Bush may have had it right...

funny, i saw the same report on the news and it also said that many of the events reported may have happened anyway no matter what we had done.

that is what i choose to believe. just as clinton had nothing to do with the record growth in the economy, (the advent of home computers is what caused the prosperity we enjoyed in the 90's) bush had nothing to do with what is going on in the world and if he claims to have had a hand in anything, its simply just spin.

most of the changes had to do with deaths and assignnations anyway. soooo, is he claiming to behind that too?

 

David:

You bring up a good point.

Politicians are natural at spin, sometimes taking it to extremes. So they will almost always take credit for things they had nothing - or at most incidental involvement - to do with.

They will also remain silent when bad things happen, or blame the previous administration. "See no Evil, Hear no Evil, and Speak no Evil."

I would think that most fiscal/policy decisions have a time delay of 3-6 years anyway. So even a two-term President will barely see what the true effects of his policy are.

Given how the attention span of the average person is now bordering on ADD, this opens up some *very* interesting long-term consequences.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(jayman\";p=\"70970)</div>

IMHO, China can only succeed in making the 21st century "theirs" by empowering their common people.

That's the key that sets the 20th century apart from every other century. That's what happened in the USA. If China insists on maintaining "absolute control", there is no way they can make it like the USA did.
And over the last 25 years, China has come a long way. Yes, they have a long way to go, but they are making progress.

Even the USA took 125 years to "empower" it's common people. Remember, the US Constitution was written to protect the interests of white, male property owners. If you weren't ALL 3, you could not vote. It took Lincoln to get this country to contemplate the concept that that constitution applied to us all, and it took another 75 years to apply to woman and another 90 to apply to blacks. And then it took Teddy Roosevelt and then Woodrow Wilson to get the process started to start limiting the absolute power of those propety owners. FDR then accelerated that process and this country just took off.

As the 20th century progressed in this country, those who were the rich and powerful found themselves actually paying real taxes for this first time in history, and they were no longer free to make use of the common people in any way they wanted like they always had.

In 1900, if employees tried to exert their rights against those that were rich and powerful, the police might be called to crack thier heads. By 1930 when the police got called, it was to protect the rights of those employees. This is just one tiny example of the empowering of the common man that I 've been talking about. It was the hallmark of the 20th century and it was the hallmark of the largest growth in prosperity in world history.
China can't do it without that empowerment and that totally conflicts with "absolute" control".

There is another way to prosperity for a society but it's very dangerous. It's called fascism. Hitler turned Germany around in just 10 years through massive government spending, super patriotism and his own version of the Patriot Act. Scapegoating was also major factor in his success. (Then it was the Jews, now could it be gays? Liberals? Activist judges? Democrats? The French?)

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(DaveinOlyWA\";p=\"70999)</div>

I'm also not sure Clinton can get that credit, but you can't just credit home computers. Those same computers were for sale all across Europe. Did Europe have that same sustained growth? So there must have been something else going on.

I'd like to make another point. Supposedly our economy is now doing better and we are being told that it is Bush's tax cuts. Yet it took 3 1/2 years for this to take effect, and in 1993 the USA had one of the biggest tax increases in US history and then proceeded to have 7 years of sustained growth. So which is it? Tax increases lead to growth or tax cuts? I would suggest maybe neither. Maybe tax policy and it's affect on the economy is a lot more complicated than that.

 

europe WAS NOT responsible for creating the computers, WE WERE. that is why WE benefited from it.

and yes computers can be the blame for the economic growth we experienced. they alone were responsible for nearly a 10% increase in our GDP. that was huge!!

whats more is that it also helped to bolster several other industries.

so no clinton had nothing to do with the upturn in the economy despite his best efforts to derail it. and on another but related note... al gore had nothing to do with the success of the internet. he was however, instrumental in letting the big 3 off the hook when he agreed to relax CAFE standards without getting a concrete agreement to pursue hybrid vehicles.

 

The computers that I was referring to were the ones created in America, not created in Europe. I never said they were created there. But they were for sale all across Europe. All I'm saying is that if an item is in two places, one thrives and the other doesn't, the reason for the thriving can't be the item.

