Category: Uncategorized

New tax on VOIP to go to . . . nothing

The Jeff Pulver Blog: Guest Blogger: Daniel Berninger – “Universal Service Fund generated remarkably meager results for $50 billion spent”

I’ve been using Vonage’s VOIP service ever since I bought my condo in March 2005. I’ve been pretty happy with it, although their tech support is less than perfect. Now, the link above is an open letter to Congressional Commerce Committees about the decision of the FCC to apply the Universal Service Fund to VOIP. The USF is supposed to bring telephone service to poor rural areas, a noble goal as far as I’m concerned. But the gist of the letter is that what the USF really does is make it that much harder for Vonage and other VOIP providers to turn the phone industry into a real competitive market.

I think one of the real problems is that, too often, little bits of data transmitted over our internet connections are treated as different objects when they really aren’t. Somehow, it’s totally different, according to some, to transfer voice instead of video, or data instead of voice. This is ridiculous. It’s all the same stuff. It’s as if we decided that you needed one highway for automobiles, and one for SUVs. Never mind that many small car drivers would love this, that’s not the point. The point is that it doesn’t matter what you’re sending. This device produces this data, and sends it to that device, which receives it. Does it matter if the first device was a webcam or a VOIP phone?

Apparently it does, and the FCC is going to tax it. I don’t have a problem with the FCC taxing communication to raise money for things that need to be done, but the USF has spent $50 billion over the last 20 years to increase phone penetration in rural areas by about 3%. I would hereby like to volunteer to accept $50 billion and spend the next 20 years trying to get a phone for every person in America. If I don’t have 99% coverage by 2027, feel free to put me in jail. I’ll deserve it.

Still digging Ubuntu

As I near the internet geek abyss, posting to my blog using Flock on a box running Ubuntu, setting up an account at del.icio.us, spending the afternoon learning about apt-get, I realize that I’m enjoying myself.  My fiancee thinks I’m crazy, but that’s nothing new.

I haven’t cut the cord to Windows yet, although I’d like to.  I’ll probably keep my laptop dual-booting (Currently it’s XP only) just in case.

On a related note, speaking of fiancees, I’m wondering how I can convince her that a new monitor is a reasonable investment.  I’m currently using a 17″ CRT from 1998 when I’m not on my laptop, and it’s pretty painful.  It was cruel of them at work to buy me a 24″ widescreen, because now everything else seems like an insult to my eyes.  It’ll probably have to wait until after the wedding, though.

When two things I love come together

Sales of organic beers start to hop – Yahoo! News

And those two things are Yahoo! News and dumb headline puns.

Actually, the two things I love are organic and beer.  I was in Giant yesterday because I was out running another errand (recycling cardboard, actually – I’m so environmentally friendly) and I was right next to Giant.  I never used to think there was much difference between one supermarket and another.  But now that we have a new super Safeway nearby, plus the Harris Teeter and Whole Foods, where I can get all kinds of cool organic food, the fact that Giant seems to have watched the organic bandwagon go flying by without so much as a wave is a big deal.

Now, I don’t buy everything organic.  I’ll buy “conventional” if no organic is available.  But it’s always nice to be able to get the organic.

So now organic beer is starting to pick up.  That’s great.  I do love beer.

Organic beer sales increased 40 percent in 2005, tying it with organic coffee as the fastest-growing organic beverage, the Organic Trade Association says. By comparison, overall U.S. beer sales fell slightly last year.

Awesome.

Increasing my nerd quotient

First, there was the Slashdot post about Mac nerds switching to Ubuntu. Then I saw that someone I’ve met in real life uses Ubuntu. Since I’ve always thought that I couldn’t really claim that I was a computer geek unless I had at least one computer running Linux (And my previous attempt at running Debian was a failure), I thought, why not follow Cory’s lead and check out Ubuntu.  So far, it’s pretty cool.  I had some issues getting my resolution to display at anything but 640X480, and I still don’t have my wireless card working (Although I’m not sure it ever worked that well when I was running Windows, either), I’m liking the Linux.  Ubuntu comes with a pretty slick GUI, and a lot of the stuff you need – Firefox, OpenOffice, Gimp . . .

