Net Neutrality My open letter to my Senators and Congressmen

Here is the text of an email I just sent to my Congressman, and my two US Senators....please, take a moment, and do the same...this is one of those small, slightly boring and VERY IMPORTANT issues that can fly in under the radar unless people show they are paying attention.

Dear Congressman Walz.

I was proud to knock on doors for you in 2008 and will be proud to do so again next time.

Today, Senator John McCain issued a press release announcing his "Internet Freedom Act of 2009". It's purpose is to prevent government efforts to uphold net neutrality. With out net neutrality, there is no guarantee that Americans will be able to download content they want, or use the internet to easily do business with whom they want. Without net neutrality rules, internet service providers can use their position as gate keepers to block access to certain websites and services.

It doesn't take a lot of imagination to see where this might lead. A large business could use their power to enter into an arrangement with an internet service provider to block, or slow, access to the commerce sites of small rivals. Access to opinion sites, such as blogs, or podcasts, could also be inhibited.

We need to make sure that access to the net stays neutral, both for the sake of free speech AND a free market.

I urge you take, or support, action in the house to counter moves by Senator McCain and his allies to block our freedom in the name of Freedom.

Thanks!

Alex Ball

What is Net Neutrality All About?
Watch this:

The Attack on Net Neutrality Don't let GOP and Big Business Take YOUR freedom in the Name of Freedom

Got Internet? Want to download what you want, when you want it? Right now, you can.

But, if John McCain and others get their way, this might not be true anymore.

Republican strategy is to paint Net neutrality as government 'control' of Internet

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) introduced a bill in the Senate on Thursday that would effectively allow Internet service providers to slow down or block Internet content or applications of their choosing.

Now, the Republicans are painting this as a "Freedom" issue...and it is, it's freedom for internet providers to get between you and the content you want.

Here's a video from You Tube...it's long, dull, and completely without passion- which makes it all the more effective.

IF YOU DON'T KNOW ABOUT NET NEUTRALITY- PLEASE TAKE JUST A FEW MINUTES TO INFORM YOURSELF...then take a few minutes more and write to your law makers in Washington- and tell them that you vote, and that you oppose efforts to block net neutrality.

Beck Goes To Britain Too Late for an Intervention with the GOP?

Glenn Beck has been exported to the United Kingdom, thanks to Rupert Murdock's dominance of global media. What will the British think of him? An article by Alex Massie on the Daily Beast is well worth the read.


You need to read the article for yourself- PARTICULARLY if you are concerned for the Health of the Republican party.

The key point that jumps out is that the GOP is taking a wildly different path from the conservative parties in Europe. So much so that many Tories were actually pulling for Obama in the last election. The great quote:

It’s as if your favorite cousin had a nervous breakdown, found religion, and became an evangelist for an apocalyptic cult prophesying the imminent end of the world as we know and love it.

(By the way, if it surprises you that such a rabid, albeit centrist, Democrat such as myself could express concern for the health of the Republican Party, it shouldn't. I believe that a strong, rational opposition is VITAL to the functioning of our Democracy. But while you can work with people with whom you disagree...you can't work with nuts.)

When Friends Hurt You: Obama's Peace Prize

Okay...I like Obama. I like him just as much as the next guy...in fact, if the next guy is the moron in the pickup truck with the "Obama Sucks" Bumpersticker-- then I like him a heck of a lot MORE than the next guy.

I knocked on doors for him in 2008 and am highly likely to do so again in 2009....and I think that, given the state in which he found our country, the economy, and the world, he's doing one hell of a good job moving it back on track.

....but the NOBEL PEACE PRIZE????

Look, the guy has been in office for less than a year. We haven't figured out how to extract ourselves from the Iraqi quagmire, and we are just beginning to tackle the War in Afghanistan, a war which has festered due to 7 years of neglect by the previous administration. Last time I checked, the Isreallies and the Palestinians were still at each others throats...and...c'mon.

NPR quotes presidential historian Robert Dalleck pointing out that this is REALLY an award about George W. Bush....the committee's way of saying "F- you" to our former Yahoo-In-Chief, George W. Bush

But Time Magazine points out that this award could actually hurt the President, and I agree. The major right wing criticism, (aside from the wingnut "Granny Killers" and the "Birthers") is that Obama is All Hat and No Cattle...the Anointed One, The ObamaMessiah.

