Replacing the Comcast webpage with a shout out to other hackers was a stupid, immature prank that could be performed with a relatively small amount of technical skill in a relatively short period of time.

Stupid pranks that have a significant negative impact on people's lives should have serious consequences associated with them.

However, immature pranks have an entirely different character than actions taken through malice or greed, and Justice requires that we recognize the difference between those categories of behavior. Furthermore, computers, internet connections and websites go down, on their own, all the time. A 90 minute outage for Comcast's website is not something either they or their customers should ever have to endure as a consequence of someone else's irresponsible behavior, but it is something that they and their customers do, in fact, endure on a regular basis. All the time.

Given these facts, a year and half in prison is way outside the scope of what justice requires in this case. Its a sentence that is so far outside the scope of what is objectively reasonable that it shocks the conscience. It seems an obvious consequence of technical ignorance on the part of the decision makers as to the actual mechanism through which this outage was created and to its actual impact on users of the network. This sentence is a far greater evil than the act it seeks to rectify and it should not pass without remark.

Comcast.net Hijackers Sentenced to 18 Months | Threat Level | Wired.com

"Texting bans haven't reduced crashes at all. In a perverse twist, crashes increased in 3 of the 4 states we studied after bans were enacted. It's an indication that texting band might even increase the risk of texting for drivers who continue to do so despite the laws," commented IIHS and HLDI president Adrian Lund.

Lund said that these findings "call into question the way policymakers are trying to address the problem of distracted driving crashes."

Research: Could Texting Laws Be Increasing Crashes? - The Car Connection

As a resident of Georgia, this is my libertarian candidate for the upcoming senate race. While I disagree with him on the idea that fiscal austerity is prudent in the midst of a financial crisis, I cannot vote for Democrats until they stop lying about civil liberties.

Chuck Donovan for U.S. Senate | Official Website of Chuck Donovan for U.S. Senate from Georgia

The vice president didn't back off the notion that disillusioned supporters should "stop whining," a sentiment he uttered on Monday in New Hampshire, and which drew heavy criticism from liberals in the party.

"And so those who -- didn't get everything they wanted, it's time to just buck up here, understand that we can make things better, continue to move forward," Biden said during an appearance on MSNBC, "but not yield the playing field to those folks who are against everything that we stand for in terms of the initiatives we put forward."

What are the things that liberals wanted that they didn't get? What are liberals whining about? I have the impression that the liberal base pretty much got want it wanted, with the sole exception of civil liberties. They got healthcare. They are pulling out of Iraq. But Obama, frankly, made a lot of promises regarding civil liberties. He has not kept those promises, and people on the left are annoyed about that.

Is there something else here, or was this comment primarily about civil liberties issues? I don't consider myself part of the left's "base" so I don't have the perspective to see what other issues the left might be concerned with.

Obama has contradicted himself quite directly on civil liberties and this comment, if I ought to be taking it the way that I am taking it, goes to show you that the Administration does not, in any way, take the civil liberties issues seriously. I am therefore utterly disinclined to vote for them.

Biden, I want to make it clear that this comment is pretty much the last nail in the coffin of the idea that your party is going to get support from me.

"These guys, if they win, the other team, they're going to repeal health care and I I want them to tell me why what we did wasn't an incredibly significant move that's progressive and helping people?"

Its totally unclear. Is it helping people? It certainly hasn't helped anyone that I know. Most of the provisions don't actually start functioning for years, and only then do we get to find out whether or not they were well designed. I'm not unhappy that it was passed, nor do I want it repealed, but I not sure I take Republican threats to repeal it seriously. Its just lip service. That debate is over. They lost. If they repeal it they will loose another election and it will get unrepealed for them. Thats not useful and they know it.

I am unhappy that I get to choose between a party that openly violates wiretapping statues and thumbs their nose at ancient principals like Habeas or a party that wants to build wiretapping facilities into every single website and software product in the world and thinks that this isn't going to end up causing security problems. At least the Republicans aren't lying about their stance on Civil Liberties. Voting for them, at least I know what I'm voting for.