As for Al Gore, the two men who are widely credited with having created the internet have been quoted as saying that the single biggest helper that the technology had was a certain Congressman from Tennesee. So I think your suggestion that he had NOTHING to do with the success of the internet is a bit overstated.

 

Here is a link to a letter written by V.Cerf and B.Kahn. These are the two men who are widely credited as being the "creators" of the internet.

http://www.politechbot.com/p-01394.html

If you put this in a google search, you can see just how many citations to Gores invaluable assistance in the creation of the internet. Gore made a bit of an overstatement many years ago when he mentioned his role, but he did not lie. Indeed, from those that know the truth, the gist of what he said was quite accurate, though overstated.

"Robert Kahn" "Vinton Cerf" "al gore"

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(prius04\";p=\"71028)</div>

Sorry, but I very much doubt the Communist leaders in China will allow their slaves - I mean "citizens" - to be empowered. China already has massive economic growth and is well on their way to owning the 21st century.

The last time people in China tried to ask for a few "rights" that we take for granted, including a protest in Tiananmen Square in 1989, the Army fired up their tanks and turned a few protestors into human waffles.

Literally flat as a pancake.

Ironically, Tiananmen Square is also known as "The Gate Of Heavenly Peace." Interesting word play there.

The Communist Chinese government has hit upon a "secret recipe" for massively growing their economy: absolute control over the people, absolute control over all factors of production, absolute control over the media (Eg: the "great firewall of China"), and absolute control over the economy.

We have fallen for it hook, line, and sinker.

Why should a North American manufacturer bother to make something in the United States or Canada? You have to deal with EPA/MOE, labor unions, payroll taxes (FICA, etc), local ordnances, etc etc. Just the high wages alone are crippling.

In China, you don't have to give a rat's a** about environmental protection, labor unions, labor laws, or taxes. As long as you pay your little bribe to the Communist official, you can employ malnourished 12 year olds and nobody will care.

Why do you think a lot of IC's are made there? In IC production, you have to deal with some pretty nasty heavy metals like Cadmium and Arsenic. Really toxic stuff with a lot of controls especially in the United States with EPA. In China, just dump the s*** in the nearest river.

It's obvious China wants to push the frontiers of their absolute control, such as their recently veiled threat to Taiwan if it tries to leave.

So China will "empower" their people? Yeah, right ...

 

As far as “inventing†the Internet vs “expanding†the Internet, let’s back up a step or two.

The Internet started off as ARPANet in 1969. At first, there were 4 nodes: University of California at Santa Barbara, UCLA, Stanford, and University of Utah. This was in response to the needs for a robust and survivable military network eg in the event of surprise Russian nuclear attack.

Most of the equipment was dreamed up at BBN (Bolt, Beranek, and Newman) including the IMP (Interface Message Processor). This work built on efforts of Licklider and Kleinrock at MIT in the early 60’s.

An early version of what we now call Ethernet, with GUI and OOP, existed in Palo Alto in the 70’s. It was developed by Xerox PARC (Palo Alto Research Center) and a young whippersnapper by the name of Steve Jobs was *really* impressed by a demonstration.

A somewhat disillusioned Xerox PARC employee went on to start his own company: Bob Metcalfe and 3Com. The rest, as the saying goes, is history.

By the late 80’s, for an American University to receive NSF (National Science Foundation) grants/funds, they *had* to provide equal computer access to all students and faculty.

http://www.isoc.org/internet/history/brief...f.shtml#Origins

One can argue that if Gore had not pushed for expanding Internet connectivity, it may only have delayed the initial explosion of Internet growth. As far as the “growth†of the Internet, the Dot Com bubble that burst wiped out a lot of jobs and savings.

I think we need to do a *lot* more in the realm of connectivity. We still have large monopolistic telecomm companies, especially here in Canada, that require the vast majority of customers to put up with dial-up or low-speed DSL. The few communities in the United States that have tried to pursue their own fiber optic networks have been sued by the same large monopolistic telecomm companies.

