No, I don't keep using the word "natural monopoly" other than to tell people that the concept is bullshit. Nobody has ever demonstrated the existence of a permanent natural monopoly in anything.
less government means less *regulation*, they gobble up more, you get less choice buddy. and you get less legal recourse from being shafted what you want, if you follow through on the coherent thought, is less corruption, not a weaker government that is even yet more beholden to money. not possible?
After finding that wonderful article on rent seeking (although you still don't seem to understand that "rent seeking" is a failure of government, not markets), I suggest you look up the articles on "regulatory capture" and "public choice theory". More regulation is the primary mechanism by which "plutocrats" engage in rent seeking and create monopolies, and politicians and government employees invariably support them in that effort, not because they are bad people (most of them are quite well meaning), but because that's the way such systems function.
without government you think monopolies don't or won't exist?
Government is responsible for creating artificial monopolies. So, "without government" there wouldn't be any artificial monopolies. Would we be dragged into a quagmire of natural monopolies if government got completely out of the business of regulating markets? Nobody knows for certain because it has never been tried, but given what we know, it seems very unlikely.
study the laws on corruption in the nordic countries, you know, those evil socialist horrors that are actually richer, happier, and more upwardly mobile meritocracies than the usa pretends it is
Take it from an ex-northern European: you don't know what you're talking about. I suggest you read "The Almost Nearly Perfect People" by Booth. Northern Europe is neither socialist, nor a meritocracy, nor particularly successful. And even if it were any of those things, we couldn't implement the Nordic model in the US.
Many people would seemingly prefer death by slow torture over admitting that fat people might have some issue beyond their control, but that's what the research suggests.... For your theory to be correct, they should have all ended up fat.
If you take a group of smokers, some of them get lung cancer and others have healthy lungs until they die in their 90's from something else. In fact 80-90% of lung cancer deaths are due to smoking. Does that mean that getting ill from smoking is "beyond their control"? Of course not. It means people shouldn't smoke.
If you take a group of people (control for BMI and BMR if you like) and feed them the same high carb diet, some will become obese, others won't. Does that mean that becoming obese from high carb diets is "beyond their control"? Of course not. It means that people who become obese from high carb diets should stop eating high carb diets (or that everybody should stop eating high carb diets).
Same diet, same strain of mice, same living conditions.... Absorption differences driven by the microflora could be in play.
There is some of that, related to the breakdown of carbohydrates. In fact, any effect the microflora has is related to carbs, because proteins and fats largely get absorbed without the aid of microflora. So, is that beyond your control? Of course not. Cut out carbs and these differences go away (and it will likely convert your "fat" microflora to the "lean" type).
Other research shows a different basal metabolism between different people.
People have vastly different BMRs, for many different reasons. But I know of no evidence that differences in BMR cause differences in obesity (there is some correlation between higher BMI and higher BMR). If you know of any, please share it.
Check out Chattanooga's EPBFi. They showed they could do it on the expected revenue from customers rather than taxes.
How do you know? They effectively seem to be piggy-backing on the infrastructure created and paid for by electric customers. That's probably a great way of keeping down costs. But the only reason this ends up being "municipal" is because the power company itself started out municipal. If private power companies were less regulated elsewhere, you'd probably see these kinds of offerings all over the place.
The idea that using local tax dollars to create what invariably will end up being a substandard, poorly managed, subsidized Internet service is somehow creating a "competitive advantage" seems stupid. However, I also think municipalities should be able to do stupid things if they so choose, so I disagree with the state laws.
On the other hand, I think piling a federal law based on a dubious interpretation of the commerce clause prohibiting states from enacting laws that prevent bad behavior municipalities isn't really helping things. We now have federal and state laws, neither of which has any business existing, and we don't even get protection from fiscal irresponsibility by municipalities.
These laws have been passed because certain municipalities have been able to successfully cover the cost and maintenance of their own networks.
Yes, they have been able to "successfully cover them" by diverting taxes from homeowners for this wasteful pet project, and for giving themselves sweet deals for easement and digging up roads.
Well, see whether you can come up with any consistent explanation of rising obesity rates caused by population changes in BMR since the 1960's, whether genetic or environmental. If you can come up with an explanation that fits the data, it would be quite interesting.
I don't see what you think is "incorrect". That paper doesn't show any differences in "metabolism", and it's easy to get differences in weight gain in identical mice eating identical diets simply by timing.
