The human rights activist website Chosun Journal has information about eight North Korean refugees who entered the Shanghai American School on Monday, Sept. 27, and were subsequently handed over to the Chinese police.The original account is here. Full text is also continued below.
Will the U.S. media report this incident? Did the school do the right thing? Could they have done otherwise and not gotten in trouble with the Chinese authorities? Will Americans be outraged? What would you do if North Korean refugees sought asylum in your school which was clearly not on embassy grounds?
There ought to be a public discussion about what Americans living abroad who care about human rights should do in such situations, and what U.S. consulates will or won’t do to help them.
You need to run for office yourself," he said. "Somebody has to take responsibility for being on the school board, on the city council — all these offices that sometimes lead to higher things and sometimes don't. Democracy withers unless people think — unless people understand that they're responsible, not their neighbor."
Kudos to Bert Rutan and company on their successful flight today. Xeni Jardin has more.
Doc Searls has been following the iPodder explosion and points to a piece in Forbes about the history of the NAB and how they are succesfully regulating satellite radio out of business. It's going to get interesting when iPods are outlawed and assault rifles are legal.Read more about the latest Hatch/Leahy absurdity, the Induce Act here. Will Senator Kohl also carry water for Hollywood? Kohl is a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which meets to discuss the Induce Act on Thursday.
The Librarians are also against this bill.....
Our Local Dane County Farmer's Market continues to be in the news. It is now recognized as the largest in the nation by the North American Farmers' Direct Marketing Association, and still growing, according to R.W. Apple, who visited recently:
Everything sold must be grown in Wisconsin, and the sellers must actually have participated in the production of the goods. On this glorious late-summer day, with the sky a soaring canopy of robin's-egg blue, more than 300 farmers from 30-odd counties came to town, many of them driving through the night to get here by 6 a.m. (By comparison the Union Square Greenmarket in New York has only about 70 farmers in peak season, but it is part of a network of 47 such markets in 33 locations in the city.)There's more local flavor:The last of summer's bounty was mingled on the stands with fall fruits and the first tender root crops of winter. The growers said it had been a wet summer, bad for tomatoes, but you couldn't tell from those offered by Thomas M. Eugster of Old Stage Vegetable Gardens in Brooklyn, Wis., south of Madison. The tiny yellow Sungolds and the scarlet Goliaths, big as softballs, could not possibly have been sweeter.
"Look at them," said a shopper to his wife. "With those gigantic T's you could make a BLT without any B or L."
But the king of this particular mountain is Richard deWilde of the all-organic Harmony Valley Farms near the pretty town of Viroqua, who loads a 20-foot truck every Friday night and leaves for Madison at 2:30 Saturday morning, arriving about 5:30. On a beautiful day, he might sell $6,000 worth of vegetables or more, but cold, rainy weather cuts that in half, he said, "and the food pantry" — a charity — "loves us."A bearded, keen-eyed, third-generation farmer whose grandfather was a buddy of J. I. Rodale, the pioneer organic farmer and publisher, Mr. deWilde grew up in South Dakota. He and his partner, Linda Halley, farm 90 acres planted in more than 60 kinds of vegetables with the help of their two sons and a number of hired hands. The farmers' market, he said, is his "show window," which has made the operation's name in the region and has enabled him to sell to restaurants in Madison, Chicago and Minneapolis, and also to run a Community Supported Agriculture plan, in which 450 local households pay for weekly delivery of three-quarter bushel boxes of assorted produce.
Harmony Valley Farms has even broken into big-time mainstream commerce. Mr. deWilde sells several cool-climate specialties — burdock, celeriac, daikon and three kinds of turnips — to Albert's Organics, a wholesaler in Bridgeport, N.J., and a broader range of vegetables to 18 Whole Food supermarkets in the Chicago area.
"Some of my friends at the farmers' market complain about that," he said, "but they help to keep me going. They pay on time, and above market price."
Tom Haudricourt and Don Walker:
Attanasio not playing to lose???Ex-partner thinks he'll increase payroll
Michael Hunt is a bit more suspicous....
Keep in mind that the Milwuaukee Journal-Sentinel was a major partisan cheerleader during the Miller Park fiasco......
Finally, I take a look at my web site activity logs periodically. This deal could have been called for Attanasio some time ago, based on the inbound searches/visits with arguments such as "Brewers and Attanasio" from the likes of Salomon, Inc., Cowen & Company, SAC Capital Advisors and other financial firms. Anyone interested in the those who play on Wall Street should read Michael Lewis's classic primer: Liar's poker.
Georgia Pabst on Bill Cosby's visit to Milwaukee North on October 20, 2004 (6 to 9p.m.); 1101 W. Center St.
The gathering was announced Friday by Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, who worked with the Metropolitan Milwaukee Alliance of Black School Educators and the Wisconsin Black Media Association to bring about the Cosby appearance.Debra Dickerson covers Cosby...Barrett said he hoped the discussion would deal with the importance of education and how the community can tackle and develop solutions to educational disparities and other challenges.
Cosby first raised a national storm in May during a ceremony marking the 50th anniversary of Brown vs. Board of Education, the U.S. Supreme Court decision declaring an end to school segregation. He decried the lack of emphasis on education in the black community and challenged parents to greater accountability. Though he earned rebukes from some commentators, others praised him for speaking out.
Michael Liedtke:
Google Inc.'s recently launched news service in China doesn't display results from Web sites blocked by that country's authorities, raising prickly questions for an online search engine that has famously promised to "do no evil."Let Google know how you feel about their support of Chinese censorship: press@google.comDynamic Internet Technology Inc., a research firm striving to defeat online censorship, conducted tests that found Google omits results from the government-banned sites if search requests are made through computers connecting to the Internet in China.
Steered by an identical search request, computers with a United States connection retrieved results from the sites blocked by China.
"That's a problem because the Chinese people need to know there are alternative opinions from the Chinese government and there are many things being covered up by the government," said Bill Xia, Dynamic's chief executive. "Users expect Google to return anything on the Internet. That's what a search engine does."
www.schoolinfosystem.org has an extensive set of education posts. Keep clicking and scrolling.
1. Over the last year, six California health plans have been monitoring the performance of 45,000 doctors. The top performers will split a bonus pool of $40 to $60 million
2. 35 health plans, covering some 30 million patients, now tie doctor bonuses to performance. Preventive care and measure to encourage "patient follow-up" receive special rewards.
