Though short on details, Clinton's broadband policy as announced in a statement would create tax incentives to encourage build-out to "underserved areas." She also said that she would "support" state and local broadband initiatives

Clinton pointed to an initiative called ConnectKentucky as an example of a successful public private partnership. She said that the partnership had stimulated significant investment and had expanded the coverage rate to more than 90%.

Has someone informed Mrs. Clinton that the people who get excited about things like broadband are the same people who play Grand Theft Auto?

Hillary on Broadband

Thomas and her attorney, Brian Toder, said Monday they would appeal the $222,000 verdict a Duluth, Minnesota federal jury awarded last week to the RIAA after finding Thomas purloined 24 copyrighted recordings.

Nah man, our legal system is just fine. No problem at all.

EFF to Weigh in on First RIAA Downloading Trial Appeal on Threat Level

Rattle wrote:

President Bush would like to see some form of universal health coverage for all Americans before leaving office next year, a Cabinet official said Monday.

But, Mr. Leavitt said, the president would "like to see the larger debate begin" regarding health care - an emerging issue in the next election.

"The very best opportunity we have may well be in the next 15 months," he said.

Mr. Bush's intentions come on the heels of a universal health care plan offered Monday by Democratic presidential contender Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York.

Are they completely delusional at the White House? If universal health care is something the Bush administration truly cares about, they missed the ball. There is zero chance of them making it a reality in 15 months.

This IS odd. Leavitt was attributed but not directly quoted. Possibilities:

1. Leavitt did not actually say that.
2. If you are going to veto money for sick children, you better overshadow it with something, or its drop dead easy for people to paint you as a bastard. They aren't serious.
3. Republican negotiators believe that the Democrats will have complete control of the government after '08 and feel the time is now to get this done when they are in a position to veto it rather than in 3 years when they have no influence over the situation.
4. Just like the immigration plan, the Bush administration actually sees this as the right answer, and also thinks it is political suicide in America regardless of which party does it, mostly because Rush Limbaugh has too much influence. Seeing as his popularity is in the hole he is willing to take this bullet too. Better to fix this now than in 6 or more years.

I'm actually leaning toward 4 unless this completely falls off the radar screen. The problem is that much like the immigration issue the people have been so brainwashed with bullshit that they will see this move as completely insane. They won't understand how to fit it into the framework the pundits have constructed for them and their will react very negatively toward it as a result.

The basic problem that our government faces today is that the people with numbers who are actually thinking about how to solve problems have been completely overshadowed in the public mind by people whose primary goal is to be entertaining.

RE: Bush Wants Universal Health Coverage

Watch the cops beat this guy down and then charge him with assault!

After waiting in line throughout the morning for the hearing that was scheduled to start at 12:30pm, Rev. Yearwood was stopped from entering the room, while others behind him were allowed to enter. He told the officers blocking his ability to enter the room, that he was waiting in line with everyone else and had the right to enter as well. When they threatened him with arrest he responded with "I will not be arrested today." According to witnesses, six capitol police, without warning, "football tackled him. He was carried off in a wheel chair by DC Fire and Emergency to George Washington Hospital.

Rev. Yearwood was examined for possible head and leg injuries then transferred to Central Processing. He has been charged with "assaulting a police officer."

He obviously made a sudden move which provoked the police to tackle him. Its not clear why the police decided to order him to the back of the line. Its not clear that it took 6 cops to subdue him. What is clear is that he did not assault a police officer. He was arrested for failing to comply with an order, and he resisted arrest. If this video did not exist he probably would, however, be convicted of assault, because the police would all testify that he had done so, and the counter testimony would all come from a bunch of nutty protesters. The charge is clearly a dishonest attempt to inflict harm on him because he refused to do what he was told to, and the charge is at the heart of why this will be controversial.

The bottom line is that many police officers believe that there is no limit to the level of force that they may employ to obtain compliance from people who refuse to follow their orders, no matter how unreasonable their orders may be or how passive the resistance to them is. Its clear from the video that the police are not at all interested in discussing whether or not their order that he move to the back of the line was or was not reasonable. They were simply focused on the fact that they had issued an order and that order was not complied with. Its not about protecting the hearing from unruly people. Its not about right or wrong. Its about power. They could have let him walk away. They tackled him because they wanted to tackle him. The dishonest charge is the evidence that is impossible to explain another way.

