Exhibit A against hosting comments

A local judge, the district attorney and the Kansas University police department are being roundly criticized by First Amendment advocates for a search warrant that sought access to online subscriber files of the Journal-World.

On Dec. 10, an investigator with KU’s Office of Public Safety delivered a search warrant to the Journal-World demanding access to the newspaper’s computer servers. The search warrant — applied for by the office of public safety, reviewed by the Douglas County district attorney’s office, and issued by Douglas County District Judge Stephen Six — was seeking information about the identity of an individual who had posted anonymous comments on ljworld.com, the newspaper’s Web site.

Investigators were seeking the identity of a poster with the screen name a2thek, who had posted comments related to articles about a Kansas University student who was found dead in an Oliver Hall dorm room. The poster had made comments indicating the death was heroin-related.

Anyone else disheartened by the fact that the police are now putting this much effort into investigating anonymous online comments? This tells me either they have nothing else to go on, or that they just have no idea of the mass of babbling brook of the Internet...

Bring me the skull of Norv Turner on Monday

So ESPN's John Clayton hops aboard the Norv Turner back-slapping bandwagon. The media's been making a huge deal of the Chargers' win yesterday over the Titans, which is, I concede, the Chargers' first playoff win since their Superb Owl run of '94.

But the idea that this team is somehow more successful than last year's Chargers -- made explicit in the title "Turner gives Chargers what Schottenheimer couldn't" -- is just laughable. Yes, they won a playoff game, but they won a wild-card playoff game against Tennessee. Last year as the #1 seed by virtue of a 14-2 record, the Chargers didn't have to play a wild-card game. Winning a wild-card game against a #6 seed is not an accomplishment. Sorry. This proves nothing. Small children, primates and some plants could beat a Tennessee team with four starters out with injuries when they're given the daunting depth of talent on the Chargers' roster.

If the Chargers lose this next weekend -- and against the Colts, they should -- they'll have made it just as far as the previous season's Chargers did under Marty Schottenheimer, the coach subsequently run out of town by GM A.J. Smith, pain be unto him. That's not an accomplishment, that's stagnation. If the Bolts do eke past the Colts by exploiting Indy's injuries or an aggressive defense or maybe remembering that LT can catch passes from time to time, then we can talk about Norv Turner not being a very large bacterium. And it's possible. It just might happen. But I'm not planning the victory parade just yet.

Buried: Ron Paul crossing picket lines

All right, Internet, I've tolerated your little Ron-Paul-lovefest for just long enough. This is the end. I will now bury every Ron Paul link I see on Digg, and that should keep me quite busy until election day.