Intelligent people in the country, and around the world, have become STARVED for meaningful political rhetoric...and the inanity of the Bush Years took a dry spell and turned it into a drought.

We were all ready to hear some complete sentences...soaring rhetoric was an unexpected and blissfully welcome bonus to tired ears...

But Obama is now In Office....he's working...and now is the time to focus on the President's actions as well as his words.

Middle America loves to hate a poser-- and IF the right-wing can make the image stick then the President will be in a lot of trouble, and will begin to find himself so hampered and mired that forward motion will become impossible. That would be bad news for the President, our Party, and the nation.

The sad fact is that, by trying to enlarge Obama's platform by giving him an award he does not yet deserve, the Nobel Prize Committee may have, like their founder, provided his enemies with dynomite.

Joe Wilson and the Right Wing Nuts....

I did this a few weeks back, in direct response to Joe Wilson's outburts, for my facebook page.

After reading "The Next Wingnut Attack" on the Daily Beast this morning, I thought I'd post it here. It's over top, it's unfair to a lot of legimimate conservatives who, like me, worry about the growing federal debt and other problems that beset our nation.

However, my frustrations with the irrational Right were/are such that I just had to throw an irrational tantrum of my own...consider it as such...

Disney Backs High Speed Rail

As a native of Central Florida who has watched the beautiful locales of his childhood despoiled in the name of "progress", I don't often have good words for Walt Disney World. However, I have to say that, in a recent move, they've done something of which I approve.

According to Today's Orlando Sentinel, Disney has offered both political backing AND 50 acres free of charge on which to build a station for a proposed High Speed Rail Line between Orlando and Tampa.

Close on the heels of California, Florida is an epicenter of the "Car Culture"-- once a symbol of American vitality, but which now hangs like a millstone around our necks. Bringing High Speed rail to the Sunshine state seems like a huge step in the right direction toward solving the problem.

Good Luck!

Here in Minnesota, we too, are hoping for high speed rail...with a little luck, a lot of money, patience and hard work...once upon a time, trains ran from Chicago to Saint Paul in about 4 and a half hours....today, it takes 8. In Vermont, trains in 1938 would run from Brattleboro to NYC in five hours or less...these days, it takes over six hours. Great Article at Slate gives these and other facts.

Making the Most of His Time Carter's post-presidential legacy

The AP is reporting that the Carter Presidential Museum is set to reopen on the former president's 85 birthday. The museum, says the article, devotes "more space than any other presidential library to a commander-in-chief's time spent after the White House."

It's fitting. The story of most American Presidents seem to end when they leave office. Two of the three greatest American Presidents, Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt, never left office at all. And while Harry S. Truman certainly stands as one of the outstanding Presidents of American History, he leaves the stage of history in 1952-- it almost comes as a shock to learn that he lived until 1972.

Other former Presidents seem to fade into obscurity after their time in office. Two who did not, Theodore Roosevelt and Richard Nixon, spent the remainder of their lives burnishing (or in the case of Nixon, rehabilitating) their reputations.

Jimmy Carter, on the other hand, has devoted his life after the White House to the service of others- building houses with Habitat for Humanity, and, of course, searching and working for peace.

The Carter presidency may have proved conclusively that a good man does not make the best President (most of our best leaders have had a touch of the scoundrel about them)-- but his EX-presidency is an outstanding tribute to the value of a life well lived.

Another Dose of Tim Pawlenty

Since moving to Minnesota almost a year ago now, I've been getting to know Tim Pawlenty. Last spring, he used a legal trick, the unallotment, to completely rewrite by executive fiat, the budget of the Minnesota legislature. The power of the purse is one of the oldest, and strongest, tools that has evolved from the Anglo-American system of representative democracy- having the legislature be in control of the money has proven to be the surest guarantee against tyranny by one man. Any chief executive who treats it cavalierly, or tries to do an end run around it, is a chief executive who needs to be watched carefully.

And this man is running for President.

According to an editorial in the Minneapolis Star Tribune:

...although Pawlenty can find 49 other states, he's having trouble feeling his way around his home state. For good reason: Minnesota's [budget] problems could trip up his ambitions. As Pawlenty travels the Republican rubber chicken circuit, Minnesota is heading into uncharted waters.

