What the FEC said, according Chairman Michael E. Toner, is that there is now a “categorical and unqualified exemption for all individual and group political activity on the internet, except for paid advertisement.” Commission Vice Chairman Robert D. Lenhard stated, “The law was never intended to regulate private citizen communication on the internet.”

I am thrilled to hear this news. As an active blogger who is highly interested in politics, the prospect of having my personal writings and commentary regulated by the Federal Election Commission is not an attractive one. This is especially true since I am opposed to almost all campaign finance restrictions and laws in the first place. But that is a topic for another day.

Link to Official Document (.pdf)

15 year old student, Tom Vendetta has been hired by search engine giant Google Inc. The student will receive a lowered salary, which will be placed into a bank account for future education, said Google CEO Larry Page. When asked what role Vendetta will play at the Tech Giant’s offices, Page said he wouldnt have a role at the Main Offices. Instead he would work from his home in the New Jersey suburbs. Vendetta will be incharge of working with recent security flaw’s in Google’s beta e-mail service, “Gmail”. Google said they first found out about him when they discovered the student’s blog, at http://tomvendetta.be. The media giant said they looked forward to working with Vendetta’s expertise in JavaScript and AJAX.

Once the Internet was saturated with the news, Tom Vendetta realized things had gotten out of hand. The press release was actually nothing more than a practical joke Tom was trying to play on his friends. Vendetta submitted the fake release through the free news service I-Newswire. It was a trick he had learned reading this blog posting. He confessed the prank on his blog. It seems obvious to me that he intended no harm and I actually think it will ultimately have a positive effect on Internet news in general.

This incident reveals a potential weakness of this new “Web 2.0” world, in which stories spread almost instantaneously and where news readers become news creators. Two different kinds of news aggregators were fooled by the false story – Google News, which uses an automated method to compile its news pages and Digg, a site where users decide whether or not a story is worthy of the front page.

Traditionally, news editors or other individuals would be responsible for analyzing stories and content and then deciding whether it was credible and newsworthy. In the current web environment, the news consumer is gaining more power over what stories are considered news. Using Digg as an example, a story does not have to be particularly important to make the front page, only interesting to enough people. As the case with this phony press release highlights, a story does not even have to be true.

This incident is not very concerning to me with regards to sites like Digg. I do not view Digg as a news source, but as more of an “interesting links” source. By the way, I absolutely love Digg. What is a bit troubling is that the story made headlines on Google News, which I did consider to be a news source. Considering the fact that Google’s headlines are compiled by spiders or other automated systems that crawl the web looking for news, we really should not be surprised that something like this could happen. Google should probably modify their criteria and remove sites that allow free, unverified press releases (such as I-Newswire) from their news aggregation. Google should also consider allocating more resources (as in human beings) to the validation of their news stories.

Do I trust an automated system to present me with the news as much as I trust a news organization such as Fox News or even CNN? No, I do not. Do I trust a social bookmarking site such as Digg as much as I trust my traditional news sources? Again, the answer is no. In a “real” news organization, an editor or some other responsible person would have looked at this story, noticed the numerous grammatical errors and the fact that it was submitted via a free service and then maybe called the HR department and asked, “So, umm, did we actually hire a 15 year-old kid?” Since Google News is automated though, this analysis never occurred.

I don’t want to give the impression that I think traditional news sources are perfect. Given the Jason Blair, Stephen Glass and forged documents scandals, mainstream news is susceptible to abuse and the propagation of false information too. On a side note, I highly recommend Shattered Glass, the story of Stephen Glass.

In today’s Internet age, we are all bombarded with information from every direction. As consumers of the news, we must train ourselves to judge both the source of a story and the method in which it became news as much as we judge a story itself.

Now, let’s contrast that with somewhat similar circumstances in the United States. Ten Baptist churches in Alabama have been burned by arsonists. There is no solid information on the identity of the arsonist(s). The difference in the response is striking. So far, Baptists have not come out and blamed Muslims, Jews, Catholics, Lutherans or Pentecostals for the fires. So far, there have been no riots in the streets of Alabama. So far, no Lutherans or Methodists have been killed by Baptists seeking retribution.

Time after time, the followers of the “religion of peace” turn immediately to bloodshed as the first response. Just like the whole cartoon controversy, the mosque bombing is not a reason for violence. It is an excuse for violence.

Just something to think about.

