This is the type of chart only a true geek could make.

Do our computer pundits lack all common sense? The truth in no online database will replace your daily newspaper, no CD-ROM can take the place of a competent teacher and no computer network will change the way government works.

The Internet? Bah! | Newsweek.com

Today the Senate voted on a bill which would remove Telecom Immunity from the FISA Amendments Act of 2007.

Here is the voting record.

Both Republican and Democrat Senators in Virginia that believe it’s ok for Telecoms to assist the government in committing illegal acts, both Warner and Webb voted NAY - to keep the immunity provisions in the bill.

Obama voted YEA - to remove immunity to the telecoms from the FISA bill.

Clinton didn’t vote at all.

In the VA primaries for my candidate, you go vote too.

Obama has shown a real commitment to open government. When putting together tech policy (to take an example close to home for xkcd) others might have gone to industry lobbyists. Obama went to Lawrence Lessig, founder of Creative Commons (under which xkcd is published) and longtime white knight in the struggle with a broken system over internet and copyright policy. Lessig was impressed by Obama’s commitment to open systems — for example, his support of machine-readable government information standards that allow citizens’ groups to monitor what our government is up to. Right now, the only group that can effectively police the government is the government itself, and as a result, it’s corrupt to the core. Through these excellent and long-overdue measures, Obama is working to fight this corruption.

xkcd » Blog Archive » Politics

9. You

Charges: You believe in freedom of speech, until someone says something that offends you. You suddenly give a damn about border integrity, because the automated voice system at your pharmacy asked you to press 9 for Spanish. You cling to every scrap of bullshit you can find to support your ludicrous belief system, and reject all empirical evidence to the contrary. You know the difference between patriotism and nationalism — it’s nationalism when foreigners do it. You hate anyone who seems smarter than you. You care more about zygotes than actual people. You love to blame people for their misfortunes, even if it means screwing yourself over. You still think Republicans favor limited government. Your knowledge of politics and government are dwarfed by your concern for Britney Spears’ children. You think buying Chinese goods stimulates our economy. You think you’re going to get universal health care. You tolerate the phrase “enhanced interrogation techniques.” You think the government is actually trying to improve education. You think watching CNN makes you smarter. You think two parties is enough. You can’t spell. You think $9 trillion in debt is manageable. You believe in an afterlife for the sole reason that you don’t want to die. You think lowering taxes raises revenue. You think the economy’s doing well. You’re an idiot.

Exhibit A: You couldn’t get enough Anna Nicole Smith coverage.

Sentence: A gradual decline into abject poverty as you continue to vote against your own self-interest. Death by an easily treated disorder that your health insurance doesn’t cover. You deserve it, chump.

The BEAST: America’s Best Fiend

It’s kinda muddy in this medium, but it’s pretty cool when they’re cleanly miked.

The word independence is tossed around a good bit at this morning’s Senate judiciary committee vote to approve Michael B. Mukasey as the next attorney general. Democrats and Republicans alike laud Mukasey’s independence of mind. But Orin Hatch, R-Utah, manages to go further to claim that Mukasey’s refusal to concede that water-boarding is torture is a hallmark of his independent thinking. In Hatch’s twisted syllogism, Senate Democrats who oppose Mukasey are in fact the ones “politicizing the Justice Department,” by demanding that he adopt “politically correct” positions on the interrogation practice known as water-boarding. Worse, these Democrats are undermining Mukasey’s “independence” by unreasonably demanding that he call it illegal. Democrats, he scolds, cannot “emphasize independence and then demand that Mukasey make only their legal judgments.”

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