And it’s keeping my old Dell P3 500mhz from sitting in a corner collecting dust.  I bought the computer in 1998, and it’s treated me well.  Now I think I can get a little more use out of it.

My fiancee tells me that I’m running Linux because I want to be able to look down my nose at you silly Windows users, and she’s not entirely off-base.  There is a certain part of me that yearns to be snooty to everyone else.  But I try to keep that part in check.  Sometimes I even manage to do it.

Zidane is a clown

ESPNsoccernet – World Cup – Zidane sent off in extra time for head butt

Throughout the World Cup this year, France’s Zinedine Zidane has been fantastic. Not only has he played very well, but he’s been classy – When he scores, which he does a lot, he acts like he’s done it before.

And then he headbutted a defender. It looked like the two of them had some words, and then he headbutted him in the chest. So, as he’s already announced his retirement, the last time he left the field, ever, was on a red card when his team really needed him. When that happened, I totally lost interest in the game. I had been rooting for France – Zidane and Henry have been fun to watch, and I’ve never been a big fan of Italy, not since Roberto Baggio’s awful PK miss against Brazil in 1994. But when Zidane left the field, due to nothing but his own inability to control himself, I just stopped caring about the outcome.

It’s too bad he’s retiring – it would be nice to see a big long suspension for him.

36 Pages of Hillary – An Initial Reaction

After 36 pages of Hillary’s book, my only reason to hate her is that she’s not a gifted writer. I’ve read a little about her childhood and schooling, a little about her family.

I’m certainly not going to quit now. I know I can’t make an informed judgement about her (Or anyone) after reading 36 pages. What I would say now is that her childhood wasn’t that interesting, she probably got good grades on the papers she turned in while she was in school, and none of her teachers ever told her to write for a living.

I’m probably being nitpicky, looking for things I don’t like. I mean, who am I to criticize the writing ability of a published author and Senator? I’ve published two stories in my college literary magazine years ago, and a few little articles at the Piker Press, but I have yet to see my own work in Borders.

Still, as a public figure, and a political one, she brings this sort of criticism on herself. And trust me, Hillary, there will be more by the time I’m finished.

A step in the right direction, but not far enough

OpinionJournal – Extra

I heard a quick interview with Republican Congressman Mike Pence from Indiana on NPR this morning, and it sounded like he had some good things to say about immigration. He’s proposing 6 year guest worker visas – at the end to the six years, the worker can apply for citizenship. One would assume that, after working here six years, it should not be terribly difficult to obtain citizenship, and indeed it is good for the country if these workers gain citizenship. Pence wants to revisit automatic citizenship for the children of guest workers born in the US, which I think is a good idea.

But his ideas are not all good. For example, he advocates contracting out processing of these workers on entry. I’m not opposed to government contracting (Disclaimer – I am a government contractor, though the opinions expressed here are my own, and do not reflect opinions of anyone else unless otherwise noted), it can be much more efficient. But I am opposed to unreasonable expectations:

Private worker-placement agencies–“Ellis Island Centers”–would be licensed by the federal government to match guest workers with jobs that employers cannot fill with American workers. These agencies will match guest workers with jobs, perform health screening, fingerprint them, and convey the appropriate information to the FBI and Homeland Security so that a background check can be performed. Once this is done, the guest worker would be provided with a visa issued by the State Department. The whole process will take a matter of one week, or less.

One week? Come on, Mike. It takes eight weeks to renew a passport for a natural born American citizen, doesn’t it?

I also have a problem with his plan that your first renewal of your guest worker visa requires that you pass an English proficiency test. Why is that? So that the workers can integrate themselves into the community? I think that’s a pretty weak argument. Language is not forced like that. It’s a much more natural process. As workers come here, they’ll pick up English as needed. And it certainly wouldn’t hurt if we Americans made a little effort to learn some Spanish. Communication is not something that needs to be legislated. Give human beings some credit – Americans don’t mostly all speak English because there’s a law saying we have to. We do it because we have a need and a desire to communicate, and that’s the way we do that here. Guest workers will adapt, too, and do what they need to do to communicate.