3. Bonus-based coverage is expected to double in size over the next year.
4. Some experts predict that pay-for-performance eventually will account for 20% to 30% of what the federal government pays health care providers.
The insurance companies feel that better doctor performance will lower their long-run costs. Many doctors don't like these incentives. Their financial risk is increased, and they cannot always control how well the patient sticks to the prescribed regimen. Still, if greater medical skill does not show up in the numbers, over a reasonably large sample of patients, why do we spend so much time and money educating doctors?
I predict that as information technology progresses, and performance becomes easier to measure, the American economy will resort to many more bonuses of this type, across many professions.
Here is the story, WSJ subscription and password required.
By the way, regular MR readers will not be surprised to learn who first wrote up the idea of rewarding doctors for superior performance: our ever-inventive colleague Robin Hanson. More recently Harvard economist David Cutler has promoted the idea as well.
For those who care: Here is a thorough AEI estimate of the cost impacts of the Kerry and Bush health care plans. If you are concerned about our fiscal future, this makes for scary reading.
Tyler CowanA number of government agencies are circumventing open public records access via fees or "National Security. The result is that we get to pay twice, or more (collection and management of information along with overlapping distribution costs). Here are some examples:
Email Mayor Dave (mayor at madison dot com ) and County Exec Kathleen Falk (falk at co.dane.wi.us) and let them know your thoughts on taxpayer funded public records access.
Most importantly, support the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Protect your electronic rights.
Horse-and-Buggy Infrastructures:
More politicians will eventually wake up and smell the fiber.There was at least one speaker who put it squarely on the shoulders of local and state politicians “who just don’t get it” when it comes to understanding what’s needed to keep this country viable. It was refreshing to hear a politically accurate statement come out of D.C.
In Iowa where 80 percent of the state is rural, they built the Iowa Communications Network (ICN), which was the nation’s first fiber-optic network owned and administered by the state. Its original intent was so rural students would have the same access and advantages that students had in urban Iowa.
The first locations were lit in 1993. By 1997, the ICN logged 182,386 hours. In 1999, there were more than 800 sites with session hours at more than 400,000. This network has improved the infrastructure of Iowa and they have increased the applications to telemedicine and other capabilities.
n his laptop computer, biology professor Leonard Guarente plays a video clip of 29-month-old mice hobbling around a cedar-chip-filled cage. They’re scruffy, fat, slow moving, and over the hill by rodent standards. Then he plays a clip of another group of 29-month-old mice. They’re svelte, frisky, and scrambling around like adolescents. What’s their secret? These mice have eaten about two-thirds as many calories as their portly peers. Not only does the meager diet seem to keep them light in the limbs, but they tend to live 30 percent longer than their well-fed friends and are less likely to contract age-related diseases, such as diabetes and cancer.
Hanover, N.H.-based Dartmouth College is well-known in wireless circles for being one of the first colleges to embrace Wi-Fi technology. Recently, the college went through a network upgrade.The original network, says Brad Noblet, Dartmouth director of technical services, cost $1.2 million. That covered 200 access points (APs) and the wiring they required. "Now we want to go to 1,500 APs."
But that's not all. The original Cisco APs were 802.11b only, and now the college wants to serve 802.11a, b, and g, using Aruba 52 APs.
Of course, the college doesn't sell wireless, so that's not the problem. "People on the campus love wireless. The challenge is capacity," explains Noblet.
These are heavy users. Students do language lab classes from their own room using video over IP, for example, and Noblet admits that heavy use of video on the network presents a real capacity challenge.
Steven Walters summarizes a variety of viewpoints on the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute's recent study on state government spending (7.7% above the national average). The real crunch (and why the spending battles continue at the local and state level): Wisconsin's income is 2.8% below the national average. [75K PDF]
This problem will not improve until our economy is increasingly based on high growth, valued added businesses. Wisconsin's above average government spending was supported for decades by the state's now declining manufacturing base. This change, which will take many years, requires an open mind, a willingness to avoid coddling and subsidizing declining industries, rethinking government spending (consolidating services and making sure the services we provide make sense in the 21st century) and doing everything we can to encourage business formation. It also requires economic and political leadership, which is, in my view, is generally lacking. (see this national example where the NAB has successfully kept public spectrum for TV stations). Note that TV viewer numbers are declining.....
Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett's latest budget caps the property tax increase @ 2%
Jayson Blair, who brought down the NY Times Howell Raines comments on Rathergate:
It’s really sad to see what’s happening to Dan Rather and CBS, and no one knows like me what its like to lose their credibility. I would give anything to have it back. If I could turn back time, I would.The fact that no members of the Main Stream Media (MSM) contacted Blair for comments speaks volumes.
[F]or one moment, I'd like you to perform an exercise in selective attention. Forget every other consideration even though they're fair and important considerations and see if you can acknowledge that a world in which everyone has free access to every work of creativity in the world is a better world. Imagine your children could listen to any song ever created anywhere. What a blessing that would be!Via Boing Boing...We publish stuff that gets its meaning and its reality by being read, viewed or heard. An unpublished novel is about as meaningful and real as an imaginary novel. It needs its readers to be. But readers aren't passive consumers. We reimagine the book, we complete the vision of the book. Readers appropriate works, make them their own. Listeners and viewers, too. In making a work public, artists enter into partnership with their audience. The work succeeds insofar as the audience makes it their own, takes it up, understands it within their own unpredictable circumstances. It leaves the artist's hands and enters our lives. And that's not a betrayal of the work. That's its success. It succeeds insofar as we hum it, quote it, appropriate it so thoroughly that we no longer remember where the phrase came from. That's artistic success, although it's a branding failure.
Related: Cory Doctorow's recent anti-DRM (Digital Restrictions Management) speech to Microsoft is now available in a PDF file:
In this transcript of a speech he gave at Microsoft's campus, Cory explains why DRM doesn't work, why DRM is bad for society, bad for business, bad for artists, and a bad move for Microsoft.Related 2: I recently emailed Dave Black, General Manager of the UW's excellent WSUM radio station, complementing him on their "Student Section" sports talk show. I liked the fact that these student broadcasters, unlike many in the local sports media, are not 'homers" with respect to UW Football. I also urged him to post their shows online in a iPod friendly mp3 format. Note his comments on the restrictions that the Hollywood paid for DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright Act) places on their ability to share locally produced shows. The right solution? Cut deals with local artists/clubs and route around the outage.
