Busy afternoon, here's an open thread, all topics welcome.

Busy.

Open Thread.

President Obama begins his second term.

The Ravens battle the Patriots for the AFC Championship.

500,000 people signed up yesterday for Mega. They have added a human rights counsel to their team. Already there are traffic issues with the site being difficult to access and slow upload times. That's because of the unprecedented demand. [More...]

Lance Armstrong, Part 2. Thursday's interview didn't seem to resonate favorably with too many people. Did they even tune in again for Part II? I did. It was like a deja-vu of John Edwards admitting his affair (but denying paternity.)

It seems to me this interview is part of some legal-related master plan, as opposed to personal redemption or being able to compete again. I don't think it's just the Floyd Landis case, but I have no idea what else it might be. Some lawyers who have represented other athletes share their thoughts here.

Who besides Robert Luskin is on his legal team? Elliot Peters, of Keker and Van Nest, who has been in the news all week as the lawyer for Aaron Swartz. [More...]

Your turn. Here's an open thread, all topics welcome.

I have a post almost ready on the latest developments in the Kim Dotcom case, but won't get back to it until tonight. Background here. I think the Government is on shaky ground when it writes:

Yet Megaupload does not cite a single communication between the government and Megaupload or a single instruction from any member of the government to Megaupload; there are none.

Of course there aren't. Because the Government had Carpathia do its bidding for it and act as the middleman. In addition to what it represented to the court in its motion to seal the Ninja search warrant, and what the Court's sealing order for that warrant stated, there's this email from Carpathia to Kim Dotcom and Matthias Ortmann.

As I said, more later.

This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

I spent all my blogging time last night and today on the Aaron Swartz post below. Here's an open thread for other topics.

Don't forget to disable Java (not javascript) from your browsers. Here's how. I also uninstalled the program from my computers. Here's why. Here's the Government alert.

A federal judge in California has struck down Prop 35, passed by voters in November, as overbroad.

Proposition 35, which passed with 81 percent of the vote in November, would have required anyone who is a registered sex offender — including people with misdemeanor offenses such as indecent exposure and whose offenses were not related to activity on the internet — to turn over to law enforcement a list of all identifiers they use online as well as a list of service providers they use.

It's the coldest post-season home game in Denver Bronco history. Go Broncos!

This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

Denver has a snowstorm on the way that's supposed to last all weekend. Which means, lots of errands to get out of the way in the next few hours.

Here's an open thread, all topics welcome.

U.S. Defense Contractor, Engility Holdings, whose subsidiary L3 Services supplied translators to Abu Ghraib and other U.S. prisons in Iraq, settled its lawsuit over the torture and abuse suffered by the Iraqi detainees. 71 detainees will equally share $5 million for abuse that occurred between 2003 and 2007. The Associated Press uncovered the document, available here. As for the guards:

Eleven soldiers were convicted of breaking military laws, but many received sentences of a just a few years. The last remaining soldier in prison convicted in the case was released in August 2011.

Bradley Manning's judge says he will receive 118 days off his eventual sentence if convicted due to the harsh conditions of his pre-trial confinement. The ruling, which took the judge an hour to read, has not been published. Considering he's facing a life sentence, that's hardly going to dissuade the military from similarly mistreating others.

The season premiere of Justified is tonight, on FX. This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

I'm flying tonight, with trial prep to the 13th and trial scheduled to start the next day.

So here is the last thing you'll hear from me for a while - I'm playing a reverse middle tonight - Notre Dame (+310) (9 units) and Bama (-9 1/2) (15 units.)

As long as Bama wins in a blowout or Notre Dame wins outright, I win (either 12 units if ND wins or 6 units if Bama wins.) Disaster is a close Bama win.

Between the 2, I think Bama blowout, but an ND win is better for me.

Open Thread.

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