Rep. Jared Polis on his opposition to SOPA
The Colbert Report
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My interview with Rep. Jared Polis of Colorado is not as funny as Stephen Colbert’s Better Know A District bit with him from back in the day, but it is important because it touches on Rep. Polis’s opposition to the anti-piracy bill, SOPA, which is threatening freedom of speech online.
If you have a chance, go take a gander. We’re not blacking out The League today because, well, I figure it’s important to still have spaces to talk about the big internet blackout that’s going on right now.
I just hate laws that read
(m) DISCLOSURE OF CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION. Section 337(n) of the Tariff Act of 1930 (19 U.S.C. 1337(n)) is amended,(1) in paragraph (1), by inserting, or section 337A after this section; and (2) in paragraph (2)(A) in subparagraph (A)(i) in clause (ii), by striking (j) and inserting (j) of this section; (ii) in clause (iii), by striking (g), a cease and desist order issued pursuant to subsection (f), or a consent order issued pursuant to subsection (c), and inserting (g) of this section, a cease and desist order issued pursuant to subsection (f) of this section or subsection (f) of section 337A, or a consent order issued pursuant to subsection (c) of this section or subsection (d) of section 337A; and (iii) in clause (iv), by striking (i), or a consent order issued under this section and inserting ,(i) of this section or subsection (f) of section 337A, or a consent order issued under this section or subsection (d) of section 337A;(B) in subparagraph (B), by striking (j) and inserting (j) of this section or subsection (e)(5) of section 337A; and (C) in subparagraph (C), by striking (g) and inserting (g) of this section.
This looks like steampunk JavaScript. Or Talmudic commentary. The most important part of the OPEN Act, written by people trying to save the Internet from beastly jackbooted thugly types and now I have to go through the goddamned Tariff Act of 1930 to figure out what is meant thereby.
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How dare they shut off my Wikipedia? I have a RIGHT, I tell you — a RIGHT to use Wikipedia!Report
Heh.Report
Today, you could go to someone under the age of 30 and tell them that yogurt is made from bovine salivary glands and beet sugar, or that Louis XVIII was once the Chairman of the Democratic party, and they’d have no idea whether you were right or wrong.Report
The thing about yogurt actually sounds like it might true given all the weird chemical processes that are claimed to be “yogurt” these days.Report
Yes. It is truly a day of recaptured innocence.Report
Assuming you made the proper edits to Wikipedia just before they went to look it up, you might be able to keep them in the dark even after it comes back up! (I say it with love; I’m an admin over there)Report
BlaiseP, someone who’s as familiar with government work as you claim to be should be used to stuff like that.Report
As someone who writes an awful lot of JavaScript, I know what bad substitution code looks like. And yes, I’m used to fixing other people’s horrid JavaScript: this is why God in his infinite mercy allowed Firebug and Greasemonkey to be invented. Bad code cannot be fixed with IFDEF and PRAGMA. Nor can bad law.
When I do government work, I’m the one writing the architecture specifications. I have a simple rule for validating those specs. If the people who must use the system cannot understand the spec, it must be clarified.
This may come as a surprise to you, but I don’t take orders from bureaucrats. They bring me in to build these things, having proven themselves incapable. I have specialized to fixing busted systems and ones gone far over budget. Well, not so much these days, I’m trying to avoid Gummint Consulting. It’s heart-deadening work.Report