It could be argued that the rules should be more relaxed and consumer friendly but if not for the FCC the airwaves would be chaos.. consider any system where the largest power could drown out anyone else's signal.
Beyond a point no matter how much power a radio station has it's signal will be drowned out by competitors's signals. About all that's gained by increasing power is increasing distance but even then there are limits, shortwaves go further than longer waves. The only way any broadcaster would be able to make money broadcasting is if they voluntarily come to an agreement with other broadcasters. "I agree to broadcast at frequency X1 with a power of Y1 at location Z1 if you agree to broadcast at X2, Y2, and Z2." Anything else is nothing more than an arms races which will bankrupt all.
I for one am glad my cell phone doesn't need to overpower other signal sources and can use the lowest possible transmission power wich results in better battery lives.
The same thing can be done with other broadcasts, radio, tv, even WiMAX. Imagine being able to pickup a wireless broadband connection with a laptop just as easily as your cellphone finds a signal.
Sky high phone bills? All I have is a cellphone. My bill for it is lower than the bill I had when I had a landline phone. And that doesn't count long distance calls, with the landline phone I had to pay for long distance however my cellphone plan covers them, I pay no more for long distance than I do local calls.
How bout some actual accountability from the Government Accountability Office now? What are they going to do about it?
The GAO doesn't have the authority to change anything. All they can do is investigate for Congress then congress has to debate the issue and try to pass a bill.
Falcon
Do away with all paid political advertising.
on
GAO Report Slams FCC
·
· Score: 1
BS!!! Freedom of Speech was guarantied expressly, though not only, for political speech.
Let's see the FCC bring back restrictions on the ownership of stations, require most to be locally owned, require no financial ties to news, political and public affairs programming, and restrictions on the type and amount of advertising carried.
Wrong again. Instead of adding FCC regulations, let's get rid of the FCC all to together. The FCC and it's predecessors were created in an era of scarcity of airwaves. With today's technology there is little scarcity. Allow whomever wants to to start a radio station. You allow that and you'll see a lot of radio stations pop up, most having a specific interest. Instead of having a few stations of classical, country, jazz, and rock you could have one specializing in New Orleans and another in Chicago Jazz. A country station could specialize in pop country while another plays bluegrass, another Western, and a third Zygo. One city could have a dozen different microstations.
And the spectrum they're taking from us with the shutdown of NTSC should be allocated based strictly on the public good, not commercial interests or auction proceeds.
The most powerful lobbies are, pretty much by definition, those that represent the largest number of citizens from the broadest possible coalition of interests groups. Why do you suppose government is very solicitous of organizations like the AARP?
HAH! so Dick Cheney's Enrgy Taskforce listened to consumer, environmental, and science groups but not the petroleum industry? WRONG! About all they listened to was the petroleum, natural gas, and nuclear industries.
Most of your waking life you spend working, not on vacation, being a producer, not a consumer.
Unless you're a workaholic or sleepaholic you're wrong. With 168 hours in a week if you sleep 8 hours a day that leaves 112 hours. Fulltime work in the US is 40 hours. That leaves 62 hours you don't work That's enough tyme for two fulltime jobs.
It's far more traumatic to lose your job, or become disabled and unable to work
I certainly know that. More than 10 years ago I was hit in an accident that left me with a permanent disability and one of the things that has bothered me the most is not being active, including not working or taking classes.
NAB needs to be disbanded, Clearchannel needs to reap what they sow by being decimated by the satellite offerings. You know that free radio has problems when you can drive people quickly to the pay channels.
Not just the NAB, but the FCC also needs to be banned. The FCC and it's predecessors were created in an era of airwave scarcity. Now however there isn't the scarcity there once was.
Problem is let's take cable. most negotiate a franchise agreement that blocks all competition in that city. Comcast in your town? you cant legally start up your own cable company, there's a law on the books that makes your business illegal.
That is exactly why ownership of the infrastructure should be separated from ownership of the services offered by the infrastructure. If one company owned the cables they would be required to offer open access to all cable tv companies, then the customer could choose which cable tv provider they wanted.
UA cable came into town and convinced the local city that they cant afford to operate in the city with these community TV setups legal. so they got laws drafted in the agreement to make them illegal and they had to be torn down. this happened all over america.
The FCC controls airwave broadcasters not local governments.
