The FCC just forced the VoIP providers like Vonage to provide 911 service to their customers.

It’s the only reason I don’t use one. With little kids, going to a real 911 dispatcher who knows where you are is critical in an emergency.

I would think that this would not have required government intervention though. It seems that market forces would have driven this soon enough, as there must be thousands of people like me who were just waiting for that one last piece to fall into place.

Hah!

America has finally got to us

From the Washington Times:

Minuteman organizer James T. Gilchrist, whose 850 volunteers shut down the flow of illegal aliens along a 23-mile section of Arizona-Mexico border last month, has joined forces with another citizens group to help organize a new border vigil in California — beginning in August.

The Minuteman Project has reached an agreement with the Friends of the Border Patrol (FBP) to help promote a new “border watch” aimed at assisting U.S. Border Patrol agents in apprehending illegal aliens on the California border near San Diego.

This story included this great quote:

“We did in our first 10 days what the federal government and Congress couldn’t do over the past 10 years,”

Want a new addiction for your mind? Try sudoku.

More here from Wired.

The always quotable Ann Coulter comes through again.

When ace reporter Michael Isikoff had the scoop of the decade, a thoroughly sourced story about the president of the United States having an affair with an intern and then pressuring her to lie about it under oath, Newsweek decided not to run the story. Matt Drudge scooped Newsweek, followed by The Washington Post.

When Isikoff had a detailed account of Kathleen Willey’s nasty sexual encounter with the president in the Oval Office, backed up with eyewitness and documentary evidence, Newsweek decided not to run it. Again, Matt Drudge got the story.

When Isikoff was the first with detailed reporting on Paula Jones’ accusations against a sitting president, Isikoff’s then-employer The Washington Post — which owns Newsweek — decided not to run it. The American Spectator got the story, followed by the Los Angeles Times.

So apparently it’s possible for Michael Isikoff to have a story that actually is true, but for his editors not to run it.

…

And this:

(Bumper sticker idea for liberals: News magazines don’t kill people, Muslims do.)

Read the rest…

Drudge jumps on Nick Denton.
Gawker launches “internal investigation.”

Donald Trump wants to rebuild the World Trade Center as it was. He has this to say about Libeskind’s Freedom Tower plans.

“In a nutshell, Freedom Tower should not be allowed to be built, it’s not appropriate for downtown Manhattan, it’s not appropriate for Manhattan, it’s not appropriate for the United States and it’s not appropriate for freedom,” Trump said.

Confederate Yankee agrees. So does Shape of Days. And Thomas Galvin. And Blue State Conservative. And Jim Chern. And Wandering Mind. And Quietwater. And Mark Lerner. Slant Point has a slightly different take.

Dissenting: Roll Over, Play Dead, TMCD.

Jen Chung suspects a PR play for the Apprentice.

Michelle Malkin has a bit on cannibalism quotes today. Harry Reid, quotes Janice Rogers Brown as saying:

“Today’s senior citizens blithely cannibalize their grandchildren because they have a right to get as much ‘free’ stuff as the political system will permit them to extract.”

Which she did say. The problem is he attributed it to a dissenting opinion she wrote, however she said this in a speech giving her personal opinions.

After Malkin exposed the error, he subsequently updated his website.

The “Princeton Progressive Review” subsequently accused Michelle of lying, apparently not checking the Google cache before posting these allegations.

In fact, nobody claims that Brown said this when she was on the bench. Progressives have been unambiguous in showing that Brown said this in a speech to the Institute for Justice Conference at Georgetown Law Center in 2000.

The Poor Country Boy Blog has more on the bellicose desparation on the Senate floor.

And Captain Ed encourages you to call your Senator.

Incidentally, you should take a few minutes to read her full speech.

We find ourselves, like the captain, in a situation that is hopeless but not yet desperate. The arcs of history, culture, philosophy, and science all seem to be converging on this temporal instant. Familiar arrangements are coming apart; valuable things are torn from our hands, snatched away by the decompression of our fragile ark of culture. But, it is too soon to despair. The collapse of the old system may be the crucible of a new vision. We must get a grip on what we can and hold on. Hold on with all the energy and imagination and ferocity we possess. Hold on even while we accept the darkness. We know not what miracles may happen; what heroic possibilities exist. We may be only moments away from a new dawn.