Fitz?

Wow! Sheer luck.

I posted this days ago, but it got tangled up with all these things going on the internet commercially. I am also the eggman.

Thank you for the warning…. hate having to clean the monitor but the keyboard is just such a mess!

it’s a zit!

Fitz!

Dorgan!

the world and Connecticut is full of “Jane Hamshers of the Left” … the Poodle Posse however is unique !

I’ve been looking for a place to put some investment dollars. Anyone familiar with a good internet tube maker?

rwcole – youtube must make tubes, right?

“The Internet needs to go on a diet!” — mwee hee.

GA’s Supremes just upheld that ban on same-sex marriage too (a course).

Mexican Goopers attempting to steal the election according to their opponents from the left. Ballots found in garbage dumps. Leftist candidate threatens mass protests- country fears violence- etc.

We may be about to find out what might have happened had Al Gore really raised hell in 2000.

Maybe if the internets got their tubes tied they wouldn’t be multiplying so much.

-Ted S.

Internet faces tubal ligation.

Three charged in plot to sell coke formula to Pepsi.

That’s pretty funny- in that blind taste tests have ALWAYS shown that people prefer the taste of Pepsi- people just THINK that they prefer Coke.

Maybe gooperism is a lot like Coke.

Jon Turley has a good article about the two wolves in black robes(Alito & Roberts) who are turning into the far right, pro-unitary executive, pro-business, anti-people, worker and environment rubes they pretended they weren’t during their sham-o-riffic hearings.

Welcome to the new world order.

-GSD

This Stevens guy is a complete moron, what is it with these idiots and their sinister tubes??

Here is another amusing take on this “bridge to nowhere” idiot:

http://blog.wired.com/27BStrok…..id=1513010

…faces tubal litigation, perhaps?

Local bloggers might want to challenge the Republican bloggers in their state to support net neutrality.

Those internet tubes thingies wouldn’t happen to be the same size as the tubes Saddam was using for his centrifuges, would they?

Here’s another cartoon take on our tubal friend:

http://www.agrippinaminor.com/…..ubes-1.jpg

OT, but important info for anyone not receiving Roots Project email — part of last night’s message from Mark Browner-Hamlin:

Hoosier Roots Project podcaster Fini Finito scored big dirt on Arkansas Senator Mark Pryor, who is committing to support Joe Lieberman regardless of the wishes of the Democratic voters of Connecticut. How’d he do it? By calling up the Senator’s office and asking his staff to go on the record about his position on Lieberman’s announcement that he will run as an independent if he doesn’t win the CT primary.

Here’s my transcript (http://www.baltimoregroupblog.com/2006/07/05/senator-pryor-to-back-lieberman-no-matter-what-the-outcome/) of Fini Finito’s conversation with Pryor’s Deputy Communications Director Crystal Waitekus (last name has not been confirmed) from earlier today. You can hear the audio here, about three minutes into the podcast (http://www.gcast.com/u/finifinito/rootsproject?nr=1&&s=79554484).

Crystal: I spoke with our communications director about it. He’s the one who gave me the official word, so, um, so, yeah.

Fini: Could you just repeat what you told me in our conversation previously?

Crystal: I wrote it down, hold on let me find it for you. I’m kind of new at this.

Fini: And you’re with Senator Pryor’s office, correct?

Crystal: Yes. The senator will be supporting Lieberman no matter what the outcome.

Fini: Thank you very much, I appreciate that.

Pryor is the DSCC Southern Vice Chair, so it’s disappointing to hear him cast doubt on the value of the Connecticut primary when it looks like the DSCC will support the winner.

Pryor, along with fellow Gang of Fourteen Senator Salazar, has chosen his pal Joe over the idea of the Democratic Party and is fully prepared to ignore the outcome of the August 8th primary. With moderate Dems like Biden and Boxer going to campaign for Lieberman and Russ Feingold and Hillary Clinton promising to support the decision of Connecticut’s Democratic voters, the divisions between Senate Dems are getting sharp.

Pryor and Salazar have proved themselves horrendously out of touch with the most basic processes that make the democratic ideal manifest. Lieberman’s decision – and Pryor and Salazar’s pledge to stand by Joe – are indicative of a startling level of disdain for democracy and the Democrats who have voted them into office. Democratic voters have no obligation to stand by these turncoat Dems who are enabling Lieberman to cut and run from the Party.