Yet at the same time, we are funding direct fiber optic networks in places like India, China, and South Korea. Especially the Canadian Crown Corporations EDC (Export Development Corporation) and CIDA (Canadian International Development Agency) which have put tens of billions of Canadian taxpayer dollars into this while expecting the average Canadian to make do with dial-up or low speed DSL:

http://www.probeinternational.org

I noticed the link you provided for Cerf was written while he was at WorldCom. I hope he wasn’t in any way caught up in the WorldCom bulls***.

 

I never said China would empower their masses. I said that if China wants to make the 21st century "theirs", they have to empower their masses like the US did to theirs in the 20th century. If they don't empower their masses, they won't be much more than the world's factory. Freedom is the key. (But not "lassaiez faire" freedom.)



And as for Gore's contribution to the internet, I defer to the experts in the field. And any google search on those experts will find that those experts give Gore a lot of credit. The fact that others had an affect or a bigger affect does not negate the fact that those who are widely credited with being the major players in the creation of the internet give Gore a lot of credit.

And by expert I exclude anyone with a political agenda and include only those who are amoung the techno-cogniscenti.

 

I'm glad you clarified that.

First of all, if China becomes - as you put it - the world's factory, won't the 21st century be "theirs" anyway? It's a wonderful combination: absolute power over their people, and a majority of the worlds productive output.

As far as Gore, ok I looked it up:

http://www.sethf.com/gore

http://www.snopes.com/quotes/internet.htm

The above appears to apologize for Gore. I really don't like that. I like Dubya myself, but I would never apologize for anything he did. Make a mistake, take it like a man.

http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0%2C128...18390%2C00.html

Vince Cerf is a smart fellow, though I have to wonder if he was hedging his bets on Gore wining the election and *perhaps* getting a nice posting. Well, it didn't work out that way.

As far as the subject of ubiquitous high-speed Internet access, we need to do tons more than what we are doing right now. Remember that according to Newton's Telecom Dictionary, "broadband" refers to 45 MB/s or faster. Those are T3 speeds.

As long as we have big fat dumb telco's dictating our rate of progress, we'll forever be stuck with ancient copper lines running into our homes. Of course, the big fat dumb telco's have a vested interest to spoonfeed us technology, as they don't want to admit their copper Last Mile infrastructure is about as modern as a Model T.

I really hope all-fiber becomes a reality but the enormous legal resources of the big fat dumb telco's may very well prevent that. Their motto: "if we can't do it, then nobody should do it."

I'm hopeful that when I move back to Utah I can take part in the following network:

http://www.utopianet.org

An all-fiber network is the next logical extension to the Internet. It will be incredibly expensive, but when you figure the $20 billion yearly here in Canada that is given to EDC and CIDA, within 3 years Canada would have fiber optics to every home.

It's just a question of priority, isn't it?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(prius04\";p=\"71033)</div>

No, they did not. Nobody did. Hmmmm. Much like how the Liberal Party of Canada claims to be the only government on planet Earth with a budget surplus. Hmmmm.

I think what is going on is that a lot of that economic "growth" was hocus-pocus. I had friends involved in Dot Com companies before the bubble burst, and they all tell me it was the biggest hoax of all. They're ashamed to have been involved in what amounted to a shell game.

Before you damn me to eternal hellfire for mentioning that, look at how Enron "grew" in the 90's. It rose to the very top, all based on a lie. As we still wade through the mess left by *that* one-time star company, we should realize the vast majority of that company was pure hocus-pocus.

But for the past what now, 20 years?, over 2/3 of our GDP was based on credit. So I guess it was all hocus-pocus voodoo accounting. That would be a good Senior Level accounting class: #478 Voo Doo Accounting: Enron 1; #479 Voo Doo Accounting: Enron 2.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(jayman\";p=\"71294)</div>

The 20th century was not the "American century" because the US became the worlds factory. I think we are defining what that miracle consists of differently. It wasn't the production, it was the prosperity. That led to better education, that led to more kids in college, that led to more inventions and creations, that led to more production, that led to better health, that led to more cultural opportunities, that led to more exploration, that led to more research, that led to more science, that led to more education, that etc etc etc. The American 19th century is a good example of when you focus on production, or at least the last 25 years of the 19th century. Lots of production, but not a whole lot of progress for the masses. But the American 20th century was so much more than that. And the difference was that American's went from being "producers and workers", and they then -- at least started to -- become masters of their own destinations.

