from your Protest Series

Las Vegas, Missoula Montana, Baltimore, Greenville South Carolina, Seattle. Santa Fe, Long Beach, Grand Forks North Dakota, , Chicago, Nashville, New York, Cummington, Mass (Pop. 785). St Louis, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Dallas, San Diego. Amsterdam, Salt Lake City, Toronto, Boston, Madison, Wisconsin, Houston, Tallahasee, Philliphedia, Denver, Atlanta, Sacramento, Vermont, Iowa City, Corvallis, Oregon, DC, Minneapolis, Toronto, Amsterdam

Mormon Church Issues Statement on Democratic Process

What The LDS Prophet Told The Mormons About The "Protect Marriage"/Yes On Prop 8 Campaign

Rainbow of civil rights groups petition CA court to halt enactment of Prop 8

Civil rights groups today a petition with the California Supreme Court to stop the enactment of Proposition 8 because it would mandate discrimination against a minority group and did not follow the process required for fundamental revisions to the California Constitution.

In the petition, the Asian Pacific American Legal Center, Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Equal Justice Society, California NAACP and the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. argue that in order to protect the fundamental rights of all Californians, a higher standard is required to overturn the right to marry. Minority communities cannot be stripped of their fundamental rights by a simple majority vote.

"We would be making a grave mistake to view Proposition 8 as just affecting the LGBT community," said Eva Paterson, president of the Equal Justice Society. "If the Supreme Court allows Proposition 8 to take effect, it would represent a threat to the rights of people of color and all minorities." MORE

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