Free Republic

This one will probably come as a surprise to many of you. Despite the best (read: worst) efforts of the Obama administration and the counter-intuitive nature of what you’re paying for gas and heating bills this winter, the United States is on track to be a net exporter of petroleum products for the first time in more than half a century. The U.S. exported more oil-based fuels than it imported in the first nine months of this year, making it likely that 2011 will be the first time since 1949 that the nation is a net exporter of such goods,...

Late last week, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) took what is being called "the final step" towards implementing their illegal Net Neutrality regulations. You may recall, that back on December 21, the FCC bypassed government regulations and seized control of the Internet -- delivering what many believe is a knockout blow to one of the last, great free-market frontiers our nation and the world has ever seen. According to the organization Less Government, regardless of a multiple lawsuits, a move by the House of Representatives and a D.C. Circuit Court unanimously ruling that the FCC had no authority to take...

...In fact, Section 706 calls for the expansion of broadband via deregulation, not further regulations. The Court of Appeals for D.C. even ruled that Net Neutrality cannot be justified under this particular section of the Telecommunications Act. As has been seen in The Netherlands, Net Neutrality is extremely detrimental to the telecommunications industry. The largest Dutch wireless company, KPN, has been forced to increase their prices by a significant percentage in order to recoup their financial losses as a result of the new, onerous regulations. In the current economic status, furthering the financial and regulatory burden on companies, and, consequently,...

It's nice to know someone is prospering during the 'Obama years'. The rest of us are watching our home values and retirement investments plummet. Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) reported a minimum net worth for 2010 that was more than 50 percent higher than the prior year, according to personal financial disclosure forms made public by the Clerk of the House on Wednesday. Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) also saw a healthy growth in his minimum net worth, but the total change in his case is in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, while Pelosi’s is in the millions. Pelosi, who...

We have discussed quite a bit the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)’s December 21 unauthorized, unilateral Internet power grab – instigated and rammed through by its Chairman Julius Genachowski so as to impose the ridiculous notion that is Network Neutrality. We have time and again demonstrated how untethered to Reality the attempted imposition of Net Neutrality on the working Web actually is. Meanwhile, the Media Marxists have incessantly scolded us – for in fact more than six years now – that the end of the Internet as we know it was nigh unless we immediately imposed Net Neutrality. During which time...

As a result, the Castro regime has intensified its crackdown on dissident groups in an attempt to ensure that what is happening in Cairo will not happen in Havana, according to some observers. "We do see instances of repression starting since the Egyptian upheaval. There have been brutal beatings on dissidents," said Susel Perez, of the Cuba Transition Project, at the University of Miami. " It is a direct sign from the Cuban government that this is something that will not be tolerated on the island." In a 53-minute video leaked last week, a Cuban counter-intelligence staffer warned an audience...

Search neutrality, the belief that search results ought to be impartial, is quickly becoming a hot-button issue in Washington. Critics have accused Internet giants Bing and Google of producing self-serving results, implying that, say, the latter engine's algorithm has been tweaked to push links to Google Maps or YouTube, rather than a competitor's site. Though Google has denied any such action, the question now is: Should federal authorities be tasked with regulating search results on Google and Bing, or might that amount to a "government takeover" of the Internet? According to a new report by Rasmussen, the vast majority of...

Rep. Marsha Blackburn introduced legislation Wednesday to deny the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulatory oversight over the Internet, which the Tennessee Republican insisted was the “sole prerogative of Congress” to administer. “I agree that the Internet faces a number of challenge, ” Blackburn said in a release. “Only Congress can address those challenges without compounding them. Until we do, the FCC and other federal bureaucracies should keep their hands off the ‘net.”

Milton Friedman had it right. Business is no friend of free markets. The Federal Communication Commission’s “net neutrality” ruling is more evidence of this. What the FCC should have done is called it a year, went on holiday and left the Internet alone. Instead, it found a solution in search of a problem. And that solution was more or less supplied by Verizon and Google last August. To a great extent, the new rules codify that blueprint, which — at least as those companies see things — acknowledged both the inevitability of some government rule-making and the need to better...

Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Tex.), ranking member of the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee filed an amendment to an appropriations bill aimed at preventing the Federal Communications Commission from adopting net neutrality regulation. Hutchison's amendment, co-signed by John Ensign (R-Nev.) and six other Republican lawmakers, would "prohibit the FCC from using any appropriated funds to adopt, implement or otherwise litigate any network neutrality based rules, protocols or standards." An FCC spokeswoman declined comment on the amendment.

According to a story on PJM by Charlie Martin, in 2004 Comcast and some of the other big providers started looking at what data was being sent, and decided to start throttling down how much data of certain types — most notably streaming audio and video — people could receive. This tended to irritate people who watch their favorite shows on Hulu or movies on Netflix (I happen to be one of the people who prefers his shows this way). Thus, the push for net neutrality began. On its face, the idea of net neutrality seems like a good one:...

On December 1, FCC Commission Chair Julius Genachowski made a speech announcing proposed rules through which the FCC proposed to establish “net neutrality.” There is much controversy about the rules and about “net neutrality” in general. The frustrating part: when you examine the arguments closely, it’s clear that no two commentators appear to be talking about the same thing. So what does “net neutrality” mean? To answer that question, first of all we need to understand a little bit about the Internet and how it works. (More technical readers can skip this section, or just amuse yourselves observing the simplifications...

Scotland Yard has received the paperwork required to arrest Julian Assange as the net tightens on the WikiLeaks founder. A fresh European Arrest Warrant has been issued by the authorities in Sweden where he is wanted for questioning over claims of sexual assault. Mark Stephens, who represents the 39-year-old Australian former computer hacker, said he would fight any move to extradite his client. But the move means there is no longer any legal impediment to holding Mr Assange and making him appear before City of Westminster Magistrates' Court.

A study by Daniel J. Wilson of the San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank, suggests that the net job creation from the $814 billion stimulus bill passed in February, 2009, was zero by August 2010. (snip)his is an astounding result, which destroys the Paul Krugman argument that the economy would be so much better right now, if only Congress had approved much more spending in February 2009

The Federal Communications Commission has extended a comment period on restricting Internet service providers from playing favorites. The extension marks yet another delay in what has become a tortured pursuit of rules to keep the Internet as it is now - open and accessible for everyone. The issue is no small matter; a decision to impose regulations will ripple beyond the lives of most Americans. Net neutrality rules, if properly drafted, will safeguard the universal access and competition that have made the Internet such an engine for innovation.

Google has become the main advocate in Washington for a set of regulations to prevent internet service providers favouring particular companies’ traffic. However, that campaign, over what is known as “net neutrality”, has handed a gift to its own detractors. This year, “search neutrality” has become the rallying cry of activists who believe that Google has too much power to decide which internet sites are granted the attention that comes with a high search ranking, and which are consigned to outer darkness. After regulating the “pipes” of the internet with net neutrality, says Frank Pasquale, a professor at Seton Hall...

Despite opposition by a House of Representatives majority and a bipartisan group of Senators, the Federal Communications Commission on Thursday is expected to proceed with plans to impose federal government regulation of the Internet, which would essentially treat broadband networks -- and the companies that invested more than $200 billion in private capital to deploy them -- as utilities. The commission's chairman, Julius Genachowski, and his staff have insisted that imposing federal regulations originally written in the 1930s for the telephone is the only way the Obama Administration can gain the "kind of oversight and control that we need," says...

Java or .Net? Where are the careers today and tomorrow? Java was the first successful managed programming framework. It was created by Sun Microsystems in an attempt to stop the momentum Microsoft was making into the world of big-dollar corporate computing systems. In the early 1990's, the market for corporate and government "big-iron" computers was extremely fragmented, and Sun was the dominate player with more market share than rivals IBM, HP, and DEC (Digital Equipment Corporation). Microsoft had just begun working with Compaq to use their Windows NT operating system running on beefed up Intel x86 systems to infringe on...

