Re: [nycwireless] New Yorker Article [was: Multichannel News -AnalystsQuestionBellInvestments]
On Thu, 2006-03-16 at 05:46 -0800, Jim Henry wrote: Ruben, Sorry you hate me.I don't know you well enough to even like or dis-like you. ;-) I know enough about you. Your trying to hurt my children and make them slaves to Time Warner's agenda on what they are and are not allowed to read. As to regulating the Internet, it is the so-called Net-Neutrality advocates who are pushing to regulate it That would be Time Warner trying to regulate it. and have even introduced a bill in Congress to attempt to tell private companies The internet is not private property and if Time Warner et al hopes to remain a player in providing common carriage, they had best get behind the publics demand for common access or they WILL be replaced as cable access providers. how they should handle traffic on their own networks! Its not their network. But if they care to remain a common carrier to the public internet, they had better shape up or we will replace them with someone who does provide common carrier accessGoogle, Covad or IBM for example might be interested in replacing Dolan et al. Ruben -- NYCwireless - http://www.nycwireless.net/ Un/Subscribe: http://lists.nycwireless.net/mailman/listinfo/nycwireless/ Archives: http://lists.nycwireless.net/pipermail/nycwireless/
Re: [nycwireless] Wireless Community: Stop using Broadband
My wife says ubiquitous doesn't work in a slogan--imagine trying to get a crowd to shout it at a rally... :) Latest version: What do we want in the Internet? Fast. Affordable. Open. EVERYWHERE. --- Rob Kelley [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Ubiquitous Affordable High-Speed Internet with Amenity Wifi - quite a mouthful. How about Fight for your Internet: Fast. Ubiquitous. Affordable. Open. --- Dana Spiegel [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: posted at http://www.wirelesscommunity.info/2006/03/15/stop-using- broadband/ Stop using Broadband No, I don't mean that you should cancel your high-speed internet connection. What I mean is: Stop using the term broadband. I think that we need to change how we argue our points against the teleco and cable monopolies. You see, Broadband isn't the internet. Its just a way to get access to the internet. Most other countries understand this, but in the USA, we're so blinded by the marketing and PR of our Telco and Cable companies, that instead of pushing for high-speed access to the internet, something that should be available to everyone (you should especially know this if you read this blog!), we're talking about Universal Broadband. Universal Broadband has a great ring to it. But its wrong. Broadband is a marketing term that has been co-opted by Telco and Cable companies to mean whatever high-speed network *they* provide. And this is where things get confused. We're starting to see legislation that promotes Universal Broadband, which is good in theory. But when we phrase it like that, we're implicitly promoting certain ways to get high-speed internet access. In effect, we're using legislation and our own PR efforts to market for the type of crappy, slow, restricted internet access that our Telco and Cable companies offer. *Instead, we should be pushing for and talking about High-speed Internet, high-speed connections to that cloud of services and content that we're all providing for each other, in whatever form makes sense to you, the end user.* In many cases, it will be broadband dsl and broadband cablemodem service. But it might also me your local municipal or private Wi-Fi network, or satellite-based service. Or something we haven't thought of yet. Dana Spiegel Executive Director NYCwireless [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.NYCwireless.net +1 917 402 0422 Read the Wireless Community blog: http://www.wirelesscommunity.info -- NYCwireless - http://www.nycwireless.net/ Un/Subscribe: http://lists.nycwireless.net/mailman/listinfo/nycwireless/ Archives: http://lists.nycwireless.net/pipermail/nycwireless/ -- NYCwireless - http://www.nycwireless.net/ Un/Subscribe: http://lists.nycwireless.net/mailman/listinfo/nycwireless/ Archives: http://lists.nycwireless.net/pipermail/nycwireless/ -- NYCwireless - http://www.nycwireless.net/ Un/Subscribe: http://lists.nycwireless.net/mailman/listinfo/nycwireless/ Archives: http://lists.nycwireless.net/pipermail/nycwireless/
[nycwireless] luddites, ranting, and the new american foundation. drunk texans.
