Mourning Ma Bell

Jerry Pournelle takes Judge Green to task here and here. Based on my dealings with Verizon, the unregulated monopoly telephone service here in Northern Michigan, I can only agree. At least with Ma Bell, we had Bell Laboratories. If you don't know why that particular institution was important, I'll give you a hint: you wouldn't be reading this without it.

I was going to write something about the new airline "security" measures, but that second link leads to a much better analysis of the situation than I could ever come up with. For me, the radius of what I will drive vs. fly just expanded out to infinity. The only reason I would get on a plane now is logistics (the need to drive one way and fly back, or visa versa) or to get home to a dying relative. And even then, driving would be faster for any distance less than 1,000 miles or so. Maybe farther. I can drive a long ways in the eight to nine hours people are standing in "security" lines.

We don't really need a passenger airline industry, do we?