2012 is the year that the internet became a political force. What took so long? Well, the majority of us have surely been distracted by LOLcats and pr0nz.

Full disclosure: I work on issues at the intersection of technology, copyright and policy. In recent months, I’ve been able to observe firsthand the impact of internet-powered social movements. To wit: the unprecedented outrage around the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and PROTECT-IP (PIPA) stopped either bill from becoming law — something many in Congress assumed was a fait accompli.

Then there’s the immense pressure brought on Susan G. Komen for the Cure after the organization pulled funding to Planned Parenthood. The swift disapproval — again, largely web-driven — was so intense that Komen’s VP is now stepping down.

The “bitroots” blowback is hardly limited to the US. Public demonstrations are currently taking place in the EU over ACTA, an international intellectual property agreement that some think goes too far. Protests have spilled into the streets, with more than 20,000 people participating in Poland alone. But the real engine of dissent is online.

Powerful as this new form of protest is, it’s hardly perfect. Oversimplifications are common, which is to be expected when complex policy matters are condensed into viral action items. Still, there is one clear takeaway: the world’s netizens will no longer lay back while decisions are made that impact their lives, online and otherwise.

From my experience, I can say that the anti-SOPA/PIPA movement was broad and remarkably diffuse. Internet users are now stakeholders, and they have countless ways to share information and amplify their voices. And, although it would be incorrect to call them a monolithic group, they are perfectly capable of representing their own self-interests when push comes to shove.

It’s unfair to characterize the SOPA/PIPA skirmish as one between Hollywood and Silicon Valley (read: Google). While some major tech companies were certainly involved, most of the push happened at the netroots level. I’d say it went down something like this:

1. Tumblr saw the liabilities they’d face under this overly-broad legislation and independently decided to black out their pages in protest. This woke a lot of folks up right quick.
2. The Reddit community started paying attention, and more people became very well-informed on the issue (and got pretty pissed off).
3. Wikipedia joined the loosely-organized “blackout,” and in the process inspired millions more people to call their representatives. (I think Google put a widget next to the search field on their home page, but they didn’t go dark.)
4. Some of us goobers in Washington — completely outnumbered by the well-heeled entertainment industry goons — pointed out that a lot of constituents (including tens of thousands of copyright holders) weren’t comfortable with this legislation as drafted.

The true action came from internet users who found themselves in a position to push back against a fairly draconian set of proposals. The technology itself amplified their message to the extent that a bill that had already passed out of full committee in the US Senate was put on ice, and the House companion never even made it past markup. You can believe me when I tell you that this is a new dynamic in Washington. I’m not sure anyone has fully wrapped their heads around what it means.

So, are these movements merely lighting in a bottle, or the foundations of a new and lasting form of advocacy? Can these spontaneous yet incredibly potent movements be transitioned from something reactive to something proactive? We may have to wait a while to find out. For now, if I was the MPAA or the RIAA, I might consider internalizing the lesson, instead of blithely dismissing the movement as ill-informed, or worse, driven by tech companies.

What do you bet they won’t?

Aries (March 21-April 20)
You know what they say: There’s no time like the present. Better get going with that big taxidermy project now, before you completely lose your nerve.

Taurus (April 21-May 20)
That Manhattan you’ve been thinking about all day might be just the thing. But you should try it with Canadian whiskey this time. You’re welcome.

Gemini (May 21-June 20)
Time to lay low for a bit. Remember how you used to like playing ‘fort’ with the couch cushions? Yeah. It’s fort time.

Cancer (June 21-July 21)
If you keep picking at it, you’re only going to make it worse. I’m just saying. No really, stop it.

Leo (July 22-Aug. 21)
Well congratulations! Everyone pretty much thinks you’re as awesome as you suspected. But next time you should pick up the tab.

Virgo (Aug. 22-Sept. 21)
Give it some more time. I know you’re really impatient, but a watched pot doesn’t grow legs and develop sentience overnight. Also you have to leave some really funky stuff in it.

Libra (Sept. 22-Oct. 21)
You should probably just not leave your bathroom for about a month. We both know why.

Scorpio (Oct. 22-Nov. 21)
We get it, you’re really intense and ‘different’ — the rest of us still appreciate a heads up before you creatively destroy our everyday lives for your art.

Sagittarius (Nov. 22-Dec. 21)
That dog you saw last Tuesday has the soul of your great uncle, and he was trying to tell you something. Learn to understand his beautiful new language.

Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 20)
Hang in there, champ. Everything is falling into place. Soon they’ll be eating out of your hand. Just don’t freak out if you still don’t get exact change.

Aquarius (Jan. 21-Feb. 19)
You have some mighty grand ideas, some of which aren’t even crazy. Figure out which ones those are and totally go for it.

Pisces (Feb. 20-March 20)
Whoa, calm down. Don’t do anything rash. You’ll feel much better after you re-read the Harry Potter series.

Let me just say up front that I’m thinking of starting a “free ideas for Hollywood” series. I have a lot of concepts for movies and TV shows, but little interest in shopping them. Plus, some of these ideas are really dumb. Which means they’re perfect for any major motion picture studio.

Hollywood is pushing hard for stronger intellectual property enforcement due to “rampant piracy” on “the internet.” But instead of feeling bad for them (or entertaining their more ludicrous proposals to lock down the web), I’m giving them free, unfettered use of my own intellectual property. Hey, it’s the least I can do!

The following is an idea for a movie that I think will be boffo at the box office. It pulls something from the world of telecom policy, but as they say, “write what you know…”

SPECTRUM: A HORROR FILM TREATMENT

Possible tag lines: “Beware of early termination.” “He’s dialed into your fearquency.” “Meet Buzz: He’s a real dead wire.”

Premise: Cody “Buzz” Maddick is an occultist serial killer condemned to death for the ritualistic slaying of more than two dozen people. Along with his co-conspirator girlfriend, Devina, Buzz is a member of a deranged satanic cult that believes that blood sacrifice is key to immense power in the etheric plane. Devina explains how all this works in an early flashback scene, where the two are preparing to murder a teenage girl. She tells Buzz that, by positioning electromagnetic devices around the victim, their connection to the etheric plane will be amplified. When enough astral doors have been opened, they will be able to cross the threshold and dwell in a perpetual state of evil exultation.

When Buzz is arrested for his crimes and sentenced to death, his girlfriend (who has thus far evaded any charges) tells him that she will cast a powerful spell at the precise moment of his execution. But nobody except the prison warden knows that Buzz is to be killed using an untested new method: powerful microwave radiation. A bill has passed in the Texas state legislature that would make this means of execution legal. Yet due to political pressure, the governor has yet to sign it. The governor and the warden go way back — they’re part of the same secessionist group — and the warden has been assured that he can go ahead and flip the switch on Buzz and everything will be just dandy. He tells his execution staff that the killing is a go. “You boys will just love it,” he says. “The beauty is, no mess! Them my-crow-waves cook ‘em right from the inside, just like a reheated burrito!”

Buzz is executed as planned, and his girlfriend casts her spell. At the moment of his death, we see his murderous soul converted to electromagnetic energy, which shoots up through the walls to the top floor of the building, blasting skyward via a huge radio antenna on the prison roof. We hear demoniacal laughter.

The killings begin anew. Buzz is now a spectral being who manifests through radio-capable devices, just long enough to dispatch his victims in clever ways. Meanwhile, his girlfriend, Devina, is finally brought in by the law and imprisoned while awaiting trial. Buzz now has a reason to eliminate key witnesses, including family members of his original victims.

Death scenes might include the following:

Buzz comes through a victim’s tablet computer. She is using an eReader when Buzz appears in a social network chatbox. “Buzz wants to chat,” the message says. The victim keeps trying to close the window, to no avail. Eventually, Buzz’s face looms large in the device’s screen, until he managers to stick his head out and bite the victim on the lower lip. He pulls several times, smashing the victim’s head repeatedly into the screen until she dies in a burst of plasma (blood and electronic) and glass. As the screen goes dark, we hear Buzz’s disembodied voice: “That’s my kind of face book.”

A couple is getting frisky in bed in a remote lakeside cottage. An old boom box is positioned on a bedside table. An upbeat pop song comes on, something along the lines of Katy Perry. The girl interrupts the foreplay to turn up the radio. “I love this song,” she says. The boy looks annoyed for a second, then they get back to business. Suddenly, the Katy Perry track is interrupted by crackling, then a scratchy vision of “Walking After Midnight” comes on. Annoyed, the girl shoves the guy aside and starts fiddling with the dial. The song is on every station. “What is this shit?” she exclaims in desperation. Buzz’s voice cuts through the airwaves. “What’s the matter? You don’t like the classics? Maybe you prefer something more… cutting edge.” Weird light begins to emanate from the speakers, until Buzz appears before them, with whirring, electric saw blades for hands. He does his sick business and then disappears.

