Undernews For August 19, 2009

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Tuesday, Aug 18

WORD

Capitalism will survive because socialism will save it - Reader Dan Kraus

MORNING LINE

Progressive Review - The black Ivies - the new group of black politicians who got where they are by passing white exams instead of crossing white police lines - are running into a bit of trouble. Only Newark's mayor, Cory Booker, seems to be holding his own. In DC, just 30 percent in a recent poll said they would definitely vote for Mayor Adrian Fenty again, 13% said no, and 46% said they would consider someone else. When Fenty won election, he took every precinct.

The job approval numbers for Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, reports the Boston Globe, "have plunged to levels not seen in decades for a Massachusetts governor. In a survey of 445 residents, taken last month, only 19 percent of respondents gave him a positive job rating, while 77 percent rated it fair or poor."

And Barack Obama is slipping as well.

Part of the problem is that learning how to please the white establishment in order to get into office doesn't always result in policies that please the rest of the voters.

Obama, for example, has made few new friends since being elected and has lost some of his old ones. We wouldn't be surprised if there is even a serious primary challenge to Obama in 2012.

So the era of the black Ivies may be short lived. With their education and unthreatening style they can initially win a lot of white votes, but once on the job their politics can be too cautious and beholden to establishment interests for their own good.

Either, as currently seems to be the case, this will play into the extremist right's hands or it will lead to a more progressively populist multi-ethnic politics. It was, for example, in no small part the failure of German liberalism in economic bad times that helped put Hitler in power. On the other hand, we can envision a presently unknown black or latino pol rising on a politics that is comfortable to those who is hurting right now - regardless of ethnicity. After all, it only took Obama four years to move from state senate to White House. Keep your eye on the ball. It's bouncing.

END OF LIFE COUNSELING FOR PUBLIC HEALTH CARE

Sam Smith

While it is certain that single payer - and likely that a public option - will go down to defeat, there remains the question of how progressives should best approach the situation.

While the airwaves and columns of the left are filled with anger, there doesn't seem to be a lot of strategy involved.

For example, the other day I cited a group of little discussed provisions in various bills that would definitely improve healthcare.

Included were an end to denial of coverage for preexisting conditions, an end to discriminatory pricing, a ban on insurance companies canceling policies for any reason other than failure to pay the bill, an end to lifetime or annual caps on benefits, subsidized coverage for the poor, tax credits for small business and lifting the income limits on Medicaid eligibility.

If the showboaters in both parties weren't so obsessed with scoring one major victory, one could imagine a bill that did not do much more than the aforementioned items. It would be a good bill and it would make life better for many Americans.

The insurance companies would hate it, but support for the measure would grow greatly because it would be a true - if modest - reform of the existing system without any of the dubious, extraneous or presumptuous aspects of the bills that have gotten the Democrats in such trouble.

On the other hand, it would fail to provide universal coverage, the initial point of the exercise. Of course, not passing any healthcare bill would suffer the same fault.

The real question, thus, is this: is it better to go down to total defeat or to make a number of improvements even if they seem trivial compared to what one set out to do?

Further, would passing such a modest measure hinder or help the course of single payer? Would it serve as an excuse to forget about the issue for another decade?

(The same questions, incidentally, are worth asking about the so-called public option)

I suspect we won't have to make that decision since even the mild suggestions listed above would probably fail to get significant Democratic support because the party is so beholden to the insurance companies.

What progressive members of Congress can do, however, is to establish a paper trail by proposing amendments that would put politicians on record as to whether they support the interests of the citizens or of the insurance companies. And then use that trail in primary campaigns against the worst sinners in 2010 and 2012, which - the way things are going - might even include the current president.

Obama and the congressional Democrats have made an ungodly mess of this issue. There seems no good way out. But while sticking with single payer is certainly an honorable position, it would also help to find ways to expose the hypocrisy and shame of those who have done it such damage. For example, banning denial of coverage for preexisting conditions is not socialism, it's not some wacky British system and it's not going to kill your grandmother before her time. Making foes of public healthcare vote on just that one issue might help better expose how mean and selfish they really are.

THE BIPARTISAN SENATE SCAM THAT'S KILLING PUBLIC HEALTH CARE

David Swanson, LA Progressive, December 2008 - When the Democrats were in the minority and out of the White House, they told us they wanted to work for us but needed to be in the majority. So, in 2006, we put them there. Then they told us that they really wished they could work for us but they needed bigger majorities and the White House. So, in 2008, we gave them those things, and largely deprived them of two key excuses for inaction. We took away the veto excuse and came very close to taking away the filibuster excuse, and - in fact - the filibuster excuse could be taken away completely if the Democrats didn't want to keep it around. . .

