First, Australia announces $31 billion to build a massive fiber optic network across the country, aiming to give 90 percent of its citizens 100 megabits of speed by 2018.  The UK is much more conservative spending $366 million for universal broadband of 2 megabits by 2012. Even Estonia is devoting $374 million for 100 megabit broadband by 2015.

In the midst of an economic crisis, these countries are throwing around heaps of money, to spread the internet to all corners.  Maybe they recognize the value having a connected populous can be, like telephone and power lines were almost a century ago.

Unfortunately, the U.S. still treats broadband like an afterthought rather than a priority. President Obama has stated national broadband is important, but the longer we wait, the farther ahead other countries get building up their infrastructure, taking away the technological advantages the U.S. has in the increasingly competitive world.

What’s worse, is easy fixes are ignored in place of bad policy and even worse corporate irresponsibility.  Time Warner Cable pulled back on plans to implement metered price plans for broadband, and now is pulling back on plans to increase capability – something that would improve value and thus increase their subscriptions.

Further, Time Warner Cable, again, is lobbying Wilson, North Carolina to block municipal broadband.  Time Warner Cable is trying to pass a bill banning municipal broadband, similar to the bills its and other ISPs have passed in more than a dozen states.  Why municipal broadband has to be banned isn’t clear since in a free market economy, competition is considered healthy.  The town just wants to offer its citizens what Time Warner refuses to provide.

Last week I wrote about using bailout money to fund start-ups rather than supporting already failing companies. Leave it to Techdirt’s Michael Masnick to show how short my post fell.

Obama’s bailout plan, as he says, is focused strictly on creating jobs as quickly as possible.  But truly successful start-ups create jobs slowly. And if they’re truly revolutionary, they even destroy the need for other jobs.  Masnick explains this:

So, think about it from a government bureaucrat’s perspective right now. Go back a few decades, and assume someone came to you with a plan to create the internet — and even accurately described how it would allow a great free exchange of information. The reaction, if you were trying to deal with an economic crisis, would be to focus on all of the jobs it upset. People can share music online? Think of all the job losses in the music industry! People can read news for free? Think of all those newspapers shutting down! But they wouldn’t consider all of the economic activity created by the internet — the billions of dollars and millions of new jobs created thanks to it.

The internet makes so many things easier, it makes those jobs obsolete, but doing so, it opens up millions of new jobs over the long-term.  It takes more jobs to make cars than it did to make and sell a horse and buggy.  Bailing out incumbent companies prevents the risk-taking and innovation that will create the next industry. It’s short-term thinking that is, part, of the same problem Wall Street got into. When all you think about it the quarterly job report, sustainable economic growth is always another quarter behind.

As the stimulus package meandering its way through Congress, the good parts seem to get lost on the way.  $2 billion for rural broadband development has been removed showing its not as much of a priority as more tax cuts. This may not be a bad thing.

I have issue with broadband being mashed up in the stimulus (I have problems with the stimulus itself, but that’s another post). President Obama claims the money is meant to create jobs more than expand broadband, but why one and not the other?  Especially when the jobs research he’s basing this on is out-of-date?  The stimulus version of broadband looks more like a payoff to the current telecommunications players who’ve been unmotivated to spread broadband themselves (some even actively preventing it).

The United States is ranked 15th in broadband adoption with significantly slower speeds for more money. We need a real, long term broadband strategy, like Japan, where money is offered to companies who produce results.  I’d say this should apply to all government money (it doesn’t), but one step at a time. The government should offer low-interest loans and grants for broadband rollout proposals. Companies need to compete for this money and know they only get paid with results. We can even use the contractor rules - a third to start, a third in the middle, and a third at the end. This way the money isn’t just given to incumbent players with a history of not doing anything (hence why we’re 15th in broadband).

With government money tied to actual results, companies have to produce results - and those results are likely more jobs and a better standard of living for those with new broadband connections. And because of the government assistance, the price of the broadband will (should) be cheaper. Further, by not relying on tax breaks, like Obama’s proposal, grants and low-interest loans provide capital to encourage new players in the industry.  The lack of competition leads to more problems than obsolete technology.

Promising huge payouts to companies isn’t stimulus and it isn’t strategy. Let’s do broadband strategy better than we’re fixing our banks.

A popular example of the power of remix culture and transformative uses of artwork has been the popular image of President Barack Obama. The Obama “HOPE” portrait by Shepard Fairey has been become a popular symbol of the president, splashed on everything from t-shirts to books by dozens of different groups, all without Fairey demanding compensation.

Fairey based the Obama picture of an image he found on Google Image Search in November of 2008 and printed a bunch of posters. It took the internet army to find the inspiration.  The picture was traced to an Associated Press photo by Manny Garcia (with some debate, one website thinks the picture is from Reuters).

Just yesterday, the Associated Press announced it was looking into legal action against the artist.  It took three months for the news wire to even recognize the art was based on their photo and likely based their response on the conclusion of internet researchers doing their work for them.  Fairey claims his artwork is a fair use exception to the AP’s copyright. This isn’t the first time AP has abuse copyright.

