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.

Moldova: The Cream Of The Crop

Moldova didn’t win Eurovision last year, but as they rode around on unicycles and wore costumes that resembled nuclear missiles they deserved to.

America, Summed

There’s no need for current events classes anymore. This picture says everything you need to know about the country.

GOP Myths On Poverty And Kids

The Article: The Week in Poverty: Kids, Jobs and GOP Myths by Greg Kaufmann in The Nation.

The Text: This Week in Poverty: the impact of stress and early intervention on poor kids, the state of children in America, and the GOP breaks out some Golden Oldie myths about poor people, black people and a lack of work ethic… But first:

The Vital Statistics

US poverty (less than $22,300 for a family of four): 46 million people, 15.1 percent.

Kids in poverty: 16.4 million, 22 percent of all kids.

Deep poverty (less than $11,157 for a family of four): 20.5 million people, 6.7 percent of population.

Impact of public policy, 2010: without government assistance, poverty twice as high—nearly 30 percent.

Impact of public policy, 1964–1973: poverty rate fell by 43 percent.

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I Had To Tell You How I Lost My Mind Again

At Home by Crystal Fighters off of Star of Love.