Ξ August 31st, 2010 | → Comments Off | ∇ Politics |
There have been indications since spring that this was going to be a Republican election cycle. That, in and of itself, isn’t a shocker – the President’s party usually loses seats in non-Presidential years, and given the overwhelming Democratic majority, the Republicans couldn’t really go anywhere but up.
What is surprising is the latest Gallup generic party poll. Gallup has been performing that poll since WWII, and is now registering a 10-point Republican lead – by far the largest in history. Historically, Republicans are under-represented in that poll, so a 1-2 point Democratic lead usually means a wash. Even in 1994, with the Contract with America class, the lead was only 5 points. What’s more, up until August, the distance between the two parties on the poll was fairly close, with Democrats and Republicans switching places every couple of weeks. The entire month of August, however, has shown the Republicans with a sizable lead over Democrats, and that it’s widening.
Traditionally, political voting patterns begin to set in late August, as the primaries finish and candidates begin open campaign season. By the end of September, voting trends are pretty much locked into place, with the ability of politicians (barring an October Surprise) to shift the electorate usually limited to just a couple of percentage points.
As such, it’s now that we look for indicators that the voting populace is breaking one way or the other for a given election cycle. I’d say a historic lead for Republicans in the Gallup poll qualifies for just such an indicator. With such an advantage, even Republicans that shouldn’t have a chance (running in historically Democratic districts), assuming they run a competent campaign, move into the “toss-up” category.
Ξ August 17th, 2010 | → Comments Off | ∇ Politics |
Last month, Politico posted about the decline of Hotline, the political newswire. I’d heard about Hotline a while ago, when Rush Limbaugh touted it as the cutting edge of political information. He was right at the time – in the infancy of the web, Hotline gave timely, daily political synopsis via fax. I wondered how I could access to it, but at $15,000, it was a little bit beyond the means of my allowance.
But the advance of technology that put Hotline in such demand also signaled it’s decline. Now, up to the minute news from Washington can be had from dozens of websites. Still would like a subscription to it.
Ξ August 10th, 2010 | → Comments Off | ∇ Politics, Technology |
A friend of mine recently commented on Net Neutrality (and specifically, the Verizon/Google collaboration). My thoughts on the matter are a bit long for a comment, so I thought I’d turn it into a full post.
Net Neutrality, at it’s most basic idea, is the idea that bits should be considered bits only – that bits shouldn’t be treated differently based on where they are from, where they are going, or what they are carrying. Now, any techie will tell you this is unreasonable – the very underlying technology that provides for the Internet violates this (Time To Live field in IP). And I’ve used quality of service (QoS) settings in my house to great effect, which would be verboten under such a regime. Ditto for network protection measures.
So it’s not about treating all bits the same. Fair enough, that was a simplification. The real fear regarding the issues of Net Neutrality is this: some people are worried about corporations cutting deals to lock out people from the Internet and it will become a gated community (usually with political connotations). Others are worried that the government will take control and turn the Internet into a political football and regulate away the dynamic nature of it. Depending on which you worry about more generally determines where you end up on the divide.
There are a couple of points I’d like to make here: First, we currently have de facto if not de jure Net Neutrality. No service provider I’ve had blocks me from going to the many sundry and controversial parts of the web. As such, arguments for Net Neutrality are based on a perceived threat, and not an actual one.
Second, the most likely means of Net Neutrality is through FCC oversight. In response to a point my friend made about with government oversight, at least “we can vote the bastards out”, the members of the FCC are appointed bureaucrats and not elected. In fact, I honestly couldn’t name any member of the FCC beyond Michael Powell, who (rather infamously) oversaw the FCC during the surge of decency complaints following Super Bowl XXXVIII. As such, the oversight of the FCC regarding the Internet would be controlled by people appointed to the position, and reflect the political winds of the time but insulated from voter retribution. Unless you believe your political ideology will rule from here on out, this should be a worry for you.
Third, consider the primary broadband provider in any given area – the cable provider. Sure, DSL exists, but it’s much narrower than cable. Cable is building on top of an infrastructure that allows it to provide TV and other services. This combined infrastructure gives it a much larger revenue stream than just broadband. And that revenue stream means that they are able to pursue the costs of meeting the regulatory requirements necessary to move into a given market.
Now, admittedly, my knowledge in the area of municipal telecom regulations is somewhat murky, but what I’ve read seems to backup my general belief that most corporate unseemliness is either enabled or caused by government regulation (and the manipulation thereof). For instance, a couple of years ago, the FCC forced a relaxation in the requirements for entry into the cable market. In ruling in favor of the FCC’s action, a US court noted, “For example, Verizon’s comments indicated that, of its 113 franchise negotiations pending as of March 2005, only ten resulted in franchise grants after one year.” Additionally, “[C]omments submitted by service provider Qwest indicated that it withdrew franchise applications in eight different regions due to economically burdensome build-out requirements.” (See here, pages 19 and 20).
Now, this situation has me a bit conflicted. On the one hand, as a big believer in federalism, I feel that it’s, as a general rule, proper to devolve authority to the lowest levels possible. But at the same time, when it’s the actions of the local community that make it too burdensome to enter into the market, I hardly feel it’s right to complain about the lack of competition.
These three points lead me to the conclusion that there is not a clear and present danger to the spirit of the Internet as it’s existed, that the granting to the government of additional oversight in the way the Internet is run brings with it new and unnecessary hazards, and that the best way to preserve de facto Net Neutrality is to further ease the regulatory and bureaucratic requirements on companies wishing to enter into the market.