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski on Thursday announced his agency would seek to regain its lost grip on broadband by applying some of the rules that govern phone companies to Internet providers. One month to the day since a federal court stripped the FCC of that authority, setting back the agency's dual goals of expanding broadband access and instituting tough rules to ensure open Internet, Genachowski took the first steps in restoring what he described as "the shared understanding" that the FCC should protect broadband consumers.

WASHINGTON (AP) - Americans regained more of their shrunken wealth last quarter, mainly because the healing economy boosted stock portfolios. But the gain was less than in the previous two quarters. The Federal Reserve reported Thursday that household net worth rose 1.3 percent in the fourth quarter to $54.2 trillion. It marked the third straight quarter of gains. Net worth had risen by a stronger 4.5 percent in the second quarter of 2009 and by an even faster 5.5 percent in the third quarter.

With the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) expected to conclude this week a comment-seeking exercise relevant to net neutrality rules proposed last fall by Julius Genachowski, top telecommunications and tech policy observers are claiming that the FCC Chairman could be set to receive a major blow. Not only is the momentum in the net neutrality debate increasingly shifting away from proponents, but a number of experts say the White House itself is souring on Genachowski’s plans—a major knock that could signal the death of efforts to advance net neutrality, at least for now.

HEALDSBURG, Calif., Nov. 3 /PRNewswire/ -- "GUNPAL, Inc. is a transaction-neutral online payment platform with a philanthropic spirit," announces Founder/CEO Ben Cannon. "It is also the first serious competitor for PayPal Inc." A percentage of each transaction is donated to a selected charity at no additional cost to the user. The initial list of organizations includes the American Red Cross, American Cancer Society, and the Supercomputing Disease Research Center. Users can also suggest charities for consideration. An avid supporter of constitutional rights, Cannon created a discrimination-free online payment application, starting with the recognition of the Second Amendment right to keep...

The FCC voted unanimously yesterday to move forward with the debate in an effort to formalize net neutrality guidelines. Senator John McCain followed up by introducing a bill that would prohibit the FCC from governing communications. Oddly, the bill also contains text stating that any regulations in effect on the day before the Internet Freedom Act is officially enacted are grandfathered in and exempt from the provisions of the Internet Freedom Act. The implication seems to be that if the FCC can formalize net neutrality rules before McCain can get the Internet Freedom Act signed into law, the net neutrality...

Stephanie Kahn wanted to bask in her engagement for a few hours before diving into the task of calling aunts, uncles and good friends with the big news. And even before she could call them, she had a surprise party to attend, one that her fiance had set up for their parents and her "closest group of girlfriends." That party was when Kahn lost control of her news. Some of the guests took photos and were "uploading them on Facebook before I could even post anything," Kahn said from Smyrna, Ga., where she lives. "Of course the next morning I...

Most Americans are sleepwalking right now through the early reign of Obama the Magnificant. He tells them he is cutting spending, cutting taxes, and cutting the deficit, and they believe him. When they find in 2010 and 2011 that he deliberately misled them and has been doing just the opposite, and they are deep in the soup as a result, public opinion will turn decisively against him. Meanwhile, our "mainstream media," which should be called the Party Controlled Press, are quite successfully maintaining the smokescreen in promoting the Obama propaganda line, acting as slavishly as Pravda and Izvestia did towards...

In 2006, Thailand announced it was blocking access to YouTube for anyone with a Thai I.P address, and then identified 20 offensive videos for Google to remove as a condition of unblocking the site. ‘If your whole game is to increase market share,’ says Lawrence Lessig, speaking of Google, ‘it’s hard to . . . gather data in ways that don’t raise privacy concerns or in ways that might help repressive governments to block controversial content.’ In March of last year, Nicole Wong, the deputy general counsel of Google, was notified that there had been a precipitous drop in activity...

Golden Gate Bridge officials vote for suicide net SAN FRANCISCO — Golden Gate Bridge officials have voted to hang a stainless steel net below the iconic span to stop suicides. The Golden Gate Transportation District's board of directors voted 14-1...

