Patterico's Pontifications

7/24/2012

Obama: Al Gore Didn’t Invent the Internet, Government Did!

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 7:31 am



Except, according to our old friend Michael Hiltzik, government didn’t. Here’s Gordon Crovitz (quoted by Instapundit):

A telling moment in the presidential race came recently when Barack Obama said: “If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.” He justified elevating bureaucrats over entrepreneurs by referring to bridges and roads, adding: “The Internet didn’t get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all companies could make money off the Internet.”

It’s an urban legend that the government launched the Internet. The myth is that the Pentagon created the Internet to keep its communications lines up even in a nuclear strike. The truth is a more interesting story about how innovation happens—and about how hard it is to build successful technology companies even once the government gets out of the way. . . .

If the government didn’t invent the Internet, who did? Vinton Cerf developed the TCP/IP protocol, the Internet’s backbone, and Tim Berners-Lee gets credit for hyperlinks. But full credit goes to the company where Mr. Taylor worked after leaving ARPA: Xerox. It was at the Xerox PARC labs in Silicon Valley in the 1970s that the Ethernet was developed to link different computer networks. Researchers there also developed the first personal computer (the Xerox Alto) and the graphical user interface that still drives computer usage today.

According to a book about Xerox PARC, “Dealers of Lightning” (by Michael Hiltzik), its top researchers realized they couldn’t wait for the government to connect different networks, so would have to do it themselves.

I rushed to read Hiltzik’s column attacking Obama for his false assertion, and . . . yeah, I couldn’t find one.

UPDATE: Hiltzik says Crovitz got it wrong. Something about “an” Internet vs. “the” Internet.

I had a hard time visualizing Hiltzik disputing a pro-government claim by Obama. Now everything seems right with the world again!

171 Responses to “Obama: Al Gore Didn’t Invent the Internet, Government Did!”

  1. Ding.

    Patterico (feda6b)

  2. This article is somewhat off-base. The fact is, it’s no myth that ARPAnet, the ancestor of the internet, was created at government initiative to ensure secure communications in the case of a nuclear war.

    But the fact remains, the government didn’t build the internet. It doesn’t have the expertise. It simply wrote the requirement. And private enterprise built it. That was the point of my lengthy comment in which I discussed how the government doesn’t even build its own aircraft, let alone networks. And it’s giving the government too much credit for the end product even if they did identify the requirement. They’re not always that good at identifying their own requirements; they screwed up two promising aircraft designs prior to WWII (one so badly the damage couldn’t be undone) and had nothing to do with what turned out to be arguably the best fighter of the war; the North American Aviation Mustang.

    And why I knew that if you looked at the history of the development of the internet you’d find the fingerprints of private enterprise all over it (although I only singled out IBM by name). It is certainly not true that the internet wasn’t built for the purpose of creating any commercial applications. That part got addressed entirely by private, not government initiatives.

    Certainly, Obama’s speech contained enough falsehoods; we don’t need to exaggerate them. On their own they’re horrendous.

    Steve57 (5dee94)

  3. Interesting bit here;

    During his graduate student years, he studied under Professor Gerald Estrin, worked in Professor Leonard Kleinrock’s data packet networking group that connected the first two nodes of the ARPANet,[14] the predecessor[14] to the Internet, and “contributed to a host-to-host protocol” for the ARPANet.[15]

    narciso (ee31f1)

  4. The Govt only invented it so companies could make more money.

    JD (887b4f)

  5. The irony in all this, is that the Defense Dept, is
    likely the only department, Hilzik’s pal would want to cut back.

    narciso (ee31f1)

  6. I read that article yesterday in the Wall Street Journal.

    So according t this, the government did not invent the Internet, Xerox did, and Steve Jobs….the article never seems to say what if anything Steve Jobs has to do with this. It seems to be wanting to say Steve Jobs stole it from Xerox but it doesn’t say that, because it can’t.

    Yes, Apple took the graphical use interface and the mouse from Xerox but the world wide web was started by CERN in Switzerland.

    2. The article cites someone to the effect that the Arpanet is not an Inter net

    Sammy Finkelman (f560b6)

  7. Steve57/#2 is absolutely correct and let me supplement:

    Even after the deployment of ARPANET and later NSFNET, this did not have any role in creating a commercial Internet. Specifically, commercialization was both prohibited and culturally rejected. Policy Route Database on the NSFNET ensured commercial connections necessary for research purposes would not send any commercial traffic over the NSFNET without explicit and complicated requirements being met (see wiki on ANS CO+RE).

    Recognizing an internet (TCP/IP network) was necessary for commercial purposes, there were two proposals pursued for the creation of a separate network that was to become the “Internet.”

    The first approach was the CIX: several companies got together and formed a nonprofit corporation, the Commercial Internet eXchange. These companies included PSINet, UUNET and CERFnet. The CIX set up an interchange point to connect networks and provide for commercial traffic exchange. They grew to include over 100 members and were foundational to kicking off the Internet as we know it.

    The other approach was the “NAP” model pushed by Al Gore, some NSFNET executives, the regionals who were part of the heavily bureaucratic and expensive administration of the NSFNET distribution, and Baby Bells (Bell South, US West, PACBELL, etc.). They desired a measured-use Internet that was implemented in a manner similar to the post-divestiture Bell breakup, giving a monopoly on the backbone to politically favored companies, and a monopoly on the last-mile to the RBOCs (Baby Bells). The NSFNET non-profit regionals tended to support this concept since they were heavily bloated with retired academics pulling six-figure salaries sitting around writing up presentations for nefarious lofty ideas. Their cost structure needed a deep pocket RBOC to absorb, given they never had a commercial orientation.

    Gore’s model failed. The CIX led to initial interchange through multilateral exchanges, which over time, evolved into the addition of the MAEs (Metropolitan Area Ethernets) and then with more bilateral direct exchanges between backbones.

    There is no “Internet” run by an entity. There never was one. The concept is a fiction and is evident by the name itself. The Internet is an assemblage, a connecting of multiple networks together primarily using TCP/IP protocol. Al Gore knows this when he lies about his role (and conceals his actual opposition to what became). Barack Obama is most likely too ignorant and inexperienced to know any better, or even care.

    CIXter (b0bb5a)

  8. Finkelman has competition for volume.

    Meanwhile, I will point out that some of us were around back then and working on those earlier forms of the internet.

    SPQR (e77df7)

  9. What’s truly hilarious is Hiltzik’s assertion that bureaucratic action to privatize the Internet was well-timed. The demand was there almost 15 years earlier, when CompuServe, The Source and other private networks were formed due to the public unavailability of ARPAnet. The explosion of internet sites after 1995 awaited privatization, not the other way around.

    Kevin M (bf8ad7)

  10. It seems to be wanting to say Steve Jobs stole it from Xerox but it doesn’t say that, because it can’t.

    Isn’t it fairly common knowledge, at least within the IT community, that Jobs stole the “window” concept from XeroX, and then had it stolen by Gates.
    At least that’s my understanding as someone who had a business-equipment salesman pitching a XeroX desk-top unit to me in the early-80’s, and then ending up with a Mac – before surrendering to the Borg (MS).