Most likely, the differences between the obese and lean mice are due to the speed with which carbohydrates were consumed, broken down and absorbed: slow absorption keeps animals leaner. But that only matters if you consume a bad diet to begin with (as the mice in the study seem to have done). Furthermore, it's likely that the "bad" microflora arises because of bad nutritional habits in the first place.
Now, try that same regimen - but with half an hour to an hour of cardio+strength 3 times a week, knocking down about 100 calories and increasing one's activity factor to 1.375 Because BMR.
That's a useless prescription because your appetite will simply adjust upwards by the same factor. If low BMR were the cause of obesity, there would be no explanation why obesity has skyrocketed over the last 50 years. And if your theory was right, high BMR should correlate with low BMI, when actually the opposite is true.
You're the one spouting single cause, "you people are eating too much - that's why you're fat" nonsense.
I didn't say that. What I said is that people are fat because they eat the wrong foods, which then in turn causes them to consume too many calories. It's not theory it's fact. You know, science.
Fixing your hormonal balances is possible but it's lot more difficult than "put down the chocolate cake and have some salad once in a while".
You have to put down the chocolate cake for good, as well as the cereal, sugar, rice, bread, pasta, hamburger bun, french fries, soda, candy bar, etc. I mean, you have to cut them out completely, no ifs or buts. And you have to have salad (no heavy sauces) and other (non-starchy) vegetables as the bulk of what you eat every day.
Resisting hunger is next to impossible (which is why attempts at calorie restrictions fail), but while resisting a craving for french fries and snacking on some broccoli and celery instead may not be fun, it's within everybody's ability for self-control and it is going to get rid of hunger. Guaranteed. I speak from first hand experience.
By the way, your reasoning wouldn't explain the staggering rise in obesity since the 1960's. The distribution of genetic determinants of BMRs can't have been all that different back then than it is today.
A hour of exercise each day is something which is affordable to both those making $100 an hour and those making $3 and hour, doing 3 jobs?
According to the CDC, only 15% of obese adults are low income, so obesity is primarily a problem of the middle class and high income earners. And are you only willing to consider addressing obesity if it works for the few percent of marginal workers we have in our economy?
2000 calories per day from processed cereal, from fresh fruit and vegetables and from meat costs the same?
Potatoes, apples, beans, and tofu actually are cheaper, and there is nothing wrong with lean meat either.
Ready to eat burger and soda, 5 minute microwave meal and an hour-long preparation of a meal (plus cleaning up afterward) take up the same time and cost the same to prepare?
If you only spend 5 minutes preparing your meals, you are pretty much destined to become obese. You need to spend at least 1h on the main meal of the day.
Even if your arguments made any sense, they would amount to saying that because low income workers can only spend 5 minutes on food preparation and afford only foods that make them fat, we should then spend thousands of dollars per year in medical treatments to alleviate the problems resulting from their obesity. Your premises are wrong, but even if they were right, your conclusion would still be ludicrous.
People are NOT one size fits all. And there are HUGE variations in BMR from person to person.... On top of that, activity factor would have no effect if it were "not your "metabolism" that makes you obese, it's how much and what you eat."
Yes, there are huge variations in BMR, and there are huge variations in caloric needs depending on activity. And that tells you that your simplistic view that obesity is due to a "difference in metabolism" can't be true, because otherwise people with low BMR would all be fat and if people who exercise stopped exercising for a few weeks, they'd balloon. But that's not what happens.
Obesity occurs when you keep eating even though your caloric needs are met; the difference is stored as fat. Most commonly that happens because processed foods are so efficient at delivering calories that you have ingested excess calories before your body tells you to stop eating, and because simple carbs are absorbed too quickly to be utilized. And the way to fix that is to eat foods that deliver calories slower.
However, a State saying who can or cannot form an ISP sounds to me like an attempt to regulate interstate commerce. Still, it's a very complex issue when a municipality does it, as you could argue that creating an ISP is akin to a municipality creating it's own post office. I'd have to leave it to the Court to figure it all out.
Well, I used to think that it was good for the federal government to intervene in such cases. Heck, what could be better than Obama forcing municipalities to allow competition. But I don't believe that anymore, for two reasons.
First, sure, there are many cities that through stupidity or corruption restrict competition. But why should the federal government be any better at deciding when such restrictions make sense and when they don't?
Second, letting the federal government make the rules just ups the stakes. I have a reasonable chance to convince my city council to allow competition, and lobbying in tens of thousands of towns and cities to corrupt the process is hard for companies; setting the rules at the federal level means the lobbyists and big money pretty much win automatically.
