As a web worker, technologist, and community media supporter I cannot support the bills known as SOPA and PIPA. I disagree on multiple levels with the transfer of speech rights to a group of private entities and the onerous ‘policing’ actions foisted upon independent content creators.

Contact your representatives and let them know how you feel: http://americancensorship.org/

And I’m so glad he did…

From the AP (via TPM):

An environmental activist tainted an auction of oil and gas drilling leases Friday by bidding up parcels of land by hundreds of thousands of dollars without any intention of paying for them, a federal official said.

The process was thrown into chaos and the bidding halted for a time before the auction was closed, with 116 parcels totaling 148,598 acres having sold for $7.2 million plus fees.

“He’s tainted the entire auction,” said Kent Hoffman, deputy state director for the U.S. Bureau of Land Management in Utah.

No need for my comments as I can just link to more from Mr. Marshall:

Auctions work on the theory that open bidding will efficiently yield the highest price any bidder is willing to pay. DeChristopher’s stunt suggests that, for whatever reason, that’s often not the case at BLM auctions. It turns out that, when pressed, most bidders are willing to pay more, often much more. In other words, DeChristopher exposed the fact that we’re routinely selling the rights to public land for less than its actual market value. No wonder BLM is mad.

DemocracyNow! interviewed the Utah student about the incident. You can watch that interview at this link.

Collusion, corruption and cronyism. This is our America?

I do not cosider this a positive development. From DemocracyNow!:

Army Unit to Deploy in October for Domestic Operations

Beginning in October, the Army plans to station an active unit inside the United States for the first time to serve as an on-call federal response in times of emergency. The 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team has spent thirty-five of the last sixty months in Iraq, but now the unit is training for domestic operations. The unit will soon be under the day-to-day control of US Army North, the Army service component of Northern Command. The Army Times reports this new mission marks the first time an active unit has been given a dedicated assignment to Northern Command. The paper says the Army unit may be called upon to help with civil unrest and crowd control. The soldiers are learning to use so-called nonlethal weapons designed to subdue unruly or dangerous individuals and crowds.

Try not to get yourself ‘considered dangerous’.

Belarus, Flash Mobs and the Ice Cream Revolution

In Belarus, young people are employing flash mobs to push the boundaries of what the government will tolerate in terms of free assembly. Last Friday, flash mobbers descended upon a public square in the capital Minsk to gather together and eat ice cream. No rally, no speeches, no sit-in nor march – just standing around and eating ice cream

[Thx George]

Now they’re not even pretending you have privacy or 4th Amendment protections. If the president says…

Then you should watch this:

The Secret History of the Credit Card

Sorry I haven’t been around, but we’ll always have NEWSISH:

• How Your Creepy Ex-Co-Workers Will Kill Facebook – more and more I hate Facebook. Did you know this?
• Court orders Bush administration to disclose telecom lobbying ties. What about senators? – Good news for Law and order types.
• Leahy takes next step toward holding White House in contempt – It must be ‘grow a pair’ day…
• Venus: Earth’s twin planet? – Cool pictures to boot.
• No Hoff, and now this? – I guess not all remakes can be as good as Battlestar.
• Feds pushing states on gun database – ‘there is no guarantee that the information wouldn’t be used for other purposes‘. You mean the gov’t isn’t completely trustworthy? I would add the question of competency to that as well…nothing like losing 4 million persons mental health records. But its for our own protection, of course…
• This could never be abused either…
• VA GOP will demand ‘oath’ of February primary voters – I can smell the ’08 confidence…
• And if you screen wasn’t cluttered with enough ads…

¡Noviembre newsish, ahora mismo!

• No email privacy rights under Constitution, US gov claims – Of course, Big Brother has your best interests at heart. Expect an email encryption tutorial in the near future. Via ./
• Picketing begins in NY in writers strike – Beware the rabid Reality shows, they are a-comin’
• Season 1 of The Jubi Show is in the can! Well, maybe not ‘the can’, but it is grouped together on a magnetic storage medium, as well as an array of DVD discs.
• More Wreck and Salvage available. I’ll need 7 wheel chocks [octogonal], 73 left handed garden trowels, 3 dry erase markers, 1 gallon of kerosene, and 6 packs of Doublemint [Plent-T-Pak]. Place your orders now.
• Verizon DNS Redirection ‘Service’ Spreads – When you have a captive audience due to a mono/duopoly, you can do pretty much whatever you want.
• Senate Committee Approves Broadband Bill – You have to follow the links in the article to get the whole picture, but at first glance this seems like a great step forward for local responsiveness and control over broadband offerings.

maybe some more later. maybe not.