    AD-RtR/OS! (b8ab92)

  11. AD, Xerox/PARC

    SPQR (e77df7)

  12. Tomayto – Tomahto!

    AD-RtR/OS! (b8ab92)

  13. Sorry, AD, I just meant that if you were interested, look up Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC).

    SPQR (e77df7)

  14. Not to mention that until either the late 80s or early 90s it was illegal to perform private commercial business across the NSF portion of the internet, and since at the time NSF provided most of the interlink capability that pretty much meant that private commercial activity was forbidden.

    Note that this does not include prohibition of public private commercial activity, like dealing with government contractors, but certainly stuff like online shopping or the vast majority of other transactions that are now taken for granted. It also doesn’t mean that the prohibition was enforced all that seriously, mostly because as far as I am aware it was only really challenged at a social level on the private non-commercial use front which is far harder to tamp down on.

    Such uses (again, so long as they traversed the NSF portion of the network, which would have been quite likely) were more or less considered misappropriation of government property, which given the total bandwidth available at the time made a certain amount of sense.

    So to say that the internet was born to foster commercial activity at all is a huge stretch. Everything I’ve seen indicates that the first major growth was much more about connecting the various universities so that material could be shared back and forth easier. DoD may have come up with the initial requirements and even some of the initial funding but it was people at various schools who figured out how to take all the available pieces and make something out of them.

    Cause frankly, ethernet by itself isn’t very useful, nor is TCP/IP, or even HTTP/HTML (although by the time that last came about the transport stuff had been worked out). And it’s not even like ethernet was settled on as an instant winner as soon as it was developed, it took time for even that local link technology to settle out, and ethernet won mostly because Novell chose to use it and some incredibly inexpensive adapter cards became available, not because of overwhelming technical superiority to the alternatives. In fact, some of the limitations of ethernet have since been solved by adding logic to the switches and hubs that make ethernet a lot more like some of those early competitors.

    I’m even aware of at least one predecessor technology attempt to http/html that Boeing was trying to work out in the late 1980s (this awareness comes from involvement of a family member on the project, I’m sure it’s been entirely forgotten by pretty much everyone without such a connection). But they were frankly trying to be far too ambitious for what their local network could deliver and so it didn’t work out. They were trying to deliver full screen graphics that were scanned copies of the various standards documents that they were required to keep all over the place for the engineers to use for references. They had to be scanned rather than digitally converted to text in order to ensure accuracy, but the physical computing capacity just wasn’t present for a job of that magnitude at the time they were trying it.

    Soronel Haetir (93c412)

  15. Soronel … token ring token ring. token ring token ring

    SPQR (e77df7)

  16. And Apple also “stole” the ipad/iphone physical design (rectangular, flat screen with a bezel) from PARC, then got a design patent on it, never mind the prior art that they failed to disclose. Not only PARC, but the original Star Trek, 2001, Etch-a-sketch, GRIDPad, The Incredibles and Fujitsu’s Stylistic 3500 medical display.

    Now they are suing all the other tablet and smartphone makers for “stealing”. No honor among thieves.

    Kevin M (bf8ad7)

  17. SPQR, I’ve read most of the back-and-forth over who stole what from whom, and (quite frankly) it bores me.
    XeroX/PARC did some early, amazing work; but, because of a lack of vision in Upper Management and/or the BoD, they tossed away what could have been for them a game-changer on the scale of what they did with plain-paper copying.
    So, the innovative team that they had assembled drifted off to other venues/start-ups in The Valley, and (as they say) the rest is history.

    AD-RtR/OS! (b8ab92)

  18. No honor among thieves.
    Comment by Kevin M — 7/24/2012 @ 9:18 am

    Probably why they are preponderantly donors to Democrats.

    AD-RtR/OS! (b8ab92)

  19. SPQR ,

    Actually, I was thinking more star topologies. Especially now that it’s hard to find a hub device that is not at least a minimally smart switch able to create dynamic circuits between the endpoints. So for instance if you have four computers on a local network now and they are talking in two pairs each pair can see the whole bandwidth as being available for their use, and not get any collision from the traffic going between the other pair.

    Plus of course, twisted pair wiring is simply far more convenient for adding and removing systems even if you do end up with way more cable overall.

    Soronel Haetir (93c412)

  20. Even if government had invented the Internet, it does not stand to reason that only government could have invented it, which seems to be the larger point that Obama and his supporters are trying to make. If the DOD had never come up with ARPAnet, companies like Xerox and Ma Bell and all the emerging telecommunications companies of the 1960s and 70s would have conceived of this idea. It did not take government to invent the telephone, the radio, or television, so it is silly to act as if government is the only possible entity that could have created the Internet.

    In a similar way — and please, no one tell liberals this — every year thousands of miles of private roads are built in this country. Shocking, I know, but it puts the lie to the notion that only the government can build roads and bridges.

    JVW (5d3131)

  21. OMG

    President Obama, discussing his economic policies during a fundraiser in California, told supporters last night that “we tried our plan — and it worked” as he explained why they should reelect him.

    Neo (d1c681)

  22. JVW, theirs seem to be the ones that fall down, so maybe it’s a job-security issue?

    AD-RtR/OS! (b8ab92)

  23. Seen the new Romney ad featuring Jack Gilchrist – a self made business man from NH that works in metal fabrication?

    The only problem is that Jack Gilchrist built his business by taking about $1 MILLION in US government loans, and by selling his product to the gov’t at defense industry prices. Yea … he doesn’t need the gov’t … built it by himself.

    FAIL.

    Dad (c03711)

  24. I rushed to read Hiltzik’s column attacking Obama for his false assertion, and . . . yeah, I couldn’t find one.

    The most startling assertion there in that sentence or two in his speech was:

    http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/07/13/remarks-president-campaign-event-roanoke-virginia

    The Internet didn’t get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.

    The reason the government “invented the Internet” was so that companies could make money??

    That’s not true at all. It’s hard to get more wrong there. I wonder if Obama believes that.

    That’s confusing one effect with the purpose.

    Maybe he figures it makes no difference. Maybe he figures no one will know the difference. And maybe he himself doesn’t know the difference, I don’ know.

    It’s as ridiculous as saying the same thing about the space program.

    Sammy Finkelman (f560b6)

  25. Dad, since all it takes is government, no doubt you are a billionaire.

    SPQR (e77df7)

  26. Oh, he took out loans?
    Did he pay them back, unlike Solyndra and GM?

    AD-RtR/OS! (b8ab92)

  27. SF, if the screen on TOTUS just said “blah, blah, blah”, and POTUS recited it verbatim, most in his audience would nod knowingly with approval.

    AD-RtR/OS! (b8ab92)

  28. ________________________________________________

    A telling moment in the presidential race came recently when Barack Obama said:

    I think this in a nutshell just about sums everything up.

    ________________________________________________

    Mark (af4d53)

  29. Seen the new Romney ad featuring Jack Gilchrist –

    Which has, what exactly to do with the topic of the government “inventing” the internet?

    Oh, yes, it’s just another diversion from someone uncomfortable with having to defend Obama.

    Chuck Bartowski (3bccbd)

  30. 30-

    “That does not compute….that does not compute…that does not compute…”

    AD-RtR/OS! (b8ab92)

  31. Crovitz’ article screwed up some major facts, such as what Ethernet does.

    Brother Bradley J. Fikes, C.O.R. (a18ddc)

  32. …and by selling his product to the gov’t at defense industry prices.

    It’s easy to blame the defense industry for the prices they charge. It’s also wrong. If you’ve ever worked with the government as a contractor you’d know where the blame lies. On the government.

    Two reasons spring to mind.