Direct Link

Edit: I’ll go ahead and post it here too. Still trying to decide if I want to maintain both sites or just roll them both into ZackRippy.com.

Last night, President George W. Bush presented his annual State of the Union speech to Congress. You can read the full text of it here.

Unfortunately, I am incredibly busy right now, so I can only take time to respond to a few specific points:

The President is right on the mark when he talks about meeting the challenge of terrorism. The United States must, I repeat, must continue the offensive assault on terror. Regardless of what nation gives them refuge, we must aggressively pursue and destroy them.

No subject has been more divisive in recent months than Iraq. Iraq represents the front line in the war on terror. It has been established that Saddam Hussein allowed Al-Qaeda operatives to have safe haven within his borders. He offered them protection, training and money. We won a decisive victory in the war to defeat Iraq and now we must be just as intense and focused as we fight for stability and peace. The debate on this has been reframed by the President recently. He has said now that we went in to bring freedom and democracy to the Iraqi people. That was not the case at all. We went invaded Iraq to overthrow a ruthless dictator that possessed and had used weapons of mass destruction. We never found the specific weapons we thought were there, so the justification has been changed. Why should it though? I am still absolutely convinced that Iraq possessed WMDs and that they were either hidden or smuggled into Syria, Iran or some other nation in the weeks leading up to our invasion. The President spent weeks announcing to Hussein exactly when we would be coming, giving ultimatum after ultimatum. This hesitation offered the Iraqi government a defined window during which time they could get rid of the weapons. I have no doubt the weapons existed. We invaded Iraq out of self-interest and self-preservation and there is nothing wrong with that. We felt Saddam Hussein was a threat to our national security and we took him out. We should not have to hide behind lofty ideals like “spreading freedom” or “promoting democracy.” Unless it is in our national interest, it is not the responsibility of the United States to ensure that every person on the planet lives in a free, democratic nation. We invaded Iraq because our government thought they presented a clear and present danger to our society and our people. No further justification should be necessary.

The popular criticism of the war and the troops has been sickening. I certainly did not agree with many of Bill Clinton’s bogus nation-building, “wag the dog” military “actions” of the 1990′s, but once we were engaged, I wanted nothing less than total victory. When our brave soldiers were slaughtered during the “Black Hawk Down” incident in 1993, I hoped (in vain) that we would unleash the full fury of the United States military in Somalia. Much to my dismay, we retreated in humiliation. I have no problem with people disagreeing with the war, even if I do think they are misguided and lack the the basic sense to understand we are fighting people who would slaughter our children if given the opportunity. What I do have a problem with is the vitriolic attacks against our troops and our President in a time of war. The fact that we have U.S. Senators saying that our soldiers terrorize women and children is repulsive. The fact that we have high-ranking officials calling the war “unwinnable” is an embarrassment and a disgrace.

President Bush spoke on the necessity of renewing the Patriot Act. The Patriot Act is vital to the security of Americans within our borders. There is nothing revolutionary or shocking in that legislation. It tore down the absurd wall of separation that existed between law enforcement and intelligence communities. Without the Patriot Act, if the NSA, CIA or some other intelligence agency obtains information about a terrorist operative in the United States, that agency would be prohibited from passing that information onto domestic law enforcement agencies. This is beyond insane and is horribly policy. The Patriot Act also allows the government access to the same law-enforcement tools used against drug smugglers and organized crime. One such power is so-called “roaming wiretaps.” All this means is that the government can get a warrant for a person instead of a phone. With that power, law enforcement can tap any phone a suspect happens to be using. Under the old rules, they were supposed to have a warrant for each phone. In an age of disposable cell phones and pre-paid plans, such a restriction would be crippling to intelligence efforts. The Patriot Act is essential to protecting against future terrorist attacks. Congress should stop with the political football and reauthorize the Patriot Act immediately.

Along the same lines, I have had enough of all this drummed-up controversy over “domestic eavesdropping.” President Bush is simply doing something that every President since the criminally-pacifist Jimmy Carter has done. The President authorized the NSA to eavesdrop on phone and email conversations between foreign persons of interests and people within the United States. The program also authorizes the collection of information on conversations between individuals in foreign countries whose electronic conversations just happen to be routed through the US telecommunications network. What is the problem with this? I have always just assumed that international calls and emails were monitored anyway. It is unimaginable to me that this has devolved into such a controversial topic. He is not “eavesdropping” on my calls to my grandmother…unless my grandmother happens to live in Afghanistan and she happens to be partial to the brutal slaughter of innocent American women and children. Bush simply used a tool that has been used by his predecessors for decades. He did nothing new. In my opinion, the fact that the existence of the program was made public has drastically weakened the program’s effectiveness and irreparably damaged national security. Both the journalist who published the information and the informant who leaked it should be arrested and tried. No, I am not kidding. Their actions border on treason.