Whatever insight your post had, I reverted to zero upon reading you call it a "Triple Play" with a straight face.
Why? What's wrong with "Triple Play"? I first heard it in I believe an article in IEEE's "Spectrum" a few years back. Lately around here ComCast has been advertising it's Triple Play services.
Now I'm not advocating it, I only stated if an entity wanted to offer it in Utopia Utah they could. As for me, I don't have it and I doubt I ever will. While my cable and net access is provided by ComCast, my ISP is Earthlink. Also I don't have landline phone service, the only phone I have is a cell phone, and it's cheaper.
It doesn't make sense. But that's how it is. Yes, I glossed over the details a bit. If the landlord wants to shell out the money to build the infrastructure at the building they can hook up to Utopia. But homes get it handled by the network.
Oh, ok. Basically the agency will take it to the curb. But then an apartment owner or business building owner will have to take it the rest of the way. Makes sense, for one thing it improves the value of the property, and wiring closely spaced units is cheaper than wide spread places. To run it to a stand alone building though can be expensive pricing home owners out of getting a connection.
Higher densities would double or triple demand on a single node.
I don't know but is it cheaper to add nodes or to install fiber? While higher density may require more nodes lower density requires more fiber, the last mile issue.
I'd be the first to recognize that the history of the telco industry is insanely complicated, but the solution is to find a way to divide things up that takes both the private and public investments in the infrastructure
Oh, I agree. As I said many tymes I think ownership of some infrastructure should be separate from the services that it provides. For instance I think it might be better for a community to build and own the infrastructure but allow open access for any services the infrastructure can provide. Take cable, a nonprofit, for profit, or the city owns the cable but then it allows different companies to offer cable tv, internet access, phone service, or a Triple Play with all three. I would be able to go to one company for tv, another for phone service, and a third for net access.
Fiber is paid for by the telcos, not the gov't so is not a tariffed service. While Verizon MUST lease copper to competitors, it isn't compelled to lease fiber access. Verizon cutting the copper is effectively cutting off any competition that was not a Baby Bell in a past life.
You may want to correct this statement. The government has and does subsidize fiber. The fiber-to-the-home project is funded through the Agriculture Department's Rural Utilities Service (RUS). Adam Golodner, deputy administrator of the RUS says: "We do encourage the development of technology that would bring broad band to the home at reasonable cost to meet the growing demand in rural areas by citizens who recognize perhaps more than citizens in urban areas that telecommunications shrinks time, distance, and space." As a percentage of funding of different broadband technologies as of September 2006 RUS (pdf) has spent "30% of approved and funded projects employed fiber-to-the-home technology, 24% employed DSL, 22% wireless (unlicensed), 19% hybrid fiber-coaxial (cable), 3% wireless (licensed), and 2% broadband over powerlines (BPL)."
A local politically connected company is eligible for as much as $400 million in federal loans to weave fiber-optic cable through Hawaiian Home Lands on six islands, even though much of the land is undeveloped and lacks roads, water and electricity.
Don't be too excited by Utopia. As a recent ex-resident of Murray, Utah I discovered that the only people who really get to participate are those in low density housing. Eg, a house or duplex, but not a triplex or apartment building with more than two units. Which is kind of funny since you get a disproportionate amount of sale tax from apartment dwellers per square foot of land.
That doesn't make sense. Higher densities reduce costs.
It's Verizon's copper. They can do anything they damn well please with the stuff. They're not "preventing" competitors from competing -- said competitors can always make the same capital investment Verizon (or rather its predecessor telcos) did and lay copper down the street.
No, a competitor can't simply lay down more copper. In most places the incumbent has exclusive access to use the Right of Way for a given purpose. In the case of the telcos, only the incumbent has the right to have telephone landlines lain down. Even if you had a billion dollars and could afford to put in cables or fiber the only way you would be allowed to is if you buy off the politicians.
What I want to know is why Covad can't run their own lines to your home themselves. Sure, copper is expensive, and so is labor to run it, but if you offer a competitive service and provide for your customers, they tend to stick with you for years and years. What's preventing Covad from just dropping their own cables city by city? Let's forget any laws that force Verizon to allow competitors to use THEIR copper, and focus on why competitors can't have THEIR OWN copper, or fiber.