    1. A starter for a tank may not be any more complicated than a starter for a commercial truck. Until you get to the testing that starter has to pass before it’s accepted. It isn’t so much the starter that costs money. It’s flying it to Alaska to see if it will work reliably in -80dg, then to Death Valley to see if it will also work at 130dg. And start while completely submerged. And all the other requirements it has to meet.

    2. Bureaucrats like nothing more than to toss a monkey wrench into a smoothly operating program. It gives them a bullet for their resume; how they put their mark on a program.

    I was working on a particular program that had been in existence for 25 years. And to talk about it in unsecure environments, the program had an unclassified cover name. This unclassified cover name was used on literally tons of documents. A new director of the agency arrives, and what does he do? He decides to classify the unclassified cover name! Do you have any idea how much time it takes go line by line through tons of documents scattered throughout various locations around the world and check for the now classified unclassified cover name? To redo documents when possible so the recently classified documents become again unclassified, mark them as classified when not possible, then move these newly classified documents into proper storage facilities since they no longer can be kept in the open in file cabinets? In some cases building and certifying proper storage facilities that never before were required?

    Do you have any idea how time consuming it is to go line by line through decades of documentation for a paper-intensive engineering program that’s been in existence for decades? And expensive? You know, when the gub’mint switches things up on contractors like that, contractors get to charge what it costs to make the changes.

    Now you know why that toilet seat costs so much. You have to pay for the airplane to toss it out of, and then the documentation for it.

    Steve57 (5dee94)

  33. 29. Comment by AD-RtR/OS! — 7/24/2012 @ 10:29 am

    SF, if the screen on TOTUS just said “blah, blah, blah”, and POTUS recited it verbatim, most in his audience would nod knowingly with approval.

    This speech was delivered without a teleprompter, and they also booed some things he said and made other remarks.

    http://washingtonexaminer.com/obama-wasnt-using-teleprompter-in-roanoke-where-he-made-controversial-comments-on-business/article/2502570

    According to the video footage posted below, Obama pulled a folded sheet of paper out of his front shirt pocket at the beginning of his speech, and slowly unfolded it. Throughout the speech, Obama glances down at his sheet of paper, rather than the usual mechanical side-to-side head turns from screen to screen.

    Wide-angle photos of the event show no sign of the familiar twin-screens that typically follow Obama everywhere. Instead, a white sheet of paper is seen at the podium. ….

    …. While speaking his usual lines about wealthy Americans paying more taxes, the president stopped in mid-sentence to explain why he believed that they should pay more taxes.

    “If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen,” he said off-script.

    That was actually somewhat garbled. “If you’ve got a business” was the start of sentence he never completed. “you didn’t build that” referred to “this unbelieveable American system”

    His people actually wanted him to ad lib a little bit. (and the audience too)

    Sammy Finkelman (f560b6)

  34. Booing:

    My opponent, Mr. Romney’s plan is he wants to cut taxes another $5 trillion on top of the Bush tax cuts.

    AUDIENCE: Booo —

    And we had this:

    Now, this is my last political campaign.

    AUDIENCE MEMBER: Awww —

    THE PRESIDENT: No, it’s true. There is a term limit for Presidents. You get two. (Laughter.) So no matter what happens, this will be my last campaign. And it makes you nostalgic sometimes, and I started thinking about some of my first campaigns.

    Sammy Finkelman (f560b6)

  35. That was actually somewhat garbled. “If you’ve got a business” was the start of sentence he never completed. “you didn’t build that” referred to “this unbelieveable American system”

    No, Sammy, he was ridiculing the idea that your success is due to your individual effort. It is due to the collective. And entrepreneurs are not properly grateful to the collective.

    This has been a constant theme of the Obamas, and the circles they travel in, for decades.

    There is little doubt that Mr. and Mrs. Obama took Wright’s message of “selfish individualism” to heart. In 1995, while running for the State Senate, Barack railed against the right wing’s appeal “to that old individualistic bootstrap myth: get a job, get rich, and get out. Instead of investing in our neighborhoods.”

    Time and again, Mrs. Obama, along with her husband, has called for “shared sacrifice” and asked young people to delay a corporate career in favor of community service. For the couple, a belief in the inalienable rights of the individual upon which the United States was founded is a “myth.” Invoking an American icon in the same 1995 profile, Mr. Obama couldn’t have articulated the first couple’s worldview any more clearly.

    In America we have this strong bias toward individual action. You know, we idolize the John Wayne hero who comes in to correct things with both guns blazing. But individual actions, individual dreams, are not sufficient. We must unite in collective action, build collective institutions and organizations.

    Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/01/michelle_obama_and_stokely_carmichael_on_collective_white_guilt.html#ixzz21Z5dQdZY

    Steve57 (5dee94)

  36. Finkelman, you are continuing to try to excuse Obama’s statements. You’re convincing no one.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  37. Steve57….
    We saw how much the Obama’s believed in “giving back” with Michelle’s job at the Medical Center dealing with Community Outreach(?), that was fully funded by an ear-mark inserted into a bill by her husband – a job that no longer exists since she left it in 2009 (and the funding stopped).

    AD-RtR/OS! (b8ab92)

  38. Oh, SPQR, he’s convinced me – that he’s a pedantic twit!

    AD-RtR/OS! (b8ab92)

  39. ______________________________________________

    Finkelman, you are continuing to try to excuse Obama’s statements.

    In another thread, I mentioned that I have no doubt that the infamous line of “you didn’t build that” — at the very least — was a Freudian slip. So whether it was or wasn’t a predicate to “bridges and roads,” and thanks to Steve57’s post #37, it’s even more apparent that Obama in general is very dismissive of people’s gumption in creating businesses.

    Mark (af4d53)

  40. Steve57 — 7/24/2012 @ 10:51 am

    Roger that. I worked eight years for a defense contractor during the 80’s, having come in hearing lots of crazy stories of $2000 hammers.

    I came out amazed they were able to charge so little for them!

    Pious Agnostic (7c3d5b)

  41. Obama: Nobody succeeds without government’s help

    Somebody—an outstanding entrepreneur like a Steve Jobs—somewhere along the line he had a teacher who helped inspire him. All those great Internet businesses wouldn’t have succeeded unless somebody had invested in the government research that helped to create the Internet. We don’t succeed on our own. We succeed because this country has, in previous generations, made investments that allow all of us to succeed.

    Barack Obama, October 2011.

    Obama didn’t flub just a single speech last week. This is what he’s been saying his entire political life. If you succeed, you owe your success to government. Here he’s talking about government spending (by “country” he means government, by “invest” he means spending; we all know this) Government spending allows us to succeed.

    He isn’t merely saying that individuals can’t succeed entirely on their own. It’s that individuals can not succeed at all without government help. If you succeed, you owe your success to a government actor or government program.

    This is why he became a community organizer; unless visionaries like him are organizing people into effective collectives, they will not succeed. This is why Clarence Thomas is a race traitor and ingrate; he foolishly believes that he succeeded through hard work and individual action. He doesn’t understand that the collective is responsible for his success by implementing policies like affirmative action that allowed him to succeed.

    I can try to find more links, if it matters, but one of the things that attracted Obama to Wright’s TUCC is it’s rejection of middle class American values such as respect for individuality. They don’t believe in individualism, but the collective. In the ’90s Obama teamed up with another Wright acolyte to advocate on behalf of the “community.” They believe in reparations, for instance, but not to the individual. To the collective. The individual is nothing, the collective is everything.

