Going through my mail tonight, I receive a flyer from the group Broadband for America. On the cover of the flyer is a picture of Harold Ford, Jr. (the former Representative from Tennessee). Their mission is “to make broadband access to the Internet available to every household in the nation; to provide data transfer speeds to make that broadband experience valuable to users; and to provide the bandwidth necessary for content providers to continue to make the Internet a cultural, societal, and economic engine for growth.” That is a fairly decent goal, and one-day it will happen. But how?

I recall waiting for the cable providers in my area to provide broadband service to my development. Friends and coworkers in neighboring develops were receiving broadband coverage for years before it ever reached me, and the delay was simply a confusion over which hub served our area. (You would think that the hub that provided our cable television was also the hub supplying the internet service.) Since those frustrating times, I have enjoyed 10 years of relatively reliable broadband coverage.

However, there are still some areas in the U.S. that doesn’t have coverage. Many of these locations are in rural areas where it would be just too expensive to lay cable to supply just a handful of potential users. One alternative that the Broadband for America group should consider is broadband delivered via satellite. Satellite internet service providerssuch as Wild Blue, HughesNet, and DirectTV can transmit their service to remote locations with ease the same way as cell phones such as the iPhone can connect to the net through their wireless signal.

I feel that this is the way our internet access will evolve in the near future. Ford should understand this, as Tennessee has many rural towns, which might be why he is an honorary board member. Is it cheaper to transmit signals via satellite than to lay cable all over the United States? I would have to think so, as well as being more environmentally friendly.

Anyone out there like Starbucks? It seems wherever you turn; there’s a Starbucks. They have stand-alone stores, they’re found at airports, and they are even in grocery stores. There’s even one next door to my office!

I like Starbucks, but not for their coffee. In fact, I hate coffee. The reason why I like Starbucks is for their unwillingness to be bullied into changing their policies in regards to “open carry” laws. (And before I go any further, I want to tell you that I hate guns almost as much as I hate coffee.)

The issue centers around the privilege that California residents have to walk around in public with a gun openly displayed. Most states within the Union allow open-carry of guns by registered/licensed gun owners – a practice that bothers gun-control advocacy groups. One of these groups is the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, and they’ve adopted an unusual strategy to fight the open-carry laws.

It started in Northern California when the establishments Peet’s Cafe & Tea and California Pizza Kitchen were identified as popular gathering places for gun owners. The Brady Campaign approached the restaurants and asked them to change their policy on allowing people to openly display their firearms indoors, with which they complied. Noticing this was a coordinated attack, the gun owners decided to shift to Starbucks.

The gun owners hedged their bets that Starbucks was too large of a company to be pushed around while at the same time believe the company would not want to lose the sudden increase in customer revenue. The Brady Campaign approached Starbucks with the same request, but was turned away after citing they were in compliance with state laws. Not happy with the lack of the preferred response, the Brady Campaign when on the offensive publicly. Brian Malte, a director within the Brady Campaign, stated, “Starbucks put out a statement today saying they don’t want to be in the middle of this fight. Well, they are.  They are the middle. Why are they in middle?  Because they chose — they chose — not to bar guns, so far, in their stores.”

Malte is wrong, of course. Starbucks was placed in the middle by the Brady Campaign, not because they “chose” to observe state laws. As a result, the Brady Campaign has decided to harass a law-abiding company over a difference of opinion.

Starbucks has tried to keep this issue below the radar since they didn’t want to get involved in a war of words. However, after protests and press conferences in front of their stores, the company felt that their employees and customers were being pulled into an uncomfortable position and decided to go public.

We recognize that there is significant and genuine passion surrounding the issue of open carry weapons laws. Advocacy groups from both sides of this issue have chosen to use Starbucks as a way to draw attention to their positions.

While we deeply respect the views of all our customers, Starbucks long-standing approach to this issue remains unchanged. We comply with local laws and statutes in all the communities we serve. In this case, 43 of the 50 U.S. states have open carry weapon laws. Where these laws don’t exist, we comply with laws that prohibit the open carrying of weapons. The political, policy and legal debates around these issues belong in the legislatures and courts, not in our stores.

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As the public debate continues, we are asking all interested parties to refrain from putting Starbucks or our partners into the middle of this divisive issue.

The Brady Campaign needs to stop this gutter campaign against Starbucks and go back to working with the state legislatures around the nation. If they continue, I encourage Starbucks to challenge the Brady Campaign and sue them for damages due to any loss of sales as well as for harassment. They have a right to allow law-abiding customers to patron their stores.