I actually refer you to Tucker Carlson's comments about Canada's sad donation to earthquake relief in Pakistan. Quebec is the most stuck up of that country, but Canada does come off as self-righteous. To quote Tucker, their "biggest export is self-righteousness."
I do think it's funny you called Quebec a "nation." Here's hoping the BQ doesn't see that.
Completely irrelevant, but Triumph's bit on Quebec was one of the best....ever. "Listen to that....its the sound of no one giving a sh*t"
I think of Quebec seperately because it makes Canada suck 89% more (as studies have shown).
Glad you guys understoof that this post was 67% idle irrelevancy.
Glad to hear that this post is about 2/3 idle irrelevancy, because I'm really just looking for a topical place to hang a "Thanks" for your support on internet governance.
To bring you quickly up to date, in case you haven't been following the news, Ambassador David Gross and Assisstant Commerce Secretary Michael Gallagher ably represented United States interests at WSIS. An agreement was reached keeping the current ICANN structure, while agreeing to a new Internet Governance Forum (IGF), convened by the UN Secretary General. The forum will no doubt cost lots of money and generate tremendous amounts of hot air. It is a moral victory for the EU position, so we can (and should) call this a win-win solution.
Yes, it is win-win, excpet where our tax dollars are concerned. I meant to put up a post about it, but the outcome seemed to get a lot more coverage than the EU/UN proposal itself got. I was very happy with the outcome and the US response, and thus we have a pseudo-Monroe Internet Doctrine
Calling it a "Monroe" doctrine does not really play all that well in Central and South America, and the Carribean.
And despite what some popular accounts may lead you to believe, the U.S. does not really "control" the internet. And we very much do require substantial international cooperation for the current system of technical coordination to be effective.
Our political opponents hoped to capitalize on worldwide anti-American sentiment. They sucessfully framed the issue as "Should the U.S. control the internet?" Given the amount of time left before the summit, and the problem of educating people about some pretty complex issues, the political response that played was "Alright, the world's superpower controls the 'net. Whatchugonnadoaboudit, huh?"
I am assuming you are correct, because you seem to know more about it than I do. I did believe that the main point of contention was the US controll of ICANN.
Hmmm... I'd agree that the U.S. Commerce Department (NTIA) memorandum of understanding (MOU) with ICANN, and the DoC purchase order for the IANA functions were the most publicized bone to pick over.
[Comment contains too many links, so continued...]
But the WSIS / WGIG process illuminated a rift [PDF] between "narrow" and "broad" visions of internet "governance". To further complicate things, it turns out that "governance" only has a clear meaning in English and French—in other languages it reportedly translates as "government".
[Continued...]
Further, there are some fundamentally different technical visions of internetworking, symbolized by the ITU-T versus IETF processes.
It's pretty complicated...
I can see that. That's a lot of reading to consider.
Oh, those links are just the tip of the iceberg. But, in a way, that illustrates what might be the deeper problem. The 'net has had a tradition of self-governance and open debate which relies on a contextual base of shared knowledge and common cultural patterns. Now that the 'net is becoming increasingly used by people who have different backgrounds and perspectives, how do we maintain "self-governance"?
That's a political science question, probably.
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