Brad Dolan <bdolan@well.sf.ca.us> fwds (thanks, Brad)-
San Jose Mercury News By LAWRENCE J. MAGID <magid@latimes.com>
Do we really need Al Gore, Bill Clinton, Congress, the FCC, the FTC and countless other bureaucracies meddling in this new industry? The answer is a qualified yes.
I love this resurgence of the idea of "just a little" regulation. How to be a plausible policy wonk straight out of the box. As if it were a new idea. As if that weren't how it always starts. Oh boy, a new field for everyone to propose their two cents worth of regulation on.
...The government must be involved, but, as the Vice President has promised, it must also leave lots of room for both entrepreneurs and the corporate giants to play their hands.
! "We must make positive noises about small business while protecting the status quo." I heard snippets of what must have been Gore, on NPR, talking to the National Press Club. Snippets because I would switch back to TV when the commercials were over or... Well, for instance (I paraphrase): "I want to start with a story... Why did the Titanic fail to hear all the warnings about ice fields at their latitude? Why did other ships fail to hear their distress calls? Because the radio telegraph business was run *as* a business in those days. No one was required to be listening<click>" I know I should have let Star Trek tape and kept listening to this Guy; I just wimped. Maybe he somehow completed his thought reasonably. I hope things work out. Gore and policy wonks and industry reps have all said good things, but also all those great short turning radius waffle words. Brad comments:
It's like listening to the raindrops at the start of a storm.
Like watchin' 'em spray the primer. -fnerd quote me - - cryptocosmology- sufficiently advanced communication is indistinguishable from noise -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.3a aKxB8nktcBAeQHabQP/d7yhWgpGZBIoIqII8cY9nG55HYHgvt3niQCVAgUBLMs3K ui6XaCZmKH68fOWYYySKAzPkXyfYKnOlzsIjp2tPEot1Q5A3/n54PBKrUDN9tHVz 3Ch466q9EKUuDulTU6OLsilzmRvQJn0EJhzd4pht6hSnC1R3seYNhUYhoJViCcCG sRjLQs4iVVM= =9wqs -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----