"This traditional view is becoming less true, in part because of the large megaphone that the Internet allows. Attention can get raised on issues that normally stay behind the scenes, and those politicians responsive to public opinion will shift their view. The problem is that this power relationship only works when the politicians listen to their grassroots. And in general terms, that describes the Republican relationship to the Tea Party, not the Democratic relationship to their grassroots. The Tea Party has struck fear into their party; the progressive movement inspires laughter. And that’s why you saw the movement you saw yesterday."
— SOPA Activism Moves Republicans More Than Democrats | FDL News Desk
"Unfortunately, these bills, both in their substance and, significantly, the process by which they have moved along, fail this test. As such, they reveal a disturbing picture about the policy process in Washington, D.C. and threaten to create significant and unintended consequences if they are passed. And their passage was a real possibility before the tech and entrepreneurial communities spoke up."
— Brad Feld: Why SOPA and PIPA Must Be Stopped — Tech News and Analysis
"President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign is considering moving the final day of the Democratic National Convention to Bank of America Stadium to sell more skyboxes to wealthy donors, three Democrats involved in the fundraising told Bloomberg News."
—
Obama’s DNC speech could move to Bank of America stadium | CharlotteObserver.com & The Charlotte Observer Newspaper
pretty much sums it up… move to a stadium named after a bank and sell access to big donors.
"Inadvertently, though, the developers of Boycott SOPA have given us a tantalizing hint of how technology empowers consumers. Imagine for a second if you chopped “SOPA” from the name of the app and simply called it “Boycott.” Imagine if there was an Android app that let you boycott whatever you wanted. If you had a personal beef with Coca-Cola — which has very long tendrils indeed — you could program the app to pick up anything produced by Coca-Cola and its manifold subsidiaries. Likewise, if you want to stick it to publishers or artists that refuse to make their songs available on Spotify, you could tell Boycott to block them."
— Boycott SOPA: An Android app that terrifies publishers and politicians | ExtremeTech
"As the difficulty of producing cellulosic biofuels cheaply becomes apparent, a growing number of advanced-biofuels companies are finding it necessary to take creative approaches to their business, even though that means abandoning some of their green credentials, at least temporarily, and focusing on markets that won’t have a major impact on oil imports. This is hardly the outcome the government hoped for when it announced cellulosic-biofuels mandates, R&D funding, and other incentives in recent years."
—
To Survive, Some Biofuels Companies Give Up on Biofuels - Technology Review
this is what happens when government is involved… things rarely turn out as expected.
"But state leaders, it turns out, quietly beefed up employment estimates. First, they counted every year of work as a separate job. So if one person were to work 10 years, that would count as 10 jobs. Next, they figured outside companies, such as restaurants and retailers, would hire two new people for every single construction worker."
—
California high-speed rail jobs estimate too good to be true - San Jose Mercury News
and true to form, agency officials explain it away as a “communication issue”.
"Each Chevy Volt sold thus far may have as much as $250,000 in state and federal dollars in incentives behind it – a total of $3 billion altogether, according to an analysis by James Hohman, assistant director of fiscal policy at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy."
— Chevy Volt Costing Taxpayers Up to $250K Per Vehicle [Michigan Capitol Confidential]
