Pete Ashdown

In 2004, I spent a considerable amount of time lobbying in favor of municipal fiber, known as UTOPIA. Part of my effort was in front of the Salt Lake City council, including a speech that is archived here.

Imagine my surprise this morning when I find that Councilman Dave Buhler, on Comcast’s dime, has been testifying in front of officials in Nashville, telling a story that completely contradicts my testimony from 2004.

So I submitted the following to the Nashville City Paper:

It’s nice to know that Dave Buhler, a councilman from my city of Salt Lake is able to find work moonlighting for Comcast in Nashville. I only wish he would have listened closer to my testimony on municipal fiber in his other job.

In fact, businesses and individuals in Salt Lake City did and continue to demand municipal fiber. As founder and president of Utah’s first Internet Service Provider, XMission, I hear this from them continually. The current options of Qwest DSL and Comcast cable do not have anywhere near 100% coverage after nearly a decade of deployment and broken promises. Even more baffling about Mr. Buhler’s statements is that my business is across the street from city offices and we’ve repeatedly “clamored” for better data infrastructure because it is what our customers are not able to get.

Last, the assertion that dial-up meets everyones’ needs is simply flat out wrong. XMission’s dial-up subscribers have plummeted over the past five years along with our customer base due to the fact that we are only allowed to serve their broadband needs on Qwest DSL. Where Qwest does not deploy DSL, the customer will use Comcast and reluctantly stop using our service because they demand broadband facilities. Mr. Buhler’s vision of dial-up is more suited for 1995.

Councilman Buhler, the free market for broadband is failing Salt Lake City and it’s failing America. Countries like South Korea and Sweden recognize the economic force that is fiber-based infrastructure. Their government involvement has knocked the USA to 16th on broadband deployment worldwide. We need leadership and representation that not only has vision for the future, but also listens to what their constituents are saying right now.

The Deseret News has a light piece on what public officials drive. Too bad I’m not in office, for I have a tale to tell.

The Blue Eagle is back on the road. I took it to Logan last Saturday for a stop at the Rotary district convention banquet. Having a local shop repair the transmission turned out to be the best choice. What would have taken a month and a few more years off my father’s life took some local pros a week. So aside from a few other minor quirks, it has been humming along the Utah freeways just fine.

As I was headed to Logan, I realized I needed to refill the diesel tanks. It was then that I remembered that the website for the Utah Biodiesel Cooperative mentioned there was a commercial biodiesel pump available in Brigham City. When the motorhome was first being considered for the campaign, I thought it would be great to power it via biodiesel, but after investigating the effort it takes to make it, I quickly abandoned that idea. It wasn’t until someone at a campaign event told me about the UBC that I realized I could purchase biodiesel from the pump in Utah.

Using my roaming Internet connection, I found the location of Cardwell Distributing in Brigham City. It wasn’t too far off the path to Logan. A fully unattended station mainly setup for agricultural needs. As I was filling, a local walked over to check the price, which was about a nickel cheaper than regular diesel. I asked him if it was always that way and he responded, “Yeah, but its still too expensive.” “There isn’t any reason it should be,” he continued.

64 gallons and $200 later, the Blue Eagle had finished gorging on the pump.

Although what is pumped is known as B20, 20% biodiesel to 80% normal diesel, the difference is remarkable. Driving a 30-year-old motorhome with the engine at your side has a bit of an odor and diesel makes it worse. The question I get asked is if it really does smell like french-fries. I don’t know where that came from, because there aren’t any potatoes involved. Insert your nose into a bottle of vegetable-oil and you’ll get a more accurate idea. Not entirely unpleasant, but a whole lot better than normal diesel. I’ve been told that biodiesel runs much cleaner too. It isn’t hard to imagine from the smell.

The icing on the cake came when there was discussion at the banquet about the Rotary district governor’s car. When he became district governor, he bought one of the new Volkswagen TDI diesel Jettas to drive around Utah. When asked about the MPG, he said it was around 45. Now, I’m neither a chemical engineer, nor do I the understand depths of the auto-industry, but when we can supplant 20% of our fossil fuel needs, today, and drive vehicles which are more efficient than unleaded-hybrids (hybrid-diesel anyone?) , why aren’t we? Although ethanol seems to hold some promise, I think biodiesel holds more. It shouldn’t have to take a treasure-hunt to find biodiesel at the pump, it should be everywhere there is diesel.

