Tuesday, February 10, 2015

Two Brief Thoughts, Not Really Related to Each Other

Thought One:

I don't consider myself poorly informed with respect to the daily news (hint: I've served as publisher of the freedom movement's daily newspaper for more than 12 years and have worked around that publication since the mid-1990s), but I've mostly used the web as my news source for a couple of decades now. When the Brian Williams scandal broke last week my first reaction was "who the f--k is Brian Williams?"

Walter Cronkite, David Brinkley, John Chancellor, Dan Rather, Peter Jennings, Bob Simon, Irving R. Levine, Tom Brokaw, yeah, I recognize all those guys. Williams? I guess I must have heard of him, but if so he didn't make much of an impression.

Thought Two:

The "net neutrality" emails have been coming fast and thick for oh, a year or so, but even more so these last few weeks. Apparently the Internet needs to be "saved" from the guys who made it cheap, ubiquitous and pretty darn free (free as in free speech, not as in free beer). Who's doing the saving? The gang that historically has always, every time, without exception made anything and everything it touches more expensive, less reliable and less friendly to freedom of expression.

So color me skeptical. And write down my prediction that two years from now, the same idiots calling for "Title II" regulation of the Internet by the FCC today will be flooding my inbox with crocodile tears over the coming disaster ... and suggesting that the way out of it is yet ANOTHER round of FCC regulation.

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