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This week’s music pick is Singer/Songwriter, Naama Hillman. I ran across Naama while listening to a podcast (which shall remain nameless since I didn’t like it) that played an excerpt of her excellent rendition of Johnny Cash’s Ring of Fire.

I visited Naama’s site and found she has a whole ep available for free download. Her music is beautiful and I would highly recommend it.

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Hot on the heels of my previous post on Pallywood and the media deception in the mideast, comes a admission by Reuters that some photos by a Lebanese freelance photographer were modified.

This scandal, already being dubbed by some as REUTERSGATE, is causing quite an uproar.

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To date, I haven’t written anything about Net Neutrality. There is a good reason for this. While I am a vehemently against telecoms restricting anyone’s access to the Internet, I also dissapprove of increased government involvement in the administration and regulation of said Internet.

Last week, my friend MJ asked me for my opinion on this issue. I thought I would post my response to her.

Over the last year there has been talk, most notably by the CEO of SBC (now AT&T) (http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20051031/0354228_F.shtml), accusing companies like Yahoo, Google and ebay of making money at the telecoms’ expense. This, of course, is not true since Google has to purchase connections into their facilities just like you and I purchase them into our houses. SBC also complained that they spent the capital to ‘build the pipes’ and these companies shouldn’t be able to use them. Again, this is misleading. Much of the telecom infrastructure has been funded by the US Government, for the telecoms to complain about their
capital expenditures now is a little much.

The SBC CEO’s proposed solution to this problem was to basically charge companies like Google an additional fee. If Google refuses to pay SBC could restrict or stop all traffic between their customers and Google. Of course, to date, none of this has actually happened yet.

As a potential resolution to this problem a bill in support of ‘Net Neutrality’ was introduced into Congress this spring. The concept of ‘Net
Neutrality’, again in a nutshell, basically says the government will regulate the telecoms to ensure that everyone’s traffic is carried
equally. Telecoms will not be allowed to prefer connections to one website over another, or restrict phone calls over one voip service more or less than another.

Now, what do I think of all this? I think Net Neutrality in theory is a great concept, but I also think government involvement usually causes more problems that it corrects. There is enough competition for Internet service in most major areas that no one company can have a stranglehold on the market. It is unlikely that telecoms will be able to force big companies like Google and ebay to pay their extorsion fee, due to the popularity of their services, and it’s equally unlikely that they will go after small companies - not enough profit in it. I’m not aware of any actual abuses by telecoms yet, so my feeling is let’s not get the government involved until we have to - I think the market will work the problem out itself.

Since writing this response, I have had some opportunity to think further on this matter. What is increasingly disturbing is the insidiousness of companies like Google and Ebay. They are supporting Net Neutrality legislation as being better for the consumer, when what they really want to is too support their business model. What’s best for the consumer is a free market with choices, but big Internet companies are concerned that the consumer will choose poorly. To eliminate this possibility they want the government to step in and force consumers to make the right choice.

Net Neutrality is bad, not because of the concept, but because the implementation will further degrade your rights as a US citizen.

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Came across this video demonstrating Palestinian staged productions that inflate the intensity of the Arab-Israeli conflict in the eyes of western news media.

It’s worth a watch.

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So what’s the deal with weddings? Why are they so boring? We read stories and watch movies where all these romantic types come barging in at the last minute to stop the ceremony, professing never ending love. When does this happen in real life? Where are the scandals? Where are the shotguns? Why doesn’t the bride ever leave the Groom ‘at the altar’? I’ve been to literally hundreds of weddings in my life and I have seen a scandal exactly 0 times.

The closest I ever came to seeing a scandal was when one of the groomsmen locked his knees and passed out. It was tragic, and kind of funny later, but not scandalous at all. Seems like these days there’s just not any good drama in a wedding. Sure, there’s the whole crazy mother/bridezilla thing, but the bride and groom always manage to stand up there and say I Do.

Maybe that’s the real problem here. Maybe saying ‘I Do’ is just too easy. These days everybody even writes their own vows. How silly is that, of course I’m going to agree to something I wrote. It’s almost meaningless - kind of like signing a confession at the police station. I think there should be a new custom. Rather than writing your OWN vows, you should write the vows for your partner.

The groom could write vows for the bride that were something like

I give you this ring, wear it with love and joy. I choose you to be my husband: to have and to hold, from this day forward. as long as we both shall live. And hereto, I pledge you my faithfulness to always keep the house clean and never vacuum during Monday Night Football.

And the bride could provide something along the lines of

I give you this ring, wear it with love and joy. I choose you to be my wife, to have and to hold from this day forward for better or for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health. I pledge to you I will never leave the toilet seat up and promise to generate at least a 10% annual increase in overall revenue for the family as long as we both shall live.

How much more interesting would this make weddings. In fact, to support this initiative, and keep things hopping until it catches on, if you have upcoming nuptials you should just slip a couple extra lines into the vows. I’m betting you could get your future spouse to agree to all kinds of crazy stuff if you spring it on her during the ceremony. Just give the preacher and extra $20 and get a perpetual right to flirt with Suzy down at the bank for the rest of your life (or at least until the annullment papers show up).

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An elderly woman in London was orderd by police to remove her Our dogs are fed on Jehovah’s Witnesses sign. Appearantly the sign was put up by her husband over 30 years ago. 30 YEARS ago. What kind of random person walks by a sign that’s been up for 30 YEARS and complains to the police it’s offensive?

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