Call your senators and put pressure on them to support the decision of Connecticut’s voters. Call the DSCC. Call Pryor and Salazar and let them know we don’t want Democrats to support former Dems over real Dems. Our elected officials’ response to Lieberman’s actions have tremendous consequences for the power of the average citizen’s vote and we can’t stand by while some senators try to undermine the democratic process to help their buddy.

She’s a beauty. A one in a million girl.

-The Tubes

Also if you are so inclined to learn more about this issue from Doc Serls (lets just say he knows a bit about more than Stevens about this issue).

http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/8673

kurotenshi @ 17
That website is soooo hillarious!

katymine ~ hehe, yea..

“Dear Senator, Our extensive research (based on briefings from the largest cable companies) demonstrates that That Internet must stay as empty as the $320 million “Bridge to Nowhere” or the terrorists will win.”

kuro, “amusing” doesn’t begin to do that post justice!

I suspect there are *eight-year-old kids* who understand the Internet better than Stevens ever will. (”it got tangled up with all these things going on the internet commercially” is one of the silliest things I’ve heard.)

And I was listening to a guy on the train this morning talking about how Israel is our ally and we should support them, and what Osama bin Forgotten is likely to do next, and how the Louisiana government didn’t ask for help from FEMA, and so on. And another one saying that the Corps of Engineers couldn’t fix the levees because of all the corruption in NOLA, and Clinton didn’t do anything about the deficit and… The GOoP still owns the MSM.

Wow, Time says bloggers are being wooed. Woooohoooooo. Woo.
Cocktail weenies are in the mail!

Meta — when we were at YearlyKos, Media Matters threw an end-of-the-conference thank you bash for all the YKos volunteers. And they served “pigs in a blanket” (cocktail weenies in pastry) as a sort of tongue on cheek appetizer. Was very amusing. *g* (And the volunteers worked their asses off and deserved every bit of thanks and praise they got and more, just fyi…)

Does anyone on here now get TimesSelect? If so, I see on NYT’s homepage “A Voice from Kandahar – Former NPR correspondent Sarah Chayes writes from Afghanistan,” and I sure would love to read some of that. If you can share some, I’ll greatly appreciate it.

Time says bloggers are being wooed.

Hold the Cocktail Weenies — send Ivy . . .

Little Lambs Eat Ivy . . . Right?

CHS, meta -

At Abramoff’s Signatures restaurant, I believe they call them “porc dans une couverture”.

A kid will eat ivy, too.

wouldn’t ewe?

So are you supporting passage of the bill? Or opposing it?

Because, frankly, it’s a terrible bill. There are all kinds of things in it that serve to extend telco and Hollywood control over not just the net, but your computer, your Tivo, your television…

I understand that now that the FCC has decided to look the other way about enforcing the existing consensus about treating all net traffic the same, it makes sense to write some kind of regulation into law. But this is not the vehicle to use. Better that this massive pigsty of a bill should just sink into oblivion and then take it up again next year, when, with luck, we may have a slightly better set of players to work with…

Lotus,

Here is the link, will it work for you? Can I email the article? What can I do to help?

http://chayes.blogs.nytimes.com/

tatere at 36 — against the current bill that Stevens is proposing — for net neutrality as it was being pushed by the Snowe-Dorgan Amendment. Should have been more clear about that in the above post, along with thanks for Sen. Wyden slapping a hole on the idiotic bill for the moment. Shouldn’t assume everyone has read all of our myriad of other net neutrality posts before this one…

OT: Jason Leopold has an interesting posting at TruthOut,
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/070606Z.shtml, to the effect that Judith Miller’s notes show that she knew of Valerie Plames Wilson’s CIA employment well before she and Libby discussed the matter.

ck, Imm, TY,

I think some of us are showing our age . . . unless that’s been sampled in some hip-hop that I haven’t run across.

