Verizon shelves plans for future FiOS rollouts, relocations to Massachusetts set to boom -- Engadget

Is this an unintended consequence of the health care law? Verizon already announced that they were taking a billion-dollar charge due to ObamaCare's requirement to insure all it's employees. But has it affected Verizon's ability to conduct business? Probably, since communication companies are capital investment-heavy operations, and if that capital has to be moved to health insurance, it has to come from somewhere - either increased prices or operating capital.

So if you were waiting for FIOS, thank Obama and the Democrats for not getting it.

Verizon shelves plans for future FiOS rollouts, relocations to Massachusetts set to boom -- Engadget

an Associated Press report notes that the operator has canned all public plans about expanding its FTTH home network, though it will continue to build-out where it had previously announced service (Washington, D.C., New York City and Philadelphia, namely).

China issues media rules for stories on Google

This is the kind of thing that makes me long for the old days - when we stood up for and only did business with entities supportive of American ideals. To wit, why are we sending billions upon billions of dollars to China in trade when this is how China treats their people? It's not only disgraceful of China to do this, but extra disgraceful of us here in America to enrichen them with huge business contracts. But not so for Google.

Having gotten a taste of China's information policies firsthand, Google pulled the plug.  Mucho kudos to them; Now, there's an American international company  that behaves as it should.

Google is in the minority. Despite China's distasteful practices regarding individual freedom, business is booming. I recently needed to make a purchase of an audio mixing console. I decided to "buy American,"or at least European, and was sad to discover that all of the companies who have manufactured in western countries for the last few decades have moved all of their manufacturing operations to China. This includes venerable American companies such as Peavey, located in Meridian Mississippi, but also sound equipment staples such as Soundcraft in the UK.

The companies hide behind the "realities of modern business" (one company posted that on their web site), but even so, do the realities of business trump the broader economic values of supporting the home economy? Only to the short-sighted.

More on this, including a solution, in an upcoming rant.

China issues media rules for stories on Google | Relevant Results - CNET News

The list of instructions, obtained by China Digital Times and published by The Washington Post, underscores the degree to which the Chinese government attempts to control the spread of information more than anything Google has ever said about search censorship. The list contains specific details on which types of stories can be published and asks media outlets in China to purge reader discussions from their pages that attack the government's view.

Obama Treats Allies Like he Should Treat Iran

I think the pressure from the healtcare debacle has gotten to Obama. he seems a little detached from reality.

FOXNews.com - Reports: Netanyahu 'Humiliated' by Obama Snub

For a head of government to visit the White House and not pose for photographers is rare. For a key ally to be left to his own devices while the President withdraws to have dinner in private was, until this week, unheard of. Yet that is how Benjamin Netanyahu was treated by President Obama on Tuesday night, according to Israeli reports on a trip viewed in Jerusalem as a humiliation.

Is National Healthcare A Model for Internet Access?

This government seems to have the intent of giving everything to everyone for free. This time, at question is the internet - should access to it be free for everyone in their homes? And further, should the government fund a build-out of a competing system to the currently private enterprise?

Let's take a moment to note that everyone can already access the internet for free at their public library.

But even beyond that, it just goes to show how out of touch the government really is. For example, while the government is arguing for public construction of an internet that is about 10 times faster than what exists - and is satisfactory today- the hottest computer item these days are netbooks - small, inexpensive computers which are suited primarily for e-mail and internet browsing - tasks not at all reliant on super-fast internet. In other words, not needed.

This is typical of bureaucrats without a clue: let's throw technology at it. In this case, a solution which creates problems rather than solves them.

Why is it bad? For one, it places a requirement on businesses to relinquish bandwidth for which they have already paid (to the government, I might add) in order to provide unnecessary service (ultra high speed internet where modem speeds are adequate). For another, it takes away valuable bandwidth from spaces which need more already (the DOD, for example). For a third, why should people spend money to internet and phone companies when the government is giving this away for free? Fourth, there is no reason for the existing companies to maintain, much less improve, their services when others are flocking to the government's free service. Fifth, when the government system gets rolling (with the huge number of people certain to use it), the commercial system is sure to sag in performance. Sixth, the government is yet again meddling in a private market.

These are all excellent reasons to scrap the plan, all sure to fall on deaf progressive ears. The hallmark of the Democrats: let's see how much we can muck up a profitable competitive market. Shameless, they are. Power-hungry, too.