And in my opinion, that occured because the masses were empowered by things like progressive taxation, government regulation that limited how much you could get screwed by the rich and powerful, government programs, Unionization, unemployment compensation, Social security, the GI bill, Home loan programs etc etc etc.

My definition of what makes a century successful for a people is ALL of those things. Yes, I suspect China could be great producers if they mobilize and produce. But that will not result in success for China. That will only occur if China REMOVES absolute control.

And those programs above? Most of them came about during the time when the Democrats were in charge.

Again, empower corporations and get 19th century progress rates. Go ahead and build a society of workers. To do that, vote Republican and we go back to lassaiz faire capitalism.

But if you want 20th century progress rates that go way beyond just being a worker, you need to empower the masses. And lassaiz faire capitalism won't do that. Socialism won't do that, communism won't do that, fascism won't do that. Only "controlled capitalism" will do that. "Controlled capitalism" is a mixture between socialism and capitalism. Today in America that is a horrible thing to say, but IMHO, I think that the 20th century proved it to be true. Yes, mistakes were made, but oh were the successes grand.

But it's over. The corporate media has turned the tide in favor of the rich and powerful. And they've got 50 million believers in America. They won and people like me lost. And I suspect in 2006 they will win again because boy are they good at obfuscating what they are really about. I accept that. But because of that, I fear what this country will become. We will go back to being just workers for the masters.

And when I see media like Fox News and canadafreepress.com taking hold in Canada, I fear for Canada too. The corporate masters are everywhere. and they are winning. And with Bush, they are winning beyond their wildest dreams.

 

Do people still try to believe in the vast right wing corporate conspircy...how gauche.

 

im sorry but i still consider al gores contributions to the success of the internet to be miniscule at best.

he simply recognized the obvious and jumped on a rather large bandwagon and tooted his horn a bit louder than the rest. his being vice-president helped that matter but his ideas were not revolutionary or new.

i would easily promote people like Bill Gates and Andy Grove WAAAAY before i give gore any credit at all

and yes i know, microsoft got into the game a little late and the ball was rolling pretty good by then but to say it was because of gore...sorry aint no way i be convinced of that

also we talk of computers invented, licensed and distributed in the US, from the US and wonder why europe didnt prosper? why should they? they had to buy it all from us. obviously profits would be much less for what is basically a 3rd party reseller than it is for the company that invented and controlled the technology. with nearly all the major players in the US , its easy to see why the US prospered and europe didnt.

 

Al Gores contribution to the internet was when he was a congressman from Tennessee a decade before he was VP.

He never said it was when he was VP. You are right in that by the time he was VP, the internet was well on his way.

Bill Gates' contribution to the internet is much more accurately miniscule.

And I'm not saying it, those who know such things are.

 

Sounds nice, but with the number of cancelled board meetings, it looks like you may have a few more years to wait.

Scheduled meeting dates for UTOPIA as follows:
January 31, 2005*
February 14, 2005 Cancelled
March 14, 2005 Cancelled
April 13, 2005**

Or, You could always move to Sacramento and get your fiber to the home now.

SureWest
10Mbps symmetrical, $50 per month.

 

Patrick:

I'm afraid you're right. They're facing a lot of legal challenges from the big fat telco Qwest. So it may implode. Too bad the FCC can't force the ILEC's to put in fiber. I like what Verizon is doing with FIOS.

If Sacramento isn't to my liking, there is always Grant County, WA.

http://www.gcpud.org/zipp.htm

Though it looks like they've hit a brick wall too

 

David:

I agree. The widespread and rapid deployment of the www was inevitable.

 

Stan:

Hmmm, I always thought there was a vast left wing media conspiracy. Now it appears to have become a vast right wing media conspiracy.

Geez things change overnight1