;)

kurotenshi, the funny but sad part of the “bridge to nowhere” is that there are 55 residents on that island who use a local ferry service. The residents do not see the need for the bridge, are quite happy with the ferry service and would shut down a small business too. Actually, I understand the residents do not want the bridge because then it would open their little island to developers.

vers le baaas avec les calembours

God, all those who had to do hundreds of pigs in a blanket deserve huge props!

The only way to “woo” the progressive blogosphere successfully is to stand up for progressive values and principles.

One such value is party unity. This means placing one’s loyalty to the Democratic party ahead of one’s personal desire to keep a stranglehold on the a CT senate seat.

Anyone who wants to “woo” the progressive blogoshere would be wise to stand up against what Lieberman is doing. By this I mean don’t support Lieberman in the primary and by all means don’t support him after he goes independent.

Anyone who acts to the contrary and then believes we can be woo’ed with cocktail weenies is sadly mistaken.

If Biden wants to retain any semblance of a shot at the presidency in 2008, he needs to step out of Lieberman’s support group immediately.

If Biden doesn’t act quickly, it is really all over for him.

It is funny that Biden doesn’t seem to realize this.

Biden’s belief that he has a strong chance in 2008 is like those stories of battles that have taken place after an armistice agreement has already been signed, but before the news could reach the respective armies. Biden is aiming for 2008 and everyone on the blogosphere knows that his candidacy is virtually over before it even began.

Biden’s chances in 2008 are *this* close to being totally shot and he doesn’t even know it. If Biden goes into CT to campaign for Lieberman (even before the primary), it will be the death knell for Biden.

tube he or not tube he?

Many thanks, imm. All I get at that link is the TS subscription-demand.

So, yes, please either email it to lotuslander AT cfl DOT rr DOT com or, if it’s not too long and some of it expendable, post us a goodly chunk of it here.

Thank you so much.

Did we know this? I brought it to Chris Cizzilla’s attention and he hadn’t heard it either:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07…..erman.html

==========================

One day after Mrs. Clinton issued her statement, Mr. Kerry, another likely presidential contender from a neighboring state, followed with his own declaration that he would support whoever won the nomination.

But Mr. Kerry, who has sought to use his increasing criticism of the war in Iraq as a way to distinguish himself from Mrs. Clinton, went a step further: He also declined to endorse Mr. Lieberman in the primary.

Mr. Kerry’s aides said he was only endorsing Democrats in primary races involving veterans.
============================

So Kerry won’t support Joe Lieberman in the primary?

Does Barbara Boxer know about this?

Lamont Lieberman is dominating the
washingtonpost.com’s Daily Politics Discussion
Chris Cillizza
washingtonpost.com Political Columnist/Blogger
Thursday, July 6, 2006; 11:00 EST

Late Nite was chock full of ewe/Yoo/youisms in the first 100 comments or so. I think we pretty much exhausted the possiblities.

*xyz. Saw your comment on earlier thread — yes, binary if the right word, but there is a Laurie Anderson monologue/song in which she says, in the 0/1 context, “digital.” very obscure reference and really not that useful — thanks for keeping me honest.

:~)

Cillizza.

katymine @ 41 ~ And it puts the ferry boat guy out of business as well…jeez.

What a guy.

As much as David Broder has ruffled feathers around here lately, it’s nice to see him writing like his old self again on Justice Stevens and Congress this morning.

Well looky here…Newsmax aka RoverMax is getting out in front already bashing Mr Maverick McCain……Watchout Johnny boy all that asskissing you did to chimpy and Miss Piggy Rover isn’t gonna do ya any good.
BWAAAAAAAAAAAAHHAHAHAHAHA…couldn’t happen to a nicer troll!

http://www.rawstory.com/news/2….._0706.html

hmmm . . .

A Gangsta Rap Bling Bling version of “Mares Eat Oats?”