(As for the post office, when was the last time you actually needed that? Between E-mail and UPS, it seems redundant.)
Those are old studies and their conclusions are not plausible. In fact, the numbers don't even make much sense: an excess caloric intake of 84000 calories can at most give you 23 pounds of fat gain, yet some people gained 29 pounds in the study. Obviously, either their metabolic baseline was wrong, or people have been snacking on the side.
In any case, what I objected to was the claim that there are significant differences in metabolism between people; there aren't. You, I, and everybody else metabolize foods pretty much the same way: fat, starch, protein, and sugars all get absorbed with near total efficiency, and they get turned either into heat+motion or fat, again, with near total efficiency by the same metabolic pathways.
The genetic differences we see between people seem to be largely related to behavior, taste, and the reward system. Some people seem to have food preferences that predispose them to getting fat, just like some people are predisposed to becoming alcoholics or drug addicts. But unlike metabolism, all those behavioral differences are still subject to conscious control. I'm not talking about starving yourself (hunger is an almost irresistible drive), I'm talking about choosing to cook your own broccoli and drink water instead of running out and buying a cheeseburger, fries, and a Big Gulp Coke.
Exercising makes you fit, but unless you're an athlete it doesn't burn enough calories to make up for excessive calorie intake
The point of exercise isn't to burn excess calories, it is to improve health and change your metabolism.
You can easily overeat by 1000+ calories a day
Yes, you can. You can also easily not overeat by 1000 calories a day. In fact, you're already doing just that because if you kept overeating by 1000 calories per day, you'd explode.
Sure, it's just a matter of not eating but that's easier said than done, a nagging hunger is very very annoying
No, it's not a matter of "not eating"; a diet that is predicated on fighting "nagging hunger" is doomed to failure. Hunger isn't just "very very annoying" it's pretty much irresistible.
It is a matter of eating the right things, things that make you feel full without overeating.
That does require eating stuff you don't like and not eating stuff you do like until your tastes adjust, but it does not require you to go hungry. I know, I went through it.
Being fat as fuck is also not fun, so I try balancing it out. But it's not easy.
Then do something about it. Your problem is either that you don't know how to eat and people aren't telling you, or that you choose to eat bad foods. Subjecting yourself to invasive surgery is not the answer.
Not at all: people are lazy and uninformed about nutrition, just as they are lazy and uninformed about finances and many other things. But laziness and lack of information are not grounds for neurosurgery.
When you start to look at the real reasons for obesity it turns out to be not nearly that simple.
Yes, it turns out to be that simple. One simple way you can see that is obesity has gone from 10% to 50% in the US since 1960, yet people have more choices for food and exercise and are generally healthier. Therefore, obesity is a result of the choices people make, not external factors, genetics, or disease.
If these devices help reduce obesity, they're saving lives, and that's a good thing.
Most obesity is due to poor nutrition and lack of exercise. Changing nutrition and exercising costs nothing and has numerous health benefits. Giving people an inferior, costly, and risky substitute for a simple and effective solution is not a good thing.
Diets and supplements is 10B a year industry and won't go away anytime soon
I expect they will greatly expand, given that ACA now effectively covers a lot of that crap.
We know that metabolism variation among individuals is pretty huge.
That's bullshit. Obese people have pretty much the same metabolism as skinny people. It's not your "metabolism" that makes you obese, it's how much and what you eat.
It therefore worries me that companies are this lazy when building such equipment
Among all the areas in daily life where companies can hurt me through weak security, this is way down on the list.
My first concern? Probably that US banks and credit card companies should start using smart chips, two factor authentication, and reliable notification, all of which are easy to do and widely used elsewhere.
Apple has never been good at long-term software maintenance. Apple DOS was a mess and self-destructed. MacOS was another mess and self-destructed. Then they bought NeXTStep and it's following pretty much the same path.
Apple tends to do something quick and flashy out of the gates and then it falls apart over the next decade.
Apple hardware is widely available and doesn't change very much, which makes it easy to predict what will and won't work. PC vendors constantly change their hardware around. In fact, Apple's hardware in many ways is old-fashioned, with traditional non-touch laptops and powerful desktops.
And why not use OS X? Because unless you run toy apps from Apple's app store or run a handful of "creative apps", it sucks. Its scripting sucks, it's UI sucks, its UI programming sucks, its tools suck, and its package management sucks. A decade of attempts to fix it via systems like Brew haven't helped either.