AlterNet: Blogs: Video: Anti-War Minister Is Attacked, Gets Leg Broken for Trying to Enter Petraeus Hearing

Katie Hafner puts Virgil on the front page of the Sunday New York Times.

The site, wikiscanner.virgil.gr, created by a computer science graduate student, cross-references an edited entry on Wikipedia with the owner of the computer network where the change originated, using the Internet protocol address of the editor’s network. The address information was already available on Wikipedia, but the new site makes it much easier to connect those numbers with the names of network owners.

WikiScanner is the work of Virgil Griffith, 24, a cognitive scientist who is a visiting researcher at the Santa Fe Institute in New Mexico. Mr. Griffith, who spent two weeks this summer writing the software for the site, said he got interested in creating such a tool last year after hearing of members of Congress who were editing their own entries.

Mr. Griffith said he “was expecting a few people to get nailed pretty hard” after his service became public. “The yield, in terms of public relations disasters, is about what I expected.”

Mr. Griffith, who also likes to refer to himself as a “disruptive technologist,” said he was certain any more examples of self-interested editing would come out in the next few weeks, “because the data set is just so huge.”

Seeing Corporate Fingerprints in Wikipedia Edits

In closing arguments, Padilla's lawyers argued he never spoke in code. His voice is heard on only seven of 300,000 taped conversations.

They also tried to rebut a key piece of prosecution evidence -- an al Qaeda terrorist training camp application or "mujahedeen data form."

A covert CIA officer -- who testified in disguise at Padilla's trial -- said he was given the form in Afghanistan, and a fingerprint expert found Padilla's prints on the form, prosecutors said.

But Michael Caruso, Padilla's defense attorney, said the prints on the form were not consistent with someone who filled out the document.

"Jose at some point handled the document, but did not fill out the form," Caruso said.

Per the script, clearly you can convict terrorist suspects in the criminal justice system, even if you have almost no evidence, and the evidence you do have is questionable.

I think perhaps we don't use juries because they are actually a good way of determining whether or not someone is guilty. We use them to distribute responsibility for making the determination, so that no one person can be held personally responsible if it was wrong, or completely baseless, or politically motivated. We don't know how to build a system that makes good decisions, so we've built a system that makes unaccountable ones.

Was that part of a script?

Jury finds Padilla guilty on terror charges - CNN.com

The Jose Padilla case is complicated, and those who need a script for commentary when the verdict is handed down in an hour or so should follow these simple guidelines:

Script for Supporters of the Bush Administration: If the jury convicts, this proves how strong the government's case has been all along. If the jury acquits, this proves that you can't try to bring terrorism cases in a criminal court system.

Script for Opponents of the Bush Administration: If the jury convicts, this shows how the criminal justice system can indeed handle terrorism cases. If the jury acquits, this shows just how weak the case against Padilla has been all along.

The Volokh Conspiracy - Scripts for When Padilla Jury Hands Down Its Verdict:

This is from an official US Comptroller's report!

Drawing parallels with the end of the Roman empire, Mr Walker warned there were “striking similarities” between America’s current situation and the factors that brought down Rome, including “declining moral values and political civility at home, an over-confident and over-extended military in foreign lands and fiscal irresponsibility by the central government”.

FT.com / World - Learn from the fall of Rome, US Comptroller warns

The State Department has a message for White House candidates wanting to expound on sensitive diplomatic issues: Shut up...

First it was Barack Obama's talk of dialogue with dictators and invading Pakistan to kill Islamist militants, then it was Hillary Rodham Clinton refusing to rule out the use of nuclear weapons to that end. Now, the Democratic front-runners have been joined by radical Republican Rep. Tom Tancredo, who threatened to bomb Muslim holy sites to stop terror attacks....

"To somehow suggest that an appropriate response to terrorism would be to attack sites that are holy and sacred to more than a billion people throughout the world is just absolutely crazy," he said...

Tancredo placed 4th in Saturday's straw poll.

U.S. State Department cringes as presidential hopefuls muddy diplomatic waters - International Herald Tribune

1. Mitt Romney - 4516 votes - 31%
2. Mike Huckabee - 2587 votes - 18.1%
3. Sam Brownback - 2192 votes – 15.3%
4. Tom Tancredo - 1961 votes – 13.7%

The three politicians who raised their hands to indicate that they don't beleive in evolution are Mike Huckabee, Sam Brownback, and Tom Tancredo.

Iowa Straw Poll Results: Mitt Romney Wins, Ron Paul Comes Fourth on Product Reviews Net