The “HOPE’” portrait is an obvious transformative work, so transformative the AP didn’t recognize it until other people pointed it out. Transformative works are recognized fair use under the law.  What transformative means is up for debate, though, leaving the picture in legal limbo until the courts hash it out. The Supreme Court helped define transformative in Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc. as:

The enquiry focuses on whether the new work merely supersedes the objects of the original creation, or whether and to what extent it is “transformative,” altering the original with new expression, meaning, or message. The more transformative the new work, the less will be the significance of other factors, like commercialism, that may weigh against a finding of fair use.

The “HOPE” poster completely transformed the expression, meaning, and message of the original press conference photo. That’s fair use and hopefully the AP gets told so by the courts.

Shockingly, the AP is taking legal action after the artist has been getting tons of press and attention because of his own freedom with copyright, allowing others to repurpose this image for causes. He even went on the Colbert Report talking about how he’s embracing remix culture, letting others make money on the poster while he gets the name recognition to sell other art (he did get on Colbert, one of my dreams).  AP’s attempt to control the copyright would limit the creative potential of the photo – potential AP obviously never saw but Fairey did.  How’s that for transformative.

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I wanted to take my time reacting to the landmark presidential election that came to a close this week.  It’s hard for someone my age to truly comprehend the monumental impact of Obama’s win for race relations in the U.S. and around the world.  This is because I never looked or thought about Obama’s race.  For many of my friends, Obama was a youthful, exciting symbol of a generation.  The comparisons the John F. Kennedy speak volumes. I recognize JFK’s legacy not for policy, but for how he inspired the nation.  He gave the country goals, to work to make the country better and even tangibly putting a man on the moon.  The result was a generation excited by science and lofty goals that have build the economic powerhouse we are today.

I hope Obama can give us new goals.  It’s not simply about policy: Rhetoric matters.  Obama can pass better healthcare and fund green technologies, but unless the country comes together to be healthier and live greener, neither proposal is going to succeed.

Unfortunately, during the campaign, no one asked what does change mean? How will we know if things have changed? Will they have changed for the better? I and many others assumed the change Obama was speaking to meant the same thing (he’s still a brilliant politician). Obviously corruption and partisanship are bad, but is fixing that enough (assuming that’s possible). Obama’s victory speech spoke volumes about how hard things will be – it’s likely to get worse before it gets better. He’s won now, I’d hope for even more honesty and candor.

Being honest doesn’t have to destroy the hope he symbolizes. In fact, that makes the hope so much greater – there’s a light at the end of the recession. That light won’t come from bailouts (contrary to what other politicians say). It’ll come from calm, cool heads prevailing and bringing sanity back to the financial system.  See why we need hope?

Everyone has expectations for what Obama will fix in office – years of Bush bashing policies cleaned and refurbished with a nice, liberal sheen. Maybe I’m setting my sights to low, but I mainly hope Obama keeps that hope going.  Keep the U.S. and the world optimistic. He’s a symbol that anyone can succeed and that’s an image the world needs now. It’s the irony of hope – you always need it, because so much can happen tomorrow. So bring on tomorrow. We’ve got hope.

Like a 14.4k modem, broadband is crawling into the nation debate as an actual issue. Barack Obama reminded voters of his plan to use tax money to expand broadband lines to rural areas (where the government is almost discouraging expansion), though John McCain disagrees. Also, the Senate passed a bill on Friday to improve broadband competition. The bill just scratches the surface, adding a question on internet access to the Census and charging the FCC to gather data on telecommunication services annually. A similar bill passed the House last year.

Obviously this bill does very little and I’d love if Obama would push this broadband agenda which, along with green energy, are growing markets that would create jobs, capital, and innovation. Plus it’s an issue McCain doesn’t even know exists. Except when he invented that Blackberry Obama loves so much.

Last night’s Daily Show reveal the news media’s true goal this election cycle - to make it never end. Asif Mandvi had his fingers crossed as Hillary Clinton, on the night Obama won enough delegates to claim the nomination, refused to concede defeat. If she ends her campaign, how will three 24-hour news channels fill up their time?

This entire primary season has been an effort in futility for anyone seeking information. Beyond the wasted time on out of context quotes, inflammatory relationships, and flag pins, the media punditry has desperately tried to frame this election as a horse race where if you turn away for a second, you’ll miss the crucial turning point. The result has been a ratings boon for the cable networks, with CNN seeing 90 percent increases over last year’s first quarter. MSBNC grew 68 percent. Fox News hasn’t benefited as much, with a 14 percent increase. The Democratic candidates had shut out the station from interviews until Hillary Clinton went on Bill O’Reilly’s show, giving his show a 30 percent boost in total viewers.

The 24-hour news networks relied on the image of a close race to build its ratings and are continuing the mirage heading into the general election. I don’t mean to say Hillary Clinton and John McCain had/have no chance of winning, but the odds were/are so against them. The media knows a close race is better television than a sure thing and that is causing them to be unobjective in their reporting, often overblowing non-issues in the hopes that flag pins and Reverend Wright would keep the race going.

