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Back to more mundane topics, the House of Representatives today voted against Internet neutrality. Why should you care? Because now your Internet Service Provider (ISP), which is often given a monopoly by your local government, can choose not to deliver certain kinds of content.

Say you have SBC as your ISP. They get into a dispute with eBay over something that SBC doesn’t want sold (say a modem that can be modified to allow faster web surfing) and eBay refuses to pull auctions for that modem. SBC can now, legally, give preferential service to an eBay competitor. They can also block access to eBay, if they so choose. Read that again. A phone company can legally block traffic to any site they want.

This will, of course, be sold as a “for the children” measure; your ISP can protect your kids from the evil porn sites. But this law didn’t start this way. It started as a pissing match between telephone companies, who missed the boat on providing Internet service, and the big players like Google and eBay who have built their businesses on the backbone of a free and open Internet. Your representatives (which, I have to say, voted almost straight down party lines, mostly Republicans voting for more laws) have put this on you. You no longer have the right to choose what content you get via the Internet. Thanks to government mandated monopolies, you can’t even choose a different ISP.

Remember this the next time you vote. Did you ask your representative to take away your rights? Because that’s exactly what they did today.
House rejects Net neutrality rules

Have to scroll down a bit. Thanks to Comcast for not partnering with anyone to provide expanded coverage. You do know that this is the largest sproting event in the world, right? (That’s right, America, Super Bowl isn’t the biggest.)
soccerTV.com

Ah, Flickr is going to be an endless source of entertainment for the games. Check out this Dutch fan. Better yet, check out the Oranje photo pool.

Hup Holland!

It’s finally here and once again the Oranje are set to face Argentina (although not until June 21).

As always, one of the best places for World Cup coverage is the BBC. Their World Cup page is here and you can download a PDF wallchart here.

Of course, for all the latest, check out The Official Site of FIFA World Cup site. More posts to come.

This is an open question to any of any conservative: How can anyone support someone who says about the widows of people killed on 9/11 “these women got paid, they ought to take their money and shut up about it.”

Right. The widows have profited from the deaths of their husbands. I’m sure that whatever money they received more than compensated for losing their husbands. Ann Coulter does one thing well: she hates very, very well. The marketing obviously works because I’m giving her press. But the inconceivable idiocy of this woman has reached a level that makes one’s head spin. If you call yourself a Christian, a Conservative, or a Republican and support this tripe, you are just as she is: the worst this society can produce.

Tune in next when Coulter calls for Arabs to wear a patch sown to their clothing. If anyone should shut up, I think we know who that should be.
For a nice breakdown about why Ann is a flaming idiot, read this Crooks and Liars article about Keith Olbermann’s breakdown of the evil this woman has unleashed.

Mothers have induced the births of their children to avoid the day. Hell is having a party. But is it really 6/6/06 today, or did we miss it by 4 years? Is 666 even the number we should fear, or is it 616?

Whatever is going on today, you can be sure that one movie is insanely glad for the bruhaha.

Seniors at a Maine high school released 10 goslings and 45 chicks into their school as prank. School administrators freaked out and closed the school. My favorite line?

When students arrived, they were taken to the school gym, which had been sterilized, before being sent home.

Which had been sterilized?! How do you sterilize a gym, exactly? And do it in less then 2 hours, since the first teacher to report the birds came in a 6am, and I’m guessing some enterprising students showed up around 7:15. That’s an impressive feat.

I remember senior pranks getting pretty crazy when I was in high school, but never did I hear of the school even considering closing over one of them. The last bit of overreaction? A court date is still being considered.

Link

I am so trying this. We can’t even play with the dog in the backyard without being bitten to the point of distraction. Of course, having a rain forest’s worth of vegetation in both our backyard and the neighbors probably isn’t helping.
DIY:happy » Quick and Dirty Mosquito Trap

Somone was in a hurry. How does this stuff get on the wire?

Tanker Truck Closes Route 24 – Yahoo! News

This is a vacation post… yes, I’m blogging on vacation. We had the most amazing ice cream today and that is not hyperbole. A co-worker of mine is always looking for a franchise opportunity and I think I found it.

It is Mount Desert Island Ice Cream (slogan: Fearless Flavor); no website. They have the most spectacular ice cream you will ever taste. How good? Let’s put it this way, I probably eat a pint of ice cream a year (don’t like the stuff). I ate half a pint today and plan on going back. Technically, I had sorbet, but I sampled half their flavors before I settled on Blueberry-Basil Sorbet. J– had Mexican Chocolate Ice Cream (which I gratuitously sampled). Mexican Chocolate was a concoction worthy of Montezuma himself; a Mexican chocolate caramelized with brown sugar, curry, and cinnamon, all blended smooth as ice cream can come. We went back to thank them for the samples and, truthfully, tell them it was the best ice cream we’ve ever had.

We’re going back tomorrow. I hope anyone who Googles Bar Harbor, Maine sees this post and checks out Mount Desert Island Ice Cream.