    This is what he means by talking about “investing in our neighborhoods” as in that 1995 speech excerpted above. He means spending on the collective.

    It was awkwardly phrased, maybe, but last week he said exactly what everyone thinks he said. When he says you owe your success, and therefore your property and money, to the government it’s from the heart.

    Steve57 (5dee94)

  42. They’re not always that good at identifying their own requirements; they screwed up two promising aircraft designs prior to WWII

    BWAAAAhahahhahaaa!!!

    The best tank from WWII — the German Panzer, the American Sherman, the German Tiger?

    Nope. The Russian T-34, arguably the best tank design ever so far, given the tech available at the time of its development.

    How tough were these tanks? From the wiki:
    In 2000, a T-34 Model 1943 was recovered that had spent 56 years at the bottom of a bog in Estonia. The tank had been captured and used by retreating German troops, who dumped it in the swamp when it ran out of fuel. There were no signs of oil leakage, rust, or other significant water damage to the mechanical components. The engine was restored to full working order.

    These tanks were the chief reason for there being any Soviet success against the Germans, because they balanced out the inequity between the German Tankmen, who were inarguably the best in the world, and the Russian Tankmen, who were, at least at the start of the war, some of the worst in the world. The Germans would get direct hits and they’d just bounce off the T-34’s slanted armor.

    There’s so many of these suckers still around — hundreds (some still being used by third world military organizations) — that they’re often substituted for German Tigers in war movies — including Saving Private Ryan and Kelly’s Heroes.

    Now —
    The guy whose designs lay at the heart of this tank?

    American Walter Christie, who couldn’t get the US Dept. of War to give his designs any development.

    Smock Puppet, Like... Duh? (8e2a3d)

  43. Now, this is my last political campaign.

    AUDIENCE MEMBER: Awww –

    THE PRESIDENT: No, it’s true. There is a term limit for Presidents. You get two.

    The fun part is, this can be his last political campaign even if he doesn’t win.

    I want my OTP!!!

    Smock Puppet, Like... Duh? (8e2a3d)

  44. Smock Puppet, yes and no. The predecessors of the T 34 used Christie’s suspension designs but by the time of the T 34, the Christie suspension was no more. Too complex for its limited benefit and difficult to upscale to those weight classes.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  45. Stealing from Clayton Cramer:

    You Didn’t Build That Massacre…Someone Else Did It For You

    WNEW News reports that Holmes was awarded a prestigious grant from the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md. NIH is part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

    It gave the graduate student a $26,000 stipend and paid his tuition for the highly competitive neuroscience program at the University of Colorado in Denver. Holmes was one of six neuroscience students at the school to get the grant money.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  46. THE PRESIDENT: No, it’s true. There is a term limit for Presidents. You get two.

    Funny, I don’t think you get them, Barcky. In a just and sane world, you would have the earn or win the second one. You font just get it.

    JD (b22d65)

  47. Oh great. We are revisiting the lie that Gore said he invented the internet. Stale. Jd is really steering this site down the 2er

    tye (74d31b)

  48. tye, you’ve said things far, far less true, and better debunked but this one offends you? Hilarious for a seventh grader to whine as you do.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  49. I didn’t author this post, tye. Good Gawd, you are stupid.

    JD (b22d65)

  50. The comments were mutually exclusive. Note the period and not the semi-colon. Yes I’ve dropped such whoppers such as child rapist abettors should be held accountable. For shame!

    tye (74d31b)

  51. tye is using punctuation to justify his non sequiturs and incoherence.

    Wow. Way to show the progress made in sixth grade, tye.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  52. Hey when is the post discussing that our army or interstate highway system have nothing to do with the federal government? This is my new Onion.

    tye (74d31b)

  53. Probably one of the great reasons for the success of the T-34 v. Tiger was that Russia was able to build so many of them, and the Germans not so much – too complicated, too expensive.
    In the great tank battles along the Eastern Front, the Tigers were often just overwhelmed by numbers – which also was their frequent doom along the Western Front when engaging the M-4 Sherman,
    which – looking at the stat sheets – was no match for either the Tiger, or T-34.

    AD-RtR/OS! (b8ab92)

  54. AD, don’t get me started on the M4 Sherman fiasco.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  55. Tyke probably has never read that part of the Constitution (or any part, for that matter) charging the Federal Government with the defense of the country (“…provide for the common Defence…”); and there is that inconvenient Art-I, Sec-8, which sort of (specifically) covers the establishment of an Army, and the creation of “post Roads”.

    AD-RtR/OS! (b8ab92)

  56. Oh I’ve read it. Remember I’m on the side of the aisle that commends the federal government for its accomplishments. I also don’t defend horrific crimes against children regardless of how the perpetrators vote.

    tye (74d31b)

  57. I hate it when it is recess at tye’s middle school.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  58. SPQR, God must have loved the Sherman, as he (and GM/Ford/Chrysler) created so many of them (snicker).
    I think the deficiencies of the M-4 were ably covered by one-scene in “Patton” in what I remember is a conversation between Patton and Bradley on the M-4 v. Tiger.
    When that movie played in a theatre I was managing, you could see heads bobbing in agreement by all of the ex-GI’s in the audience.
    But, even though Congress in its infinite wisdom provides the Army with a less-than-perfect weapons system (again), we do seem to manage to Innovate, Adapt, Overcome; and win.
    That is one of the true stories of American Exceptionalism!

    AD-RtR/OS! (b8ab92)

  59. Tye is back to its vile baseless smears.

    JD (b22d65)

  60. AD-RtR/OS, do you know the nickname the British gave LendLease Shermans? “Ronson”. Because back then, Ronson lighters’ ad slogan was: “Lights every time!”

    SPQR (26be8b)

  61. commends the federal government for its accomplishments

    and you’ve been doing that when?
    You probably think that something like AFDC was a stunning success that didn’t condemn generations of kids into poverty and dependency.

    AD-RtR/OS! (b8ab92)

  62. President Obama, discussing his economic policies during a fundraiser in California, told supporters last night that “we tried our plan — and it worked” as he explained why they should reelect him.

    “We tried that and it didn’t work,” Obama said of Romney’s proposed tax cuts and spending cuts, which he dismissed as a Bush-style “top down” economic policy. “Just like we’ve tried their plan, we tried our plan — and it worked,” he added later in the speech. “That’s the difference. That’s the choice in this election. That’s why I’m running for a second term.”

    I’m starting to think that tye is a seventh grader by day … and a White House speechwriter by night.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  63. SPQR…
    Chuckles!
    Yes, I had heard that.
    The Crusader/Churchill series were, in many ways, a better tank; just as many of our opponents weapons systems were better than what we put up against them.
    We just had the ability to overwhelm them with numbers.
    What is it that they say:
    Amateurs discuss tactics; Professionals discuss logistics.
    We have, remarkably, been able to staff our armed forces with professionals.

    AD-RtR/OS! (b8ab92)

  64. “…it worked…”

    If he calls having 8+% UE for virtually his entire term in office, when his own Spendulous Plan called for UE, at this point in time, to be less than 6%, “working”, then the entire language of politics in the civilized world has become useless in discussing any issue of substance.

    AD-RtR/OS! (b8ab92)

  65. tyke has probably applied for that job, and was turned down as being over-qualified.