On Thu, 2006-03-16 at 06:02 -0800, Jim Henry wrote: Darrel, No I have not been sleepwalking. I have been working hard and reaping the rewards. ** nice to know you can double speak yourself to ** Again, if you REALLY feel that Europe, even all nations combined, has a stronger economy than the U.S., then you are so disconnected from the facts that I don't think I could ever convince you otherwise. Korea does indeed have a strong economy, but it too is not equal to ours. No on per capita basis their economy is no stronger than the US's. However the concept that the money has to leave to come back is compelling, but if we don't have any 'goods' to export in the future the money won't come back... Our money pool will be shrunk, which means the velocity of our economy has to increase proportionately to maintain our economic strength... When it comes to the working class and business this means you can save you have to spend (look around you, we're already slipping into debt, because we can't maintain the required velocity, so we're trying to fill a pool with an open drain).. Perhaps most telling is that you seem to equate the average speed of a residential connection to an ISP with the strength of a nation's economy. To that all I can say is Please re-read paragraph 2. No I don't relate a residential connection to an isp with the strength of the nations economy. I relate it to the quality of their internal communications infrastructure. Yes, our economy is changing. It has been changing since the beginning of our nation. Some people get lucky and get to stay in their same occupation for their 30-50 years but most don't. They either change with the times or fall behind. Twenty to thirty years ago I was a skilled tradesman in a good union job.It was good. I got triple time on Sunday,2 1/2 time on Saturday night, 1 1/2 time in the evenings, and good benefits. Then as the economy changed more of my work out-sourced, though back then the term was privatized. Every 3 years our contract got worse. I saw the writing on the wall and educated myself and changed careers. My co-workers from back then either did the same or stayed,but now they earn less than half what I do,and complain about the union. If the contracts had stayed the same, their employers would have gone out of business because they could not have competed any longer, and they would have no jobs at all. We are talking about unions and price fixing here Jim. Unions prevent businesses from being able to manage costs effectively. I agree 100% I'm from Texas, its a non-union right to work state. I think unions are closer to welfare organizations than they are workers rights organizations. Corruption and selfishness creep in everywhere. Nothing sinister in all this, it is just the way Economics works. I have a tiny grasp on how Economics works. I know things will level out, it just no looking good for us in the short term (10-50 years)... We're like teenagers with their first credit card in the community of nations, spend, spend, spend then you hunker down to pay off in 5 years the debt you amassed in two... Well got news for you, we amassed a lot of debt the last 6 or so year Jim On Wed Mar 15 21:54:52 PST 2006, Darrel O'Pry [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Wed, 2006-03-15 at 22:11 -0500, Ruben Safir wrote: Make the U.S. more competitive? Look around you! It is other nations who need to emulate us to attempt to compete with US. And as a relative measure against ourselves, by all the parameters used to measure the health of the U.S. economy (unemployment pct, cost of living, inflation, # people employed, home ownership, inflation, GDP, etc.) the U.S. economy has never been better or stronger. BTW this is rather insulting. Have you actually been sleepwalking through the last 6 years of the high tech economy? Lets see, 10Mbps+ connections to the home are common in europe. Korea can even bling bling a 25 megabit connection to the home... Jobs, well IBM is moving a big portion of their future software development to india(about 55k new jobs for india). Turning their US holdings in more 'customer facing' facilities. (America to be the worlds mall) I'd say billions in IT dollars are flowing out of the US economy. Our imports exceed our exports As a country we are deeply in debt, both private and public. A large portion of our manufacturing has moved overseas as well... We're left with a service and sales driven economy which is as shaky as the stock market when all is said and done... It will take a long time to recover, and it doesn't help that financially our country (not just the government) has been headed in the wrong direction riding a near unregulated free market where % are more important than concrete $ and goods That's my pessimistic
Re: [nycwireless] New Yorker Article [was: Multichannel News -AnalystsQuestionBellInvestments]