A day trader is using a cellphone. He’s trying to tell his wife he’ll miss his kid’s soccer game, while firing a useless subordinate on the other line. While switching between calls, he ends up on a channel with Buzz. “Please hold while I disconnect you,” Buzz says. The day trader stares at his smartphone in disbelief. At that moment, buzz appears on all of the many computer monitors in his office. Buzz then manifests at the center of the room, with the Wall Street index flashing all over his semi-corporeal body. “Buy low, die lower,” Buzz says, as he crushes the day trader to a pulpy, mangled mass on the floor that briefly gives off sparks.

Meanwhile, an investigator is banging his head over these new murders. But he begins to discern a pattern. In each killing, he notices the presence of spectrum-powered technology. On a hunch alone, he reaches out to an expert in wireless telecommunications, who comes along to a fresh murder scene. At a key point, the expert says, “I think he’s traveling from place to place using the electromagnetic spectrum.” Not wanting to accept what he’s hearing, the detective replies, “Is that even possible?” Without missing a beat, the wireless expert answers, “It is now.”

And that’s basically all I have. Surely that’s enough for some studio-contracted screenwriting hacks to thread together into something marginally cohesive. Like I said, it’s pretty fucking dumb. But that doesn’t mean it’s not potentially profitable!

So c’mon, Hollywood, why not bring Buzz to life and start a whole new horror franchise? I promise I won’t sue…

I have invites to the new social Google thingamabob, but I can’t use them because, once again, the company launched a highly-anticipated beta and couldn’t manage demand.

The following are my favorite features in Google+, with the caveat that I still haven’t gotten a chance to use it.

• Huddles — where you play fantasy football while betting on how long it’ll take for Google+ to go the way of Wave and Buzz
• Circles is an accurate digital representation of Dante’s Inferno
• That little button that gives Mark Zuckerberg direct access to your bank account
• Image widget turns Lady Gaga into a normal human being
  
• You get a ten percent share of MySpace just by joining!
  
• Automatically syncs with Baidu in China
• The only social network allowed in Supermax prisons
  
• Cawker: Celebrity penis pic section powered by Gawker
• New Prince album available exclusively on Google+
  
• Unpopular? Biomechanical algorithms “grow” friends for you
• RFID chip knows where you are at all times
  
• Pays third world children to do your homework for you
  
• Girls worldwide enter contract to ONLY go wild on Google+
  
• Free pet sitting
  
• Sparks: Google Alerts for caffeinated alcoholic beverage discounts

It’s officially the unofficial start of summer! If you watch your local news, you know this is an extremely confusing time for Americans. We have no idea how to comport ourselves after the third week in May. Your local ActionCast FactCopter team is editing their twelfth summer safety tips segment of the week at this very second.

And just in time. For without these segments, how would we know not to eat raw chicken marinated in sun-ripened mayonnaise while diving head-first into a shallow 39-degree lake? And they always provide the most wonderful traffic tips. “Give yourself extra time.” Wait, I can create time? Like some kind of god? I have god powers? JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE, COME TO MY APARTMENT. THE TIME-GOD COMMANDS YOU. Damn. Okay, no. I’m not some kind of god.

And neither are you, probably. So you will need these summer safety tips, unless you want to die of Summer Confusion. Upwards of one American(s) per year dies of Summer Confusion. Don’t become a fake statistic.

Bob observes safety first! Ahoy!

Sunscreen. Always wear sunscreen. Especially at night. I know there is no sun at night, but there are ghosts. Sunscreen makes you invisible to most ghosts, such as creepy-ass little kids who want to tell you who murdered them, and lonely Victorian people sexily twirling their parasols at you going “Yooo hooo!” like weirdos. The higher the SPF (Spook Protection Factor), the better the results.

