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And yet after that meeting to "reconsider" things (original source here after you wade through 3 links), the Polish government decided to go ahead anyways (source: here. Note the date: today, and after the meeting referenced in the first link). To be fair, he does say they are going to attach a clause about how to interpret the law (right after saying it doesn't change anything at all) and that they will consult the public "broadly". Somehow, I just can't bring myself to believe either of those will have any real impact.

So, nope, Anonymous didn't really do anything.

What exactly is Google trying to accomplish with their "real name" policy, anyway? I don't see what they hope to gain that's even worth the trouble of enforcing it, not even considering the ill will they're piling up.

i am surprised no one has seen the news BOMB Google dropped a few hours ago.

By March 1, 2012 all users of any Google product (over sixty different Google properties) must agree to a new limited privacy agreement. Google is going to combine all users individual online Google identities into one real identity that Google will track in real time.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/google-moves-to-integrate-user-data-across-services/2012/01/24/gIQAmv8GOQ_gallery.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/jan/25/google-merge-user-data-privacy?newsfeed=true

Will this enable Google to have the power to launch an instant attack on any group or business that Google disagrees with ideologically or socially?

Would this threaten the freedom of free expression during political or religious debate?

Could Google be used to topple the heads of governments who threaten their interests?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/google-tracks-consumers-across-products-users-cant-opt-out/2012/01/24/gIQArgJHOQ_story.html?wpisrc=al_comboNE_b

...the well-publicized "attack" on an Illinois water system by Russian Hackers that, unsurprisingly, never actually happened.

Actually, that's not necessarily true. For instance, check out this poll:
* 62% disapprove of congressional Democrats. 75% disapprove of congressional Republicans. Congress in general is currently at 13% approval, only 3% saying strong approval. If I'm reading the data correctly, that's the lowest congressional approval since before 1974.
* When asked whether the President or congressional Republicans would do a better job handling the issues of the day, 13% said neither, despite that not even being an option.
* 37% identified themselves as independent voters, a higher percentage than both Democrats (32%) or Republicans (25%)
* 48% of those polled believe a third party is necessary, 28% strongly. That's stronger support in this poll than Mitt Romney or Barack Obama.
* A third party candidate that supported the positions of those polled would pull 22% immediately, and another 46% would at least consider it. Now, of course, the 'supported the positions of those polled' means that you'd need a mythical candidate who was all things to all people, but it suggests that the 2-party monopoly is actually quite weak.

that 23% is also the difference between a successful product line and one shut down.

Should an isolated product suddenly cost 23% more it will suffer badly in the market, therefore domestic manufacturing is not viable. This argument is unrealistic and naive at best, or disingenuous at worst. Trade with China isn't about iPhones. It's about EVERYTHING being manufactured in Asia. All products, all brands. In fact, it's really about all imports that allow you to accumulate stuff while eluding the regulatory burdens imposed by the government you elect and eluding the cost of employing fellow citizens that don't, for some strange reason, care to live in factory dormitories to provide you with low, low Walmart prices.

The net result of eliminating the cost savings of outsourcing to Asia is that the final cost of all products that currently do not incur domestic manufacturing costs will be higher. No one brand or product will suffer an isolated cost increase; everything will cost more.

Will that mean fewer iPhones and Nexus Galaxies sold? Yes. Will the smart phone market disappear? No. Of course not. People will replace their stuff less frequently and be less reckless with their purchasing in general. That isn't a bad thing. God forbid we do not all replace our $500+ phone every 12 months or suffer with only one x-box.

Let's consider the other side effects of not outsourcing our manufacturing base. Read this to understand the consequences of forsaking the working class for low, low walmart prices. US income disparity is accelerating and this is caused by making our working class compete with dormitory housed disposable Asian workers that live, sleep and breath their foreman's whim, on your behalf.

Another effect will be a vast reduction of environmental impact. The US has a regulatory regime with teeth. Some meat packer in butt-fuck Texas dumps blood in the river and it's news, the EPA swoops in and corrections occur. The Chinese have deadened whole regions of their land recycling your electronics and the Chinese government just chases out the journalists. If you actually care about the Earth and it's fate then your path is clear; stop the export of western pollution to the third world. If you're really just a NIMBYist and can't live without disposably cheap stuff swirling around your life, then continue advocating "free trade."