The filibuster excuse works like this. Any 41 senators can vote No on "cloture" - that is on bringing a bill to a vote, and that bill will never come to a vote, and anything the House of Representatives has done won't matter. Any of the other 59 senators, the 435 House members, the president, the vice president, television pundits, and newspaper reporters can blame the threat of filibuster for anything they fail to do. . .

The filibuster is the most anti-democratic tool of the Senate, and can be eliminated without touching the Constitution, which does not mention it. If you take 41 senators from the 21 smallest states, you can block any legislation with a group of multi-millionaires elected by 11.2 percent of the American public. That fact is a national disgrace that should be remedied as quickly as possible. . .

Senate Rule 22. . . reads in part:

"'Is it the sense of the Senate that the debate shall be brought to a close?' And if that question shall be decided in the affirmative by three-fifths of the Senators duly chosen and sworn - except on a measure or motion to amend the Senate rules, in which case the necessary affirmative vote shall be two-thirds of the Senators present and voting - then said measure, motion, or other matter pending before the Senate, or the unfinished business, shall be the unfinished business to the exclusion of all other business until disposed of."

This would seem to suggest that it takes 60 senators to block a filibuster and 66 senators (if 100 are present, otherwise fewer) to end the power of 60 senators to block filibusters. But that's not the whole story. William Greider explained:

"In 1975 the filibuster issue was revived by post-Watergate Democrats frustrated in their efforts to enact popular reform legislation like campaign finance laws. Senator James Allen of Alabama, the most conservative Democrat in the Senate and a skillful parliamentary player, blocked them with a series of filibusters. Liberals were fed up with his delaying tactics. Senator Walter Mondale pushed a campaign to reduce the threshold from sixty-seven votes to a simple majority of fifty-one. In a parliamentary sleight of hand, the liberals broke Allen's filibuster by a majority vote, thus evading the sixty-seven-vote rule. (Senate rules say you can't change the rules without a cloture vote, but the Constitution says the Senate sets its own rules. As a practical matter, that means the majority can prevail whenever it decides to force the issue.) In 1975 the presiding officer during the debate, Vice President Rockefeller, first ruled with the liberals on a motion to declare Senator Allen out of order. When Allen appealed the "ruling of the chair" to the full Senate, the majority voted him down. Nervous Senate leaders, aware they were losing the precedent, offered a compromise. Henceforth, the cloture rule would require only sixty votes to stop a filibuster.". .

If the Democrats choose to keep the filibuster excuse around, our job will be to overwhelm them and the media with our refusal to believe it.

Ronald D. Rotunda, Cato Institute: The modern filibuster is much more powerful than its historical predecessor because it is invisible: The Senate rules do not require any senator to actually hold the floor to filibuster. Instead, a minority of 41 senators simply notifies the Senate leadership of its intent to filibuster. Other Senate business goes on, but a vote on a particular issue -- a nomination -- cannot be brought to a vote. . .

The Senate, unlike the House, is often called a continuing body because only one-third of its members are elected every two years. But that does not give the senators of a prior generation (some of whom were defeated in prior elections) the right to prevent the present Senate from choosing, by simple majority, the rules governing its procedure. For purposes of deciding which rules to follow, the Senate starts anew every two years.

David E. RePass, NY Times, March 2009 - Most Americans think of the filibuster (if they think of it at all) through the lens of "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" - a minority in the Senate deeply disagrees with a measure, takes to the floor and argues passionately round the clock to prevent it from passing. . .

To reduce deadlock, in 1917 the Senate passed Rule 22, which made it possible for a supermajority - two-thirds of the chamber - to end a filibuster by voting for cloture. The two-thirds majority was later changed to three-fifths, or 60 of the current 100 senators.

In recent years, however, the Senate has become so averse to the filibuster that if fewer than 60 senators support a controversial measure, it usually won't come up for discussion at all. The mere threat of a filibuster has become a filibuster, a phantom filibuster. Instead of needing a sufficient number of dedicated senators to hold the floor for many days and nights, all it takes to block movement on a bill is for 41 senators to raise their little fingers in opposition. . .

The phantom filibuster is clearly unconstitutional. The founders required a supermajority in only five situations: veto overrides and votes on treaties, constitutional amendments, convictions of impeached officials and expulsions of members of the House or Senate. The Constitution certainly does not call for a supermajority before debate on any controversial measure can begin.

