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Bush Says Americans 'Ought to Have' Broadband and a Pony by 2007
wrttnwrd writes "George Bush is calling for universal broadband by 2007. He doesn't say how, or who's going to pay for it, or who's going to build it, but hey, isn't almost good enough? (for all of you Boondocks readers out there)" First step to universal broadband: don't have your Justice Department argue against communities providing their own broadband service. And don't forget the pony!
This is the same group of people that think it would be a 'good idea' to reclassify fastfood workers as manufacturers because they 'make things'.
This, much like the Bush anti-terror policies are all about getting Bush a win in 2004. They are not about solving they problems at hand.
Bush will have broadband in everyone's home about the same time he lands humans on Mars.
Rank Presidents by th
Is this anything like a certain other organization stating that everyone "ought to have" universal health care, without saying how, or who's going to pay for it, etc? This is a normal function of politicians, folks, nothing to see here.
But hey, wouldn't universal broadband be kewl!!!!????
...we are from the government - we are here to help...
If we're going to have "Universial Service" for Internet access, we first need to determine what level of service is going to be considered the universial level.
For example, lets consider phones... The USF for telephone service assures that everybody can get access to POTS. But, it's exactly Plain Old Telephone Service, a dialtone. Any advanced services are not included in the subsidized rates, so customers are on their own if they want Caller ID, Call Waiting, or Three Way Calling to work. Cellular customers have to pay into the USF fund because they are connecting to the phone network, but they get no subsidies out because cell service is most definitely above the universial level of service. However, this also means that cell network operators are not responsible for getting their networks extended into areas where they don't think it would be profitable to operate.
The other key thing about phone service is that it only costs about $5 to get the hardware you need to fully enjoy all of the features of Plain Old Telephone Service. Sure, there are more expensive telephones are the market, but those all ofter additional features beyond what it takes to interface with the telephone network. It's not an unfair burden to expect somebody to be able to afford to buy their own phone hardware. But, just what is the minimum feature set of a computer to enjoy the Internet? Is Lynx a good enough browser, or do we have to assure that the subsidized level of service can deliver Mozilla?
And, just what technical definition of "broadband" will the subsidized service use? Afterall, DSL and Cable Models come in various speeds of upload and download last-mile links, and how congested the network is after you get off the last mile is also variable and hard-to-quantify. The debate as to what would be defined as "Plain Old Broadband Internet Service" is far from settled.
Bush is giving off a nice thought for an election year proposal... but it seems like this is so lacking in details it can't exactly be taken seriously yet.
the reason the Justice department is arguing against co-op broadband systems is then his big business buddies in the telecom and cable industry don't get paid....see, he wants to get a spending bill passed that will subsidize the expansion of DSL and Cable, but if co-ops form, that means less money for his porky friends.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
...has been replaced by a bold new "don't tax, and spend" policy.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
I agree. All Americans ought to have it.
When GWB proposes spending government money on this, please get back to me.
Ok, great. so he's proposing all these programs, like hte Mars mission, ubiquitous broadband-- the thing is, he doesn't actually plan on coming through on any of them. It's called "starving the beast".
In bold print on the first page of the long-term conservative playbook is a tactic called "Starving The Beast". It goes like this:
* lower taxes (especially for your friends) to the point where a fiscal train wreck finally ensues.
*declare that "raising" taxes (returning them to a prior level) would destroy the economy, and that the only solution is to gut Social Security and other unwanted New Deal programs.
"Starving the beast" is no longer a hypothetical scenario -- it's happening as we speak. For decades, conservatives have sought tax cuts, not because they're affordable, but because they aren't. Tax cuts lead to budget deficits, and deficits offer an excuse to squeeze government spending.
Second, squeezing spending doesn't mean cutting back on wasteful programs nobody wants, like missile defense.
Finally, the right-wing corruption of our government system -- the partisan takeover of institutions that are supposed to be nonpolitical -- continues, and even extends to the Federal Reserve.
But yeah, ubiquitous broadband is a great idea, if he actually meant it.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
I am sorry, but broadband in the household is not like FDR's Public Works Proejcts of the 1930's. Roosevelt used such initiatives to give work to those hammered by the Great Depression while simultaneously modernizing the US infrastructure - electricity for rural communities and the like.
