Friday, April 28, 2006

It's an election year... and the entire U.S. wants net neutrality*


BellWest Network Neutrality
Click the picture for a cool video explaining net neutrality

Hmmm... two thousand four... plus two... carry the one.... yes, by golly, it is an election year. Perhaps these GOP jackasses (c'mon, you know I love you) can get off the telcos' dole for a day and side with the rest of entire U.S. population:

With midterm elections looming, GOP leaders will come under increasing pressure to make a choice. Will they continue to back their few phone and cable industry supporters and keep the open Internet safeguards off the table? Or will they recognize that a genuine digital-age protest movement is emerging that could further harm their party's chances in November? The next few weeks will reveal whether the "smart mobs" can win over a tiny handful of communications monopolists.

Here's another great snippet. TechSearch asks the question, "Is AT&T $1 Million Contribution An Illegal Payoff?" I've heard of shady-sounding deals before, but this may be #2 after only Mollohan:

AT&T certainly knows how to spend its money wisely. It's donated $1 million to fund the pet project of a Congressman who has vowed to back a law letting AT&T and other telcos hijack the Internet. Is the contribution an illegal payoff?

The Chicago Sun Times reports that AT&T has donated $1 million to a community center founded by Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Ill.). Rush is a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, which is writing telecom law that would give AT&T everything telcos want, from killing net neutrality, to letting telcos establish municipal video franchises without government oversight.

Gosh, that smells funny.

Ever wonder why the telcos spend so much on lobbyists rather than, oh I don't know, value-creating new applications like Skype and Vonage? For the love of...

And don't think for a second that killing net neutrality isn't a huge issue. It has already happened in Canada and the results weren't pretty:

In July 2005, Canada’s second largest telephone company, Telus, blocked their customers from visiting a website sympathetic to the Telecommunications Workers Union as management was in the midst of a contentious labor dispute.

Without network neutrality, the network owners like Verizon and Comcast will have a powerful incentive to manipulate the network to enhance their own search engines, video streaming archives, online shopping portals, blogging engines, and voice-over-Internet services. To get the same quality of service, a company like Google, Yahoo, Vonage or Amazon will be forced to pay a premimum. The barriers to entry for the next generation of Internet innovators will rise. Those who refuse or cannot afford to pay will be left in the slow lane.

So what we have here is the entire left and right sides of the blogosphere teaming up against one foe: telco management and their lobbyists.

Go to Save the Internet now. And get involved.

Or, you can ignore the situation, and leave the future of the Internet in the hands of the two remaining telephone companies, a couple of cable operators, and their lobbyists. And what could possibly go wrong with that?

* The entire U.S., except for the telcos' management and lobbyists

Finally - someone talks some sense about Oil


The crew at Powerline quotes Congressman Mike Conaway (R-TX), the one sensible voice I've heard thus far:

There is a great hypocrisy in America's national energy policy. As long as politicians continue to demagogue energy companies and oppose legislation that addresses the long-term problem of rising energy costs, we will continue to fail the American people.

Yes, oil companies are making large sums of money in real dollars; however it is disingenuous to simply look at the raw dollar amounts without looking at these numbers in the proper economic context. We need to look at the percent of return these companies are making. In reality the oil and gas industry's earnings are easily comparable to other industries and in many cases lower.

According to Business Week and Oil Daily magazines, the oil and natural gas industry earned 5.7 cents for every dollar of sales compared to an average of 5.5 cents for all U.S. industry over the past five years. By contrast in the third quarter of 2005 the pharmaceuticals industry made a profit of 18.6% per dollar of sales versus 7.6% for the oil and gas industry. The average profit per dollar for all US industries is 7.9%. ***

It is time for Congress to look at the facts. It is the global market place and the law of supply and demand, not greedy oil companies that are responsible for higher prices. The price of a barrel of oil is set by the global market not by multinational energy companies... We must enact legislation that would open ANWR, expand refinery capacity, reduce costly fuel regulation and allow for deep sea exploration. These are long-term issues that could have made a difference today had we avoided political posturing and addressed them years ago. It isn't too late for us to do the right thing now and begin enacting common sense legislation like increasing supply and increasing research and development regarding alternative sources of energy.