Wikpedia - In 2005, a group of Republican senators led by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN), responding to the Democrats' threat to filibuster some judicial nominees of President George W. Bush to prevent a vote on the nominations, floated the idea of making a rules change to eliminate filibusters on judicial nominees with the justification that the current Senate rules can be changed with a simple majority based on the Constitutional stipulation that each Congress can set its own rules. This idea, called the "constitutional option," had been used to defeat filibusters in a few select cases in the history of the Senate, including passing continually filibustered Civil Rights legislation in 1959. Senator Trent Lott, the junior Republican senator from Mississippi, named the plan the "nuclear option." Republican leaders preferred to use the historical term "constitutional option," though opponents and some supporters of the plan continue to use "nuclear option.". . .

POLICE BLOTTER
Progressive Review - The crime capital of mid-coast Maine, Topsham - with a population of 9,100 - will be getting tasers for its police. Topsham suffers six personal crimes each year for every 10,000 citizens, less than one sixth as many as in Portland, Maine, and less than five percent per 10,000 as Boston, MA. In this part of Maine, however, people are considered more hazardous than moose, even ones that break into an office building as happened recently. Instead of using a taser on the miscreant moose, it was tranquilized by two biologists from the state department on inland fisheries and wildlife. With two injections the animal was subdued and removed form the building on a tarp. But apparently the police don't consider that as much fun as tasers. Where is the money coming from to subdue humans? Counter intuitively, from the Obama stimulus package.

OVER HALF OF AMERICANS DON'T THINK STIMULUS IS WORKING

ABC News - Six months after President Obama launched a $787 billion plan to right the nation's economy, a majority of Americans think the avalanche of new federal aid has cost too much and done too little to end the recession. . . . A USA Today/Gallup Poll found 57% of adults say the stimulus package is having no impact on the economy or making it worse. Even more - 60% - doubt that the stimulus plan will help the economy in the years ahead, and only 18% say it has done anything to help improve their personal situation.

HOMEOWNERS SUFFERING FROM STINKING CHINESE DRYWALL

Global Post - Since 2006, new home owners in 23 states have been suffering from what they say are odorous batches of corrosive drywall that were imported from at least one gypsum mine in China and used by U.S home builders. Owners say their houses smell like rotten eggs and are causing breathing problems and skin irritations. They worry their homes have become worthless as air conditioners and other mechanical parts corrode and become non-functioning. The problem is thought to be high levels of sulfur-compound gases being released from the drywall.. . . Attorneys representing homeowners estimate more than 2,000 lawsuits already have been filed in state and federal courts, targeting Chinese, U.S. and German companies, as well as builders, installers, suppliers, distributors and import brokers.

MULTITASKING POLITICIANS ARE A DANGER TO HUMAN LIFE

David Nakamura, Washngton Post - Since news broke that he received a speeding ticket in May and, this month, got into a fender-bender, there is debate about whether D.C. Mayor Adrian M. Fenty should be driving himself through the city or relying on a security detail like the other big-city mayors Fenty so often cites as role models. . .

As a reporter who covered the first two years of the Fenty administration, I can attest that, for better or worse, driving isn't the only thing the mayor is doing behind the wheel. He's also talking on the phone . . . and talking . . . and talking some more. Actually, on two phones. Possibly three.

My first experience riding in a Fenty-driven vehicle came shortly after the then-D.C. Council member won the September 2006 Democratic primary. I was still on a first-name basis with him when he invited me to accompany him to Baltimore, where he was meeting then-Mayor Martin O'Malley to talk about "best practices." Fenty picked me up in his white SUV, his personal photographer (a family friend) in the front seat. His then-spokesman and I rode in the back.

The radio was set to hip-hop stations WKYS or WPGC, with the candidate toggling back and forth. Hands-free cords from two BlackBerrys ran into each of Fenty's ears. As he drove with his left hand, Fenty constantly switched from one phone to the other with his right. As soon as one conversation ended, he was on the other phone. Callers interrupted one another. He put people on hold. Hung up on them. Apologized for keeping them waiting. Some were addressed with hearty hellos, others with a serious voice. When a phone battery ran low, he would plug it into the dashboard. He seemed so preoccupied that I grew a little uneasy -- we were driving on major highways, after all.. . .

After his "best practices" trips, I didn't ride with Fenty again (though I did follow him to events, zig-zagging through all the shortcuts he learned growing up and campaigning here). Although I was not in his car, I noticed that the pattern remained the same: When the mayor arrives at one of his many news conferences, he generally parks a block from the event and collects himself before stepping out of the car. More often than not, he's talking on the phone when he emerges.

