What's this all about? There are a pair of bills (acronymized as SOPA and PIPA) about to hit Congress that would deal a heavy blow to the glory that is a (mostly) free and unfettered internet through a series of draconian (super harsh for you non-English majors) penalties for any site that hosts pirated material, or any site with any connection to a site that hosts said material. This means that someone could come into my particular corner of the internet here, drop a link to a site that might rhyme with "Birate Pay" in the comments, and I could then be fined and/or jailed as a result. There's more to it of course, but that's the bit that has caught my eye as ridiculous. Living in the black heart of the DMV, I try to stay away from politics as much as possible since a large part of the politicians in this country either reside or spend an awful lot of time here. I figure they have all the politicking covered. These bills threaten the internet as we all know and (presumably) love it though, and for that I'll dip my toe, ever so briefly, into the foetid waters of politics. Call and/or write your congressmen, there are lots of sites out there to help you do so, and tell them these bills suck and should be burned and then have their ashes scattered. Are you sick and tired of your so-called representatives not doing much of anything, much less anything that you'd like to see done? Then do something now. The above links make it real easy for your voice to be heard.
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