"You're welcome, Joe Biden, for helping to get the more electable Democrat who actually excites voters to be the Democratic nominee -- instead of a lame corporate stooge," said Adam Green, of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, of Biden's remarks.

I guess I know what it feels like to be a part of the tea party. Sure it means aligning yourself with a bunch of nut jobs and morons, but sometimes, nut jobs and morons are better than crooked corporate shills.

What are liberals whining about?

officials want Congress to require all services that enable communications — including encrypted e-mail transmitters like BlackBerry, social networking Web sites like Facebook and software that allows direct “peer to peer” messaging like Skype — to be technically capable of complying if served with a wiretap order. The mandate would include being able to intercept and unscramble encrypted messages.

Man those Democrats sure defend our civil liberties!

U.S. Tries to Make It Easier to Wiretap the Internet - NYTimes.com

The EFF writes:

As you may or may not be aware, there is an extremely bad Internet censorship
bill that is going to be passed by the Senate Judiciary Committee this Wednesday. Senators are claiming that they haven't heard any opposition to this "COICA" bill, and it is being sponsored by 14 of the 19 committee members.

The Senate Judiciary Committee has some heavy guns - having this bill come up this way means there is a serious possibility of passage.

The EFF further writes:

The bill creates two blacklists of censored domains. The first is longer, and includes any sites where the DOJ decides that infringement is "central" to the purpose of the site. The bill gives ISPs and registrars strong legal incentives to censor the domains on that list. The Attorney General can also ask a court to put sites on a second, shorter blacklist; ISPs and registrars are required by law to censor those sites.

The bill provides that the Attorney General can get a court order forcing domain name registrars or registries to pull a particular domain. It also provides that if they don't want to go through that process, they can publish the domain name in a list. DNS registries are strongly encouraged to go ahead and pull any domain on that list if they want to avoid being held legally liable for the content on that domain.

Because DNS registries are implicated, and not just registrars, this could have significant and extremely destructive implications for US control over the DNS systems. This is really very bad.

Very, very bad Internet Censorship bill makes Senate

At its meeting, the committee determined that a trough in business activity occurred in the U.S. economy in June 2009. The trough marks the end of the recession that began in December 2007 and the beginning of an expansion. The recession lasted 18 months, which makes it the longest of any recession since World War II. Previously the longest postwar recessions were those of 1973-75 and 1981-82, both of which lasted 16 months.

Good news, the economy is slowly growing...

Its Official: Recession Ended June 2009 | The Big Picture

This is stuck in my head - its a good thing - it motivates me to work on my new project...

YouTube - Constitution Preamble - Schoolhouse Rock

Righthaven acquires the copyrights to newspaper content for the sole purpose of suing blogs and websites that re-post those articles without permission.

Righthaven usually demands $75,000, but will settle for a few thousand dollars.

More hazards of thinking outloud.

Second Newspaper Chain Joins Copyright Trolling Operation | Threat Level | Wired.com

Mr. Shiller also said he thinks the U.S. economy is "teetering on the brink of deflation." Deflation occurs when the general level of consumer prices falls, as was the case in the Great Depression. He said the U.S. is ill-prepared for such an event because of the lack of "indexing" in contracts.

In addition, the co-creator of the Case-Shiller Home Price Index said he is worried that housing prices could decline for another five years. He noted that Japan saw land prices decline for 15 consecutive years up to 2006.

Mr. Shiller said the biggest problem for the economy and the national psyche currently is unemployment, and he called on the federal government and local government to create jobs. Specifically, he suggested that schools employ an additional person in each class room as a teacher's aide.

Thats exactly the opposite of what most school systems are doing...

Economist Shiller Sees Potential for 'Double Dip' Recession - WSJ.com