It's called a Natural Monopoly. More than likely when the original cables, or fiber now, was installed the company who installed it got an exclusive license to use the Right of Way to use the space for a given purpose. Only one company or other entity can use the right of way to string cable, fiber, and power cables. It makes sense, it can cost millions to put them in and it's a waste of resources as well as is limited on the number of cables it can handle. However it's simple to rectify, have one entity own the infrastructure who is then required to allow open access. In the case of digital communications, a group of communities in northeastern Utah banded together to create A Broadband Utopia. The cities wired the region for broadband and now they allow any company that wants to offer services using it to do so. A company can offer "cable" tv, internet access, phone service, or the Triple Play.
yes, physical plant should be maintained by an entirely separate entity - ideally a semi-governmental one, though one with tight regulatory and price control would be acceptable
but they dug up and removed most of the copper cabling from the neighborhood. They said that with the price of copper, it would be recycled and it would keep it from being stolen since it wasn't being used anymore. It sounded suspicious to me, but I stood in what was then my front yard and watched them do it.
The copper may of been taken out to prevent competition but it's still a good idea to recycle the copper. As for whether it was taken out for anticompetitive reasons, I don't see how. I may be wrong but I think they only need to be open if they use the copper, if they don't then no one can use it.
I am guessing that it will require a new president who is not part of the establishment (perhaps paul or obama) who will do the right thing as opposed to what brings their party more money.
I don't know about Obama, but even if Ron Paul were elected, I plan on voting for him (again) if I get the chance, he couldn't really do much. Many of the laws allowing the cablecos and telcos get away with what they do are local laws. He may be able to have the FCC and FTC look into it however while I don't know how the FTC works, the FCC is made up of five members I think with three nominated by the president and the other two are from the other party.
And who told you that you can't allow a competitor to run a new cable to your property? It wasn't Verizon who made a regulation making them the sole provider -- it was your local and State government. Don't be mad at Verizon because your government is completely fraudulent and corrupt -- if you vote, kick everyone out on the next election, and keep doing it until someone removes the monopoly provisions.
Actually the best way to deal with a Natural Monopoly like landlines is to separate the infrastructure from services. Maybe instead of a business owning the infrastructure local governments, nonprofits, or business can own it but then they are required to allow open access. This is what's being done in northeastern Utah with a Broadband Utopia. A group of communities in the area built the infrastructure and allows anyone to offer any services it is capable of. It could be internet access, phone service, "cable" tv, or any combination (Triple Play". How would you like a 30 megabit per second, mps, connection? That's what's available now however speeds could get to 100mps.
I would just like to point out that the Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang do not support the Taliban
Not all do, but all it takes is a few bad apples. Neither is the Uyghur the only Muslim ethnic group in China.
The (Han) Government is a direct threat that his historically been trying to equalise the region just like they are in Tibet by pumping in Han Chinese businesses and workers.
They aren't trying to equalize it they are trying to overwhelm the local populace with Han Chinese, much in the same way Niccolò Machiavelli outlined in "The Prince".
We can't pay for Iraq and Afghanistan on our own now, how could we possibly be a threat to China with no money, no credit, and an insane cost on all imported goods?
While much of what you say is true, there's at least two problems with China doing anything. One is if the US economy tanks not only would all those bonds and notes the Chinese are holding become just as valuable as toilet paper but China's economy could very well tank as well. The US imports a lot of Chinese goods, if Americans were no longer able to afford to buy Chinese goods Chinese exporters would be very unhappy. A second risk is inside China. China has never been a single unified nation before the communists took over. Instead China is made up with a bunch of different ethnic groups, some who had their own nation states. China recognizes 56 ethnic groups. One is the Uyghur, who are a Muslim people who oppose the Han Chinese takeover of their homeland. Some of them have turned to terrorism. Muslims in the Xinjiang province of China support the Taliban. Taliban extremism can easily spread there. Bush's "War on Muslim Terrorist" benefits China.
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It could be argued that the rules should be more relaxed and consumer friendly but if not for the FCC the airwaves would be chaos.. consider any system where the largest power could drown out anyone else's signal.
Beyond a point no matter how much power a radio station has it's signal will be drowned out by competitors's signals. About all that's gained by increasing power is increasing distance but even then there are limits, shortwaves go further than longer waves. The only way any broadcaster would be able to make money broadcasting is if they voluntarily come to an agreement with other broadcasters. "I agree to broadcast at frequency X1 with a power of Y1 at location Z1 if you agree to broadcast at X2, Y2, and Z2." Anything else is nothing more than an arms races which will bankrupt all.
