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[Bauglir]

Perhaps world's least sober group brainstorming session?  Something indicating group effort.

That is an important consideration, but I feel like it needs to be balanced against the need to avoid portraying Congress as having the collective brainpower of more than one, extremely intoxicated, person.

[Angle]

The EFF are a pretty vile special interest group, after all.

What's wrong with the EFF?

[Sensei]

That was sarcasm, in reference to:

In other news the practice of special interest groups spreading misinformation is alive and well.

[GreatJustice]

The waters of the Net Neutrality debate have been muddied by the messy state of the American telecom industry from the start. For one thing, a lot of states and municipalities pass laws that make it exceedingly hard to compete with established telecom companies, or else just straight up give one company a monopoly (usually for some kind of side benefit, like "we give you a monopoly and you give our schools unlimited bandwidth"). If this wasn't the case, NN wouldn't be an issue since competition would drive companies that engaged in throttling into irrelevancy.

Now, the idea of Net Neutrality itself seems simple enough, but it really is more complicated than it looks. For one thing, what constitutes actual "Net Neutrality" tends to be very vague, and thus it opens up a can of worms with regards to regulation. For example, in Slovenia, providers are punished for bundling free services, for example, providing a free pseudo-DropBox to customers. Classifying ISPs as a "utility" also leaves a lot of questions, considering how competitive other "utilities" tend to be. The rules were 300 pages long, it seems a bit naive to assume it's quite so simple as it appears.

[Frumple]

*waggles hand* About as naive as

NN wouldn't be an issue since competition would drive companies that engaged in throttling into irrelevancy.

that.

Well. Except not, because net neutrality and the FCC rulings are kinda' different things, even if the latter is being purported to support the former. That there's something swiggly in the ruling is a fairly safe bet, though, sure. Seems at the moment to at least be better than the alternative that was (well, to be fair, still is, because the companies wanting this are going to keep sporadically fighting for it basically forever) rapidly approaching, for what that's worth.

[misko27]

The EFF are a pretty vile special interest group, after all.

A general reminder that no matter how benevolent or malevolent an individual or group of individuals may be, their arguments are not more or less valid by token of their arguers morals. Zombie-Hitler might not approve of Net Neutrality (Zombie Stalin might be a fan, although he'd probably want to see the details first to figure out how it affects his zombie commune), but that really doesn't actually affect anything.

Also, in great big panicky headline style: John Boehner Fails Again. The House rejected a three-week exstention, dealing a nasty blow to Boehner and opening up the prospect of a shutdown. The current Plan B is, well, a one-week extension (which some members, surprisingly, seem to have an objection to, on the grounds of "Oh you can't be serious"). It's due tonight, so there are a lot of workers at risk here, and not even one of those workers is part of Citizen and Immigration Services, the agency at the heart of the crisis, since that is entirely self-funded. Since the DHS is largely considered "essential" (the government considers the Secret Service, the Coast Guard, Border and Customs, TSA, and FEMA essential, along with a whole bunch of other things), those workers are going without pay for a while if funding is cut, while about 30,000 of their 230,000 employees would be furloughed.

Edit: And now it's back again. One-week extension. This will be interesting. So, speculation: How will this affect the Republication nominees? Most of them are not directly linked the Federal government, coming from state-level positions, but surely they must have an opinion.

[SalmonGod]

Well. Except not, because net neutrality and the FCC rulings are kinda' different things, even if the latter is being purported to support the former. That there's something swiggly in the ruling is a fairly safe bet, though, sure. Seems at the moment to at least be better than the alternative that was (well, to be fair, still is, because the companies wanting this are going to keep sporadically fighting for it basically forever) rapidly approaching, for what that's worth.

This is what I've been thinking ever since the news broke.  I've seen so many victory statements from defenders of the internet, but it's not over.  It won't be over until the incentives to control the internet in such a fashion and/or companies in a position to take advantage of the opportunity cease to exist.

[misko27]

Wait.

They rejected the fucking thing? The extension? Just... ugh, this is just reaching levels of head-smashing-into-walls, and I don't mean my head.

It's okay. They compromised the compromise. It's now a one-week extension. In exchange for not further humiliating Boehner, Democrats say Boehner promised to have a extension until September ready when the one-week is ready to expire, assuming the Senate acts (and the Senate has been relatively civil, so it's in Boehner's court here).

[FearfulJesuit]

This isn't a sustainable pattern- something's going to really shut down before long. Remember, we're not even two months into the new Congress.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

May chaos reign.

[FearfulJesuit]

[Angle]

VOTE REPUBLICAN:

BURN THE WORLD DOWN!

[smjjames]

This isn't a sustainable pattern- something's going to really shut down before long. Remember, we're not even two months into the new Congress.

Not to mention that with the ISIS threat, it's COMPLETELY the wrong time to shut DHS down.

Anybody know when the next debt showdown is coming up?

[FearfulJesuit]

Locking to protect against spambots.

EDIT: All hail the Toad.

[Bauglir]

What, the one thread it would've been on-topic in? Bah. In truth I completely support your decision and applaud your swift action.