Outside the Beltway

Why does Hermione Granger go to the library instead of just Googling it?

The events in Egypt have led some to ask if the mere act of cutting off access to the Internet is, in itself, an human rights violation.

Volokh Conspirator Stewart Baker wonders whether Jesse Ventura’s complaints about TSA groping making him a “wussy.”

Google no longer needs adult supervision.

Pedestrian fatalities are up. Experts blame Michelle Obama.

A Michigan man faces five years in prison for reading his wife’s email.

Andrew Sullivan makes a rather bizarre charge offhandedly: “Who among the neocons would have thought that one of George W. Bush’s final legacies would be bringing pogroms, bombings and genocide to Christians in his new zone of freedom?”

Was John McCain’s place of birth as big an issue to the fringe left as Obama’s has been (and continues to be) to the fringe right?

Contrary to current conservative talking points, Net Neutrality is not a nefarious government scheme to takeover the Internet, but is aimed to address a real problem. Like most ideas that involve the government, though, it doesn’t really address the real source of the problem; not enough freedom

President Obama is supporting the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Is this the end of America?

So, Kodak is suing Shutterfly because it claims to have invented the idea of putting pictures on the Internet.

You can log in any time you like. But can you ever leave?

Dear New York Times: Your tireless efforts to make me stop reading you are having the desired effect.

A Federal Appeals Court in Ohio has handed down what could become a landmark ruling in the application of the 4th Amendment to the Internet.

Bernie Sanders took to the floor of the Senate yesterday to rail against President Obama’s tax cut deal. It was history in the making, but it’s not clear that it actually accomplished anything.

Viacom says a lower court ruling in favor of Google “would radically transform the functioning of the copyright system and severely impair, if not completely destroy, the value of many copyrighted creations.”

So, if Hispanics formed a political party, what do you think it should be called?

Meghan McCain doesn’t know what a “blue blood” is but doesn’t want to be called one.

A new round of Wikileaks documents is out, and it opens the door on diplomatic correspondence previously hidden from the public.

In an effort to combat illegal file sharing, the US Department of Homeland Security is seizing domain names.

Some on the right are beginning to realize that Sarah Palin’s popularity may cause a serious problem for the GOP in 2012.

Are the American people finally waking up to the absurdity of TSA security theater? One can only hope they are.

Only 46 percent of Americans know that Republicans will have a majority only in the House when the new Congress convenes in January.

Recklessness.

Lots of jobs that existed in recent memory — secretaries, travel agents, gas station attendants, cashiers — have been replaced by technology. The middle class may be disappearing with them.

Greg Mankiw notes a curious revisionism in Barney Frank’s pronouncements on Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac.

Once the province of science fiction, a car that can drive itself is now a reality, thanks to Google and DARPA. The implications are mind boggling.

Has modern life robbed America’s youth of their ability to think? Or simply caused them to think in different ways about different things?

Christine O’Donnell is buying ads on posts arguing that the party screwed itself by voting for her in yesterday’s Republican primary.

Despite constantly hiring more examiners, the patent application backlog is 728,044 and it takes 6 years to get a decision.

Google will now display and adjust search results as you type. This should be a boon to searchers and a terror to website operators, who live at the mercy of Google.

The Washington Post’s Jonathan Capehart is suffering a little New Media embarrassment after writing a blog post based on comments by a Congressman who doesn’t exist.

It’s getting harder and harder to tell blogs from newspapers.

Fareed Zakaria argues that the fact al Qaeda has not launched a major attack on U.S. soil since 9/11 proves we overreacted to those attacks. I beg to differ.

Four news items and articles about China that have caught my eye.

Firefox 4 Beta doesn’t work well with Gmail, or at least Gmail as I have it configured with various Google Labs add-ons like “Send & Archive.”

Technology guru Leo Laporte had been using Google Buzz to aggregate his social media presence for a few weeks and discovered that his feed had stopped going out and discovered that nobody gave a damn.

Wired proclaims, “The Web Is Dead. Long Live the Internet.” It’s great linkbait but completely wrongheaded.

A mere thirty years after the Rubik’s Cube craze died out, a team of math geeks has proven once and for all that the puzzle can be solved in 20 moves or less from any position.

According to health inspectors in Portland, Oregon, this little girl is potentially a threat to your health and safety.