| |
|
Tuesday, May 30, 2006
|
|
Multi-Channel News: "The Federal Communications Commission has authority under current law to ensure that broadband access providers, today mainly cable and phone companies, do not discriminate against Web-based providers of content, search services, and applications, FCC commissioner Michael Copps said last Tuesday.
"Speaking to reporters, Copps stressed that the agency needed to go beyond hortatory policy principles and adopt enforceable rules that guarantee network neutrality and shield Internet companies without wires into millions of homes from potential misconduct by companies that do." Coyote Gulch hopes that the telcos promise is not enough for the regulators.
Thanks to the Mac Daily News for the link.
Here's a different view of the issue from Bob Frankston.
"2008 pres"
9:15:05 PM 
|
|
Captain's Quarters: "The German magazine Der Spiegel has published its interview with Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and it should disturb anyone who reads it fully. The interview reveals Ahmadinejad as a man obsessed with Jews, and one intent on provoking German resentment over its post-war humiliation to split the West on Israel."
"2008 pres"
7:06:04 AM
|
|
Doc Searls: "We've been trying for 11+ years to explain what the Net is. And it hasn't worked. Yet. The carriers don't understand us, except to the degree that they perceive our views -- and our lobbying -- as threats. The 'consumers' don't understand either, generally. One woman I know says 'I don't like the Web because I don't like mass media in general.' Really. One man I know, when I tried to tell him the thinking behind Net Neutrality, said 'I don't see how it's any different for the phone company than it is for a country. If you don't like what's flying over your territory, you have the right to shoot it down.' Really. Try this (any of us): The next time you talk to a group of citizens not from our tech circle, ask 'What is the Internet?' You'll be amazed and discouraged by their answers. For that matter, try the same thing with techies. The answers will still be all over the map. But ask anybody to define any utility or public infrastructure -- road system, phone system, cable system, railroad system, electrical system, sewage system, water system, air traffic control system -- and you'll get pretty much the same answers from everybody. They can define those things, and not the Net, because the Net is not a system. It's ... something else."
Don't it always seem to go, that you don't know what you've got, 'til it's gone. - Joni Mitchell
"2008 pres"
7:02:29 AM
|
|
Michelle Goldberg (via AlterNet): "Whenever I talk about the growing power of the evangelical right with friends, they always ask the same question: What can we do? Usually I reply with a joke: Keep a bag packed and your passport current.
"I don't really mean it, but my anxiety is genuine. It's one thing to have a government that shows contempt for civil liberties; America has survived such men before. It's quite another to have a mass movement -- the largest and most powerful mass movement in the nation -- rise up in opposition to the rights of its fellow citizens. The Constitution protects minorities, but that protection is not absolute; with a sufficiently sympathetic or apathetic majority, a tightly organized faction can get around it.
"The mass movement I've described aims to supplant Enlightenment rationalism with what it calls the 'Christian worldview.' The phrase is based on the conviction that true Christianity must govern every aspect of public and private life, and that all -- government, science, history and culture -- must be understood according to the dictates of scripture. There are biblically correct positions on every issue, from gay marriage to income tax rates, and only those with the right worldview can discern them. This is Christianity as a total ideology -- I call it Christian nationalism. It's an ideology adhered to by millions of Americans, some of whom are very powerful. It's what drives a great many of the fights over religion, science, sex and pluralism now dividing communities all over the country."
"2008 pres"
4:56:37 AM
|
|
|
© Copyright 2009 John Orr.
Last update: 3/15/09; 11:35:46 AM.
|
|
|
