And the present Internet network operators -- principally large telephone and cable companies -- have an economic incentive to extend their control over the physical infrastructure of the network to leverage control of Internet content.
Honestly, this has the same level of economic sophistication as pre-WWII arguments about Jewish bankers causing WWI.
What "economic incentive" do large telephone and cable companies have to "leverage" (whatever that means) control of internet content? Don't cable companies compete with phone companies for broadband customers? How about satellite providers? Are we to understand they're all in a secret conspiracy?
And yes -- just by the way -- given recent talk about re-instituting the fairness doctrine as a way of eliminating conservative talk radio, are we really to believe that government has less of an incentive to "leverage" control of internet content than does the private sector?
Let's bring the debate to whether the 0.6 (degree Celsius warming over the last century) is much or little, how much Man has contributed to the warming and ... if there is anything at all Man can do about it...The approach of environmentalists toward nature is similar to the Marxist approach to economic rules, because they also try to replace free spontaneity of the evolution of the world (and of mankind) with ... global planning of the world's development...
He might have added another feature shared by Marxism and environmentalism: loud insistence they be obeyed without question because they're based on capital-S-Science!
And where Royal won by almost 3 to 2 among public-sector workers (she also carried students and the unemployed), she lost private-sector workers (as well as the retired). The left can't win without a better showing among workers in the private economy.
Yo, E.J., listen up: what do the chronically unemployed, public-sector workers, and students have in common as compared with the rest of us?
Can it be they don't produce anything, they don't generate anything of value to others, and they never did?
While the unrest has been small-scale, it sent a message to Nicolas Sarkozy: He may have won the presidency, but he hasn't won over the many French who consider him -- and his free-market reforms and tough line on crime and immigration -- frighteningly brutal.
Yes. We're breaking all these poor shopkeepers' windows and torching all these cars because we consider you frighteningly brutal. Right.
There's still no single, widely-accepted name for Sarkozy's distinct opposition to all that fuzzy 1968 socioeconomic political correctness:
It appears that Mr. Sarkozy may have found the ultimate "wedge" issue in France, judging by the solid margin he won many traditional working-class neighborhoods that normally support Socialist candidates. Mr. Sarkozy's triumph provides at least a chance that there will be a real debate on the role of the state in France's economy and, yes, even some discussion of whether France should be in perpetual conflict with America.
Once we have a name for it there may be no limit to the changes it can accomplish!
UPDATE: My reading, based on an admittedly limited reading in certain dusty corners of political science and math, is the following: Modern elections are largely governed by the principle of minimum differentiation which (according to the mean voter theorem) will generally produce a 50-50 split in most polls and elections.
However: every so often an individual candidate will abandon minimum differentiation strategies only to uncover major constituencies "hidden" by 50-50 polling. This generates a poorly-predicted landslide in one direction or the other. (This differs from "wedge issue" thinking in one important respect. A "wedge" creates only the smallest of openings, not a landslide, and I hope you'll pardon this very mixed metaphor.)
UPDATE: And (to demonstrate we've staked out a minority viewpoint) here's what Mark Steyn has to say:
A fellow in Marseilles was charged with fraud because he lived with the dead body of his mother for five years in order to continue receiving her pension of 700 euros a month.
She was 94 when she croaked, so she'd presumably been enjoying the old government check for a good three decades or so, but her son figured he might as well keep the money rolling in until her second century and, with her corpse tucked away under a pile of rubbish in the living room, the female telephone voice he put on for the benefit of the social services office was apparently convincing enough. As the Reuters headline put it: "Frenchman Lived With Dead Mother To Keep Pension."
Think of France as that flat in Marseilles, and its economy as the dead mother, and the country's many state benefits as monsieur's deceased mom's benefits. To the outside observer, the French give the impression they can live with the stench of death as long as the government benefits keep coming. If that's the case, the new president will have the shortest of honeymoons.
UPDATE II: These (I suspect) wise words from The Glittering Eye:
I find the reactions from bloggers on this side of the Pond puzzling by and large. It’s, basically, impossible to translate foreign politics into the American political spectrum. I think that American Democrats and Republicans have far more in common with each other than they do with any foreign political party and, indeed, it’s frequently been pointed out that the American Democratic and Republican Parties would fit tidily within the British Conservative Party from a policy standpoint with plenty of room for other viewpoints.
Sarkozy is without doubt more favorably disposed to state action than virtually all mainstream American politicians and I think it’s an exaggeration to, as some bloggers have, characterize him as either a staunch advocate of the free market or a rightwing nut. He’s French and his political positions must be understood within the French context.
Very good friends are coming over for dinner tomorrow night. I'm going to indulge my passion for old-fashioned US Cantonese Chinese-restaurant cooking by putting together a nice platter of sweet and sour pork. But, for my part in the fight against global warming, I believe I will serve noodles instead of rice.