Steps taken by Canadian Internet service providers to shape and control Internet traffic are discriminatory and should be investigated by Canada's telecommunications commission, the National Union of Public and General Employees charged this week. In a letter sent to the CRTC, union president James Clancy said they have become "increasingly concerned about the issue of network neutrality," and asked the commission to investigate the impact on consumers.

The man who spoke for Comcast at Harvard last month has told the Federal Communications Commission that the agency has no legal power to stop the cable giant from engaging in what it calls "network management practices" (critics call it peer-to-peer traffic blocking). Comcast vice president David L. Cohen's latest filing with the Commission claims that regulators can do nothing even if they conclude that Comcast's behavior runs afoul of the FCC's Internet neutrality guidelines. "The congressional policy and agency practice of relying on the marketplace instead of regulation to maximize consumer welfare has been proven by experience (including the...

open.NET? Microsoft To Make .NET Libraries Available Under "Open Source" One minute ago Microsoft made one of its first "open source" moves under the new Microsoft Reference License: the team in Redmond announced they'll make some .NET libraries available.  I say "open source" because to me, open source means you can easily access a .tar or .zip of the code.  Microsoft's effort is a bit more cumbersome. What does that mean for you?  Is .NET open source now?  I wouldn't call it that quite yet.  This is the first step on a much longer journey.  The license indicates that developers...

The US Federal Communications Commission has begun an enquiry "to better understand the behavior of participants in the market for broadband services" - in other words to see whether the traditional non-discriminatory data carriage provided by the Internet is under threat. "In 2005, the Commission adopted an Internet Policy Statement containing four principles. The intent of these principles was to protect consumers’ access to the lawful online content of their choice and to foster the creation, adoption and use of Internet broadband content, applications, and services," said FCC chairman Kevin Martin. But since that time, the FCC has classified broadband...

WHERE are you now? What are you doing? Jealous teenagers often send messages like these with their handphones and computers to harass and control their romantic partners. And most victims of the abuse are reluctant to discuss it with their parents, a US survey showed on Thursday. The survey, carried out by Teenage Research Unlimited, found nearly one in every four teens in a relationship had received hourly text messages or phone calls to check up on them between midnight and 5am. One out of six said they had received messages 10 or more times an hour overnight. 'Contacting someone...

Surfing net is top pastime for elderly By David Derbyshire, Consumer Affairs Editor Last Updated: 1:51am GMT 02/02/2007 Browsing the internet has overtaken DIY and gardening to become the favourite pastime of older people, according to a survey. The internet is named as one of the favourite pastimes of retired Britons The current generation of "silver surfers" spends an average of six hours online each week, research by the insurance company AXA found. Emailing and online chatting to friends and family was the favourite internet activity of the retired people surveyed, followed by researching information, booking holidays and shopping. Alison...

...Net neutrality travels under the euphemism of "nondiscrimination," which sounds very nice. But what it really means in practice is that the government dictates what AT&T and other Internet access companies can charge users of their pipelines. So there's "discrimination," all right -- against the companies that have invested billions to lay that pipe. The beneficiaries of this discrimination are Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and other very rich Web businesses, which have loaded up on Beltway lobbyists to have these mandates imposed. Democrats are taking the PAC money and running interference. The Democratic Commissioners -- Jonathan Adelstein and Michael Copps --...

WASHINGTON, July 21, 2006 – Iraqi security forces captured 25 suspected terrorists and killed one in multiple operations throughout Iraq July 19 and yesterday, military officials in Iraq reported. Iraqi security forces conducted two separate operations in Baghdad yesterday, capturing four insurgents who may be involved in "extra judicial killing" cells. The first operation by Iraqi security forces, a raid on back-to-back objectives in southwestern Baghdad, netted three primary targets. The first individual was a key insurgent leader believed to plan and coordinate insurgent operations in Baghdad, officials said. The second is allegedly involved in financing operations and supplying weapons...

