Outside the Beltway

There is a problem with political rhetoric in this country, but telling people to be nicer to each other isn’t going to cool it down.

The Stuxnet virus that has set back the Iranian nuclear weapons program by several years at least appears to have originated as a joint project between the United States and Israel.

People find the most interesting ways to justify something that is obviously wrong.

The political firestorm that has erupted in the wake of the shootings in Arizona is drifting, inevitably, into calls for more government control over the content of speech.

The words “mother” and “father” will be removed from U.S. passport applications and replaced with gender neutral terminology.

A Michigan man faces five years in prison for reading his wife’s email.

Despite federal laws banning even prison officials from bringing phones inside, tens of thousands of inmates have smartphones.

Republicans are renaming three House committees, including bring back Ethics and taking out Labor.

Contrary to current conservative talking points, Net Neutrality is not a nefarious government scheme to takeover the Internet, but is aimed to address a real problem. Like most ideas that involve the government, though, it doesn’t really address the real source of the problem; not enough freedom

Younger users are moving away from email as a way to communicate with others, and toward more instant forms of communication like text messaging and Twitter.

So, Kodak is suing Shutterfly because it claims to have invented the idea of putting pictures on the Internet.

The Federal Communications Commission is using a statute from the 1930s to try to regulate the technology of the 21st Century. It’s a mistake.

The institutions charged with solving our Information Age social problems are stuck in the Industrial Age.

As the internet becomes more ingrained in our lives, it’s become a tool for parenting. And a break from it.

Did you know that the iPhone is made in China for a mere $6.50? It’s false but true!

Hinckley, California — the town that Erin Brockovich made famous — has slightly less cancer than we’d expect.

Have credit cards and ATMs eliminated the value of large currency zones?

Opt out of Tynt’s clipboard hijacking.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg says he isn’t running for President, but he’s sure acting like a guy who’s at least thinking about it.

Minor fluctuation in tax rates is not the most significant thing happening in the world’s largest economy.

Mike Brown, who discovered Xena, decided he could not in good conscience allow it to be made a planet. And killed off an old favorite in so doing.

Viacom says a lower court ruling in favor of Google “would radically transform the functioning of the copyright system and severely impair, if not completely destroy, the value of many copyrighted creations.”

Despite recurring predictions that the Internet and mass communications would allow people to work from anywhere, talent continues to cluster in big cities.

WikiLeaks domain name service was terminated for violating terms of use.

WikiLeaks has been dumped from Amazon’s servers.

Should blogs and other online forums ban anonymous comments?

The American copyright system is broken. Cory Doctorow offers some useful suggestions for fixing it.

In an effort to combat illegal file sharing, the US Department of Homeland Security is seizing domain names.

The Chevy Volt’s $33,000 price tag makes its modest fuel savings hard to justify.

Despite the recent media outrage over TSA search procedures, public attitudes on the subject remain largely supportive.

NATO-Russia cooperation on missile defense is a welcome step forward.

The Denver Post’s Craig Walker has captured this image of a TSA agent performing an “enhanced pat down.”

The Atlantic’s Dave Thier laments that, “The Beatles on iTunes Means Your Kids May Never Hear ‘Her Majesty’

A Florida courthouse illegally saved 35,000 images from security scanners.

Gmail alerted me that they had undergone a homepage makeover. Somehow, I hadn’t noticed. See if you can guess why.

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood wants to install devices in cars to disable cell phones.

It appears that full body scanners, operated by leering yahoos under the cover of government authority, may finally be rousing the sheep who have meekly submitted to the absurd delays and indignities that have been piled on since 9/11 and sundry botched attempts.

A ten year old case out of Texas raises yet more doubts about the justice of the death penalty.