Tag Archives: common good

Laws relevant to Foxborough McDonald’s —Vince Schneider

He’s back from Afghanistan and has a new plan to fight McDonald’s. Vince Schneider asked the County Commission for an ordinance about hours.

After quoting from the U.S. Tenth and Fourth Amendments and talking about privacy rights, he read similar passages from the Georgia Constitution, and this one, from Section II. Origin and Structure of Government:

All government, of right, originates with the people, is founded upon their will only, and is instituted solely for the good of the whole. Public officers are the trustees and servants of the people and are at all times amenable to them.
He then read a definition of ordinance, and noted that many ordinances deal with issues of safety, health, morals, etc.

His recommendation: for the Commission to pass an ordinance limiting hours of operation for such type of enterprises.

That’s the county attorney visible directly past Schneider (under the microphone). Of course it’s the commissioners who must propose and pass any ordinance. That will require Continue reading →

Gigabit Internet in Chattanooga

If we’re going to copy Chattanooga about something, how about this: 133 US cities now have their own broadband networks by Nate Anderson in Ars Technica:
Such publicly owned networks can offer services that incumbents don’t, such as the 1Gbps fiber network in Chattanooga, Tennessee, run by the government-owned electric power board. And they sometimes have more incentive to reach every resident, even in surrounding rural areas, in ways that might not make sense for a profit-focused company.
According to this map of Community Broadband Networks by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, quite a few small cities in south Georgia have municipal cable networks:

All three of Moultrie, Thomasville, and Cairo use CNS, whose brochure for Moultrie says you can get:

DownstreamUpstreamMonthly Cost
5 Mbps1 Mbps$29.95
12 Mbps2 Mbps$35.95
22 Mbps3 Mbps$49.95
Now that’s not 1 Gbps, but it’s a darn sight faster than the allegedly 3Mbps AT&T DSL!

If Moultrie, Thomasville, and Cairo, and yes, Doerun can do this, why can’t Valdosta and Hahira?

And then how about add on a wireless network to reach the rest of us rural folk?

Maybe then we wouldn’t be the Internet backwoods.

-jsq

The Internet backwoods: that’s south Georgia

Saturday I heard somebody bragging about how fast the Internet is in Atlanta. That would be maybe a tenth of the speed it is in Tokyo. But still blazing fast compared to the broke-down wagon in a muddy ditch speeds we get in south Georgia:

I wrote that article more than a year ago, and Internet speeds in rural Georgia have not improved much if at all. This isn’t just about playing Farmville. It’s about communicating with your relatives, about competing in business, Continue reading →