I agree people should have broadband, but Bush needs to let ECONOMICS drive that, not legislation. When demand is high enough, providers will answer. Until then, there are plenty of other issues our government needs to take a look at.
Here's a hint, turn your head East.
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
I'm sorry, but I read slash dot for tech news. Not political opinions, if I want to read that I'll check out the opinion page of my local news paper. I think it's disgraceful for the slashdot editors to allow this story be posted.
Bush is probably looking to propose a plan comparable to FDR's REA (Rural Electrification Administration) which funded power lines to rural developments and encouraged rural businesses to adopt newer technologies. I hope Bush will take a lesson from FDR and not only extend BB access to rural homes and businesses but to give funding to poorer families and rural businesses to help close the "digital divide". For more information on the REA, see http://history.sandiego.edu/gen/20th/1930s/newdeal .html
Before we get all excited about universal broadband, we should consider parts of the country that haven't even received narrow-band telephone lines.
<rant mode="troll">Mr. Bush, I'd like to point out that you've had nearly four years to involve yourself in such domestic progress. You've spent hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars on war and completely forgotten us. Those resources could have sent us to Mars. Those resources could have improved our nation's quality of life by providing services like broadband. There's so much that could have been done, yet the emphasis was purely on destruction.
Frankly, Mr. Bush, you need to can it. A pile of false promises that could have been done will not win the American people. You've already lost. You, sir, are a miserable failure.</rant>
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Broadband for everyone? That's just what RIAA needs to stop the music pirates. I heard that 50 million figures for p2p networks are way overblown, but with the help of W they will become a reality.
I say, kudos to the president Bush.
I mean, this is a news site, right? We just wouldn't make things up out of thin air to push our agenda here, would we?
I ask this because the Pony part seems unbelievable to me.
SIG:Slashdot: indymedia for nerds.
Howard Dean had proposed this, we'd be seeing tons of posts on how visionary it was.
I loved "independent" thinkers.
yet that Michael is a democrat? Its nice how he can use this entire website as a big ad for the democrats. Perhaps the other /. editors should think about replacing him and bringing a shred of dignity back to this site.
This is just nuts, both technologically, and unprofitable wise, as going to Mars by 2020.
The amount of switches needed to put everyone on ground based broadband is nuts. I live out in an area where there is no cable TV, and a sparse population, so there is no highspeed option. And you can't consider Satellite an option yet, because 2 way is too expensive for a single household, and one way you still need the expensive dialup account.
Canada promised to give highspeed access to everyone by about this time, and the project just needs technology to catch up with consumer will.
I also don't think it is a good idea to give everyone and their dog access to highspeed Internet. With the inherent insecurities in the Internet's design, it is stupid to give attack capabilities to people who are unable and unwilling to keep their computers free of worms and trojans. The very safety of the Internet relies on some people not having quick service to the net.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
5.6% unemployment: Low for Clinton, High for Bush.
You made a mistake. The mistake is you made the assumption that Bush is a conservative. He says he is, but his actions prove otherwise. (But he sure has fooled a bunch of people)
He just wishes to be stay in power and will damn near say anyting to stay in the whitehouse.
Americans "ought to have" universal health care too...
- A
The unemployment rate is going down ... the current rate is better than in most other industrialized nations and is about the same as clinton's during his first term.
It's just that with all the, ahem, "technological advances" we've made in the past few years, reporters now have a much easier time finding unemployed workers to interview every single night than they did a mere 10 years ago. Ain't technology grand?
Jack Valenti and the MPAA are to technology as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone
Broadband for everyone probably means broadband taxes for everyone.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
First step to universal broadband: don't have your Justice Department argue against communities providing their own broadband service.
For my part, I don't care whether you like George Bush or not. (I do, but that's my opinion, and nobody says you have to share it.)
Seriously though Michael, if you want to show ANY sort of objectivity on this kind of thing, don't make such statements--they totally sound like flamebait. There may be pros and cons to the idea of communities providing their own broadband service, but I wouldn't know it from listening to you, michael. I don't see any facts backing up what you say, either.