I for one am glad my cell phone doesn't need to overpower other signal sources and can use the lowest possible transmission power wich results in better battery lives.
The same thing can be done with other broadcasts, radio, tv, even WiMAX. Imagine being able to pickup a wireless broadband connection with a laptop just as easily as your cellphone finds a signal.
FalconSky high phone bills? All I have is a cellphone. My bill for it is lower than the bill I had when I had a landline phone. And that doesn't count long distance calls, with the landline phone I had to pay for long distance however my cellphone plan covers them, I pay no more for long distance than I do local calls.
FalconHow bout some actual accountability from the Government Accountability Office now? What are they going to do about it?
The GAO doesn't have the authority to change anything. All they can do is investigate for Congress then congress has to debate the issue and try to pass a bill.
FalconBS!!! Freedom of Speech was guarantied expressly, though not only, for political speech.
Let's see the FCC bring back restrictions on the ownership of stations, require most to be locally owned, require no financial ties to news, political and public affairs programming, and restrictions on the type and amount of advertising carried.
Wrong again. Instead of adding FCC regulations, let's get rid of the FCC all to together. The FCC and it's predecessors were created in an era of scarcity of airwaves. With today's technology there is little scarcity. Allow whomever wants to to start a radio station. You allow that and you'll see a lot of radio stations pop up, most having a specific interest. Instead of having a few stations of classical, country, jazz, and rock you could have one specializing in New Orleans and another in Chicago Jazz. A country station could specialize in pop country while another plays bluegrass, another Western, and a third Zygo. One city could have a dozen different microstations.
And the spectrum they're taking from us with the shutdown of NTSC should be allocated based strictly on the public good, not commercial interests or auction proceeds.
See above.
FalconThe most powerful lobbies are, pretty much by definition, those that represent the largest number of citizens from the broadest possible coalition of interests groups. Why do you suppose government is very solicitous of organizations like the AARP?
HAH! so Dick Cheney's Enrgy Taskforce listened to consumer, environmental, and science groups but not the petroleum industry? WRONG! About all they listened to was the petroleum, natural gas, and nuclear industries.
FalconMost of your waking life you spend working, not on vacation, being a producer, not a consumer.
Unless you're a workaholic or sleepaholic you're wrong. With 168 hours in a week if you sleep 8 hours a day that leaves 112 hours. Fulltime work in the US is 40 hours. That leaves 62 hours you don't work That's enough tyme for two fulltime jobs.
It's far more traumatic to lose your job, or become disabled and unable to work
I certainly know that. More than 10 years ago I was hit in an accident that left me with a permanent disability and one of the things that has bothered me the most is not being active, including not working or taking classes.
FalconNAB needs to be disbanded, Clearchannel needs to reap what they sow by being decimated by the satellite offerings. You know that free radio has problems when you can drive people quickly to the pay channels.
Not just the NAB, but the FCC also needs to be banned. The FCC and it's predecessors were created in an era of airwave scarcity. Now however there isn't the scarcity there once was.
FalconFor the most part I concur, provided you're not suggesting enshrining such separation into law.
While I don't generally like too many laws, I don't know how to separate ownership of infrastructure from ownership of services without laws.
FalconProblem is let's take cable. most negotiate a franchise agreement that blocks all competition in that city. Comcast in your town? you cant legally start up your own cable company, there's a law on the books that makes your business illegal.
That is exactly why ownership of the infrastructure should be separated from ownership of the services offered by the infrastructure. If one company owned the cables they would be required to offer open access to all cable tv companies, then the customer could choose which cable tv provider they wanted.
UA cable came into town and convinced the local city that they cant afford to operate in the city with these community TV setups legal. so they got laws drafted in the agreement to make them illegal and they had to be torn down. this happened all over america.
The FCC controls airwave broadcasters not local governments.
FalconWhatever insight your post had, I reverted to zero upon reading you call it a "Triple Play" with a straight face.
Why? What's wrong with "Triple Play"? I first heard it in I believe an article in IEEE's "Spectrum" a few years back. Lately around here ComCast has been advertising it's Triple Play services.
