Time for The Flying Head: an archive edition

Follow the link to a thorough telling of the Fletcher Hanks Story.
Got to love the flying head.

A clean well lighted blog

Our youth are drifting to Twitter!
Blogs says the New York Times are on the wane. Facebook and Twitter reports the NY Times are now the preferred online choice for the younger generation.

The Internet and American Life Project at the Pew Research Center found that from 2006 to 2009, blogging among children ages 12 to 17 fell by half; now 14 percent of children those ages who use the Internet have blogs. Among 18-to-33-year-olds, the project said in a report last year, blogging dropped two percentage points in 2010 from two years earlier

It seems like only yesterday, but it was way back in 2004 that Merriam-Websters declared “blog” the word of the years. So many people began blogging — to share dieting stories, rant about politics and celebrate their love of cats — that Merriam-Webster declared “blog” the word of the year in 2004.The article leaves the impression there is little between cat blogs and the Huffington Post.

Newspapers may be feeling a little gleeful at this waning development because for some newspaper people blogs are the handy target for their own complex reasons of decline. However its just evolution as one expert says of Facebook,Twitter and blogs “Rather than being competitors, they are complementary […]“There is a lot of fragmentation ,but at this point, anyone who is taking blogging seriously — they’re using several mediums to get a large amount of their traffic.”
A distinguished touch of gray around the banner advert. A 2010 study showed an increase of 16%, six points in a two year period with 34 to 45 year olds who use the internet to blog.

Kill bill for the internet

After the events in Egypt a closer look might be taken at proposed US Senate legislation called the internet kill bill. Senators Joseph Lieberman (I-CT), Susan Collins (R-ME), and Tom Carper (D-DE) have co-sponsored a bill(introduced in 2010) that might give the President the power to disconnect the internet. It is unclear if the President might already have this power under decade’s old legislation passed after Pearl Harbor.

Whether killing the internet is even possible is still debatable. However by reconfiguring network routers and making it difficult for them to reach IP addresses the Egyptian government effectively did to some degree kill their internet. Not quite a kill switch but a kill system that disrupted communications between those organizing and participating in anti-gov protests.

In a statement after the events in Egypt Senators Lieberman, Collins, and Carper released a statement defending the bill saying in part
“they will ensure that any legislation that moves in this Congress contains explicit language prohibiting the President from doing what President Mubarak did.” However Sen. Lieberman’s earlier statements offer little similar reassurance. This is from a 2010 interview where he claims critics are spreading “total misinformation” about the bill while using a less than comforting example to describe the law's function “We need the capacity for the president to say, Internet service provider, we’ve got to disconnect the American Internet from all traffic coming in from another foreign country… Right now, China, the government, can disconnect parts of its Internet in a case of war. We need to have that here, too."

The internet kill bill joins so much other senate legislation good, bad and ugly that is stalled in the Senate. It may also be broken into bite sized pieces and added to spending bills. Many of the barriers are turf battles about which groups (DHS or military?) should have authority over civilian cyber security rather than issues of personal freedom and rights. US, county and local government IT officials express caution about problems an internet shutdown might cause. Law enforcement relies heavily information flowing from the internet and would have to rely on radio during a shutdown. Also some municipalities have emergency management on twitter feeds.

Dick and “The usual spirited exercise,”

Former Vice President Dick Cheney got heckled reportedly by Ron Paul supporters at the Conservative Political Action Committee’s(CPAC) convention this Thursday. Worthy of anything available to date from The Onion Cheney was called among other things "a war criminal and a draft dodger". This happened while he was presenting a “Defender of the Constitution Award,” to Donald Rumsfeld. TPM has a video

The former VP kept his legendary humor telling the crowd to sit and shut-up and sneering. Then later while being heckled he aggressively growled “The usual spirited exercise,”as the shouts died down.
Mr. Cheney still suffering longtime heart problems looked somewhat healthier than in recent appearances where, poor man, he did indeed look like he had personally visited the dark side.

Entergy’s lines in the sand

The battle front is shifting slightly for Vermont Yankee power plant as it escalates toward a crunch point; a financial decision on refueling. Making it clear that Entergy will not glow quietly into the night Vermont Yankee Entergy CEO J. Wayne Leonard stated this week in an AP report he felt pushed into a corner by the State of Vermont. “…and there's a point where there's a line in the sand and we've got to make a decision whether we're pushed any further or not." Leonard also maintained the NRC had final say on the plant’s future. The re-licensing issue may be headed to the courts and we should hope the Vermont Attorney General can be as aggressive with Entergy in court as he has proved with sugared drinks. In more than a year that VY has been leaking radioactive tritium and leaching it into the Connecticut River no legal action was initiated by Vermont’s AG.