70% of all imports to the US are tariff free. The largest part of the remaining 30% is fossil fuel in various forms. No other nation has anything approaching the abject surrender of its manufacturing base presently occurring in the US. No presidential candidates, incumbent or otherwise, are seriously advocating any change to this situation. Your Secretary of State is a former Walmart executive.

You frequently encounter a sentiment that goes approximately thus; "the days of prosperity in the US for unskilled workers are over; if you fail to incur huge education debt and assume a place among the well compensated elite you should expect to be miserable, and you deserve it." If that's you then you need to look around. Your lifestyle has an expiration date. Part of the coping mechanism we have used to offset working class decline is lowering the tax burden on lower end of the scale. As a result, 51% of income earners in the US are paying no net federal income tax while we're running a $1.3E12 defic

I am a gay man who wants to get married and have children.

On one hand: what's the reason two guys want to be recognized as a "marriage"? Not children, as they can't have them, and they're just as capable of raising a kid one of them had with a third party as mere friends as a couple -- it can never be "their" kid, at most of one of them. The uncomfortable truth is that they're after lowered taxes and certain other benefits meant to encourage having kids. A solo person deserves such benefits more than them.

1. Yes, I am after lowered taxes and certain other benefits meant to encourage having kids. Why do you say a solo person deserves such benefits more than me?

2. Such a truth (actually, a fact among many) isn't uncomfortable to me at all. Now, mind you, there's much more to it than such benefits. The rest of your comment is getting towards that goal - that the government (specifically, the vote of 50% + 1 of a population) shouldn't have the ability to promote single mothers raising children, married couples without children or that cannot have children, divorced couples married with children from previous marriages, some sects of Christianity, etc., over other beliefs/people - such others like homosexuals with children or Christian sects who believe God loves everyone.

3. One of the most devastating problems we gays have in this country have to do with problems of life and death at the hospital, family, inheritance, et al. See http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/washington-adventist-denied-same-sex-visitation-hospital-apologizes/2012/01/19/gIQAvngQCQ_story.html?tid=pm_national_pop I really do believe those problems will be solved soon in most places because rational humans find stories like that abhorrent. (That link isn't the most abhorrent story by any means, it's just recent) The basic cause inherit in all these problems is that the government (50%+1) has defined what can be a family and what can't. If the government (50%+1) didn't define it, these discrimination problems would go away (at least de jure, not necessarily de facto).

4. There are a whole lot of things in the government that discriminate homosexuals over heterosexuals. I won't list them all here, as you can just google it - a quick example is the right not testify against your spouse - but when you say "paying less taxes" you're quite missing the point - there shouldn't be any discrimination at all, period.

Thus, let's go for the complement: a whole household or nothing.

You're onto the answer. However, by doing that, you're still making the mistake that the government shouldn't make - making a decision of who can or can't be involved. I hate the fact that people dismiss that interracial marriage was illegal in this country until sometime in the 1970's - that wasn't long ago, and most Americans find it so ridiculous that the government would say it's illegal for a white person and black person to get married that they dismiss it. Well, the problem was mitigated by changing the definition of marriage at that point - instead of the government removing itself from the definition in the first place.

The answer is to not let the government discriminate at all, nor to "define marriage" at all. It's not a states rights vs. federal thing at all - there shouldn't be any government (50%+1) that can make that choice. If there should be laws helping society procreate, then so be it - base it on people having children and not religious beliefs about what a marriage is, or enlightened beliefs about who can join such unions. Simply put, merit-based laws. Don't write anything about what a marriage is.

I'd always think a similar pragmatic approach would help with these god awful debates about the rich and taxes and jo

Why wouldn't they? They cover Virginia.

See, for instance, #herpderpedia, listing reactions by many clueless teens.

Clueless? I'll say. Maybe I'm prejudiced (I certainly am) but my kids seem a lot more intelligent than your basic tweeting teenager suffering wikipedia denial.
I'm also reminded why I don't use Twitter. Does every tweet have the word "gay" in it?

Washington Post has an interesting article about the Wikipedia blackout.