TWO EX COPS CALL FOR DRUG LEGALIZATION

HOWARD DEAN ON HEALTHCARE

Miriam Raftery, East County Magazine, CA - [Howard]Dean, former Democratic presidential candidate and ex-Governor of Vermont, is also a medical doctor who provides an in-depth diagnosis of what ails our healthcare system. . . . Dean noted that public healthcare in Europe was established not by liberals, but was in fact championed by conservative statesman Winston Churchill. "Disease must be attacked, whether it occurs in the poorest or the richest man or woman simply on the ground that it is the enemy; and it must be attacked just in the same way as the fire brigade will give its full assistance to the humblest cottage as readily as to the most important mansion," Churchill once stated." Our policy is to create a national health service in order to ensure that everybody in the country, irrespective of means, age, sex, or occupation, shall have equal opportunities to benefit from the best and most up-to-date medical and allied services available."

Cost savings would occur by moving to a wellness-based medical model that emphasizes prevention, lowering current costs for treating patients who wait and go to the emergency room in a crisis. Eliminating administrative overhead would also save money in a public option. . .

"To fix the economy, we need to begin by fixing our healthcare system," his book states, noting that General Motors spends more on healthcare insurance for workers than on steel to build automobiles. He cites a Kaiser Family Foundation survey which found that 58% of all small businesses have difficulty keeping up with healthcare costs. "If you want to help small businesses," he argues, "let them pay lower health insurance premiums."

Dean has practiced what he preaches. As Governor of Vermont, he led the state's expansion of Medicaid eligibility to children under 18 in families earning under $65,000. "Basically we made Medicaid a middle class entitlement for children," he says, adding that the shift saved businesses money and increased profit margins for those that opted to have employees' children covered by the public plan. Vermont also increased Medicaid reimbursements to assure that doctors would not opt out of the system.

Now Dr. Dean wants to essentially expand Medicaid to give Americans under age 65 the option of the same coverage that older Americans can now receive through Medicaid. No one would be forced to give up private insurance if they choose to keep it. "Americans ought to be able to decide for themselves: Is private health insurance really health insurance? Or is it simply an extension of the things that have been happening on Wall Street over the past five to ten years, in which private corporations find yet new and ingenious ways of taking money from ordinary citizens without giving them the services they've paid for?"

Dean points to the facts: 47 million Americans have no health insurance and an estimated 25 million more working Americans who do have health insurance still can't afford to see a doctor, going without recommended treatments, tests or prescriptions. . .

Dean dispells myths promoted by the healthcare industry. "There is no country in the world with a public option that doesn't also have private insurance," he noted. "A public option allows you to sign up for Medicaid before 65. All the Republicans who've been whining and complaining all have a public system," said Dean, former head of the Democratic National Committee, citing the high-quality government healthcare program that Congress has given its own members. Moreover, satisfaction ratings are high for two other government healthcare programs: Medicaid and Veterans Administration healthcare, Dean noted.

He believes true healthcare reform must include five core principles. Everyone must have the option of coverage. No one should be forced to declare bankruptcy because of medical bills. Health insurance should be portable, meaning you can't lose your health insurance even if you change jobs, move, retire or have a pre-existing condition. Plus the quality and efficiency of care must be improved. . .

"My bottom line is not single-payer," he said, noting that most Americans like to have choices. But he added that supporters of single payer should continue to lobby their legislators to prevent healthcare reform in Congress from being watered down to remove a public option. "Public option is the compromise," he noted.

Dean noted that all countries in Europe now have a public option, except Switzerland and Netherland, where insurance companies are tightly regulated similar to public utilities. Americans spend more on healthcare per capita than any other nation, yet the U.S. ranks dead last in ratings of healthcare quality, access and affordability.. . .

PHILADELPHIA BANS MULTITASKING SKATEBOARDERS

NPR - This fall, Philadelphia's skateboarders, bicyclists and inline skaters will have to either pocket their cell phones or use hands-free devices, making the city the first in the nation to extend the measure to include non-motorists. . . Skater John McCafferty says hand-held or hands-free cell phones really don't make a difference. "So, if I, like, have a Double Gulp from 7-Eleven in my hand, and I'm talking on the Bluetooth, that's OK?" he asks. "All right, that's cool.". . . As of Nov. 1, those caught violating the new law will have to dig deep into their wallets: A first offense will cost $150. Repeat offenders will have to dig even deeper.