    AD-RtR/OS! (b8ab92)

  66. Its just confirmation, AD, that Obama thinks any lie, no matter how stupid, will be believed by his supporters. Hence my relation back to tye’s behavior.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  67. Well, if BHO believes it (and since he’s been spouting this drivel for years, he must), then I’m confident in assuming that he knows his supporters will swallow this hog-wash too.

    “Liberalism is a Mental Disorder!”
    If we could just get that included in the “nut case manual” (DSM), all Libs would be disqualified from gun ownership, as they would be – a priori – a danger to themselves and others.

    AD-RtR/OS! (b8ab92)

  68. Oh great. We are revisiting the lie that Gore said he invented the internet.

    Actually, we’re not. Reading comprehension isn’t one of your skills, is it?

    Chuck Bartowski (3bccbd)

  69. “The demand was there almost 15 years earlier, when CompuServe, The Source and other private networks were formed due to the public unavailability of ARPAnet.”

    Limbaugh had a long comment today about Compuserve. I used them too. The guy who made the internet work for commerce is Marc Andreesen the guy who wrote Mosaic. The U of Illinois insisted they had a patent on it since he wrote it as a grad student, so he changed the name to Netscape.

    That was what made the CERN world wide web work.

    Al Gore was nowhere to be found.

    A better book about PARC is Fumbling the Future. It doesn’t have Hiltzik’s anti-business slant.

    The M 4 Sherman tank in Normandy had a 600% loss rate. The M 26 had been designed and a few prototypes had been built (One was later sent to Normandy) but the Army decided to standardize on the Sherman, a disastrous decision.

    Another of the DoD screwups included the M 16 which was designed (as the AR 15) to use a specific type of smokeless powder. It didn’t require cleaning if that powder was used. The Army changed the powder specs and sent the rifle to Vietnam without a cleaning tool. A lot of dead soldiers were found with jammed M 16s.

    Your government at work.

    Mike K (4c76c8)

  70. Everybody knows that Man-Bear-Pig invented the Internet.

    Icy (938611)

  71. I’m afraid the time has come to put Dad in a “home”.

    Icy (938611)

  72. 52.The comments were mutually exclusive. Note the period and not the semi-colon.

    — So, your defense against the charge of making a mistake is “I didn’t screw up; I was lobbing an ad hom”?

    Brilliant!

    Icy (938611)

  73. “dad” has problems remembering his names.

    JD (b22d65)

  74. So the bottom line is that the Internet as we know it was indeed born as a government project. In fact, without ARPA and Bob Taylor, it could not have come into existence.

    LOL, “A therefore B” … except, even if we grant “A”, “B” doesn’t follow at all from it. In no way at all.

    GIGO at work, folks. GIGO at work.

    Smock Puppet, Like... Duh? (8e2a3d)

  75. That’s a pretty crummy update and correction for this site. I thought one of the ‘things’ at patterico was to openly and frankly admit when an error was made. If I hadn’t clicked through I’d have thought Hiltzic was just parsing words to make Obama look good. Instead it seems pretty clear that the primary source for the Crovitz article disagrees with the conclusion.

    time123@gmail.com (33ce8e)

  76. R.I.P. Sherman “George Jefferson” Hemsley

    Icy (938611)

  77. Did the site make a mistake, or was it a difference of opinion between various commenters; and, isn’t any blog-post just the poster’s opinion until it is verified or debunked?

    (pulling a JD)
    Just what other names have you used to s..t upon what you’ve read here, anyway?

    AD-RtR/OS! (b8ab92)

  78. This is taken from the Hiltzik blog post in Patterico’s update:

    So the bottom line is that the Internet as we know it was indeed born as a government project. In fact, without ARPA and Bob Taylor, it could not have come into existence. Private enterprise had no interest in something so visionary and complex, with questionable commercial opportunities.

    At the risk of immodestly trumpeting myself, refer back to my comment above from 9:47 am. This is exactly the sort of liberal attitude I was writing about — Hiltzik really believes that private enterprise would never have gotten around to inventing the Internet. Here is the perfect encapsulation of the liberalism that Obama and Hiltzik both subscribe to. It is simply beyond their comprehension that good things can happen without the government funding, regulating, and managing the process from soup to nuts. I don’t think it’s even worth arguing the point with them any longer: it’s part of their catechism, and woe unto him who dares question it. The only thing we can do is point out how laughably stupid the idea is, and trust that a majority of our fellow citizens will see it our way.

    JVW (6511b1)

  79. Just what other names have you used to s..t upon what you’ve read here, anyway?

    “mikekoshi” perhaps, or “neofascistcabal”? Maybe we can check to see if the IP address from time123@gmail.com comes from the LA Times newsroom. Of course, Hiltzik would have learned his lesson the first time around, wouldn’t he have?

    JVW (6511b1)

  80. By the way, the Xerox Alto was not the first PC, as the article claims.

    The Alto was preceded by the Xerox Star, which had the distinction of running the first program with a graphical user interface. The name of said program was Bravo!

    DubiousD (cf8a88)

  81. 76- no right wing commenter has admitted an error on this site ever.

    tye (74d31b)

  82. Tye – that is a lie, and you are a liar.

    JD (b22d65)

  83. I guess Obama would claim that all technical progress “owes its success” to government help. After all, patents are only issued by governments, and very little intellectual property can be protected without governmental assistance.

    Of course that would be, like most of Obama’s beliefs, specious.

    Kevin M (bf8ad7)

  84. Tis true biff the bigot!

    tye (74d31b)

  85. One of the reasons that the DoD and the Intel community loans money to risk-takers is that otherwise, no one sane would do business for them.

    Cost-plus accounting isn’t very interesting for people with a clever idea to build something better and cheaper. The documentation regime is horrific and the internal accounting controls they demand are stultifying and mostly pointless. All of this requires an army of bureaucrats be hired to administer. An extreme case of “B’s hire C’s.” And your A-types generally dislike being ordered around by C’s.

    Basically a startup that gets involved in this process has to drown its creative talent in a morass of bureaucratic rules. It is generally not much of a blessing, and the “profits” are mostly illusory.

    Kevin M (bf8ad7)

  86. c’mon tyena
    diff’rent day same clown squeezin’s
    it’s like GroundHog Day

    Colonel Haiku (e68274)

  87. Btw- government did provide funding for some of the infrastructure of the internet as it was taking off. But let’s rip Obama for making a factual point. You know, because he isn’t a republican.

    tye (74d31b)

  88. Government research created the Internet so that all companies could make money off the Internet.”

    Factual statement, tye? Yes or no?

    JD (b22d65)

  89. Hilzik, didn’t realize at the time,he wrote ‘Dealers’ that this was going to be a meme, that’s why he started the timeline in 1969, te whole point of the story, was how hide bound corporations, like Zerox did not have the flexibility, or imagination
    that a Gates or a Jobs exhibited.

    narciso (ee31f1)

  90. Tye – you claim it is true that no conservative here has ever admitted a mistake. How many examples do you require to prove you are a liar? If we can provide 5, do you promise to leave and never come back?

