We Are Surrounded By The Dark Red...

That's pretty funny. Also, were you aware that the UN is trying to take control of the internet? Edads!

Finally, Bill O'Reilly informs is that Lefty zealots want to replace the white christian power structure with a multicultural tide. I don't know that he's exactly wrong, but it's a heck of a way to put it.

Paranoia strikes deep...

GD it:

After telling an audience that young people today "think work is a four-letter word," Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton said she apologized to her daughter.

If it comes down to it, I will of course vote for this woman. I don't think she's got any better than a 3 to 1 chance of being nominated, and I almost certainly would vote elsewhere in a primary, but hey, I want Health Care, so...

But it's fucking distressing. I know a lot of people who've worked personally with Ms. Clinton, and they all assure me she's nice, personable and cool in real life. It boggles my mind then why she seems hell-bent on creating a public persona that's an almost comic caricature of a square ex-liberal baby boomer sellout parent.

Billmon, talking about the right-wing's inability to not go completely over the top when talking about the "dire threats" we face:

They're waxing hysterical about the immigrant "threat" for the same reason they've been waxing hysterical about the "Islamofascists" for the past five years: because it legitimizes their paranoid, authoritarian world view -- which in turn justifies the kind of paranoid, authoritarian state they want to see established in this country.

The decentralization of power is going to be a vital component to the 21st Century Left's platform. It's critical that we position ourselves in opposition to centralized bureaucratic control, be it from the Federal Government or Wal*Mart.

Mmmmm... shiny.

I hate that they're charging $200 more just to make it black. I hate that I want it anyway. Fucking marketing!

I'm excited to be on the move.

Plane tickets have been purchased and a subletter found. Come June 1st I will be back to living out of a bag. Come June 7th, I will begin heading West. By the 14th I should be settling in the State of Jefferson.

My worrying side is unnerved by the way in which ramblin' comes so natural, feels so right. I'm starting to feel my age a bit, and I wonder if/when I'll evern be able to settle down. I joked a bit about this during Vagabender, that my life might become like a cheezy metallica song (anywhere I roam / where I lay my head is home), or the like. There's a long line of history there...

I love you baby
but you gotta understand
when the Lord made me
he made a ramblin' man

I'm excited by change. I can't help it. I'm an explorer by heart. My thirst for new experience and sensation seems insatiable. I don't think these are bad qualities, I just wonder how I can configure things so that I can start building a bigger pile of life-assets.

Maybe I'm being too square about the whole thing, and what I really need to do is Reclaim the Dignity of my Own Experience. Maybe what I need is to stop fucking second-guessing things so much. I'm a ways out from art school, but that work we did on judges, cops-in-the-head, and the poisonous nature of the word "should" is ringing strong lately.

In my last lifey post, I was struggling with the career choice dichotomy, and the upshot was that I have to forge forward without compromising. That felt right, and I even think I'm beginning to see what that could mean practically. The wider question of where I'm living and who I'm associating with is a little more ticklish.

This never ends, really. Oh, the joy of first-world problems.

I saw this happen a couple time at yesterday's conference: people get up in front of a microphone, they tell pretty obvious and outright lies, but do so in a calm, non-threatening, even friendly manner. Then, when people are incensed by their lying behavior, the liars can portrey their behavior as rational, and the people who attempt to call them out as irrational.

This was most definitely in evidence on the Network Neutrality panel/debate. Chris Wolf, who heads up the faux-organization called "Hands off the Internet," which is actually a front group for major phone companies like Verizon, AT&T and BellSouth, and Steve Effros, who painted himself as an independent even though he's a strategic consultant for major Cable companies and is a "Senior Advisor" for their trade association.

It was sort of maddening, which, I suspect, was part of the point.

I wrote Rep. Anthony Wiener, who was moderating and "trying to make up his mind" the following email:

Rep. Weiner,

I was one of the younger audience members who got a little hot under to collar during yesterday's debate. I apologize for that, and for perhaps making the pro-neutrality side seem less calm and professional and well-intentioned as you weigh the issues. Chris Wolf and Steve Effros used a number of disingenuous and provocative tactics in their side of the debate, and in many cases were (in my opinion) telling outright lies.

Anyway, all that aside, I had one constructive comment to add for your consideration.

As you correctly pointed out, the growth of the internet has been driven by innovators in content and services, not by companies building out physical infrastructure. Most users of the internet are not "consumers" of information, or at least not exclusively so. The most important and vital aspect of this network is its bi-directional nature, and the way in which this has empowered individuals to innovate outside an institutional framework.

As Tim Brenners Lee said, he didn't have to ask anyone's permission to invent the world wide web. This is because the fundamental rules have (until now) said that anyone is allowed to send data around any way they please.

This two-way/conversational structure is what makes the internet such an amazing marketplace for information and ideas. Like all marketplaces, it needs some regulation to prevent abuses and keep the action competitive. The Government has a role to play in establishing the rules of the game, and indeed it has historically played this role very well.

Since its inception, the rule of the internet has been that if you own a piece of physical infrastructure -- a pipe, if you will -- you have to treat anyone's data the same. This is a vital part of why the internet has developed so quickly. Without this, we're likely to see many more attempts at corporatized central-planning, backroom deals between big players to offer exclusive "consumer only" services, and a precipitous decline in the ability of individual and small-scale innovators to make an impact.

Without network neutrality, the "next generation" of the internet will likely be the exclusive province of large corporations. Google and Yahoo and Amazon and all those types we talk about, they'll be fine. They may have to pay more money to the telcos, but they can afford it. However, the so-called "marketplace" for next-generation services, whatever they might be, will be limited to these and other large scale players.