We must stop allowing the issue of rising energy costs to be clouded with misinformation and politically motivated emotion.


Can I get an "indeed"?

Update: Make it two voices of reason. Krauthammer gets it right with, "Say it with me, 'Supply and Demand'".

Thursday, April 27, 2006

"The Tony Soprano Model of Networking"


In a vote of 34 to 22, the House Committee on Energy & Commerce rejected a network neutrality amendment to the Communication, Promotion and Enhancement Act of 2006. This despite the fact that a bi-partisan groundswell of support for net neutrality has erupted literally overnight.

The SavetheInternet.com coalition includes: Gun Owners of America, MoveOn Civic Action, Craig Newmark of Craigslist, Glenn Reynolds (aka ...Instapundit), Parents Television Council, United Church of Christ, the American Library Association, the Consumer Federation of America, Consumers Union, Common Cause, Public Knowledge, and other major public interest groups. The coalition is spearheaded by Free Press, a national, nonpartisan group focused on media reform and Internet policy issues...

"The diversity of this coalition underscores the importance of this issue," said Vint Cerf, one of the fathers of the Internet and Google's Chief Internet Evangelist. "When the Internet started, you didn't have to get permission to start companies. You just got on the Net and started your idea."

"It's shocking that the House continues to deny the will of the people on an issue that affects everyone so directly - protecting the free and open Internet," said Eli Pariser, Executive Director of MoveOn.org Civic Action. "Our bipartisan coalition will rally the online community like it's never been rallied before, and together the public will overturn today's enormous blow to the freedom principle that's made the Internet great."

We need your help - so keep reading. Columbia University Professor Tim Wu weighed in with some devastating quotes yesterday:

"...Ninety-four percent of Americans have either zero, one or two choices for broadband access..."

Given the concentration of market power between the telcos and the cable companies, Wu said it was clear AT&T, Verizon, Comcast and other power players could make more money by distorting competition between Internet firms.

"It AT&T can, through implicit threats of degradation, extract a kind of protection money for those with the resources to pay up," Wu said. "It's basically the Tony Soprano model of networking, and while it makes sense for whoever is in a position to make threats, it isn't particularly good for the nation's economy, innovation or consumer welfare."

Wu also explained a little history -- why it's clear the carriers will, if permitted, distort, block and hamper any website that doesn't pay into their little protection racket:

The history... goes as far back as the 1860s, when Western Union, the telegraph monopolist, signed an exclusive deal with the Associated Press. Other wire services were priced-off the network - not blocked, but discriminated against. The result was to build Associated Press into a news monopoly that was not just dangerous for business, but dangerous for American democracy.

...“Western Union had exclusive contracts with the railroads; AP had exclusive contracts with Western Union; and individual newspapers had exclusive contracts with AP. These linkages made it difficult for rival news services to break in." The AP monopoly had an agenda: it didn’t just favor Google or Yahoo - it went as far as to chose politicians it liked and those it didn’t... AP used its Western Union-backed monopoly to influence politics in the late 19th century, even going so far as to exercise censorship on behalf of the State. The method was simple: when faced with messages from disfavored politicians, the wires simply didn’t carry them...

Think a world without network neutrality won't stifle Internet innovation? Think it doesn't endanger America's technology leadership position? It sounds like it's already starting to do so:

Pushing such regulation through will be difficult for the Internet companies, says Blair Levin, analyst with Stifel Nicolaus... "Right now, I would never invest in a business model that depended on protection from Net neutrality," says Levin.

Translation: I won't invest in an Internet startup. Only the big boys can afford the tarriffs.

The telcos don't want brilliant ideas like Skype, or Vonage, or Jajah to survive... they further endanger the telcos' dying, circa-1962 business models. That's why the carriers spend more on lobbyists than on innovative applications.

Go to Save the Internet now. Do your part to preserve Internet neutrality.

