Now, considering the fact that the FCC was claiming said authority based solely on a vaguely-worded section of a 1934 law that knew nothing of net neutrality and very little about the shape of communication to come, and that probably only marginally cared about freedom of expression, I for one have no trouble viewing this one as a victory. I’m just not big on the idea of granting the FCC regulatory powers over ISPs because of a law that cannot account for the intricacies of the thing to be regulated. It just sounds to me like power crying out to be abused.

What I don’t understand is why so many seem to think that this ruling means that ISPs will now be completely unregulated for all time. This doesn’t sound like the MO of the United States I live in. I think it’s far more likely that the scumbags that run the show will now turn their one-eyed gaze upon drafting new legislation for just this purpose.

And this would not necessarily be a bad thing. It’s possible – if enough of us demand it long enough and loud enough – that new ISP-regulating legislation could be drafted with net neutrality in mind.

I know I’m dreaming here, but it’s not a completely hopeless dream.

Having said all of that, if I can’t use my broadband connection for whatever I choose, within reason, I’ll cancel my service. Why pay good money for crippled and censored net access? I’d go back to dialup but I’ve long since dropped ground-line phone service. So instead, I’ll just drag my little laptop to a coffee shop every evening to check my e-mail, then go home. It’ll be sort of like it’s 1995 all over again. :~(

email to Flickr,
Youtube to watch clips,
Flickr to upload photos,
Google Maps to find a local restaurant,
amazon.com to buy a DVD,
WoW to quest,
and even to SFTP a PHP file to a host: still done to receive information, process it, and communicate a result back to the user.

I can’t think of a single thing the internet is ever used for that doesn’t involve communication. And almost all of it, simply by virtue of the way the internet works (routing things along whichever path is most responsive), involves communication from one state (or even country) to another.

1. In order to claim that the current, non-neutral, state of affairs is harmless, de Angeli claims that neutrality advocates are only concerned with ISPs blocking websites, and then asserts that no such thing has ever happened. In actuality, another thing that neutrality advocates fear is that ISPs will block or throttle certain services, and the federal appeals court case Xeni is talking about is a ruling in just such a case: Comcast blocked its users from using BitTorrent. De Angeli refers to this later on, but casts it as a piracy issue.

2. De Angeli then goes on to claim that the FCC will require licensing to set up servers, a notion he seems to have pulled out of thin air. The fact that he refers to the FCC as a “fascist bureau” should tell you that not all of his wheels are touching the ground.

And as long as the additional power makes sense, and it’s handled appropriately, I’d say it’s a good thing. Of course we’d need to keep an eye on how and when that power is used, and for that we have the 5th column. Trust, but verify.

There isn’t anything stopping them from blocking access to any website they want and forcing you to use one service over another. The criminals at the RIAA and MPAA are going to have a field day.

Gotta love our free society unlike those countries that have internet censorship.. lol.

This is hardly a fair description of the BitTorrent protocol… That’s like saying that trains are a transportation system for chemicals, most often illegal drugs. It’s hardly the purpose or even most common use of the protocol.

This is – seriously – one of the most well-crafted kiss-offs I have ever seen. I would adopt it myself, but I fear that if my wife got a hold of it I would hear a thousand times a day.

One of them, for example, is called “Lean and hungry look”, which is a Shakespearean reference to Cassius, the mytho-historical leader of the assassins.

And u thought those guys weren’t educated! Their demagogues certainly are…

Oh, the irony, it is not merely literary.

Second of all, for all of those that complain about Drudge’s manner of cherry-picking news articles and dramatic, screaming headlines, you should think twice before using the Huffington Post or the Daily Beast by the same logic.

Yes, folks, going from a civil war, to an assassination, to two successive civil wars is NOT really the best strategy to prevent totalitarianism. It did, in fact, cement the Julio-Claudians’ hold on the monarchy, and lead almost instantly to some of the worst emperors in all of history…

Another of Shakespeare’s details is the wayward “mob mentality” in Rome. Fly your flag, Drudge, that’s all you are good for!

Free and equal access to information (the internet) needs to be recognized as a universal human right.

Content blocking / redirecting needs to be recognized as anti-competitive under the Sherman Anti-Trust Act.

Here in chilly (now post) Bank Holiday London, we went round to our neighbour’s house for tea and met their lanky teenage son. I can’t recall how we got into the conversation, but he mentioned how he and his friends were buying mesh routers to share their iTunes collections (“… and other stuff”) around. I said I was impressed by the geekery. He smiled and said “Well, there’s this big clamp-down on the Internet now, so most people I know are now transferring stuff on memory sticks or setting up mesh networks. I suppose we all have to be geeks now.”

In mixed company, I didn’t want to ask too many questions about how far into this he was (Are they encrypting stuff? How big is the network? How do I join?) – mainly because I’m about 20 years older than him and his parents don’t have a clue. Damn interesting development though if it’s in any way a real trend.

But…

I also feel like guests should be allowed their opinion, so long as they’re not busting chairs or hollering weird accusations. I made a jokey comment about not wanting to attend Erykah Badu’s concert the other day– not that I have a choice, considering I’m 2000 miles away– and it was killed off right away. That hurts, Xeni. Why disappear my comment? Can’t a guest say “I don’t really dig this music,” and still be okay with hanging around?

It’s not like I’m out hating on every entry. Take a look at my comments: I shared a story about Dee Snider, got a little geeky on music terminology, expressed some helpless anger about the war video, got seriously geeky discussing seismic charge noises, upheld some moms’ rights, congratulated Rob on an April Fools’ joke, and asked Cusak to help me kill the 80′s once and for all.

So I’m hardly a troll.

So what DOES that make me? The way I see it, I’m a guest who gets to come over and hang out, but gets hauled out the door if I disagree. For the most part, you all are some cool folks– but you have more to learn about being good hosts.

or praising with faint damnation…