WASHINGTON, June 25, 2006 – Three American soldiers were killed by improvised explosive devices while on patrol in Iraq in recent days, officials in Iraq said today. Separate IED explosions in Baghdad and Tikrit June 24 each claimed the life of one U.S. soldier. A roadside bomb explosion in Baghdad on June 23 killed another U.S. soldier. Another U.S. soldier in Baghdad died of a non-combat incident June 23. Names of the deceased are being withheld until their families are notified. Coalition forces in Iraq are continuing operations to thwart enemy IED attacks, officials said. Iraqi forces captured three members...

Sen. Hillary Clinton has thrown her support behind "network neutrality” regulations that conservatives say mark the first major attempt by the federal government to regulate the Internet. In a mass e-mail to supporters, Clinton writes: "I want to tell you a little bit about Net neutrality, why I believe it’s so important to our democracy, and what you can do to help.” In the Net neutrality debate, cable and telephone companies that provide Internet service, including AT&T and Verizon, are pitted against major Internet players like Google and Amazon and large-scale users, like the left-wing MoveOn.org. The Internet providers are...

US politicians have rejected attempts to enshrine the principle of net neutrality in legislation. Some fear the decision will mean net providers start deciding on behalf of customers which websites and services they can visit and use. The vote is a defeat for Google, eBay and Amazon which wanted the net neutrality principle protected by law. All three mounted vigorous lobbying campaigns prior to the vote in the House of Representatives. Tier fear The rejection of the principle of net neutrality came during a debate on the wide-ranging Communications Opportunity, Promotion and Enhancement Act (Cope Act). Among other things, this...

For some, the Internet it has become an addiction, adversely affecting their lives and their family's lives. While not yet defined as a true addiction, many people are suffering the consequences of obsession with the online world, warns Dr. Diane M. Wieland, who treats patients with computer addiction in her practice in Lansdale, Pennsylvania. For some people, the Internet may promote addictive behaviors and pseudo-intimate interpersonal relationships, reports Wieland in the journal, Perspectives in Psychiatric Care. "Such cyberspace contacts may result in cyber disorders such as virtual relationships that evolve into online marital infidelity (cybersex) or online sexually compulsive behaviors,"...

"The concept of Network Neutrality has unfortunately been misunderstood by many conservatives, libertarians, and other champions of the free market. That's too bad, because the free market essence of the Internet is exactly what would be lost without Network Neutrality. The large telecoms, some politicians and a number of conservative pundits have characterized the push for Network Neutrality as a left-wing attempt to stifle innovation and put government bureaucrats in control of the Internet. Well, it’s not. Through my work with Gun Owners of America, I am demonstratively a lot further to the right than they are. It is true...

Ever wonder why the telcos spend so much on lobbyists rather than, oh I don’t know, value-creating new applications like Skype and Vonage? And don’t think for a second that killing net neutrality isn’t a huge issue. It has already happened in Canada and the results weren’t pretty. As the National Journal noted today, this could be an election deal-breaker for the GOP!

Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Stevens on Monday said he is considering a mechanism in which the Federal Communications Commission would be charged with ensuring that consumers can go wherever they choose on the Internet or run any Internet-based application. The Alaska Republican said at a conference sponsored by communications companies that the issue, dubbed network neutrality, is one of the most difficult for lawmakers to reach a consensus on as they craft legislation aimed at overhauling U.S. communications laws. ``Net neutrality is one of the most difficult issues our committee faces in this process,'' he told the conference sponsored...

WASHINGTON, March 20, 2006 – Iraqi and coalition troops detained suspects and seized weapons caches throughout Iraq, and an Iraqi review board recommended the release of a number of male detainees being held in the country, Multinational Force Iraq officials reported. In Salah Ad Din province today, Iraqi Army and Task Force Band of Brothers units continued "Operation Swarmer." The operation was launched March 18 to clear a suspected insurgent operating area northeast of Samarra, military officials reported. Today's operation yielded an additional three caches of small-arms ammunition and rocket-propelled grenades. The combined forces also detained three men suspected of...