However, all this aside, I think there IS a legitimate case to be made that it is better to have private business (corrupt as it appears to be right now) do such things than have governments attempt to create a virtual government-run monopoly. After all, I'll agree with you ANY day that our Big Business Community(tm) is corrupt. But by that same token: why on earth should we simply to assume that the government is totally free of corruption?
Maybe soon we will also get all those jobs he promised.
(\_/)
(O.o) This is Bunny. Add Bunny to your signature
(> <) to help him achieve world domination.
While its a nice political gesture to want everyone to have broadband ( its not a necessity, but its nice to have ), how about everyone having a job to pay for it?
That would be much more useful, with how jobs are flying out of the country at a frightening pace.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
This seems to be the only thing this guy is good at making a lot of noise about stuff that will never get done because with all the tax cuts, there is no funding to actually do anything like fix the schools, go to mars or build infrastructure of any kind the only thing our govt is doing is wasting what money they do have.
You can legislate morally you can't legislate morality
the reason the Justice department is arguing against co-op broadband systems is then his big business buddies in the telecom and cable industry don't get paid...
That's an interesting interpretation.
Especially given that they're NOT arguing aginst broadband operated by co-ops. (Which, by the way, the explicitly support, along with broadband supplied by other little companies, even if it competes with their "big business buddies".)
They're arguing against broadband companies run by county and local GOVERNMENTS. And even then they're only arguing against them when they're implemented in violation of the objections of the STATE governments from which the smaller governments derive their powers and mandates.
The issue was STRICTLY whether an FCC regulation allowing "any entity" to operate a broadband company free of state regulation could be used by cities, counties, and the like, as arms of their state, to escape control by their state legislatures and constitutions.
But of course certain rabid Bush-haters just LOVE to lie about it, claiming that the Bush administration is trying to block small broadband carriers, rather than to block governments from squeezing them out, with tax-subsidized unfair competition and conflict-of-interest driven regulatory roadblocks against any little guy that wants to compete with THEIR operation.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
You need to have an economy with low deficit, high employment and healthy growth before you can have the funding for such lesser things as broadband.
bring it on! --- JFK
Politics blows. I really wish we could evolve beyond it, but some structure (read: flaw) in the human mind just won't allow it.
Damn these simian brains!
--- Ban humanity.
> Bush says he wants broadband for everybody by 2007, Kerry
> says he wants to spur technologies that will bring broadband
> to everybody. Same thing. However, on slashdot, we're only
> allowed to point out when Republicans say stupid things, not
> when Democrats do. Didn't you read the F.A.Q.?
Simple. Challengers run on change. Incumbents run on their record.
The point is, Bush has been president for four years. He determines the budgets, the direction of Federal departments, and in general tax policy (with the help of the other Republican who have been in power for the past four years). And Bush has done absolutely nothing to make universal broadband a reality in America since he's been president. His FCC has worked to allow more media consolidation, he's cut taxes for the rich (thus reducing the amount of revenue available to fund a public works project), and he was so focused on going to war in Iraq, that his priorities haven't accommodated universal broadband, among other even more serious issues.
Kerry is a senator, but he's not president. So he's saying that if he were president, this is a possible works project that would stimulate the economy, create jobs, and help broadband become universal like phone service. Kerry is the presidential challenger, so it's up to him to present his vision for America and explain why he's the right man for the job.
Bush is the presidential incumbent. It's up to him to explain his record for the past four years and explain why that record is good enough that he deserves another four years. If Bush really thought this was a good idea, well, he's been able to do it for four years. It makes no sense for the presidential incumbent to make vague promises about things he has not done anything about for the past four years. But when your record isn't good enough to run on, you avoid talking about it. You change the subject to talk about going to Mars, you make vague subjects about universal broadband, you resort to hateful language about constitutional amendments, etc.
Insert simplistic political, ideological, or personal proselytization here.
> 1. Anger most of the population
> 2. Attempt to win them over with cheap internet
> 3. ???
> 4. Pro...Re-election!
Isn't it obvious?
3. Election fraud
"First, we're up to 591 now."
When did Iraqis cease to count as people?