There are changes we can make today, without waiting, to reduce our need for foreign-oil drastically. America needs leaders who are willing to do so.

The Utah Democratic Convention on May 13th was an exhilarating experience. It was humbling to receive such a warm response to my nomination speech and listen to so many people expressing their support. For those of you who were unable to attend the convention, I have put up audio of the nominations and my speech here. In addition, there is television convention coverage from KSL here and here, along with KUTV’s coverage here.

My convention speech was accompanied by a slide-show presentation. I will work towards matching the audio with that presentation and making it available on the website.

Many thanks to all the volunteers who took time out of their Saturday to help at the convention. I could not have done it without you.

In addition to the convention, I did a “Honk & Wave” in response to bad energy policy on the 9th. This event was covered by KSL.

Quality News Network did an interview as part of their extensive 2006 candidate interview series. Be sure to take some time to listen to Tony Seton’s interview of me and other candidates.

The campaign has over 1,000 volunteers signed up and we are working hard to build a database of all of them. I have installed a copy of CivicSpace to help with that. Right now, I need admins who are versed in using Drupal to make this installation of CivicSpace work for the campaign. I also continue to receive some criticism over the usability of the campaign website. If anyone feels like they can do a better job of organizing, design, and keeping things up to date, I am more than willing to hand over the reins. Please email me your design ideas and your past work.

We have distributed over 1,500 signs already! Send in your photos of yard signs and we’ll put them on the website for everyone to see. If you don’t have a sign yet, email our newest intern, Wade Finlinson and we’ll make sure you get one.

My long history with Qwest and US West before them has given me a mixed relationship with the company. I love them for having the foresight to share their DSL network with smaller entities instead of taking the monopolistic approach that Comcast has. I dislike them for some of the anti-competitive antics they have displayed over the past thirteen years.

Today gave me another reason to love Qwest. The fact that they told the NSA where to jump when they requested the call detail records of all their customers. Where this incredible display of spine sourced from, I can not explain, but it makes me feel a little bit better (15% to be exact) to be in a Qwest service region. Why the rest of our corporate overlords are so quick to bow to government monitoring is a better question.

The other display of technical bumbling to come out of Washington this week was the FCC insistence that all voice calls over the Internet be tappable. Does the FCC realize that its a simple matter to encrypt data including voice traffic? Do they know that their efforts to regulate and control law-abiding Americans inside the United States will go ignored by the majority of the planet?

The administration insists that it is only using this information against members of Al-Qaeda. In other words, only using wholesale privacy invasions for good, not evil. Individuals who trust this with blanket acceptance display a turnaround in attitude towards government. This must mean the government isn’t smart enough to manage a social security pension, but it has an uncanny ability to divine who is an Al-Qaeda member. The President said recently that he hasn’t heard any Democrat running for election stand up and call for an end to the Terrorist Surveillance Program (fondly known as “TSP” inside White House circles). News flash! If you know the person is a terrorist that you are surveilling, ARREST THEM.

Here’s something to give conservatives pause when considering these government actions. Substitute “Internet monitoring” and “call detail record analysis” with “gun control” and you quickly see who is being punished here. Hint, it’s not the people breaking the law. Any terrorist coordinating plans over the the public telephone network has got to have a lower IQ than shoebomber Richard Reid. Terrorists depend on cells that barely have any knowledge of each other, let alone organizing attacks with telephone trees. Monitoring of Americans has its place, but that place comes after examination by a court.

Mr. President, if what you said in a press conference is a gauntlet, then I’ll take that challenge.

Vote for me and I’ll do everything I can to end the unwarranted government spying on Americans.

My campaign is about democracy, drawing off the expertise of those who are most familiar and most affected by specific policies. When it comes to my own expertise, I’m well versed in the history and technical issues of the Internet, because it has been my business for 13 years and I’ve used it for 19.

One of the motivations I had for getting politically involved was watching many in the Republican party, who purported to be against regressive regulation and excessive taxation, reverse course when it came to the Internet. Calls for government control and taxation continue to be heard, but I find that most of these calls are ill-informed of the realities of the Internet, a medium unlike any other.

Now it is easy to stand up against regulation when it takes the form of government censorship. However when the regulation takes the form of something that seems as benign as “net neutrality” it is difficult. I have seen others compare net neutrality to the first amendment, free speech. That all should be guaranteed the ability to have transit at the same level and permission on the Internet. Sounds great, doesn’t it?

