Portside

While the "net neutrality" debate may seem like a jargon-filled conversation between technologists and free speech advocates, it's really about you and your ability to read what others are writing and write so that others may read it.

Nobody wants there to be trouble, “but sometimes something has to be stirred up and this is something that needs immediate attention.”: Lillian Jones of Fargo

Overall, American families are paying an annual $6,000 subsidy to corporations that have doubled their profits and cut their taxes in half in ten years while cutting 2.9 million jobs in the U.S. and adding almost as many jobs overseas.

The right to be left alone; Verizon's plans for the Internet; The rise of social commerce; Journalistic ethics?; Internet mavens talk money & politics, Culture, commerce, online shopping, politics, money, corruption

Cleaning and concessions workers in federal buildings will protest their taxpayer-funded poverty jobs. Those planning to strike include workers who serve food or wash floors at Union Station (owned by the Department of Transportation), Smithsonian Museums (owned by the federal Smithsonian Institution), and the Ronald Reagan Building and Old Post Office (owned by the General Services Administration).

Yes, Angela Merkel wins. Her 42 percent vote, impressive as it was with many parties contesting, left her with the biggest bloc of 311 seats in the 630-seat Bundestag, but five seats short of a needed majority. So instead of the previous more-or-less like-minded partner, further to the right on most issues, she must try to forge an alliance with her main election opponents, the Social Democrats.