A Classic in the “No! They Would Never Do That!” Department. He himself admits it’s not going anywhere, so beyond political points for himself locally, what is the purpose of this sort of bill? To keep people talking about it as if it were a viable, reasonable option to ’keep the children safe’ or whatever the logic is behind it:

Kentucky Representative Tim Couch filed a bill this week to make anonymous posting online illegal.
The bill would require anyone who contributes to a website to register their real name, address and e-mail address with that site.
Their full name would be used anytime a comment is posted.
If the bill becomes law, the website operator would have to pay if someone was allowed to post anonymously on their site. The fine would be five-hundred dollars for a first offense and one-thousand dollars for each offense after that.
Representative Couch says he filed the bill in hopes of cutting down on online bullying. He says that has especially been a problem in his Eastern Kentucky district.

You know our rule here at Corrente: if a Republican is trying to legislate something out of existence, it’s because they are doing it in secret. Or not so secret; I bet his ex-boyfriend threatened to out him and Couch is too dumb to have actually gotten a real name out of him before the Drama began. When will Republicans learn that Hell hath no Fury like a twink left unpaid? Never, I suppose.  Read more 

Why would giving the telcos control over the Internet by destroying Net Neutrality* produce anything more than massive suckitude?**

Especially since you know that as soon as they get control, they’re going to start censoring everything (Via)?  Read more 

These stories have nothing to do with each other, except that they do. The six-year campaign to get Certain People put in charge of all those alphabetic agencies in Washington is bearing fruit.

The first we will call the “Mom Said No—Let’s Go Ask Daddy” amendment. It affects power companies [coughlikeEnronmaybe?cough] ability to overrule state regulators and put massive power transmission lines wherever the fuck they want.

The second is under the Department of Won’t Anyone Think Of The Children? and would give the FCC, that bastion of civil liberties ’n’ free speech ’n’ all, authority to regulate content of cable and other off-air providers just like they now do with over-the-air (broadcast) radio and TV. The regulations, we are told, would be to regulate violent programming. The FCC has been “studying” this question for three years, it seems, and by sheer coincidence released their report —discovering that they not only have this right but that it “does not conflict with the First Amendment” —a week after the Virginia Tech shootings. Sheer coincidence, we tell ya.  Read more