My Blog
Carter was a quite good person, and did as good a job at being president as the circumstances were likely to permit. Painting him as a bad president is misleading at best. On the other hand, I wont dispute that he's commonly *believed* to be the worst president. It's just that I don't rank a failure to bring around the economy and the lack of any spectacular public events during his term are quite as bad as treason, which is what King Gorge II is guilty of twice over.
It's all in how you define "bad."
I want my Cowboyneal
That's enough to get him elected, if the Supreme Court helps....
Yet another fucking idiot who doesn't understand the difference between a direct election and a delegated election.
Go read about the Electoral College, willya? Right now, Election Projection has the president at 290, Kerry at 248.
Ah yes, they "knew the risk and accepted it"--good to see you have a solid grasp of class issues. More like: really needed the money and joined before Sept. 11th with the pretty justifiable assumption that the US wouldn't be going to war any time soon.
Or something
But since you, obviously, are wealthy enough to have avoided military service, I guess you can't ask them how they feel about being in Iraq.
Bread and circuses. I voted for the guy and I want him out more than anyone at this point. I can't stand politicians that like right to my face about some major issue. You wanna get a blowjob? Fine, but don't lie about it. You want to bomb Iraq cause they tried to kill your daddy? Fine, but don't lie to me about it and say they have WMD. Assclown.
just me. Still, I doubt I'm the only one paying more in taxes. Moreover, why the hell should a millionaire be getting a tax break in the first place. It seems to me those who are recieving more benefit from society (i.e. the wealthy who owe that wealth to society, since no single individual could possibly gather that much wealth alone) should shoulder the most burden.
And what 'services' are you talking about? I pay for my own education, health care, housing and transportation (and yes, I know education is subsidised, but that ought to come from my state taxes). If you mean the military, I say let's cut back on oil use by forcing public transportation on everyone (and maybe building a few more nuclear power plants) and we'll see how much of a military we really _need_ (apart from the nukes to keep China at bay, which we really do need).
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
It is nothing more than rebellion against God.
Actually, banning gay marriage really has little foundation in divine command, even in Christian belief.
Leviticus 18 deals with homosexuality, and prohibits it. However, there is a huge quantity of other old Judaic law in these sections, containing other commands that are ignored by modern-day Christians, mostly because they are inconvenient (don't eat pork, treat your deceased brother's wife as your own wife, etc).
The idea that Christians have is that Christ established a new covenant, and that the commands they have to obey are listed in the New Testament (which contains nothing banning homosexuality). However, there was an arbitrary mishmash of Old Testament stuff that just happened to be kept and shoved into Church doctrine. It's a serious inconsistency in Christianity -- essentially, there are no Biblical grounds for both eating pork and condemning homosexuality. It's really nothing more than a cultural thing that happens to live on with the church.
May we never see th
However, on slashdot, we're only allowed to point out when Republicans say stupid things, not when Democrats do. Didn't you read the F.A.Q.?
I'm pretty certain that the most commonly reviled politician on Slashdot is Sen. Fritz Hollings ("The Senator from Disneyland"). He is a Democrat.
IMHO, the flak that Bush and Ashcroft get on Slashdot is very much well-deserved. It's often misdirected, as when Bush does something *stupid* or *wrong* ("Let's attack Iraq to fight terrorism!") and then gets complained at for the number of soldiers dying, when we are doing very well. Invading Iraq was the real problem, but deaths of soldiers is a current and ongoing issue that can be complained about. People didn't just randomly decide "hey, let's hate Bush!", though.
It's kind of like Microsoft. Microsoft frequently catches a huge amount of complaining on Slashdot for doing something incredibly minor. However, Microsoft *earned* a steady and widespread hatred from many Slashdotters from years of screwing customers and competitors alike over. They're simply paying for their original actions in installments.
May we never see th
abolish the FCC.
This
I'm a conservative Republican. I have some pretty strong Libertarian leanings, but given the Libertarian party is fond of putting up candidates like Howard Stern for major political positions, I can't in good conscience throw myself in with them. So, as a conservative Republican, let me respond to your twenty bits o' trollage.
Being a drug addict is a moral failing and a crime, without regard to your occupation, fame, or anything else. However, being a drug addict does not prevent you from also being human, and thus deserving of human dignity and compassion. There is no contradiction here: the "contradiction" only exists because you're unwilling to consider that "the Enemy" (which is to say, me and people like me) may have views which don't reduce down into a three-second sound bite.
