Environmental groups and open Internet activists are not happy with President Barack Obama's pick to lead his 2012 political campaign. That is probably because the president has picked a lobbyist that represented the NBC Universal / Comcast merger and the Keystone XL pipeline. The lobbyist in question is Broderick Johnson of the lobbying firm Bryan Cave LLP. According to U.S. House of Representatives records, Johnson lobbied our elected officials to “support submission of a presidential permit for Keystone XL pipeline” in the final quarter of 2010.

Personal political ideology could be shaped by a combination of factors, including the number of friends one has during adolescence and whether or not a person posses a specific dopamine receptor gene.

A trio of University of California, San Diego researchers, in conjunction with a Harvard University participant, examined the subject in a research paper entitled Friendships Moderate an Association between a Dopamine Gene Variant and Political Ideology.

Four lawmakers have written to the Federal Communications Commission this week urging it to act on the issue of net neutrality regulation - inspired by Google's and Verizon's proposal last week. All four are Democrats who serve on the House Energy and Commerce Committee Subcommittee on Communications, Technology and the Internet. The group wrote to the FCC asking it to "take action to preserve the free, open nature of the Internet".

The letter goes on to point out that the Google-Verizon proposal might make "certain Internet content" "prioritized," which they say is a grave threat to the "principles of net neutrality." The group, lead by Ed Markey (D - MA), includes Anna Eshoo (D - CA), Mike Doyle (D - PA), and Jay Inslee (D - WA).

Full statements below:

With the national debate over the use of torture raging on, could a steady diet of violent entertainment color some Americans' view of what has euphemistically been dubbed "enhanced interrogation"?
 
Writing for the liberal-leaning Huffington Post, Kari Henley opines:

If we are going to truly come to terms with abiding by moral codes against extreme acts of violence, we first have to start in our own living rooms... We say we "don't f**#$ torture," yet Grand Theft Auto is our favorite video game.
 
Let's face it: Americans are repeatedly exposed to serious scenes of violence when we go out to the movies, watch nightly TV shows, or unwind with video games, all of which drastically decrease overall sensitivity to violence.

To be fair, Henley’s views on the supposed desensitizing effects of violent entertainment appear to come primarily from the claims of longtime video game critic Dave Grossman. After spending a few paragraphs on violent TV and movies, Henley returns to video games:

What about these modern X-Box and online video games? While I happen to enjoy the "G" rated Wii, over 11 million people are spending their time engrossed in the World of Warcraft or Grand Theft Auto where the point is to go around and kill people in a calculated way. Tell me again why this is supposed to be fun and relaxing?
 
It's time to put torture in its place as unacceptable, period, both in our nation's military practices, and in our nation's entertainment standards.

-Reporting from San Diego, GamePolitics Correspondent Andrew Eisen...

Earlier this week GamePolitics pointed out that in 2008 conservative talking head Glenn Beck held video games and popular media responsible for real-world violence.

In the wake of Sunday's horrific murder of three Pittsburgh police officers by a paranoid gun owner, however, Beck has insisted that his own media rants on gun control couldn't be blamed:

Blaming anyone except the nut job for what happened in Pittsburgh is crazy.

In this clip MSNBC's liberal commentator Keith Olbermann points out the obvious contrast between Beck's willingness to blame video games for real-world violence yet reluctance to admit that his own fervent anti-gun control rhetoric may have helped influence the Pittsburgh killer.

Thanks to: GamePolitics reader BlindJustice15...