Congress Wipes Its Collective Butt With The Constitution

Other bloggers have done a far better job than I could in breaking this travesty down.  I happily refer you to them for the details.

“GOTCHA!”

I’m willing to take Sen. Buttars at his word that his comments yesterday weren’t intended as a racial slur.  They sure sounded bad and don’t contribute to helping the image of Utahns as being a tolerant people who can accept others who are different.  Even so I think it was a case of someone talking without engaging their brain.  I don’t think Sen. Buttars meant his remark as a malicious commentary about skin color.

We have enough examples of our Republican legislature’s racial bigotry and general intolerance of people who are different here, here, and here without having to contrive offense at comments that the speaker claims weren’t meant in the way we’re choosing to frame them. 

UTOPIA: Creating True Free Market Competition In Communications

I’m usually pretty open to admitting I’m wrong about things I’ve written on this site. I was a big booster of the Iraq invasion when it started and eventually, after being smacked down by Ed and a couple others who left comments, I came to see what a huge mistake that was. It is time again for me to use this blog to publicly correct my position on an issue and change my course.

I’ve made several posts on this site critical of UTOPIA and other public efforts to create new communications networks. I was wrong. Jesse has a great post summarizing the history of telecommunications and the terrible mess our government has made of things. I highly recommend that anyone interested in this issue check out the linked post above and FreeUTOPIA.Org. A lot of political forces are aligned against UTOPIA and that is unfortunate because it seems to be the only possible chance for Utah to break out of the current mess.

UTOPIA is not just a cool gadget that local governments are promising residents or an effort on the part of those governments to get involved in providing phone/cable/internet services. It is an effort to create an environment where real competition exists between providers of communications services on a completely new and neutral network not controlled by the regional telephone companies that for decades have bribed, threatened and sued anyone threatening their dominance. The current communications market is anything but free. Qwest and its counterparts in other areas of the country own congressmen, senators and whole state legislatures that they’ve paid dearly for in an effort to defend their government granted monopoly. It is time for an end to the status quo.

UTOPIA and other local municipal broadband efforts should be applauded and supported by those who claim to believe in the efficacy of free markets.