FILE SHARERS SHOULD BE TREATED AS LEAST AS WELL AS EXXON

Progressive Review - Charles Carreon, an attorney in Tucson, writes us concerning news that the Obama administration is backing the recording corporados claims to extraordinary fines against down loaders and file shares:

"If punitive damages, such as those that the Supreme Court set aside in the Exxon Valdez case, are unconstitutional because they do not bear a reasonable relation to the amount of actual damages, then it would seem that statutory penalties under the Copyright Act should be equally unconstitutional because disproportionate to the actual harm."

Wikipedia, 2008 - After nearly 20 years, Exxon Mobil Corp. will have to pay punitive damages for the massive Valdez oil spill in Alaska. But in its ruling, the Supreme Court slashed those damages to about $500 million. The plaintiffs - fishermen, landowners and native Alaskans - had hoped for much more.

A lower court had ordered the company to pay $2.5 billion in punitive damages, but in its opinion, the Supreme Court found that amount excessive. The high court said that under federal maritime law, punitive damages shouldn't be any larger than the compensatory damages the company had already been ordered to pay. In other words, the company shouldn't have to pay more in punishment than the actual damage it caused.

BRAZILIANS URGED TO PEE IN THE SHOWER TO CONSERVE WATER

Discover Magazine - A Brazilian environmental group is trying to get the country's residents to, well, urinate in the shower. The group says that if a single household flushed the toilet just one fewer times a day, it would save a whopping 1,157 gallons of water each year. The organization has even come out with a video touting the idea. Urine is sterile, so peeing in the shower is harmless (except if someone has a disease that can be transmitted through their pee, such as hepatitis). The spot features cartoon drawings of people from all walks of life - a trapeze artist, a basketball player, even an alien - urinating in the shower. Narrated by children's voices, the ad ends with: "Pee in the shower! Save the Atlantic rainforest!"

BANKRUPTCIES SURGE 34 PERCENT

Washington Post - Personal bankruptcy filings reached 1.25 million in the year ending June 30, up 34 percent from the year before, as Americans continued to grapple with debt, unemployment and devalued homes, according to figures by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. .

OBAMA SIDES WITH CORPORADOS ON FILE SHARING

CNET - Nearly two years ago, the Bush administration sided with the major record labels in their civil lawsuit against an alleged and briefly famous Kazaa user named Jammie Thomas. Now the Obama administration is doing so as well. In a legal brief, the U.S. Department of Justice said the whopping $1.92 million fine that the Recording Industry Association of America slapped on Thomas was perfectly constitutional. Federal prosecutors argue the relevant law is "carefully crafted" and consistent with "due process" and part of a necessary "regime to protect intellectual property. Under current law, copyright holders can sue for up to $150,000 per work (such as an MP3 file, DVD, or book).

SUPER BATTERY BEING DEVELOPED

Daily Record, UT - In a modest building on the west side of Salt Lake City, a team of specialists in advanced materials and electrochemistry has produced what could be the single most important breakthrough for clean, alternative energy since Socrates first noted solar heating 2,400 years ago. The prize is the culmination of 10 years of research and testing -- a new generation of deep-storage battery that's small enough, and safe enough, to sit in your basement and power your home. . . The battery breakthrough comes from a Salt Lake company called Ceramatec, the R&D arm of CoorsTek, a world leader in advanced materials and electrochemical devices. It promises to reduce dependence on the dinosaur by hooking up with the latest generation of personalized power plants that draw from the sun. . . The company calculates that the battery will cram 20 to 40 kilowatt hours of energy into a package about the size of a refrigerator, and operate below 90 degrees C.

MAJOR LIBERAL GROUP CONTINUES TO BACK AF-PAK WAR

Tom Hayden, Huffington Post - The conference on Afghanistan with Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, sponsored by the Center for American Progress on August 12 turned into a disappointing press conference promoting the virtual nation-building plan being integrated into the US military operations in that country. It was an opportunity for CAP to begin distancing itself from the military occupation which has claimed 781 American lives thus far, and at this rate will cost one trillion dollars by the end of President Obama's first term. CAP continues to call Afghanistan a "war of necessity" against al-Qaeda safe havens, an argument which could just as easily apply to Hamburg, Germany, where the September 11 highjackers plotted, or many other locations in failed-states around the globe.

