Another community making true two way broadband happen, Morristown, TN:
Morristown, Tennessee, population 24,965, is building fiber to the home. According to an article in the Knoxville News Sentinel, the city responded to a doubling of commercial cable TV rates by chartering its municipal utility to build a fiber network. Morristown’s first customers will come on line in June, 2005. The build will cost $18,000,000, or $720 per person, or $1400 per home. The article says
A review of Milwaukee voting records from the Nov. 2 presidential election has found more than 1,200 ballots cast from invalid addresses in the city, including many cases in which the voter could not be located at all.
The number is a result of a detailed computer analysis by the Journal Sentinel of the city’s voter records and represents about 0.4% of the 277,535 ballots cast in the city in the hard-fought election. Some of the problems may be due to flawed record keeping, such as transposed digits or incorrect street names. Many others, however, cannot easily be explained.
The newspaper’s review, the most extensive analysis done so far of the election, revealed 1,242 votes coming from a total of 1,135 invalid addresses. That is, in some cases more than one person is listed as voting from the address. Of the 1,242 voters with invalid addresses, 75% registered on site on election day, according to city records.
Martin Kaste takes a look Brazils conversion of millions of acres of the Amazon rainforest into soybean fields. Good for agriculture exports, but how good for the Amazon?
Ghost Wars (excellent) author Steve Coll discusses Masood Khalili, an Afghan Poet today, on NPR.
Wisconsin Counties are required by law to send voter address verification cards to new voters. Evidently, this law is not enforced, according to this AP article.
Kevin Kennedy, executive director of the state Elections Board, said local officials have said prosecutors rarely follow up on the undeliverable cards, even though they could lead to charges if voter fraud was involved.
“Municipalities have complained for years the D.A.’s don’t do anything with it,” Kennedy said. “That’s the feedback we get when we hold training sessions.”
In Milwaukee, there have been “several hundred” cards returned as undeliverable, said Lisa Artison, executive director of the Milwaukee Election Commission. The cards are still arriving and have not yet been sent to the district attorney’s office, she said.
In Dane County, District Attorney Brian Blanchard said he didn’t know how many cards had been returned but noted a clerk had bundled up a 6-inch stack.
Dave Zweifel keeps the flame burning on Madison rail service. I do think it is time for a serious run at this, perhaps funded by an increase in the gas tax (money that currently funds roads). High speed rail that links Minneapolis, Madison, Milwaukee and Chicago would be a wonderful public good AND help to improve the O’hare morass.
Frank Muto forwarded an interesting look at the ongoing revolving door where officials turn into lobbyists:
Editorial: Throw sand in the revolving door
Two more, this time Democrats
Officials continue to turn into lobbyists at an alarming rate. Gregg Rothschild, key aide to Democrat John Dingell, is becoming a lobbyist for Verizon. Before Dingell, he was John Kerry’s telecom aide. Rothschild took the Dingell job in 2003, replacing Andrew Levin, who in turn had left to lobby for Clear Channel. David Svanda, former Michigan Commissioner, is persuasively arguing on behalf of the AT&T backed VON Coalition. Svanda earned respect for promoting competition in Michigan and leadership among state regulators as President of NARUC. They join a long list, including far too many FCC officials, who went directly into well paid jobs influencing their former colleagues.Does the prospect of such lucrative careers influence the decisions of even ethical officials? Did they modify their actions in the preceding year, wondering if they were affecting their chances of a job? I have no reason to speak ill of either Rothschild of Svanda, both considered ethical. But I know how I am constantly pulled, having to report the news about advertisers that pay my rent, and think top officials do not need their consciences challenged by equivalent temptation if avoidable.
via Dave Farber
James Fallows takes a look at the intersection of public (taxpayer funded) and private (business) interests, specifically, weather data that we’ve already paid for. Some businesses, who have made a living recycling that data, would like to continue their gatekeeper role. [We have examples of this in Madison. Access Dane offers “subscription” access to data that we’ve already paid for]. Here’s a clip from Fallows article. Read it all.
some of the most significant innovations have been made where public and private efforts touch. In its first term, the Bush team made a few important pro-technology choices. Over the next year it will signal whether it intends to stand by them.
There is a long historical background to the administration’s choices, plus a variety of recent shifts and circumstances. The history stretches to the early days of the republic, and the idea that government-sponsored research in science and technology could bolster private business growth. Progress in farming, led by the land-grant universities, demonstrated this concept in the 19th century. Sputnik-era science, culminating in the work that led to the Internet, did the same in the 20th century.
Open source weather is available here.
Create your own weather site using the NOAA’s xml web service.
Cory Doctorow relates an odd and disturbing experience while travelling from London to Dallas on American Airlines. Ryan Singel contacts AA and receives this response…. Singel operates a useful blog – secondary screening.
“Whoever builds a fiber to the home network is going to have a monopoly – whoever builds it. As a practical matter, I am opposed to monopolies. But I would much rather have a monopoly that I can touch and see and feel and affect, which is [Lafayette, Louisiana municipal utility operator] LUS.”
Via David Isenberg
Madison should be thinking like this as well.