The reality is something else though. There are very good reasons for an Internet Service Provider (ISP) to have the ability to block traffic, attacking networks and spammers for example. If the regulation stated that I was unable to deprioritize garbage traffic on my network, all my customers would suffer. An ISP is better off making these decisions without government regulation making them instead.

Much of the “net neutrality” debate arose when William L. Smith of BellSouth stated they wanted to be able to charge for premium access to Yahoo and Google to traverse their network. Mr. Smith must have not done tech support, for if he had, he’d realize that his own customers will call if they can’t get fast access to a website. He needs Google and Yahoo as much as they need him. If a network provider decides to deprioritize valid traffic, they’ll only be shooting themselves in the foot.

I was there when the National Science Foundation handed over the Internet to commercial control in 1994. When this was done, they dictated that neutral peering points be established for the exchange of traffic between entities. However, they set no rules on doing this. I believe the assumption was made that everyone would realize the mutual benefit of exchanging traffic between networks, no matter the disparity in size. However, the opposite has been true. XMission has been part of an international peering exchange in Palo Alto known as PAIX. What I have encountered there is large entities setting down impossible rules that smaller entities can never meet. Some say there are valid technical reasons for doing this, but I don’t buy it. I have always peered with anyone who wanted and it has always worked well. Internet traffic always works best when it can find the shortest, quickest path to its destination. If Google really wanted to show up the telcos on this issue, they should buy their own connections into peering points and bypass them.

What the bureaucrats seem to believe about peering is that something is being given away for free. What they forget is that my traffic needs to reach their network eventually, it’s just going to do it less efficiently without peering. Again, they need me as much as I need them. Such is the quandry of the monopolist when it comes to the Internet.

Now some have told me that lack of regulation for net neutrality allows a provider to block access to websites that they find objectionable. Commercial censorship if you will. Some have accused AOL of censoring email from non-spam sources. However, there are always alternatives. If the Chinese government can’t control the Internet, what makes people believe AT&T can? Call this Ashdown’s rule, “The only way to control the Internet is to shut it down.” Any connection to the Internet presents the opportunity for a third party to allow, or even sell, unfiltered, unrestricted access. Furthermore, this kind of access can be spread for free by local parties. Witness the growth of free community wireless hotspots throughout the world.

As I said at the start of this campaign, I am against all government regulation and taxation of the Internet. Taxation and regulation policies can only serve to push commercial interests to countries who realize an unfettered Internet benefits their economy.

My deepest gratitutude to all the effort and kind words from bloggers around Utah (and New York and Ohio) with their efforts yesterday to boost the campaign. A woman in Kane County told me that the Internet is the earth in the grassroots of democracy. Yesterday’s “blogswarm” is a good example of how that works. I’ve added all participants to my blogroll on the right as a second round of thanks, if you want yours added, or I missed anyone, just let me know.

• Bloglet
• Dee’s ‘Dotes
• Forma Line
• Foxy Starbuck
• Gary Thornock
• The Human Project
• Innisfree
• Jen’s Green Journal
• Jeremy’s Jeremiad
• JuniperWest
• Leap Into the Void
• Obiter Dicta by Steve
• Picklewagon
• Signifiying Nothing
• SLCSpin
• Swinging the Buckeye State Blue
• Tales of Wit and Charm
• The Third Avenue
• The Utah Amicus
• Utah Democrats
• The World According to Me

This was submitted to the Salt Lake Tribune editorial staff the day they ran the story on Senator Hatch’s belief that global warming is science-fiction. I was quoted in the article, but when Judy Fahys called me she recognized on the phone that a brief response to a complex issue is a difficult task. So I wrote the following commentary and waited for a response from Vern Anderson, which as of today, I have not received. I presume that no communication means it will not be run. So the Internet wins again with another exclusive.

As a child growing up in Bountiful, I remember every winter packed with deep snow. I learned how to ski in my own back yard and tubing was the best option for recess from November to March. My father’s tractor was always dual use, garden plowing in the summer, snow removal in the winter. His need for the latter has faded along with his ability for the former.

Today, Utah winters make the 70’s seem like I was living in Alaska. Sure, we still have heavy snows as late as April, but they rarely stick. Snowfall melts by the afternoon and is gone by the next day.

