Monday, May 29, 2006

Mises Economics Blog: Abolish the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau

Mises Economics Blog: Abolish the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB)

From the TTB website:

Distillation of Ethanol - In recent days, we have seen several news items on people distilling ethanol at home to supplement their gasoline needs. Unfortunately, some of the reports do not inform the public that it is illegal to distill alcohol without first obtaining a Federal permit through the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB). Failure to obtain a Federal permit prior to engaging in this activity is a criminal offence under the Internal Revenue Code.

Mises Economics Blog: Abolish the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau

Mises Economics Blog: Abolish the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB)

From the TTB website:

Distillation of Ethanol - In recent days, we have seen several news items on people distilling ethanol at home to supplement their gasoline needs. Unfortunately, some of the reports do not inform the public that it is illegal to distill alcohol without first obtaining a Federal permit through the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB). Failure to obtain a Federal permit prior to engaging in this activity is a criminal offence under the Internal Revenue Code.

Wednesday, May 24, 2006

Threats to equality on the internet

There are currently two bills before the US House of Representatives that could greatly impact the continuation of egalitarian communication on the internet.

The first is Michael Fitzpatrick's (R-PA) Deleting Online Predators Act, which would create a Federal mandate that schools and libraries "prohibit access by minors to commercial social networking websites", which are websites that "allow users to create web pages or profiles that provide information about themselves and are available to other users and offer a mechanism for communication with other users."

Basically, if this law worked perfectly, this would block minors from viewing any commercial website where a regular person can add content, and where users create accounts and user's pages. In reality, schools and libraries will probably be error on the side of caution, and end up interfering with web-use by adults, and also block sites that are non-commercial. This would impact almost every interactive part of the web, including Blogger, Wikipedia, and community sites like Daily Kos. A person who relies on a library or school computer for internet access would be limited to static websites that are created and maintained by those with immense financial resources, or the random junk that "regular folk" are able to post on the web somewhat independently.

This legislation is a major over-reaction to the problem of online predators for two reasons:
  1. This can be handled directly by schools and libraries. Washington should only provide guidance and tools such as software.
  2. This can be handled without blocking websites. A simple solution is to turn off "cookies" on the computers' web browsers, such that users are not able to log-on to their accounts, and consequently can't receive messages sent to them or add personal information.

For more info and discussion, see: Freedom Democrats

Update:
  1. Fitzpatrick is being challenged by Patrick Murphy in November 2006
  2. American Library Association opposes DOPA (from CountSwackula)

The second bill opposes the adoption of content discrimination by internet service providers. John Conyer's (D-MI ) Internet Freedom and Nondiscrimination Act, would mandate "Net Neutrality"--that ISPs cannot discriminate among content providers. Without this provision, ISPs would probably provide preference to content providers who are able to shell out the big bucks for fast data transmission. I doubt consumers would even be aware of the reason why some sites are faster than others, and would just stop using the slow sites, assuming that it's a server problem.

I'm not thrilled about restrictions like this, but I think it would be a good idea to place a moratorium on any content discrimination, in order to allow consumers some time to figure out how to deal with this. If ISPs are going to discriminate among content-providers, they should be limited to doing it in situations where they are providing the consumer with a free connection, or they are explicitly telling the end-user that a particular connection is slow because the ISP chose to give that connection a lower priority.

For more info and discussion, see: Freedom Democrats

Update: A bunch of links for discussion on this issue:
  1. ALA supports Net Neutrality (from CountSwackula)
  2. A neutral panic (against Net Neutrality, via Kevin Carson)

Tuesday, May 02, 2006

a picture

There's no real content to this post. I just want to add a picture to my profile, and this is how Blogger says to do it.
I wish I looked as cool as Knappster