Who Writes the Bills Anyways? Ahead of the December 15 Judiciary Committee markup, the corporate sponsors of the SOPA web censorship bill are making some last minute tweaks to the legislative language: The Motion Picture Association of America is willing to change some of the language to tone-down the controversial, much-maligned Stop Online Piracy Act that it supports, according to a report in the New York Times late Wednesday.MPAA exec Michael O’Leary said in an afternoon press call that the agency “will come forward with language that will address some of the legitimate concerns,” of those opposed to the bill, including Google, Facebook, Yahoo, Zynga and myriad other Web companies and advocacy groups. Back in the old days, Congress was a branch of the federal government, separate from corporations, that wrote and passed laws to defend the general welfare of the United State. Pictured above is Sen.
50 Healthy Recipes to Kick Off 2012 Happy New Year! Many of us are thinking about our New Year’s resolutions and healthy eating is often at the top of the list. If you are setting a goal to eat healthy in 2012, here are 50 healthy recipes to help you get started. Beverages Easy Strawberry Mango Smoothie Berry Banana Smoothie Blueberry Mango Smoothie Breakfast Apple Cinnamon Baked Oatmeal Whole Wheat Kefir Pancakes with Blueberry Sauce Pumpkin Granola Roasted Plums with Greek Yogurt, Honey, and Almonds Broiled Grapefruit Steel Cut Oats Maple Almond Granola Roasted Strawberries with Greek Yogurt Honey Yogurt Waffles Appetizers/Snacks Peanut Butter Granola Balls Honey Cinnamon Roasted Chickpeas Rosemary Roasted Almonds Tzatziki Sauce Cilantro Lime Hummus Strawberry Mango Salsa White Bean and Artichoke Dip Edamame Guacamole Homemade Baked Tortilla Chips Peach Salsa Roasted Red Pepper and White Bean Dip Vegetable Spring Rolls with Peanut Dipping Sauce Black Bean Corn Salsa Salads/Sides Quinoa Salad with Roasted Sweet Potatoes, Kale, & Dried Cranberries
SOPA/Blackoutpage Thank you. The Wikipedia blackout is over — and you have spoken. More than 162 million people saw our message asking if you could imagine a world without free knowledge. You said no. You shut down Congress’s switchboards. You melted their servers. For us, this is not about money. Our mission is to empower and engage people to document the sum of all human knowledge, and to make it available to all humanity, in perpetuity. SOPA and PIPA are not dead: they are waiting in the shadows. We’re turning the lights back on. Eats Well With Others: Recipe: Sweet Potato Black Bean Chili...Eat.Live.Be. The honest to butternut squash truth (can you think of a better vegetable to swear on? Because I can’t.) about my history with exercise is that I woke up one morning in college and decided to go to the gym. I kind of wish this weren’t true, but I did it because of a boy. I had been dating someone and he just randomly stopped returning my calls err umm…AIM messages. I’m sure I spent a few days crying and mulling over the reasons why he decided on that specific day at that specific time to jump ship. And came to the conclusion that, whatever his sordid reasoning (though I later found out he was struggling with a major depressive episode and that it really had nothing to do with me), I never wanted to feel like a guy didn’t like me because of the way I looked. So to the gym I went. Ever and anon. And it’s not that I love it. But that feeling after I have done it? Running, for me, is different though. And it’s not that it’s easy. But, like that quote up there says. And still lost 1.8 pounds.
SOPA, PIPA: What you need to know - Political Hotsheet Wikipedia's homepage, just after midnight on Jan. 18, 2011 Wikipedia Having trouble using Wikipedia today? That's because the popular crowd-sourced online encyclopedia is participating in an "Internet blackout" in protest of two controversial anti-piracy bills: The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and its Senate companion, the Protect IP Act (PIPA). Pictures: Websites go dark to protest SOPA The bills are intended to strengthen protections against copyright infringement and intellectual property theft, but Internet advocates say they would stifle expression on the World Wide Web. "It's not a battle of left versus right," said progressive activist Adam Green, whose organization Progressive Change Campaign Committee on Tuesday hosted a press conference with opponents of the bills. Here's a basic look at the actions taking place today and the legislation causing all the fuss. What's going on today? The popular link-sharing site Reddit got the ball rolling for today's 24-hour Internet blackout.