I don't expect this state to last; I think Apple is going to drop traditional desktops and laptops sooner rather than later, because they really can't keep up on the hardware, and they already are way behind on the software.
That the federal government has the sole authority to regulate interstate commerce doesn't mean it can ignore the rest of the Constitution.
My point is that the way people are interpreting the commerce clause to expand federal power into areas where it has no business being. How California, Massachusetts, or Wyoming choose to provide local phone or Internet service is state business, even if those local services may also be used to engage in interstate commerce.
Furthermore, the commerce clause wasn't intended to say that the federal government may use rules regulating interstate commerce to advance arbitrary aims unrelated to trade, it was intended to express that states should not have the right to restricting their citizens from trading between states; it was really intended to keep trade between states open, equitable, and unrestricted. Furthermore, regardless of whether you agree that that was its original intent, it is the only actually useful and beneficial role of the commerce clause; any other use of it is harmful to the economy and to our liberties.
Even something as banal or annoying as an out-of-State telemarketer calling you at dinner time is interstate commerce. That puts the means under federal authority.
The call from the telemarketer may or may not be "interstate commerce", but that shouldn't make every piece of infrastructure, hardware, and software involved in that call subject to interstate commerce regulation. Yet, that's what the expansive interpretation of the commerce clause many people have adopted amounts to. It's not what the Constitution was intended for, and it is harmful.
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No, I don't keep using the word "natural monopoly" other than to tell people that the concept is bullshit. Nobody has ever demonstrated the existence of a permanent natural monopoly in anything.
After finding that wonderful article on rent seeking (although you still don't seem to understand that "rent seeking" is a failure of government, not markets), I suggest you look up the articles on "regulatory capture" and "public choice theory". More regulation is the primary mechanism by which "plutocrats" engage in rent seeking and create monopolies, and politicians and government employees invariably support them in that effort, not because they are bad people (most of them are quite well meaning), but because that's the way such systems function.
Government is responsible for creating artificial monopolies. So, "without government" there wouldn't be any artificial monopolies. Would we be dragged into a quagmire of natural monopolies if government got completely out of the business of regulating markets? Nobody knows for certain because it has never been tried, but given what we know, it seems very unlikely.
Take it from an ex-northern European: you don't know what you're talking about. I suggest you read "The Almost Nearly Perfect People" by Booth. Northern Europe is neither socialist, nor a meritocracy, nor particularly successful. And even if it were any of those things, we couldn't implement the Nordic model in the US.
If you take a group of smokers, some of them get lung cancer and others have healthy lungs until they die in their 90's from something else. In fact 80-90% of lung cancer deaths are due to smoking. Does that mean that getting ill from smoking is "beyond their control"? Of course not. It means people shouldn't smoke.
If you take a group of people (control for BMI and BMR if you like) and feed them the same high carb diet, some will become obese, others won't. Does that mean that becoming obese from high carb diets is "beyond their control"? Of course not. It means that people who become obese from high carb diets should stop eating high carb diets (or that everybody should stop eating high carb diets).
There is some of that, related to the breakdown of carbohydrates. In fact, any effect the microflora has is related to carbs, because proteins and fats largely get absorbed without the aid of microflora. So, is that beyond your control? Of course not. Cut out carbs and these differences go away (and it will likely convert your "fat" microflora to the "lean" type).
People have vastly different BMRs, for many different reasons. But I know of no evidence that differences in BMR cause differences in obesity (there is some correlation between higher BMI and higher BMR). If you know of any, please share it.
How do you know? They effectively seem to be piggy-backing on the infrastructure created and paid for by electric customers. That's probably a great way of keeping down costs. But the only reason this ends up being "municipal" is because the power company itself started out municipal. If private power companies were less regulated elsewhere, you'd probably see these kinds of offerings all over the place.
The idea that using local tax dollars to create what invariably will end up being a substandard, poorly managed, subsidized Internet service is somehow creating a "competitive advantage" seems stupid. However, I also think municipalities should be able to do stupid things if they so choose, so I disagree with the state laws.
On the other hand, I think piling a federal law based on a dubious interpretation of the commerce clause prohibiting states from enacting laws that prevent bad behavior municipalities isn't really helping things. We now have federal and state laws, neither of which has any business existing, and we don't even get protection from fiscal irresponsibility by municipalities.
