• 7,000 lines of code get added to the Linux monster daily, says some nerd who actually studied this
• 75% of all code was put in by commercial developers like IBM, Red Hat and Intel source

• 2.3 million cars on top of the 4.2 million already recalled source

• $36.4
  million the amount the Chamber of Commerce (which represents businesses) spent on political campaigns in 2008, mostly Republican Senate campaigns
• $30.7
  million the amount the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (a major union group) spent on mostly Democratic campaigns source

• Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission is an important case. This may be one of the most important cases that we see in our lifetimes, because it’ll have a direct effect on who gets elected, what laws get passed, and who can say what during an election. It’s such an important case that the dissenting opinion is as important as the decision itself. So, here goes.

The case at hand:

• It was about a movie that trashed Hillary Clinton. The producers of “Hillary the Movie,” which was designed by a highly-funded conservative nonprofit political organization to smear the then-presidential candidate, wanted to show the film during the 2008 primaries, but couldn’t because of campaign finance laws (most notably, one passed by John McCain and Russ Feingold back in 2002). Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission had a narrow scope, and dealt with a small part of campaign finance law.

Key points in campaign finance reform:

• 1971 The Federal Election Campaign Act passes, requiring campaigns to report hard-money contributors to their campaigns, but leaving the door for “soft money” contributions wide open.
• 1990 Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce was decided by the Supreme Court, a key decision which upheld the longstanding restriction on corporate speech that could influence elections.
• 2002 The McCain-Feingold Act passed, which limited so-called “soft money” contributions and limited the broadcast of corporate and non-profit political messages near elections, passes.

Main points of the majority opinion:

• Chilling political speech Anthony Kennedy’s opinion argues that the “speech that is central to the meaning and purpose of the First Amendment” is getting frozen with current campaign finance laws, despite their good intentions.
• Broad, not narrow Instead of focusing on the narrow view of Citizens United, the court decided to widely interpret the law, rendering nearly 100 years of campaign finance laws and judicial rulings useless.
• Corporate ad crazy The court decided to overturn some of the most important elements of Austin and McCain-Feingold, so now we can be barraged with annoying political ads all the way up to election day!

Why John Paul Stevens is awesome:

• 89the age of John Paul Stevens, the Supreme Court’s oldest justice and also its most liberal
• 90 number of pages of pure, unadulterated dissent from Johnny boy; not bad bro source

The main point of his (mostly) dissenting opinion:

• The Court’s ruling threatens to undermine the integrity of elected institutions across the Nation. The path it has taken to reach its outcome will, I fear, do damage to this institution.
• John Paul Stevens • In his lengthy, massive dissenting opinion in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, probably the most dramatic decision the court has made in at least a decade, due to the impact it has on the electoral process. He apologizes for the length for the document before leaping in. But he really had to. This thing is huge – it’s nearly twice the size of the opinion it refutes. source

What does all this mean for you, ShortFormBlog fan?

• one Corporate influence is once again going to be a major factor in political campaigns. And they won’t have any limits on their speech.
• two You’re going see more ads on TV in the days leading up to major elections. The ads could be from corporations or nonprofits.
• three If Fred Thompson runs for president again, TNT can air repeats of his episodes of “Law and Order” all the way up until election day. source

• This clip cost NBC $1.5 million to produce. It’s the kind of thing Conan can get away with because 1) He’s a genius 2) He doesn’t care about NBC and 3) He’s smarter than the people getting rid of him. NBC’s reaction? They pulled the clip from Hulu and NBC.com. But strangely, it’s on YouTube. We can’t wait for tonight’s show. source

• If you are coming to NYTimes.com from another Web site and it brings you to our site to view an article, you will have access to that article and it will not count toward your allotment of free ones.
• New York Times Co. President and Chief Executive Janet L. Robinson • Discussing the change of the New York Times’ model from free to paid and leaving an interesting tidbit in the midst: Tweeted/refered links to the Times will work exactly the way they do now. Which means that hitting the paywall actually requires digging into the site. We’re intrigued. (hat tip Charles Apple) source

• 5-4 douches beat cool people once again source

• Two clips, two obvious pop culture references, two guys that completely miss them. In the first clip, the guy reads a letter from a man who has the exact same problem as the Fresh Prince of Bel Air. In the second, the letter-writer says that God is a man who rickrolls. Jesus, you guys need to start watching a wider variety of secular TV. Those are blatantly obvious.

• Today, the good people at Seesmic are launching “Look,” which is a Twitter client designed not for the power users that most Twitter clients are made for, but for the mainstream. It’s an attempt to give some visual polish to a medium that can feel slightly obtuse to people who don’t use it. It’s also designed for an audience completely at odds with fans of TweetDeck or Seesmic Desktop. Would you use it? source