Schumer plans to learn Law of Supply and Demand... someday


Egg-cellent snippet from Hugh Hewitt regarding the attack on big oil by Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-Moonbatia). That's right, Chuck: ignore the incredible growth in oil demand exemplified by China and India. And ignore the fact that the Democrats' rhetoric has kept U.S. supplies tight by locking up ANWR for a generation (if all of Alaska were a football field, ANWR would be the size of a postage stamp). And let's also ignore the fact that oil prices get the jitter when, oh I don't know, Iran goes nuclear. Lastly, let's set aside the fact that multiple investigations have led to exactly zero assertions of collusion or price fixing. Supply. Demand. It's not real complicated. Unless you're named Chuck Schumer.

"I don't forecast prices of either gasoline or oil," Secretary of Energy Bodman told me at the start of today's show, but he did agree that events in Iran, Venezuala and Nigeria could send oil to prices which would result in $4 a gallon gas.

The key to our conversation was that pricing is out of the hands of the oil companies, and has been for some time. Senator Schumer's grandstanding is an extended display of either economics illiteracy or shameless opportunism, or both, but no matter the source of Schumer's absurd statements, they are another vivid example of the proposition that, no matter what the problem is, the answer can't be more Democrats.

Wednesday, April 26, 2006

Why doesn't President Bush use Powerpoint?


We live in the era of iPod, Xbox, and Web 2.0. And yet, our leaders and politicians act as though they are little removed from the Lincoln-Douglass debates of 1858 in their use of technology. They wear make-up and gesture with rehearsed motions. They utter carefully couched sound-bites. And, in general, they seldom get their messages across.

Hey! This is the age of Powerpoint! Why couldn't they do presentations when they make their case? Here's an imagined speech regarding the need to invade Iraq... accompanied by a presentation:

Saddam Hussein


Many well-meaning -- but otherwise uninformed -- folks have questioned the need to take out Saddam Hussein. At left is Salman Pak in Baghdad. It's a terrorist training camp. On the left side is a Boeing 707, which was used exclusively to train hijackers. Yes, I said hijackers. We don't know how many thousands of terrorists trained here.


Saddam Hussein’s vice president, Taha Yassin Ramadan, is the man responsible for funneling money from Baghdad into the hands of the families of homicide bombers. The check at left was used to pay the family of Fuad Isma’il Ahmad al-Hurani... who blew himself up in a Jerusalem restaurant called the Moment Café. 11 people were killed in that bombing and 52 wounded.


Another Hussein-funded bomber blew up this bus. The little girl pictured at left was one of the victims -- Abigail Litle -- the American daughter of a Baptist Minister killed on March 5, 2003.


So once again... why doesn't President Bush use Powerpoint?

p.s., you can read more about Hussein and terrorism here.

Bi-partisan support for net neutrality


I may be just a simple caveman and your beltway madness confuses and frightens me. But last time I checked, most Instapundit readers and Second Amendment-backers were members of the GOP. It looks like net neutrality is what we might want to call a "bi-partisan-amalike issue":

Technology companies deem the Barton language inadequate, as do nonprofits organized as Save the Internet. The group, which will formally launch on Monday, is expected to include about 40 consumer groups, media reform organizations and authors of Web logs. The American Library Association, Glenn Reynolds of the Instapundit blog and Gun Owners of America will be at the launch...

..."If the telecoms believe they can frame opposition to their power grab as a liberal or anti-free-market attack, they are sadly mistaken," said Craig Fields, director of communications for the gun owners' group... Last week, the progressive political group Moveon.org sent out an "action alert" urging its members to tell Congress to include network neutrality in its telecom bill... Ben Scott of Free Press, which organized the Save the Internet group, said "the idea is that there is a strange-bedfellows coalition on net neutrality, with all kinds of people concerned about the future of the Internet, and wanting to make sure that everyone is treated equally."


Read "'Net Neutrality' Debate Heats Up As Lawmakers Return To D.C." and remember to visit Save the Internet!

Tuesday, April 25, 2006

Cool pictures of Manhattan


Here's a link to a Flickr album with startlingly cool pics of Manhattan: Manhattan Album

House Judiciary Meeting on Net Neutrality Today


Heard enough about network neutrality to get you scared? Worried about the telcos and cable companies killing off neutrality and ending the era of Internet innovation (think Skype, Vonage, Jajah and other creative applications)? Now it's time for you to get involved.