Thanks. The article is amusing and insightful.

This is one of those days when we realize how little we know.
We have spent our lives figuring out where to get the information we
require (without really absorbing that information). Now, for a moment,
we’re left alone with the contents of our own heads, and the pickings
are slim.

Unfortunately, there are too many people that still do not understand what SOPA/PIPA are about, and simply complain about the loss of Wikipedia. See, for instance, #herpderpedia, listing reactions by many clueless teens. It's disappointing how none of them spend the time to actually read the notice. Washington Post has an interesting article about the Wikipedia blackout.

How do scientists funded by climate deniers fit with your point 3?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/a-skeptical-physicist-ends-up-confirming-climate-data/2011/10/20/gIQA6viC1L_blog.html

Hey at least he was detained. The US is now assassinating US citizens abroad. A 16 year old US citizens shouldn't be killed without at least a trial or doing something really really bad.

Nope: the Iraqi government has wanted coalition troops out for years.

The withdrawal occurred so that no more casualties occur during Obama's re-election year. And no more embarrassments, either.

If the elections were in another 4 years then the troops would still be there for another 3.

This is where the project failed the first time....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/17/AR2006081701485.html

Oh, don't let the reality stand in the way of your ideology.

Paulâ(TM)s support base is a patchwork of libertarian-minded Republicans and independent voters drawn to his non-interventionist foreign policy views and distrust of the federal government. A surge in same-day registration tomorrow would, presumably, be a very good thing for Paul.

Recent polling in Iowa suggest Paul does very well with voters unaffiliated with either party. In the most recent Des Moines Register poll the libertarian-leaning congressman won 42 percent of unaffiliated voters, with Romney well behind at 19 percent.

Almost all the phones out there, including iPhones and Androids and even Windows phones have the ability to open a socket and leave it open until it times out (15 to 18 minutes later) to detect when there is something to send, (an email arrived, a message, etc). Apple use the Microsoft method and expanded it big time in their push technology to prevent polling by several apps for multiple email accounts, etc. Google, Apple, Microsoft all support some form of this for email, calendar, and messages.

Unfortunately, the Facebook crowd can't live with out knowing instantly when someone updates a page in some dank part of the inter-tubes, and therefore many apps poll. Bandwidth has become so reliable that nobody bothers deploying push technology if they can avoid it. People want instant weather, news, stock quotes, etc, and its just easier for these software developers to poll for this data while the phone sleeps in your pocket.

Add to this carriers tracking your phone's position without your knowledge. Several carriers sell this service to their customers for tracking family members. Then there is the whole Carrier IQ debacle. Its hard to know how much data this really pushes, but I suspect it is small.

But most of the traffic is stuff that customers specifically ask for. They want the Facebook updates. They want the weather. And they insist on using pop mail accounts that don't support IMAP Idle and therefor have to poll for messages every few minutes.

Server side services, search, SIRI, are also growing in popularity, but again this is by user request. You don't have to strut around asking what your calendar looks like instead of tapping an icon.

So I don't thing the Carriers are guilty here of much beyond offering what their customers want in terms of connectivity.

The problem here is that the Carriers realize just HOW MUCH the customers want this, and are currently in that phase of their business plan where they are milking it for all they can, pretending there is a bandwidth shortage, and applying caps and tiers to maximize revenue. I suspect it is mostly to prevent calls via Voip from being cost effective, and to hold down those people who tether an entire household to a single 3g phone. We've seen this all before. Just about the time the bitch level raises high enough to attract regulatory attention things will become free again. Just like long distance calls. Just like text messaging.

Its a passing phase. As soon as LTE is as widely deployed as 3G today, carriers will stop selling minutes and just sell you bandwidth, and you will make calls over the net. Voip and sip will go from being virtually banned to mandatory.

Then prices will come down as tiers will expand, and they can launch the next phase of artificial shortages and over charging for what ever feature is next to strike the fancy of consumers.

Congress has an approval rating of 9%, they are not representing any majority. Nixon did better than that at the height of the Watergate scandal. Polygamy, porn, and BP during the oil spill are all more popular than our current Congress! They have well and truly lost the popular mandate necessary for a democratic government.