SOPA, PIPA, the AVN Expo and Porn! (Oh My) This would literally be what you would see if SOPA passed. The porn industry and the free internet: two massive forces that simultaneously help and hinder each other in a sometimes-dysfunctional marriage of convenience. Tomorrow is a big day for both. January 18th is the opening day of AVN Adult Entertainment Expo, the porn trade show that for the first time in its history is not happening concurrently with CES. The Adult Expo started life as a sort of porn alley within CES, grew big enough to require its own space, and now has such a draw that AVN has decided hold it the week after CES. According to The Street, "some estimates claim up to 40% of attendees go to both expos," so it's a bold move. January 18th is also the day the internet—or parts of it—are going dark to protest SOPA and PIPA, the House and Senate's internet-killing anti-piracy bills. reduces freedom of expression, increases cybersecurity risk, or undermines the dynamic, innovative global Internet it still insists that
SOPA creator caught in own web - WTOL.com: News, Weather and Sport for Toledo, Ohio (RNN) - The author of the controversial SOPA bill, which seeks to introduce stricter penalties for companies and individuals caught violating copyright laws online, has been caught in his own web. An archived screen shot of the website of House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith, R-TX, shows a beautiful lush forest in the background. This stock image has been traced back to photographer DJ Schult, according to an article by Vice.com. The photographer protects his image under the Creative Commons license, which allows anyone to use an image as long as it is attributed to the photographer and not used for commercial purposes. But attribution for the forest image does not appear on Smith's website. While Smith's website no longer utilizes stock images, save for one banner strip across the top, the incident has exposed the faults and vagueness that critics point out in the congressman's bill. Copyright 2012 Raycom News Network.
SOPA & PIPA: The Pirate Bay Worried About The Internet, Not Itself The Pirate Bay has long been the favored whipping boy of anti-piracy advocates everywhere. Attempts to block it have been made in many countries, and it is one of the sites that draws the most attention – and ire – in pro-SOPA/PIPA rhetoric. The Pirate Bay, so the argument goes, is exactly the kind of site SOPA and PIPA are designed to protect the entertainment industry from. The people who run The Pirate Bay say they aren’t worried, though. In an interview with TorrentFreak they admit to having some concerns, but not for The Pirate Bay itself. They are worried “for democratic reasons.” What really concerns The Pirate Bay about SOPA/PIPA is what it means about the political power of the entertainment industry in the United States. The Pirate Bay emphasized the global nature of the internet, and the fact that it “can’t be run in one single country.” [Source: TorrentFreak] SOPA & PIPA: The Pirate Bay Worried About The Internet, Not Itself
A preview of SOPA: Web shut down before my eyes Big Security for Big Data Sysadmin blog On Saturday, 7 January, a Canadian DNS host named EasyDNS winked out of existence. This was a preview of what SOPA promises to be like. Suffering from a massive DDoS, all DNS services provided by EasyDNS simply ceased to function. Random but important elements of my virtual world - including all my personal and client domains - were shut down entirely without notice. While frustrating, the DDoS incident is something that your average systems administrator or internet punter can understand. Yet as you read this, the United States Congress is pondering bills like SOPA and PIPA. The topic is divisive, with some placing ultimate blame for the perceived necessity of these bills on Big Tech's refusal to grow up, and others on Big Content's inability to adapt. The mainstream press has largely remained mum on the subject. It hasn't gone unnoticed. Big Security for Big Data
Mozilla, Firefox join anti-SOPA strike News January 18, 2012 06:26 AM ET Computerworld - Mozilla, the open-source organization responsible for Firefox, joined other major technology companies today to protest anti-piracy legislation by blackening the browser's home page. From 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Meanwhile, the English language versions of Mozilla's sites -- mozilla.com and mozilla.org -- will redirect visitors to an "action page" asking for their support in stopping what it called "Internet blacklist legislation." Mozilla and an estimated 7,000 other sites, including Google, Wikipedia and Reddit, went on a "virtual strike" today to voice their opposition to the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA), legislation being considered by the U.S. Some of the sites went completely dark -- Wikipedia blocked its English content, replacing it with an anti-SOPA/PIPA call to arms -- but others, like Mozilla, used milder methods. @gkeizer, on Google+ or subscribe to Gregg's RSS feed . See more articles by Gregg Keizer.
Readers react to SOPA/PIPA - In Depth