The United States shouldn't get out of the United Nations, but at the same time, we shouldn't have any delusions that the United Nations confers legitimacy. The majority of nations at the U.N. are totalitarian dictatorships, and it is beyond me how you can imagine that a bureaucracy of despots can confer legitimacy.
I don't like dealing with the U.N., but I'm fanatically in favor of dealing with NATO, with the European Community, and with basically any other multinational organization composed of free nations.
But until such time as we're able to come up with a better alternative to the U.N., should U.N. mandates be obeyed? Yes, unless doing so would directly and substantially reduce our security. For instance, I think we should be pressing Israel to return to their 1967 borders, as required by a Security Council resolution; and I think Israel is within rights to say "screw you, do you have any idea how tiny those borders are? We could be overrun in a matter of hours!"
Again, there's no contradiction here. The contradictions only seem to exist because you're not willing to view the other side as anything more than a straw man.
Government should relax regulations at all levels. The more laws you pass, the more you're going to inhibit economic development. If you don't believe me, just look at France--or ask JFK, who cut income taxes by huge amounts expecting that it would lead to an increase in tax revenues and a boosted economy. (Both happened, by the by.)
With regard to marijuana... I believe government should enforce the law and I believe the Federal government should, in most things, defer to the states. It's a matter of constant irritation to me that our current administration has sicced the FDA on those states who've enacted laws allowing the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes. That's something the Left would do, override local government in favor of the divine wisdom of Washington. Conservatives, speaking generally, strongly doubt the divine wisdom of Washington and prefer to let states and municipalities handle things.
Read some basic economics books, starting with David Ricardo. Until such time as you learn some microeconomics, please don't give people economic advice.
And no, Ricardo isn't some neocon or some colleague of Milton Friedman. He's an 18th-century economist and a peer of Adam Smith. I hav
Bush says he wants broadband for everybody by 2007, Kerry says he wants to spur technologies that will bring broadband to everybody. Same thing.
They sound pretty different to me. One comes with a target date and promise of reaching everyone- and it sounds like a 30s era public works type project: may have a worthile goal, but requires lots of money and bureaucracy, blindly adopts a huge monolithic solution, and is rife with the corruption you'd expect ('In order to avoid certain legal complications, the broadband deploying trucks are always rolling').
'Investing in new technology' is vague, but sounds much less heavy-handed. Even if the new technology doesn't bring broadband as we know it to every last citizen, you've probably promoted the invention of some new and interesting things rather than providing a permanent subisidy to the cable laying and maintenence industry, or whatever.
Which plan did you say came from a Democrat and which from a Republican?
It will all be part of Total Information Awareness, which isn't gone since Congress defunded it, it only went back underground.
The Uncoveror: It's the real news.
Good to see you have a solid grasp of personal responsability.
The US is not currently drafting civilians. You do not need to be wealthy to avoid military service, you just have to NOT voluntarily apply.
The military seems pretty straightforward about the "running risks, shooting people" part, they're not lying about it. They may not put it in the harshest light, but I don't see them selling the "Army of One" idea as "cushy job, easy salary". Rather, they try to sell it as heroism.
If you sign up for the military, you do it knowing the risks, regardless of your motivation.
While "I'll never see action" may be a "justifiable assumption", it is still a conscious risk to take based on the odds. You're still signing a contract that says you're willing to risk your life if necessary, and that's your part of the deal, regardless of how unlikely you think that necessity is.
If you wanted to take advantage of the deal and never pay up on your promise, we'll, it was your own bad decision.
Soldier is not the only profession that expects you to potentially risk your life in some undetermined future. We don't normally expect cops to say "well, I never really expected to deal with crime directly anyway" or national guards to neglect duty on the grounds that "I didn't expect to deal with REAL emergencies!".
We don't steal the responsability from their actions by assuming they don't know what they're signing for.
Instead, we expect them to be the proud professionals we need them to be; we're aware they'd rather not deal with the ugly side of things, but we hope they will rise to the needs of the situations they're trained for. We praise their outstanding character and do our best to make sure they can do their work as safely as possible.
