Word: allowances
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...Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) is finding out the hard way. The ACMA, Canberra's equivalent of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission, put together such a list and sent it to more than a dozen companies. It was part of a trial program to develop software that would allow Australian ISPs to block the sites. But to ACMA's evident surprise, at least one person who received the list handed it over to Wikileaks, an online clearinghouse for anonymous submissions of sensitive material. The ACMA "blacklist," as it became known, was promptly posted online, becoming a handy compendium...
These shows are wonderful and ambitious not just because they can get away with sex and swearing (though it helps). They are able to aim high, and thrive, precisely because the economics of cable allow them to succeed with smaller audiences that want to be challenged. FX's Emmy-winning thriller Damages never would have made it on broadcast because of its byzantine twists and turns; it would have to be simplified, Law & Order -ized. Ditto HBO's and Showtime's hits: an audience intensely interested enough to pay to watch TV will reward risk, not caution...
However, if most of our hypothetical individual futures don't look quite so lavish, as a nation we have two not-so-secret weapons that, managed correctly and given a little luck, could allow us to remain at the top of the heap for a long time to come: technological innovation and immigration...
...Iran doesn't, ultimately, want to play. Will the "demons" rot away his policy judgment? Will he exaggerate Iran's power, as the Israelis and neoconservatives routinely do, turning a relatively modest regional player into an existential threat - mad mullahs ready to blow up the world? Will he allow Republicans to force him into a tough-guy pose for domestic consumption? Will he suffer the delusion that U.S., or Israeli, power can "take out" the Iranian nuclear program without disastrous retribution...
...called reconciliation - which would leave the door open to piggyback massive programs on the budget like universal health care in case they fail to make it through the regular legislative process. House Democrats and the Administration support such a move specifically for health care - though, theoretically, the provision would allow for anything, including energy, to be pushed through the Senate with just a simple majority rather than a filibuster-proof 60 votes. Several moderate Democratic Senators, including Ben Nelson of Nebraska, have said that inclusion of reconciliation instructions in the final bill would be a deal breaker for them. "Reconciliation...