Franken Certified Winner Of Minn. Recount.

A Minnesota board on Monday certified results showing Democrat Al Franken winning the state’s U.S. Senate recount over Republican Norm Coleman, whose lawyer promised a legal challenge that probably will keep the race in limbo for months.

The Canvassing Board’s declaration started a seven-day clock for Coleman, the incumbent, to file a lawsuit protesting the result. His attorney Tony Trimble said the challenge will be filed within 24 hours. The challenge will keep Franken from getting the election certificate he needs to take the seat in Washington.

“This process isn’t at an end,” Trimble said. “It is now just at the beginning.”

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Won’t Somebody Think of the Adults?

The Rudd government’s proposed censorship regime will slow internet access and hand criminals a directory of illegal content, writes Mark Newton

Much has been written about the Rudd government’s proposed ‘clean feed’ internet censorship regime. But it isn’t until you delve into the policy’s unintended consequences that some of its biggest problems come into view. Shamefully for the government, these consequences are entirely predictable for those with a solid grasp of how the technology works. A growing mountain of criticism rightly targets the policy’s cost, its likely performance impact, the impossibility of its meeting required reliability standards, its expense, and the fact that its compulsory nature violates an ALP election promise.
But further gems of controversy have attracted little attention, and deserve to be brought to light. None are particularly complicated; all are damning.

The article is continued here

I know in my industry that everyone is expecting final demand to take a terrible battering through 2009. Credit has become like lost youth - a thing of the past - and everyone is battening down for storms in the currency and debt markets. Steep discounting to move stocks and win orders has become almost universal. It is truly daunting.

The financial markets may think the worst is over, but basically this round is just getting started from a real-economy perspective.

AUSTRALIA’S use of coal and carbon emissions policies are guaranteeing the “destruction of much of the life on the planet”, a leading NASA scientist has written in a letter to Barack Obama.

http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,24880190-5001021,00.html

35 paddy My screen isn’t as good as yours, but the drop in Colour was noticeable. I’ll have to have another go.

The executive director of President-elect Barack Obama’s transition, Chris Lu, told supporters on a conference call this afternoon that the transition will “really only scratch the surface as of January 20,” and will still be filling administration jobs this spring and summer — although “there are not that many jobs” for the thousands of hopefuls.

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Kevin Martin, the Chair of the Federal Communications Commission, called Ars Technica today to let us know that he has revised his proposal to roll out a free (and smut-free) wireless broadband service. In an effort to corral more votes, Martin has already circulated a new version of the plan, one that removes the controversial smut filtering requirement.
Why the change? “I’m saying if this is a problem for people, let’s take it away,” Martin said. “A lot of public interest advocates have said they would support this, but were concerned about the filter. Well, now there’s an item in front of the Commissioners and it no longer has the filter. And I’ve already voted for it without the filter now. So it’s already got one vote.”

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It would be nice if there was someone with some connections that could print it out and hand it personally to Kevin and Stephen.

Vice President-elect Joe Biden’s office announced Monday that he’ll take a “fact-finding” trip to Southwest Asia – amid reports in Pakistan that Biden would travel there to discuss India-Pakistan relations.

What’s unusual about the trip is that Biden’s isn’t going as vice-president-elect, but as the outgoing chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. His office didn’t say why.

But it did allude to the unusual nature of Biden’s visit, saying, “The fact-finding delegation will make it clear to foreign leaders that they are not there to speak on behalf of the U.S. government, or convey policy positions for the incoming administration.”

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US Dumps Unpopular Internet Filter Plan

The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) doesn’t enjoy a reputation for being particularly cluey, or particularly interested in issues relating to free speech. During the infamous Janet Jackson ‘Nipplegate’ incident at the 2005 Super Bowl, commissioners fell over each other to see who could appear more outraged by the brief glimpse of a partially-bared Jackson breast.

“Americans should not have to tolerate such a gratuitous display of nudity,” one commissioner remarked. (Many of them were apparently prepared to: Nipplegate was the most rewatched moment ever on Tivo.)

Yet even with that “rack and ruin” approach, the FCC has managed to work something out that continues to elude the Australian government: trying to impose censorship on Internet networks is a particularly stupid idea.