Yes, they have been able to "successfully cover them" by diverting taxes from homeowners for this wasteful pet project, and for giving themselves sweet deals for easement and digging up roads.
FTFY: tax-financed gubmint monopoly bad! consumer choice and free markets good!
("*drool* snort"? You should have that looked at.)
Well, see whether you can come up with any consistent explanation of rising obesity rates caused by population changes in BMR since the 1960's, whether genetic or environmental. If you can come up with an explanation that fits the data, it would be quite interesting.
I don't see what you think is "incorrect". That paper doesn't show any differences in "metabolism", and it's easy to get differences in weight gain in identical mice eating identical diets simply by timing.
Most likely, the differences between the obese and lean mice are due to the speed with which carbohydrates were consumed, broken down and absorbed: slow absorption keeps animals leaner. But that only matters if you consume a bad diet to begin with (as the mice in the study seem to have done). Furthermore, it's likely that the "bad" microflora arises because of bad nutritional habits in the first place.
That's a useless prescription because your appetite will simply adjust upwards by the same factor. If low BMR were the cause of obesity, there would be no explanation why obesity has skyrocketed over the last 50 years. And if your theory was right, high BMR should correlate with low BMI, when actually the opposite is true.
I didn't say that. What I said is that people are fat because they eat the wrong foods, which then in turn causes them to consume too many calories. It's not theory it's fact. You know, science.
You have to put down the chocolate cake for good, as well as the cereal, sugar, rice, bread, pasta, hamburger bun, french fries, soda, candy bar, etc. I mean, you have to cut them out completely, no ifs or buts. And you have to have salad (no heavy sauces) and other (non-starchy) vegetables as the bulk of what you eat every day.
Resisting hunger is next to impossible (which is why attempts at calorie restrictions fail), but while resisting a craving for french fries and snacking on some broccoli and celery instead may not be fun, it's within everybody's ability for self-control and it is going to get rid of hunger. Guaranteed. I speak from first hand experience.
By the way, your reasoning wouldn't explain the staggering rise in obesity since the 1960's. The distribution of genetic determinants of BMRs can't have been all that different back then than it is today.
According to the CDC, only 15% of obese adults are low income, so obesity is primarily a problem of the middle class and high income earners. And are you only willing to consider addressing obesity if it works for the few percent of marginal workers we have in our economy?
Potatoes, apples, beans, and tofu actually are cheaper, and there is nothing wrong with lean meat either.
If you only spend 5 minutes preparing your meals, you are pretty much destined to become obese. You need to spend at least 1h on the main meal of the day.
Even if your arguments made any sense, they would amount to saying that because low income workers can only spend 5 minutes on food preparation and afford only foods that make them fat, we should then spend thousands of dollars per year in medical treatments to alleviate the problems resulting from their obesity. Your premises are wrong, but even if they were right, your conclusion would still be ludicrous.
Yes, there are huge variations in BMR, and there are huge variations in caloric needs depending on activity. And that tells you that your simplistic view that obesity is due to a "difference in metabolism" can't be true, because otherwise people with low BMR would all be fat and if people who exercise stopped exercising for a few weeks, they'd balloon. But that's not what happens.
Obesity occurs when you keep eating even though your caloric needs are met; the difference is stored as fat. Most commonly that happens because processed foods are so efficient at delivering calories that you have ingested excess calories before your body tells you to stop eating, and because simple carbs are absorbed too quickly to be utilized. And the way to fix that is to eat foods that deliver calories slower.
I don't think we're either.
Well, I used to think that it was good for the federal government to intervene in such cases. Heck, what could be better than Obama forcing municipalities to allow competition. But I don't believe that anymore, for two reasons.
First, sure, there are many cities that through stupidity or corruption restrict competition. But why should the federal government be any better at deciding when such restrictions make sense and when they don't?
Second, letting the federal government make the rules just ups the stakes. I have a reasonable chance to convince my city council to allow competition, and lobbying in tens of thousands of towns and cities to corrupt the process is hard for companies; setting the rules at the federal level means the lobbyists and big money pretty much win automatically.
(As for the post office, when was the last time you actually needed that? Between E-mail and UPS, it seems redundant.)
Those are old studies and their conclusions are not plausible. In fact, the numbers don't even make much sense: an excess caloric intake of 84000 calories can at most give you 23 pounds of fat gain, yet some people gained 29 pounds in the study. Obviously, either their metabolic baseline was wrong, or people have been snacking on the side.
