Police: Wal-Mart Shopper Slaps Crying Child – Atlanta News Story – WGCL Atlanta.

Come on. Don’t tell me you’ve never wanted to do this. Maybe not hit a crying kid (or a kid who is just being a brat/snot/idiot) but maybe yell?

h/t: Jessicathe

Levi Johnston unloads on Vanity Fair:

I had assumed she was going to go back to her job as governor, but a week or two after she got back she started talking about how nice it would be to quit and write a book or do a show and make “triple the money.” It was, to her, “not as hard.” She would blatantly say, “I want to just take this money and quit being governor.”

Despite the overwhelming attention given to healthcare right now, there is another issue which is gaining notoriety, particularly on the web.

From CNET News:

Internet companies and civil liberties groups were alarmed this spring when a U.S. Senate bill proposed handing the White House the power to disconnect private-sector computers from the Internet.

They’re not much happier about a revised version that aides to Sen. Jay Rockefeller, a West Virginia Democrat, have spent months drafting behind closed doors. CNET News has obtained a copy of the 55-page draft of S.773 (excerpt), which still appears to permit the president to seize temporary control of private-sector networks during a so-called cybersecurity emergency.

The new version would allow the president to “declare a cybersecurity emergency” relating to “non-governmental” computer networks and do what’s necessary to respond to the threat. Other sections of the proposal include a federal certification program for “cybersecurity professionals,” and a requirement that certain computer systems and networks in the private sector be managed by people who have been awarded that license.

“I think the redraft, while improved, remains troubling due to its vagueness,” said Larry Clinton, president of the Internet Security Alliance, which counts representatives of Verizon, Verisign, Nortel, and Carnegie Mellon University on its board. “It is unclear what authority Sen. Rockefeller thinks is necessary over the private sector. Unless this is clarified, we cannot properly analyze, let alone support the bill.”

Representatives of other large Internet and telecommunications companies expressed concerns about the bill in a teleconference with Rockefeller’s aides this week, but were not immediately available for interviews on Thursday.

In an earlier post I discussed the potential hazards of cybersecurity threats from abroad, namely from North Korea, China, and Russia. According to proponents of this bill, it is the responsibility of the government to insure the stability of the web in a time of crisis.

Yet as we have learned over the years, the government is incredibly incompetent in responding to cybersecurity threats; in fact, the DHS recently scored an ‘F’ in an “annual computer security report card.” What makes members of Congress suppose that the government can adequately regulate and secure the web in a time of crisis when it continuously proves to be incapable of doing so normally?

Michael Masnick, founder of Techdirt, sums up this criticism in a recent blog post:

But the bigger issue is why the government should be taking control over private networks. This is the same gov’t that doesn’t let people in the State Department use Firefox and which thinks that RealPlayer is the state of the art in online video streaming. Even if there were a “cybersecurity emergency,” I would think the last people I’d want to take charge would be the federal government.

Aside from the federal government’s overall ineptitude, the most important question concerns the President’s “emergency powers.” Presidential prerogative has always been a controversial issue, and this debate is no exception. When dealing with limits of power, it is best to be clear and concise in explaining the boundaries. Yet S 773 fails to provide the information clearly. Instead, it remains incredibly vague and subject to a great deal of interpretation. This makes “emergency powers” of the President that much more alarming.

From Bruce Henderson at CBS:

S773 makes no attempt to outline and describe what form of emergency would trigger the use of these broad new powers to limit communication, nor any means by which it could be reviewed by anyone outside the executive branch. The bill also proscribes that the executive branch will perform periodic mapping” of private networks deemed to be critical, and those companies “shall share” requested information with the federal government.

Translation: the U.S. government bureaucracy will be spending your tax dollars to figure out private networks, find choke points and places where they can control the flow of communication. Furthermore, companies (such as your ISP) are going to be required, by law, to supply the federal bureaucrats with whatever network, account, usage and history information they deem appropriate. All in the name of cyber safety, you see.

There are plenty of other controversial parts of this bill which should be discussed, particularly the government certification of “security professionals,” which greatly restricts the private sector and adds a whole new level of bureaucracy to the equation.

It’s strange to see the federal government attempt to reign in an already successful private sector in an arena where the government has repeatedly failed in the past. The internet is a “place” where few real regulations exist (compared to the “real world”) and has proven time and time again, to be able to effectively regulate itself through principles of liberalism (the classical kind).

Bottom Line: First, it is unwise for the feds to attempt to over-regulate the private sector in this way, mainly because it will only prove to be costly and ineffective. Second, this bill gives too much power to the President; power which isn’t clearly defined and would be easily abused.

- Marc

READ ENTIRE BILL HERE

Via BenJoe @ From Where I Sit, a snapshot of Ogden’s mayoral candidates and their use of all things 2.0.

Jim Minster:

• Website: http://jimminster4mayor.com/index.html – This is a flashy and smooth website. Simple text format and tons of good information. He really put a lot of time into it. Interestingly almost every sentence starts with “I”.
• Twitter: http://www.Twitter.com/jfminster>has 3 followers and is following 1 person. He has a few updates.
• Facebook: http://www.Facebook.com/jfminster has a few updates on there and about 90 friends.
• Congrats to Jim for starting all of these, but now he needs to use them.

Vicki Mattson:

• Website: no website found (yet)
• Twitter: http://twitter.com/vmattsoncouncil yet she has no updates yet.
• Facebook: no facebook profile found (yet)

Rick Westmorland:

• Website: http://rick4mayor.com/ — A little simpler of a website, with lots of options to donate, call, setup meetings, etc. I like his FAQ page as well and he has tons of good info. Not too bad of a website. Content is better than Jim’s but Jim’s is more appealing to the eye.
• Twitter: None (yet)
• Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Rick-T-Westmoreland-for-Mayor-2009-South-Ogden-City/105684402908

John Bradley:

• Website: http://www.southogdenmayor.com/ – Thanks to Reader Michael Booth. I find the fact that he names his site southogdenmayor a little pretentious. Plus it isn’t much of a site. He does say he will fight to not raise taxes (but he did raise taxes while on the council).
• Twitter: None
• Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1708160326 (I think)

Palin’s running mate must be “pallin’ around with terrorists” to be talking like this.  Political Wire:

“I think the interrogations were in violation of the Geneva Convention against torture that we ratified under President Reagan. I think that these interrogations, once publicized, helped al Qaeda recruit.”

– Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), in an interview on Face the Nation, on the Bush administration’s interrogation methods.

Where was this guy during the campaigns?