In other words, we give them the benefit of the doubt of being decent people who can make their own decisions, good or bad. They can marry, they can have kids, they can join the circus or the military.
But since you, obviously, are wealthy enough to worry about the class issues and make the assumption their social disadvantage makes them defenseless children freeloading on the government, I'd suggest you use some of your ample free time to re-read the articles you link to, which do not support your argument and are actually orthogonal to the whole issue.
Freedom is the freedom to say 2+2=4, everything else follows...
I believe they (Japan/S. Korea) are ahead of U.S. in broadband usage because their population density is higher and thus reachable with less cabling.
1f u c4n r34d th1s u r34lly n33d t0 g37 l41d
Have you been in the military? I have. My experience is that most people are in the military to get away from the little town they grew up in. Second most popular reason is to have money for school. Third is because it was expected of them by their family.
Being a hero is way down there.
I do think the people who signed up AFTER 9/11 probably wanted to be heros though. Too bad they are just being cops instead. Hopefully that will be heroic enough for them.
The best way to support the US war effort is to continue buying American products.
And I suppose eating snails, frogs, rotting cheeses and 1000 year old turds buried by woodland creatures is a better alternative. (Let's not forget the sulfites in the wine, too).
1 - Buy yourself a gun To become a fully-fledged Yank, you'll need to get a weapon. Americans think that having more killing machines magically makes their country safer, and it helps them to walk around saying "I'll put a cap in your ass". Even though the concept of "no guns = no gun-related crimes" is alien to the average Yank, it'll give you a false sense of security in this country with the highest crime rates in the developed world.
"American == Gun Owner" is a common European misconception. In this country only ghetto troubelmakers, Elmer Fudd types, Cops, homeowners, and French-inspired Libertarians own guns. The first and last categories are regrettable, but it's only becuase we respect our constitution and don't change it like dirty underwear as the French do.
On the other hand, we don't have criminally-ispired Islamic ghettos where young women are gang-raped by do-nothings hanging around the hallways of tenements, while the government turns its head. But then again, we are not France.
2 - Put on at least 25 stone Skinny? Medium? Chubby? That won't cut it in the good ol' US of A. Because America has the highest obesty levels on the planet, you'll need to get those rolls of flab built up. Eating 18 waffles with Maple syrup for breakfast (and visiting Burger King five times in a day) is all natural when much of the world is suffering massive poverty. Get fat and fit in.
That's a lofty complaint from a national of a country where the average family spends 75 percent of its income on food, most of it is drenched in animal fat. It leads one to conclude that the reason there are not many Fat Frenchmen, is due to the fact they all die at an early age from congenital heart disease.
Heart attack on a plate, nicotine and spit-drenched stogies hanging from the lower lip, and booze are what kills Frenchmen. Inability to protect yourselves from invaders, and lack of air conditioning will probably kill-off whoever's left.
3 - Learn the lingo We've talked about issues affecting society, but on a personal level you'll need more knowledge (or ignorance as it may be) to fit in. First, forget proper English. Confuse "your" with "you're". Say "must of" instead of "must have". Whenever anything interesting occurs, say "shucks" repeatedly. Instead of clever spontaneity or witty insults, call people "asswipes". It's funny!
You apparently think language is only suitable as a vehicle for insults and vulgarities. If you want to beat the Russians at this game, your culture is already halfway there. It's never the language that is ugly. It's the the people who use it. They just have no class.
4 - Throw away all maps, history books etc. To really feel a part of American society, you must lose all knowledge of the world. Forget where Poland is. Scrap your knowledge of the lengthy Chinese history. Make cretinous remarks like "India? Is that in Africa?". Because ALL that matters is America, and it doesn't matter how pathetic you look to educated people the world over.
And that unfounded French egotism will make you all that more attractive to the world. Your "intimate" knowledge (and subsequent ignorant abuse) of other cultures will not buy you influence and respect you think you deserve.
I love it when the French complain about English being the defacto standard language of world trade and international diplomacy. They are so bitter about losing the cultural influence they once had. Acknowlege your has-been country is no longer what it once was to international diplomacy and world trade. Contribute to the furtherance of Western Culture and put something on the line. If you ju
Instead of going crazy with the broadband, why not create a system of free dial-in connections that is administrated by the local library system? Imagine: when applying for a library card, your average American might be given a list of phone numbers to a local dial-in server, along with a unique user ID and password. Along with this service, library patrons might be allowed to check out various free software, such as internet browsers or a program that helps walk people through the basics of establishing a dial-up connection as well as teaching them how to browse the internet.
