This, my friends, is why we need laws about Net Neutrality.  Independent testing shows that Comcast, the second largest Internet service provider, actively interferes with BitTorrent file sharing by its customers.  BitTorrent, while sometimes used for the illegal transfer of copyrighted material, is also used by hundreds of legitimate companies and organizations to quickly distribute large files.  For example, OpenOffice.org, Ubuntu Linux, and other organizations with large downloadable products each offer and encourage downloading with BitTorrent.  I'd bet that Verizon and other ISPs discriminate against BitTorrent traffic too (I am starting to have strange issues sharing legal 'torrents' myself).  I have a right to use my Internet connection for whatever kind of legal data traffic I want, and it is time to protect that right by law.

• Comcast Blocks Some Internet Traffic (AP via MSNBC).

If you watch much TV, you have probably heard a lot of advertising blather (primarily from the cable and phone companies) talking about 'net neutrality' and—at least in this area—most of the ads are talking about how terrible an idea it is.  One ad that runs in regular rotation around here claims, in tones reminiscent of a negative political campaign, that neutrality legislation would give Google an unfair competitive advantage at consumers' expense.

According to interest groups representing the Internet Service Providers (ISPs), net neutrality would set back innovation and hobble the Internet with needless regulation.  But this is a merely a fabrication crafted by some very talented liars.

Karin Chenoweth writes in the Washington Post this morning exactly what needs to be said about the 'No Child Left Behind' (NCLB) law.  The oft-ballyhooed line that teachers must now 'teach to the test' and fail to do anything original or creative in their teaching may be true, but teachers teaching to a test is better than the pre-NCLB situation where most teachers didn't bother to teach anything at all.  It's a curious bit of revisionist history to pretend our schools were any better before NCLB than they are today.  They weren't.  We need a wholesale redesign of how we educate people in this country, and NCLB was a [very small] step in the right direction.  My only major complaint about NCLB is that it does far too little.

• Why 'No Child' Was Needed (Washington Post; free registration may be required).