What You Can Do Now: Contacting Key Members of Congress

Here's a message you can use:

Congressman (or Senator), as a GOP supporter and fundraiser, I want to express my extreme disappointment in your apparent willingness to side with the telcos in the matter of network neutrality.

At risk is America's leadership role in Internet innovation. Google, eBay, Amazon, Vonage and others create value, evident through their market capitalization values. Erecting tollbooths on the Internet does the opposite - it subtracts value. And the telcos -- through their spokespersons and the hardware they plan to purchase -- clearly intend to create artificial tollbooths on the Internet to maximize revenue and defeat innovative services that threaten their business models.

How would a startup compete with large companies who are able to pay prioritization tarriffs? What will prevent a telco from entering any market and blocking competitive traffic? The risks of ending network neutrality are simply too high.

The wording of prospective neutrality legislation can be clear and direct: blocking, monitoring, filtering, or impeding packets based upon type, source, or destination should be strictly forbidden.

America's national security and economic well-being hang in the balance. I -- and many other members of the GOP -- urge you to reconsider your position on network neutrality.

Call now. Operators are standing by.

TechWeb: Net Neutrality Debate Heats Up

Avoiding the commute


The folks over at OmniNerd (yes, Virginia, there is such a site and it does appear to be populated with nerds) have a fascinating statistical analysis of commuting. The best part: graphs that plot departure time (the X-axis) against commute time (the Y-axis). If you could assemble this data for your commute, you might find anomalies in the traffic patterns that would allow you to save a bunch o' minutes per day!

OmniNerd: Avoiding the commute

Monday, April 24, 2006

Net neutrality not an optional feature of the Internet


It's one of the finest opinion pieces on the importance of network neutrality that I've read. Daniel Berninger, writing in GigaOM, summarizes the critical importance of neutrality on continued innovation:

Beware of the monopolist that wants the “market” to decide. If there actually existed a healthy market for Internet access, users would certainly switch away from service providers tinkering with performance based on kickbacks from content companies. The toll collecting ambitions of the telco’s and cable co’s hinge on the absence of market forces. The fights against municipal wireless initiatives and lobbying budgets that exceed R&D budgets arise to defeat any leakage of market power. Network neutrality forces a virtuous cycle where winning requires making offers faster and cheaper. This dynamic accounts for growth in the info tech industry as platform improvements expand the range of possible applications.


Read it all. GigaOM: Net neutrality not an optional feature of the Internet

Related: Jeff Pulver is holding a Viral Marketing Contest to Save the Internet. If you have video or marketing skills, you'll want to check it out.

Great News


Here's a news site that's filling a niche: the Great News Network (GNN) publishes only uplifting, positive stories. Yes, it sounds maudlin and somewhat pathetic. It's not. One of the first stories I read was excellent: The Mercury-News'
Tiny reactor boosts biodiesel production
 .

Sunday, April 23, 2006

How to grow $100K to $14M in five short years

The reprehensible Rep. Alan Mollohan (D-WV) resigned from the top spot on the House Ethics Committee this week. Ostensibly in charge of policing ethics violation, this rocket scientist is now under much-needed scrutiny from federal prosecutors. They are reviewing Mollohan's finances after a complaint was filed by the National Legal and Policy Center in February. Why? A meteoric increase in Mollohan's personal net worth, which seems directly correlated to U.S. budget riders (earmarks) paid to non-profit groups. Uhm, oh yeah, those groups were reportedly fronts for Mollohan's friends and relatives.

Rich Galen explains this egregious behavior in all its gory detail:

I've just about had it with everyone. First of all we have these continuing stories of Members of Congress acting badly. Either they are guilty of outright bribery and corruption, or they are acting in a way that is so close to the edge that they make the Duke Lacrosse team look like a Brownie troop selling Thin Mints in the garden center parking lot.

This thug Mollohan from West Virginia is typical - remember he's the guy who, on an annual salary of about $160K managed to grow his net worth from about $100,000 to something on the order of $14 million in just five years - but he's certainly not alone.

And as much as the Democrats wish they could say it's all the Republicans; I wish I could say it's all the Democrats.

