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Communities have monopoly agreements with ISPs (comcast/att/etc) that restrict the ability to get a new ISP to the home.

That is false. Such monopoly agreements were literally outlawed 25 years ago by the Cable Television Consumer Protection and Competition Act of 1992 The problem is that the cost of a cable plant is a high barrier to entry, so monopolies happen "naturally" — especially when companies decide to divvy up territory to avoid competing.

And, as you mentioned, the companies also bribe state legislatures to pass laws making it hard for municipalities to build their own cable plants. For that you can blame ALEC for providing templates laws and lobbying to get them passed in roughly 22 (republican dominated) state legislatures.

I'm assuming you've never heard of ACCE, the American City County Exchange (for corporate dollars). It's the "local" version of ALEC, so they can control even your city council, local school boards, etc. "ACCE brings together local elected officials, leading industry experts and policy analysts" to compute the most effective exploitation system of citizen-based resources, tax deferments, multi-state corporate agendas, etc. ACCE is the "snake in the garden", reporting on local council meetings so they can "advise" state-level "elected officials" to pass laws and stop community-level actions before the cities can even manage to get it on to a ballot.

American Legislative Exchange Council (A.L.E.C.)

Man, I hope I can find a job outside this backward-looking clusterf k of a state soon.

The single-minded obsession certain groups have with preventing the government from providing a service that private industry already provides is bordering on hysterical.

Maybe they should take a page from UPS/Fedex and work with municipal broadband (USPS) instead of fighting it.

Full Disclosure: I am a network ops engineer for Comcast.

Anyone who believes that buying private links into a providers network is the same as your traffic getting paid priority knows jack shit about network ops. In the case of Comcast, Netflix traffic gets no special priority once it's on the internal network. The direct links simply lets them bypass the naturally occurring bottlenecks that occur at internet peering points.

Now I'm sure a bunch of people (who are not network engineers) are going to argue over the wording and philosophy as to whether or not buying paid links into a providers network constitutes priority or not. It's not. In network operations, priority is a very specific concept. It means that you treat one class of traffic better than others, usually to the detriment of other classes of traffic. As an example, e911 voice traffic has the *highest* priority on the Comcast network.

Comcast does not treat Netflix traffic any better than anyone else's traffic. Nor is it treated any worse. It is forwarded as Best Effort within the Comcast network.

The only difference that buying direct links in meant was that they got to skip the congestion in the peering points. Comcast has alot more bandwidth internally and once traffic makes it into the network, congestion is not usually a problem (things do break, redundant links become saturated, etc. It's a big network, but in normal operation mode, congestion doesn't exist). What little prioritization we do has alot more to do with latency than with congestion (ie, your phone call is more important than your massive porn transfer, since voice is alot more sensitive to delay than bulk data transfer).

All of what you say is normal and reasonable, although I assume you don't honor QoS tags from VOIP traffic that originates outside your network. Which isn't a criticism, no one does. As for the paid links, that's not an issue, IMHO. I would point out that Comcast did refuse to install netflix CDN/caching servers, which would likely have resolved the issue much more cleanly for everyone. But the cable TV and content divisions must be "protected."

What's an issue for me (NB, I'm *not* a Comcast customer, you guys aren't even near me) is the surreptitious throttling of P2P and VPN traffic (and then lying about it), blocking port 25 and abusive (no servers, outrageous prices for static IPs if you guys even give those out at all on consumer links, I'm sure I could come up with a few more if I was a customer.) terms of service, not to mention the "retention" and upselling tortures your customer service reps put consumer-grade customers through.

At my previous employer we had a (not by choice -- we needed a redundant provider and you were it) Comcast Business link and, while the link was fairly stable and we got the speeds we paid for, anytime there was a problem (which wasn't often, in your defense) the tech support guys were worthless.

With the scripts and no (at least not exposed to me) ticketing reference numbers, no status updates and no follow up, it was awful.

Compared with the nine or ten other ISPs I dealt with globally, you guys were marginally better than Deutsche Telekom and that ain't saying much.

Sorry to dump all that on you, but if you want to talk about your organization, we should get it all out into the open. I didn't touch on the lobbying, the partnering with ALEC to block municipal broadband and the lawyers and the FUD from the front office and lobbyists. And don't even get me started on the huge subsidies provided to upgrade/build infrastructure that somehow never made it to very many truck rolls. So let's just let all that lie.