WASHINGTON, March 18, 2006 – Iraqi security forces and U.S. servicemembers participating in Operation Swarmer and other combined operations continued to capture hidden terrorist weapons caches, while detaining and processing terrorist suspects yesterday, military officials in Iraq reported. Operation Swarmer, an ongoing, methodical search of a 10-mile-by-10-mile area in the Samarra region, has netted six weapons caches and roughly 50 terrorist suspects, officials said. The weapons caches included mortar rounds, rocket-propelled grenades, rockets, artillery rounds and a significant amount of other bomb-making materials for improvised explosive devices. Seventeen of the roughly 50 detainees were released after questioning and the others...

WASHINGTON, March 3, 2006 – Coalition and Iraqi forces operations in Iraq northeast of Fallujah and in Anbar province recently resulted in the detention of 62 suspects, military officials reported. On March 1, Iraqi soldiers from 2nd Brigade, 9th Iraqi Army Division, and U.S. soldiers from 1st Battalion, 66th Armored Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, detained a suspected terrorist northwest of Baghdad based on a tip. The detainee is suspected of being a member of a bomb-making cell responsible for a roadside bomb attack that killed a U.S. soldier in February. The incident is under investigation. Northeast...

Law enforcement authorities seized about 2,300 pounds of marijuana over the weekend in three separate incidents near the border. At 6:30 a.m. Saturday on U.S. 191 north of Douglas, U.S. Border Patrol agents encountered two men driving a stolen Dodge pickup heading north, according to Johnny Bernal, spokes-man for Border Patrol's Tucson Sector. When the agents attempted to stop the vehicle, the men turned around and headed back south. Agents temporarily lost sight of the pickup but found it again near Arizona 80 and Golf Course Road in east Douglas. There, the two men hit an impassable wash and ran...

WASHINGTON, Feb. 7, 2006 – Raids near Salman Pak, Iraq, yesterday resulted in the detention of suspected terrorists, and U.S. forces discovered a significant weapons cache Feb. 3, Multinational Force Iraq officials said today. Iraqi special forces led the nighttime raid near Salman Pak, south of Baghdad. About 100 Iraqi soldiers, supported by coalition forces, participated. The operation was designed to disrupt and capture wanted terrorists reportedly running a terrorist training camp and planning to launch attacks against Ashura Pilgrims traveling toward Karbala. A search of the buildings led to a cache consisting of AK-47 assault rifles and AK-47 magazines...

US plans to 'fight the net' revealed By Adam Brookes BBC Pentagon correspondent A newly declassified document gives a fascinating glimpse into the US military's plans for "information operations" - from psychological operations, to attacks on hostile computer networks. The document says information is "critical to military success" Bloggers beware. As the world turns networked, the Pentagon is calculating the military opportunities that computer networks, wireless technologies and the modern media offer. From influencing public opinion through new media to designing "computer network attack" weapons, the US military is learning to fight an electronic war. The declassified document is called...

WASHINGTON, Dec. 9, 2005 – Iraqi and U.S. forces continued to make progress in the fight against terrorism in the north-central region of Iraq, detaining suspects and netting weapons and ammunition, officials in Iraq reported today. Raids and patrols throughout the area Dec. 8 resulted in the detention of 22 suspected terrorists and the discovery of four weapons caches, officials said. In an early morning raid near Duluiyah, soldiers from the 3rd Battalion, 1st Brigade, 4th Iraqi Army Division, captured seven suspected terrorists. The men were wanted for staging roadside bomb and mortar attacks against coalition forces in the area....

WASHINGTON, Oct. 23, 2005 – Coalition and Iraqi forces nabbed 31 suspects and discovered several bombs in operations across Iraq conducted between Oct. 21 and today. During raids on safe houses, coalition forces killed two suspected terrorists in Mosul on Oct. 22, and detained 22 others near Ramadi today. Coalition forces found the safe house in Mosul empty when they arrived. However, they were engaged by terrorists occupying two nearby houses. Coalition forces assaulted both houses and were attacked with grenades and small-arms fire. During the firefight, they killed the two terrorists and several others fled. Based on multiple intelligence...