They did it, they really did it!
When I watched Barack Obama’s acceptance speech upon receiving confirmation that he had won the US presidency, becoming the first black person to do so, I was very happy. I hadn’t been up very long, this was around 6.30am, and suddenly the world felt a lot lighter, and there was hope where yesterday there was just the same old, same old.
What happens in the US affects the entire planet, there can be no doubt—and so the election of this man, who gives every impression of being both intelligent and gentle, progressive and fair-minded, gives us all hope for the future. American readers may cherish reading this editorial from The Guardian as much as we Brits are able to do today—it’s an opinion piece dripping in hope and historical significance. There’s more, of course—check out the BBC’s Justin Webb, talking of ‘profound change’ and how the Obama years will encourage the nation to ‘think differently about itself’.
tags: anti-gay, Barack Obama, change, climate, democracy, Democrats, dreams, economy, George W Bush, hope, idealism, liberal, opportunity, progressive, Republicans, terrorism, US elections, US Presidency, warSuper fast broadband to be priced beyond the reach of many
The price of super fast broadband should reflect the amount of money spent on investing in next generation networks, UK regulator Ofcom has said. What this means, translated for the average Brit, is that if you go for higher speed net access when it becomes available, the monthly bill might well make a complete Sky HD subscription, including all channels, costing just a few pennies short of fifty pounds ($100) look like small change.
In August BT committed to investing £1.5bn in fibre cable networks over the next four years. As it’s going to cost a fortune to implement these networks, you can safely bet it’s going to be a relatively small elite segment of the population enjoying stutter-free and high-quality audio and video streaming for at least five years if not more, especially as we’re facing recession right now and may still be in the economic doldrums come 2012.
tags: all wired up, BT, economy, iPlayer, pricing, super-fast broadband
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