North Carolina, currently polling with a 1.9% Clinton lead. And about the only thing that will get them more up in arms than a rivalry basketball game is TAKING AWAY their rivalry basketball game!
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Hahahaha! Too many likes to you!
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Take a look at Gig City, Chattanooga, TN’s response to the flaccid cable company service in and around the city. They decided if Comcast (or Cox, or whoeverthefuck) wasn’t going to serve their population, they were going to, by building a smart grid that incidentally provided a crapton of bandwidth. Observe and learn, people!
http://chattanoogagig.com/
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No more than water and sewerage does.
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Not really many fjords in Sweden.
That’s Norway (also good healthcare and standard of living).
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We need a button that says “I’m glad you posted this but I’m horrified at what it says”. I don’t see how private control of a natural monopoly can ever be a good idea. Why do free market adherents support such things when there can be no competition? Or are those who support such things merely cloaking themselves in free market rhetoric?
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Don’t be too sure - there’s still a lot of rural blacks in the South who vote a straight Democratic ticket. 
(from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election_in_South_Carolina,_2012)
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Baby Jeebus rockin’ the speedo tan lines. Very chic.
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I like the anagram, bud!
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No. This can all be chalked up to American ingenuity. If those conservative bastards want to stack the deck in favor of their corporate financiers, this is a necessary step to reduce the negative impact of such draconian laws.
Amen! My humble suggestion would be this emoticon: 
Well, in the hands of a benevolent and enlightened absolute dictator (preferably an immortal one), you could make an argument for such control.
Because they think that they’d be Immortan Joe and the guy who sits on the tap, not the schlubs at the bottom of the hill. Either that, or they are romantic idealists with extremely narrow provincial views who have no idea how systems and societies are built and perpetuate themselves (and have probably read too much Heinlein as well).
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I can see the meetings: “Can we privatize air? There’s gotta be a way. How about gravity? Souls, maybe?”
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Read Ian McDonald’s “Luna: New Moon”; the “Four Elementals” (water, air, carbon and bandwidth) are all privatized.
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Thanks for the suggestion. I must admit it’s not a new idea, but I can’t remember where I’ve read it before! “Moon Is A Harsh Mistress,” maybe?
If anyone ever gets a sane argument out of a rightwinger regarding this i’d like to hear it.
It’s one of the following two ‘arguments’ i frequently hear instead:
1 - The public sector (or non-profit) is naturally inefficient (no valid data supporting this is ever given). So allowing a private company, with the same running costs, plus the additional costs to cover the profit is cheaper (yes, the fact that makes no sense at all doesn’t matter)
2 - Crowbarring in competition to a natural monopoly (resulting in a cartel) somehow results in cheaper prices (it’s a cartel, so they all just raise prices in step with each other. It’s the same as #1 with even more overhead to maintain the admin for multiple companies)
The failings of both could be somewhat tempered by adequate regulation. But alas, regulation is also public enemy number one for those promoting options #1 and #2 above…
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“flaccid” was not a word I needed to associate with “cable”…
there’s no going back. 
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You forgot paying for the marketing budgets.
Yay, ads we shouldn’t have to suffer, for crap that should be provided by the public sector.
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I stand corrected. Thanks.
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