Feingold on the Long War

Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold addressed the Madison Civics Club yesterday. His speech addressed the Long War. Adam Malecek was there:

Feingold said that Africa also presents a number of critical issues related to terrorism, and that it is a growing haven for many terrorist operatives. He noted that terrorists blew up American embassies in Africa, not in Afghanistan or Iraq, and that the culprits went to South Africa to hide.

He said even though he was well-educated and studied abroad, at 39 years old he didn’t know anything about Africa — and he was on the Foreign Relations committee.

“And I spent 15 years since learning about (Africa). But I offer that as a commentary on how prepared this country was on 9/11,” he said.

Feingold pointed out the fact that the northern part of Africa is only about 20 miles from the Middle East.

“But we don’t think of them that way. We think of them as separate,” he said, adding that the United States needs to work on determining the complicated interrelationships between various nations and terrorist groups.

Useful sites on the Long War:

Andy Hall has more as does Douglas Schuette.

A New Take on Net Neutrality

RampRate:

The debate over net neutrality1 has often focused on video as the dominant medium that made the prioritization of packets either crucial or harmful. However, video is not the offering that will suffer the most if net neutrality becomes a wistful memory. Rather, the users that are likely to be most materially disadvantaged are those that utilize the Net for interactive communications – particularly voice over IP (VOIP) and online gaming. Of these two finalists for the dubious title of “innovation most likely to be stifled to the detriment of everyone by loss of net neutrality,” gaming is by far the more irreplaceable and senseless loss.

Unlike video and voice, ISPs are unlikely to have or be able to obtain a viable material stake in the gaming business and have no replacement for the service. As a result, consumers stand not only to lose their choice of the source of this product, but the very value of the gaming service itself.

Yahoo’s Peanut Butter Manifesto

Henry Blodget:

It will be interesting to see how Terry Semel reacts to Brad Garlinghouse’s “peanut butter manifesto,” which was essentially open letter accusing Terry of incompetence. Garlinghouse took pains to note that Yahoo’s problems come “straight from the top.” He also obviously either leaked the memo himself or knew that it would be leaked (little difference). Regardless of what happens, Yahoo shareholders should thank him.