"In Cyberspace, the First Amendment is a local ordinance."
~John Perry Barlow (EFF) How do you feel about your cable company? Do they give you the warm fuzzies? Do you like the way they set up your choices of what you can watch in packages so you can't choose exactly what you want, but what they want you to have? Do you like how much they charge you? Now, how would you feel if your Internet Service Provider (ISP) changed your service so that it was set up, in a sense, like cable TV? So that for instance, if your favorite search engine is
Google, they only offered Yahoo and you were stuck with it. And if you used iTunes, they'd only give you the choice of Rhapsody or Napster? What if they could prevent you from using Myspace or Ebay? Would that kind of suck?
There is a bill in congress right now that would do precisely that. Many of you may already know about it from other blogs,
myspace.com, or
Moveon.org, and have already been to
savetheinternet.com. Everyone should. This bill, should it become law, would give the major corporations who provide internet service the power to decide what you can access and what you can't. They would be able to slow down, meaning give less bandwidth, or block entirely, sites on the web they didn't want you to use. Conversely they could speed up, give greater bandwidth to sites they want you to use. If your provider is AT&T, one of the forces behind this bill, and they develop their own search engine, then they might have a vested interest in keeping you from using Google. Or they could force Google to pay them, beyond what they already pay for bandwidth, to provide fast access to their service. They could force you to use Yahoo if Yahoo paid them what essentially amounts to a kickback, or extortion depending upon which side you view it from.
This proposed law would completely destroy what has been called the first amendment of the Internet, a principle called
Net Neutrality. Network neutrality means that providers have to allow equal access to every site on the web. Whether it's
Microsoft's or a site with pictures of your cat. It assures that every site is equal on the internet. And that affects more than where you can surf on the web. It affects everyone with a presence on the web who doesn't have big bucks to pay to insure they get preferential treatment. Arianna Huffington has a interesting
piece on net neutrality and the terminology used to publicize this fight, compared to the
newspeak used by the Bush administration to sell their agenda with terminology like the Global War on Terror. She's got links to
others who are speaking out as well.
If you're a small business, or a professional with a web site; if you have a Myspace account, or a blog, you should be concerned about this new law. It gives these corporations the power to literally silence anyone whose voice they don't like on the web. It would give them the power to censor the web. If your blog complains about AT&T, they could virtually shut you down. It will make the playing field uneven. The next set of innovators, like the founders of Google,
Larry Page and
Sergey Brin, or like the founders of
Ebay, would not have the same ability to compete and to innovate on the web that they have now. New ideas would be stifled before they start. Without the big bucks to pay for the same access as established sites, their ideas would be banished to the backwaters of the web where no one could find them.
The big corporations who support this new law, companies like AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, and BellSouth say that they should be able to charge big bandwidth users a surtax for the extra demand they put on the system. They say they could use the money to build more capacity for the next generation internet for rich media and applications, such as video, movies, and games. But the big users of the system already pay for it when they pay per gigabyte for bandwidth. Why would these companies need to be able to restrict anyone's access to anywhere on the web to achieve that goal? If bandwidth charges aren't enough,
charge more.
You Gotta Fight for Your Right To iTunes! Since
Al Gore invented it (actually he had more to do with it than you might think), the internet has become most democratic system not only in existence, but in history. This medium belongs to the people and their right to it should be protected, not given away by congress. It was originally funded by public money. Specifically the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (
DARPA). The internet was developed over many years without a governing body, by essentially volunteers who came together across many differing fields. From academia and technology and the world community at large to make it what it is. And it is precisely its nature as a decentralized, non-hierarchical system that makes it so powerful. Much of the software which makes the world wide web possible was collaborative and open source. The original
Mosaic browser,
Linux, the
Apache web server, today's
Mozilla browser and many other. The internet and the web are a kind of organized anarchy that works.
