Techcordance

Conyers

The House Judiciary Committee Chairman has backed off his plan to investigate the liberal activist group the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now also known as ACORN.
The Washington Times reported that Rep. John Conyers D-MI had called for hearings on ACORN to look into several possible crimes, including voter fraud.
Conyers said that the powers that be decided against it. But he wouldn’t say exactly who told him to call off the investigation.
The Washington Times also reported that Capitol Hill Democrats bristled at the idea of the hearings. They were concerned that it would re-ignite criticism of President Obama’s close ties with the group.

Piracy Alive and Well

A file-sharing fine against a Minnesota woman that mushroomed from $220,000 to nearly $2 million last week is just the latest evidence that illegally trading music and videos online is still with us in a big way.
In the spring, while pirates off the coast of Somalia were getting all the high-seas attention, four Swedish pirates of a totally different sort were being sentenced to pay more than $3 million in fines and serve a year in the brig. Their crime: running The Pirate Bay, one of the Web’s most-visited file-sharing communities.
The Pirate Bay is part of the trend of peer-to-peer technologies used to illegally swap music, videos and applications. Public sites such as Pirate Bay, IsoHunt and Mininova index and track BitTorrent files, which allow computers to connect and download content. People go to these sites to search for and grab music or videos.

Southern Baptists warned

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Prison Fellowship founder Charles Colson predicts pastors will soon face prosecution under hate crimes laws if they preach that same-sex relationships are sinful.
Colson, who served prison time for his role in the Watergate scandal, delivered a grim forecast to Southern Baptist pastors at their annual meeting in Louisville, Ky.
Sponsors of congressional hate crimes legislation insist it won’t restrict speech, but Colson warned that ministers will face the threat of prosecution within the next two years.
He also said medical professionals are losing their conscience right to refuse to perform abortions, and faith-based ministries could soon have to hire non-believers.
Colson also predicted a continuing threat from Islamic terrorists and dismissed the Quran as an “irrational” invention of Muhammad rather than divinely inspired scripture.