The Roman emperors spent lavish sums of money to keep the public thoroughly entertained with wine, bread and circus for everyone to enjoy. Today's plutocrats have found a similar, and even cheaper means of keeping their base of power pacified:

In the last session of the year, the City Council of New York passed legislation that creates a special broadband commission to advise Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the city council on how the resources of city government can be used to help roll out broadband throughout the city. The goal of the commission is to educate the general public about broadband and the newest communication technologies, and to give New York City residents the opportunity to comment on how to close the digital divide.

"Broadband is a fundamental civil right and human right," Bill de Blasio, a city council member, said during the session on Wednesday. "This legislation will start us down this road."

And the following things are a brief subset of things which are not fundamental civil rights in the magical land of New York City:

1) The right of self-defense thanks to their near one hundred percent disarming of the people.
2) The right to keep the majority of the product of one's labor thanks to their taxes.
3) The right to work for whoever you want to thanks to their pro-union laws and policies.

But hey, at least you can get your porn at 1.5mbps. That's got to count for something, right? All I want to know is that if I can get full speed cable internet access out in rural Virginia what the hell is their excuse for not having something even better in an area as dense and rich as New York City. Oh wait, thanks to their stupid policies, they've probably made it nearly impossible for anyone making less than $80,000 a year to even dream of broadband service, let alone acquire it.