Dave Replied:
Thanks, Jim,Yet another example of the "best law money can buy approach" is before the Senate: the Leahy/Hatch sponsored Induce Act. I recently emailed Senator Kohl to express my opposition to this bill. His reply was not great. Let him know what you think. Russ Feingold and Tim Michels should also know what you think.What a pleasure to hear your kind words. Glad you enjoy the show, it is one of my favorites.
I have forwarded your email to our sports director, Joe Haas. He will take it up with our webmaster to see how feasible. As you may or may not know, the Digital Millenium Copyright Act makes archiving on a site difficult when it includes any musical content (e.g., the songs they play during the breaks). We will do the best we can under the circumstances.
All the best and please keep listening,
Dave Black
General Manager
WSUM-FM 91.7
University of Wisconsin-Madison
602 State St #205
Madison, WI 53703
608-262-9542 (no sales calls, please)
gm at wsum.wisc.edu
http://wsum.wisc.edu
visit our alumni organization at http://www.wsumfriends.org/
The US DOT's Air Travel Consumer Report (300K PDF) summarizes quality of services issues for national frequent flyers. The Dane County Regional Airport reported the following for July, 2004:
I believe "Pogo" type services will be the rule, over time, particularily for short routes.
Or - why we should stop protecting the incumbent telcos (SBC)
The $3 billion dollar budget at Bell Laboratories did not include a single project addressing the use of data networks to transport voice when VocalTec Communications released InternetPhone in February 1995. As of 2004, every project at the post-divestiture AT&T Labs and Lucent Technologies Bell Labs reflects the reality of voice over Internet Protocol. Every major incumbent carrier, and the largest cable television providers, in the United States has announced a VoIP program. And even as some upstart carriers have used VoIP to lower telephony prices dramatically, even more radical innovators threaten to lower the cost of a phone call to zero—to make it free.The VoIP insurrection over the last decade marks a milestone in communication history no less dramatic than the arrival of the telephone in 1876. We know data networks and packetized voice will displace the long standing pre-1995 world rooted in Alexander Graham Bell's invention. It remains uncertain whether telecom's incumbent carriers and equipment makers will continue to dominate or even survive as the information technology industry absorbs voice as a simple application of the Internet.
The first statewide renewable energy referendum, which would require utilities in CO to purchase a percentage of their electricity from renewable sources, getting to 10 percent by 2015. Via Boing Boing.
A highly advanced system of video surveillance that Chicago officials plan to install by 2006 will make people here some of the most closely observed in the world. Mayor Richard M. Daley says it will also make them much safer."Cameras are the equivalent of hundreds of sets of eyes," Mr. Daley said when he unveiled the new project this month. "They're the next best thing to having police officers stationed at every potential trouble spot."
Police specialists here can already monitor live footage from about 2,000 surveillance cameras around the city, so the addition of 250 cameras under the mayor's new plan is not a great jump. The way these cameras will be used, however, is an extraordinary technological leap.
The exciting Overture Opening was brought back to reality via Tom Laskin's Isthmus article (apparently not online) on the financial challenge that several local arts groups face as they migrate to the new facilities:
Off the record, members of the local arts community have suggested that the Rep's problems stem from lavish spending by artistic Director Richard Corley, who joined the company in 2002. But (acting Rep managing director) Fadell says that such speculation is off the mark. Problems with the bottom line had been building for years.This quote, surprisingly unattributed reminds me of the challenges Wisconsin faces in business as well as arts.
I remember being pleased years ago, while living in San Francisco, with the can do and risk friendly business (and arts) culture. People are willing to try, fail and try again, generally without fear.
Our local culture is not so tolerant of risk and change, despite the image we try to present. In fact, we tend to protect the status quo (Overture itself is testament to this with it's compromised facade), rather than relish in it's demise (and therefore let others benefit - see WARF's biotech offices in California).
It's the rare local banker/investor that is willing to take a risk. Better to invest in treasuries, evidently. There's plenty of cash in Madison & Wisconsin. It just needs to be put to good use, for our children.
Jerry Frautschi and Pleasant have thrown down the gauntlet. Let's all take advantage of that risk taking. After all, there would be no $700M had they not started Pleasant Company years ago (and Jill Barad's willingness to write the check).
Corley has certainly stepped up the Rep's tempo. I hope he continues to push.
We already have one Miller Park..... [All Hat No Cattle]
Failure is the rule rather than the exception, and every failure contains information. One of the most misleading lessons imparted by those who have reached their goal is that the ones who win are the ones who persevere. Not always. If you keep trying without learning why you failed, you'll probably fail again and again. Perseverance must be accompanied by the embrace of failure. Failure is what moves you forward. Listen to failure.Most don't want to see innovations fail, yet this process is essential, as Schwartz points out.But there are different kinds of failure. Sometimes, failure tells you to give up and do something else entirely. Other times, it tells you to try a different approach, a new route to the top of the mountain. Or it may tell you to make a detour. Sometimes, it tells you that you need help. Sometimes, it doesn't seem to tell you anything. Linda Stone, a former executive at both Apple Computer and Microsoft, recalls a conversation she participated in with Steve Wozniak and Dean Kamen, perhaps the two best-known living inventors.
"I'll never forget it," Stone says. "They just were talking about all their failures, and how they both felt like failures."1 They were almost bragging about various laboratory fiascoes and catastrophes. Given their success, this seemed extraordinary. According to Stone, the conversation occurred just before an awards ceremony. "They were both being celebrated," she says. So Wozniak and Kamen clearly weren't talking about their failures as a way of feeling sorry for themselves. Rather, they were identifying with a thinking strategy they both had in common. "Every failure is a learning experience," concludes Stone, "and it should be seen as part of progress, rather than seeing it as the enemy."
This weekend's opening of the 200M+ Overture Center has created a great deal of excitement and activity downtown. Interestingly, the Madison School District has been de-emphasizing arts via:
Bruce Schneier on the DHS's "Trusted Traveller" Program:
IF YOU FLY OUT of Logan Airport and don't want to take off your shoes for the security screeners and get your bags opened up, pay attention. The US government is testing its "Trusted Traveler" program, and Logan is the fourth test airport. Currently, only American Airlines frequent fliers are eligible, but if all goes well the program will be opened up to more people and more airports.Participants provide their name, address, phone number, and birth date, a set of fingerprints, and a retinal scan. That information is matched against law enforcement and intelligence databases. If the applicant is not on any terrorist watch list and is otherwise an upstanding citizen, he gets a card that allows him access to a special security lane. The lane doesn't bypass the metal detector or X-ray machine for carry-on bags, but it bypasses more intensive secondary screening unless there's an alarm of some kind.
