Liberals have for decades advocated ? and largely consummated ? a rejection of the limited government of the founding in favor of a modern welfare state. Starting about 100 years ago, Progressives like Woodrow Wilson decided that the Declaration and Constitution were "out of date," and inaugurated the idea of a constantly evolving, unlimited government. This makes it all the more ironic that it was Wilson who formally established Flag Day ? since he mocked what he called the "blind worship" of the founding and complained that "some citizens of this country have never got beyond the Declaration of Independence."

Likewise, today's conservatives have cause to question how they have acquitted themselves ? perhaps even more than liberals, since conservatives are supposedly dedicated to "conserving" America's principles. Prominent conservative leaders today have essentially abandoned the aims of their counterparts in the 1980s and early 1990s to scale back the modern state. Gone is talk of eliminating those portions of the federal bureaucracy created to implement the failed policies of 1960s and 1970s liberalism. Instead, Republicans today help push through historic increases in funding for the Department of Education.

Even the current strategies in the war on terrorism, unfortunately, make one wonder whether the government is more interested in curtailing the rights of its own citizens or in taking the fight abroad, to those regimes that hate us and sponsor those attacking us. Our conservative administration makes plans for a new federal bureaucracy of "homeland security," while it shies away from making real war on terrorist regimes out of fear of offending our "friends" in the Arab world and the quasi-socialist governments in Europe.

Throughout our history, brave Americans in both the military and in politics have fought mightily to prove themselves worthy of Washington, the men he addressed, and the principles for which they battled. Let this Flag Day be a spark for those of us in the 21st century to continue in that noble tradition.

I try to let data tell me what's actually happening in the world. And when the theory says one thing and things don't work that way, then I say something's missing in the theory. A priori, I had a belief that [file sharing] was different and it was likely to cause real harm. That's what the Cato piece was about.

But if a year from now, when the economy picks up, we still don't see a decline of 15 to 20 percent at least, then file sharing is having a very small impact, considering how massive the downloading is. It's not that say, 10 percent of record sales is a trivial amount of money, but it's not going to be the death of the record industry.

Wisdom, strength, endurance, freedom, those are qualities that do define America, qualities we see across America every day, qualities we see in you, the workers in hard hats and boots, armed with hammers and saws. With your hearts and your hands, you have rebuilt this symbol of American values and strength stone by stone, and we thank you.

You, our builders, adopted that battle cry that Todd Beamer led the passengers on that flight over Pennsylvania. "Let's roll" is what he said, and "Let's roll" is what you said. And that's exactly what you've done. You've healed this wall, and in doing so, you are helping to heal our nation.

...

And because we are Americans, because of what we stand for -- our enduring values; our right to govern ourselves, to live in safety and security, to enjoy peace and prosperity, justice and freedom; to find and worship God in our own way -- all of those things that define who we are and what we stand for -- because of them, we will not only rebuild, but we will be better than we were before. That is also what America means. It is home to unfounded -- unbounded optimism and pride in what we can accomplish together.

1. That ads aren't really annoying. They appear as options to watch on Tivo's menu. You're not forced to watch them. You can ignore them with no fuss to your Tivo use.
   
   
2. The days of free media are over. They died with the bursting of the Internet advertising bubble. When media is digitized people have tremendous control over those bits. Favored bits can be raised to the surface of one's attention while other bits can be filtered away. Spam filters are primitive, but they keep some of junk e-mail out of our in-boxes. Software programs can stop banner and pop-up ads from appearing in our browser. Web filtering software is designed to allow access to some web sites while locking out others. The fast forward button on Tivos and Replay TVs can be grouped into these filtering technologies. Since people can now avoid advertising, companies will be less inclined to buy ads. In order to pay for new programming, media companies will have to make up the revenue by charging viewers. Web sites like Salon.com already have been forced to go to a subscription model for premium content to try to break even. With the continued ability of individuals to package digital content to their lifestyles, I expect to see formerly free content to become pay-per-view. We should get ready for this new era in media. Pay-per-view certainly looks to be inevitable.