Dor Hamabul or Rewards of Sin (II) ???

New Orleans Starts
Free Wireless Network
Associated Press

November 30, 2005; Page D4

NEW ORLEANS -- To help boost its stalled economy, hurricane-ravaged New Orleans is offering the nation's first free wireless Internet network owned and run by a major city.

Mayor Ray Nagin said Tuesday the system would benefit residents and small businesses who still can't get their Internet service restored over the city's washed-out telephone network, while showing the nation "that we are building New Orleans back."

The system started operation Tuesday in the central business district and French Quarter. The plan is to make it available throughout the city in about a year.

Similar projects in other cities have met with stiff opposition from phone and cable TV companies, which have poured money into legislative bills aimed at blocking competition from government agencies -- including a state law in Louisiana that needed to be sidestepped for the New Orleans project.

The city had been working on a Wi-Fi network before Hurricane Katrina struck Aug. 29, and police already were using the wireless system to monitor street security cameras.

Mr. Nagin said the storm, which knocked out communications throughout the region, frustrating coordination of relief efforts, showed the need for a more-advanced system.

In case of another storm, the network will be able to connect telephone calls via the Internet.

"What we learned is a network like this is important as a backup in case all other communications fail," the mayor said.

The system uses hardware mounted on street lights. Most of the $1 million in equipment was donated by three companies: Intel Corp., Tropos Networks Inc. and Pronto Networks. The companies also plan to donate equipment for the citywide expansion.

The network uses "mesh" technology to pass the wireless signal from pole to pole rather than each Wi-Fi transmitter being plugged directly into a physical network cable. That way, laptop users will be able to connect even in areas where the traditional phone network will take time to restore.

The system will provide download speeds of 512 kilobits per second as long as the city remains under a state of emergency. But the bandwidth will be slowed to 128 kilobits in accordance with a limit set by Louisiana law when the city's state of emergency is lifted, though the service will remain free for residents and businesses.

Phone and cable TV companies have opposed attempts at creating new taxpayer-owned Internet utilities.

But David Grabert, a spokesman for Cox Communications, a major cable TV and high-speed Internet provider in the New Orleans area, said the Atlanta-based company welcomes the competition.

"This is a relatively slow-speed service, and we don't look at it, at this point, as major competition for our high-speed service," Mr. Grabert said. "We're ready to compete with all comers."

Many cities have partnered with private companies to build and operate their networks. Philadelphia, for example, is developing a citywide system that will be run by Earthlink Inc., unlike the New Orleans owned-and-operated system.

Mr. Nagin, who was Cox's top executive in New Orleans before his election in 2002, said the city system would be "just one of several options" residents would have to get Internet service.

Copyright © 2005 Associated Press

A Wink and a Nudge

Triangulation . . .

The Clintons have a serious problem, and a typically brilliant solution.

Problem:
1. They know the Orthodox component of the NY State electorate (as well as the thoughtful and the conservatives) realize that scampering off in Iraq will lead to additional pressure from strengthened Sunni terrorists and from Iran on Israel.

2. They also know that they cannot back continued involvement in the war because they will lose the Democratic base, and thereby Hillary's presidential nomination.

Solution:
A much publicized 'difference of opinion' between 'husband and wife' on the war. Wife, to ensure senatorial reelection in NY State, backs the war. Husband trashes us in public, in Dubai, to the enthusiastic cheers of the terrorists' coreligionists and kin.

Are you pro-Israel?
I'm all for security and holding terror in line!
Are you a peace loving hater of American hubris and aggression?
You know that Hillary and I are really on your side.
Wink, wink, nudge, nudge.
Brilliant!

Paper Chase

A few interesting statistics:

Increase in internet usage in the last year: 3%
Decrease in print newspaper circulations in last year: 2.6%
Increase in traffic to newspaper web-sites: 11%

Number of Orthodox (chareidi) daily newspapers: 1
Number of continuously updated Orthodox (chareidi) newspaper sites: 0


Potential home pages for chareidi newshounds: 0

Conclusion: Any news site is good enough for us.

Gedolim Meet Regarding the Internet

At the upcoming Agudath Israel of America Convention, Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah in conjunction with Aguda and other Rabbonim are scheduled to meet regarding the internet on Friday AM.

Stay tuned.

Editorial: I hope they come up with a major initiative ( a la Shuvu or Torah Umesorah) to provide us with clean internet, not prohibitions and kol korahs which may do more to diminish kovod haTorah than to accomplish meaningful improvement. And if the Rabbonim are concerned with cell phones, please be aware many people depend on mobile devices such as Blackberry to conduct their business.
I similarly hope the businessmen present are not semi retired and wealthy donors who made their computer money 25 years ago. More useful would be the up and coming and still struggling pioneers who need every opportunity to answer their e-mail on the run.
There is almost no business today which does not depend on the internet, whether as the marketplace for buying, selling, or becoming known. For those who forgo or are not cut out for college or for klei kodesh, the internet is the honest choice.
orthodox jews and internet

Poster Watch VI and VII

VI: The newest shreklicha klipa (fearsome klipa) which klal Yisroel must now arm against to fight tooth and nail: MP3 players!

VII: Also, cell phones capable of internet are metamei Batei Medrushim and also are mevatel tefila.

(Even if the mispalel is praying to save himself from the lures of the internet?)

Waterloo?

Is Congressman John Murtha's defection to the antiwar camp the beginning of the end in Iraq?

And if yes, how will Israel deal with a now confirmed reality that the West can always be worn down?

Right? What Right?

The 'UN International Telecommunications Union' is winding up its' first ever global summit on the internet in Tunisia.

World opinion is united that it is unfair that the USA, the lone developer of the internet, controls it.

"The Internet is becoming a critical element of our lives," added Abdullah Al-Darrab, the chief negotiator for Saudi Arabia, in an interview. "What's needed are clear policies, and setting them is the right of every government, not just one."

Wall Street Journal reports: "Countries like China have been pushing for creation of a U.N.-monitored body to oversee the Internet."

Interesting that those countries with the most stifling control of the net, imprisoning webmasters and bloggers they can get their hands on, and allowing only government sponsored 'news' sites, advance a 'right' of their governments to set policy on a development (the internet) which they invested nothing in, and contributed nothing to.

Methinks those governments already have too many rights - as if any rights adhered to a government at all!

While I would be the first to advocate filtering for our spiritual well-being, that's none of government's business except in the most egregious circumstance.

People of the Book

Since I was a little leapling, it has been one of the ikkarim of our faith that 'Jews are smart', or more chauvinistically, 'Jews are smarter'. Well, we may become the smartest anachronism around if we continue in the direction we're going.

Nicholas Negroponte of MIT (brother of the ambassador to Iraq) is bent on producing a $100 laptop to be distributed to governments world wide, including a wireless connection, for use by children (except our children, of course).
He's showing working samples today, at the international Internet meeting in Tunisia.

In Mr. Negroponte's words:

"One laptop per child: Children are your most precious resource, and they can do a lot of self-learning and peer-to-peer teaching. Bingo. End of story."

Fortune Magazine: "He's seeking orders in lots of a million. So far, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio "Lula" da Silva has agreed to buy a million, Negroponte says, and Chile, Argentina and Thailand are lining up. Negroponte hopes to start production next year, ramping up to tens of millions in 2007."

You saw right. A million for Brazil. They'll have computers in the Amazon rain forest, and we'll be the indigenous natives.