Yahoo actually came up with something similar http://acss.io/
Benefits over just using inline styles:
1) support for pseudo-classes (:hover)
2) reduce markup bloat (shorter class declarations vs equivalent inline-style declarations)
>It's almost like they want to be able to point at any given part and say "I'm the reason that happened".
I suspect this is done by people that feel like they will need to justify their job later. Having something to say when your manager (or others) inevitably ask "So, what exactly is it that you do here?"
This seems to be also prevalent in the movie and tv industry. (Though I wouldn't COMPLETELY disparage the usefulness of studio/executive notes; see: Star Wars)
I don't think that the press is giving him a pass, so much as what he is doing has the approval of BOTH parties.
The press (I'm talking about the one that drives the political discourse, in this case, the major news networks) is divided into three teams:
1) MSNBC aka Team Democrat
2) Fox News aka Team Republican
3) CNN aka Team WE'RE NEUTRAL WE'RE NEUTRAL, PLEASE DON'T CALL US BIASED
Team Democrat will almost never say a bad word about Obama because he is a Democrat (and this would anger his base, aka their viewers).
Team Republican actually APPROVES of what he is doing so don't attack him on it (instead choosing to focus on attacking a fictional Obama character who is a "Socialist Atheist Muslim Commie Infiltrator born in Kenya").
This leaves CNN, who out of fear of ever being called biased, attempt to be neutral (as opposed to objective) and so take part in "he said, she said" journalism, and right now, both he and she are saying the same thing: "OBAMA NATIONAL SECURITY POLICY GOOD".
examples:
1) Democrats say Obama's new healthcare bill will help decrease the deficit, Republicans say it will add to the deficit. What's the reality? The f*ck should I know? It's not like we do any investigative journalism here, let me instead have a split screen of two a$$holes engaged in a shouting match. One representing team Democrat and the other, team Republican.
2) Democrats say that Paul Ryan's budget proposal does not offer any specifics as to how exactly he would lower the deficit and thus is not a serious proposal. Paul Ryan disagrees. Who's telling the truth? I don't know, it's not like I know how to read or anything.
I also specifically picked these examples to mention another trend, that of CNN (and other news networks/outlets hoping to earn the moniker of neutral/bi-partisan), fearful of charges of being part of the "liberal media" will over-correct, and usually be harsher on Democrats than Republicans.
Sen Wyden has been great on these issues. See also http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120523/11415519051/wyden-... Where the Obama administration would not share the contents of the TTP (Trans-Pacific Partnership) agreement with congress or senate, while representatives of U.S. corporations are being consulted on the agreement.
That's right, penalizing heavy users is not against net neutrality, although depending on how a company goes about doing this it could yield some pretty bad PR (see: AT&T throttling of users that have Unlimited plans).
As to why an ISP should not be able to go further with offering you a "Non-You-Tube/Grooveshark-Plan", that is actually the main thing that Net Neutrality was created to stop. ISPs filtering traffic and access to websites based on content.
The greatest fear that proponents of Net Neutrality have is that ISPs will begin walling off the Internet and restricting access to sites in an effort to increase profits.
Currently, the internet is the closest thing that society has to pure competition and freedom of expression.
Imagine if when Facebook first started, MySpace had spent millions paying ISPs to slow down all traffic to Facebook.com, they would have effectively killed it.
Or imagine if a rich billionaire on the Right (or the Left) did not like what a certain website was saying about him and/or his ideology, he would be able to pay ISPs to slow down all traffic to those sites (thus providing a chilling effect on free speech and expression).
And anyway, if your aim is to reduce the cost of an internet connection, the best thing to do would be to increase competition among ISPs. Without competition, even if the costs of ISPs go down, they have no incentive to decrease prices (unless doing so could increase their bottom line), in fact, they may even increase prices if the choice to consumers is either pay more for internet or have NO internet at all.
A large problem with the high cost of the Internet is that many ISPs either through the government become the only company that can legally provide Internet service in an area (government supported monopoly), OR like it is where I live (Montreal, Canada) there is a small number of ISPs and they have carved out regions that they have decided NOT to compete.
My understanding, and what I mean by Net Neutrality is that ISPs should treat packets that I access equally. This does not prevent ISPs from providing tiered services or instituting network caps.
For example, if I get a plan that promises:
1) 5 mbs download
2) 1 mbs upload
3) 15 GB usage cap
The ISP is well within it's rights to provide me with such a slow connection, as long as the packets I access on that slower connection are treated equally.
Net Neutrality is not concerned with providing everyone the same internet speeds, but rather that packets are treated equally (ie throttle all packets equally, instead of discriminating against certain packets).
Benefits over just using inline styles: 1) support for pseudo-classes (:hover) 2) reduce markup bloat (shorter class declarations vs equivalent inline-style declarations)