Great one teddysanfran at 8:49, HoJo turned the CT Primary into a NATIONAL race with his cowardly “Plan B.” Every Dem has to be really pissed , because now they have to choose. Are they going to support an incumbent Democratic Senator who just told all the registered Democrats (who have contributed so the Party can hold a primary) to go “Dick Cheney” themselves?

lotus — uvgotmale

Although I often joke here, I hope that it’s clear that I completely agree that the time for these politicians – every last one of them – to play these crude and mindless games is over. My questions to Bush on the last thread were sincere. We have lost nearly the last thread of civility in this country because of the callous greed and nonsensical justifications that pass as governing by this squad of crooks and liars. I’ve completely had it, and if we are to believe any of the polls, it appears I’m not alone. I’m at the point where I can barely contain my anger long enough to articulate how angry I am. It’s no longer OK to just mouth along with the old club system of the Bidens and the Hillary Cs and yes, the Boxers. If you can’t see what is happening with Lieberman, then it’s time for you to go. It is completely insane that someone like Ted Stevens is in charge of anything, let alone net neutrality. And it appears that his own stupidity isn’t enough. He even surrounds himself with stupidity. That is inexcuseable.

Would someone please inform me why the image of Internet “tubes” is laughable, but “pipes” are not only not laughable but the standard metaphor? Define for me please the difference between a “tube” and a “pipe.”

You really need to get a life and find some real things to criticize, not this kind of nonsense.

Yeah, yeah, he referred to an email as an “internet.” BFD.

“Are you wired up?” LeBoutillier quoted McCain as asking. “Of course not,” LeBoutillier said.

“Prove it,” McCain allegedly said.

The former New York Republican told the site he lowered his pants, apparently satisfying McCain that he was not taping him.

From the Raw Story link above

But he sure was happy as hell to see him…

Sorry, I couldn’t resist. ;)

Eli, are you saying you believe that Stevens, apart from his awkward phrasing, understands net neutrality?

FYI: One “Anon” got EPU’ed on the last thread saying and linking to this:

I’d like to call attention to this misguided editorial from this morning’s LA Times,
http://www.latimes.com/news/op…..an06jul06, 0,4285470.story?coll=la-news-comment-editorials:

It reads like Boxer’s answer about her place on the Lieberman cheering squad.

I laugh at tubes because it reminds me of that scene in “Miracle on 34th Street,” inside the department store, with messages going thru tubes from floor to floor. Sales tickets, orders, everything went through pneumatic tubes.

It’s ludicrous because this Senator holds the future of the interwebbing in his hands — and he doesn’t get it. Although it sounds like maybe someone is trying to see that he does.

You really need to get a life and find some real things to criticize, not this kind of nonsense.

I know you are, but what am I?!

Ah, thanks, imm — them tubes must be full-up rat now, cuz ’tain’t here yit. Be along terreckly, I’m sure.

Eli @ 59 ~

You arent serious are you?? Tubes/Pipes & email/internets??

LOL!! Step away from the letterplank and lightbox you ‘tard.

breaking news at Raw Story (sorry ’bout the caps):

DELAY CANNOT BE REPLACED ON TEXAS BALLOT, ALL BUT ENSURING DEMOCRATIC VICTORY… MORE SOON…

Hey HopeSaT, if you’re out there – Hope you are doing well. Lamby Pups are sending you best regards.

OT

Joan Venocchi in the Boston Glob today has a good op-ed on the Nedmentum/Joenertia race:

Being Joe Lieberman

kinda counters the LAT piece

Here’s your “more soon” ; )

Judge’s ruling keeps DeLay on ballot

AUSTIN — A federal judge ruled today that Republicans cannot replace former U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay on the ballot for the 22nd Congressional District race.

U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks, a Republican appointee, ruled that DeLay must appear on the Nov. 7 ballot as the GOP nominee for the congressional seat that DeLay abandoned last month. Sparks ruling was confirmed by Texas Democratic Party spokeswoman Amber Moon.

http://www.chron.com/disp/stor…..28453.html

GREAT news punaise.

The Raw Story article on McCain has Rove written all over it.

Wow.

McCain was a fool for thinking he could play ball with BushCo.

I predict a protacted smear campaign against McCain, stretching for months and leaving him so weakened that Bush and Karl can basically choose the next Republican presidential candidate themselves…

What meta said, hopespringsaturtle. I have been thinking/wondering about how you are getting by today.

YEAH, JUDGE SPARKS!!!

Immanentize @ 63:

Thanks!

Oh,
btw, the judge in Texas decided against DeLay–looks like his name will have to stay on the ballot.