Unfortunately, this program won't make us more secure. Some terrorists will be able to get Trusted Traveler cards, and they'll know in advance that they'll be subjected to less stringent security.
I have long predicted that the Department of Homeland Security will become the Department of Agriculture for the 21st century. What do I mean by that? The joke on Ag is that it now has something like two bureaucrats for every farmer in America. Well, this review notes that DHS has 186,000 employees, and most good estimates of global terrorism put the highest numbers of active players in the 10,000 range, with a potential for almost 100,000 more active sympathesizers or potential recruits. That means we already have one DHS employee for every terrorist on the planet and, with any luck (given the recent Republican flare for enlarging government), we'll pass the 2-for-1 mark within the second Bush Administration.
Librarian.net:
Five Technically Legal Signs for Your Library
Open Secrets, a very useful site, has a great summary of where our incumbent politicians raise their cash. I'll expand on this over the next few weeks.
In news fit to set Steven Spielberg's hair on end, Pendragon Pictures has just announced the completion of principal photography on their take of H.G. Wells' The War Of The Worlds. Set in Wells' intended turn-of-the-century English locale, the movie is the world's first authentic adaptation of the H.G. Wells classic 1898 novel
Clearing storms produce incredible light, as this photo illustrates. This 9MB Quicktime movie says it all. Gorgeous....!!!
There's been no shortage of discussion regarding the apparent forged documents that 60 minutes used last week on a Bush National Guard Story. Jay Rosen has written a "stark message" for legacy media here.
I lived in San Francisco during the 1989 "pretty big one", the Loma Prieta earthquake. I remember reading about this, and frankly feeling repulsed at the image of a Rather in a limo next to the flattened I-880 expressway stating this:
Some time after dark, a long white stretch limo pulled up beside the remaining structure in West Oakland. The back door opened and Dan Rather got out. He pulled down his tie, rolled up his sleeves, mussed his hair a bit so it might look as if he’d actually been somewhere doing something, looked into the camera and said, “We’re here in San Francisco, where the freeway …”When, in fact, he was in Oakland....
When is too much, just plain too much? When International, a maker of heavy-duty trucks, decides that what the world needs right now more than anything is a monster SUV that weighs 7 tons, twice as much as a Hummer H2. The new CXT (for Commercial Extreme Truck) stands 9 feet tall and is more than 21 feet long - more than 4 feet longer than the Hummer H2 pickup. The CXT is a development off of the heavy-duty platform that International uses for its rugged-use trucks designed for road work and snow plowing, etc., and gets between six and 10 miles per gallon (we'd venture closer to six) from its commercial truck diesel engine.
A term coined in 1942 by Joseph Schumpeter in his work, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, to denote a "process of industrial mutation that incessantly revolutionizes the economic structure from within, incessantly destroying the old one, incessantly creating a new one."
I thought of this concept (which I learned in High School many years ago) and refined at the UW recently while visiting with a local small business owner. This guy's firm formerly sold voice mail systems. That business has changed quite a bit therefore, he is now selling services and IT solutions including replication, archive and "secure" email products.
I told him that I was impressed by his ability to zig and zag as the market changed. It's clear that every worker today, at any level must be ready for new challenges and opportunities, as this article on the NY Times outsourcing plans illustrates.
One of the exciting thing about the early days of the Democratic primary was that there was at least some debate about whether the Democratic Party would continue to be led by IP extremists. Some of the worst in IP came, after all, from the Clinton administration. Reflecting on that, many were hopeful we’d see some new thinking. Many of the most passionate Deaniacs were eager to see new thinking on this issue. Senator Edwards addressed some of this on this blog.Speaking of IP, the Gutenberg Project is publishing Scientific American e-zines that have entered the public domain. This is a useful article, from 1891 (!) on "The Business End of American Newspapers.Word now is that Bruce Lehman, former Assistant Secretary of Commerce, and Commissioner of Patents, is spreading the word that he is running IP policy on the Kerry campaign. In the scheme of extremists, few are more extreme. Of all the government “Czars” in our form of government, he proved himself to be most to be feared.
Yet another bit of depressing news, if true, from this extraordinarily important campaign.
Secret Hearings, trials without a defendant or defense attorneys? Right here, in the USA:
John Gilmore describes himself as "a civil libertarian millionaire eccentric." He has recently garnered headlines because he refuses to show ID when boarding airplanes and is suing the Justice department and Southwest Airlines for not allowing him to travel in the U.S. without "showing papers."- Chris GulkerSome commentators, notably Hiawatha Bray at the Boston Globe don't have much sympathy:
"The idea that we should be wasting our time arguing over whether it's right to have to show ID before boarding a plane is too silly to deserve further discussion. I'm not trying to be rude; I just can't take you [Todd Pinkerton] seriously, or Mr. Gilmore either."
But Gilmore raised one deep concern in his foray against the Justice department: there appears to be a secret law that is being applied by the airlines, if not the TSA. What is the law? Who made it? How can I comply if I don't know what it is? In a democracy that believes in the rule of law, this has got to be troubling.
t Gilmore raised one deep concern in his foray against the Justice department: there appears to be a secret law that is being applied by the airlines, if not the TSA. What is the law? Who made it? How can I comply if I don't know what it is? In a democracy that believes in the rule of law, this has got to be troubling.
So, when the Ashcroft Justice Department demanded that the first hearing of the Gilmore case be held in secret, and that Gilmore and his attorneys be barred from it, things got even weirder, IMHO. This was beginning to sound like a proceeding from some totalitarian regime. The good news, in my opinion, is that the Court denied the DOJ motion.
Memo to Republican Senate contender Tim Michels (running against incumbent Democrat Russ Feingold): The Patriot Act argument will not carry the day.....
Jim VandeHei notes the language challenges our major Presidential candidates face in this article on politics and the Packers.
Dane County has a useful site with results from yesterday's primary here.
