In a story Hollywood wishes were its own, the tumultuous battle surrounding SOPA and PIPA last week resulted in an inspiring, albeit brief, victory for users of the Internet and the voting public at large. But at the awards party, while everyone was high-fiving and chugging Champagne, someone broke in and stole the civil liberties online users thought had been saved. Now, in our half-drunken party haze, we try to assess what just happened—and where we go from here. » Read More

Here's a vital issue under discussion (at last) on both sides of the Atlantic. Governments, rich and poor, urgently need two things: a method to calm speculation in the financial markets and new ways to raise revenue. In late 2011, the European Commission proposed a tax or fee on financial transactions. This move appears to be part of the newly announced European Union plan, with Britain the sole dissenter. » Read More

The electoral college will be replaced by a system where voters will choose the polling firm they trust the most. Barack Obama will be re-elected because his vice-presidential running mate Joe Biden will be replaced by Hillary Clinton, thereby gaining the women's vote. Failed Republican campaigners will all take other jobs. » Read More

As is our tradition, this end-of-year wrap-up includes some of the events and non-events that defined the year here in California's Santa Clara Valley. It supports our optimistic belief that there will be lots of work for Silicon Valley's journalists in 2012 chronicling society's devolution amidst technology's uncharted future. » Read More

What do Jay-Z and Adbusters magazine have in common? On the face of it, not much. Adbusters is a small magazine published out of Vancouver, while Jay-Z is one of the most successful entertainers in the world. Yet both Adbusters and Jay-Z have seized upon the economic and psychic dislocation caused by the grinding global recession as a means of extending their brands and product lines, with wildly different results. » Read More

In 1984, Brian Lew operated the first official Megadeth fan club from his parents' house in Sunnyvale. It happened like this: After guitarist/vocalist Dave Mustaine was thrown out of Metallica, he didn't immediately move back to his home turf in SoCal. He couch surfed around the Bay Area while Lew collected Mustaine's mail during the initial stages of his new band, Megadeth. » Read More

There are two moments in Breaking Dawn, Part I-the second to last film installment of teen vampire romance Twilight—which encapsulate the oppositional forces this story contains within its breathless span. The first moment occurs when two vampires argue over the creature growing in human heroine Bella's belly. While most of the family calls it a fetus, Rosalie, the bereft Vampire Who Never Got to Be a Mother, cries out (echoing the author's point of view), "It's not a fetus, it's a baby!" » Read More

By now it should be clear that even a committee optimistically (or perhaps ironically) named "super" can't help us out of our economic predicament. So, it is time for us to start from the ground up and provide a little bit of stimulus spending right here in our own communities-keeping dollars circulating among our neighbors and friends who run small businesses and cottage industries. » Read More

So Bil Keane is no more. At age 89, this celebrated and beloved cartoonist has gone to meet Winsor McCay and Charles Schulz. The creator of The Family Circus, a redoubt of simpler times for more than 50 years, died Nov. 8. Few among us have not gloried in the world's most widely syndicated one-panel cartoon, or chuckled over the gentle, homey foibles of Bil, Thelma and their four rambunctious kids, Billy, Jeffy, Dolly and young P.J., as well as the grim specters "Ida Know" and "Not Me." » Read More

"Just press this button and he'll be able to hear everything you say." I take the walkie-talkie and look upwards. Perched 36 feet above me, with legs dangling from the edge of a five-foot-wide concrete shelf, is 27-year-old Shaun O'Kelly. From this distance, I can make out a gritty smile through a scraggly blond goatee. » Read More

At a table inside the new San Jose TechShop, a 17,000-square-foot building on the corner of Second and San Carlos streets, a young man perches on a stool at a wooden worktable. Holding a large horse head gingerly in one hand, he stares intently at the left nostril. Very carefully, he carves it out of snowy-white faux fur bonded to plastic, shaving down the smallest edge to find the right shape. » Read More

THE anti-man-about-town resurfaced at HP Pavilion just last week to experience the Sharks taking on the Ottawa Senators. He had not been to a game in many years. The experience threw him into a space-time-shattering vortex where past, present and future expanded like a rubber band and then snapped back to reality. It brought back memories of when he first watched hockey as a kid, and, more recently, when he traveled to Ottawa a few times. » Read More

In 2006, Steve DeAngelo received a permit to open Harborside Health Center in Oakland. One of the first calls made by DeAngelo-whose signature hair braids make him look a little like a middle-aged, white version of Snoop Doog-was to friend Elan Hawtrey, a retail and sales expert. » Read More

In 2006, Steve DeAngelo received a permit to open Harborside Health Center in Oakland. One of the first calls made by DeAngelo-whose signature hair braids make him look a little like a middle-aged, white version of Snoop Doog-was to friend Elan Hawtrey, a retail and sales expert. » Read More

If I knew enough secrets to lecture at the Triton Museum of Art in Santa Clara, I would probably do exactly what chief curator Preston Metcalf is doing right now: an eight-week series of Thursday teachings titled "Hidden Symbols of Art." » Read More

A week before he went on vacation for the end of the year holidays, San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed sat down with medical marijuana advocates James Anthony and Jerry Strangis. The Registrar of Voters (ROV) for Santa Clara County was still in the process of approving signatures from a petition drive for a referendum to repeal the city's regulatory program, but everyone at the meeting expected the ROV to give its approval to the repeal effort. » Read More

The only band ever to perform on a Willow Glen sidewalk with a giant kangaroo is now nominated for a Grammy award. Local musician and songwriter David Sharpe, along with his band, PapaHugs, will take an entourage down to L.A. next month, because his CD, Are We There Yet?, is up for Best Children's Album in the 54th Grammy Awards on Feb. 12. » Read More

Last year, the heroes at CreaTV, a nonprofit community-access media operation, staged the first annual CreaTiVe Awards, which thoroughly rocked the San Jose Repertory Theatre. CreaTV already orchestrates a slew of public access and educational shows on a few different television channels, through its facility at 255 Julian St. » Read More

As another calendar year barrels to an end, reflections begin to emanate, not just from the literal alleys, but also the cognitive routes, creative throughways and that which fogs the above. As this columnist perceives them, alleys are side passages usually subordinated by society to the "in-between." » Read More

Enter any one of San Jose's 100-plus medical cannabis dispensaries and you'll find dozens of jars containing a variety of strains. But patients may wonder: Who grew the grass? And how can anyone be sure if it's free from pests, mold, pesticides and/or other contaminants? » Read More