Atrios has it.

so the big question now is : will Tom Delay campaign or not? I cannot imagine him walking away and letting a Democrat have his seat — of course, some more indictments and/or convictions won’t help the resurgent Delay campaign either …

Add one more to that, Hopie. Come see us today and we’ll pour you a nice cold drink.

McCain gives me the creeps, so whatever. But too bad what happens when you sleep with the enemy. Who do you guys think BushRover would hand pick? ***braces self****

so did McCain just wake up to a horse’s head on his bed?

TeddySanFran @47, I didn’t read the blogs yesterday so someone may have posted this on another thread. AmericaBlog reported yesterday that, not only Kerry, but the DNC itself will not only support the winner of the Conn primary but is not taking sides in the primary either. Biden, Salazar and Boxer seem to have stuck their necks out.

Eli, when you take the totality of Stevens’ comments, it is clear that he does not have much of a grasp on how this whole internet thing works. I think someone has given him the basics, and it shows.

I guess it might be comparable to me designing protocols for the neurosurgery department of a hospital, with those protocols being based on having been given a rudimentary layman’s explanation, seeing as how I am neither a surgeon nor an MD.

“Farrell vows to support winner of primary”
CT Congressional Race

punaise, well said! Looks like the beginning of the end for the old Maverick. This will probably blow an artery in his neck.

15 rwcole July 6th, 2006 at 8:18 am

I’m reading a book about the story of Coca Cola. It’s taking a while because it is in the bathroom. ;o)

Anyway, Pepsi’s big claim to fame when it first came out was that you got 12 ounces for a nickel when all the Coke you got was 6.

Pepsi always had more sugar than Coke. And people do tend to like sweeter things.

It’s been an interesting read on the role that Robert Woodruff, the long time Coca Cola president had on speeding up the intergration of the South.

His viewpoint was mainly pragmatic but without him, who knows how long it would have taken to get the business world onside and allow the black community a place at the table.

what if the McCain smear isn’t about the presidential run but rather about something like his opposition to torture and what might happen in the Senate?

it is not the role of the DNC to be directly involved in any Senatorial race anywhere anytime —

punaise#80…you bet Ol Maverick Johnny did. He woke up to the horsehead with Miss Piggy Rovers brand all over it!
BWAAAAAAHAHHAHAHA
Gonna be interstin’

Bionic and rw, I guess I’ll never trust my palate again. Here I always thought I prefer Pepsi for being less sweet than Coke.

Christy — thanks for the link last thread, am listening now to the verbal sparring between Bennett and Pariser, wading through to get to you and Duncan.

(BTW, Bennett is very misguided; there is no “centrist” position per se in the party, at least not one he’s envisioned. Centrists are Republican Lite, and the folks who are trying to represent them are selling this faction as Democrats, by using a scale of comparison against the far right while using opponents of the far right as far left.)

looseheadprop — you still there? I would be very, VERY interested in your text; we talked about the necessity of training poll watchers in September/October time frame and could not think of a good tool to use as an instructive script of curriculum for this purpose. No pressure, but that’s the timeline we’re up against.

Correction to Punaise #80.

McCain woke up with a pig’s head in his bed.

By the way this was the same whisper campaign about Mc Cain that Molly Ivins talked about during the 2000 primaries.

ewwwwww (from the Raw Story story excerpts above:

Conservative site launches full-frontal attack on McCain, questioning ‘explosive’ temper
…
The former New York Republican told the site he lowered his pants, apparently satisfying McCain that he was not taping him.

“Would someone please inform me why the image of Internet “tubes” is laughable”
Eli, maybe a better question is what about Ted A Bridge to Nowhere Stevens is not laughable?

Are you aware of some issue that he does understand?
He doesn’t appear to understand the Powell Doctrine wrt military force. He seems hell bent on making Russia and Iran the new powers in the Middle East. He seems eager to bankrupt the U.S. He doesn’t appear to understand “checks and balances, or the problem with Senators allowing K Street to write their legislation for them. This is not an exhaustive list.

wxyz – and there’s no apple in the mouth

While focused on McCain’s “explosive temper” please don’t forget he’s also TOO OLD to be President….

