More on net neutrality and a bad blogger...

So, after so many months doing "More On" posts after my weekly cartoons, I just realized that I completely forgot to do one this week. I guess that's when you know I'm working extra hard on stuff outside of the weekly 'toon...

I don't have much else to add to this week's 'toon, but here are a couple things:

• A clip from "friend of Fighting Words" David Isen's opening statement during the recent "Freedom 2 Connect" conference:
  

  Our planet is in danger of becoming hostile to life. I'm not talking about the flooding of Miami and New York and Bangladesh. I mean that because of the carbon we humans put in the air, Earth could become Venus, a place where life can't live. So I believe -- and I put this forward as a hypothesis -- I believe that we can use the Internet to conserve more atmospheric carbon than its infrastructure generates. Furthermore, I believe we can use the Internet for global participation that transcends tribalism and nationalism to end war . . . for discussion!

• Prof. Lawrence Lessig on Democracy Now:
  

  ...you can understand how a cable company who’s providing you internet service might think twice before they allow that internet service to become a competitor with HBO or with the other cable things that you have to pay for. So this has been the constant concern. If the owners of the wires get to muck about with the kinds of content that come across the wires, then they might block competition that’s valuable, both because it’s increasing the diversity of content available and also because it’s enabling new kinds of applications to come onto the network.

  
  

Fighting Words: 4/28/08 Cartoon...

"The Wild, Wild Internet"...

More on Network Neutrality...

Some sources to check out for this week's 'toon on a very complex subject:

• See especially the recent Bill Moyers On America episode titled "The Net At Risk," which is available online. Among the interesting points made in this piece, the internet revolution is compared to the birth of language and the invention of the printing press, in terms of historical developments that revolutionized how we learn and communicate. Also, the point is made that Japan and South Korea have fiber-optic infrastructures already in place that supply internet connections up to 100 times faster than the best DSL connections in the U.S., for the same rates that we pay here. Apparently, the telecom companies had promised to build such a system here in the 90's, but never really got around to it.
  
  See also Moyers' article with Scott Fogdall, "Fighting the Imperial Internet."


• See some older articles on the subject from Christopher Stern, Jeff Chester, and Celia Viggo Wexler & Dawn Holian.


• Be sure to check out SaveTheInternet.com and David S. Isenberg, both of whom kindly have linked to this week's 'toon, and are much more qualified to speak intelligently on this subject than I.

I'm off to Portland in a couple days for Stumptown... if you're in the area, stop in to say hi!

Fighting Words: 10/23/06 Cartoon

"The Futuresons"...