On Thu, 2006-03-16 at 09:58 -0800, Jim Henry wrote: Ruben, I've no doubt that SOME of the Internet may be public property,though I don't know for sure. The Internet is not a single entity, it's made up of thousands of switches, routers, muxes, optical segments, etc., that are indeed private property. To be honest,you seem so uninformed on this subject I'm surprised you attempt to debate it. I want the cable companies out of my streets. Let them run their private network in their private homes, not mine. Ruben -- NYCwireless - http://www.nycwireless.net/ Un/Subscribe: http://lists.nycwireless.net/mailman/listinfo/nycwireless/ Archives: http://lists.nycwireless.net/pipermail/nycwireless/
Re: [nycwireless] New Yorker Article [was: Multichannel News -AnalystsQuestionBellInvestments]
On Thu, 2006-03-16 at 09:50 -0800, Jim Henry wrote: Ruben, I do not work for Time Warner. Yeah - right. -- NYCwireless - http://www.nycwireless.net/ Un/Subscribe: http://lists.nycwireless.net/mailman/listinfo/nycwireless/ Archives: http://lists.nycwireless.net/pipermail/nycwireless/
Re: [nycwireless] New Yorker Article [was: Multichannel News -AnalystsQuestionBellInvestments]
On Thu, 2006-03-16 at 09:58 -0800, Jim Henry wrote: If you can show that Time Warner is involved in getting this legislation introduced,I willbe very surprised. Time Warner is agaisnt the bill because they want to regulate the internet based on their ill-begotten monopoly of our cables in our streets. They want to prevent the public from having open access to the the the public's cables in the public's streets because then they can't regulate it. I have an idea. Lets have ConEd be allowed to cut back on the power supply of the TW building on 59th street, the water company to cut back on the water to their offices on 59th street, the gas company cut back on the heat and steam to their office tower, and while we're at it, lets have the FCC block all the satilite and EM transmittions of all TW communications at our back and call. And THEN we can hand the access cable rights to Google and IBM. Ruben -- NYCwireless - http://www.nycwireless.net/ Un/Subscribe: http://lists.nycwireless.net/mailman/listinfo/nycwireless/ Archives: http://lists.nycwireless.net/pipermail/nycwireless/
Re: [nycwireless] New Yorker Article [was: Multichannel News -AnalystsQuestionBellInvestments]
On Thu, 2006-03-16 at 12:57 -0800, Jim Henry wrote: Utilities such as cable companies don't get free access to streets, underground conduits, et. They PAY the community for it. they extorted the communities for it. They can leave now. Ruben -- NYCwireless - http://www.nycwireless.net/ Un/Subscribe: http://lists.nycwireless.net/mailman/listinfo/nycwireless/ Archives: http://lists.nycwireless.net/pipermail/nycwireless/
Re: [nycwireless] New Yorker Article [was: Multichannel News -AnalystsQuestionBellInvestments] (fwd)
Oh really? When is the cheque arriving? Can't wait! I think I'll spend it on Surface to Surface Microwave gear, no reason... -- NYCwireless - http://www.nycwireless.net/ Un/Subscribe: http://lists.nycwireless.net/mailman/listinfo/nycwireless/ Archives: http://lists.nycwireless.net/pipermail/nycwireless/
Re: [nycwireless] New Yorker Article [was: Multichannel News -AnalystsQuestionBellInvestments]
Jim, I don't know anything about the Center for Individual Freedom. From their issues page, they seem to attack any government regulation or taxation, regardless of the purpose of the action. For the rest of our readers, I want to state for the record that we, as supporters of Net Neutrality, do so only as a reactionary measure. I think you would be hard pressed to find a one of us who supports government regulation just for the hell of it. Our fight for Net Neutrality comes as a direct reaction to statements made by Ed Whitacre, CEO of SBC, John Thorne, a Verizon senior vice president and deputy general counsel, and William L. Smith, CTO of BellSouth. Coupled with the vast majority of this country only having a choice between a single cableco and a single telco in order to get internet access, we feel that the normal marketplace mechanisms that would (possibly) counteract the telco and cableco drive to control the internet are visibly absent. As a result, we, people who generally oppose additional regulation by our government, believe the creation of Net Neutrality regulation is the only way to counteract actions taken by the consolidating telco and monopolistic oligopolies. Dana Spiegel Executive Director NYCwireless [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.NYCwireless.net +1 917 402 0422 Read the Wireless Community blog: http://www.wirelesscommunity.info On Mar 15, 2006, at 11:44 PM, Jim Henry wrote: Frank, Yepper, and here is yet another article: Center for Individual Freedom Dear Friend: Why after so many years of fighting to keep the Internet largely free of regulation and taxation are some lawmakers and Internet companies now advocating for increased regulation of the Internet? The United States House of Representatives may consider a provision that will lead to regulation of the Internet. Please contact your Representative in Congress and Majority Leader Boehner and ask them to keep the Internet free of regulation. Use the hyperlink below to send your personalized letter to your Representative in Congress and Majority Leader Boehner today! http://capwiz.com/cfif/issues/alert/?alertid=8574316type=CO Last week, several news publications -- citing anonymous sources -- reported that new