It's both. Not all, but both.

Meet Philip Winikoff


The old National Lampoon Magazine used to have advertisements for a flip-open wallet and official-looking badge that read, "Federal Breast Inspector." I always thought it was a joke. Until today.

Meet Philip Winikoff. The 76-year-old Florida man was arrested this morning and charged with sexual battery after he posed as a doctor and went door-to-door--black doctor's bag in hand -- offering women free breast exams...


Smoking Gun: Fake Breast Doc Busted

Senators face scrutiny for national security leaks


The era of intentional national security leaks -- the NSA's international wiretaps, CIA rendition programs, and so forth -- may be drawing to a close. The leaks all seemed designed for one purpose: to damage the Bush administration. Now credible sources report that "dozens of leak investigations are underway" at the Justice Department.

In the most startling development, MichNews notes that Senators Rockefeller (D-WV) and Durbin (D-IL) may be required to undergo polygraph examinations:

During the Bush Administration, a nexus of politicians, government workers and members of the news media have worked overtime in leaking classified information. From the secret terrorist prisons to the National Security Agency's super-secret surveillance program, intelligence officials and the Bush Administration have had to watch their counterterrorism efforts neutralized for political reasons...

...any senator or Congressional staffer that holds a security clearance can be asked at any time to take a polygraph. The individual can of course refuse to take the test, but failure to do so is reason to remove that person's security clearance. Babbin further said that Senators Rockefeller, Durbin, and Wyden, and some on their staffs will soon be requested to take polygraphs.

...no senator has been disciplined for leaking since 1987, when Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) was forced to give up his seat on the powerful Senate Intelligence Committee. It was discovered he leaked classified information to reporters. Now he's on the Senate Judiciary Committee which is currently investigating top secret information regarding the NSA surveillance activities.


Flopping Aces gives us even more background information and analysis on the story. And Gateway Pundit has more. Lots more.

Saturday, April 22, 2006

The Battle over Web Server Market Share


The Internet-tracking organization Netcraft set off some alarm claxons over in Bruce Perens' neighborhood. Netcraft calculates, among many other stats, web server market share. Last month, Microsoft's IIS gained 5% of share (to 25% against Apache's 62%), but Perens fears it was through nefarious means.

Domain name registrar GoDaddy is used by many resellers. And it switched its domain parking systems from Apache to IIS, resulting in the market share changes. Speculation abounds that GoDaddy was "incented" by Microsoft to switch the domain-name parking lot to IIS.

Parked sites don't possess content or applications, so switching these domains is only a marketing tactic. It isn't as if these domains represent real market-share. Perens, though, has an open-source solution...

Technocrat: OpenSourceParking.com

Amazon taking orders for the Skype WiFi Phone


Frequently in 802.11 wireless hot-spots? Tired of high cell-phone charges? An answer may be closer than you think with Netgear's new SPH101 Skype WiFi Phone. It's not shipping just yet, but Amazon is taking pre-orders at $250 a pop (that's marked down from $300). The SPH101 works wherever you can find a WiFi connection...

Zarqawi hates email


Yeah, I been gettin' all your email haterade. All y'all infidels be texting and emailing, and it's all like "yo Zarks where u at? Al Qaeda cut off your TypePad account? LOL!!!"

Hey cuz, act like you know. Like the Zarkman got time to be blogging... with the Q1 decapitation reports overdue, and Fatima all up in my grille wantin’ money for the kids' summer martyr camp, and Team Satan sendin’ another crew of laser-guided "downsizing consultants" every freaking day.

Fo real, you think Zarkman got time to play penpal with you chumps? Cracka, every damn morning I got an Outlook inbox full of fresh steaming dung to deal with. Meeting notices from Zawahiri. Overdue notices from the IED suppliers...


IowaHawk: Zarqawi hates email

"The mushroom cloud is on its way!"


