Oh, dear. Om talks up Comcast’s million VoIP customers, which is all fine and good, except that American VoIP continues to be a complete rip-off, whether provided by telcos or cablecos or Vonage.

Om writes:

The growth has been so good that the company is adding 4000 jobs.

Umm, that’s *not* something to be proud of. What are these jobs, lobbyists in DC?

Free, in France, has gone from 0 to 2 million customers, and only employs 1,300 for the entire operation. For Free, Om might write:

The growth has been so good that the company is adding 4000 jobs generating enormous profits that are being reinvested into providing customers with state of the are fiber-optic connections for the same low price of 29.99 euros/month [pdf].

Al Gore is proposing to replace payroll taxes with pollution taxes…that strikes me, on first reflection, as a very elegant way to align *everyone’s* interests in promoting a clean environment.

The great side benefit would be the reduction of payroll taxes, which would mean companies would find it much more affordable to hire workers.

Very clever; I hope the blogosphere can help keep interesting ideas like this on the agenda during America’s next presidential election in 2008.

Link: Gore says tax pollution, not payrolls | Politics News | Reuters.com

I’ve taken a nice blogging sabbatical pretty much all summer, but I miss writing so here we go again!