Save the Internet Blog:

In a striking victory for Internet freedom advocates, AT&T officials agreed on Thursday night to adhere to strict Network Neutrality conditions if allowed to complete their $85 billion merger with BellSouth which was approved today.

The phone company filed a “letter of commitment

and the announcement:

Might be a good time to review the blogging ethics post that Sara provided back in September: 

Blogging Ethically

1. Publish as fact only that which you believe to be true.
2. If material exists online, link to it when you reference it.
3. Publicly correct any misinformation.
4. Write each entry as if it could not be changed; add to, but do not rewrite or delete, any entry.
5. Disclose any conflict of interest.
6. Note questionable and biased sources.

I never cared much about Saddam Hussein. He had the same world view as Henry Kissinger, Augusto Pinochet, George Bush, and Dick Cheney - might makes right. In that sense he was delusional.

And though I think it is a bad thing for the planet that Henry Kissinger and other listed above have not yet been brought to account for their war crimes, I just feel saddened by the hanging of Saddam. I think when justice is too random, maybe it's not justice? Maybe it's just politics played out with a court room backdrop?

I seldom think the death penalty is a good idea. If we are called to use it as an end in the justice system, I think I would be less uncomfortable if we administered IV morphine to suppress the breathing until death occurs. There seems to be little question that such a death is among the least painful ways to go. It might take hours and if we want the public viewing of an execution, we need to have it happen quickly - like a hanging, or electrocution, or lethal injection. But I think there is little talk about IV morphine executions for another reason: there is some sense that the suffering death is part of the sentence. Nobody talks about that because it is barbaric, but I am not convinced that a suffering death is not part of the bargain. And watch as the folks with a lot of gusto for death and mayhem jump and down saying - well did Saddam give his victims a humane death? And that's true of course, he did not, but the fact that this question will be brought forward in an almost reflexive reaction to the question of a humane means for applying the death penalty tells you that retribution - a suffering death for the prisoner - is part of this whole process.

It might be possible to find a little more of us standing on the middle ground with the death penalty if we would choose a humane death penalty means. I am not sure about that, I might still not feel ok about it, but the retribution aspect of a barbaric, painful, public death puts some me off.

• Ron Rants, Rants Group
• Jean Carr, Shea & Carr, Inc.
• Laura Schleyer, Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee
• Larry Leveen, Planning Commission
• Jim Lazar, Capital Bicycling Club

The City Council directed review of four areas of the code:
1. The number of bicycle parking spaces required for particular land uses.
2. The provisions of long-term, also known as “class one,” parking including the required degree of security and visibility.