The ocean. Swimming in the ocean can be a great way to unwind after a long night of ghosts. But the sea is a dangerous place, filled with Jawses and Jaws Twos, garbage from unlicensed human-animal hybrid experiment clinics, and the tears of whales who are sad because you often forget to recycle. The best way to confront sea danger is to find one of the Jawses and ride around on its back. Sharks are the cops of the ocean. Go on a ride-along and you will be safest jerk in the whole ocean. He might even let you arrest someone! In this cop/shark metaphor, “arrest” means “eat.” Which reminds me…

Food safety. Did you know that 20 percent of all foods are actively out to get you? Potatoes, for example, are very rude. It’s not fatal or anything, but it’s downright annoying when you are preparing Grandmother’s Kind of Weird Potato Salad That Contains Meat For No Clear Reason, and one of the spuds is like “Nice job. Where’d you learn to cook, Airplane Food School?” Asshole! Most starchy vegetables are rude in the style of late-’80s standup comics. They are impervious to irony. But not knives. So you will have the last laugh. But be sure not to eat too much. Why?

You are fat. Look in the mirror. Are you a man? Congratulations! You are awesome and perfect just the way you are. Go enjoy the hot weather and howl at girls. You are the star of your own Jimmy Buffett song. You are that guy from Sublime, only not dead. Hop into some enormous cargo shorts and stuff those banana-bunch feet into dad sandals and fucking work it. Are you a woman? Uh oh! You’re too fat. Unless you’re too skinny. Either way, you’re too fat. What you should do is immediately change your body type. Not by exercising. Only women who are already fit (but not too muscular, because that baffles men in the cargo-shorted area) are allowed to exercise in public. Just make it happen. Get perfect. I hear reading cruel comments on the internet works wonders, so here’s one to get you started: hahaha your a fat looser beach wale lol hahaha. Hope that helps!

The three Rs. If you remember nothing else in your entire life because you have some sort of remembering disorder, remember the three Rs, and you will have the safest summer ever.
1. Rules. Follow every tip you hear on the news, especially the ones based on studies funded by large corporations where the results encourage use of their products. Rules are the foundation of fun. You can’t spell fun without rules (the rules of spelling.)
2. Remembering. Remember that remembering disorder I just mentioned? Me neither. I think I have it.
3. Rules. Follow every…wait, did I do this one already? I feel like I did this one already.

Have a safe summer, everyone! Hope it goes SWIMMINGLY. Hope you have a WHALE of a time. Hope MY SOPHISTICATED WORDPLAY IS NOT LOST ON YOU.

Rename next Wednesday “Wowsday” and really make a point of kicking out the jams.

Cars should be rubber.

Is there a way to use the word “branding” that will not bring the apocalypse closer? Investigate.

Something called a “beer slide” could be amazing.

Convincing well-intentioned college girls to have unprotected, no-strings sex because it would supposedly help end the war in Vietnam is such a fiendishly opportunistic boondoggle it sounds like it was dreamed up by the Rand Corporation.

Something with lasers.

If all creationists were exterminated, would nature evolve them back into the population? File under “thought experiment,” mark for further study.

Come up with reason to have press conference.

Resolve to hug 100 Muslims every July 4th.

Come up with next year’s “something is the new other thing,” apply for patent for the first thing.

Run for office. Run from office. Create yearly 5k fun run based on either idea (charity optional). (Side note to self: schedule regular exercise regimen.)

Experiment where I carry a guitar around my neck 24/7 like those burnouts on the beach, try it for a week, see if it results in better or worse songs.

Another cup of coffee would be a great idea. Rewards! Always a great motivator. (Good job, me.)

Something with injection molding? Possibly synergize with laser idea.*

Gentlemen’s club, but require patrons to dress like real late-19th century gentlemen. Monocle, cape or spats: must have at least one.

Take muffin flavors outside the box with new “art muffin” shop that features grass ‘n’ gravel muffins, double-chocolate nickel muffins (with real nickels). Flagship product could be Alarm Clock muffin with fully functioning alarm clock baked inside.

Brainstorm ways to popularize my phrase “They’re going to the zoo at two, and all their friends will go there too,” as a way to teach correct spelling of they’re/their/there and too/two/to. Incorporate some more commonly misspelled words, extend into a poem/song/musical about spelling.

There are people outside my house with guns who want to kill me.

*note: injection-molded laser-based security system

In a story that has electrified Christians worldwide, an image that appears to be the face of Jesus Christ has been discovered within another image of the face of Jesus Christ.

Believers and reporters alike have begun flocking to the Cathedral of St. Genesius in Colorado Springs, CO — specifically to the northeastern corner of the church, which features a small enclosed altar for private worship before an icon of Jesus. It is within the details of this icon’s face that another, smaller image of Jesus has been discovered.