Heads up above in the next post — Ned Lamont will be on Air America coming up at 12:30 pm ET. Thought everyone would like a heads up. :) New post above on it, so fresh discussion thread.

re: BOXER, part 1 -

soon after I read here at FDL how clueless Boxer was at Yearly Kos (”why are you asking me about Joe Lieberman?”), I called her wash dc office, offering to fully brief a Boxer staffperson about the Lamont vs. Lieberman race, so Boxer would not be so clueless about such (I am from CT) -

well, first off, I had to press hard before I was even able to talk to a real staffperson, and when I finally got a live staffperson, that Boxer staffperson seemed uninterested in getting smart about the Lamont vs. Lieberman race for her boss -

I was able to tell this Boxer staffperson, “look, your boss is being trashed across the blogosphere something fierce as being clueless about the Lamont vs. Lieberman race, and I am calling you here to help your boss become informed on this subject” -

(continued; see my BOXER post part 2)

*ilson46201 at 77:

so the big question now is : will Tom Delay campaign or not?

Perhaps an even bigger question is whether he can run for that seat.

Seem to remember that he claims he is now living in Virginia. Gonna be hard-pressed to now say he is a Texas resident. *g*

…”The campaign, dubbed “Your Senator Needs an iPod,” resulted from a hearing on a proposal to mandate the embedding of copy-prevention technology into digital audio and video players, during which Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens revealed that his daughter had given him an iPod and then began questioning a Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) representative about the effects of the mandate, supported by RIAA, on Stevens’ ability to transfer recorded radio to his iPod. IPac’s Fisher heard “Sen. Stevens seeing that, wow, it’s not this completely one-sided thing. It’s not about piracy; it’s about innovation.””

* Update: A little internet forensics work explains why the internet took 5 days to travel from the Senator’s staff to his inbox.

Thursday, 29 June 2006
Senator Stevens Internet Forensics

I got a copy of the internet that Senator Ted Stevens’s staff sent to him, and which, as he told the full Commerce Committee as proof that net neutrality was bad, took almost five days to get to him because the internet’s pipes were so full of traffic.

I admit to a little skepticism, so I asked the Senator’s office to send me a copy of the internet via Fed-Ex (to avoid internet rush hour). After signing for it this morning, I unwrapped it and set out to test it forensically to make sure the senator was telling the truth (turns out it was just an internet letter, not an entire internet).

(For you eggheads out there, I used a command line tool called Bioforensic Unfragmenting Logistical Level Systemic Hopping Information Tracerouter, which is open-source.)

Turns out he was right.

After his staffers sent the internet letter and the letter shattered into pieces by the internal sledgehammer encased in the congressional mail server, the pieces were slingshotted into the internet’s pipe (to visual this, think of how a potato gun works and then simply reverse the process in your head).

http://blog.wired.com/27BStrok…..id=1513010

Anon 39

If Miller already knew about Valerie Plame’s ID and job, then why did she misspell it in one of her notebooks as Valerie Flame?

That notebook had notes from her conversations with Libby, so it was contemporaneous.

GSD at 23: Are you suggesting Stevens is a white punk on dope?

OT, Pepsi vs Coke –

Nixon was the President from Pepsi; Carter was the President from Coke.

Both of them reached the White House, in part because of the corporate largesse of these companies.

Clinton was the President from Tyson; Bush is the President from . . .
Enron.

And, for cubra libres, if you mix some rum and a snort of coke you get Donald Rumsfeld and George Bush

wxyz 44

Maybe Biden’s whole Presidential run thing is to garner a bunch of big donations from his credit card company supporters.

I think you can convert that money to your personal use when you retire. Millions would be fun in retirement, no?

Meanwhile, if he has a bunch of money in his election fund, he can enhance his influence in Congress by handing those funds out to selected Congressional candidates. He could do that immediately, I think.

ccmask – -

Rum? Don’t forget Tom DeLay!

OT-CNN International reporting a “squeaker” win for Calderon, the right wing candidate for president of Mexico.

I don’t see this issue being over any time soon.

Kurotenshi: After reading your link to LinuxJournal, I was reminded of the “alternative” internet argument, and that, in turn reminded me of a mysterious article I ran across the other day about a secret site being built by Google in The Dalles, Oregon. It is built near the Columbia river for cooling the thousands of servers thought to be installed in the completed facility.