The truth is that, yes your networks are big and complex. Yes, there are areas where I can understand why you guys see some of the TOS as necessary to stop abuse, and yes I know that most folks (even here) are completely clueless about what it takes to run a large, heterogeneous, mu

I'm not even saying rural. I don't believe what I've noticed about the midwest has anything to do with how rural it is. It's as bad in Tulsa as it is in Westville.
You keep trying to bring political beliefs into this as well, and I really don't get it.
I had a very evangelic math teacher in southern Oregon, who was frankly brilliant. He doesn't get included in my list. Very rural. Obviously a smart dude who believes some dumb shit. Generally *not* ignorant in any way.
Where did money come into play? I'm glad welders make good money. They should. Are you telling me you have to be educated to be a welder?
Now, back to the midwest.
http://www.alec.org/publicatio...
http://www.nationsreportcard.g...
Have you ever had to explain to argue with someone that we have proven that the Earth orbits the sun? Me neither, until I lived in Oklahoma.
I believe it's part of some evangelist southern baptist culture to reject science in general. All the sciences, from astronomy to math- not just things that conflict with their dogmatic teachings.
One note on the cattle rancher, you pointed out a bunch of true things about him, but in no way did you show that he was not generally ignorant. Ignorant people can be talented at things, or not ignorant in specific things. Good for them. The world needs cattle ranchers. Cattle ranchers who don't know a god damned thing about civics, math, science, engineering, history, or anything else outside what affects his field. Perfect kind of person for a democracy, right?

So 41 out of 51 isn't close to the worst?

http://www.alec.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Report_Card_on_American_Education

Thanks, but no thanks. I'll move my kids to where most educators are focused on ranking at the top end, rather than how many kids made the NCLB, and how that affects the school.

You're wrong. High tech companies are fleeing California for low tax states. In fact, high earners inevitably flee high tax states for low tax states:

Examining IRS tax return data by state, E.J. McMahon, a fiscal expert at the Manhattan Institute, measured the impact of large income-tax rate increases on the rich ($200,000 income or more) in Connecticut, which raised its tax rate in 2003 to 5% from 4.5%; in New Jersey, which raised its rate in 2004 to 8.97% from 6.35%; and in New York, which raised its tax rate in 2003 to 7.7% from 6.85%. Over the period 2002-2005, in each of these states the "soak the rich" tax hike was followed by a significant reduction in the number of rich people paying taxes in these states relative to the national average. Amazingly, these three states ranked 46th, 49th and 50th among all states in the percentage increase in wealthy tax filers in the years after they tried to soak the rich.

Here's a comparison between California and Texas that explains, in great detail, how and why Texas is kicking California's ass.. This is also why more than half the new jobs created in the last twelve months were created in Texas. Another reason is strong vs. weak or no public sector unions. One thing that articles notes:

Renting a 26-foot U-Haul truck to go from Austin to San Francisco this July would cost you about $900. Renting the same truck to go from San Francisco to Austin? About $3,000. In the great balance of supply and demand, California has a large supply of people who are demanding to move to Texas.

High tech employees are fleeing California for Texas, because they can keep more of what they make, the government isn't going bankrupt, and the roads and schools are now better in Texas. Despite all the money California spends on a a bloated public sector, the actual core services delivered are worse in California than they are in Texas:

“Today, you go to Texas, the roads are no worse, the public schools are not great but are better than or equal to ours, and their universities are good. The bargain between California’s government and the middle class is constantly being renegotiated to the disadvantage of the middle class.”

Here's a slightly older analysis from 2007. Since then, of course, things have gotten better (relative to the rest of the nation) for Texas and worse for California.

Low taxes and small government create jobs. High taxes and big government destroy jobs.

Here is a citation with several citations within it. Here is another and yet another..

I'm willing to bet that most high dollar educations didn't involve simple google skills as it took me all of a couple of minutes to find those references.

Here is a PDF report that ties a bunch of numbers together as late as 2008. Unfortunately, it's in book form so you will probable need to print it and assemble the pages to keep the lines straight with the tables.

What's amusing to me is that people think education or health care is a proper role for unaccountable entities whose primary responsibility is profit.

Right... because nobody is profiting from the broken system overseen by "accountable" politicians. Take a look at the education system in California. Corrupt politicians bound to their lobbyist masters. CTA spending $58 MILLION on advertising in 2007 to defeat reform measures that Govenor Schwarzenegger was trying to get passed. California's education meanwhile, ranked 40th out of the 50 states (and DC).

Private corporations may have profitability as a goal, but you're sadly mistaken if you believe they can achieve that goal without providing a satisfactory product (in this case, education). Why do you think some parents pay expensive tuition at private schools? Despite the fact that private schools may want to be profitable, the education they provide is generally better than their public counterparts. Meanwhile the administrators of the public school system are happy to piss money away because, when it eventually becomes time to raise taxes, they know nobody will want to be the jerk voting "against education".

California is a very visible example of the naivete inherent to the "government is non-profit and accountable and therefore better" argument.

Normally I don't respond to people with BDS (Bush Derangement Syndrome) but I figured I would just point out that OPEC controls oil prices and no matter how much any president (even the United States President) would want to change the price of oil, they're not going to be able to do much about it.

Also, oil prices have been rising since 1999 but saw a drastic increase in 2004-2006. Partly due to inflation as oil was behind inflation curve for sometime. As you can see, Oil prices are effected by a large verity of supply/demand and not just the war in Iraq (though, that's not to say there hasn't been a big impact due to it).