    JD (b22d65)

  91. I admitted an error. I admitted it to you specifically. So there is that. Who’s biff? beef.

    Ag80 (b2c81f)

  92. Okay. We have already established that tye is a lying liar what tells lies. Thank you, Ag80.

    JD (b22d65)

  93. Even Leviticus wants tye to be banned. He said so, at least twice.

    MD in Philly (3d3f72)

  94. Aye, no more tye

    peedoffamerican (ee1de0)

  95. Even Leviticus wants tye to be banned.

    I hope he isn’t banned. Tye is trying to get banned. That way, he can go back to left-leaning blogs and tell them about the horrible things done to him at Patterico, and how he was banned just for disagreeing.

    He’s a hero in his own mind, let’s not make him a martyr.

    Chuck Bartowski (99415f)

  96. It’s funny what people thought back in the day,

    http://www.amazon.com/Dealers-Lightning-Xerox-PARC-Computer/dp/0887309895

    narciso (ee31f1)

  97. Even the Times didn’t understand the book they were reviewing back then, now mind you, that’s a bug not a feature with them;

    ttp://www.nytimes.com/books/99/04/04/reviews/990404.04poguet.html

    narciso (ee31f1)

  98. What Chuck said. Point and laugh.

    JD (b22d65)

  99. if teh prez had run
    even one lemonade stand
    might have half a clue

    Colonel Haiku (0b29a3)

  100. 76- no right wing commenter has admitted an error on this site ever.
    Comment by tye — 7/24/2012 @ 4:33 pm

    — I once declared that tye is NOT a dickless wonder.
    I would now like to admit an error.

    Btw- government did provide funding for some of the infrastructure of the internet as it was taking off. But let’s rip Obama for making a factual point. You know, because he isn’t a republican.
    Comment by tye — 7/24/2012 @ 5:21 pm

    — No one is denying that infrastructure exists, idjit. There’s just this thing where some of us don’t feel the need to kiss the feet of the beauracrats that are administering OUR money.

    Icy (fdf16c)

  101. All I have to say is that the internet backbone (servers, fiber across land and sea) was pretty damned expensive and lots of companies went belly up using investors money trying to make the internet useful to billions of people instead of to just a few hundred

    SteveG (831214)

  102. Of the $1 Trillion in student loans outstanding $280 Billion are behind one or more installments.

    25% of recent grads are unemployed and many more not in the field of their choosing, exhausting the relevance of their training.

    Penn State is second tier Big Ten and will not be missed. Lots of schools are going to go under.

    gary gulrud (dd7d4e)

  103. What Chuck said. Point and laugh.
    Comment by JD — 7/24/2012 @ 6:53 pm

    Maybe in the future when the person in question comments I’ll say, “Hey, Chuck!! Comment #__, take care of it please!

    MD in Philly (3d3f72)

  104. Btw- government did provide funding for some of the infrastructure of the internet as it was taking off. But let’s rip Obama for making a factual point. You know, because he isn’t a republican.
    Comment by tye — 7/24/2012 @ 5:21 pm

    Earth to tye; the government didn’t provide that money. Taxpayers did. You know, like those successful entrepreneurs.

    Just thought I’d make a factual point about you and your socialist Chicago jesus; people work for that money, it’s not free. But you people are so tone deaf you demonstrate you don’t realize that while trying to fix your last thousand or so gaffes when you demonstrated other things you don’t realize.

    Steve57 (386607)

  105. Obama’s new job http://ow.ly/ctKHe

    Ted (f8effe)

  106. 107-now you look silly. Semantics. Either way Obama was actually correct. Not a shocker. What else do we have? Did Romney actually release his financials or is he still hiding?

    tye (4ef1b0)

  107. Hey, Chuck!! Comment #109, take care of it please!

    MD in Philly (3d3f72)

  108. Tye – you claim it is true that no conservative here has ever admitted a mistake. How many examples do you require to prove you are a liar? If we can provide 5, do you promise to leave and never come back?

    Do you really think that “Government research created the Internet so that all companies could make money off the Internet.” is an accurate portrayal of how and why the innertubes came to be?

    JD (b22d65)

  109. Romney’s financials are tye’s birth certificate; he just wants to see it, that’s all. Just asking questions.

    Pious Agnostic (7c3d5b)

  110. 112-Actually I would bet that they are hiding some pretty embarrassing stuff. That’s why they haven’t been released. Romney hasn’t heard the end of it though. In a possibly close election it could cost him dearly.

    tye (4ef1b0)

  111. We have no doubt you will never shut up about it, nor quit lying. You are a good little footsoldier, just taking orders.

    JD (b22d65)

  112. 12-Actually I would bet that they are hiding some pretty embarrassing stuff. That’s why they haven’t been released.

    You sound like a Birther. Congratulations!

    Chuck Bartowski (99415f)

  113. No. Birthers were actually given sufficient documentation but ignored it. Romney hasn’t given us anything.

    tye (4ef1b0)

  114. Romney hasn’t given us anything.

    Lie

    JD (318f81)

  115. tye, you just love asking to see stuff that isn’t your business, don’t you. You want pictures of people’s wives, you want to see their tax returns.

    You are a snoopy little thing, aren’t you?

    Pious Agnostic (7c3d5b)

  116. tye’s game is certainly not improving.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  117. 118- the voters deserve that information. He withholding it at his own peril.

    tye (4ef1b0)

  118. Romney hasn’t given us anything.

    That’s not true. He has released his 2010 tax forms, and will release the 2011 tax forms when they are ready. So, it is a patently false statement to say that Romney hasn’t given us anything.

    You just want him to release more.

    Chuck Bartowski (3bccbd)

  119. He has only released one year. His dad was a model of transparency and responsible government. The apple has fallen far from the tree.

    tye (4ef1b0)

  120. tye, the voters deserve what they are entitled to. They are not entitled to comb through anything and everything, which as you know has been the Obama stance on his own records.

    You only want to see it so that you have more material to spin and lie about. Romney’s public record is squeeky clean, so you need something to lie about.

    It’s what you do. That, and sniff around for spouse pictures.

    Pious Agnostic (7c3d5b)

  121. tye, we know more about Holmes’ college career than we do Obama’s, so your snark about transparency only backfires on Obama … like every other snark from the Obama supporters.

    Hypocrisy – the daily gruel of Democrats.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  122. Even though the little troll is thread jacking again, his post at #113 made me laugh: it applies much more to the Preezy of the United Steezy. Projection, as always.

    Simon Jester (ccd968)

  123. As a lifelong, voting conservative, tye is concerned at Romney’s failure to jump through 10 flaming hoops while blindfolded, as his opponents have demanded, and how voters will react to this failure in November.

    For the good of his candidacy, he better drop what he’s doing and start hopping!

    Pious Agnostic (7c3d5b)

  124. 123- wrong. Obama released his financial info.

    tye (4ef1b0)

  125. 107-now you look silly. Semantics. Either way Obama was actually correct. Not a shocker.
    Comment by tye — 7/25/2012 @ 12:11 am

    — It’s a matter of “semantics” that Obama lied, huh? It must be nice, setting the bar so low that even an ant couldn’t limbo under it.

    118- the voters deserve that information. He withholding it at his own peril.
    Comment by tye — 7/25/2012 @ 6:49 am

    — And, by contrast, all of Obama’s financials are public information:
    Record debt & deficits
    Record spending
    Record unemployment
    Record applications for disability

    And you can even check his personal finances, too! Just ask his financial advisor.

    Visiting hours at the state pen are 1 to 4 on Monday & Wednesday.

    Icy (fdf16c)

  126. “I hope he isn’t banned. Tye is trying to get banned. That way, he can go back to left-leaning blogs and tell them about the horrible things done to him at Patterico, and how he was banned just for disagreeing.

