Al Canata | OpenMarket.org

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Priorities, California, Priorities

The New York Times reports that California’s Governor just signed a state-wide transfats ban into law. This makes perfect sense. California is facing its usual annual budget axe grind and a $16 billion budget deficit.

This just ends out being another regulation that hampers economic activity in my home state. So first the state government bans economic activity that would help the tax base (although a smaller California government is ideal) and because navigating the California regulatory structure is insane, it makes it more difficult to operate a business in California and thus more people want to leave the state. It’s possible that California might not add any electoral votes during the next re-apportionment (although it seems likely to add one seat). That would be the first time since California joined the Union in 1850 that it wouldn’t pick up any electoral seats in a reapportionment.

08/01/2008 @ 2:02 pm | Odds & Ends | Comments

No apologies for non-neutrality

Posted by Al Canata

To add to Alex Harris’ posting on ISP’s standing up for themselves….

Maybe the ISPs ought to use a pocketbook issue regarding net neutrality. Perhaps Comcast (or the next ISP to get hit with this) should respond to the FCC inquiry with something like:

“Yes, we managed P2P traffic, which is used mostly to deliver pirated porn, music and videos, and we stress the porn, to make sure our users could check e-mail, do financial transactions and make necessary purchases. If you’d prefer porn to block necessary traffic, then fine, we can do that. But we figured your finances were more important. Sorry.”

Just my $.02.

07/18/2008 @ 3:57 pm | Economic Liberty, Tech & Telecom | Comments