The Counterterrorism Blog provides much-deserved coverage of a protest outside the Israeli Consulate:

The Queens-based Islamic Thinkers Society (ITS) held a rally yesterday outside of the Israeli Consulate in Manhattan. Members of the Islamic Thinkers Society are easily identified by their Khilafah flags and provocative signs as well as rhetoric against homosexuals, Jews, Christians, Danes and others, depending on the hot button issue at the moment. Yesterday's rally was held in response to Monday’s Tel Aviv bombing that killed 9 and injured scores. While carrying signs including “Islam will Dominate” with a picture of an Islamic flag over the White House, the small but loud group of men chanted threatening slogans...

...Zionists, Zionists You will pay! The Wrath of Allah is on its way!
Israeli Zionists You shall pay! The Wrath of Allah is on its way!
The mushroom cloud is on its way! The real Holocaust is on its way! ...

And the mainstream media. Couldn't. Care. Less.

"The mushroom cloud is on its way!"

Friday, April 21, 2006

Ahmadinejad's Demons


The history of Iran's mullahocracy is worth contemplating as it grasps its first nuclear weapons. Ahmadinejad seeks the Apocalypse. How does one negotiate, then, with those who seek "the end of days"?

For an answer to that question, contemplate this anecdote from the proud military tradition exemplified by Iran's current leadership:

During the Iran-Iraq War, the Ayatollah Khomeini imported 500,000 small plastic keys from Taiwan. The trinkets were meant to be inspirational. After Iraq invaded in September 1980, it had quickly become clear that Iran's forces were no match for Saddam Hussein's professional, well-armed military. To compensate for their disadvantage, Khomeini sent Iranian children, some as young as twelve years old, to the front lines. There, they marched in formation across minefields toward the enemy, clearing a path with their bodies. Before every mission, one of the Taiwanese keys would be hung around each child's neck. It was supposed to open the gates to paradise for them.

At one point, however, the earthly gore became a matter of concern. "In the past," wrote the semi-official Iranian daily Ettelaat as the war raged on, "we had child-volunteers: 14-, 15-, and 16-year-olds. They went into the minefields. Their eyes saw nothing. Their ears heard nothing. And then, a few moments later, one saw clouds of dust. When the dust had settled again, there was nothing more to be seen of them. Somewhere, widely scattered in the landscape, there lay scraps of burnt flesh and pieces of bone." Such scenes would henceforth be avoided, Ettelaat assured its readers. "Before entering the minefields, the children [now] wrap themselves in blankets and they roll on the ground, so that their body parts stay together after the explosion of the mines and one can carry them to the graves."

These children who rolled to their deaths were part of the Basiji, a mass movement created by Khomeini in 1979 and militarized after the war started in order to supplement his beleaguered army.The Basij Mostazafan--or "mobilization of the oppressed"--was essentially a volunteer militia, most of whose members were not yet 18. They went enthusiastically, and by the thousands, to their own destruction. "The young men cleared the mines with their own bodies," one veteran of the Iran-Iraq War recalled in 2002 to the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine. "It was sometimes like a race. Even without the commander's orders, everyone wanted to be first."

The sacrifice of the Basiji was ghastly. And yet, today, it is a source not of national shame, but of growing pride...


The New Republic: Ahmadinejad's Demons (registration required)

Thursday, April 20, 2006

A new take on Internet Telephony


Internet telephony just got a little more interesting with the introduction of Jajah.com. Jajah gives you a web form and asks you to enter two telephone numbers: yours and someone else's. Jajah's service initiates the connection by dialing both phones simultaneously. Pick up the phone, the remote party picks up their phone, and now you're connected via a pure IP service.

True, the pranking possibilities are limitless. Here's a helpful hint: don't connect your Mom's mobile phone with Weight Watchers or your buddy's phone with Alcoholics Anonymous.

You get five minutes to try the service for free. After that, it's a pure pay-as-you-go model, with costs that are spectacularly low. Calling a landline in Germany? Expect a tad less than 2 cents per minute. How about China? Just a fraction over 2 cents per minute.

Message for the telcos: this is precisely the kind of service I'm talking about in when I advocate adding value  at layers 4 through 7. How about investing in services like this, that could actually create value, rather than continue to erect useless tollbooths on the Internet? Oh, that's right, you folks think it's 1959 and you're still a full-fledged, government-sponsored monopoly. Forget it.

Give Jajah.com a try.