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 

“Phat” is a great word, you can use it in so many fun ways, even little kids can say it (that’s actually really cute when it happens). Many fine things are Phat: blunts, cars, clothes, people’s backsides. But what comes to your mind when I say heavy?

Company spokesman Alex Dudley said the trial was aimed at improving the network performance goddess don’t you just want to barf? when have they ever ’improved’ service? by making it more costly for heavy users of large downloads. Dudley said that a small group of super-heavy users of downloads, around 5 percent of the customer base, can account for up to 50 percent of network capacity.
Dudley said he did not know what the pricing tiers would be nor the download limits. He said the heavy users were likely using the network to download large amounts of video, most likely in high definition.

I was just looking at some photos of two people that we talk about here all the time. And I thought, “no, those are too good.” But perhaps I was wrong, and they really did suggest what I thought they were suggesting. Time will tell. Either way, “hi res” and “heavy” downloading serve more purposes than just getting instant copies of “The Green Door.”

“Heavy” is one of those evil corporate terms and we should squash it now.  Read more 

All Hail Lord Kos!

I’m sure this was all over recently and I just missed it:

WASHINGTON – The Federal Election Commission announced today that it has unanimously resolved two complaints alleging that Internet blog activity is subject to Commission regulation, finding that the activity is exempt from regulation under the media or volunteer exemption.

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EFF wants to know:

Well, with its 100,000 DMCA takedown notices aimed at YouTube users, now it’s Viacom that is netting its share of dolphins. Among the 100,000 videos targeted for takedowns was a home movie shot in a BBQ joint, a film trailer by a documentarian, and a music video (previously here) about karaoke in Singapore. None of these contained anything owned by Viacom. For its part, Viacom has admitted to “no more than” 60 mistakes, so far. Yet each mistake impacts free speech, both of the author of the video and of the viewing public.

Did Viacom take down your video? Let them know if they did. DRM Current copyright law is one of the worst things to happen to free speech in this country, and if it weren’t for all the other horrors shredding the Constitution, this would be a much bigger issue.

But Bambi is ok, right? Remind me to skip the matinee in Moscow. This is a “funny” post, because Borat is a sensation and all that, but as Antony reminds us:

After the murder of journalist Anna Politkovskaya and poisoning of a former Russian spy, the increasingly authoritarian reign of Vladimir Putin is cause for concern.

Russia: not getting better. Don’t forget that; they have oil, nukes, and crazies, just like we do.

Thank the God of Your Choice that we’ve still got a few thinking judges on some courts. Slowly, but surely, the rest of American is coming to understand that there is no difference between speech from a mouth, speech on a piece of dessicated dead tree, and speech that is expressed in the Ether of the Intertubes.

Actually, it fascinates me to consider that “some people think” that I should be held responsible for what another person says on my blog. I can sort of understand the legal wrangling to get to that point, but at the same time, it just feels ridiculous to me. Or rather, I think of all the ways in which large corporations aren’t responsible for what people do with their products (guns, drugs, cars, etc.) and yet somehow, there was a question about how two strangers interact on the internet and the liability issues that relationship created. If I crayon “Jews Suck!” on a Torah in a synagogue, is the publisher responsible for “leaving it out in public” for anyone to write upon? If I go to a public library and write “kill all the niggers!” in every copy to Toni Morrison’s works, is the library responsible for that? Perhaps I’m missing something, but to me, the comparison between those examples and this case are similar.  Read more