The Week In Blogs, January 30th 2012

Under the weight of bristling internet activism against censorship, ArsTechnica reports that support for PIPA and SOPA evaporated over the course of the last two weeks in the Senate. Politicians from both side of the spectrum backed off of the bill after serious concerns were lobbied from across the tech industry about the potential impact it could have on the economy and internet.

Over in South Carolina, Governor Nikki Haley released a doomsday message about unions during her State of the Union. Get a full taste of this nonsense:

The people of South Carolina have a strong work ethic, they value loyalty, and they take tremendous pride in the quality of their work. We don’t have unions in South Carolina because we don’t need unions in South Carolina.

However, as we saw with the assault from the NLRB, the unions don’t understand that. They will do everything they can to invade our state and drive a wedge between our workers and our employers. We can’t have that. Unions thrive in the dark. Secrecy is their greatest ally, sunlight their most potent adversary.

Quick hits: BuiltLean has a great infograph about how ‘fruit juice’ is really just soda in disguise and full body workouts. Doug at Balloon Juice looks at how state and local government contribution’s to GDP have taken a nose-dive in recent years. And the Muppets hit back at Fox News.