even as Obama's ecomomic advisors were being announced fed ex delivered notice to my father that his '07 taxes had been revised upwards by a little under $20K. due in less than 13 days. first notice. includes 6 months intrest.
the first wave of our brave new world? --- In videoblogging@yahoogroups.com, Irina <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Has the Internet been saved? > > When Stephen Schultze <http://managingmiracles.blogspot.com/> stopped me in > the hallway and told me that Susan Crawford <http://scrawford.net/blog/> had > been appointed head of Obama's FCC transition team, I thought I was being > punk'd. It was too good to be true. > > So, Stephen and I went to an open computer and Googled. Yup. But the news > was actually even better: Kevin Werbach <http://werblog.com/> has been > appointed as co-lead. > > I was giddy with joy, for two reasons. > > First, it just might mean that the Internet has been saved. > > There are many threats to the Net, and there always will be. But one is > particularly nasty and urgent. The business model of the incumbent carriers > in the US primarily telephone and cable companies focuses not on simply > providing us with as many bits as we want, but rather on getting us to buy > content and services from them. This makes it too tempting to them to tilt > the market toward their offerings, and to optimize the system for the sort > of content they provide (e.g., high def Hollywood movies), which means > de-optimizing it for other types of content (e.g., YouTubes). This problem > is exacerbated by the lack of a truly open, truly competitive market. > > Susan and Kevin come at these issues not as representatives of the incumbent > industries but as Internet folks. They are, I believe, deeply committed to > the spread of the open Internet. But, they are not ideologues. They are > capable of listening, finding what's of value and what matters in views with > which they disagree, and moderating their views. They are informed, > intelligent, reasonable, and sweet. You come out of a disagreement with them > feeling better about us all. > > Which brings me to the second reason I am so happy about their appointment. > Imagine a government that values the qualities Susan and Kevin embody. > Imagine a government that doesn't go for the lazy, safe wedge issues that > divide us, but actually tries to find ways we can move forward together. > Imagine a government that thinks not first about winning the argument but > about how we can live together afterwards. Imagine a government that assumes > our better natures. > > No need to imagine such a government. We just elected one. > > > -- > http://geekentertainment.tv > > > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] >