11 WISCONSIN U DOCTORS GET OVER $50K FROM DRUG OR MEDICAL DEVICE FIRMS

Journal Sentinel, WI - At least 11 doctors with the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health received more than $50,000 from drug or medical device companies last year, including seven who pulled in six-figure amounts, according to records obtained by the Journal Sentinel. As part of an effort to enforce more stringent conflict-of-interest rules, UW doctors for the first time have had to specify how much outside income they receive. The disclosure forms show that orthopedic surgeons, who command some of the highest salaries among university and state employees, also got some of the biggest outside income checks, mostly from companies that make medical devices. With the outside payments, several of them had total annual income of near or more than $1 million.

MISSING CARGO SHIP CONT'D

DW, Germany - Mystery continues to swirl around the disappearance of the Arctic Sea, a Finnish freighter with a Russian crew. The latest reports have the hijackers demanding a ransom. Finnish media said that a ransom demand had been received from the people who hijacked the freighter "Arctic Sea". According to the Financial Times Deutschland, the hijackers have demanded a ransom of $1.5 million, but have not revealed the source of this information. . . Over the weekend, reports had the freighter in the neighborhood of the Cape Verde Islands off the west coast of Africa, as well as in the Bay of Biscay near France. A French navy spokesman Jerome Baroe dismissed the report that the "Arctic Sea" was off the coast of France and said it was most likely that the ship was headed for Brazil. Mikhail Boytenko, the editor of Sovfrakht was of the opinion that there was something a lot more sinister going on."I don't think that is was pirates who took this vessel but it really smells of some sort of state involvement. This is real cloak and dagger stuff, like a le Carre novel," he said according to Reuters.

MEDICARE REVEALS THE WINNER IN PUBLIC VS. PRIVATE PLANS

Medicare Advocacy Center - Forty four years ago Medicare was enacted into law. All of today's dire warnings about a public health option - socialism and government barring the doctor's door - were made in opposition to Medicare. Despite such opposition from "conservative," leaders, Medicare passed because of some courageous, principled law-makers.

Before Medicare, 50% of everyone 65 or older had no health insurance. Now, as a result of Medicare, almost all older people are insured. Medicare, which is national, government-run health insurance, succeeded in insuring older people where private insurance failed. Further, until the Bush Administration privatized Medicare with huge subsidies to private "Medicare Advantage" and Part D plans, Medicare was also remarkably cost-effective. It's private Medicare, not the traditional, public program, that's bleeding taxpayers of billions of dollars.

Medicare has been a success, fiscally and morally. It took on the job of insuring health coverage and care to people that private insurance had abandoned. Since 2003, on the other hand, private Medicare plans have cost us all tens of billions of dollars that went to support the private insurance industry, not to providing health care. In addition, private Medicare plans have too often engaged in marketing abuses and restrictive coverage practices. As numerous studies have shown, people with Medicare love it. They do not want government to fool around with the traditional program

ORWELLANDIA: BRITAIN CONSIDERS CRIMINALIZING 7 MILLION DOWNLOADERS

Independent, UK - Seven million people could be criminalised under government plans to crack down on internet piracy, to be included in this autumn's Queen's Speech. The illicit downloading of music and films on the internet, a practice engaged in by one in 12 of the population, could lead to severe restrictions on internet access and a fine of up to £50,000. . . Tom Watson, the former minister for digital engagement, criticizes the proposed crackdown as extreme and calls for a more measured approach that would target those who uploaded illegal content, rather than the millions who downloaded the files. His intervention comes in the week after the Pirate Party, which won a European parliamentary seat in Sweden in June on a platform of legalizing internet file-sharing, announced it would fight the next general election in Britain. The new Pirate Party UK was reported to be recruiting as many as 100 people every hour since its launch last week.

FOOTBALL CONFERENCE BANS TWITTERING, PHONE PIX OR POSTING ON FACEBOOK

Michael Kruse, Tampa Bay Times - [The Southeastern Conference], one of college sports' biggest, richest, most prominent conferences, earlier this month sent to its 12 schools an eye-opening new media policy. It places increasingly stringent limits on reporters and how much audio, video and "real-time" blogging they can do at games, practices and news conferences. But even more interesting is that the policy also includes rules for fans in the stands. No updating Twitter feeds. No taking photos with phones and posting them on Facebook or Flickr. No taking videos and putting them on YouTube. A conference spokesman said this policy was meant to try to keep as many eyeballs as possible on ESPN and CBS - which are paying the SEC $3 billion for the broadcast rights to the conference's games over the next 15 years - and also on the SEC Digital Network - the conference's own entity that's scheduled to debut on SECSports.com later this month.

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