And its governor is AWOL.

The Star Tribune went on the say that:

Pawlenty's refusal to participate in a legislative summit designed to stave off looming fiscal disaster was nothing less than nonfeasance...For a guy who acted as if the sky was falling when the president asked to speak to schoolchildren, Pawlenty sure seems laid back about his own obligations. He has dived so deep into the right-wing tide pool that by Thursday, he had joined Sarah Palin and a few other GOP confederates in threatening to invoke the 10th Amendment -- in effect having Minnesota secede from the union on health care reform with little regard for the effect on Minnesota's 450,000 uninsured citizens

.


And if all this talk of budget bores you...here's a little piece of propaganda whipped up by the national Democratic party...

...of course you should take some of it with a grain of salt, just because it's MY party's propaganda doesn't mean it's not propaganda...still, research some of the allegations made by this video(especially some of the right wing loons Pawlenty has been stumping for lately) and a rather, well, icky picture begins to emerge.

Get To Know Tim Pawlenty GOP Governor of Minnesota

Tim Pawlenty is talked about in national circles as a potential challenger to Barack Obama in 2012...he's announced he will NOT run for another term as Minnesota's Governor, he's opened a PAC...and he's got a reputation as a "moderate" Republican which may help him among voters at large....

However, like every other GOP candidate...he does have to cater to "the base" ...so supposedly, that's why this "moderate" was to be seen at the recent Value's Voter Summit...

At this event, one prominent Republican suggested that ALL porn, even straight porn, turns people gay AND that we should make sure that we tell this to our 11 year old boys, so that they will stop reading Playboy!

Here's an except from the Rachel Maddow Show...of course it's partisan. Of course it's one sided...but as you're getting to know Tim Pawlenty...it's time to start to get to know the company he keeps. The Pawlenty part of the story is near the end.

A Democrat Begins to Doubt , or: WTF is up with Health Care?

Okay, I'll be the first to admit that, not only have I not found time to keep up with this Blog, I sure as hell haven't managed to keep up with the ins and outs of the Health Care Debate.

My position...well, position is too strong a word for someone who hasn't done his research...my HOPE for Health Care was simple...I wanted a way to make sure that people who WORKED (or who had a legitimate reason not to work) would be able to afford access to basic health care.

That's it. Pretty simple, I thought.

I wasn't distracted by the Tea Baggers, or the wackos who disrupted town meetings, etc. I knew that the news media covered them because crazy people make good copy..much better than facts and figures.

I also didn't allow myself to get too distracted by the left wing of my party...ONLY the PUBLIC OPTION...EVERYBODY HAS A RIGHT TO HEALTH CARE...(which seems a bit silly to me, that's like saying that everyone has the right to never get sick, or to never stub their toe, etc.) Everybody who plays by the rules deserves a level playing field, but as for me, that's all I want.

I figured that somehow, the wheat would get separated from the chaff and we would come up with some plan that was ...perfect? No...but a first step.

But today, I read THIS HEADLINE:

Fines proposed for going without health insurance




Okay, what the hell is going on here?

According to an article by the AP, DEMOCRAT Max Baucus, is proposing a plan that would FINE folks for not buying into a system.

Now, I well remember the days when I was not lucky enough to earn enough money to live without a roommate-- even though I was an adult, and when, even so, most of my money went to pay for RENT and FOOD...with just a tiny little bit left over to pay for a bit of entertainment to relieve the monotony of working to live so I could go to work again...

I remember this because it was only a few years back.

I was poor, but according to the federal government, I was not FEDERALLY POOR-- what that would have meant, if I understand correctly, is that I, barely able to afford Gas to go to work, RENT (with a relative stranger as a roommate- something no adult who works a fair number of hours should have to do), and FOOD...according to the Government, I would have to be making less than 11 Grand a Year for that...and I can tell you that, in the northeast US-- 11 Grand will barely buy you a box of cereal.

Now, this plan is suggesting that, if I don't buy in, I'll owe the FEDS ANOTHER $900 Bucks??? AFTER I pay my income taxes???

And this is a program from DEMOCRATS???



OK-- I admit it, I'm fuming, I'm making noise, and I'm not informed on this issue...but, if I'm even CLOSE to reading this correctly, this plan is freaking STUPID!

Comments?