Random Politics & Religion #30

How it works out here.

A public utility district provides our electricity. It owns the power lines, the poles, and the right of way. All it needed was permission to run fiber and it lobbied hard for that.

They figured they could make money from the use of the fiber and save money with remote meter reading.

Any electric company could do the same. But they don't. Being a cynic I claim they are waiting until they can get a government subsidy, but I really have no idea.

In the meantime, Seattle, which has a city owned public power provider Seattle City Light, has hired Google to fiberize the city....

/headdesk

Might work differently in different areas but here it's usually stated that somehow Comcast has a bit of say on right away to use them and even owns some. They of course deny any competition so anyone that wants to come in has to use existing lines or the more expensive route of burying cable. At one time Google expressed some interest but dropped it for costs. A local company has been working on it but given the costs and the construction it's been slow going and obviously starting in areas with businesses that really have the need and willingness to pay for dat fiber speed

There won't be fiber till more companies and people demand it. The companies are fine with using cable cause it is a lot cheaper.

How it works out here.

A public utility district provides our electricity. It owns the power lines, the poles, and the right of way. All it needed was permission to run fiber and it lobbied hard for that.

They figured they could make money from the use of the fiber and save money with remote meter reading.

Any electric company could do the same. But they don't. Being a cynic I claim they are waiting until they can get a government subsidy, but I really have no idea.

In the meantime, Seattle, which has a city owned public power provider Seattle City Light, has hired Google to fiberize the city....

/headdesk

is this a robbery....

If most of the country is as you describe, Saevel, I can see why its such a mess.

Saevel is right getting local municipalities to dig up anything is a bureaucratic nightmare. The amount of red tape you have to go through just to dig a hole is mind boggling.

I understand the challenge of getting high speed internet to rural areas. But maybe if they invested some of the money and had help from the government they could do it.

the left only cares about the inner city.

Until then we can keep them walled away form the normies.

Oh stupid embed fail

I'm too privileged to realize how privileged I am !

Sparth

We laugh but Zero, Sparth and several others have made the exact same claim. That all white people enjoy unearned privilege and their inherent whiteness prevents them from knowing it. It's ludicrous and right up there with "cultural appropriation" in it's insanity.

The House Judiciary Committee will issue subpoenas for testimony from key figures at the FBI and the Department of Justice (DOJ) that were involved with the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s email server and other election-year controversies, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) said Tuesday.

Speaking on Fox Business Network, Jordan, a member of the Judiciary Committee, said Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) was readying subpoenas for four individuals at the agencies that Republicans have accused of bias against President Trump: FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, DOJ official Bruce Ohr and FBI agents Peter Strzok and Lisa Page.

“The chairman of the Judiciary Committee is going to subpoena Lisa Page,” Jordan said. “He’s going to subpoena Bruce Ohr and he’s going to subpoena Peter Strzok and we’re also going to get eventually to Andrew McCabe, as well. We need those people to come in, to be deposed and to put those people on the same stand that [Attorney General Jeff] Sessions and [Deputy Attorney General Rod] Rosenstein sat on in the past few weeks.”...

The White House has said it will be shutting down its website for petitions from midnight on Tuesday until a new one is set up in late January.

The "We The People" site was set up by the Obama administration in 2011.

It promised a response to all petitions drawing more than 100,000 signatures but the Trump administration has not responded to any since January.

The White House said its new platform would save taxpayers more than $1m (£746,500) a year.

The total budget of the White House for 2018 is $55m and its information technology budget for the year is $4.94m.

A White House official told the Associated Press news agency that the administration would "respond to public concerns next year" and that all existing petitions would be reinstated then.

The petition platform was set up under Barack Obama in 2011 as part of his digital democracy initiative.

At the time, the White House said that the platform would "give all Americans a way to create and sign petitions on a range of issues affecting our nation".

If a petition receives more than 100,000 signatures within a 30-day period, the White House is supposed to issue an official response to it.

Since January, popular petitions that have drawn the required number of signatures include one that calls for President Trump's resignation and another that demands he release his tax returns.

However, since the start of the Trump administration, all of the petitions that have met this threshold have gone unanswered.

The site has been successful at highlighting issues affecting under-represented groups in particular.

In 2015, in response to the petition posted on the site after the death of a transgender teenager, President Obama called for an end to "conversion therapy" for gay and transgender teens.

holy ***, that's some fine grudge-holding there, that dude hasn't posted here in years.