Several Senators and Congresspersons have come out in opposition to SOPA and PIPA today including PIPA co-sponsor Marc Rubio.

I have decided to withdraw my support for the Protect IP Act. Furthermore, I encourage Senator Reid to abandon his plan to rush the bill to the floor. Instead, we should take more time to address the concerns raised by all sides, and come up with new legislation that addresses Internet piracy while protecting free and open access to the Internet.

Sen. Jeff Merkel:

Mark Zuckerberg comes out against SOPA on his personal FB page and got 75,000 likes in 10 minutes. It's now 45 minutes, and his post has 372,000 likes. Facebook's anti-SOPA/PIPA views are here. More blackout graphics below: [More...]

Wikipedia is dark.

Mozilla will be dark during the day.

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Kevin Drum quotes Andrew Sullivan:

[Liberals] have failed to notice that from the very beginning, Obama was playing a long game.

Drum remarks:

This is sort of a watered-down version of the 11-dimensional chess hosannas that deservedly got a lot of mockery back in the day. But it wasn't true of Obama then (both his campaign and governing strategies have been fairly straightforward) and it's not necessary to explain anything now.

I agree. However, I disagree when Drum writes "Why is Obama now taking a harder, more partisan approach toward his GOP adversaries? [. . . H]e's doing it because it's an election year. It's now time for contrast, not compromise. This is Campaigning 101."

I disagree because governing requires contrast too. A pol must convince the populace that how he wants to govern is the right way to go as opposed to the policies proposed by your opponents. FDR was not FDR because he was a firebrand liberal. He governed as he did, and politicked during the governing BTW, because he thought he needed those policies for good governance and, not coincidentally, to win reelection. In terms of political style, Obama followed the Clinton way, and now, as Clinton, he fights the contrast fight, because the Third Way did not work then and will not work now.

Speaking for me only

What's on your mind today? Here's an open thread, all topics welcome.

Wikipedia will go dark tomorrow on the day of protest against SOPA.

Google will place a protest link on its home page.

“We oppose these bills because there are smart, targeted ways to shut down foreign rogue websites without asking American companies to censor the Internet,” Samantha Smith, a Google spokeswoman, said in an e-mail today.

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A motions hearing is underway at Guantanamo in the military commission proceeding against detainee and U.S.S. Cole bombing suspect Abd al Rahim al Nashiri. Here's the agenda. Miami Herald/McClatchy reporter Carol Rosenberg provides this backdrop. She's also at Gitmo tweeting updates. The hearing is being broadcast by closed circuit at Ft. Meade.

The big issue involves the reading of al Nashiri's legal mail. Gitmo Chief Adm. Woods will testify tomorrow about how the prison staff is reviewing legal mail. (Update: He is testifying today.) The defense motion is now available here on the court's website (You have to click on al-Nashiri's active case and then bring up the docket and then scroll down to 12/19 for the motion.) [More...]

Another Republican debate? Is anyone here watching?

We've got snow tonight. This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

Zappos has been hacked -- including its database of 24 million customers.

there may have been illegal and unauthorized access to some of your customer account information...including one or more of the following: your name, e-mail address, billing and shipping addresses, phone number, the last four digits of your credit card number (the standard information you find on receipts), and/or your cryptographically scrambled password (but not your actual password)."

So the good news is Zappos kept credit card information on a separate server that wasn't hacked. The bad news is if you've ordered from Zappos, hackers now have your name and address, order information, email address and the password you used for Zappos. [More...]

One of my favorite of Dr. King's quotes:

That old law about "an eye for an eye" leaves everybody blind. The time is always right to do the right thing. (He was quoting Mahatma Gandhi who said, "An eye for eye only ends up making the whole world blind."

and

Peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but a means by which we arrive at that goal.

Among my favorite long pieces: Declaration of Independence from the War in Vietnam and Letters From Birmingham City Jail.

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly."

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Jon Huntsman is dropping out of the Republican race for President. He will endorse Mitt Romney.

Update 8:40 pm: Meryl Streep is a delight. Jane Fonda still looks hot after all these years. Check out Angelina's tatoo on the top of her back that says "Know Your Rights."

Update 7:37pm: Some hope after all: Claire Danes won Best Actress in a TV drama for Homeland. I wonder why Dustin Hoffman needed encouragement from his wife and agent to present the awards. (Added: thanks to the commenter below who clued me on on what he meant. I missed most of Gerais' opening.) Woody Allen's movie Midnight in Paris was cute, not sure it was in the award-winning categor, even for best screenplay.

Update 7:07pm : Really boring show so far. Bizarre almost incomprehensible acceptance speech by Madonna. The Foreign Press reporters must have gotten kidnapped this year, their choices are just weird. Time to change the channel to Shameless I think. [More...]

The newly crowned Miss America, Laura Kaeppeler aka Ms. Wisconsin, has a special cause: Children of the Incarcerated. At one time, she was one. Check out her organization, Circles of Support.

As to her post-Miss America plans, her website says in addition to her mentoring work, she will pursue a degree in Family and Child Advocacy Law. She also owns a music studio and teaches voice and piano. For her talent competition, she performed (sang) Luigi Arditi's classical aria, Il Bacio. [More...]