Yesterday, President Obama announced that his administration “will pursue a new comprehensive approach to securing America’s digital infrastructure” and that “our digital infrastructure — the networks and computers we depend on every day — will be treated as they should be: as a strategic national asset. Protecting this infrastructure will be a national security priority. We will ensure that these networks are secure, trustworthy and resilient. We will deter, prevent, detect, and defend against attacks and recover quickly from any disruptions or damage.”

As an IT professional, I applaud this initiative. As a business owner, I am also pleased because my livelihood depends on the Internet infrastructure and the services that it enables – web, e-mail, etc.

However I think we need to go further than this. As the president observed, our digital infrastructure is a “strategic national asset”. Why then do we leave it in the hands of people like AT&T, Sprint and Charter Communications? The ISPs and telecoms have no obligation to anyone to ensure that their networks are working at all. They don’t have to maintain or upgrade their hardware, cabling, switches, routers, etc. except when they feel like it. And there’s very little competitive market pressure to make them improve their existing services, let alone maintain them, since in most metropolitan markets there’s almost no competition.

I propose, for which some will undoubtedly cast me as a socialist patsy, that we nationalize the US Internet infrastructure. The federal government will run fiber to every home and business in the US. Then, it will allow corporations to use the network for a fee. It may event outsource the management of the infrastructure to several corporations under government regulation and oversight. This will provide the following benefits:

1. in the short term, creation of thousands of jobs as we lay the network.
2. we can finally catch up with the rest of the world in terms of broadband penetration and speed.
3. the government will actually be able to secure “America’s digital infrastructure”.
4. there will be strict standards for availability and reliability. Redundancy and failover will be built in to the system.
5. all those companies in the business of providing Internet connectivity and related services, entertainment content (e.g. cable TV) and telecommunication services will be able to use this infrastructure, with a level playing field, and won’t have to concern themselves with the plumbing.
6. Since there will be one national network, consumers will be able to purchase services from any provider. Competition will flourish.

What do you think? Drop me a line

From Al Gore’s Journal:

“This is a pivotal week in our fight against the climate crisis. The Energy and Commerce Committee will be voting on the Waxman-Markey bill…”

Read the entire entry here.

Today I released Shokado Web Sharing for Bento, Version 2.04.

This release is compatible with Bento 2.04 only. No major changes were made to the application.

It seems that healthcare providers are in favor of a system that would ensure universal coverage. The details of any plan will have to be worked out, of course.

The real villains aren’t the providers… the insurance companies, HMO’s, PPO’s, etc. are the ones making all the money, and increasing their premiums by 8%, 15%, 25% or more each year. That’s why businesses, especially small businesses, are either passing along higher costs to their employees, or dropping their plans altogether. I have painful personal experience of this.

Personally I’m in favor of a single payor system with optional private insurance, but that’s a pipe dream not likely to be realized any time soon.

In the meantime, the insurance industry must be scrutinized, reformed and then regulated. Their increases must be capped, and their denial processes opened up and subject to regulatory review.

If we are able to get a public insurance plan out there, it will compete with the privateers private insurers and they will be forced to lower their rates and keep them low.

Today we visited the annual art fair at the incomparable Laumeier Sculpture Park and visited Rick Martin of Martin Design Works.

Last year we picked up a pair of his candle holders. This year we couldn’t resist getting one of his mesh screen sculptures for the living room.

Rick’s a very nice guy and a gifted artist. I believe he’s from the Denver area, and seems to frequent the midwestern art show circuit.

I highly recommend checking out his work.

WASHINGTON (CNN) — The more often Americans go to church, the more likely they are to support the torture of suspected terrorists, according to a new survey.
More than half of people who attend services at least once a week — 54 percent — said the use of torture against suspected terrorists is “often” or “sometimes” justified. Only 42 percent of people who “seldom or never” go to services agreed, according to the analysis released Wednesday by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.
White evangelical Protestants were the religious group most likely to say torture is often or sometimes justified — more than six in 10 supported it. People unaffiliated with any religious organization were least likely to back it. Only four in 10 of them did.
The analysis is based on a Pew Research Center survey of 742 American adults conducted April 14-21. It did not include analysis of groups other than white evangelicals, white non-Hispanic Catholics, white mainline Protestants and the religiously unaffiliated, because the sample size was too small.
The president of the National Association of Evangelicals, Leith Anderson, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The survey asked: “Do you think the use of torture against suspected terrorists in order to gain important information can often be justified, sometimes be justified, rarely be justified, or never be justified?”
Roughly half of all respondents — 49 percent — said it is often or sometimes justified. A quarter said it never is.
The religious group most likely to say torture is never justified was Protestant denominations — such as Episcopalians, Lutherans and Presbyterians — categorized as “mainline” Protestants, in contrast to evangelicals. Just over three in 10 of them said torture is never justified. A quarter of the religiously unaffiliated said the same, compared with two in 10 white non-Hispanic Catholics and one in eight evangelicals.