For that matter, the U.S. going communist edges out our current Congress by 2 percentage points!

See here for more.

A skin mold might work if it makes your cheekbones look different, and definitely if it makes your nose look different (change the bridge, or the length of the nose).

Wouldn't a skin mold that changes the length of the nose just make someone look like a liar?

1. Replace all backscatter X-ray machines with millimeter wave scanners; the kind that aren't linked to cancer.
2. Make sure all scanner machines use the updated software which only shows a generic human form rather than your pseudo-naked body.
3. Only used pat-downs on people that set off scanner alarms first.
4. Let people keep their shoes on.

Wouldn't this take care of about 98% of complaints people have with the TSA? Could we at that point accept that the TSA really is just an attempt to provide security, and not to psychologically mindfuck the populace?

Free games with in-app purchases need to be marked as such. I saw that infamous game, Smurf's Village, was still marked "free" after that whole debacle last year.

I seriously doubt it. It would be confined to the middle east, unless Iran decides to send them to EU. I doubt that Russia and China want to get involved. And I SERIOUSLY doubt that we fire anything that will go over their territory. We have plenty of nukes stationed in the Indian ocean and the atlantic. And no doubt, Israel has a number of nukes on missiles designed to hit Iran. If Iran launches, then Iran WILL be wiped out.

OTH, America's concern would be if China decides to jump in. If they, the question, do they have 300 or 3000 missiles. Right now, the NRO, CIA, NSA, and DOD are hard at work trying to figure out if China has that. Without knowing that, if China launches, you can bet on it that we WILL go after China.

I seriously doubt it. It would be confined to the middle east, unless Iran decides to send them to EU. I doubt that Russia and China want to get involved. And I SERIOUSLY doubt that we fire anything that will go over their territory. We have plenty of nukes stationed in the Indian ocean and the atlantic. And no doubt, Israel has a number of nukes on missiles designed to hit Iran. If Iran launches, then Iran WILL be wiped out.

OTH, America's concern would be if China decides to jump in. If they, the question, do they have 300 or 3000 missiles. Right now, the NRO, CIA, NSA, and DOD are hard at work trying to figure out if China has that. Without knowing that, if China launches, you can bet on it that we WILL go after China.

Iran is running its mouth like it wants to get popped. They're going to look awfully impotent when that carrier steams right back into the Persian Gulf. It'll probably bring some buddies with it too.

Iran warns US carrier to stay out of Persian Gulf
Iran warns U.S. to keep ship out of Gulf
At end of drill, Iran army chief warns US aircraft carrier not to return to Persian Gulf

The Washington Post (reg required) just had a good report on how Russia's scientific base has changed for the worse. Apparently, the labs are populated with a bimodal mix of young and elderly scientists -- the middle has been hollowed out over the last two decades. And while a new funding push has sent money towards science, much of it is wasted through corruption:

In Russia, the lost generation of science

You both asked:

I'm surprised you didn't include Occupy

and answered your own question:

Freedom of speech rights my ass. Occupy doesn't know what their rights are and what they mean, how to deliver a message, or how to work for change. Instead, they come across as a bunch of posers and whiners squatting in the parks and demanding the right to squat there for the rest of their lives while they wait for the world to change itself just because they discovered the world isn't fair.

Despite that, Occupy was the news story of the year to me. It was a brief spark of hope dashed by the incompetence of self-styled "victims" who insult those who know what actual oppression is.

The Occupy movement in the US is essentially the political equivalent of bitcoint: It takes large amounts of valuable time and energy and produces seeming random outputs that are claimed to be valuable but which in fact are largely useless despite the claims of their respective supporters.

Excellent: “Daily Show” on class divisions at Occupy Wall Street

Occupy’s Misogyny

When are the feminists going to speak out on the abuse of women that’s happening at the hands of the Occupy crowd? Rapes and sexual assaults are rampant among the Occupy movement in cities across the nation. According to ABC News, this past Saturday night a 23-year-old reported being raped by a 50-year-old inside a tent at Occupy Philadelphia. Similarly, a 14-year-old child was allegedly raped at Occupy Dallas. And at Occupy Cleveland, a 19-year-old told police she was raped after sharing a tent with an unknown man. After reporting her rape at Occupy Baltimore, a young woman claimed occupiers refused to help find her attacker. Now reports of rape and attempted rape in Zuccotti Park are surfacing. These are just the ones that were reported.

