Judge Vaughn R. Walker should get the Presidential Freedom Award. He has told everyone in government that we are all equal under the law. Even President Bush and NSA spooks don't get a free pass to lawless behavior. As VP Biden would say - this is a BIG F*'g deal - not just for illegal wire taps, but for all kinds of lawless behavior that has been (still is) been done by government employees.

NASA had a vision in the 1980s to become "the trucking company of space", which is akin to the idea of weekly launches. They hired expensive consultants to help them prepare for that future. They ran into at least two brick walls. One was the lack of funding. The second was a culture of being risk averse. The Atlantis crash was used by the risk averse to force the culture everywhere. NASA is now coasting on its resources and is a small shadow of its original dream - being only an occasional developer and launcher of small science probes.

The future of space will be created by corporate development and launch organizations. They will bring a higher risk tolerance to ventures. Some accidents will happen, just as in the early days of air flight. But the flip side is that much more progress will be made, as we have seen from the results of competition in the airplane industry as it developed over the past 80+ years. Some cluster of corporate ventures will eventually produce weekly launches. NASA will not be a party to them. Their dream has passed. Corporations will compete for success and resources, and pass by NASA's shadow.

Lets hope the GAO's nightmare pandemic does not happen, and this is just a bureaucratic CYA report. But if it does happen, we will see Congress and the FCC crack the monopoly positions of phone and cable companies and unleash a torrent of competition that will deliver 100 gig bandwidth to users for a few bucks a month. The rest of the developed world has this already. It would be truly tragic if it takes a pandemic to get the US over the brain freeze it has about protecting monopolies in the telecom industry.

Monetary burden? Is that like Beast of Burden? Rest assured that when investments were made in "internet pipes", some CFO made sure that it would be profitable, and some accountant checks quarterly to ensure that it is still profitable. Urr, where's the burden? And their profitable investment should be regulated. Would you go to a dentist who invested in a chair and a drill, but does not have a license to practice, and a degree hanging on the wall? At least try to be logically consistent.

Until you are adequately informed, you should not comment on law or regulation. It seems you haven't heard about various ISP's (particularly Charter) shutting down Torrents when they detect the data flow. They also have throttled various other applications at times when their network is not busy, so it is not "network management". So there have been abuses. Wake up.

With a few large, unregulated companies sourcing and directly distributing much of the Internet's traffic, the potential for self interested mischief grows. The FCC needs to set rules that create a neutral, flat playing field for all agents on the Internet - regardless of size or their role.

Fast food made us fat. A revolution made us American.

Think very dispassionately about the 10 year revenue generation from A. an independent company, B. a product inside MegaCorp. Get outside help on this question. It is very hard for a small company to generate a long term growing stream of revenue. It is also common for large companies to completely mess up sales incentives and marketing for a small product in the total scheme of their big business. Forget about profit in this analysis - that will come if the revenue grows a lot. Then trade that picture off with your team's preferences about small/independent/"risky big bang or nothing" versus large/bureaucratic/"take some money now". People's personalities can fit one or the other of these risk scenarios, but the financial stakes can push the team one way or the other - despite personalities.