All this we call the internet and world wide web was created, essentially through cooperation by people around the world. Now corporate interests want to come in and take control of it. Everyone who uses the web, everyone who blogs, everyone who uses Myspace, literally everyone but those behind this power grab, has an interest in seeing this law voted down. We cannot let them turn the web into cable TV. Visit
savetheinternet.com now and find out what you can do to stop this law from passing. Spread the word to everyone you know who uses the web.
After checking out Rent-A-Negro.com, some of my friends will understand the true value of my friendship. I wish I had thought of it first. If I went by images in the media, I would think my economic opportunities were limited to welfare, looting, prison, the NBA (far to late and too nerdy for that one), becoming a rapper (see previous item), and being or marrying Oprah (too many reasons to list why that can't happen). It just goes to show what you can accomplish with a little bit of imagination and entrepreneurial spirit. I may contact the person running this site and see if we can start an agency. We could diversify, rent a gay or lesbian (not me, not that there's anything wrong with it). Rent an undocumented worker...I think they already have that one and if you ask me they sell themselves out too cheap. The possibilities are endless.
I just got a voicemail message this morning that was sent Monday. I guess my provider Verizon was too busy this week providing my records to the NSA to worry about good service. Now when I look at those commercials with all those people standing behind the Verizon customer representing, "the network," I wonder just how many of them are NSA agents spying on the customer for the government?
"Small is the new big."
When I first posted on Stephen Colbert's performance at the WHCD I said it was a classic and it would be remembered for a very long time. But I never thought that almost two weeks later it would still be as hot a topic as it is. To be honest when I saw it was the topic of Arianna Huffington's post yesterday I wasn't anxious to get to it right away because I didn't think there was much more anyone could say. And I seriously doubted the title of her post, which was, Is Stephen Colbert the Last One to Know How Amazing He Was? But I was wrong and I should have read it immediately. Arianna was at Time's 100 Most Influential People Awards where Colbert was honored along with her. I believe he was the keynote speaker at that event as well. Arianna spoke with him and this is what she had to say:
When the revolution comes the tax rate on capital gains will be 100% and it will be payback time for the greedy bastards who are profiting while everyone else in this country is suffering. While the deficit is approaching 9 trillion dollars and we are engaged in an ill-conceived war that is costing us billions, and there is an oil crisis. There was a time in this country when things were this bad everyone would be asked to sacrifice. The only ones that are sacrificing are young men who are sent to fight a war that never should have been started. Some of whom come home to end 
up on the streets. And the poor and middle class are sacrificing because with the cost of fuel they can't help it. But the rich are getting their tax breaks extended by the Republican congress who fears they'll be out of power by mid-term elections and unable to give the store away to the haves.
Saw Mary Cheney on Larry King Live yesterday. The VP's daughter is promoting her new book, Now It's my Turn: A Daughter's Chronicle Of Political Life. She told Larry that part of her reason for doing the book is that so many people have a misperception of her daddy. If they could only see how daddy Dick is with the grandkiddies they'd see he's just a regular guy. I can see her point, and I'd like to see Mr. Cheney with the grandkids so I could forget about how he was an instrumental part of an administration that led us into an unnecessary and unjustified war. That he is an integral part of the neocon movement who set agenda for war long before 9/11. I could forget about his secret Energy Task Force meetings with oil industry executives long before this current oil crisis and I wouldn't suspect that they had anything to do with the record profits those companies are making now. Or with the billions in tax subsidies they are receiving at the same time. I could forget about how his former company Halliburton is making billions from no-bid contracts in Iraq.
As much as I would like to see a woman president of this country in 2008, the only woman Democrat with a chance so far is becoming less and less appealing. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton is probably doing all the right things from the perspective of pollsters and political advisors. People that any candidate seriously considering such a run would surround themselves with. I can't know for sure if that's what she's doing. But it certainly appears to be. And with something like a potential presidential campaign, appearances are just as damning as the truth.
I'm going to need a couple ice cold ones to wash down my own words that I have to eat after the Lakers blew a 3-1 lead in the first round playoff series to the Suns. Specifically,