“I’ve been coming here for years,” says Sabrina Thwaite, 78, who first recognized the image late Sunday afternoon. “After mass, I always go to brunch. Then after brunch, I come back to the church to say my rosary at the little altar.” Staring into the icon, she began to feel “possessed by the holy spirit” and started studying a detail she had never paid attention to in the shading just under the left eye. “And then it just sort of appeared to me, clear as day. I can’t believe I hadn’t seen it for all these years!”

“It is certainly a blessing we are proud to have in our church,” says Fr. James Bellamy, who has led mass at St. Genesius for 23 years. “That being said, it has caused certain, er… logistical difficulties, so to speak.”

The difficulties that Fr. Bellamy so delicately refers to are the non-stop stream of visitors and worshipers who now crowd the the northeastern corner of the church at all hours, making regular church business all but impossible. As of last week, regular services at St. Genesius have been indefinitely postponed, and the congregation now meets in the basement of the much smaller St. Alban’s, three blocks away.

Back at St. Genesius, the church has made changes to accommodate the crowds. Portable toilets have been placed in the opposite corner of the cathedral to accommodate worshipers who wait up to four hours in a long line that snakes around pillars and pews. Within the tiny dark enclosure, which holds up to four people, a special new kneeling bench has been placed so that one visitor at a time can sit just inches from the painting, whose newly discovered detail is featured by a narrow spotlight.

“It was amazing,” says Linda Carter of Birmingham, England after emerging from the tiny enclosure. “I’ve been a Christian all my life, but I suppose in a way I’ve been waiting for a confirmation of my beliefs. And this is it, undoubtedly. They say you find things where you least expect them, but that’s not always true. It’s as though he’s just popped out and said ‘It’s me!’”

Aren’t you glad that President Obama finally made available his long form birth certificate? I know I am. It’s about time that we all move on to more important issues, like whether Obama’s grades were good enough for him to get into Harvard Law. Still, birtherism dies hard, as evidenced by various conservatives who refuse to accept this documentation. Some, like Newt Gingrich, are taking the “what took him so long?” tack. Others, like Arizona State Senator Steve Smith, say “there’s still a good 10 percent to 20 percent chance” that Obama was not born in this country. One would suppose this ratio applies equally to Smith.

Tea Party Nation founder Judson Phillips was on “Hardball with Chris Matthews” yesterday to defend an outrageous blog post in which he claimed that Obama’s birth certificate could be a fake. Chris utterly crushed him:

You like it if people come up and said you weren’t an American, do you think that’s funny? You think it’s funny to say a person is not an American, you think that’s a joke?

Suppose it is true and you’re just somebody having some fun with somebody, they walk up to you and say, ‘Hey, Judson Phillps, that’s kind of a funny name where I come from. Are you really an American? I think you might not be, in fact its possible your birth certain was a fake. It’s possible, people that have the skills to create fake birth certificates, there is such a thing as Photoshop.’ Do you like the sound of that when it’s directed at you? You like that? I wouldn’t.

It is truly a glorious thing to watch. Bonus: Senator Smith is also in the clip:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=eB2WvDHxjkw

Later the same day, MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell kicked Orly Taitz, aka the “Queen of the Birthers,” off his program for refusing to acknowledge the release of the president’s long-form birth certificate — the very document for which she’s been screaming bloody murder. O’Donnell is a pretty cool customer, but Taitz pissed him off royally. After giving her the boot, he felt compelled to apologize to his viewers:

I invited a crazy person on the show to see if a crazy person faced with the thing that the crazy person was trying to get for two and a half years could say something responsive, something human, to the document that was released today, that she’s never seen before in her life and she wants to play with all of her of other kids’ toys and all of her other crazy documents. I did not expect this to go this way. I thought she was going to address the birth certificate. We were told she was going to address the birth certificate. She’s afraid to address the birth certificate obviously.

Watch the full clip here:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=zB3W5NTAAAo

I’m fine with these folks not wanting to let go of their pet conspiracy. Maybe we should come up with a few of our own. Contrarian contributor Neil Cleary posted a good one on Facebook earlier today:

Jesus: was he *really* born in Nazareth? Sure, his supporters will tell you he was, but WHERE IS THE DOCUMENTATION? #christmasbirthers

I also enjoyed this piece at The Onion, “Afterbirthers Demand to See Obama’s Placenta.”

Extra credit: The birther’s guide to staying relevant in a post-”long form” world. As you were.