Pelosi's flip flop

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Isn't hypocrisy a wonderful thing? Bash your enemies for horrible behavior but then don't hold the same measuring stick to yourself and your allies.

Senator Rangel got himself in some hot water, but Speaker Pelosi, despite her previous declaration that the democrats would "make this the most honest, ethical, and open congress in history", tried to undersell the affair.

Jon Stewart and the Daily Show caught the flip and flop on video (@ 3:20) as they usually do.

I wonder what it would be like to live in a world where people held themselves to the same standards to which they hold others. All I know is that I will never know.

Stephen colbert put me on notice

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I don't know if I should be upset or happy, but there it is, plain as day: Stephen Colbert put me on notice while he was doing his Olympic coverage.

I guess I've been warned.

Shock: obama wants more money

Once again, President Obama has a solution to some of the nation's ills: money.

President Barack Obama took aim Monday at the nation's school dropout epidemic, proposing $900 million to states and education districts that agree to drastically change or even shutter their worst performing schools.

Obama's move comes as many schools continue to struggle to get children to graduation, a profound problem in a rich, powerful nation. Only about 70 percent of entering high school freshmen go on to graduate. The problem affects blacks and Latinos at particularly high rates.

Obama described the crisis as one that hurts individual kids and the nation as a whole, shattering dreams and undermining an already hurting economy.

"There's got to be a sense of accountability," Obama said...

I agree, but the think the accountability would be on spending. There isn't a problem at which we can't throw money.

Let's get through this financial and employment crisis. Then we can start worrying about spending money on everything else. Otherwise our debt will continue to balloon.

Obscenity italian style

Have we missed parts of this story or has an Italian judge gone completely off his rocker. The AP explains:

An Italian court convicted three Google executives of privacy violations Wednesday because they did not act quickly enough to pull down an video online that showed bullies abusing an autistic boy.

The case was being closely watched around the world due to its implications for Internet freedom.

In the first such criminal trial of its kind, Judge Oscar Magi sentenced the three to a six-month suspended sentence and absolved them of defamation charges. A fourth defendant, charged only with defamation, was acquitted.

This is no Ted Steven's stunt. Engadget had more:

Hold tight kids, internet privacy laws just got flipped upside down. An Italian judge found three Google executives guilty of violating the privacy of an Italian student who was bullied in a 2006 video posted on Google Video. The video resided on the site for two months before it was brought to Google's attention and pulled. None of the executives were involved in any way in the making of the abhorrent video. Nevertheless, Italian judge Oscar Magi sentenced the execs to a six-month prison sentence but cleared them of defamation charges. No jail time is expected, however, since any sentence of less than 3 years is typically commuted in Italy for those without a criminal record.

They then followed this up with a quote from Google's Blog:

European Union law was drafted specifically to give hosting providers a safe harbor from liability so long as they remove illegal content once they are notified of its existence. The belief, rightly in our opinion, was that a notice and take down regime of this kind would help creativity flourish and support free speech while protecting personal privacy. If that principle is swept aside and sites like Blogger, YouTube and indeed every social network and any community bulletin board, are held responsible for vetting every single piece of content that is uploaded to them - every piece of text, every photo, every file, every video - then the Web as we know it will cease to exist, and many of the economic, social, political and technological benefits it brings could disappear.

Wow. You'd think the judicial system over there was run by Fox News.

4 out of 5 believe the government is broken

More than 4 out of every 5 people believe the government is broken. CNN had the details:

Americans overwhelmingly believe that the government is broken, according to a national poll released Sunday.

But the CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey also indicates that the public overwhelmingly holds out hope that what's broken can be fixed.

Eighty-six percent of people questioned say that the system of government is broken, with 14 percent saying no.

This doesn't shock me. What does surprise me is that 4 out of 5 people in that group think it can be fixed:

Of the 86 percent, 81 percent say that the government can be fixed, but 5 percent say it's beyond repair.

Maybe that's why people used to look at Obama as superman, ready to right all the world's wrongs. Oddly, millions of people tune into Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh. Maybe it's not the government that's in trouble.

Stephen colbert's olympic poster

Stephen Colbert is no stranger to riding a media wave. He knows how to play to a crowd. This is no exception:

Last night, Stephen Colbert revealed The Colbert Report's official poster for the Vancouver Olympics, created by Shepard Fairey. Well, now it's time for you to take action and show your support by downloading the poster, printing it out and plastering it all over Vancouver.

Please be sure to observe all local laws and ordinances regarding the posting of bills. I repeat, do not murder anyone with this poster!

Can't make it to Vancouver? Well, you can still show your support for Stephen by changing your Facebook and Twitter icons to this scaled-down version of the poster and Tweeting the hashtag #SkateExpectations.

Of course there are others who know how to play to their crowd, but unlike Glenn Beck, Stephen doesn't have to resort to crying.

He's made it a long way since the Daily Show. If he keeps playing his cards like this he will make it even farther.

Top uniformed officer: gay ban should be lifted

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Wow! This is a big one, and of course Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert had to get in on this. The top uniformed officer says that the gay ban should be lifted.

The military's top uniformed officer declared Tuesday that gays should be allowed to serve openly in uniform, arguing that it is "the right thing to do."

Adm. Mike Mullen's statement was the strongest yet from the uniformed military on this volatile issue, although he stressed that he was "speaking for myself and myself only." He told the Senate Armed Services Committee Tuesday he is deeply troubled by a policy that forces people to "lie about who they are in order to defend their fellow citizens."

Mullen said he knows many will disagree about abandoning the "don't ask, don't tell" policy and said there are practical obstacles to lifting the 1993 ban. But he said he thinks the military can handle it. Mullen is chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and chief military adviser to President Barack Obama.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates told the panel he is tapping his chief legal adviser and a four-star Army general to lead a landmark study on how the military would lift its ban on openly gay service members.

What can I add that the AP, Jon, and Stephen haven't covered?

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