    He’s a hero in his own mind, let’s not make him a martyr.”

    – Chuck Bartowski

    Who cares what tye is trying to do? Who cares what he wants? Like all effective trolls, he’s derailing thread after thread after thread because people won’t just ignore him. Let tye say whatever he wants – somewhere else, so that we can get back to discourse.

    Leviticus (102f62)

  127. Leviticus, you are right. I’ll ignore him from now on.

    Pious Agnostic (7c3d5b)

  128. Pious – your racisms are showing

    JD (b22d65)

  129. Sorry JD, I meant I’ll ignore it from now on.

    Pious Agnostic (7c3d5b)

  130. PARC did invent ethernet, which is part of ISO layers 1 (Physical Layer) and 2 (Data Link Layer), but the “network” which is encapsulated in the IP protocol is part of ISO layer 2 (Network Layer) with its cousins TCP & UDP in ISO layer 3 (Transport Layer).

    So just because you invented Ethernet doesn’t mean you invented the Internet.

    Neo (d1c681)

  131. Did you call him a boy?! I heard it. I did.

    JD (b22d65)

  132. Leviticus you are their pet liberal. We know you can roll over, but you haven’t quite learned “speak ” yet.

    tye (4ef1b0)

  133. Leviticus you are their pet liberal. We know you can roll over, but you haven’t quite learned “speak ” yet.

    tye (4ef1b0)

  134. Did someone fart?

    JD (b22d65)

  135. JD, wasn’t me.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  136. Leviticus you are their pet liberal. We know you can roll over, but you haven’t quite learned “speak ” yet.
    Comment by tye — 7/25/2012 @ 7:54 am

    — Leviticus writes complete sentences, reasons out his arguments, and (rather than engaging in mere contradiction) bases his opinions on what he truly believes. His conclusions are mostly wrong, but at least he argues from a position of honesty.

    What do YOU do?

    Spew hate, lie, move goal posts, spittle out ad homs & non sequiturs, and engage in a non-stop attempt to jack EVERY SINGLE THREAD into another direction.

    If he’s our “pet” then you are the ‘black sheep’.

    You may now call me a racist.

    Icy (fdf16c)

  137. ________________________________________________

    I’m starting to think that tye is a seventh grader by day

    It’s harder for me to be bothered or astonished by such people if they’re still rather young.

    When I superimpose his voice (meaning his comments) onto the face of a teenager or perhaps someone not much older than 25, it rings differently to me compared with imagining such a person being well into his 30s, 40s or certainly the age of the guy now in the White House.

    What’s pathetic is that his sentiments and foolishness are pretty much a microscope into the mind of an Obama, Pelosi, Biden, Gore, or a typical person of the Hollywood community (eg, Michael Moore), etc. That’s not just pathetic, it’s actually rather scary because such people’s way of thinking can be ridiculously deluded, dishonest, flat-out stupid.

    As for trolls in message boards, if they’re always being poked, whose fault is that? After all, it’s a case of “love me or hate me, but please don’t ignore me.”

    Mark (672f64)

  138. Hey Chuck!! He’s being downright meaner than usual!!

    MD in Philly (3d3f72)

  139. .

    He has only released one year.

    That whoosh we all heard was tye backpedalling. So, you admit your initial statement was false?

    Chuck Bartowski (3bccbd)

  140. 129. Like all effective trolls, he’s derailing thread after thread after thread because people won’t just ignore him. Let tye say whatever he wants – somewhere else, so that we can get back to discourse.

    Comment by Leviticus — 7/25/2012 @ 7:22 am

    I disagree that he’s an effective troll. Just as I disagree that he derails thread after thread.

    The topic of this thread is essentially the multiple layers of stupid of Obama’s remarks. It isn’t possible to “lie” about Obama’s misunderstanding of the economy, as if he merely flubbed a sentence or two in a recent speech. When you start peeling back the layers of the onion that is Obama’s misunderstanding of economics, you find his misunderstanding is based upon a childish comprehension of socialism.

    It isn’t even a “which came first, the chicken or the egg” misunderstanding Obama is demonstrating. It’s a which came first, the private sector chicken or the government cheese omelet” fiasco of a misunderstanding Obama is demonstrating in solidly coming down on the side of the government cheese omelet when demanding successful entrepreneurs acknowledge their great debt to the USDA lab that produced it.

    When it comes to a child-like comprehension of the textbook they use at the Fidel Castro School of Economics leading to multiple layers of stupid upon which a complete misunderstanding of how our economy works, how wealth is produced and by whom, further leading to a history of idiotic pronouncements on the bases of economic success and how best to run an economy, I believe tye serves as a useful stand-in for Obama.

    Steve57 (386607)

  141. tyke typifies Teh Won’s multiple layers of stupid.
    Perhaps it’s a PhD candidate?

    AD-RtR/OS! (b8ab92)

  142. 9. Comment by CIXter — 7/24/2012 @ 8:38 am

    The other approach was the “NAP” model pushed by Al Gore, some NSFNET executives..[etc]… They desired a measured-use Internet that was implemented in a manner similar to the post-divestiture Bell breakup, giving a monopoly on the backbone to politically favored companies, and a monopoly on the last-mile to the RBOCs (Baby Bells)…. Their cost structure needed a deep pocket RBOC to absorb, given they never had a commercial orientation. Gore’s model failed.

    I didn’t know that Al Gore’s “new information superhighway” was an actual plan.They apparently abandoned this and got behind the Internet, when?

    My impression was that Clinton wanted to get online communications away from political and general discussions between people and toward buying and selling, so they were promoting it after it started.

    There is also a lot here I don’t understand.

    TCP/IP network: The hardware and software used actual links between computers?

    PSINet, UUNET and CERFnet: I think I may have heard of UUnet. That connected universities?

    “NAP” = what?

    NSFNET – what? National Science Foundation…? What was this?

    Baby Bells = The 7 companies for local calling that the Bell system was broken up into. I think its now all merged back into Verizon and a reconstituted AT&T. One of the baby Bells bought AT&T I think and took over its name the way Chemical Bank took over Chase Manhattan and adopted its name. And the same thing happened with the Bank of America, which is why its headquarters is now in North Carolina and not California. There is a connection unlike the second Washington Senators baseball team.

    measured-use Internet: charge per time online?

    RBOCs (Baby Bells): Regional Bell Operating Companies?

    NSFNET non-profit regionals: What’s that?

    Their cost structure needed a deep pocket RBOC to absorb: absorb costs?

    multilateral exchanges = ??

    MAEs (Metropolitan Area Ethernets) = a sort of local backbone?

    and then with more bilateral direct exchanges between backbones.

    Al Gore knows this when he lies about his role (and conceals his actual opposition to what became).

    He promoted therefore something like the idea of what happened, but it didn’t happen as a result of his efforts, and he wanted something that would actually be of much more limited utility and have less usage and cost more to use?

    Sammy Finkelman (f560b6)

  143. _____________________________________________

    My impression was that Clinton wanted to get online communications away from political and general discussions between people and toward buying and selling

    If only because such folks on the left often are resentful that the fairness doctrine is no longer being applied to talk radio.

    Mark (672f64)

  144. Hey Chuck!! He’s being downright meaner than usual!!

    I see that, doc. You all seem to be unaffected, though.