In any case, what I objected to was the claim that there are significant differences in metabolism between people; there aren't. You, I, and everybody else metabolize foods pretty much the same way: fat, starch, protein, and sugars all get absorbed with near total efficiency, and they get turned either into heat+motion or fat, again, with near total efficiency by the same metabolic pathways.
The genetic differences we see between people seem to be largely related to behavior, taste, and the reward system. Some people seem to have food preferences that predispose them to getting fat, just like some people are predisposed to becoming alcoholics or drug addicts. But unlike metabolism, all those behavioral differences are still subject to conscious control. I'm not talking about starving yourself (hunger is an almost irresistible drive), I'm talking about choosing to cook your own broccoli and drink water instead of running out and buying a cheeseburger, fries, and a Big Gulp Coke.
The point of exercise isn't to burn excess calories, it is to improve health and change your metabolism.
Yes, you can. You can also easily not overeat by 1000 calories a day. In fact, you're already doing just that because if you kept overeating by 1000 calories per day, you'd explode.
No, it's not a matter of "not eating"; a diet that is predicated on fighting "nagging hunger" is doomed to failure. Hunger isn't just "very very annoying" it's pretty much irresistible.
It is a matter of eating the right things, things that make you feel full without overeating.
That does require eating stuff you don't like and not eating stuff you do like until your tastes adjust, but it does not require you to go hungry. I know, I went through it.
Then do something about it. Your problem is either that you don't know how to eat and people aren't telling you, or that you choose to eat bad foods. Subjecting yourself to invasive surgery is not the answer.
Not at all: people are lazy and uninformed about nutrition, just as they are lazy and uninformed about finances and many other things. But laziness and lack of information are not grounds for neurosurgery.
Yes, it turns out to be that simple. One simple way you can see that is obesity has gone from 10% to 50% in the US since 1960, yet people have more choices for food and exercise and are generally healthier. Therefore, obesity is a result of the choices people make, not external factors, genetics, or disease.
Most obesity is due to poor nutrition and lack of exercise. Changing nutrition and exercising costs nothing and has numerous health benefits. Giving people an inferior, costly, and risky substitute for a simple and effective solution is not a good thing.
I expect they will greatly expand, given that ACA now effectively covers a lot of that crap.
That's bullshit. Obese people have pretty much the same metabolism as skinny people. It's not your "metabolism" that makes you obese, it's how much and what you eat.
Among all the areas in daily life where companies can hurt me through weak security, this is way down on the list.
My first concern? Probably that US banks and credit card companies should start using smart chips, two factor authentication, and reliable notification, all of which are easy to do and widely used elsewhere.
Apple has never been good at long-term software maintenance. Apple DOS was a mess and self-destructed. MacOS was another mess and self-destructed. Then they bought NeXTStep and it's following pretty much the same path.
Apple tends to do something quick and flashy out of the gates and then it falls apart over the next decade.
Apple hardware is widely available and doesn't change very much, which makes it easy to predict what will and won't work. PC vendors constantly change their hardware around. In fact, Apple's hardware in many ways is old-fashioned, with traditional non-touch laptops and powerful desktops.
And why not use OS X? Because unless you run toy apps from Apple's app store or run a handful of "creative apps", it sucks. Its scripting sucks, it's UI sucks, its UI programming sucks, its tools suck, and its package management sucks. A decade of attempts to fix it via systems like Brew haven't helped either.
I don't expect this state to last; I think Apple is going to drop traditional desktops and laptops sooner rather than later, because they really can't keep up on the hardware, and they already are way behind on the software.
My point is that the way people are interpreting the commerce clause to expand federal power into areas where it has no business being. How California, Massachusetts, or Wyoming choose to provide local phone or Internet service is state business, even if those local services may also be used to engage in interstate commerce.
Furthermore, the commerce clause wasn't intended to say that the federal government may use rules regulating interstate commerce to advance arbitrary aims unrelated to trade, it was intended to express that states should not have the right to restricting their citizens from trading between states; it was really intended to keep trade between states open, equitable, and unrestricted. Furthermore, regardless of whether you agree that that was its original intent, it is the only actually useful and beneficial role of the commerce clause; any other use of it is harmful to the economy and to our liberties.
The call from the telemarketer may or may not be "interstate commerce", but that shouldn't make every piece of infrastructure, hardware, and software involved in that call subject to interstate commerce regulation. Yet, that's what the expansive interpretation of the commerce clause many people have adopted amounts to. It's not what the Constitution was intended for, and it is harmful.