STEELE: It was unfortunate. It was, you know those are images that were pulled off the internet. They’ve been out in the public domain for a while and a staffer was putting together a presentation for a small group of about 9 or 10 folks and thought they would intersperse their presentation with humorous shots. [...] It was stuff that was pulled off the web that was inserted into a presentation to members of a finance team. It did not go out publicly.
Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t think copyright infringement is the reason for the sane world’s reaction to the fundraising pitch. Nobody’s saying, “Hey, that picture of Nancy Pelosi next to cartoon villain Cruella DeVil offends me because it reproduces a Disney character without permission!” Or perhaps Steele is trying to blame the internet for… existing? Magically downloading itself into the RNC’s PowerPoints?
Mark Sanford Returns from Mysterious South American “Hike”
So it turns out that bonafide crazy person Gov. Mark Sanford was in fact not in Appalachia as his staff told the press but was, in fact, in Argentina! Appalachia, Argentina, they both start and end with “a” so you can forgive a guy for not knowing which one’s which, right? Anyway, Sanford is doing a presser soon to discuss his “exotic” and totally unannounced adventures. (The State)
Just like on every other issue that could possibly be relevant to the American public, Americans trust Barack Obama more than Republicans on “handling the threat of terrorism.” And by a pretty sizable margin too! That’s probably because the terrorists are all his buddies from Muslin school, amirite? (The Plum Line)
The city of Mansfield, TX, was going to give that uppity Negro a piece of their minds by sending back his socialism money! But then they changed their minds because, um, it turns out they actually need the money. (Fort Worth Star-Telegram)
Your ABC television network has the audacity to put Barack Obama, the President of the United States of America, on television. Just like that! Without even seeing his birth certificate, or anything. This has made Republicans sad and whiny all over the YouTubes. In response, ABC News President David Westin says Republicans can suck it, the end. (ABC News)
Pretty soon, it looks like Oregonians (Oregonos?) will be able to register to vote online. Hooray for increased participation in democracy! Shockingly, Republicans do not like this, because then all the Mexicans will get fake driver’s licenses and vote for Swine Flu, or something. (The Oregonian)
The Bush Legacy™ is a success! A panel of 65 historians judging presidential leadership has ranked George W. Bush 36th out of 43. Take that, William Henry Harrison! (C-SPAN)
Secretary of State Clinton is off to Asia on her first overseas trip and you can follow her. On Twitter! Seriously, everyone is on Twitter these days. (techPresident/Twitter)
House Republicans are taking advantage of the Presidents’ Day recess to go back to their districts and tout the benefits of the recently-passed stimiulus package that they unanimously voted against. It seems like their big political strategy is to hope nobody was paying attention. Good luck with that. (McClatchy)
Whoops! Two nuclear submarines–one British, one French–accidentally crashed into each other in the Atlantic Ocean. Nobody was injured, which was fortunate considering that they were both carrying nuclear freaking missiles. (Guardian)
CAPITOL HILL (CNN) — Just hours after Congressional leaders posted the final version of a $789 billion stimulus deal, staffers on Capitol Hill faced both a surge of demand on key Web sites and an apparent technical glitch that crashed those sites off and on throughout the morning.
A spokesman for the Senate appropriations committee told CNN Radio that their site had been up and down all Friday morning. He said technicians had found an apparent server problem that was not related to increased demand.
The celebrated openness of the Internet — network providers are not supposed to give preferential treatment to any traffic — is quietly losing powerful defenders.
Google Inc. has approached major cable and phone companies that carry Internet traffic with a proposal to create a fast lane for its own content, according to documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. Google has traditionally been one of the loudest advocates of equal network access for all content providers.
…
The contentious issue has wide ramifications for the Internet as a platform for new businesses. If companies like Google succeed in negotiating preferential treatment, the Internet could become a place where wealthy companies get faster and easier access to the Web than less affluent ones, according to advocates of network neutrality. That could choke off competition, they say.
For computer users, it could mean that Web sites by companies not able to strike fast-lane deals will respond more slowly than those by companies able to pay. In the worst-case scenario, the Internet could become a medium where large companies, such as Comcast Corp. in cable television, would control both distribution and content — and much of what users can access, according to neutrality advocates.
Ah, the freedom of the internet. Sure was fun while it lasted.
After being urged to resign by pretty much everyone in the world, rumor has it that Blago will announce tomorrow that he is either resigning or taking a “leave of absence” from office. Not entirely sure how a leave of absence works, except it would mean that the fine taxpayers of Illinois would have to keep paying the douchebag. (Bloomberg)
A small roadblock for the Palin/Plumber 2012 campaign. John McCain (remember that guy?) says he’s not sure he’d support Palin if she ran for president, and then he named a couple other governors he thought were more qualified. Nice. (CNN)
Remember the FCC’s free WiFi plan? Yeah, not gonna happen. The Commission has canceled a meeting this week at which it was scheduled to vote on the plan. (CNET News)
An Iraqi journalist threw his shoes at Still-President Bush at a press conference during his “Farewell, Fuckers!” tour of Iraq. Bush dodged both shoes, which means the journalists won’t be tortured as much on his way to Gitmo. (McClatchy)
In the process of the defending the RNC’s unambiguously terrible fundraising presentation (where shall we begin? The picture of Obama as the Joker? Mocking the RNC’s small donors as clueless rubes?), RNC head Michael Steele seems to have missed the real issue:
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