In addition to rapists, suicidal folks are causing emotional distress within the movement. After a 32-year-old man shot himself inside his tent at Occupy Burlington, Vermont protesters were so traumatized that they readily agreed to pack up and end their demonstration.

Besides rapes and suicides, occupiers have injured women in the midst of their shameless attempts to grab attention. A couple weeks ago, I attended Americans for Prosperity’s “Defending the American Dream” Summit, which was crashed by Occupy D.C. I was able to depart safely, with my frightened guests in tow, as protesters hissed vile remarks in our direction. Others weren’t that lucky. The Daily Caller reports that an elderly woman was pushed down the stairs during the occupiers’ stampede into the convention center. Not one protester stopped to help her, even as she lay in pain from severe injuries to her wrists, ankles, and legs.

Despite claiming to represent the 99%, Occupy Wall Street managed to cost at least 91 people their jobs: Milk Street Cafe, FiDi eatery that lost business due to Occupy Wall Street barricades, to close for good

During a time when most city governments have having a very difficult time financially, the Occupy movment jacked up the costs. It cost Oakland CA about $2.4 million, LA is looking at $2.3 million, with some more big bills coming in shortly. Many other cities are in a similar position.

A number of "Occupy" site around the world was hit by revelations that

I can't tell if they have decided yet, but I wouldn't rule out that this is the preparation of a narrative.

Iran unlikely to block oil shipments through Strait of Hormuz, analysts say.
 
From the linked article: And Iran — which has enjoyed record oil profits over the past five years but is faced with a dwindling number of oil customers — relies on the Hormuz Strait as the departure gate for its biggest client: China.

“We would be committing economical suicide by closing off the Hormuz Strait,” said an Iranian Oil Ministry official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject. “Oil money is our only income, so we would be spectacularly shooting ourselves in the foot by doing that.”

Ahmad Bakhshayesh Ardestani, a political scientist running for parliament from the camp of hard-line clerics and commanders opposing Ahmadinejad, said it is “good politics” for Iran to respond to U.S. threats with threats of its own.

“But our threat will not be realized,” Ardestani said. “We are just responding to the U.S., nothing more.”

From The Washington Post:

Payment processors for power companies usually charge “convenience fees” of up to $5 for every payment made by phone or online, but cellphone companies haven’t taken the step yet. The furor against Verizon hints that they may have to wait further.

So, for now, you can continue to earn airline miles at Verizon's expense.

Most utility companies have a low percentage of online payments vs cell phone companies. Also, there are a lot of Public Utilities that for one reason or another have accounting rules that prevent deducting collection fees on non-delinquent accounts. While the surcharge on debit/credit transaction is not typically viewed as a collection charge, it is similar in the fact that you are paying a 3rd party to collect a payment and to account for this charge you would need to write down the original balance on the account in order to make it balance.

From The Washington Post:

Payment processors for power companies usually charge “convenience fees” of up to $5 for every payment made by phone or online, but cellphone companies haven’t taken the step yet. The furor against Verizon hints that they may have to wait further.

So, for now, you can continue to earn airline miles at Verizon's expense.

The Russians, not having Mythbusters, have to resort to expensive rockets to mess up local neighborhoods.

Here's one writer's take on it: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/04/AR2005080402194_pf.html

Putting up a factual page about Newt Gingrich at newtginggrich.com won't make Mr Gingrich happy, but legally they should be OK.

You're absolutely right... the problem is, they aren't doing that. Newtgingrich.com currently redirects at random to a list of other sites:

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/politics/2011/12/gingrichs-campaign-still-looks-awful-lot-book-tour/45977/
http://www.greektravel.com/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/post/gingrich-senior-aides-resign/2011/06/09/AGN77VNH_blog.html
http://www.tiffany.com/?siteid=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VaZFfQKWX54
http://www.freddiemac.com/
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2009/09/11/60353/gingrich-porn/
http://www.intrade.com/v4/markets/contract/?contractId=654836

And at that point, it starts to look more like bad faith registration. I know they picked the domains it redirects to as a form of political protest, but most visitors won't see that redirection list. Under the UDRP, I think Gingrich could seize the domain name.

