Vox Sentences: Creating a public option for the internet

1. Socialized internet

• President Obama is calling for the Federal Communications Commission to overturn state laws that hamper municipal broadband.

  [Vox / Tim Lee]

• "Municipal broadband" just means cities and towns providing high-speed internet access, usually via fiber.

  [Vox / Tim Lee]

• You can think of it as a public option for the internet.

  [Vox / Ezra Klein and Susan Crawford]

• Chattanooga, Tennessee and Lafayette, Louisiana have municipal fiber systems and boast some of the fastest internet connections in the world (at lower cost than many other cities).

  [Vox / Matt Yglesias]

• But the cable industry has succeeded in getting laws passed in 19 states, limiting the practice in various ways.

  [Washington Post / Brian Fung]

• Critics argue that municipal broadband represents unfair government interference in private markets.

  [Technology Liberation Front / Braden Cox]

• FCC chair Tom Wheeler has suggested that he's open to the idea of blocking the state laws.

  [Ars Technica / Jon Brodkin]

• Last summer, the House voted to take away his power to do that. But that has no chance of making it past Obama.

  [The Hill / Cristina Marcos and Kate Tummarello]

2. Misc.

• The case for having the government buy up lots of stocks and distibute the proceeds to everyone as checks, no strings attached.

  [Project Syndicate / Dani Rodrik]

• A 15th century church in Milan uses an optical illusion to look much bigger on the inside than it actually is.

  [Atlas Obscura / Stane]

• Let us now praise Kaitlin Olson, the most underrated comedic actor on TV.

  [Slate / Mark Peters]

• Poor kids in Denmark get 2.6 times as much money from the government as poor kids in America do.

  [Demos / Matt Bruenig]

• The Fed's impending rate hike is like deficit reduction: everyone in DC wants it, even when it would probably hurt the economy.

  [Jared Bernstein]

3. Verbatim

• "Abbi and Ilana on the show allow us, the businesswomen, writers, and creators, to make mistakes and think they are funny, rather than flog ourselves."

  [Ilana Glazer to Vox / Kelsey McKinney]

• "It's not everyone who can write about modern art or Dionysus who has a PhD in mathematics from MIT."

  [Ian Malcolm to New Republic / Jeet Heer]

• "You start with the concept that force-feeding is not a nice thing to do."

  [John Burton to Eater / Wyatt Williams]

• "After all these years under state protection, I almost feel guilty for still being alive."

  [The Guardian / Roberto Saviano]

• "Carry bolt cutters everywhere."

  [Werner Herzog via Jason Kottke]

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