Bush praised the vigor of the American economy. The economy is strong and public confidence is high, despite what the news would have us believe. Unemployment is down and wages are up. Bush’s tax cuts stimulated economic growth and they should be made permanent.

The President said that the nation must address the ballooning cost of entitlement programs such as Social Security. He proposed a commission to investigate American entitlement systems. I have a simple solution – abolish all but those that are absolutely vital necessities. Pass Social Security reform. Let me keep my own money, be a responsible adult and plan for my own retirement. Stop stealing a percentage of my hard-earned income and “investing” it in the abomination that is Social Security. Don’t try to fix Social Security; try to abolish it. Develop a plan in which people in the sytem closer to retirement age are still guaranteed their benefits, but allow younger Americans to opt-out completely. I would gladly forfeit all that I have paid into the system so far if I would never have to pay another cent into that black hole. I am a big boy. Let me take care of myself.

Onto health care…We do not need more government involvement. We need less. We need to allow the free market to dictate health costs. The free market works. It works better and more effectively than any government program or initiative. We need fewer restrictions on doctors and fewer government controls on the industry. We also desperately need legislation to cap medical liabily lawsuit punitive damages. Doctors are literally being run out of their practices due to the ridiculously high prices of liability insurance. Those who do stay in business have to pass those costs onto their patients.

Energy has been a hot topic lately. Bush’s plan seems to now consist of planning to spend more money to research alternative forms of energy. That is a nice idea and all, but we need effective change now. Like it or not, we will not have transformed ourselves from a petroleum-based society for at least fifty years. Minimum. Until that day arrives, we also need to find our own sources of petroleum. That is just a reality that cannot be ignored. We need off-shored drilling. We need it. We need it yesterday. And then there is ANWR, the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve. President Bush proposed opening it up for drilling. The drilling would have occupied a negligible amount of real estate in the barren wasteland that is ANWR. As usual, Congress buckled under the pressure of the radical environmentalist movement and blocked the inititative. As a result, we continue to wallow in our dependence on foreign oil. We have the potential to become energy independent while simultaneously developing alternative energies. It is to our own detriment if we continue with our current energy policy. Nothing the President said last night gave me any hope that the situation will get any better any time soon.

In my opinion, one word sums up my reaction to his speech: uninspiring. I am a strong supporter of President Bush. I have voted for him twice. I think he is a good man with strong moral convictions. I believe he has done well in fighting the war on terror and in foreign affairs. However, I am less than thrilled with his domestic policies. He has never vetoed a spending bill. Domestic discretionary spending and entitlement costs continue to skyrocket. We need bold, decisive actions on these issues – not committees. We need an aggressive border control policy – not amnesty disguised as a guest worker program. Overall, I thought the speech was average at best. He does have to be careful because there is an off-year election coming up in November and he has to be able to help his party keep (and gain) seats in Congress. Still, I was completely uninspired.

Finally, whoever actually wrote his speech should be fired. When he made that awkward pause after saying that the Democrats had blocked his Social Security reform initiative, he left himself wide open for the sarcastic and disrespectful standing ovation he got from the Democrats. A good speechwriter would have immediately had a great response for the President that would have called the Democrats on the carpet for having blocked his plan without even offering an alternative. The speech itself (the actual text) was just not impressive.

George Bush is at his best when he can be spontaneous and talk from the heart. He does not have Reagan’s ability to deliver a pre-written speech with clarity. His people really need to work harder to frame his addresses in a way that emphasizes his rhetorical strengths instead of putting him in a situation in which he is obviously not at the top of his game.

I love the President and have great respect for him. I just did not think it was a great address.

I give both the speech itself and the message a B-.

Twenty years ago, the Space Shuttle Challenger was torn apart 73 seconds after liftoff, killing all seven crewmembers. (more)

I hope that, as a nation, we continue to honor their memory by looking in awe to the heavens and reaching out for that which is just beyond our grasp.