Google’s Cerf floats trial balloon: “Why not nationalize the Internet?”
July 8, 2008 | Filed Under Business, Democrats/Leftists, Economy/Finances, Google, Inernet, Media Bias, News, Publius Contributor, Scott Cleland, Society/Culture, Technology | No Comments
-By Scott Cleland
Google’s Internet Evangelist, Vint Cerf recently asked publicly: “Should the Internet be owned and maintained by the government, just like the highways?” according to a post by Erick Schonfeld on TechCrunch.
- Since the Government neither owns or maintains the Internet today, Google may have much grander plans for ‘nationalizing the Internet’ than anybody appreciated.
- Maybe we should take Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt much more seriously when he declares: “The goal of the company is not to monetize anything,” and “The goal is to change the world — and monetization is a technique to do that.”
Let’s dissect how radical and destructive Google’s notions for nationalizing the Internet are.
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WaPo After Free Republic Again, Now Over Barack-is-a-Muslim Email
June 28, 2008 | Filed Under Blogging, Democrats/Leftists, Elections, Inernet, Islam, Media Bias, News, President, Publius Contributor, Security/Safety, Society/Culture, Warner Todd Huston | No Comments
-By Warner Todd Huston
The Washington Post published a June 28th piece geared to protect Barack Obama from the nagging rumors that he is a secret Muslim, rumors that have been circulating since 2004. The Post’s Matthew Mosk penned an attack on Free Republic, based on an Obama flak who claims she has somehow discovered that Freepers are to blame, if not initially responsible, for floating the Barack-is-a-Muslim chain email that so many millions of Americans have found in their email boxes over the last four years. But, the Washington Post’s article is so filled with assumptions and a singular desire not to really investigate the matter that it boggles the mind. Naturally, all the journalistic missteps serve to shield Barack Obama from any controversy and make all opposition seem nefarious or unhinged.
The Obama flak in question is one Danielle Allen of the Institute of Advanced Studies at Princeton. Mosk wishes to assure us that she is one smart cookie, apparently. To settle any question to the contrary, we are treated to some earnest, if over-the-top, adulation for good Doctor Allen. Allen is called a “razor-sharp, 36-year-old political theorist,” that she’s “gained valuable insight into the way political information circulates,” and that she works at the institute “most famous for having been the research home of Albert Einstein.” Mosk tells us that Allen “boasts two doctorates, one in classics from Cambridge University and the other in government from Harvard University.” The Post tells us that one winter morning Allen was “studying in her office at the Institute for Advanced Study, the renowned haven for some of the nation’s most brilliant minds.” Mosk also tells us that Allen “works alongside groundbreaking physicists, mathematicians and social scientists. They don’t have to teach, and they face no quotas on what they publish. Their only mandate is to work in the tradition of Einstein, wrestling with the most vexing problems in the universe.”
Jeeze, next Mosk will be telling us that Danielle Allen is the virtual reincarnation of Einstein himself!
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Any Given Blog…
June 26, 2008 | Filed Under Blogging, Publius Contributor, Society/Culture, Technology, Warner Todd Huston | No Comments
What for a Blog?
June 25, 2008 | Filed Under Blogging, Education, Inernet, News, Patriotism, Publius Contributor, Society/Culture, Technology, Warner Todd Huston | 1 Comment
-By Warner Todd Huston
Everyone is talking about the “importance” of blogging and wondering where it will all lead at least where it concerns the influence blogging might have on politics. There was even a warning that bloggers are facing oppression and arrest at an increasing rate in some despotic countries proving that blogging is already causing at least some ripples in the political waters about the world. There is no reason at all to assume this is a fluke or that these ripples will cease to radiate from bloggers any time soon. All in all, to many it seems blogging is a newfangled concern we all face.
But is it new? And what the heck is it all for, really?
To answer the first question, let’s be clear about the relative newness of blogging. The only things that make it new is that it is done via a computer and has opened up the world of social comment for more people to indulge in then ever before. But we have seen something the like of blogging before. In fact, without a past relative of the blog we would not have became the United States of America in the first place.
Jailed for Blogging
June 20, 2008 | Filed Under Blogging, Democrats/Leftists, Government, Corruption, Inernet, Media Bias, News, Publius Contributor, Society/Culture, Technology, Warner Todd Huston | 1 Comment
-By Warner Todd Huston
Bloggers are being arrested more and more as the importance of the Internet is realized by governments across the world, at least so warns the BBC. It seems an alarming report where community activists and democracy advocates are finding themselves being oppressed by government, arrested, and maybe even tortured because of their blogging. But, one little fact of the story is never really focussed on in this alarming BBC report on the release of the WIA report from the University of Washington. The fact that bloggers aren’t threatened much in democratic nations has been glossed over by this report.
Unfortunately, a cursory reading of this piece would leave the reader with the vague feeling that people all over the world are being arrested merely because they are blogging, but that isn’t quite the case. The way this report is written serves as a perfect example of a PCism more concerned with upsetting the tender sensibilities of tyrannical, undemocratic governments, than in reporting the oppression of its citizens. It’s a PCism gone so far that it makes the report uninformative at least to the most important aspect of the reason these bloggers are being arrested.
Here is how the BEEB starts their almost whitewashed report:
More bloggers than ever face arrest for exposing human rights abuses or criticising governments, says a report.
Since 2003, 64 people have been arrested for publishing their views on a blog, says the University of Washington annual report.
The BBC also gravely informs us that, “Citizens have faced arrest and jail for blogging about many different topics,” and that “Arrested bloggers exposed corruption in government, abuse of human rights or suppression of protests. They criticised public policies and took political figures to task.”
The report goes on to explain why this new threat to bloggers has arisen.
The report said the rising number of arrests was testament to the “growing” political importance of blogging. It noted that arrests tended to increase during times of “political uncertainty”, such as around general elections or during large scale protests.
But one thing the BBC report does not do is fully explain what sort of nations are making all these arrests. Now, to the BEEB’s credit, they do include one little line to let us know were some of these arrests have been carried out.
More than half of all the arrests since 2003 have been made in China, Egypt and Iran, said the report.
But, still, the reader could easily miss the fact that this threat to free speech is, for the most part, occurring in nations of a certain nature, nations that are not free and open societies.
Transcript of Lecture on Google, Net Neutrality, Monopolies, Click Fraud, Privacy
June 20, 2008 | Filed Under Business, Congress, Democrats/Leftists, Economy/Finances, Google, Inernet, Media Bias, News, Publius Contributor, Scott Cleland, Society/Culture, Technology | No Comments
-By Scott Cleland
Unleashed: Transcript of Griffin/Cleland talk on Google, net neutrality, monopolies, click fraud, privacy
For those who like the written format, here is the transcript of ChipGriffin’s interview of me on all things Google.
The transcript is just below the podcast button to hear the interview.
This interview turned out to be one of the most comprehensive and in-depth discussions I have had on all things Google — that’s been captured for web listening or reading.
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