The best part are the people in the forums who don't get the joke.

[via Metafilter]

"This is an historic moment for the Web. Salon is calling the question that many in the Internet community have long debated. Will people pay for quality editorial content online? So far it hasn't proven to be a good model. The same people who think nothing of paying $5 for a latte, $40 for a bottle of wine, $35 for a subscription to a magazine they see once a month and may never glance at, haven't quite managed to pull out the credit card for another $30 for hot news every weekday from Salon. "

A good piece from the executive editor of AlterNet on why you should be paying for a Salon subscription, and sums up some of what's great about us Salon Blogger's home on the web.

"Many of this demographic apparently likes Salon's smart yet restrained liberal writers like Jake Tapper and Joe Conason, as well as the similar strong voices coming from inside the magazine like Joan Walsh and Gary Kamiya, and especially the prodigious work of the considerably younger Michelle Goldberg in New York (when she can stop worrying about those darn sectarians organizing the peace marches). Salon has terrific cultural coverage; smart takes on movies and music, excellent technology writing, and sometimes clever writing about sex and relationships."

"Digital technologies are not only making it easier to copy all sorts of works, but also sharply reducing the costs of creating or distributing them, and so also reducing the required incentives. The flood of free content on the internet has shown that most creators do not need incentives that stretch across generations. To reward those who can attract a paying audience, and the firms that support them, much shorter copyrights would be enough. The 14-year term of the original 18th-century British and American copyright laws, renewable once, might be a good place to start."

The Economist wants shorter copyright terms!  Unfortunately, they are also calling for more support for copyright enforcement technologies to make the 14 year term profitable and worthwhile for content providers.

[via Lessig Blog]

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Composed with Newz Crawler 1.3 http://www.newzcrawler.com/

CDT has the text of both the Wyden and Grassley amendments mentioned below and Grassley's comments before the Senate.  The potential toothlessness lies here:

"Notwithstanding any other provision of law, commencing 60 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, no funds appropriated or otherwise made available to the Department of Defense, whether to an element of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency or any other element, or to any other department, agency, or element of the Federal Government, may be obligated or expended on research and development on the Total Information Awareness program unless--

[...]

(2) the President certifies to Congress in writing, that--

(A) the submittal of the report to Congress within 60 days after the date of the enactment of this Act is not practicable; and

(B) the cessation of research and development on the Total Information Awareness program would endanger the national security of the United States."

...or do they?

"Saying they feared government snooping against ordinary Americans, U.S. senators voted on Thursday to block funding for a Pentagon computer project that would scour databases for terrorist threats.

By a voice vote, the Senate voted to ban funding for the Total Information Awareness program, under former national security adviser John Poindexter, until the Pentagon explains the program and assesses its impact on civil liberties."

The provision has been tacked onto the Omnibus Appropriations Bill currently being considered by the Senate.  If it makes it through the House and Senate, TIA wouldn't be able to be operationally deployed, and here's the key, EXCEPT IN CASES OF NATIONAL SECURITY.  Given this Administrations penchant for using their executive powers, this provision would seem a little more toothless than the article is making it out to be.  The text isn't up yet, but I'll keep an eye out for it to see if I'm missing something from the Post's summary.

[via DrudgeReport]

The Des Moines Register covers Gary Hart's appearence yesterday at the University of Iowa.

"Gary Hart expects to be the butt of Leno and Letterman monologues if he decides to seek his party's presidential nomination, some 15 years after his last bid ended with an infamous picture on a boat called "Monkey Business."

But Hart said a likely war in Iraq will bring an end to any laughter.

"Go ahead, bang away, show the picture, have your fun. I'm prepared for that," the Democrat said Wednesday in Des Moines. "Then let's move on, because when our sons and daughters are dying overseas, really how many times can you laugh?""

An early taste of what I'm sure will be many more questions to come and his early strategy for dealing with them.

"The survival of his marriage to wife Lee and President Clinton's subsequent public infidelity have made his indiscretion "ancient history," he said.

"I took full responsibility. I apologized to all concerned on national television," Hart said, calling Clinton's indiscretions "quite a different circumstance.""

Hart's best bet to deal with this silliness is to point out that he didn't pull any of the Clinton "oh I didn't realize that was sex" crap and came right out, apologized, and withdrew from public life until recently.

As indicated in the Orlando Register, he has to be careful though to not make too light of what happenned:

"Hart still is working on the proper word for what he did.

"I already got criticized for using the word 'folly,' " Hart said in a calm discussion Wednesday with reporters. "If somebody can think of a better word for the incident in my life that I'm thinking about, then I'll be happy to think about it."

Asked whether the 1987 episode would disqualify him if it happened today, Hart said he didn't know. "I'm not the best person to make that judgment." Some see an arrogance in his soft-pedaling of the affair. "Earth to Gary: You had a scandal," said Larry Sabato, political scientist at the University of Virginia, skeptical that Hart's party will accept him again.

"There is tremendous resistance within the Democratic Party to him re-entering," Sabato said. "They don't want reminders of Hart. They don't want reminders of Clinton. Democrats don't want to go through this again. I think all of us wonder why this man can't live in peace. You lost, Gary. Go home.""

Hopefully his ideas will be interesting enough to people to make it irrelevent.

[via Political Wire]