Who Hates the National Broadband Plan? - Reviews by PC Magazine

Are you ready for more Internet? That's the question that U.S. regulators will soon be asking, as Reuters is reporting that the Federal Communications Commission is set to reveal the National Broadband Plan on March 16.

While some details of the plan remain to be seen, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski has already mentioned a few of the key highlights that the FCC will be recommending to Congress. These include a goal to connect 100 million Americans to 100 Mbps Internet within 10 years and the desire for television stations to give up unused spectrum to assist a growing market for wireless services, amongst others.

What is new, or perhaps unexpected, is some of the backlash that's coming back at the FCC from affected parties, including the very consumers that the National Broadband Plan is, in theory, designed to help.

...The FCC's National Broadband Plan isn't a complete boon for wireless companies--the FCC is also allegedly proposing a free (or low-cost) nationwide wireless network. The details of this plan haven't been released beyond that generalized description. However, the hint of it has been enough to rile up various mobile providers.

Not only would the government suddenly jump into the business of competing against established carriers, but--worse for consumers--said competition could dissuade mobile providers from caring as much about the general upkeep of their networks. For carriers, the question is this: Why invest in a paid-for network if everyone's flocking to the free solution just around the corner?

 ... A smattering of Internet responses from consumers reacting to some of the talked-about ideas in the National Broadband Plan reveals a fear that government regulation could stifle competition or otherwise enjoin U.S. policy with network performance. Here are a few examples of the general Web response to the FCC's thoughts:

"This will result in government takeover of the industry. It won't happen overnight, but incrementally. They already have the name for it: National Broadband, like National Health Care. They'll build infrastructure, increase access, give free access to "the underprivileged", and work with the big providers to squeeze out competition (corporate fascism)." --ebystrom

The Huge Scandal that probably won't be

There is a real problem with something done by the White House concerning upcoming elections that going very much under-reported: they tried to manipulate the elections. Many would say that this is just politics as usual, and therefore not a scandal at all. Except for the fact that what the White House did is a felony.

I think people have become too jaded, too accustomed to corruption such that we think it's business as usual.  But stop and think: do you really want your vote to count? Or do you prefer the thinking of Stalin: "It's not who gets the most votes, but who does the counting."

I'm talking about the White House's attempt to buy off Representative Joe Sestak.  The Democrats are so concerned about the midterm elections that they didn't want him running against the far-from-a-shoe-in Senator Arlen Spector. The White House, according to Sestak, offered him a high position in the government in exchange for his promise not to run against Spector.

In a normal sort of world, the outcome wouldn't matter, the two of them being in the same party.  However, Sestak has been critical of the Obama Administration and is opposed to the Obama-backed health care bill.

Wow, this is really HUGE stuff; maybe normal for Chicago, but not so for the free society we believe America to be.

Stay on top of this, and keep urging others to do the same. Keep on your elected officials, too, so it doesn't get buried in all the other trash put out by what now passes for "government."

FOXNews.com - GOP Lawmaker: White House Job Offer to Sestak Would Have Been a 'Crime'

A GOP lawmaker says that the White House committed a "crime" if it offered Democratic Rep. Joe Sestak a federal job in exchange for dropping his primary challenge to Sen. Arlen Specter, D-Pa.

"That would be a crime to offer anybody a federal job," Rep. Darrell Issa, the top Republican on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, told Fox News on Friday.

For example, the California Republican said it would be a crime if he offered a staff job to anyone to help him win an election.
"It's the same for the executive branch," he said. "You can't promise ambassadorships to contributors and even worse, you cannot manipulate the races by saying we'll give you something else if you drop out. You can't do it."

Sestak, who is aggravating Democratic leaders by challenging Specter for the Senate nomination in Pennsylvania, said last month that the White House dangled a federal job in front of him last summer in an attempt to entice him to drop out of the state's Democratic primary.

Chock Full O' Nuts

The White House seriously wants to be judged in the upcoming election on on its performance relating to healthcare. Seriously, read below. Hubris has always been known to be a bad thing, but I say bring it on!

FOXNews.com - White House Challenges Republicans to Use Health Care for 2010 Election

Expressing an increasing confidence that a massive health care overhaul will pass Congress -- despite dire warnings from Republicans about its impact on Democrats in November -- White House officials on Sunday dared the GOP to bring it on during this fall's 2010 midterm election.