The general election looks be a Democratic landslide even as polls show Obama and McCain are in a statistical dead heat. These polls do not account for a unified Democratic party, one this split between rabid Clinton and Obama supporters who, very likely, have no intention of voting for anti-abortion, pro-war Republican McCain even though they say so now in polls. McCain has already collected support his primary challengers just as Obama will once Clinton accepts her 2nd place finish. The result will be an unprecedented coalition of the two biggest voter and fundraising networks in history, a network McCain can’t catch up to even if he didn’t have a fundraising issue.

The other point ignored by polls is that the electoral college counts, popular vote doesn’t. I think the popular vote will end up close between Obama and McCain. The electoral college will be a Democratic landslide benefited by anti-war and anti-Republican sentiments, McCain’s lackluster appeal to hard conservatives, and Obama’s massive appeal to the youth and African-Americans. Democratic wins of special elections in Illinois (Dennis Hastert, former speaker of the house’s seat), Louisiana, and Mississippi (Trent Lott’s seat former seat), by sizeable margins spell doom for Republicans. McCain might toy with winning states like New Jersey, Michigan, and New York, but he has to hold prior swing states like Ohio, Florida, and Iowa while playing defensive in Virginia, North Carolina, Nevada, New Mexico, and in optimistic circles, Louisiana, Georgia, South Carolina, Kansas, Montana, and Texas. Short of an Obama imposition, it’s impossible to see an electoral scenario where McCain can win.

But the news media doesn’t want to entertain electoral math. It’s more fun to pretend Obama has a white problem (how many African American’s live in Montana, Iowa, and Wisconsin?) or highlight how much independents love McCain. It keeps the race looking closer than it really is.

I don’t want CNN to call the race for Obama or ignore McCain as an also-ran. Their responsibility should be to inform us of the facts of the campaign - who did what when and why. What if questions or conjecture have no place in objective journalism. Blogs, on the other hand, can go conjecture crazy. Without some source for objective, investigative reporting on both candidates, this election is going to once again defined by talking points, 527-organization, and out-of-context crap that doesn’t matter. Change and leaders we can believe in requires a media to change and lead.

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Another primary, another exit poll, and more pundits proclaiming the what ifs that have yet to become reality.  Mississippi voted yesterday and its sizeable black population gave Barack Obama a sizeable win.  But his modest turnout of white votes are once again giving pundits pause.

I ask why?  Time.com’s Michael Duffy writes "Only a Democrat who could win 35 to 40 percent of the white vote, while holding onto a lopsided percentage of blacks, could put the state in play in a head to head match with a Republican in the fall" saying Obama’s 30 percent of the white vote falls short.

But politics is not a zero-sum game.  White votes for Clinton do not instantly transfer to John McCain in the general election, just like Clinton’s wins in swing states Ohio do not mean only she is allowed to win it come November.  Exit polls in Ohio showed 44 percent would be satisfied with either candidate.  50 percent of them voted for Clinton.

Also, exit polls are showing just how hard it is to predict some states and voting groups.  Obama faired poorly with whites in Mississippi and Ohio but won the white vote in the larger Virginia, a once solid Republican state that will be a major swing this year.  And how many black people voted in Iowa and Wisconsin?

This election cycle has simply proved how little all the pundits (including myself) can know and predict.  But that hasn’t stopped the predicting and analysis which is captivated by the fight at hand without considering how things we didn’t predict will change everything else.  And remember votes don’t disappear after they’re cast.  We get to do this all over again in November.  I can’t wait.

I had avoided watching political debates this cycle mostly because I hate the canned rhetoric and lack of real debate. The rules are so strictly prepared by the candidates, the debates are in my cynical opinion, a badly scripted reality show. But I caved Tuesday and watched the debate on MSNBC.

While the debated seemed one notch above reality TV (a game show maybe), I found both Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama engaging. It was the moderating journalists that looked like idiots.

NBC Nightly News host Brian Williams and Meet the Press host Tim Russert went back and forth in a subtle battle for who could ask the least relevant question.

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From superdelegates to no delegates to switching delegates, Democrats are facing an uncertain primary season where anything can happen.  And that’s not a good thing.

Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama continue their heated campaign that is unlikely to be resolved before the convention this summer.  That time leaves many questions about the Democratic Party’s primary process and how democratic it really is.  If the candidate who wins the popular vote doesn’t win the nomination, how credible can the Democratic Party be?

Several issues plague the Democratic nominees.  Each issue leads to a situation where questionable politics would result in a questionable nominee.  After two elections where Democrats watched Republicans manipulate and possibly suppressed the vote, Democrats risk doing the same to their own primary.  The winner of this doesn’t become president - he or she gets to run for president.  If the chosen nominee doesn’t win the popular vote, Democrats will lose all credibility to criticize Republican election tactics and worse, reveal that they are so inept at leading, they can’t run their own party.

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