Now I'm not advocating it, I only stated if an entity wanted to offer it in Utopia Utah they could. As for me, I don't have it and I doubt I ever will. While my cable and net access is provided by ComCast, my ISP is Earthlink. Also I don't have landline phone service, the only phone I have is a cell phone, and it's cheaper.
FalconIt doesn't make sense. But that's how it is. Yes, I glossed over the details a bit. If the landlord wants to shell out the money to build the infrastructure at the building they can hook up to Utopia. But homes get it handled by the network.
Oh, ok. Basically the agency will take it to the curb. But then an apartment owner or business building owner will have to take it the rest of the way. Makes sense, for one thing it improves the value of the property, and wiring closely spaced units is cheaper than wide spread places. To run it to a stand alone building though can be expensive pricing home owners out of getting a connection.
FalconDon't like FIOS get the cable company and their version of telephone and high speed. There IS still competition
A Duopoly doesn't offer much of a choice. It's much like "do you want to be shot or hanged?" (Using rhetoric here)
If you're going to complain about FIOS, then start complaining about the cable companies too.
Oh, I do.
They're even worse, since you HAVE to use all their services, and cannot use a competitor's over their lines, right?
Really? That surprises me as my ISP is Earthlink but I have cable access through Time Warner, now Comcast. I wonder how that can be.
FalconHigher densities would double or triple demand on a single node.
I don't know but is it cheaper to add nodes or to install fiber? While higher density may require more nodes lower density requires more fiber, the last mile issue.
FalconI'd be the first to recognize that the history of the telco industry is insanely complicated, but the solution is to find a way to divide things up that takes both the private and public investments in the infrastructure
Oh, I agree. As I said many tymes I think ownership of some infrastructure should be separate from the services that it provides. For instance I think it might be better for a community to build and own the infrastructure but allow open access for any services the infrastructure can provide. Take cable, a nonprofit, for profit, or the city owns the cable but then it allows different companies to offer cable tv, internet access, phone service, or a Triple Play with all three. I would be able to go to one company for tv, another for phone service, and a third for net access.
Fiber is paid for by the telcos, not the gov't so is not a tariffed service. While Verizon MUST lease copper to competitors, it isn't compelled to lease fiber access. Verizon cutting the copper is effectively cutting off any competition that was not a Baby Bell in a past life.
You may want to correct this statement. The government has and does subsidize fiber. The fiber-to-the-home project is funded through the Agriculture Department's Rural Utilities Service (RUS). Adam Golodner, deputy administrator of the RUS says: "We do encourage the development of technology that would bring broad band to the home at reasonable cost to meet the growing demand in rural areas by citizens who recognize perhaps more than citizens in urban areas that telecommunications shrinks time, distance, and space." As a percentage of funding of different broadband technologies as of September 2006 RUS (pdf) has spent "30% of approved and funded projects employed fiber-to-the-home technology, 24% employed DSL, 22% wireless (unlicensed), 19% hybrid fiber-coaxial (cable), 3% wireless (licensed), and 2% broadband over powerlines (BPL)."
"Savvy developer wins federal money to wire homelands"
By Kevin Dayton
Advertiser Capitol Bureau Chief
A local politically connected company is eligible for as much as $400 million in federal loans to weave fiber-optic cable through Hawaiian Home Lands on six islands, even though much of the land is undeveloped and lacks roads, water and electricity.
FalconDon't be too excited by Utopia. As a recent ex-resident of Murray, Utah I discovered that the only people who really get to participate are those in low density housing. Eg, a house or duplex, but not a triplex or apartment building with more than two units. Which is kind of funny since you get a disproportionate amount of sale tax from apartment dwellers per square foot of land.
That doesn't make sense. Higher densities reduce costs.
FalconIt's Verizon's copper. They can do anything they damn well please with the stuff. They're not "preventing" competitors from competing -- said competitors can always make the same capital investment Verizon (or rather its predecessor telcos) did and lay copper down the street.
No, a competitor can't simply lay down more copper. In most places the incumbent has exclusive access to use the Right of Way for a given purpose. In the case of the telcos, only the incumbent has the right to have telephone landlines lain down. Even if you had a billion dollars and could afford to put in cables or fiber the only way you would be allowed to is if you buy off the politicians.
FalconWhat I want to know is why Covad can't run their own lines to your home themselves. Sure, copper is expensive, and so is labor to run it, but if you offer a competitive service and provide for your customers, they tend to stick with you for years and years. What's preventing Covad from just dropping their own cables city by city? Let's forget any laws that force Verizon to allow competitors to use THEIR copper, and focus on why competitors can't have THEIR OWN copper, or fiber.
