Shakesville

Even in the Conservative Legislation Lab, Progress

Next month, Indiana will become the first state in the union to offer an LGBTQI license plate:

The new plates will be available beginning in February throughout the state and feature six hands in red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple, which is the logo of the Indiana Youth Group.

That organization provides LGBT training for schools and service agencies and works to promote tolerance.

The specialty plate costs an additional $40 with $25 directly benefitting the group which provides training for schools and service agencies and works to promote tolerance.

The Indiana Youth Group had been trying to get the LGBT plate approved since 2010.

With the help of Indiana's American Civil Liberties Union, the Indiana Youth Group got their plate on the third try. Blub.

This is very big news in a state where "In God We Trust" license plates are used as standard plates.

If you would like to donate directly to the Indiana Youth Group, you can do so here.

[H/T to Shaker TheCaptain.]

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Top Chef: Texas Open Thread

Image of Jersey Shore cast with their heads replaced by Eddie Deezen's head, wearing chef hats, plus porkchops and a unicorn.

"Hi there!"
Pop Rocks? Was there something about Pop Rocks? Is this Chopped now? Are Ted Allen and Aarón Sanchez and a gallon of Cacique and leeks and pig's feet in a pic-a-nic basket gonna show up next week? This show. I swear!

Spoilers below. Discuss!

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Primarily Terrible

OMG BIG NEWS, Y'ALL!

Rick Perry is NOT in the race! He has definitely dropped out! (Or will, in like an hour.) RIP my favorite joke. Now please cue Bad Day while I honor Rick Perry's amazing journey as a stellar candidate with a tasteful retrospective highlighting the best moments of his candidacy:

photo of Rick Perry hollerin' while pointing a gun in the air at a public event

Amen. My condolences to Texas.

In other BIG NEWS that totally doesn't matter, Rick Santorum probably really won the Iowa Caucus. I'm sure Rick Santorum will, when not saying weird shit about his family life, whine pitiably about how being declared the winner too late hurt his election chances, but, the truth is, he'll reap more benefit from headlining reports two days before the South Carolina primary that he actually won in Iowa than the dwindling momentum from winning would be helping him right now. (That sentence definitely makes sense.)

Well, the retroactive win news would have given him a much-needed bump, if Rick Perry hadn't stolen his media thunder by dropping out today. Ha ha whoooooooooops!

It's all good news for Mitt Romney!

fake campaign poster for Mitt Romney reading 'Mitt Romney: Fine. Whatever.'

fake campaign poster for Mitt Romney reading 'Mitt Romney: Fine. Whatever.'

One piece of bad news for Romney (not really; he is definitely going to win without breaking a sweat) is that Newt Gingrich is gaining on him in the polls in South Carolina! Oh noes! Luckily, Marianne Gingrich, Newt Gingrich's most recent ex-wife, is fixing to take care of that for Willard. Marianne has always said she could derail her former garbage monster of a spouse with one interview, and now it looks like she's ready to rock and roll! All right then. Go get 'm, girl!

In other Newt News, Gingrich continues to pretend he doesn't understand why calling President Obama the "food stamp president" is racist, and also why it's mendacious bullshit to say that the record numbers of USians using food stamps is exclusively or even primarily because of Barack Obama's policies. Gingrich is not that stupid. He knows he's being a lying, race-baiting dirtbag. But for shits and farts, let's pretend he doesn't: Then he's too stupid to be president. The end.

And here's one more tidbit for ya before we depart for Paulier shores: Gingrich, like the rest of his ideological compatriots, loves violent imagery. He's gonna knock out the president. But it's just a METAPHOR—what are you, SENSITIVE or something?! Just scroll back up and have a gander at Rick Perry's Big Zany Funtime Photo-Op with a Gun! That'll cheer up your dour, humorless, feminazi ass!

Something something Ron Paul. Liberty, freedom, liberty, freedom, forcible pregnancy. It's in the Constitution! Look it up.

Talk about these things! Or don't. Whatever makes you happy. Life is short.

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Number of the Day

4.5 million: That's how many people reportedly signed Google's anti-SOPA/PIPA petition yesterday.

A spokeswoman for Google confirmed that 4.5 million people added their names to the company's anti-SOPA petition today.

Not too shabby.

...Of course, Google's anti-SOPA and PIPA petition is not the only one out there on this day of mass online protest. As of this writing 1.458 million people signed a similar petition at the activist website Avaaz.org, and Fight for the Future said that between its two sites, Sopastrike.com and AmericanCensorship.org, at least 350,000 people have sent emails to representatives in the House and Senate.

A graphic put out by Google shows that before today's coordinated protests, 3 million Americans had signed various petitions against the two bills.

In other SOPA number news, a spokeswoman from the popular blogging platform WordPress, said that at last count, 25,000 WordPress blogs had joined the SOPA and PIPA protest by blacking out their blogs entirely, and another 12,500 used the "Stop Censorship" ribbon.

Today, the White House Blog reports that 103,785 people signed petitions through the We The People website asking the president to protect a free and open Internet.