Just tried the link http://newtgingrich.com/ and up comes freddiemac.com

Looks like it is on a rotating forwarder. The briefest of examinations suggests that it sends people to a URL from this list:

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/politics/2011/12/gingrichs-campaign-still-looks-awful-lot-book-tour/45977/
http://www.greektravel.com/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/post/gingrich-senior-aides-resign/2011/06/09/AGN77VNH_blog.html
http://www.tiffany.com/?siteid=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VaZFfQKWX54
http://www.freddiemac.com/
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2009/09/11/60353/gingrich-porn/
http://www.intrade.com/v4/markets/contract/?contractId=654836

I think it is great. I'd think it was funny if it happened to any politician, or any public figure really.
At a minimum it is funny because of all the people who will get their panties in a wad over it.

Would this news piece happen to have anything to do with the 69 Patriot missiles found on a German boat headed for China?

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/12/21/world/europe/finland-ship-missiles/index.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/finnish-police-find-shipment-of-patriot-missiles-in-ship-destined-for-shanghai/2011/12/21/gIQA1sEA9O_story.html

Some US authorities might be interested in muddying the waters on the subject of EU shipping security. The local news have accused the US of flagrant arrogance in their smuggling operations. The ship apparently had inappropriately packed but legal explosives shipment for China (which will be repacked and shipped forward) and illegal shipment of Patriot missiles, which apparently was seized by the Finnish Army. This was noticed when the ship stopped at Finland to load some wood products.

Sure, but the enemy doesn't have any planes.

They do now:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/iran-displays-plane-identified-as-downed-us-drone/2011/12/08/gIQA7xvGgO_story.html

Right now, it's illegal (per FAA regs) to use drones for commercial purposes. There are reports that someone has tried it anyway, but those who don't wish to draw the FAA's ire are waiting until the regs describing how and where drones can be used for commercial uses are finalized (expected some time in 2012, although that may be delayed with the recent arrest and subsequent resignation of Randy Babbit).

Was it Washington, DC?

Source

The [Washington] Post obtained a D.C. database generated from accident reports filed by police. The data covered the entire city, including the 37 intersections where cameras were installed in 1999 and 2000.

The analysis shows that the number of crashes at locations with cameras more than doubled, from 365 collisions in 1998 to 755 [in 2004]. Injury and fatal crashes climbed 81 percent, from 144 such wrecks to 262. Broadside crashes, also known as right-angle or T-bone collisions, rose 30 percent, from 81 to 106 during that time frame.
.
.
.
The results were similar or worse than figures at intersections that have traffic signals but no cameras. The number of overall crashes at those 1,520 locations increased 64 percent; injury and fatal crashes rose 54 percent; and broadside collisions rose 17 percent.

Overall, total crashes in the city rose 61 percent, from 11,333 in 1998 to 18,250 last year.

They've been weighing in this whole time... http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-tech/post/top-internet-engineers-warn-against-sopa/2011/12/15/gIQAGRV4vO_blog.html Perhaps you were reading the wrong articles? To quote from the linked article: "Vint Cerf of Google, domain name system software author Paul Vixie and Internet routing engineer Tony Li were among 83 high-profile engineers who signed an open letter to Congress in opposition to the House Stop Online Privacy Act and Senate Protect Intellectual Property Act."

What happens when the company is sued? Depending of the case, employees may have to surrender all the data on their device for discovery, since the device, while personally owned, is being used for work purposes too. This story talks about a recent case of DC government officials using their personal email from home for official business. How do you untangle the personal stuff from work stuff. I would think most lawyers are not going to care, and demand to see everything.

Actually it's pretty common that governments liberalize a little and the standard of life improves and then people overthrow the government. The collapse of the USSR is an example. There are tens of thousands of large scale protests in China every year and the number is rising.

We're entering an interesting period of history. The US is on the brink of a new great depression. The EU is about to collapse. China is about to experience a revolution. Fascinating stuff.

