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January 14, 2003
Vol. 6 No. 2
In this
issue:
1. Field of Reams
2. Cisco Duck
3. Coming Like a Ghost Town
4. Quick Hits
5. New at Reason Online - If the Fat Suit Fits
6. Reason's print
edition
7. News and
Events
Reason Express is made possible by a grant from The DBT Group, manufacturers of affordable, high-performance mainframe systems and productivity software.
The Federal Communication Commission is set to go to war this week over how best to regulate local phone companies. The local Bells insist they can't deliver all the advanced goodies like broadband unless they are given a free hand to price their offerings as they want. And if that means locking out would-be competitors, so be it.
Net service providers and re-sellers say, Wait a minute, we've heard that one before. The Bells always claim that something won't be built -- fiber to the home, new switches, whatever -- unless the FCC eases up. Then the FCC eases up and nothing gets built.
Only one outcome is certain: Regulators and politicians will make sure that urban areas continue to subsidize rural ones in some form or fashion.
On the plus side, FCC chairman Michael Powell seems to understand that giving consumers more control over what they see and hear is good. Reflecting on his favorite Christmas present, Powell called TiVo "God's machine."
Powell's affection for the digital video recorder is significant, as the big content mob would love for the FCC go along with plans to cripple digital video recorders in the name of copyright protection.
http://dc.internet.com/news/article.php/1568091
http://www.isp-planet.com/politics/2003/uncertainty.html
http://isp-planet.com/cplanet/tech/2003/prime_letter_030109.html
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20030110/ap_on_hi_te/fcc_loves_tivo_1>/a>
"Personnel is policy" is one of those tired old phrases that's kicked around when any new administration takes office, then rightly forgotten. But under George W. Bush, the bromide has some merit.
Oil, cars, aluminum, railroads -- these are the mature industries represented at the top levels of Team Bush. For them it makes perfect sense to make the centerpiece of a tax cut plan a reform of the corporate income tax, ending taxation of dividends on the individual side. The double taxation of dividends has always riled this set.
They also believe that once paying out dividends has been made more attractive by the change in their tax treatment, companies like Microsoft and Cisco, which now sit on billions in cash, will start paying out dividends. And if they won't do it in on the merits, maybe a good dose of public shaming is in order.
The problem is that selling routers or making computer chips is not the same as smelting aluminum. A tech company's research and development costs are nothing like those of an old line firm, even one that constantly tries to update its methods.
Tech companies are always in danger of facing what Intel chairman Andy Grove calls a "10X change" -- something that so completely reorders the business landscape that failure to adjust will wipe you out. That's why, if you can, you keep a big pile of cash around, or even go into debt if need be, to protect yourself against the unseen.
Conversely, when he was chairman of the freight company CSX, Treasury Secretary John Snow did not have to worry about waking up one morning to find that someone had laid duplicate track next to his and was running trains twice as fast at half the cost. Nor did he fret that alien hovercraft technology would render railroads obsolete -- at least, as far as we can tell he didn't.
The tech lobby is starting to grumble that the White House just doesn't understand that this tax package doesn't do much for the sector hit the hardest by the economic slowdown. It's still early, but the tax plan is picking up an awful lot of flak from places that need to support it for it to become law.
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/brucebartlett/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A24700-2003Jan7?language=printer
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A44154-2003Jan11?language=printer
Do we need settlements in District of Columbia? Should we subsidize brave souls to scratch out a living amongst national monuments, parking tickets, and oppressive security?
D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams wants to add 100,000 residents to the District's population over the next 10 years. He compares this, in terms of its importance, to the 1969 moon shot.
D.C.'s population has been in steady decline for decades. Iit now stands at about 570,000, after losing almost 6 percent of residents from 1990 to 2000. The nation's capital now ranks 21st in population, trailing such places as Jacksonville and Memphis.
You'd think Williams would look at the relative lack of crowding in the city as a plus, with land and property available for better, more profitable uses than just housing. But the mayor has an almost Maoist obsession with sheer manpower -- with the notion that, given enough bodies, anything can be done. Not to mention the idea that a few thousand more city residents would bring along millions more in federal aid and a similar amount in increased tax collections.
The only way Williams will be able to attract people -- absent outright bribery -- is by fixing the city's chronic infrastructure and mismanagement problems, problems which do not require yet more money to repair.
If he can't do it, maybe the District is better off as a kind of ghost town -- like an old mining or railroad town whose heyday receded long ago.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A47680-2003Jan12?language=printer
Quote of the Week
"I am stepping down, but not walking away. I still believe the merger was a good idea for AOL and Time Warner even though I understand the conventional wisdom at this moment is otherwise." --Steve Case, on his departure as chairman of AOL Time Warner.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A47321-2003Jan12?language=printer
Odor Offense
Politicians in Bend, Oregon, plan to legislate smelly people off of city buses. "If the odor is offensive enough, it can constitute a safety hazard because it distracts the driver," one official explains.
http://news.statesmanjournal.com/article.cfm?i=54836
Rub Down
Amtrak riders in California can purchase dollar-a-minute neck and shoulder massages. Keep adding body parts, and Amtrak may finally turn a profit.
http://www.abcnews.go.com/wire/US/ap20030113_382.html
Media Player Haters
With its latest version of Media Player, is Microsoft trying to force consumers to adopt its own formats? Or is it giving users a better product for less money?
http://web.morons.org/article.jsp?sectionid=1&id=2708
Case Closed?
DNA testing has evidently IDed the killer of singer Mia Zapata. Zapata and her band the Gits ruled the Seattle punk scene in 1993 until she was found dead.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/134614024_zapata12m.html
http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&uid=8:49:17|AM&sql=Bstfm962o3epo~C
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