Look here:

http://www.networkworld.com/ne…..lmost.html

In addition, the linuxworld article says that Google is quietly buying up “dark” fiber backbone routes, and here again, the Dalles facility seems to be in the right place geographically. Humm, are we seeing an under the radar alternate internet that conforms to the original intent of net neutrality?

I don’t know anyone in my “real life”, that had any idea that Net Neutrality was even an issue. The MSM has failed us severely in the past 6 years, and you can add Net Neutrality to the list. It’s just ironic that Sen Stevens had to completely expose his mental deficiencies before it became “news”. Hopefully this story will shake all the other 99 Senators to take a few moments and learn what this issue is really about. It’s just so scary that this went through the House and I’m betting that 90% of those incompetent public servants, took the research material supplied by the Telecom Lobbyists, and voted accordingly.

Hi everyone,
I have to pass by the comments coz I’m busy this morning BUT
I just got off the phone with 2 staffers at Senator Gordon Smith’s office in Washington (Sen Smith is Repub, I’ll be polite coz he’s not a total ass, from Oregon). The vote on this was last week, was a TIE vote and Smith voted supposedly voted against Ted Stevens’ position (how do I find out?). There’s alot of semantics involved in this issue so we need to get straight before calling and pegging the 2008 Pres race to net neutrality! Smith’s staffers said he voted against NN coz he didn’t want the “company involved” ???? Yeah, I said, “What?”. Then it was not regulating the Internet–keeping it just the way it is–by not voting for regulation. Is this right? It’s one of those double negative worded amendments?
I feel like I walked into the room marked GIRLS and started looking for the urinal, ya know? This stuff is getting hard to keep getting correct even though FDL and the rest of the blogworld try their damndest. Sometimes there is no time and brainspace left on this end of the CRT.
Dan
Beaverton

sofistic 9:56am — I’ve placed my own “bets”, so to speak, on Google doing something not unlike an alternative, but different from what you might be thinking.

You might keep in mind that Google was a bidder on a community-wide WiFi project (publicly available information).

And you might also look through all of the existing and beta products Google now offers to see if you can discern a possible, logical unified offering via the now-dark fiber.

Wish I could say more, but I consult in this area and am under NDA’s. Heh.

Pepsi/Coke wars

Yes- Pepsi is sweeter- which is what led to “The NEW Coke” which matched Pepsi’s sweetness. It was- of course- a big flop- which led to the revival of the “Original Formula”.
Some have suggested that the whole thing was a piece of Coke PR- don’t know about that.

I DO know that Coke is one of the most aggressive marketing groups in the world- particularly in defending it’s “fountain” turf. Pepsi was forced to buy it’s own fast food business to compete. Coke buys the fountain equipment and leases it to the restuarant for next to nothing under the provision that NO PEPSI will ever appear in the place.

curve666—

Stoller @ myydd had a detailed play-by-play of the arguments and vote in committee last week. Stevens managed to argue both sides (neither very well, but most enthusiastically) which Dorgan pointed out to him (laughing) when he had finished.
http://www.mydd.com/story/2006/6/29/13346/5943
Stoller has another article up today re George Allen on same topic. He says: “It’s a really interesting statement, because it makes you think as you read it that he supports net neutrality.” But he doesn’t.

Ahh, Rayne,I wish I were EPU so I could get inside your brain and bypass the NDA firewall. I do imagine a community wide wireless network, leading to a main backbone, but I don’t yet see how the community wide network (as a public utility?) would connect to the backbone. In any event, the objective (according to the Linuxworld article option II would be to bypass all the ATT etc. control).

I think Gordon Smith voted with Stevens (not against).
http://mydd.com/story/2006/6/28/171559/700

sofistic, Rayne ~

wow, this one flew right under my radar – but I think you guys are on to something, Google has hedged itself to create new “lifestyle” apps that will most likely run exclusively on this (Free WiFi ;) )backbone, as some like Om Malik have surmised – with funding hopefully being garnered through ads.
I find this new concept of a shadow net intriguing now that Google has not only set its sights on everything MS, but also on eBay and its huge $$ niche. If this is true, I couldnt be happier…

oops forgot to throw the whole PayPal thing Google has been eyeing as well…its going to be a one stop experience from these guys.