In an election related article, John Harwood discusses Colorado's ballot initiative that would split the state's electoral votes:
hile Colorado leans toward the Republicans, Democrats are hoping to grab some of the state's nine electoral votes anyway, in a tactical strike that could lead to broader changes in America's system of picking presidents.Rick Ridder, a Denver-based political consultant who once managed Howard Dean's campaign for the 2004 Democratic nomination, is pushing an initiative to amend the state's constitution in the November general election and scrap the winner-take-all allocation of electoral votes practiced by 48 states. Instead, the state's votes would be divided in proportion to the popular vote, which would almost certainly assure Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry of at least four of them (See related article).
Twenty-six banks have agreed to pay a total of $23 million in back taxes stemming from their use of Nevada tax shelters, and state tax officials said more settlements are imminent.The back-tax total announced Monday was the first released by the Wisconsin Department of Revenue since it began a crackdown this year on the practice by many banks of shifting some of their income-earning assets, such as loans and bonds, to subsidiaries in Nevada.
This doesn't seem like a whole lot of money given the size of the banks, perhaps it's more of a PR deal.
Across the United States, towns and cities dissatisfied with data services provided by the private sector are now delivering high-speed connectivity to the doorstep, often at lower prices.Note that our current slow "broadband" providers are lagging the world in costs and speed. Much like roads, sewer and water, fiber networks should be a public good (transport only) while others provide services on those very fast networks.In the process, however, municipalities are facing increasingly fierce opposition from cable operators and telecommunications companies unhappy with the competition. In some cases, cable companies and telcos are fighting to bar utilities entirely from providing broadband in the future.
Special Partner Promotion
John Perry Barlow comments on this. Robert Berger also has some useful notes vis a vis widespread free WiFi deployments. Doc Searls offers some useful notes on the "lame" broadband services available today.
Governments should be paying attention as their POTS (plain old telephone system) tax revenue will rapidly diminish over the next 5 years. Telephone calls have declined 50% since 1997.
20 years ago, I along with some of my roommates attended a Mondale-Ferraro rally on the Capitol Square. I seem to recall that many attended simply to catch a glimpse of Walter Mondale's daughter, Eleanor. I've scanned some photos from that date and posted them here:
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Book cover of 'Iron: Erecting the Disney Concert Hall.' Credit: Gil Garcetti
Former L.A. County District Attorney Gil Garcetti is known for his high-profile prosecutions of O.J. Simpson and the Menendez brothers.
But he left the district attorney's office in 2000 and got out his cameras, turning a lifelong hobby -- photography -- into a second career. He talks with Scott Simon about his images of the ironworkers who built the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, designed by architect Frank Gehry.
Dale Buss explains how the Packers have thrived, despite their small market.
For the past two years, the Packers have ranked 10th out of the league's 32 clubs in overall revenue, up 10 spots from 2001. After a $295 million expansion and renovation completed last year, Lambeau has become a lucrative year-round attraction. And the Packers' cash kitty now exceeds $84 million, seemingly on the way to a $107 million goal that would give it a year's operating costs in reserve.The NFL's financial structure, which distributes TV and licensing revenue evenly to all teams, has created a level playing field for the Packers. Fans snap up every ticket to home games, and the waiting list for a Lambeau Field season pass is still more than 63,000 names long for a 72,500-seat stadium. More than 105,000 Packer backers responded when the team sold nonvoting shares for $200 apiece in the late '90s. "When we play on Sundays, the people in the stands aren't just fans, but shareholders," says Robert Harlan, a 33-year team executive who has been president since 1989.
The NTU publishes their 2004 Candidate Survey Results (quite a few Wisconsin incumbents and challengers did not respond...)
Here's the questionnaire that was sent to each candidate.
The Westport Squares (square dancing) put on a show at Saturday's Farmer's Market. Take a look via this 7MB Quicktime movie.
I think this is great!
A Los Angeles-based investor has emerged as a potential new owner of the Milwaukee Brewers, bringing to three the number of individuals or groups seriously looking at buying the team.Attanasio is an ex-Drexel Burnham Lambert banker (Michael Milken's firm). He was also on the board of Global Crossing.Two sources with knowledge of the sale said Mark L. Attanasio, a partner in the investment firm Trust Company of the West, is looking at making a bid for the team.
The Brewers are a tough deal all around. It will be interesting to see if these folks can make money (if a deal happens).
A final word: despite many misgivings about the Seligs (particularily the entire Miller Park unpleasantness), there would be no major league baseball in Milwaukee without Bud.
Mayor Dave talks about the City's Swimming Pool Plans (Real Video).
Wisconsin Public Television's Here and Now ran a useful piece on the Patriot Act's local politics (Republican candidates for the US Senate are pressing incumbant Russ Feingold on his solo vote against it). 5.7MB Quicktime.
I frankly don't think this issue will make it for the Republicans. There are plenty of problems with the Patriot Act. More on the Senate Race here.
Nice to see Republican Jim Sensenbrenner working hard to help our economic, education and health care concerns by carrying water for Hollywood....
Thwarted by the courts, copyright holders and their lobby groups, notably the Recording Industry Ass. of America (RIAA), have been forced to file "John Doe" suits against infringers. But HR.4077 brings the full power of the state to their aid:This is all about killing our fair use rights AND trying to make the internet a one way pipe (ala cable tv). How this benefits Wisconsin residents is beyond me. Let Sensenbrenner know your thoughts on how his time is spent working hard for Wisconsin. More from the EFF.The FBI will be required to serve as propaganda ministry, or in the words of the bill, "develop a program based on providing of information and notice to deter members of the public from committing acts of copyright infringement through the Internet," and enforcer.
The Feds must "facilitate the sharing among law enforcement agencies, Internet service providers, and copyright owners of information concerning acts of copyright infringement described in paragraph".
The chairman of the House Committee which nodded through the measure, Rep James Sensenbrenner (R.-Wis), was paid $18,000 by the Recording Industry Ass. of America to make a trip to Taiwan and Thailand in January 2003, a breach of the House ethics rules, say critics. [WaPo | Reg] Sensenbrenner said it was a "fact-finding mission", even though his schedule was arranged by the State Department.
But the distinction between State and corporate interests are now so close as to be indistinguishable.
Observation, Orientation, Decision, Action - John Boyd's OODA Loop applies to military as well as business and now media issues. Yesterday, the Minneapolis based powerlineblog used the power of the net to raise questions about a Wednesday CBS News/60 Minutes story. By the end of the day Thursday, the basis of CBS's story was in doubt, as John Podhoretz explains.
