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FCC approves $50 monthly internet subsidies for low-income households during pandemic:
The Federal Communications Commission on Thursday approved final rules for a new broadband subsidy program that could help struggling families pay for internet service during the pandemic.
The agency's $3.2 billion Emergency Broadband Benefit Program provides eligible low-income households with up to a $50 per month credit on their internet bills through their provider until the end of the pandemic. In tribal areas, eligible households may receive up to $75 per month. The program also provides eligible households up to $100 off of one computer or tablet.
The congressionally created program is aimed at closing the digital divide, which has become painfully apparent over the past year as millions of Americans have been forced to work and learn remotely. Some have also raised concerns that the digital divide could affect access to the vaccine as signups typically happen online.
[...] Last year, Congress passed a coronavirus relief package that contained provisions for the FCC's new program. And the FCC has established a fresh task force this year to improve the data it collects on broadband availability, which could ultimately help the agency better target its efforts to close the gap.
[...] "This is a program that will help those at risk of digital disconnection," Rosenworcel said in a statement. "It will help those sitting in cars in parking lots just to catch a Wi-Fi signal to go online for work. It will help those lingering outside the library with a laptop just to get a wireless signal for remote learning. It will help those who worry about choosing between paying a broadband bill and paying rent or buying groceries."
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 06 2021, @02:49PM (22 children)
Anybody know anything about starting a tribe?
How?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 06 2021, @02:54PM (6 children)
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 06 2021, @03:06PM (1 child)
First they gave more subsidies to tribes. and no one stopped them.
Then they gave more subsidies to BIPOCs, and no one stopped them.
Then they gave more subsidies to transvestites, and no one stopped them.
Then they tried to give subsidies to me, and there was no one to stop them.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 07 2021, @01:29PM
So instead of trickle down economics it's trickle up economics?
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 06 2021, @03:51PM (3 children)
Hey, you palefaces signed the treaty agreeing to consider us differently from yourselves. 'Twas your own racism got you into this mess.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 06 2021, @04:19PM (2 children)
There is no difference between native and non-native that should form the basis of unequal treatment. Natives should never have been confined to reservations, and the current reservation system encourages discrimination and poverty. It must go.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 06 2021, @04:53PM (1 child)
From a quick look at the Neanderthal page in wikipedia... [wikipedia.org]
...so no, unlikely the neanderthals were here in North America until the Republican party was formed.
--
Oh, ...and the treaties were about "nations" - not races.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 06 2021, @09:42PM
>> A 2017 study claimed the presence of Homo at the 130,000 year old Californian Cerutti Mastodon site in North America, but this is largely considered implausible.
A Homo in California? Yeah, that's implausible... not.
(Score: 2, Redundant) by Runaway1956 on Saturday March 06 2021, @03:16PM (8 children)
Easy peasy. Just take a time machine back more than 500 years, and be there to greet the European invaders.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 06 2021, @03:21PM (7 children)
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday March 06 2021, @05:13PM (6 children)
??
You might explain what you mean there. If you mean that the first nations warred against each other, well, yeah. There was a lot of that. I'm not aware of any major die-off immediately preceding the arrival of Columbus. Immediately AFTER Columbus' arrival, the Americas were overwhelmed with multiple pandemics, of course.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 06 2021, @06:01PM (3 children)
Go back a few thousand years. Humans and protohumans have been in both Americas for 30,000 years. What we call “natives” were far from the first arrivals.
New discoveries are literally rewriting history. We’re all out of Africa. Eliminated the competition there too. Nobody arose spontaneously anywhere else in the world, not even the @native people.” They came from Africa too ultimately. And succeeding waves often eliminated previous inhabitants, same as they eliminated Neanderthals in Europe. We’re rewriting the last 300,000 years of Homo sapiens history, and the last 35,000 years of colonization of the Americas. There are literally no “natives “ anywhere in the world today. So treat everyone as brothers and sisters, and treat them equally. Because we all are member of an invasive species with a long history of being absolutely awful to each other.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Saturday March 06 2021, @06:31PM (2 children)
OK, yeah, it seems to be more people are accepting that humans arrived in the Americas in waves, starting long before the Clovis. As for "eliminating" the competition? I suspect that the competition was absorbed, as often as not. We have people today with Neanderthal and Denisovan DNA in their makeup. With both, it was a combination of elimination and absorption. If/when we find the evidence of the very first man or man like person on the American continents, we will probably also figure out that our ancestors interbred with them. I'll make no claims to that interbreeding being entirely consensual. I expect that the men were probably killed off and/or enslaved, and the women taken as slaves, including wives, concubines, and sex slaves.
I'm not going digging today, but there is already evidence of separate groups of people in South America arriving, prospering, then being displaced to other parts of the continent. A lot of their descendants are still there today.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Sunday March 07 2021, @02:08PM (1 child)
Perhaps there've been more recent discoveries, but as I recall genetic evidence suggests that none of the early-wave American peoples have any living descendants - none of their distinctive genetic markers have been found in any modern individual.
What's still not clear is whether the newcomers wiped out the previous waves, or the previous waves had already died out before they arrived. However, the fact that there was apparently no intermixing suggests they had already died out - even the most bloodthirsty invaders tend to at least keep some of the prettiest women.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday March 07 2021, @03:51PM
Some food for thought.
https://io9.gizmodo.com/did-pacific-islanders-reach-south-america-before-columb-465444995 [gizmodo.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 06 2021, @06:09PM (1 child)
No idea what he's referencing, but the Indians weren't the first people. There were the Clovis People [humanoriginproject.com] before 'Native Americans' (wiki version [wikipedia.org]) and people well before them. What exactly caused the extinction of the various groups is unknown.
I don't understand the self flagellation over the past. Two groups fought, one group lost. Like has happened since the time of the first two groups ever met and had a dispute, and will happen until the day humanity vanishes from existence.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 07 2021, @02:51PM
Now with nukes!
(Score: 4, Touché) by srobert on Saturday March 06 2021, @05:33PM (4 children)
Seeing how quickly the subsequent comments devolved into race bickering makes me think we're already too tribal.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 06 2021, @06:11PM (2 children)
Racist customer: I want a white car.
Salesdroid: what kind of car?
Racist customer: a white one.
Salesdroid: but what kind of white one?
Racist customer; there’s only one kind of white car. It’s white. Don’t give me any of your politically correct bs about how black cars are the same as white cars.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 07 2021, @12:07AM
Now if only you could educate the racists about reality. Let me know if you have any luck.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 08 2021, @10:04AM
Black cars heat up much faster and to a higher temperature if parked in the sunlight on a hot day. Not caring what type of car as long as it is white could be quite rational.
(Score: 0, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 07 2021, @02:53PM
> Seeing how quickly the subsequent comments devolved into race bickering makes me think we're already too tribal.
I blame the Jews.
(Score: 0, Redundant) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday March 06 2021, @09:46PM
Just buy a curly brown wig and a pair of those joke glasses with the integrated Mr. Potato Head nose and say you're Jewish. You will then get free money and be allowed to be a racist self-supremacist legally shielded from any criticism.