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Via 43 Folders, Cory Doctorow on why we should stay away from Amazon Unbox (Warning: strong language):

Amazon’s new video-on-demand store may sound like a good idea, but once you take a look at the “agreement” you enter into by giving them your money, that changes. The Amazon terms-of-service are among the worst I’ve ever seen, a document through which you surrender your rights to privacy, integrity of your personal data, and control over your computer, in exchange for a chance to pay near-retail cost to watch Police Academy n-1.

…

When you sign onto Unbox, you sign away all the amazing customer rights that Amazon itself is so careful to protect. Amazon Unbox takes away your privacy and every conceivable consumer right you have, and then tells you that the goods you buy from them don’t belong to you, and they can take them away from you at any time, or change the deal you get from them without any appeal by you.

Amazon Unbox’s user agreement isn’t just galling for its evilness — it’s also commercially suicidal. No sane person will agree to this.

Via Bob Geiger: Senator Mary Landrieu of Louisiana responds to a Republican rant that “when it comes to securing America’s homeland, the Democrats are dangerously naive”:

I would like to state for the record that America is not tired of fighting terrorism. America is tired of the wrong-headed and bone-headed leadership of the Republican Party that has sent $6.5 billion a month to Iraq, when the front line was Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia. That led this country to attack Saddam Hussein when we were attacked by Osama bin Laden. Who captured a man who did not attack the country and left loose a man that did.

Americans are tired of bone-headed Republican leadership that alienates our allies when we need them the most. And Americans are most certainly tired of leadership that, despite documented mistakes after mistake after mistake after mistake — even of their own party admitting mistakes — never admit that they ever do anything wrong. That is the kind of leadership Americans are tired of.

During the Clinton years, I got so very tired of that Fleetwood Mac song with the line, “Don’t stop thinking about tomorrow.” Aauuugghhh!

But now, I’m feeling nostalgic because of the current government’s mantra: “Don’t start thinking, period.”

When a reporter at Friday’s Rose Garden press conference said, “former Secretary of State Colin Powell says the world is beginning to doubt the moral basis of our fight against terrorism,” George W. Bush responded:

If there’s any comparison between the compassion and decency of the American people and the terrorist tactics of extremists, it’s flawed logic. I simply can’t accept that. It’s unacceptable to think that there’s any kind of comparison between the behavior of the United States of America and the action of Islamic extremists who kill innocent women and children to achieve an objective…

Let’s get this straight right now: We are good. Our opponents are evil. Case closed. Don’t even think about doubting it.

No, no, you can’t look at any particular thing we might have done and find it morally wanting. We’re good, they’re bad, case closed. Don’t you see? We are incapable of doing a wrong thing. Let’s move on.

No, you can’t argue that there are better ways to accomplish our objectives without surrendering the moral high ground. See, that opens up the whole concept that there’s a sort of continuum of morality, and that we’re somewhere on it, and so are our opponents — that’s it’s possible for us to be wrong. Nope, it’s a completely binary situation. You’re either for us, or you’re for the terrorists. Us good, them bad. We are incapable of doing better. Moving on…

No, you can’t say that we need to show high moral standards to win over people who don’t already agree with us. If you think that, you weren’t paying attention earlier when I said you’re for us or you’re for the terrorists. If somebody doesn’t get it that we’re good and our opponents are bad, it’s a wasted effort to persuade them. No, we just wipe ’em out. Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat! Pow! Pow! Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat! Ka-boooom!

What you’re talking about is moral relativism, and I’m not buyin’ into that. Blam! Blam!

Don’t start thinking. It’s a slippery slope.