    Tye’s posts here are about as meaningful as Mickey Rooney and Elizabeth Taylor reciting marriage vows.

    Chuck Bartowski (3bccbd)

  145. The government created the Intranet, not the Internet.

    Vatar (0a99e7)

  146. tye #107-which-became-#109 – so you are an anti-semant as well as your other patent flaws ?

    Who would have thought that the day could arrive when anti-semantic bigots would publicly support the President of these United States ?

    Alasdair (b19c38)

  147. I agree with Vatar, and here’s what Bob Taylor says:

    To hear Taylor tell it, finding the inventor of the internet is a bit like finding the inventor of the blues. Its origins are murky and complex.

    “The origins of the internet include work both sponsored by the government and Xerox PARC, so you can’t say that the internet was invented by either one alone,” he says.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  148. “I believe tye serves as a useful stand-in for Obama.”

    – Steve57

    So… you’d rather keep a troll around to confirm your biases than remove him as an obstacle to the sort rational discourse which might disprove them?

    Nice.

    Leviticus (102f62)

  149. Leviticus, many of us thought that you would enjoy having tyke around, as it makes you look so much better in comparison.

    AD-RtR/OS! (b8ab92)

  150. Leviticus – had I the power, after it spewed it’s venom at you, Elissa, and SPQR, I would have nuked it. Not my call.

    JD (b22d65)

  151. Leviticus – I tend to see the tye-folk of this life as being excellent bad examples who might motivate you (and similar) to consider understanding the examples of rational discourse in the comment streams on posts here which disprove *your* biases … (a la the beam in your eye compared to the mote in my eye compared to the Brooklyn Bridge in tye’s eye) …

    Alasdair (b19c38)

  152. Tye, is just the new iteration of a previous troll,
    what’s mildly more interesting is how Hilzik ‘throws his own book under the bus’ in order to rationalize this new meme,

    narciso (ee31f1)

  153. 151. So… you’d rather keep a troll around to confirm your biases than remove him as an obstacle to the sort rational discourse which might disprove them?

    Nice.

    Comment by Leviticus — 7/25/2012 @ 3:34 pm

    Alrighty, then. I disputed your assertion that he’s an effective troll, along with your assertion that he derails thread after thread.

    From this you leap to the conclusion that I want to keep him around how, exactly?

    I still think I made a valid point. If the topic of a post is someone’s economic illiteracy, and in the subsequent comment thread tye attempts to discuss economics, there’s no way he can derail it.

    Steve57 (386607)

  154. Post #152 is gonna leave a mark, AD…

    Colonel Haiku (13019b)

  155. Tye’s posts here are about as meaningful as Mickey Rooney and Elizabeth Taylor reciting marriage vows.

    Comment by Chuck Bartowski

    Nose to nose, his toes was in it… toe to toe, his nose was in it.

    Colonel Haiku (13019b)

  156. 0bama record
    Complete Cluster Collision
    just one and he’s done

    Colonel Haiku (13019b)

  157. Try to understand him. It helps when one considers that when he’s not here living his fantasy life of pretending to be important, he is his real self and still has to lead his regular life out in the world. And his real life may not be nearly as fulfilling and joyful as the lives many of us seem to have beyond politics. I pity him.

    elissa (dfda4c)

  158. Brian Williams (NBC): A Republican campaign source advised us that you’re looking for an “Incredibly boring white guy for your VP nominee.” Can you confirm?

    Romney: “You told me you were not available.”

    Colonel Haiku (13019b)

  159. JD,

    His babysitter remark to SPQR was inexcusable, and the last straw in my mind. His request for your wife’s photo was inexcusably creepy. I got off light – just an Uncle Tom accusation.

    Steve57,

    Sorry. You said that you didn’t think that tye was derailing threads, and that he served as a useful stand-in for Obama. I assumed that meant that you wanted to keep him around. If you’re saying that you don’t want him around, then I’ve assumed too much.

    Alasdair,

    Examples of rational discourse at this site have and continue to disprove my biases. It’s one of the main reasons I’ve stuck around for so long.

    Leviticus (102f62)

  160. The only thing about tye’s insults – directed at me – that I find annoying is how unimaginative they are.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  161. I see that, doc. You all seem to be unaffected, though.
    Comment by Chuck Bartowski — 7/25/2012 @ 9:55 am

    Having failed to get him booted in my “Aye for bye to tye” campaign, I have used the strategy of ignoring him, except for calling for you or asking another commenter “who are you talking to”?

    Painted Jaguar (a sockpuppet) (3d3f72)

  162. sorry, that was me at 164.

    MD in Philly (3d3f72)

  163. The absurdity of the premise, put forth by Obama is like saying the space program came about to invent
    Tang, that was a result, but not the purpose.

    narciso (ee31f1)

  164. Whatever happened to “Space Food Sticks”, I wonder?

    MD in Philly (3d3f72)

  165. Leviticus, no need to apologize. Just in the future try to keep in mind that when I offer a differing opinion as to whether a troll is all that effective or not, I’m agreeing with you that we are discussing a troll.

    I certainly don’t like having him around; he doesn’t add anything. But I don’t want to offer an opinion and try to influence Patterico one way or the other. It’s his blog, his standards, and entirely up to him how he deals with trolls.

    So I’m not going to campaign to have him banned. But if one day we all realize tye’s no longer commenting here, that certainly won’t break my heart. But trolls are like herpes; no matter what you do they’ll always come back.

    Steve57 (386607)

  166. I’m going to go on record as not wanting anyone to be banned, unless for exceptionally bad behavior (imdw publishing Patterico’s address would be an example of that).

    I don’t care if tye or anyone else is a barnacle on the gears of rational discussion. I can engage him, or make fun of him, or simply ignore him. And everyone else is free to do any or all of the above.

    But I don’t want this site to be known as a place that bans people just for being disagreeable.

    Tye is a putz. He’s a liar and twister of words, and he’s about as pleasant as a case of shingles. But I don’t want to see the idjit banned.

    Chuck Bartowski (99415f)

  167. _________________________________________________

    But I don’t want to see the idjit banned.

    If I were a webmaster or moderator, I’d be quite lenient about who was or wasn’t violating TOS rules. I guess in that regards, I’m a liberal. LOL. Or, come to think of it, because I’ve become so bothered by the dynamics of political correctness run amok, I feel very permissive about what type of speech should be deemed as acceptable or not.

    Another irony: when I think that society should start becoming more wary towards behavior that is increasingly loose and decadent, I notice in too many instances quite a few people out there (the PC brigade in particular) suddenly wants to say “c’est la vie” or “anything goes!”

    Mark (1e7702)

  168. There was another article by L. Gordon Crovitz in the Wall Street Journal today: (and two letters to the editor as well)

    http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390443931404577555073157895692.html

    Posted July 29, 2012, 5:33 p.m. ET

    WeHelpedBuildThat.com

    The column was prompted by Barack Obama’s statement about the roles of government and business. In his “You didn’t build that” speech, he said: “The Internet didn’t get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all companies could make money off the Internet.” There are three problems with this claim:

    • Government alone didn’t create the Internet.

    • Government didn’t help build the Internet in order to create commercial opportunities.

    • Companies that succeed on the Internet do not succeed because of government.

    More details on who invented the Internet.

    There’s more.

    So anyway, we;re dealing here with another line in that speech. You could go thriough it and write several hundred words on each paragraph.

    Sammy Finkelman (d22d64)


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