Alarming News: I like Morgan Freeberg. A lot.
American Digest: And I like this from "The Blog That Nobody Reads", because it is -- mostly -- about me. What can I say? I'm on an ego trip today. It won't last.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: We were following a trackback and thinking "hmmm... this is a bloody excellent post!", and then we realized that it was just part III of, well, three...Damn. I wish I'd written those.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: ...I just remembered that I found a new blog a short while ago, House of Eratosthenes, that I really like. I like his common sense approach and his curiosity when it comes to why people believe what they believe rather than just what they believe.
Brutally Honest: Morgan Freeberg is brilliant.
Dr. Melissa Clouthier: Morgan Freeberg at House of Eratosthenes (pftthats a mouthful) honors big boned women in skimpy clothing. The picture there is priceless--keep scrolling down.
Exile in Portales: Via Gerard: Morgan Freeberg, a guy with a lot to say. And he speaks The Truth...and it's fascinating stuff. Worth a read, or three. Or six.
Just Muttering: Two nice pieces at House of Eratosthenes, one about a perhaps unintended effect of the Enron mess, and one on the Gore-y environ-movie.
Mein Blogovault: Make "the Blog that No One Reads" one of your daily reads.
The Virginian: I know this post will offend some people, but the author makes some good points.
Poetic Justice: Cletus! Ah gots a laiv one fer yew...
Net Neutrality
The House of Representatives rejected the Net Neutrality rules; the floor vote roll call is here.
According to a consensus amongst the FARK community, or at least a rancorous portion thereof, this is supposed to kill our freedom. That would be the first time, in my recollection, that government regulation would add to our freedom, or a setback to that regulation would take it away. Struggling to think of a precedent that parallels Net Neutrality, the closest one that comes to mind is the FCC regulating television and radio stations and fining those stations for incidents of obscenity and indecency.
Interestingly, among the FARK user names protesting the defeat of Net Neutrality, insisting that we somehow need this regulation to preserve the freedoms we have, I recognize several that are known to me to have bristled at the forementioned FCC regulation. The question I have for those angsty souls should be obvious.
Sarbanes Oxley has worked out extremely well for us. If you follow the hyperlink in the previous sentence, you will see I’m being sarcastic. SOX was not entirely uncalled-for; SOX had an inspirational anecdote, that being the Enron mess. Now that SOX is here, perhaps it’s a fair assessment to state that we feel the laborious effects of the regulation, more keenly than the purifying effects of same.
So the Net Neutrality people are asking me to believe the following, as I understand it: Emerging freshly from tinkering with something that they could perhaps have argued was busted, and having made a thorough hash out of it, Congress is about to tinker with something nobody thinks is busted which is the “innernets.” We need new rules to keep what we’re keeping just fine & dandy, without the new rules.
The FAQ for the “Save The Internet” political lobbying group, refers to Net Neutrality as “the First Amendment of the Internet.” The question that naturally arises as a result of this, is, doesn’t the First Amendment already apply to the Internet? I have the impression that the most critical reason why the Internet is so universally loved, and there’s such across-the-board concern about saving it, is that the answer to the foregoing is yes. How then does this situation change when a new rule is drafted, and then not passed?
As is often the case, one would think it would be easy to get an answer to such an innocuous inquiry, and it is anything but.
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