On the whole, though, I think Pence’s plan is getting close to a compromise that I think most people can live with. He needs to take out the part about building walls around the country. We have enough things that give us a false sense of security, and having useless walls would be another. Does he think that, because they don’t speak English, those who would come here illegally can’t find their way over, around, or through a wall?

Still, he’s heading in the right direction. Now all we need is someone else to step in and lead him the rest of the way.

Researching the enemy

I’ve always hated Hillary Clinton. I don’t even think I can explain why. People argue with me. “Oh, she’s so smart,” they say. I know she’s smart. If she were dumb, I wouldn’t worry about her.

My mom fiancee (EDIT: Ooh, misremembering the source of this is getting me into trouble) actually makes a good point about Hillary – She was already in the public eye when she began her political career. That means we got to watch her turn into a politician. We got to watch as she started saying exactly what she thought the voters wanted to hear (And so far, she’s been right). Most politicians do this soul-selling before we hear about them, so they’re already like that when we “meet” them. And so we can tell ourselves that it’s just the way they are.

Not Hillary. She changed before our eyes. For the record, I hated her before that.

Anyway, I am now determined to figure out why I hate her. To that end, I ordered her book, “Living History”, used at Amazon. I have to say I’m impressed with the seller, who managed to get me the book in about a week for the low, low price of $3.63 shipped. I have to say it does make me happy that only 14 cents of that was the actual cost of the book. It’s not in fabulous condition, but that will only add fuel to my argument once I read it and learn why it is that I hate her.

The Amazon reviews suggest that the book is pretty vanilla – she doesn’t come out and say anything shocking. And this book is from before she was a Senator. I’d rather read about Hillary the Senator than Hillary the First Lady. I’m sure we’ll get that opportunity after she’s through running for President.

So, I’ll keep you posted. We’ll have to see if I can get through it.

A little bit more sensible article at the National Review

Rich Lowry on Catch and Remove & El Salvador on National Review Online

I don’t necessarily agree with all of this, but I can chalk up the disagreements to philosophy rather than insanity.

Advocates of a guest-worker program and amnesty argue that the migrant inflow here from points south is literally inexorable. Actually, illegal migrants are people, and so they respond to incentives and disincentives. Enforcement matters to them, as is being demonstrated by the two different approaches to catch-and-release on the border.

Hey, what do you know, immigrants are people.  I fear the acceptance of this fact is much more difficult than it should be for too many people.

However, I’m afraid that the article is failing to take some things into account.  It blames an old rule that prevented the US from deporting Salvadoreans because El Salvador was in the middle of civil war in the 1980’s.  The rule is still on the books, and Mr. Lowry postulates that many Salvadoreans come here because they know about this law, and they know it’s harder to send a Salvadorean back.  Even illegals from other countries often try to claim to be Salvadorean.  I’m sure this old law is not helping, and it should be fixed.  Old laws that are no longer applicable should be rewritten.

The point he’s missing, though, is that there are other possible reasons that there are more Salvadoreans.  For example, let’s say that one Salvadorean leaves his home and comes to the US illegally and manages to stay because of this law.  He starts working and sending money back home, helping his family.  So his old neighbors see this happening, and they decide to try it, too.  His cousin comes along as well, knowing he’ll have family around to help him get started.

Contrary to popular belief, not all illegals know each other.  If there are strong Salvadorean communities here in the US, they will attract more immigrants, legal or not.

I don’t want to trot out the tired arguments in favor of letting all the illegals stay.  “Were your parents Native Americans?”  “What happened to bring me your tired, your poor?”  Those arguments have been made, and I think they have some validity, but it doesn’t really solve the problem.  I think we do need some control over who’s here and who’s allowed to stay.  But we do not need racist militia in border states shooting at people looking for a better life.  We don’t need a wall across the entire southern edge of the country.  We certainly don’t need a national id card that we all have to carry, all the time.  I will show my id when asked to prove my age at a bar, prove my identity at the bank, to vote, or to prove I can legally operate a motor vehicle.  That’s about it.  I like to think I would go to jail before I showed my id to prove I could legally walk down the street.  A small part of me hopes I’ll have to prove that sometime.  It would be fun to call my mom to bail me out.

I do think we need to do something about illegal immigrants.  But I haven’t yet heard a good solution, and I don’t have one myself.  But someone must.