legislation to regulate the Internet (so-called net- neutrality) will be considered as part of a telecom reform bill currently being debated in Congress. Over the past few months, proponents of so-called net-neutrality regulation have been using scare tactics with the general public and our elected officials - demanding legislation for a problem that doesn't even exist! Even the Wall Street Journal calls these proponents' tactics silly and dismisses the notion that it is the end of the Internet as we know it. Some major corporate interests like Google and Yahoo! would like for you to believe they are David facing Goliath -- claiming that broadband providers like Comcast, Cox and ATT will keep you from accessing their products. Nothing could be further from the truth! Never, in the history of the Internet, has a broadband provider blocked a customer from accessing their Yahoo! Mail or Google search engine. Yet, these companies want Congress to enact legislation that will protect them from this non-existent problem. Ironically, these calls for the government to become the Internet's traffic cop are being led by companies like Google, which only a short time ago made headlines when it chose to cooperate with the Communist leadership of China. Remember when Google caved to the Chinese government and agreed to block access to all information and websites that speak about freedom and democracy? When they agreed to censor all information that discusses Tiananmen Square and independence for Taiwan - or anything else that can be interpreted to go against the interests of China's Communist leadership? Can you believe it's supposed conservative lawmakers who are now cow-towing to these interests and offering to legislate and regulate the Internet in response to these ridiculous demands? We have witnessed the success of the Internet and all that it does: brings families closer, grows economies, creates a new generation of entrepreneurs and increases access to information for people all over the world. All this with little, if any interference from the government. The Internet must remain free from government regulation and taxation! Contact your Representative in Congress and Majority Leader Boehner today! Ask them to reject calls to regulate the Internet. And, ask them to urge their colleagues to do the same. Use the hyperlink below to send your personalized letter to your Representative in Congress and Majority Leader Boehner today! http://capwiz.com/cfif/issues/alert/?alertid=8574316type=CO Sincerely, Jeff Mazzella President Center for Individual Freedom www.cfif.org -Original Message- From:
Re: [Fwd: RE: [nycwireless] Fwd: Multichannel News - Analysts Question BellInvestments]
Darrel, No I have not been sleepwalking. I have been working hard and reaping the rewards. Again, if you REALLY feel that Europe, even all nations combined, has a stronger economy than the U.S., then you are so disconnected from the facts that I don't think I could ever convince you otherwise. Korea does indeed have a strong economy, but it too is not equal to ours. Perhaps most telling is that you seem to equate the average speed of a residential connection to an ISP with the strength of a nation's economy. To that all I can say is Please re-read paragraph 2. Yes, our economy is changing. It has been changing since the beginning of our nation. Some people get lucky and get to stay in their same occupation for their 30-50 years but most don't. They either change with the times or fall behind. Twenty to thirty years ago I was a skilled tradesman in a good union job.It was good. I got triple time on Sunday,2 1/2 time on Saturday night, 1 1/2 time in the evenings, and good benefits. Then as the economy changed more of my work out-sourced, though back then the term was privatized. Every 3 years our contract got worse. I saw the writing on the wall and educated myself and changed careers. My co-workers from back then either did the same or stayed,but now they earn less than half what I do,and complain about the union. If the contracts had stayed the same, their employers would have gone out of business because they could not have competed any longer, and they would have no jobs at all. Nothing sinister in all this, it is just the way Economics works. Jim On Wed Mar 15 21:54:52 PST 2006, Darrel O'Pry [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Wed, 2006-03-15 at 22:11 -0500, Ruben Safir wrote: Make the U.S. more competitive? Look around you! It is other nations who need to emulate us to attempt to compete with US. And as a relative measure against ourselves, by all the parameters used to measure the health of the U.S. economy (unemployment pct, cost of living, inflation, # people employed, home ownership, inflation, GDP, etc.) the U.S. economy has never been better or stronger. BTW this is rather insulting. Have you actually been sleepwalking through the last 6 years of the high tech economy? Lets see, 10Mbps+ connections to the home are common in europe. Korea can even bling bling a 25 megabit connection to the home... Jobs, well IBM is moving a big portion of their future software development to india(about 55k new jobs for india). Turning