I’ve been watching the live feed of the BP oil spill tonight and becoming very depressed. Those submersibles seem no match for the fury of the raging gusher. It makes me think that I’m only marginally less capable of plugging the leak than BP is.
Some experts estimate 39 million gallons have spilled at this point, with little chance of stopping it soon. Frankly I wonder when this leak will ever be brought under control.
The Gulf will never be the same in my lifetime, sad to say. If ever.
Sen. David Hoyle (D-Gaston)
Remember the battles against the big telecoms in the state to keep the cities’ right to own and operate their own Internet service? It’s time for round three, courtesy of Sen. David Hoyle (D-Gaston). He’s pushing a bill, S.1209 (the so-called “No Nonvoted Debt for Competing System” Act), that will hamstring North Carolina municipal Internet projects into using only general obligation bonds. Not only will this hurt municipal Internet projects, it will prevent initiatives such as Google’s 1 Gb fiber Internet. Bye bye, Google Fiber!
Previous attempts by Time Warner Cable, AT&T, CenturyLink (Embarq), and others tried to make the case that municipal Internet should not use taxpayer money. Now they’re saying these systems should use only taxpayer money, not the revenue bonds that they currently use. I think it shows their real motive is to block competition, sewing up Internet for themselves. With governments sidelined, they will be free to impose caps on Internet service, killing competition from video services such as NetFlix. The public loses.
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