Quote of the day, from the Washington Post : "As a general rule, when the people saying that this will have a horrible, chilling impact on something are the ones who created that thing in the first place, and the people who are saying, “Oh, no, it’ll be fine, it only targets the bad actors” are members of the Motion Picture Association of America, it seems obvious whose opinion you should heed."

It's nice to have a Blackberry through all of this.

Why? The carriers are ignoring Blackberry's policies and installing CIQ on Blackberrys. If yours did, here's a link on how to remove it. You're welcome.

Everyone intelligent has now heard of it and knows it's bad, but even most of them won't stop voting for the incumbent in their own district.

says who?

Uhhh. Apparently you say so, that's who. From the article you linked...

As is typically the case, when it comes to reelecting one’s own U.S. representative, voters have a rosier view. Fifty-three percent of registered voters surveyed in the latest Gallup poll said their own House member deserves reelection while 39 percent said otherwise.

Everyone intelligent has now heard of it and knows it's bad, but even most of them won't stop voting for the incumbent in their own district.

says who?

It's not just books. Louis C.K. just released his latest comedy special for $5 on his website, bypassing the traditional studio route. Turned out to be a pretty profitable move.

You forgot to mention that Phillip Falcone is under investigation by the SEC.

I'm a little surprised to hear you using the term "gorilla dust." I had to look it up. It seems to be a term referring to confrontations based on bluster rather than actual combat that came into use thanks to Ross Perot.

Discussion of Gorilla Dust as a term.

Bill McNeil, Phil Hartman's character on NewsRadio, used the term once, and it has lurked at the bottom of my phrase pond ever since. I think my use was entirely appropriate in this context.

No kidding. And when you click through to the update, the guy actually comes forward and tries to blame it on the test:

âoeOn the FCAT, they are reading material they didnâ(TM)t choose. They are given four possible answers and three out of the four are pretty good. One is the best answer but kids donâ(TM)t get points for only a pretty good answer. They get zero points, the same for the absolute wrong answer. And then they are given an arbitrary time limit. Those are a number of reasons that I think the test has to be suspect.â

That sounds a lot like what I do at work all day. Reading lots of stuff that I wouldn't choose to, evaluating many potential options, and being responsible for the choices I make. And life is full of arbitrary deadlines.

Speaking for myself, but I believe other people believe similarly:
I believe that Obama is deliberately vague on his beliefs regarding Islam and Christianity because he values his political career more than his faith. I believe he considers terrorism a word that is broadly redefinable to meet the political need. I believe he did lie in order to further his bid for presidency and after his election in order to protect his potential for reelection. I believe he ignores the opportunity to correct racism and tacitly approves of it when it is politically expedient.

I do believe he was born in the US, and was eligible and legally elected. During the campaign I was willing to consider the possibility that it might be otherwise, but never saw proof when exposing proof had many strong motivations. I decided therefore that it must not exist, despite speculation among some people whose intellects I otherwise respect. I don't believe he is the antichrist (or even an antichrist depending on your definition.) I believe his shifting stance on Facebook and technology in general is sufficient to say he is an asshole. I'm not sure on the term hatemonger, though I think it obvious he has incited others toward hating Bush and McCain, I don't know if it meets any threshold on defining him generally.

For the most part, my beliefs are fueled by observation, and where they aren't, they're fueled by cynicism. In most cases, I'd say the same about his rivals as well.

I'm glad a black man is president, but I am sad that the first one is this black man. I'm a little surprised to hear you using the term "gorilla dust." I had to look it up. It seems to be a term referring to confrontations based on bluster rather than actual combat that came into use thanks to Ross Perot.

Discussion of Gorilla Dust as a term.

I've already lived this with iTunes. I bought iFitness (more here. During an iOS upgrade there was some sort of issue and PC backup turned out to be corrupt and couldn't restore the apps. "No problem," I thought, "I downloaded all of these apps from the store, I can just re-download everything."

Nope, despite being one of the five best fitness apps it was pulled from the market for unknown reasons. Some claim it was banned for posting fake positive reviews, but that seems completely unnecessary considering how much praise iFitness received.

Because of that I no longer trust my phone or the "cloud" to keep my data safe.