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Just in case you haven’t seen this :-)
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Thursday, December 9, 2010
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
President Obama Moves to the Center – Refuses to Play Politics
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You know a president is moving to the center when he’s praised by the opposition party and shredded by his own. The Democrats are outraged by President Obama’s compromise on extending the Bush tax cuts. Apparently they’d rather see benefits for most Americans – extension of unemployment benefits and tax cuts for the “middle class” – crash & burn rather than compromise their political doctrine.
That, however, is not how one governs this country. To govern a president must serve the people, not political doctrine.
President Obama explained this fundamental concept in his December 7, 2010 news conference:
Let me use a couple of analogies. I've said before that I felt that the middle-class tax cuts were being held hostage to the high-end tax cuts. I think it's tempting not to negotiate with hostage-takers, unless the hostage gets harmed. Then people will question the wisdom of that strategy. In this case, the hostage was the American people and I was not willing to see them get harmed. Again, this not an abstract political fight. This is not isolated here in Washington.
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Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Impatience – the Incumbents’ Downfall
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On CBS’s “60 Minutes”, fed chief Ben Bernanke predicted it will take at least 5 years for jobs to recover and push the unemployment rate down to a normal 5%-6%. The fed chief urged Americans to be patient.
5 years?! The American electorate has to wait 5 years for jobs to recover? Well that’s not going to work! The American electorate wants everything and wants it now. No matter that economics dictates that jobs are the last facet of the economy to recover. To hell with the facts. Incumbents will be voted out of office until jobs recover. Period. Ben Bernanke makes plenty of sense to those who pay attention and understand. To the overwhelming majority of those who don’t, what he said is “blah, blah, blah …” He might as well have been talking Phoenician.
The loss of jobs is a result of the economic tragedy allowed by the Bush administration’s failed economic policies. As we saw in the 11/10 midterm elections, whichever party is in power will be blamed. Picture John McCain as president. Would he have been able to overcome the economic fact that jobs take years to come back? I don’t think so.
So beware incumbents – 2012 is “merely” 2 years away. Batten down the hatches and play politics as jobs will take at least 5 years to recover.
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Saturday, December 4, 2010
Coming Soon to Your Internet: Caps & Overage Charges
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[Reprinted from Ars Technica: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/12/did-the-fcc-just-bless-a-capped-two-tier-internet.ars?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss]
Did the FCC just bless a capped, two-tier Internet?
By Nate Anderson
By Nate Anderson
You like the idea of Internet data caps and overage charges, right? And the prospect of paying your ISP separate fees for "the Internet" and for "managed" IP services like voice, video, VPN, telehealth, and smart grid applications, even when these directly compete with similar Internet-delivered services?
Okay, you probably don't—if you're a business or home Internet user. But if you're a major Internet provider, you love both of these ideas a lot... and you found support for both of them in Wednesday's "net neutrality preview" from the Federal Communications Commission.
"Broadband rationing"
When FCC Chair Julius Genachowski previewed his net neutrality proposal this week, he mentioned "usage-based pricing" and failed to mention "managed services." Neither item was accidental, and it didn't take long for interested observers to read the tea leaves.
Craig Moffett, an influential Wall Street tech analyst, said after the speech that "broadband rationing is now the order of the day" once Genachowski gave his support to the idea. It's something of a strange comment, since usage-based pricing has not been either regulated or illegal, and in fact data caps are now common even though many are high (such as Comcast's 250GB/month limit). Still, the FCC's endorsement of the idea should provide a bit of cover to wireline ISPs who want to try it.
Moffett added, "We would expect the introduction of UBP [usage-based pricing] plans from major cable [ISPs] to follow in short order, and we would expect that their stocks will respond well to such introductions."
NCTA, the influential lobby for the major cable operators, today quoted Moffett and expressed its own support for UBP as a way to "focus on what best serves consumers." CEO Kyle McSlarrow says he doesn't support any particular model (and likes flat-rate himself), but that ISPs need the flexibility to experiment in order to help "price-sensitive consumers at the lower end of the socioeconomic ladder."
In response to Moffett's quotes, a senior FCC official sent us a statement making clear that data caps, overage charges, and the like would be watched carefully for signs of price gouging in the limited-competition wireline ISP market.
"Usage-based pricing can create more choice and flexibility for consumers," said the official. "But practices that are arbitrary, anti-consumer, or anti-competitive would cause serious concern. The FCC will be a cop on the beat for consumers."
But Genachowski does support the idea, and the ISPs are glad of that explicit support. There's nothing wrong with the idea, in our view, when implemented fairly, but it's not popular with the public in large part because past attempts to implement it have correctly been viewed as a massive cash grab by ISPs that already make insanely high profit margins.