their US holdings in more 'customer facing' facilities. (America to be the worlds mall) I'd say billions in IT dollars are flowing out of the US economy. Our imports exceed our exports As a country we are deeply in debt, both private and public. A large portion of our manufacturing has moved overseas as well... We're left with a service and sales driven economy which is as shaky as the stock market when all is said and done... It will take a long time to recover, and it doesn't help that financially our country (not just the government) has been headed in the wrong direction riding a near unregulated free market where % are more important than concrete $ and goods That's my pessimistic luddite view... -- NYCwireless - http://www.nycwireless.net/ Un/Subscribe: http://lists.nycwireless.net/mailman/listinfo/nycwireless/ Archives: http://lists.nycwireless.net/pipermail/nycwireless/ -- NYCwireless - http://www.nycwireless.net/ Un/Subscribe: http://lists.nycwireless.net/mailman/listinfo/nycwireless/ Archives: http://lists.nycwireless.net/pipermail/nycwireless/
Re: [nycwireless] New Yorker Article [was: Multichannel News -AnalystsQuestionBellInvestments]
Ruben, I do not work for Time Warner. And honest, the bill introduced to regulate the Internet was not introduced or sponsored by cable interests. Research this bill as a good starting point: The Internet Non-Discrimination Act of 2006, by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR). Jim On Thu Mar 16 06:36:03 PST 2006, Ruben Safir [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Thu, 2006-03-16 at 05:46 -0800, Jim Henry wrote: Ruben, Sorry you hate me.I don't know you well enough to even like or dis-like you. ;-) I know enough about you. Your trying to hurt my children and make them slaves to Time Warner's agenda on what they are and are not allowed to read. As to regulating the Internet, it is the so-called Net-Neutrality advocates who are pushing to regulate it That would be Time Warner trying to regulate it. and have even introduced a bill in Congress to attempt to tell private companies The internet is not private property and if Time Warner et al hopes to remain a player in providing common carriage, they had best get behind the publics demand for common access or they WILL be replaced as cable access providers. how they should handle traffic on their own networks! Its not their network. But if they care to remain a common carrier to the public internet, they had better shape up or we will replace them with someone who does provide common carrier accessGoogle, Covad or IBM for example might be interested in replacing Dolan et al. Ruben -- NYCwireless - http://www.nycwireless.net/ Un/Subscribe: http://lists.nycwireless.net/mailman/listinfo/nycwireless/ Archives: http://lists.nycwireless.net/pipermail/nycwireless/
Re: [nycwireless] New Yorker Article [was:Multichannel News -AnalystsQuestionBellInvestments]
I seem to remember having asked to be taken off this list. Is nycwireless that inept? I wonder. - Original Message - From: Ruben Safir [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Jim Henry [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: Jim Henry [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; nycwireless@lists.nycwireless.net Sent: Thursday, March 16, 2006 1:26 PM Subject: Re: [nycwireless] New Yorker Article [was:Multichannel News -AnalystsQuestionBellInvestments] On Thu, 2006-03-16 at 09:50 -0800, Jim Henry wrote: Ruben, I do not work for Time Warner. Yeah - right. -- NYCwireless - http://www.nycwireless.net/ Un/Subscribe: http://lists.nycwireless.net/mailman/listinfo/nycwireless/ Archives: http://lists.nycwireless.net/pipermail/nycwireless/ -- NYCwireless - http://www.nycwireless.net/ Un/Subscribe: http://lists.nycwireless.net/mailman/listinfo/nycwireless/ Archives: http://lists.nycwireless.net/pipermail/nycwireless/
Re: [nycwireless] New Yorker Article [was: Multichannel News -AnalystsQuestionBellInvestments]
Ruben, Utilities such as cable companies don't get free access to streets, underground conduits, et. They PAY the community for it. Again, Time Warner does not want to regulate the Internet. I can't speak for them but I believe they just don't want others to regulate it either. Jim On Thu Mar 16 10:38:10 PST 2006, Ruben Safir [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Thu, 2006-03-16 at 09:58 -0800, Jim Henry wrote: If you can show that Time Warner is involved in getting this legislation introduced,I willbe very surprised. Time Warner is agaisnt the bill because they want to regulate the internet based on their ill-begotten monopoly of our cables in our streets. They want to prevent the public from having open access to the the the public's cables in the public's streets because then they can't regulate it. I have an idea. Lets have ConEd be allowed to cut back on the power supply of the TW building on 59th street, the water company to cut back on the water to their offices on 59th street, the gas company cut back on the heat and steam to their office tower, and while we're at it, lets have the FCC block all the satilite and EM transmittions of all TW communications at our back and call. And THEN we can hand the access cable rights to Google and IBM. Ruben -- NYCwireless - http://www.nycwireless.net/ Un/Subscribe: http://lists.nycwireless.net/mailman/listinfo/nycwireless/ Archives: http://lists.nycwireless.net/pipermail/nycwireless/