I thought the laughter I was hearing was over the article about Jane and her poodles.

Guess not…

::grin::

kurotenshi, sofistic –

I’m going to point to something else that may or may not be related to all the other machinations of the players in the Net Neutrality discussions. Make of it what you will, your mileage may vary.

Did you know that there are more cell phone internet users in Japan than there are PC-based internet users?

What would need to happen here in the U.S. for the same statistic to be true?

Interesting, I was just reading an article playing on similiar notions by another ISP..

http://www.mobiletracker.net/a…..-earthlink

As for Google & Vint Cerf(ex MCI player, hmmm… ;) ): If you cant beat them, join them…hehe

http://gigaom.com/2006/07/05/google-time-to-fight/

Rayne and Kurotenshi,
IMNSHO, the cable and teleco companies will not allow for that kind of use to any great extent because they don’t see what it can do for *their* bottom line. It’s about money and power (real and perceived).

This is totally OT WRT the Coke thing, but since this is prolly EPU’d I’ll go ahead.

Prior to Nixon the Coca Cola company prided itself on its contacts within the Whitehouse regardless of whether the prez was a Republican or Democrat.

Ike was famous for hoisting a Coke when photographers were around, in part because of the effort made by Coke in the war to supply soldiers with Coke at the same price and the same quality as they were used to at home, namely 6 oz for a nickel.

It genuinely was one of those things that soldiers appreciated and special dispensation was made to not only ship syrup, but also refrigration units etc to provide ice cold ones.

But the agents for Coke also exhibited considerable bravery and ingenuity in getting the product to the various theaters of war.

As an aside, my mother growing up in England in the war,got to taste this mysterious Coca Cola that the Yanks all loved. The one she tasted was not cold and she thought it tasted like medicine. So I never drank it when young, because of that and only started to drink Diet Coke when I was 23.

It was Nixon who turned his back on the traditional relationship the company enjoyed when he got Pepsi into Russia, which in turn lead to the Pepsi = Republicans and Coke = Democrats of the Nixon/Carter times.

In virtually all its history, Coke has advertised extensively and in the process created some of the iconic images of the 20th century, including most people’s conception of Santa really looks like. We just forget he has a bottle of Coke in his hand.

When Martin Luther King won the Nobel Peace prize in 1964, the city planned a special dinner to honor him. When word reached Robert Woodruff, the president of Coca Cola, that the white business establishment would probably boycott the dinner he set the wheels in motion to change that.

Woodruff at the time was recovering from a riding accident and didn’t attend himself, but without his efforts the many whites who did attend probably would not have.

I don’t own any Coca Cola stock, though given the amount of Diet Coke I consume (I don’t like coffee, what can I say) I probably should.

iowa christine — there’s already one example of pervasive WiFi technology that was squelched by telsatcos; we may yet get some sunlight shed on that because a certain FDL “favorite” lobbyist was involved in the squelching process.

I have no doubts at all that the telsatcos will try their best to suppress any efforts to bypass them; they are in a fight for their lives since they are bordering on extinction as a business model (at least telcos are) and they have no choice but to throw everything at this fight that they can.

But as I’ve linked in threads here before, there are folks in IT who’ve been talking about the “last mile” and how to bypass the telcos (and the larger telsatco alliance); we need to get more folks up to speed on this effort as well as encourage more pervasive WiFi development.

Ultimately, the telcos have a challenge they must solve: what does a successful business model look like when they are no longer the only game in town? Every technology business will have to deal with that question at some point or at many points in their existence; it’s only fitting that telcos finally get pushed to examine their business model if they are truly technology companies.

“… a series of tubes… filled with enormous amounts of material.”

Hey! So are my balls! No seriously. “Seminiferous tubules” — look it up. There’s also an (occasionally) associated reaction quite similar to the “‘Blutarsky Effect” in the article’s visual.

“They want to deliver vast amounts of information over the internet. And again, the internet is not something you just dump something on. It’s not a truck.”

“Like one of the 100 cars and trucks a day taking the ferry to Gravina Island, which justifies building a $300 million Bridge to Nowhere. Therefore I propose building a $300 million Internet Pipe to Nowhere in Alaska.”