When the cable companies roll out $5 data-capped Internet access to make it easy for poor families to get online, it's hard to envision much opposition. But of course, that's not what we've seen.
We're excellent "managers"
Imagine that you are Netflix boss Reed Hastings. You're busy trying to eat the cable companies' collective lunch by offering on-demand Internet streaming video; sure, you're not there yet, but it's clear this model has a bright future… except for one little worry.
The cable companies and telcos you rely on to deliver your bits also compete with you, offering profitable video services of their own that don't come through "the Internet" but are increasingly based on IP and use the exact same pipe. Should those companies be allowed to offer managed quality of service enhanced video streams over a segregated section of the last-mile Internet pipe to directly compete with your own best-effort Internet offering? And how could this possibly be a fair fight?
We don't need to imagine Hastings worrying about this scenario, though, since Netflix has made its concerns clear in writing. Back in January, the company warned the FCC about letting "managed services" swallow up the open Internet.
"The fact that network operators control the delivery pipes and generate significant revenue from content that travels over those pipes provides both the means and motive for discriminating against new ventures that might threaten revenue sources of the network operators," Netflix warned. These developments "exacerbate the growing concern that [video providers] will use their control over programming networks to stifle competition, including the growing competition from online video providers like Netflix."
Therefore, according to Netflix, the FCC should apply its open Internet principles to "managed services," too, possibly by requiring that such services could never consume more than a set fraction of the Internet pipe, reserving the rest for the "open Internet."
The FCC itself recognized the potential for these kinds of problems when it issued its call for comment on the open Internet (PDF), but it also didn't want to hinder genuine innovation in a nascent market.
"We recognize that these managed or specialized services may differ from broadband Internet access services in ways that recommend a different policy approach," it said at the time, "and it may be inappropriate to apply the rules proposed here to managed or specialized services. However, we are sensitive to any risk that the growth of managed or specialized services might supplant or otherwise negatively affect the open Internet."
The ISPs were aghast at the idea that the FCC might limit them from setting up priority access deals both on the Internet and through these separate managed services. While selling an increasingly fast raw pipe to the 'Net (with neutral congestion management and even customer-directed QoS) might sound like a boon to consumers, ISPs dread the thought of becoming mere bit haulers. The real money comes when you can charge people once for the open Internet, once more for IP voice, a third time for IP video, and another five or six times for various smaller IP services.
They've been lobbying against the idea for months, almost always insisting that "managed services" are about "telehealth" or "smart grids." And you don't hate healthy people, do you?
In the end, the ISPs got their way. Despite the many questions raised by the FCC about managed services, Genachowski's speech didn't mention it once. That was no accident.
Our understanding is that the proposed open Internet rules include nothing about managed services, leaving it entirely unregulated. The FCC has apparently decided—and this is certainly a legitimate point—that no one really knows what services will develop and that it's just too early in the game to lay down any sort of detailed rules. Such rules might, in fact, be counterproductive if offered too early and could squelch a nascent market.
We know the FCC has such concerns because Genachowski stated them explicitly in relation to wireless, where he also accepted the ISPs' arguments that "wireless is different" and doesn't need neutrality rules (transparency is good enough). Instead, the FCC will "monitor" the situation in this young market and act if needed.
The ISP industry has been lobbying for a "light touch" when it comes to open Internet regulation, and they got it; if the touching here were any lighter, it would be nonexistent. The cable industry sees things the same way—and they love it.
"We further understand that the rules do not preclude or inhibit our ability to innovate and deploy new and specialized services," said NCTA after the speech. "Importantly, they appear to reflect Chairman Genachowski’s previously stated position that such rules will not and should not result in price regulation and to recognize the value of flexible business models such as usage based pricing."
Of course, the ISPs aren't in the managed services game because "telehealth" and "distance education" are going to butter their bread, though there is certainly some cash in these services. (Looking for a fun drinking game this weekend? Dig up public references to "managed services" by CEOs and lobbyists and do a shot whenever you see "telehealth" trotted out.)
No, they're in it in order to do things like earn cable-TV-style fees from millions and millions of users, as Google and Verizon at least had the decency to admit earlier this year. ISPs should be free to manage their networks, the two companies said, and "they should also be free to offer managed network services, such as IP television."
Like usage-based pricing, this isn't necessarily a bad idea—who wants their Sunday football games to buffer or glitch out?—but we continue to have real worries about how this affects competition and how it might be implemented. (And this isn't all speculative, either; AT&T already reserves part of its U-Verse connection for IP video and can squeeze Internet traffic when home users are watching more HDTV. Is that good for home TV watchers, bad for innovation at the network edge, or both?)