Currently, in the US, we're seeing record high gas prices again, not due to just the price of oil, but due to the US's capacity to refine that oil into gasoline. Here's an article from 2005 about refineries. The interesting thing is, the high gas prices of Hurricane Katrina, etc. where due to the loss of refinement capabilities.

Barrels of Oil are less than they where a year ago, but prices are higher? Refinement. The real question is, why the F**K isn't the government doing more to increase refinement? The U.S. cannot control oil prices (despite what anyone with BDS thinks, outside of taxes and subsidies), but they can control refinement.

Of course it's easier to just scream 'Bush' because you're not smart enough to think outside a box.

One would think that people would oppose it (text of the bill (RTF document)). But... It has passed, or is under consideration, in other states. Microsoft is not the sole originator, but a group called the American Legislative Exchange Council. It supposedly "...advances the Jeffersonian principles of free markets, limited government, federalism and individual liberty...", but actually seems more interested in making corporate policy into state law.

The Microsoft campaign contributions mentioned in the article (a slightly more readable version) are also worth noting.

This really isn't a federal problem, you can see that barely 5% of education funding in WI is federal money. This is pretty typical. I can't complain about my federal income taxes being wasted on education. I'd have to complain on the state and local level, and I think they are doing a good job.

Personally I do think education should be more heavily funded on the federal level and not based on property taxes like in so many places.

Society gets what it deserves in many cases though. Parents are willing to raise money for the football team, but when a referendum for more money for education is on the ballot, they always vote it down.

See how your state ranks: http://www.alec.org/meSWFiles/pdf/Education_Report _card.pdf

I tried testing this idea in the furnace of slashdot a while ago, but got no comment. I'll try again.

"Your Vote" is already wasted and skews the election if you're uninformed. I'm going to define "informed" as making active efforts to gain an understanding of candidates -- passive receiving of ads, mailings, and any other major media outlet won't do. These are the places where politicians carefully polish their image and deliberately choose their words. You won't learn anything but what they (or maybe their opponents, who may be less credible) want you to know about them (and chances are you won't learn anything about a candidate who isn't a Democrat or Republican).

Lots of people vote on a vague feeling that someone is "a good man" or "would probably represent me well". I get these expressions when I talk to people every day.

We wonder why politicians pander and pontificate, rather than intelligently speaking about policy and justifying their positions with reason or actual scientific citation. It's not much wonder. Joe voter hasn't learned to do much other than go absorb what the mass media says by osmosis and show up at the polls.

If you're one of those people, take the time to do a little bit of research. Project Vote Smart is a decent place to start; there's more to be done, though, if you really want to dig in. You have to learn something about policy.

Example: you know how many politicians are positioning themselves as champions of education. And the things they promise to do? Increase spending per pupil, decrease class sizes. Yet, there's a fair bit of data collected for which there is no correlation between spending and better test scores, or (down to the point of about 15 students) class size and better test scores. What does help? Smaller schools, apparently. The studies have been known to and distributed by the American Legislative Exchange Council for at least a year. Any policy maker sincerly interested in improving things should know things like that. If YOU know things like this, and your candidate trots out the same old tired solutions, that can tell you something about them.

A number of you, however, will just not take the time to do research before Nov 7. At that point in time, please do the rest of us a favor, and don't turn the election into a spin-based lottery. Keep your vote to yourself.

A lot things aren't obvious to you.

For example, that there are enormous hidden taxes applied to any physical wiring due to right of ways that exceed even the FCC's red tape by a huge amount.

That the first Cray supercomputer was built on Seymour's farm using guys from rural Iowa and Wisconsin.

That wireless will probably displace physical cable in urban areas once places like Iowa, Montana, Canada, China, Siberia, etc. make the advantages manifestly clear.

That the wireless revolution will relocate the infosphere to orbit.

Or, finally, an example of something that clearly is not obvious to you is the ranking of states by academic achievement.

1. Minnesota
2. Montana
3. Iowa
4. Wisconsin
5. New Hampshire
6. Oregon
7. Washington
8. Kansas
9. Nebraska
10. Alaska
11. Connecticut
12. Massachusetts
13. Maine
14. Vermont
15. Missouri
16. Colorado
17. Arizona
18. Utah
19. Virginia
20. North Dakota
21. Oklahoma
22. Wyoming
23. Illinois
24. New York
25. New Jersey
26. Maryland
27. Nevada
28. Rhode Island
29. Idaho
30. Ohio
31. Texas
32. Michigan
33. North Carolina
34. California
35. South Dakota
36. West Virginia
37. Kentucky
38. Delaware
39. Arkansas
40. Florida
41. Indiana
42. Alabama
43. New Mexico
44. Tennessee
45. Pennsylvania
46. Georgia
47. Hawaii
48. South Carolina
49. Louisiana
50. District of Columbia
51. Mississippi

Now, which state are you from? :-)