It's called a Natural Monopoly. More than likely when the original cables, or fiber now, was installed the company who installed it got an exclusive license to use the Right of Way to use the space for a given purpose. Only one company or other entity can use the right of way to string cable, fiber, and power cables. It makes sense, it can cost millions to put them in and it's a waste of resources as well as is limited on the number of cables it can handle. However it's simple to rectify, have one entity own the infrastructure who is then required to allow open access. In the case of digital communications, a group of communities in northeastern Utah banded together to create A Broadband Utopia. The cities wired the region for broadband and now they allow any company that wants to offer services using it to do so. A company can offer "cable" tv, internet access, phone service, or the Triple Play.
Falconyes, physical plant should be maintained by an entirely separate entity - ideally a semi-governmental one, though one with tight regulatory and price control would be acceptable
That's what they did in A Broadband Utopia.
Falconbut they dug up and removed most of the copper cabling from the neighborhood. They said that with the price of copper, it would be recycled and it would keep it from being stolen since it wasn't being used anymore. It sounded suspicious to me, but I stood in what was then my front yard and watched them do it.
The copper may of been taken out to prevent competition but it's still a good idea to recycle the copper. As for whether it was taken out for anticompetitive reasons, I don't see how. I may be wrong but I think they only need to be open if they use the copper, if they don't then no one can use it.
FalconI am guessing that it will require a new president who is not part of the establishment (perhaps paul or obama) who will do the right thing as opposed to what brings their party more money.
I don't know about Obama, but even if Ron Paul were elected, I plan on voting for him (again) if I get the chance, he couldn't really do much. Many of the laws allowing the cablecos and telcos get away with what they do are local laws. He may be able to have the FCC and FTC look into it however while I don't know how the FTC works, the FCC is made up of five members I think with three nominated by the president and the other two are from the other party.
And who told you that you can't allow a competitor to run a new cable to your property? It wasn't Verizon who made a regulation making them the sole provider -- it was your local and State government. Don't be mad at Verizon because your government is completely fraudulent and corrupt -- if you vote, kick everyone out on the next election, and keep doing it until someone removes the monopoly provisions.
Actually the best way to deal with a Natural Monopoly like landlines is to separate the infrastructure from services. Maybe instead of a business owning the infrastructure local governments, nonprofits, or business can own it but then they are required to allow open access. This is what's being done in northeastern Utah with a Broadband Utopia. A group of communities in the area built the infrastructure and allows anyone to offer any services it is capable of. It could be internet access, phone service, "cable" tv, or any combination (Triple Play". How would you like a 30 megabit per second, mps, connection? That's what's available now however speeds could get to 100mps.
Because if the telcos know they'll have to share fiber they won't put it in. It makes sense to have the fiber in before requiring it be open.
FalconI would just like to point out that the Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang do not support the Taliban
Not all do, but all it takes is a few bad apples. Neither is the Uyghur the only Muslim ethnic group in China.
The (Han) Government is a direct threat that his historically been trying to equalise the region just like they are in Tibet by pumping in Han Chinese businesses and workers.
They aren't trying to equalize it they are trying to overwhelm the local populace with Han Chinese, much in the same way Niccolò Machiavelli outlined in "The Prince" .
Ne how
FalconNe how ma?
We can't pay for Iraq and Afghanistan on our own now, how could we possibly be a threat to China with no money, no credit, and an insane cost on all imported goods?
While much of what you say is true, there's at least two problems with China doing anything. One is if the US economy tanks not only would all those bonds and notes the Chinese are holding become just as valuable as toilet paper but China's economy could very well tank as well. The US imports a lot of Chinese goods, if Americans were no longer able to afford to buy Chinese goods Chinese exporters would be very unhappy. A second risk is inside China. China has never been a single unified nation before the communists took over. Instead China is made up with a bunch of different ethnic groups, some who had their own nation states. China recognizes 56 ethnic groups. One is the Uyghur, who are a Muslim people who oppose the Han Chinese takeover of their homeland. Some of them have turned to terrorism. Muslims in the Xinjiang province of China support the Taliban. Taliban extremism can easily spread there. Bush's "War on Muslim Terrorist" benefits China.
Falcon