Justice Thomas Defends Campaign Finance Ruling - NYTimes.com

Justice Thomas said the First Amendment’s protections applied regardless of how people chose to assemble to participate in the political process.

“If 10 of you got together and decided to speak, just as a group, you’d say you have First Amendment rights to speak and the First Amendment right of association,” he said. “If you all then formed a partnership to speak, you’d say we still have that First Amendment right to speak and of association.”

“But what if you put yourself in a corporate form?” Justice Thomas asked, suggesting that the answer must be the same.

ESA Portal - Live long and prosper, Xanthoria elegans

The fact that living organisms do survive in open space seems to support the idea of panspermia – life spreading from planet to another, or even between solar systems. “The loose end in this theory is now arrival at a planet, because no living thing can survive the fiery entry through an atmosphere,” Demets says. “But possibly deep inside a space rock the conditions are better. Therefore we’re now thinking of an astrobiology experiment involving a return to Earth”.

Image Searchers Snared By Malware

It's uncertain how Arnold's site got infected in the first place, but Sinegubko had earlier said that almost 90% of breakins in 2009 that occurred on Linux-hosted sites, were caused by malware installed surreptitiously on people's Windows PCs and stealing the passwords that people used to administer their sites. Or the site could have been compromised via a WordPress exploit such as this one. As I always tell anyone who will listen, if you want to keep your Linux-hosted website from being broken into, one of the most frequently overlooked precautions that you need to take is to keep your Windows PC free of spyware.

Kenneth, What Is the Frequency: How CBS and Dan Rather Set Up Elian Gonzalez - Big Journalism

On April 16, 2000, viewers of CBS’ 60 Minutes saw Dan Rather interviewing Elian Gonzalez’s father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez. America saw a bewildered and heartsick father simply pleading to be allowed to have his motherless son accompany him back to Cuba, his cherished homeland. How could anyone oppose this? How could simple decency and common sense possibly allow for anything else?
“Did you cry?” the pained and frowning Dan Rather asked the “bereaved” father during the 60 Minutes drama.“A father never runs out of tears,” Juan (actually, the voice of Juan’s drama school-trained translator) sniffled back to Dan. And the 60 Minutes prime-time audience could hardly contain their own sniffles.

Here’s what America didn’t see...

Vulnerable Dems seek distance from Obama - baltimoresun.com

As Congress begins picking through President Obama's vast election year budget, many Democratic incumbents and candidates seem to be finding something they love — to campaign against.

A Democratic Senate candidate in Missouri denounced the budget's sky-high deficit. A Florida Democrat whose district includes the Kennedy Space Center hit the roof over NASA budget cuts. And an endangered Senate Democrat denounced proposed cuts in farm subsidies.

Twitter Expediting The Death Of Hugo Chavez's 11-Year Old Economic Experiment

Venezuela's 11-year economic experiment with Hugo Chavez's 'Bolivarian Revolution' is on its death bed these days given the horrendous economic results that are increasingly hard to deny.

But that hasn't stopped many over here from wanting to re-try the same experiments: Nationalize everything NOW!

Russia Must Become a Western Democracy, Medvedev Institute Says - BusinessWeek

Russia’s economic modernization depends on political reforms that will transform the country into a western-style democracy and U.S. ally, said a research institute headed by President Dmitry Medvedev.

DRUDGE: COURIC FACES PAY CUT; DEEP LAYOFFS HIT CBSNEWS

"She makes enough to pay 200 news reporters $75,000 a year!" demands a veteran producer. "It's complete insanity."

The angry source continues: "We report with great enthusiasm how much bankers are making, how it is out of step with reality during a recession. Well, look at Katie!"

Ajami: The Obama Spell Is Broken - WSJ.com

He was a blank slate, and devotees projected onto him what they wanted or wished. In the manner of political redeemers who have marked—and wrecked—the politics of the Arab world and Latin America, Mr. Obama left the crowd to its most precious and volatile asset—its imagination. There was no internal coherence to the coalition that swept him to power. There was cultural "cool" and racial absolution for the white professional classes who were the first to embrace him. There was understandable racial pride on the part of the African-American community that came around to his banners after it ditched the Clinton dynasty.

How The New York Times Lost An Entire Generation Of Readers

I don't think a paper that loses millions of dollars a year and funds itself by taking extortionary loans from plutocratic Mexican billionaires can be said to be competing in anything, Metro or otherwise. My feeling is you only get to congratulate yourself if you produce a great product and make money doing it— you don't get any points for doing just the first half. And that doesn't just go for you guys— I don't think any magazine or newspaper that supports itself by sucking on the teat of some old rich guy (or his heirs!) should be giving anyone else advice.

Daily Gut: When Climate Change Experts Are Not Experts

We Are So Screwed

The point is that complacency almost always ends suddenly. You just don't slide gradually into a crisis, over years. It happens! All of a sudden there is a trigger event, and it is August of 2008. And the evidence in the book is that things go along fine until there is that crisis of confidence. There is no way to know when it will happen. There is no magic debt level, no magic drop in currencies, no percentage level of fiscal deficits, no single point where we can say "This is it." It is different in different crises.

Moonset - Cringely on technology

Later today the Obama Administration will reportedly announce major changes in the U. S. space program that may amount to the effective end of manned space flight after this decade. As a guy who has been trying to mount his own mission to the Moon I’m not yet sure how I feel about this. Maybe it is a great opportunity, but probably not.

Obama Proposes $3.8 Trillion Budget - WSJ.com

A trillion here, a trillion there, pretty soon you've got a, uh, quadrillion.

Exchange rate between the US Dollar and Monopoly money is looking more favorable to the latter.

Google’s ‘Don’t Be Evil’ Mantra is ‘Bullshit,’ Adobe Is Lazy: Apple’s Steve Jobs (Update 2) | Epicenter | Wired.com

About Adobe: They are lazy, Jobs says. They have all this potential to do interesting things but they just refuse to do it. They don’t do anything with the approaches that Apple is taking, like Carbon. Apple does not support Flash because it is so buggy, he says. Whenever a Mac crashes more often than not it’s because of Flash. No one will be using Flash, he says. The world is moving to HTML5.

He's right about that. When we get to the time that they are shuttering what is left of Adobe they will have no one to blame but themselves.