Popular websites black out to protest internet piracy laws

Today popular internet sites have gone black to protest congressional efforts to limit content sharing on the web by granting entertainment corporations sweeping powers to shutter websites and digital social networks and to intimidate startups. The bills have drawn stiff criticism across the political spectrum, from high-profile tech company spokespeople as well as from citizens in enormous numbers, who argue that the two laws– the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA)– would create collateral damage to free expression and innovation that go far beyond the need to guard against copyright infringement.

Web graphic of the day: Your tax dollars spent

You just sent thousands of dollars to the U.S. government in an envelope with a tax form inside. Someone in your family may or may not have attended an anti-tax Tea Party rally and you may or may not have heard someone on the news railing about welfare and giveaways. Here’s a first fact about your tax money: welfare and giveaways aren’t the problem. They make up a fraction of the 3 percent you are paying in taxes for “education, training, employment and social services.” Washington is spending most of your tax money, 17 percent, on wars– even though neither of our recent wartime Presidents Bush and Obama have asked you for a dime to pay for what is now three military campaigns, two of which have been raging for more than half a decade at an outrageous hourly rate.

The quick and the dead: Google flips on net neutrality

Google, one of the biggest guns roaming the internet frontier, has reportedly joined the posse of big boys looking to shoot down net neutrality. News today is that Google and Verizon are collaborating to create a tiered internet service…

News Nuggets, 17 August 2009: Trespass with Bruce; waltz with Delay

Dug up fresh, daily.

WHY DOES COSTCO HATE DOUG BRUCE? He didn’t kick anyone as far as we know. But there are hours left in the day. Doug Bruce, the father of Colorado’s revered Taxpayer Bill of Rights,…

Google to digitize newspaper archives, attach advertising

In effort to offer users more relevant content, and to make money through online ads, Google announced this week that it will start digitizing newspaper archives and make them available as part of its Google News search platform.