This is truly a new day for citizen information (likely resulting in a variety of outcomes). Years ago, the only "check" on old media would have been a letter to the editor. Today, web writers (for better or worse) operate at a much higher cycle rate than the MSM (Main Stream Media) or old media types. This is the real change: the OODA loop is light years faster than the pre-internet days. Lileks and instapundit have more.
Counterpoint: The Daily Kos. This is funny....
I remember buying a number of Nicole Miller ties in the early 1990's...
he first Nicole Miller boutique opened on New York's Madison Avenue in 1986. The store did well, but Miller's first big break came by accident.Elizabeth BlairMiller had made a series of silk dresses with a print made out of a design of theater tickets. Bud Konheim, her business partner of 22 years, remembers the dresses were "awful." Konheim and Miller discussed using the silk to make women's scarves but settled on men's ties instead. A security guard at the Madison Avenue boutique also happened to work nights at the Metropolitan Opera. He borrowed one of the ties and showed it to a buyer of the Met's gift shop.
Fascinating archive of presidential campaign commercials.
In work that emphasizes the need for stronger regulation of herbal drugs, an international team of MIT scientists and colleagues has unraveled the yin and the yang of ginseng, or why the popular alternative medicine can have two entirely different, opposing effects on the body.Psst: Want some Wisconsin Ginseng?Conflicting scientific articles report that ginseng can both promote the growth of blood vessels (key to wound healing) and stymie that process. The latter is important because preventing the formation of blood vessels can be enlisted against cancer. Tumors are fed by blood vessels; cutting off their supply can kill them
Don Walker on the $8M repairs needed for Miller Park's 3.5 year old roof. We should not forget Tommy Thompson's infamous quote: (made in reference to an excise tax to help finance the Brewers' new stadium) Let Milwaukee and nearby counties pay for it, not his northern constituents. "Stick it to 'em." And he did. Shepherd Express | Wispolitics
This article by Steve Fainaru (created not in Wisconsin, but in Washington, DC) tells the story.
Years (decades!) ago, I worked briefly for a bank. I recall that ag lending was, at the time, at best a poor stepchild to commercial lending. This Economist article provides a fascinating look at Rabobank's (Dutch Bank) acquisition of Farm Credit Services - a US Government sponsored lending entity. Perhaps some Wisconsin Financiers should think about this...
AGAINST THE GRAIN
Aug 26th 2004Why is a Dutch bank moving into agricultural finance in America?
WHAT on earth is Rabobank up to? This Dutch co-operative bank has been
busily expanding its franchise in farm-finance, an area American banks
have done everything to avoid since a meltdown in the 1980s. If that
was not odd enough, Rabobank's most recent move is truly unique. At the
end of July, it reached an agreement to buy Farm Credit Services of
America, an institution that is a component of America's odd network of
government-sponsored entities (GSEs). That agreement has unleashed an
unholy row.
These financial institutions, including the well-known housing-finance
giants Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, enjoy the implicit backing of the US
Treasury, and thus low funding costs, as well as tax breaks. All of
these advantages would be lost if Rabobank's purchase goes through.
But no GSE has ever before agreed to a buyout. And soon after
Rabobank's offer, a backlash began. A sister institution in Minnesota
made a counter-offer backed by a lobbying group representing other
government-backed farm lenders. Two American Senators have called for
Congressional hearings. Concerns have been voiced about whether the
sale of Farm Credit Services could weaken the overall farm-credit
system: might a foreign buyer be less sensitive to local conditions?
The biggest question is, however, unlikely to be raised: whether the
offer for Farm Credit Services means that, finally, it is time to scrap
the GSE system entirely. "The reason the farm-credit system came into
existence is that no one else would provide credit," says Ray Goldberg,
a professor at Harvard Business School. "Now someone else will." The
same argument, it will not have gone unnoticed, applies to Fannie and
Freddie.
Founded in 1916 as the first of the GSEs, the farm-credit system is now
over-regulated and fragmented. It encompasses about 100 different
financial institutions with $95 billion in assets. Farm Credit Services
is one of the largest, with almost $8 billion in assets drawn from just
four states: Nebraska, South Dakota, Iowa and Wyoming. It initiated the
sale to Rabobank, and will pay heavily to ensure it goes through. It
currently has a net worth of $1.3 billion, and will pay a fee of $800m
to leave the overall farm-credit system. Rabobank will then pay $600m,
or a bit more than the remaining book value, with the proceeds
distributed to the shareholders of Farm Credit Services, who comprise
most of its customers.
It is easy to see the deal's logic for each side. The odd four-state
limitation for operations means that Farm Credit Services has
increasingly run into problems servicing customers whose operations
have expanded into adjacent states or even internationally. By law,
moreover, Farm Credit Services is unable to take deposits. If its
acquisition goes ahead, these and other restrictions would be lifted.
For Rabobank, the acquisition is a small piece of a larger plan. Since
2002 it has purchased a bank in California, covering the farming areas
from Fresno to the Mexican border; an agricultural-land finance company
in St. Louis; and an Iowa-based farm-credit institution. And Rabobank
would like to make further acquisitions that would give it better
access to meat processors and breeders in the south, as well as tomato-
and citrus-growers in the southeast. It has an agreement with
government-controlled banks in western Canada that could lead to an
acquisition there, and has become a huge force in the
agricultural-banking markets of Australia, New Zealand and Ireland. It
plans to expand in emerging economies, too.
Such enthusiasm is less odd than it looks. True, agriculture is
notoriously cyclical and has been shrinking as a percentage of the
global economy for years--not very attractive features for lenders. But
a powerful niche player could overcome these obstacles. And it can sell
derivatives to farmers attempting to hedge weather and price
fluctuations. Rik van Slingelandt, head of Rabobank's international
operations, says that, with the farming industry consolidating
globally, farmers will want a global financial institution.
