OPINION: Are The Days Of Free And Open Internet Over?

There’s a backlash underway against supporters of the Stop Online Privacy Act – known as SOPA. 

The legislation – which is currently stalled in Congress until next month – would give the federal government – working with major entertainment industries – the power to take down websites that may be displaying copyrighted material. 

Domain registrar GoDaddy.com publicly supported SOPA – and now has seen more than 120,000 domain names transferred from its services thanks to a groundswell of Internet activism calling for boycotts on GoDaddy. 

Meanwhile – two main proponents of the Internet censorship legislation – Republican Senator Bob Corker – and Republican Representative Paul Ryan are being target in an online campaign calling for people to dig up dirt on them and ruin their political careers. 

Sadly, the days of a free and open Internet will be numbered if SOPA becomes law.

OPINION: The Impacts Of Fukushima

Scientists are trying to figure why scores of seals have washed ashore in Alaska this year either dead or suffering from a mysterious disease. 

The seals have lesions, irritated skin, and hair loss – often symptoms of radiation poisoning - and scientists worry it might have come from the Fukushima plant in Japan. 

So far – there’s been no sign of elevated radiation in the waters in the Pacific Northwest - although the US government moved monitoring from daily to quarterly – but scientists are conducting tests to determine if indeed the seals have been poisoned by nuclear fallout making its way to US waters from Japan. 

Test results aren’t expected for a few more weeks.

A study conducted earlier this month suggested that as many as 14,000 premature deaths in the United States – mostly among infants – might be attributed to nuclear fallout from Fukushima.  

The world is clearly different now, post-Fukushima.

OPINION: Groped Over The Holidays

While Louise and I said “No” to the Chertoff Porno X-Ray Scanners this past weekend - and so were punished by waiting and getting groped - the TSA’s “security theater” has hit the road.  TSA Security teams are now roaming the country setting up shop at other transportation depots besides airports.  Over 9,300 unannounced checkpoints were set up this year at places like train stations, subways, ferries, and other mass transit hubs – costing taxpayers 110 million bucks.  While they left the Chertof x-ray porno scanners back at the airports – the TSA teams do arm themselves with radiation detectors and dogs.  There’s no proof that the random checkpoints are working to prevent any sort of terrorist attack – but they are doing one heckuva job trampling on the rights of Americans to be presumed innocent for just wanting to get on a bus, train, or plane. 

OPINION: Is It Good To Be Rich?

When a poor guy robs a rich guy, he goes to prison. But when the mostly-white rich guys screw over poor minorities – no one goes to jail. 

Bailed out Bank of America will pay a $335 million “settlement” to the federal government – after it was found that a subsidiary of the bank – Countrywide Financial, “systemically discriminated against minority home-buyers at the peak of the U.S. Housing bubble.” The banksters charged Blacks and Latinos much higher interest rates on homes than they did to whites of similar financial backgrounds. 

The investigation found that minorities were far more often conned into subprime exploding home mortgages – the stuff responsible for the Housing bubble and crash, and the foreclosure crisis. So now Bank of America will dish out a couple hundred million dollars to make the crime go away – and not one executive will go to jail for robbing poor people. 

It’s good to be rich in America.

OPINION: Boehner And The Tea Party As The Grinch

Congress is now taking their payroll tax cut fight to the media. 

Speaker of the House John Boehner and his Tea Party zombies played the Grinch yesterday – refusing to even hold a vote on the Senate’s payroll tax cut extension bill – meaning in just 10 days – taxes will go up on 160 million Americans. 

You can call it the Tea Party Tax Increase. 

House Republicans left town last night to head home for the holidays – leaving behind a few members to stick around in DC to put pressure on the Senate to come back in session. House Democrats plan to stay in town, too – to put pressure on House Republicans to pass the Senate’s bipartisan compromise bill on the payroll tax cut. 

So now it comes down to who’ll blink first. As House Republicans make it virtually impossible to pass a tax cut for working Americans – it’s glaringly obvious why Congress has it’s lowest approval rating ever of just 11%.