RE: [nycwireless] New Yorker Article [was: Multichannel News -AnalystsQuestionBellInvestments]
:0: * [EMAIL PROTECTED] /dev/null Congressmen - please add the following to your procmail filter if you wish to retain my vote and campain contributions. Ruben Safir On Thu, 2006-03-16 at 20:17 -0500, Jim Henry wrote: Well spoken. I disagree with your goal, but you elucidate it well. I've said many times that I disagree with Whitacre's stated intentions as what will surely turn out to be a lousy business strategy. However, I agree with his (company's) right to operate their network as he sees fit. Jim -Original Message- From: Dana Spiegel [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, March 16, 2006 10:07 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; nycwireless@lists.nycwireless.net Subject: Re: [nycwireless] New Yorker Article [was: Multichannel News -AnalystsQuestionBellInvestments] Jim, I don't know anything about the Center for Individual Freedom. From their issues page, they seem to attack any government regulation or taxation, regardless of the purpose of the action. For the rest of our readers, I want to state for the record that we, as supporters of Net Neutrality, do so only as a reactionary measure. I think you would be hard pressed to find a one of us who supports government regulation just for the hell of it. Our fight for Net Neutrality comes as a direct reaction to statements made by Ed Whitacre, CEO of SBC, John Thorne, a Verizon senior vice president and deputy general counsel, and William L. Smith, CTO of BellSouth. Coupled with the vast majority of this country only having a choice between a single cableco and a single telco in order to get internet access, we feel that the normal marketplace mechanisms that would (possibly) counteract the telco and cableco drive to control the internet are visibly absent. As a result, we, people who generally oppose additional regulation by our government, believe the creation of Net Neutrality regulation is the only way to counteract actions taken by the consolidating telco and monopolistic oligopolies. Dana Spiegel Executive Director NYCwireless [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.NYCwireless.net +1 917 402 0422 Read the Wireless Community blog: http://www.wirelesscommunity.info On Mar 15, 2006, at 11:44 PM, Jim Henry wrote: Frank, Yepper, and here is yet another article: Center for Individual Freedom Dear Friend: Why after so many years of fighting to keep the Internet largely free of regulation and taxation are some lawmakers and Internet companies now advocating for increased regulation of the Internet? The United States House of Representatives may consider a provision that will lead to regulation of the Internet. Please contact your Representative in Congress and Majority Leader Boehner and ask them to keep the Internet free of regulation. Use the hyperlink below to send your personalized letter to your Representative in Congress and Majority Leader Boehner today! http://capwiz.com/cfif/issues/alert/?alertid=8574316 http://capwiz.com/cfif/issues/alert/?alertid=8574316type=CO type=CO Last week, several news publications -- citing anonymous sources -- reported that new legislation to regulate the Internet (so-called net-neutrality) will be considered as part of a telecom reform bill currently being debated in Congress. Over the past few months, proponents of so-called net-neutrality regulation have been using scare tactics with the general public and our elected officials - demanding legislation for a problem that doesn't even exist! Even the Wall Street Journal calls these proponents' tactics silly and dismisses the notion that it is the end of the Internet as we know it. Some major corporate interests like Google and Yahoo! would like for you to believe they are David facing Goliath -- claiming that broadband providers like Comcast, Cox and ATT will keep you from accessing their products. Nothing could be further from the truth! Never, in the history of the Internet, has a broadband provider blocked a customer from accessing their Yahoo! Mail or Google search engine. Yet, these companies want Congress to enact legislation that will protect them from this non-existent problem. Ironically, these calls for the government to become the Internet's traffic cop are being led by companies like Google, which only a short time ago made headlines when it chose to cooperate with the Communist leadership of China. Remember when Google caved to the Chinese government and agreed to block access to all information and websites that speak about freedom and democracy? When they agreed to censor all information that discusses Tiananmen Square and independence for Taiwan - or anything else that can be interpreted to go against the interests of China's Communist leadership? Can you believe it's supposed conservative lawmakers who are now cow-towing to these interests and offering to legislate and