Cory Doctorow:
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's Zed show has done a segment on my pal Roger Wood, the mad assemblage clockmaker.Roger Wood creates with time in mind. Yet even though the clock can be a consistent element of his work, it's often secondary to its creation. Whether it's a curious timepiece or a unique assemblage, Wood thrives on working with an immeasurable array of findings from the tarnished and forgotten to the odd or intriquing. He is a devoted collector of usual and unusual objects with one thing in common, a history
Xeni:
BMW is revving up some vehicle models (including the 330Ci coupe I reviewed) with a new sound system integrated with the Apple iPod. What's new and cool about this: it's touted as the first-ever fully integrated iPod/car interface you can drive right off the dealer lot. Costs under $500 as an upgrade to price of the new car. Plenty of aftermarket systems are available to hook your iPod (or other digital music players) to your car stereo, but many of these use your FM radio or a cassette player to interface, reducing sound quality in the process. Here, the sound quality was super-sweet.Keep in mind that Democrat Pat Leahy and Republican Orrin Hatch are carrying water for Hollywood with the induce act - which would outlaw the iPod. Noah Adams
Nancy Gohring:
The University of Georgia’s New Media Consortium recently conducted a study examining large Wi-Fi deployments in the United States: The study differentiates between what it calls Wi-Fi clouds, which have continuous coverage and Wi-Fi zones, which offer interrupted coverage. The researchers found 38 clouds and 16 zones. The study examines who owns the networks and what the owners hope to gain from building the networks. It’s a thorough report on the intentions of hotspot builders today.With respect to economic development, my view is that we need to, somehow, as fast as possible, offer true, economic bi-directional high speed internet to all Badger resident (speeds 20x+ faster than current rather slow "broadband" services). These type of pervasive networks will support video, VOIP as well as personal web services.The next step will be trying to figure out if the intentions of hotspot network developers are being met. For example, 43 percent of cloud developers cited stimulating economic development as a motivating factor for building the network. But it’s not clear if large Wi-Fi networks in small towns actually succeed in stimulating economic development
In one of the most dishonestly named bills of all time, the House recently passed the "Junk Fax Prevention Act of 2004". The legislation would, in fact, open the floodgates for these intrusions into our lives.Contact Tammy Baldwin and urge her to repeal this absurdity.The bill, S 2603, would allow anyone who's done any kind of business with you during the last seven years -- seven years! -- to send you faxes without getting your permission first. You would have to opt out each time.
The FCC's latest regulations, which proposed to tighten the current rules against junk faxes, were too much for corporate America and its marketing wizards who continue to invade every corner of our lives. Their power with Congress is far greater than yours, so far.
At least they could tell the truth, naming S 2603 the ``Junk Fax Enabling Act.''
Suspicious that his detectives were not hard at work solving the latest crimes in Muskego, Police Chief John Johnson spied on his own investigators using high-tech surveillance equipment usually used to keep tabs on drug dealers and gangbangers.This is not a new story, there have been previous examples of GPS (Global Positioning System) used to track rental car users among others.Secretly placing a global positioning system tracker in a squad car shared by the department's two detectives, police supervisors learned that the pair were driving to a tanning salon, shopping at the Geoffrey Beene Outlet Store in Kenosha County and running personal errands while on duty, according to reports released Tuesday.
Thomas P. M. Barnett, author of the Pentagon's New Map makes sense of our Iraq strategy:
The only way America can truly achieve strategic security in the age of globalization is by destroying disconnectedness. We fight fire with fire. Al Qaeda, whose true grievances lie wholly within the Persian Gulf, tried to destroy the Core’s connectedness on 9/11 by triggering what I call a system perturbation that would throw our rules into flux. Its hope was to shock America and the West into abandoning the Gulf region first militarily, then politically, and finally economically. Al Qaeda hoped to detoxify the region’s societies through disconnectedness.But the president decided correctly to fight back by trying to destroy disconnectedness in the Gulf region. We seek to do unto al Qaeda as it did unto us: trigger a system perturbation that will send all the region’s rule sets into flux. Saddam Hussein’s outlaw regime was dangerously disconnected from the globalizing world—from our rule sets, our norms, and all the ties that bind the Core together in mutually assured dependence.
Robert Siegel talks with banjo player Bela Fleck and bassist Edgar Meyer about their unusual musical collaboration: Music for Two" [iTunes]
GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt gave this useful commencement speech at Dartmouth this past spring. Immelt formerly ran Waukesha based GE Medical, prior to replacing Jack Welch.
This is the second graduation I have attended at Dartmouth, and here is what I remember from the commencement speaker at my graduation. Hmm, hmm, see, so I know my role today is to be brief and I promise to pay more attention this time...Via Powerline.[T]o be honest I'm a little intimidated [giving this speech]. You know The Dartmouth quoted students calling me an uninspiring and uninteresting choice for commencement speaker. You would have preferred Bono or Jon Stewart or Colin Powell and you have every right to expect that the fortune your parents paid for your education should get you a world leader. But do you really believe that an aging rock star would speak to the class that created Keggy, a human beer keg, to be the new college mascot?
Fred Bernstein on Buffalo's plans to add three new Wright "inspired" buildings, in hopes of capturing more architectural tourists. (Monona Terrace is mentioned - along with comments on "executing" the designs of the long dead Wright:
Mr. Puttnam, 70, is best known for "executing'' another Wright-designed building, a convention center in Madison, Wis., called Monona Terrace, which opened in 1997. Theodore Marks, the president of a nonprofit organization that hired Mr. Puttnam for one of the Buffalo projects - a boathouse on the Niagara River - described Monona Terrace as stunning.Stunning perhaps, but not wholly accurate. "We used Wright's exterior religiously,'' Mr. Puttnam said, "except we made a six-inch mistake in height. There were hand-done drawings, and we thought we saw a zero. Years later we blew up the drawing for an exhibition, and we said, 'Whoops, it's not a zero, it's a six.' ''
Robert Twombly, a Wright biographer, has accused the architect's former apprentices of muddying his legacy with mediocre "Wright'' buildings.
James Dannenberg takes us west on Highway 14:
U.S. Highway 14, known as the Frank Lloyd Wright Memorial Highway, begins due west of town and winds through beautiful countryside, past some of the pieces of the puzzle that make up the self-professed "world's greatest architect." I drove this bucolic byway last September, on a perfect autumn day when the deep greens were just beginning to turn to gold in anticipation of the long Midwestern winter.You could cruise the 120 miles in a few hours and revel just in the Wisconsin landscapes. But there's a reason it's called the Frank Lloyd Wright Memorial Highway: This fascinating, complex architect was born, lived and worked within a figurative stone's throw of U.S. 14, and much of his spirit remains along the way, in his buildings, including Taliesin in Spring Green, and in the hills and fields of western Wisconsin, the inspiration for Wright's conception of "organic architecture," which emphasized the synchronicity of structure and nature.
Walter A. McDougal's Freedom Just Around the Corner is a fascinating look at the genesis of the American Condition. Very worthwhile read, particularily during this election season.