As I digest peer-reviewed papers on climate change, it further bolsters my own experience. My knowledge of the Kyoto Accords is also weighted by a visit I took to Kyoto in August of 2004. The heat bore down on my family like a millstone. When I asked my Japanese sister-in-law if it has always been like this, she related a similar experience to my own. Thirty years ago, she said, the summers were livable.

The political debate over global warming is hotter than the scientific debate. In defense of industry, the federal government continues to push the issue out for further study. “Study” in government nomenclature tends to translate to “procrastinate”. Procrastination for the temporary protection of oil company monopolies to poison our air is not an excuse. Procrastination to protect the largest profit margins of any company in earth’s history is not an excuse. Take climate change out of the equation and we still have fish and fowl that we are advised to not eat due to mercury content. Sadly this situation is not science-fiction.

Rising costs, pollution levels, and a dependancy on the most unstable region on the planet are not worth further procrastination. No matter the level of campaign contributions received from the oil industries. Cloistered in an air-conditioned office, jet, and limosine, it is no wonder that some elected officials try to pass off science-fact as science-fiction.

Balancing our energy needs with wind, solar, and geothermal can only serve to benefit Utah. As I visited the coal-fired Intermountain Power Project near Delta, employees told me that a third generator most likely would not be constructed due to California’s refusal to buy power from dirty coal plants. This predicament literally blew me over as I exited the plant into a valley where the wind is nearly constant. Some say we have a wealth of oil-shale that should be extracted at exorbitant expense. Consider there are areas of Utah that average seven inches of rainfall a year, where the sun shines down on our desert state the rest of the time. My very own home is less than a mile from hot-springs that flow into the sewer. These three sources of energy are abundant throughout our state, yet the efforts to capitalize on them are squandered. The US should shift tax-credits for oil exploration from the companies who made record profits last year to Utah innovators who will lead the world once again with their expertise. With the rest of our nation and world facing similar energy problems, Utah is uniquely positioned to gain great economic benefit and recognition from these solutions.

Cheap energy, clean air, good jobs, and American independence is enough motivation for me to make this a primary campaign plank. Having my children experience four seasons in Utah again would be the icing on the cake.

The campaign is on fire today due to a Wired News Interview by Eliot Van Buskirk and a subsequent Digg followup.

Many people from all over the country (and one American in Dublin) have been sending in their support, both financial and verbal. Thanks to all!

I returned yesterday from hitting my 16th Democratic county convention. The Deseret News covered my stop in Washington County. People are fighting mad over Divine Strake, as am I.

One thousand signs went out the door in April and another thousand are well on the way. This campaign is getting good traction everywhere!

I urge you to write an email to the BLM regarding PFS’s plan to store nuclear waste in Utah. The employee collecting these letters is Pam Schuller (pam_schuller@blm.gov).

Here is a sample letter:

Dear Ms. Schuller,

I oppose the dumping of spent nuclear fuel (rod nuclear waste) in Utah. Along with a polled 84% of Utah, I stand firm against sending waste from other states’ nuclear plants to our state. I believe that our federal government should take a realistic view on allowing private entities to safely recycle this waste onsite and also look to clean renewable energies as replacement for our aging nuclear plants.

I believe that the proposed inter-modal facility and road will not serve the broader public interest, but only narrow interests of PFS and not allow access for others who want to explore the newly-created wilderness area. However ill-advised or ill-fated the Cedar Mountain Wilderness Area is, it remains a Federally-protected wilderness area which the Bureau of Land Management is obligated to manage for all Americans, not a consortium of corporate entities. Questions remain as to the future use of the Cedar Mountain Wilderness Area; I feel that granting a right-of-way, so soon after the creation of the wilderness area, limits the public’s ability to enjoy the land designated for their appreciation. I would hope that the BLM is able to craft regulations that will facilitate public use of the land, but not as a conduit for further pollution.

I also understand the difficulty of your position. As an employee of the BLM, you probably never expected to be the filter for public sentiment, something that should be reserved for our elected representatives. It is also of deep concern to me that although some of our elected officials widely advertise the power of their seniority, the public is left to petition an agency via email to get our will enforced. Nevertheless, I welcome this opportunity and I sincerely hope that you are a more receptive listener and a more powerful executer than the people who purport to represent Utah.

Sincerely,

Pete Ashdown

It looks like someone reads my blog.