Er – both the Moore site and Wikipedia appear to be up and running right now, despite the latter’s assertion that it isn’t (I just looked up an article directly from the home page that makes that assertion).

???

Aha! It turns out that if you disable scripting both sites work as usual: only if you allow scripting are they blacked out.

While the average Netizen probably has scripting promiscuously enabled, I’d still suggest that this leaves one hell of a big hole in the ‘blackout’. The question then becomes, is this hole intentional or inadvertent?

I just dropped in to see what was happening in this area because I just received the following message from my Congressman (a normally disgusting creature for whom I voted only to ensure the eviction of a worthless Democrat):

Dear William,

Knowing your concern regarding the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), I wanted to take this opportunity to update you on my position regarding this legislation. I have appreciated having the benefit of your thoughts on this important issue.

H.R. 3261, the Stop Online Piracy Act was introduced by Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) on October 26, 2011. It has been referred to the House Judiciary Committee. The primary purpose of SOPA is to stop the theft of intellectual property from foreign-based websites.

Although well intentioned, many have raised legitimate concerns regarding the legislation and believe the manner in which SOPA attempts to achieve its goals of stopping the theft of intellectual property from foreign-based websites is unworkable and includes many unintended and dangerous consequences. I am writing today to inform you that I have severe reservations with the legislation in its current form.

One of the main issues regarding SOPA, is it would force Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to block access to websites that have been accused of facilitating copyright infringement. Blocking access will likely slow down internet connectivity, while eroding the necessary trust the system needs. It would also set a dangerous precedent of allowing our government – and others – to filter domains. Fortunately, all sides have signaled this provision should be dropped.

Furthermore, the legislation would place a tremendous legal burden on websites accused of third-party copyright infringement and would cause them to be removed from search engines. Even if they made an honest mistake, they would be faced with litigation from the U.S. Attorney General. Fighting the accusations would cost an enormous amount of time and money, and smaller sites would likely go out of business. Private lawsuits could also be brought against the websites. This would open up the potential for massive lawsuit abuse – even though the vast majority of online piracy occurs through a small number of websites.

While the federal government does have a role in protecting intellectual property rights, it should do so in a way that does not weaken internet security, disrupt growth, or restrict free speech and your First Amendment rights.

(Followed by the usual Congresscritter closing boilerplate.)

This represents a MARKED change from this Rep’s earlier position supporting SOPA. It seems that opposition is having at least some effect (unless we’re simply seeing the common charade that the bill’s passage is considered assured and therefore Reps whose seats are in danger have been given leave to take a more popular position on it).

I’m kind of late to this party, but as far as I can tell while the employee side of the payroll tax cuts conspicuously states that the Social Security revenue shortfall will be completely reimbursed from the General Fund, no such statement is made about the employer side of the cuts.

Do you have information that the employer side will be similarly reimbursed, or does this constitute a rather major ‘bark’?

I was going to point this out, but thought I’d read the other responses first. It surprised me to get through 44 of them before finding someone who had beat me to it.

David began here (and in his earlier post) with the over-simplification that raising tax rates ANYWHERE was counter-indicated right now. A bit later he did manage to understand that “the rich park their money rather than spending it”, but then apparently lost the significance of that before ending with the apparent conclusion that eliminating at least the higher-bracket tax cuts RIGHT NOW might limit any recovery.

Until such time as we’ve seen sufficient recovery that our idle production capacity gets used up and we need to encourage investment to create more, raising tax rates for the wealthy will have no effect whatsoever on any recovery (and therefore even the minor positive effect it might have compared to just borrowing or creating more money makes it desirable). The wealthy parlayed their wealth into additional income during the ’70s when top-bracket rates averaged 70%, during the ’60s when they averaged 80%, and during the ’50s when they averaged 90%, so they’re not about to be discouraged from such activities if the top-bracket rate is raised not only to its 39.6% Clinton-era level but up to at least 50% (the first step down from 70% that Reagan took).

So if we can afford to borrow (or create by fiat) $X, then we can raise an additional $Y by raising tax rates on the wealthy and use that additional revenue to create even more stimulus by distributing it to those most in need who WILL spend it immediately and thus create the normal multiplicative effect of that kind of stimulation (as contrasted with the kind created by tax cuts where such a large portion goes to those who will NOT spend it but just sit on it). A real no-brainer, at least from an economic viewpoint (unless, of course, your economics is of the voodoo variety).