A little help from friends nationally. Just prior to Entergy CEO’s line- in-the-sand statement pressure was being brought to bear in Congress about the NRC’s speed in nuclear plant re-licensing. Representative Fred Upton, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee claims the NRC’s actions show indifference to the economic realities challenging its applicants and is pressuring the NRC to explain their nuclear plant license renewal procedures. Mirroring this,a energy trade publication reports two Republican Senators are raising pointed questions about the NRC’s speed in nuclear plant re-licensing. Senators James Inhofe, from Oklahoma and David “diaper me” Vitter, of Louisiana(home of Entergy VY’s owner) have written to NRC chairman Gregory Jazcko.
The Senators claim that "the commission has incentivized opponents to intervene solely because the NRC will delay the conduct of these adjudications and relicensing processes." Entergy Vermont Yankee and Entergy owned Pilgrim power plants both up for relicening where not mentioned specifically but understood to be the subject of this.

They [Inhofe and Vitter] asked him to explain how it determines whether opposition to a nuclear power plant license renewal application is deemed to be "local" and the agency decides on a"threshold of 'minimal' opposition" to a license renewal

George W’s baggage

Former President George W. Bush has canceled a trip to a charity event in Switzerland where he was to speak about freedom and offer reflections on his presidency. It was unclear if he was to be paid for his speaking and reflecting.

The AP reported a spokesman for next weeks event said “The calls to demonstrate were sliding into dangerous terrain,”
On what would have been his first trip to Europe after leaving office Bush might have had quite a greeting. Mimicking the time in Baghdad 2008 when at a secure news event George Bush was assaulted with a shoe thrown by an Iraqi journalist, protest rally organizers wanted demonstrators to bring a shoes to the event.

It seems a very small price to pay for starting a war and authorizing torture (allegedly says the Washington Post story ).

However there is another bit of potential trouble for our former “decider” President, perhaps more serious than crowds armed with shoes for throwing. Amnesty International and the Center for Constitutional Rights are requesting a criminal investigation by Swiss prosecutors over the former President's admission in his recent memoirs that he personally authorized water boarding torture.

The Center for Constitutional Rights said in a statement that they had planned to bring the complaint under the Convention Against Torture on behalf of two of men, Majid Khan, who remains at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and Sami al-Hajj, a former al-Jazeera cameraman who was released in May 2008. The 2,500-page complaint will not be filed in court, but will be released Monday at a media event in Switzerland.

The Swiss maintain Bush would have immunity but the Center for Constitutional Rights says no such immunity exists under the Convention Against Torture and plan to persist. Similar charges were thrown out against former Bush Sec.of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

"Whatever Bush or his hosts say, we have no doubt he canceled his trip to avoid our case," the center's statement said. "The message from civil society is clear: If you're a torturer, be careful in your travel plans. It's a slow process for accountability, but we keep going."

Patois of Salmon

I think he's going to run...
Vermont’s own Auditor Tom Salmon got a little mention outside of Vermont on Politico.com the other day and, what the heck, I may as well share it here with the recent stuff on the likely Salmon run.
Remarking to Politico.com on his impending decision to challenge US Senator Bernie Sanders, Salmon explained that he is 65% in. "Right now, I am 65 percent in. When I hit 75 percent it will commence exploratory."

He continued attempting to clarify his position:
"I am not attached to the 2012 outcome, my odds, or my political career. I don't need to be senator, or governor, or stay put as state auditor — I need to be an authentic self-utilizing power along the lines of excellence. I am deeply concerned that we address risks of economic, political and spiritual significance through a new brand of leaders that communicate effectively from the sincere center."

The 68-word quote from Politico.com was picked up at Slate.com by David Weigel, who carefully lays out the daunting practical challenges Salmon might face, then throws it aside and says:
"But let's ignore all that. Let's focus on Salmon's completely incomprehensible quote. It sounds like a No Labels manifesto translated into Laotian and back into English."
He declares Salmon’s quest The most doomed campaign of 2012.
I might differ only with Weigel’s English-to-Laotian-to-English theory. I think Salmon’s phrase “I need to be an authentic self-utilizing power along the lines of excellence” reads more like self-help-comic-super-hero-patois.
Commence exploratory! Kapow! Go for it!
Is he getting better and better or what?