The alternative is not what the cable, telco and other last-mile providers would have you think. The First Amendment doesn't make the government a gatekeeper to speech, and a network neutrality statute wouldn't make the FCC the boss of the internet. All we're really talking about is continuing to keep the traffic laws of the internet the same as they have been for the past 15 years. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

The idea that deregulation in the context of the current marketplace will enhance customer service and promote innovation flies in the face of facts. It's an ideological position, based on the notion private corporations are agile, responsive market players, and government is a lumbering bureaucracy that smothers everything it touches.

You think the government is a frustrating bureaucracy? Try calling up Verizon for technical support. The telco and cable companies are massive and lumbering and full of small-minded people too. The only additional difference is they have a profit motive, aren't accountable to any sort of democratic force, and their leaders have actively stated their desire to annex broadband services as their personal fifedom.

Don't be fooled by the anti-bureaucracy, anti-regulation rhetoric. All we're looking for is the continuation of a level playing field.

I saw this happen a couple time at yesterday's conference: people get up in front of a microphone, they tell pretty obvious and outright lies, but do so in a calm, non-threatening, even friendly manner. Then, when people are incensed by their lying behavior, the liars can portrey their behavior as rational, and the people who attempt to call them out as irrational.

This was most definitely in evidence on the Network Neutrality panel/debate. Chris Wolf, who heads up the faux-organization called "Hands off the Internet," which is actually a front group for major phone companies like Verizon, AT&T and BellSouth, and Steve Effros, who painted himself as an independent even though he's a strategic consultant for major Cable companies and is a "Senior Advisor" for their trade association.

It was sort of maddening, which, I suspect, was part of the point.

I wrote Rep. Anthony Wiener, who was moderating and "trying to make up his mind" the following email:

Rep. Weiner,

I was one of the younger audience members who got a little hot under to collar during yesterday's debate. I apologize for that, and for perhaps making the pro-neutrality side seem less calm and professional and well-intentioned as you weigh the issues. Chris Wolf and Steve Effros used a number of disingenuous and provocative tactics in their side of the debate, and in many cases were (in my opinion) telling outright lies.

Anyway, all that aside, I had one constructive comment to add for your consideration.

As you correctly pointed out, the growth of the internet has been driven by innovators in content and services, not by companies building out physical infrastructure. Most users of the internet are not "consumers" of information, or at least not exclusively so. The most important and vital aspect of this network is its bi-directional nature, and the way in which this has empowered individuals to innovate outside an institutional framework.

As Tim Brenners Lee said, he didn't have to ask anyone's permission to invent the world wide web. This is because the fundamental rules have (until now) said that anyone is allowed to send data around any way they please.

This two-way/conversational structure is what makes the internet such an amazing marketplace for information and ideas. Like all marketplaces, it needs some regulation to prevent abuses and keep the action competitive. The Government has a role to play in establishing the rules of the game, and indeed it has historically played this role very well.

Since its inception, the rule of the internet has been that if you own a piece of physical infrastructure -- a pipe, if you will -- you have to treat anyone's data the same. This is a vital part of why the internet has developed so quickly. Without this, we're likely to see many more attempts at corporatized central-planning, backroom deals between big players to offer exclusive "consumer only" services, and a precipitous decline in the ability of individual and small-scale innovators to make an impact.

Without network neutrality, the "next generation" of the internet will likely be the exclusive province of large corporations. Google and Yahoo and Amazon and all those types we talk about, they'll be fine. They may have to pay more money to the telcos, but they can afford it. However, the so-called "marketplace" for next-generation services, whatever they might be, will be limited to these and other large scale players.

The alternative is not what the cable, telco and other last-mile providers would have you think. The First Amendment doesn't make the government a gatekeeper to speech, and a network neutrality statute wouldn't make the FCC the boss of the internet. All we're really talking about is continuing to keep the traffic laws of the internet the same as they have been for the past 15 years. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

The idea that deregulation in the context of the current marketplace will enhance customer service and promote innovation flies in the face of facts. It's an ideological position, based on the notion private corporations are agile, responsive market players, and government is a lumbering bureaucracy that smothers everything it touches.

You think the government is a frustrating bureaucracy? Try calling up Verizon for technical support. The telco and cable companies are massive and lumbering and full of small-minded people too. The only additional difference is they have a profit motive, aren't accountable to any sort of democratic force, and their leaders have actively stated their desire to annex broadband services as their personal fifedom.

Don't be fooled by the anti-bureaucracy, anti-regulation rhetoric. All we're looking for is the continuation of a level playing field.

(Updated to compensate for drunken misspelling last night, added a few bits too)

"We are a nation of laws, and we must obey our laws."

Wonder what Glenn Greenwald would have to say about this.

He also spotlights the role of technology, suggesting that federal money will be used to buy sensors and the like. Guard will be used to build stuff, but not to be Minutemen.

The practice of "catch and release" is over. We're gonna build a bunch of detention centers to hold people awaiting deportation.

On the other hand, we will have to have a guest worker program, so that foreigners can come work here (presumably for less than minimum wage), providing they can pass a background check.

New guest worker ID cards will employ biometric technology. A portent of things to come?

If you've been here a while, if you pay a fine and pass some tests, you can become a citizen, because people who are already connected are ok.

Marines who've been wounded in battle can be citizens too. Support our immigrant troops!

----

In general, I think Bush's rhetoric is actually somewhat right on here, and if he means that "guest workers" would have the same rights and protections as a regular citizen, and not be an exploited sub-class, this is all good.

I think his base will be disappointed though. (update: sure 'nuff)

At the Personal Democracy Conference. It's a pretty good turnout, definitely more than 2004. I'm speaking this afternoon on the "free tools" panel. Should be fun.

At the Personal Democracy Conference. It's a pretty good turnout, definitely more than 2004. I'm speaking this afternoon on the "free tools" panel. Should be fun.