GWB is being so shortsighted here. The kind of people who could conceivable really =need= Broadband can afford to it on their own... nationwide availabilty will slowly evolve as demand increases. The most important thing is not to make sure that the most privileged people can have the highest tech internet access available, it is to make sure that as many Americans as humanly possible have the most essential, entry-level internet access.
It's a bit more complicated than that.
Bush says "We're gonna fight terrorism"; invades Afghanistan to overthrow Talebans (OK, good), then all of a sudden invades Iraq, thus sending more recruits to Osama than any ad campaign, and equates all dissenters with friends of terrorism / tyranny / whatever. WTF ?
Bush says: "We must make peace in the Middle East"; says that terrorism is bad and the Hamas freaks should be stopped (OK, good), then all of a sudden pats Ariel Sharon's back and calls him a "man of peace". WTF ?
Bush says: "Every American must have broadband by 2007". Expect him to provide federal funding for optic-fibering the whole country (OK, good), then introduce laws that turn the Internet into a slightly more controlled version of the Sing Sing prison.
Well, at least this will happen if you Americans really hate the rest of the world enough to inflict this guy upon us for another four years...
Thomas Miconi
I propose that Bush have a big tall glass of shut-the-hell-up and focus on fixing Medicare, Social Security, corporate malfeasance and skullduggery and our reliance on foreign oil instead. Broadband is spreading without his help, and given his track record on the above issues during his administration, I'd just as soon he not help.
You want to tell me Bush is a liar, Prove it.
Are you willing to listen to the proof, or are you going to claim it's all biased?
We can go back to the 2000 election campaign for starters. The points that Bush ran on, in no particular order or all-inclusive:
- That we could cut taxes, increase spending, while still maintaining a balanced budget.
- That we could change Medicare without harming it.
- That he would be a Uniter, not a Divider. He would change the tone in Washington away from partisan bickering.
- That we should have a humble foreign policy, more isolationist than a global police force.
Then we can get into all the recent crap...
The numerous times, like this article, where he has said something should be a priority, and then either didn't follow up(no big deal), or did exactly the opposite(as he's done on education and environment).
The whole lead up to the Iraq war. A war of choice, I should point out, fabricated upon the belief that Hussein was a potential threat. With no regard for intelligent, reasoned debate on that choice, and a bullying attitude ramming down the throats of the American people this idea that Hussein had Nuclear and Chemical weapons at his disposal. Coupled with this same arrogant bullying attitude used towards our friends and allies.
Now we have new evidence.
In retaliation against Joe Wilson, Bush outed a strategic CIA operative... e.g. Wilson's wife Valiere Plame.
In order to pass the Medicare bill, Bush lied to Congress as to what it's cost would be. Ok, maybe lying is a bad word, but he told them something that he knew was wrong, and he told the Whitehouse actuarial staff to not answer questions from Congress because they also knew the numbers given were wrong.
And now this past week, Richard Clarke comes out and says, "Despite what this President may tell you, Terrorism wasn't his top priority in 2001, it wasn't even in his top 10 priorities. Bush is trying to claim that he did something where Clinton didn't, but in the Clinton administration it was their number 1 priority. Here's why I say this, here's what happened, here's my evidence."
Then to top of all of this, at the National Press Club dinner, Bush had the audacity to make fun of the fact that he lied to the American people about the WMDs in Iraq. He thinks it's a joke.
I understand your sentiment, I understand that we should respect the Office of President in this country, and this partisan political rhetoric is difficult to swallow. It certainly was when the Republicans were bashing Clinton over and over again.
There's one difference, and this I find truly sad. The charges made against Clinton were fabricated and were done for pure partisan political advantage.
But as a former Republican, I can say without a doubt that the charges against Bush are truly sad, for they are credible.
This President is the greatest buffoon to ever hold this office. Even Richard Nixon didn't stoop to putting our nation at risk for partisan political advantage.