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SOPA Blackout: Are you Against or Pro?

SOPA Blackout: Wikipedia, Google, 

Wired Protest ‘Internet Censorship’

from: ABC News Blog

The so-called SOPA blackout — protesting the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA for short) in the House of Representatives and the Protect IP Act in the Senate — has spread across the web today, perhaps the most widespread online lobbying effort ever coordinated by Internet entities.

Sites checked by ABC News did not actually “go dark” as originally threatened. Instead, they posted appeals to users to get in touch with their Congressional representatives to argue against passage of the two bills.

The bills were intended to protect movie makers, music publishers and other providers of online content who fear that in the digital age, people can copy what they’ve created and spread it without paying for it. They’ve said digital pirating is a major threat to their businesses. Supporters include the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Motion Picture Association of America. The Walt Disney Company, the parent company of ABC News, is among the firms supporting the legislation.

Internet companies have been complaining that the bills put them in the untenable position of having to be online police. They say they worry that the two bills could hold them responsible if users of their sites link to pirated content.

The companies said the bills could require your Internet provider to block websites that are involved in digital file sharing. And search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Bing could be stopped from linking to them — antithetical, they argue, to the ideal of an open Internet.

Wired.com ran a headline this morning that read, “Why We’re Censoring Wired Today” — if you could read it before most of the words on the page were symbolically redacted. (Move your cursor over the black bars and the words will reappear.)

The one headline that wasn’t blocked read: “Don’t Censor the Web. Tell Congress No on SOPA and PIPA.”

The protest put supporters of the bill on the defensive. Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee and first co-sponsored an anti-piracy bill in 2010, said he was open to amending PIPA to satisfy the objections.

Congressional staff, meanwhile, sent out messages defending the bills. “Websites ‘going dark’ today in protest of the PROTECT IP Act will not be affected by enactment of the legislation,” said one. “None of the following websites meet the definition of a site dedicated to infringing activities: Wikipedia; YouTube; Flickr; Twitter; Google; craigslist; eBay; The Huffington Post; Yahoo!.”

Could the bills still pass? Various combatants said they could have easily a few months ago. But the House bill is now on hold, and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, a Republican who co-sponsored PIPA in the Senate, announced this morning on Facebook that he is withdrawing his support.

“We’ve heard legitimate concerns about the impact the bill could have on access to the Internet and about a potentially unreasonable expansion of the federal government’s power to impact the Internet,” said his post. “Congress should listen and avoid rushing through a bill that could have many unintended consequences.”

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) had scheduled a procedural vote on the bill next week, but today Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) urged that it be delayed: “Stealing content is theft, plain and simple, but concerns about unintended damage to the internet and innovation in the tech sector require a more thoughtful balance, which will take more time.”

There was more erosion of support as the day went on. Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), one of the original co-sponsors of the legislation, tweeted, “After listening to the concerns on both sides of the debate over the PROTECT IP Act, it is simply not ready for prime time.” A little later he wrote, “That’s why I will not only vote against moving the bill forward next week but also remove my cosponsorship of the bill.”

Rep. Darrell Issa, a California Republican who has sponsored an alternative bill, nicknamed OPEN, said it has more backers than the now-delayed SOPA: “First, Americans have a right benefit from what they’ve created. And second, Americans have a right to an open internet. Our duty is to protect these rights.”

Speaker of the House John Boehner, asked about the House bill today, said, “It’s pretty clear to many of us that there’s a lack of consensus at this point and I would expect that the committee would continue to work to try to build a consensus before this bill moves.”

Click Here for More: SOPA and PIPA Blackout Explained

A Colorado teenager whose yearbook picture was rejected for being too revealing is vowing to fight the ban with her high school’s administration, but the editors of the yearbook insist it was their decision alone on the photo.

The five student editors of the Durango High School yearbook in Durango said that they were the ones who made the call not to publish a picture of senior Sydney Spies posing in a short yellow skirt midriff and shoulder-exposing black shawl as her senior portrait.

“We are an award-winning yearbook. We don’t want to diminish the quality with something that can be seen as unprofessional,” student Brian Jaramillo told the paper on Thursday.

Spies was joined by her mother, Miki Spies, and a handful of fellow Durango High students and alumni in a protest outside the school Wednesday after, she said, administrators informed her the photo would not be permitted because it violated dress code.

“I feel like they aren’t allowing me to have my freedom of expression,” Spies told the Herald.  ”I think the administration is wrong in this situation, and I don’t want this to happen to other people.”

The five editors, who said their decision was unanimous, said Spies’ blame was misplaced, in both targeting the administration, and believing that it was a dress code issue.

They also offered her an opportunity to include the photo in the yearbook, just not as her senior photo.

“If she (Spies) chooses to, the picture will run as her senior ad, not her senior portrait,” Trujillo said.

Despite the clarification from her peers into how and why the decision was made, a meeting Spies initiated between herself, her mother, and the school’s principal, Diane Lashinsky, was held today as planned.

“The editors all turned their backs on me and changed their minds,” she told the Herald. “I really do feel like they were intimidated by the principal.”

The Durango School District, which oversees the high school, issued the following statement to ABCNews.com

“The editors of Durango High School’s yearbook informed a senior student in December that her photo in question would not be included as a senior portrait in the yearbook and asked her to submit a replacement.   Durango School District 9-R’s administration supports this decision.”

Prior to today’s meeting, the Spies family told local media they planned to meet with a civil lawyer in Denver to review their daughter’s case.
http://gma.yahoo.com/blogs/abc-blogs/colorado-student-banned-yearbook-over-racy-photo-201606793--abc-news.html

The shower smiles in a politician.

What are microexpressions?

After taking just one look at someone, why do we sometimes immediately know we don’t like him or her? We usually chalk this up to instinct, intuition or a “gut feeling,” but researchers have found that there’s something more going on that just barely meets the eye — microexpressions.
The human face is a medium, or a sign vehicle, that sends us a message. When we “read” a face, there’s quite a lot of data to sift through. One part of the medium is its basic structure and muscle tone. Is it long and angular or round and chubby? Often, we’ll see a stranger’s face and flip through a mental Rolodex of sorts, matching the shape of the new face with ones we already know. We also perceive changes that have taken place, such as scarring, weathering of the skin or wrinkles. Taking into account artificial adornments, such as eyeglasses, makeup, tattoos or piercings, we make personal judgments based on what the person has added by choice.
­Providing more immediate information are the changes in a person’s face, such as smiles, frowns or scowls. These changes provide us with the most obvious information about someone’s mood or immediate intentions. Expressions represent the person’s intended message, the one he or she is trying to convey. A person trying to gain your trust will smile. Someone trying to scare you will scowl.
­When we communicate, we try to collect as much verbal and nonverbal information as possible. We also try to control the outgoing expressive information we display to others in order to:
* Maximize our understanding of the people we interact with
* Gain perspective on the situation
* Protect ourselves against harm, deception, embarrassment or loss of social standing
 * Guide, assure or manipulate the perceptions of another