Judy Newman notes that some Voice over IP providers do not support 608 telephone numbers. Packet8, a small Santa Clara firm, does. There are indeed tradeoffs, but given the explosion in cellphones (we seem to have more than one phone number these days), VOIP is ideal for residential users - or, perhaps, give fast growing Skype a try. James Fallows finds much to like.
Chris Lydon publishes a fascinating audio [MP3 file] interview with Bill Buckle
a writer and a player to be reckoned with in the Republican tong wars going back to Robert "Mr. Republican" Taft vs. Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1952. He stood with Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan in battle with the Rockefeller faction of the party through the 1970s.
I spoke briefly with Tim Michels, Republican candidate for US Senate at today's bratfest. I asked Tim what his views were on the pending Induce act and similar hollywood backed anti-consumer legislation (the Induce Act would outlaw the iPod...).
Michels was not familiar with this legislation.
Rather than pushing the Patriot Act (not sure it's working all that well, given this information), Michels would be better served to focus on issues that affect our economic future.
Mayor Dave took my order today at the semiannual bratfest. I encouraged him to make city wide wireless internet (WiFi) happen. He said that they hope to have it in place by next summer.
I further encouraged him to make sure it was fully 2-way, not the poor upstream performance that the cable services offer. High speed 2-way access means that all users can publish text, audio and video (including VOIP), from anywhere in the city. The service should also be scalable so that we can take advantage of new, faster technologies (802.11g, for example) as they become available.
Email mayor Dave at: mayor at cityofmadison.com or call: (608) 266-4611
The Telluride Film Festival is underway. Scott Simon talks with Elvis Mitchell about this year's event.
Telluride is well worth a visit.
Crashing the party was surprisingly easy, activists sayA must read as we consider the billions spent on security....
Convention floor passes snagged from friends of friends of friends
Ian Orgias shares an interesting Tokyo VR Scene [Quicktime VR]
Dave Winer recalls his own bypass surgery as former President Bill Clinton faces the same procedure.
Thank heaven for good drugs.Richard Knox:Bill Clinton called into the special Larry King roundup on his bypass surgery. He sounded great. Of course I projected my own experience onto his. I sounded great too, at that point in the process. They're pumping relaxing drugs into your system. I don't think you could feel anxious, no matter what. Good drugs.
About half a million Americans undergo coronary bypass surgery each year. Vice President Dick Cheney has had the surgery. It's a low risk procedure, with as little as 1 to 2 percent mortality and chances for full recovery. It is done urgently sometimes, as in the case of former President Clinton, when blockages are found.
Lara Logan demonstrates the risks of a true journalist: reporting with special forces in Afghanistan on the killing of the Taliban's "Billy the Kid".
The popular Honda Odyssey is often seen at Madison area soccer, swimming, football, basketball and academic events, among others. Honda has introduced a new version for 2005. There's an interesting fuel saving feature in the new Honda: cylinder "deactiviation".
The fuel-saving feature automatically switches between 6-cylinder and 3-cylinder combustion, depending on driving conditions.Interestingly, and typically, this is not a new idea.
General Motors actually pioneered the volume production (there were earlier concepts) of turning off cylinders to save fuel with their variable displacement V8-6-4 engine, available in 1981. Evidently, reliability problems doomed this effort.
Now comes Honda, and others with the same useful concept. They will likely make it work and make money (I imagine that today's much more advanced computers and software play a big role in the success of these efforts).
Wilde Honda, Rock County Honda and Zimbrick Honda sell them.
I recently observed a health care diagnostic system (made by Milwaukee based GE/Marquette electronics) that used Microsoft's Windows software. While the system collected data, somehow, another network user took over the screen (!), likely via a terminal sharing tool (PC Anywhere or similar). I wonder what the virus/work risks are?
It sure seems like firms have put a very large tool - windows - into places that it may not make sense, such as atm's, cash registers and medical devices among many others.
Network world has been looking into this.
Ed Treleven unfortunately passes along some Hollywood Kool Aid regarding file sharing in this article.
I don't see any mention of our "fair use" rights in Treleven's article. It's clearly not right to copy thousands of copyright protected music files (read Janis Ian's take and Courtney Love Does the Math for a counter argument), however, file sharing has many legitimate uses, significantly reducing the distribution costs of public domain and permissively shared art and speech, as well as reducing the centralized control of that distribution," Judge Sidney R. Thomas in the recent Grokster case.
What's next, no photos at the National Constitution Center due to "copyright"?
Actually, it's worse than that. Democratic Senator Pat Leahy and Republic Orrin Hatch are carrying water for Hollywood by pushing the Induce Act.
Copyright Act (S.2560, Induce Act) would make it a crime to aid, abet, or induce copyright infringement. He want us all to think that the Induce Act is no big deal and that it only targets "the bad guys" while leaving "the good guys" alone. He says that it doesn't change the law; it just clarifies it.Senator Herb Kohl sits on the Judiciary Committee, which held hearings on the Induce Act July 22, 2002.He's wrong.
Right now, under the Supreme Court's ruling in Sony v. Universal (the Betamax VCR case), devices like the iPod and CD burners are 100% legal -- not because they aren't sometimes used for infringement, but because they also have legitimate uses. The Court in Sony called these "substantial non-infringing uses." This has been the rule in the technology sector for the last 20 years. Billions of dollars and thousands of jobs have depended on it. Industries have blossomed under it. But the Induce Act would end that era of innovation. Don't let this happen on your watch - tell your Senators to fight the Induce Act!
I've not seen Kohl take a position on this, so I emailed his office on August 3 and received a reply on 8/30/2004. Contact Senator Kohl and tell him to vote against this Hollywood give away.
For about $10 million, city officials believe they can turn all 135 square miles of Philadelphia into the world's largest wireless Internet hot spot.Judy Newman says that Mayor Dave is in favor of it (count me as a skeptic on this one. The Madison airport, as of August, 2004 still does not have wireless internet, otherwise known as wi-fi. Most other airports have had it for years). True two way high speed internet access should be a public good, just like our roads and utilities. This is the economic issue for the state.The ambitious plan, now in the works, would involve placing hundreds, or maybe thousands of small transmitters around the city - probably atop lampposts. Each would be capable of communicating with the wireless networking cards that now come standard with many computers.
Once complete, the network would deliver broadband Internet almost anywhere radio waves can travel - including poor neighborhoods where high-speed Internet access is now rare.
Looking for a new mobile phone? This is the place to go for detailed phone information, along with a technology backgrounder.