Arms merchants love an arms race
The FCC has its concerns, too, but it won't act, at least not now. Instead it will "monitor." Those who own the last-mile pipes have permission to continue their experimentation with managed services.
Fortunately, though wireline broadband isn't as competitive as many would like, the major ISPs remain susceptible to public and political pressure that will place constraints on their ability to do anything too outrageous—at least in one giant step. (See the flood of anger at Time Warner Cable's pricing plan experiments in 2009—anger that reached Congress—for a good recent example.)
But what will happen by slow degrees as ISPs condition Internet content providers and the public to pay for more and more services, and to accept certain forms of usage-based pricing?
Verizon already knows—the "open Internet" will take a back seat to the managed "broadband platform."
As the company's top lobbyist, Tom Tauke, put it this summer, "Certainly nobody believes that the promise of broadband is Internet access and video, which is what we have today." No, the future is "'other services' that should be available over the broadband pipe. They need unique creativity and partnerships to make them work. It’s the communications company partnering with the power company to do the smart grid. It’s the communications partnering with the health care provider to do heart monitoring at home. [Editor's note: drink up!] That requires a different set of rules than the rules that govern the best-efforts Internet."
It's a model where ISPs extract rents on every service they can imagine. The danger, of course, is one that Google warned about in a slightly different context: "creating incentives to monetize scarcity rather than build capacity, to generating an 'arms race that benefits only the arms merchants' (where broadband providers increase their income but not overall speeds), to fashioning an Internet where only those who can 'pay to play' will fare well and others will be relegated to a slow lane."
Will that happen? ISPs say no. We're about to find out.
Excerpted from Did the FCC just bless a capped, two-tier Internet?
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Monday, November 8, 2010
“Obama” Patters the Pirates
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“President Obama” in a send up of Gilbert & Sullivan’s best known patter song “I am the very model of a modern major general” from “The Pirates of Penzance”
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Monday, November 1, 2010
Alcohol – the Most Addictive Drug
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Study: Alcohol more dangerous than heroin - Health – Addictions
By MARIA CHENG
The Associated Press
updated 11/1/2010 2:46:35 AM ET
LONDON — Alcohol is more dangerous than illegal drugs like heroin and crack cocaine, according to a new study.
British experts evaluated substances including alcohol, cocaine, heroin, ecstasy and marijuana, ranking them based on how destructive they are to the individual who takes them and to society as a whole.
Researchers analyzed how addictive a drug is and how it harms the human body, in addition to other criteria like environmental damage caused by the drug, its role in breaking up families and its economic costs, such as health care, social services, and prison.
Heroin, crack cocaine and methamphetamines, or crystal meth, were the most lethal to individuals. When considering their wider social effects and harm to others, alcohol, heroin and crack cocaine were the deadliest. But overall, alcohol outranked all other substances, followed by heroin and crack cocaine. Marijuana, ecstasy and LSD scored far lower.
Devastating consequences
The study was paid for by Britain's Centre for Crime and Justice Studies and was published online Monday in the medical journal, Lancet.
Experts said alcohol scored so high because it is so widely used and has devastating consequences not only for drinkers but for those around them.
"Just think about what happens (with alcohol) at every football game," said Wim van den Brink, a professor of psychiatry and addiction at the University of Amsterdam. He was not linked to the study and co-authored a commentary in the Lancet.
When drunk in excess, alcohol damages nearly all organ systems. It is also connected to higher death rates and is involved in a greater percentage of crime than most other drugs, including heroin.
But experts said it would be impractical and incorrect to outlaw alcohol.
"We cannot return to the days of prohibition," said Leslie King, an adviser to the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and one of the study's authors. "Alcohol is too embedded in our culture and it won't go away."
King said countries should target problem drinkers, not the vast majority of people who indulge in a drink or two. He said governments should consider more education programs and raising the price of alcohol so it isn't as widely available.
Experts said the study should prompt countries to reconsider how they classify drugs. For example, last year in Britain, the government increased its penalties for the possession of marijuana. One of its senior advisers, David Nutt — the lead author on the Lancet study — was fired after he criticized the British decision.
"What governments decide is illegal is not always based on science," said van den Brink. He said considerations about revenue and taxation, like those garnered from the alcohol and tobacco industries, may influence decisions about which substances to regulate or outlaw.
"Drugs that are legal cause at least as much damage, if not more, than drugs that are illicit," he said.
Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Excerpted from Study: Alcohol more dangerous than heroin - Health - Addictions - msnbc.com
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