This fight is not over. It is going to require vigilance, because both Republicans and Democrats want to pass this legislation, and they will try to sneak it past the public every legislative session.

Yesterday there was some consternation in comments about why it is that otherwise progressive Democrats would support this legislation. I noted: "My guess: Because Democrats are bought and sold by corporate entities and private wealth, too. It just so happens that a lot of the big financiers of Democratic campaigns are part of the entertainment industry, whose lobbyists probably authored SOPA/PIPA. I wouldn't be surprised if there was a lot of back-room blackmail going on right now from Democratic super-fundraisers who raised and donated huge amounts for President Obama last election, like Rob Reiner, for example."

This morning, I read this: Hollywood Moguls Stopping Obama Donations Because of President's Piracy Stand: 'Not Give a Dime Anymore': "[Several media] moguls privately are having 'direct and personal conversations' with Obama and his administration and the Democratic Party. Several moguls have informed Obama's newly anointed Hollywood re-election liaison to the entertainment community, Nicole Avant, and her husband who is helping her, Netflix chief content officer Ted Sarandos, that they are pulling out of major fundraisers planned over the next few days and won't participate in any more headed by Obama and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (whom they see as in the pocket of the Internet giants like Google)."

Does it matter if "Hollywood" decides not to contribute to the president's reelection campaign? Well, yeah. All those attacks during the last election about Obama being cozy with celebrities weren't just (racist and anti-Semitic) appeals to the conservatives who emit a Pavlovian snarl in response to the mere suggestion of "Hollywood liberal elites"—they were also a dog whistle about whence comes Obama's corporate donations.

The piracy issue is a big problem for Democrats, whose corporate sponsors want legislation like SOPA/PIPA passed and don't give a fuck how ineffective (and counterproductive) such legislation actually would be, but whose tech constituency will fight this shit tooth and keyboard.

And that's all the surface stuff. Below that lies a darker reality, which is that both parties would happily use any excuse to kill social media, because it's a lot easier to do their business in the dark, without accountability, in a culture where the hoi polloi doesn't have such a convenient means of organizing.

Which is all why we're going to have to be vigilant even if, as it appears, we have won this round. It was merely an opening salvo in what will be a very long war.

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Open Thread

Hosted by Polkacide.

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Question of the Day

What would you miss most on the internetz if the supporters of SOPA/PIPA get their way?

No Content for You!

Drop your answer in comments, and click here to take action.

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The Most Important and Compelling Argument Against SOPA/PIPA That Anyone Has Made or Could Ever Make

If SOPA/PIPA passes, you'll never see beauty like this AGAIN!

image of Deeky with long flowing hair riding on the back of a white pegasusicorn over a rainbow

[Click that shit to embiggen it.]
I bet you didn't even know that Deeky owned a pegasusicorn, no less that he'd had such an astonishing work of art commissioned of him on his winged steed.

And if the goddamn moguls and robber barons get their wish, masterpieces like this will have to be drawn on SIDEWALKS with CHALK, only to get washed away by their acid rain and the tears of deprived children! DO YOU WANT THAT?! I didn't think so.

Good day! I SAID GOOD DAY!

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Photo of the Day

black censor box with text reading 'NOPE! (c/o SOPA/PIPA)'

[Click here to take action.]

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Wednesday Blogaround

This blogaround brought to you by SOPA/PIPA.

Recommended Reading:

If SOPA/PIPA passed, there would be no blogaround, because I would be required to make sure that NOWHERE on the blogs to which I linked, nowhere in their entire archives, was copyrighted material used without authorization. That's an untenable proposition. I could never link to another internet resource, ever, without risking getting shut down myself.

No more blogaround. No more Shakesville.

Click here to take action.

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Not Quite Daily Teaspoon Report

Hi Shakers - I've been pondering trying to get started reposting these, and thought today was as good a day to start as any.

But since I support the SOPA Strike along with Liss and the other Shakesville contributors, this is actually a post to say there won't be an NQDTR today. I'm a creative person myself, I'm even performing on stage this Friday night, and I believe strongly in my right to determine the use of my own work. But I believe there are far better ways to serve my needs as a creator of content and owner of IP than this piece of corporate shill work.

Netizens of the world unite! You have nothing to lose but your freedom!

Being a not-USan, I thought I'd bring you who share that trait with me the idea that if you're outside the US, you will still be greatly affected by this bad legislation. I suggest contacting your own governmental representatives in your own country, and telling them to let your $FOREIGN_AFFAIRS people know that you want pressure put on the US to not allow censorship of the world's Net, by the content corporations or by totalitarian governments. IP Protection is an important area of law, and it should be done right, not in a hurry and in service to the giant corporations of the mainstream media, or to repressive governments' wish to limit the Net freedom of their citizens. Knowledge is power, and they know it: opposing this legislation helps keep that avenue to civil liberties open.

In Canada, you can find your Member of Parliament through this page here, ou ici en français. Urge them politely but firmly to put pressure on the US to stop this flawed legislation, and start again with a better proposal.

I encourage you to leave similar links for your own countries here, non-USan Shakers, for the use of your compatriots.

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