While in the car I heard a discussion on All Things Considered concerning the ‘Net shutdown in response to SOPA/PIPA with James Fallows of The Atlantic.

Fallows almost understands the reaction of the technology sector, as he points out that Google is so concerned with its intellectual property rights that it refuses to send any source code to China. He then opines that technology companies don’t view movies and music in the same way.

Actually, we are well aware of the status of movies and music as intellectual property, but we have no intention of having additional costs and aggravation placed on us, when the owners to the rights of the movies and music do stupid things, like shipping them to China for reproduction.

The Chinese are new to the ‘free market’ and they view it as being truly free, in the libertarian sense. They don’t have any history of ‘intellectual property laws’, so it is a totally foreign concept. In their view if they know how to do something, and people will pay them to do it, they should do it. If, after they fulfill a contract for copies of a DVD for a media company, someone else offers them money for copies of the same DVD, they sell them – ‘free market’.

Technology companies learned this the hard way, which is why the best have strict controls on what is sent to China.

As South Carolina is a winner-take-all state, Newt “Efting” Gingrinch’s win means that he leads in the delegate count with 23 of the 1144 needed for the nomination.

Romney, after Santorum was declared the real winner in Iowa, has 19, Santorum 12, Ron Paul 3, and Jon Huntsman has 2 delegates [according to reporting that seems to have originated with AP]

Florida is next, which is why the SuperPAC that isn’t controlled by Mitt Romney [no, sir, no way, we are independent] has been airing anti-Newt ads for over a week.

About the only thing that would be worse than tonight for Willard, would be if Ron Paul beats him in Virginia, as they are the only two candidates on that ballot.

The way things are going, the networks are going to partnering with bail-bondsmen to hold the thousands of debates they seem to want to run. [Debates are even cheaper to fill up time than reality shows.]