From MoveOn.org:

John McCain, was the deciding vote AGAINST Internet freedom during a key vote this week in the Senate Commerce Committee.

The committee voted 11 to 11 on the Snowe/Dorgan proposal to preserve Net Neutrality—one vote shy of passage. John McCain voted to let companies like AT&T put tollbooths on the Internet and gain more control over what you see and do online. The fight to preserve the free and open Internet now moves to the full Senate.

Please call Sen. McCain today and say "shame on you" for opposing the Snowe-Dorgan Internet freedom proposal. Tell him to oppose any bill in the full Senate that doesn't protect Net Neutrality. Here is the number:

Senator John McCain, Phone: 202-224-2235

Senator McCain took $44,250 in contributions this election cycle from big telecommunications companies, according to www.opensecrets.org, and then sided with them in (the) vote.

Every so often, something makes it into the newspaper that, despite everyone's best intentions, ends up being offensive and inappropriate. God knows we've done it here at the Weekly.

If you own a house, want to own a house or have ever been in a house, you may want to check out Zillow.com. It's a simple site, really: You type in an address, and it will give you an estimated value, using recent sales and other data.

While some of the values are a bit strange, the site seems fairly accurate. It does a fantastic job of showing that last year's Tucson real estate bubble has at least deflated, if not necessarily burst.

Case in point: My house went down in value by $92 in the last week, so says Zillow. Sigh.

I was so excited to see a new, independent café about five drive-time minutes away. Someone was clearly thinking outside the box by transforming a landscape business into a restaurant. The back grounds were gorgeous and conducive to small groups gathering for coffee and breakfast while the inside was equally cozy. At first, it was always crowded, and service was slow, but somehow it seemed earnest, and you didn't mind waiting and talking and even commingling with other diners. Everything was fresh right down to the house-made marmalade made from organic oranges. At first, the bakery items were also made in-house, and their freshness appeal penetrated your senses.  Who can resist a freshly baked cinnamon bun or Danish? Glowing reviews appeared from the local media.

But then bad things started to happen. The phone number was changed, and the old phone number did not forward to the new phone number. They only accepted cash and checks in a credit-card world.  A better system was needed as there was a perpetual bottleneck at the counter, which might be understandable in the beginning, but eventually a viable solution must appear. Peering into the pastry case, the choices diminished, and if you ordered a croissant and wanted it warm, the ultimate sin of microwaving caused a rubbery, not buttery, texture. The proprietress was frequently absent, and no one seemed to care if you were present or not. Although there were few customers, the long wait to order and food delivery became interminable. A reader told me he walked in, the place was empty, all the tables were dirty, and he walked out. Ouch.

A friend who lived around the corner declared that she was never going back. She had a litany of reasons why, but we both felt a sense of loss, because Olivia's held such promise in the beginning. What the heck happened?

The good folks from the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies have posted a transcript of Bill Clinton's June 17 speech. It even includes the Q&A afterward. It's long, yes, but it's some good stuff.

Trust me. I was there.

Ever wonder why our health care is so expensive?

It's because we are subsidizing the pharmaceutical drug industry. At what point did we (present company excluded—I have no prescription drug coverage) become such a pill-popping society?  Maybe when every major network started advertising pharmaceutical drugs: Ask your doctor about the purple pill … so s/he can be rewarded with expensive electronic toys and trips to resorts. Maybe if these doctors stopped bopping every pill that came down the pike, their malpractice insurance wouldn't be so high.

Since the drug lobbyists are bigger than yours, the problem is not going away any time soon. For an eye-opening article, read the latest TruthOut editorial.

Apparently, the terror-loving, treasonous leftists on the Supreme Court have ruled that those accused of being terrorist enemies of the state still count as humans. Sick. When will the world learn that if the president (God bless him) doesn't have the right to conduct the war on terror free from any sort of oversight. then we might as well all put on turbans and start muttering prayers to the false god "Allah?"

I only pray that Ann Coulter's plan to assassinate the Supreme Court justices comes to fruition so that we can finally return to peace and freedom.

Dan Kennedy, one-time media critic for the alt-weekly Boston Phoenix, offers his ninth annual round-up of those who undermine our freedom of speech and civil liberties. These days Dan does his media criticism—and occasional comments on baseball—from his blog Media Nation. The Muzzle Awards focus on the New England area, but there's plenty of undermining going on there, so it's a good bet there's similar stuff happening all over this country.

So The New York Times reports on a government program with questionable legality, and morons like Arizona Rep. J.D. Hayworth want to punish ... The New York Times?

C'mon.

I've always defended MySpace due to what it does for independent musicians—anyone can post music and create a page for free, and so suddenly the whole question of legal/illegal downloads becomes mute: just go to their MySpace page, and listen to some songs there.

But since anyone can create a page, there are a whole lot of anyones out there who should probably be finding better ways to spend their time. Which is to say, I am sick of getting friend requests on MySpace from crappy bands.

See, if you dare to list bands you like on your profile, or are friends with bands you like, inevitably, wannabes from all over the world will try and lure you into being their MySpace friends. Now, I'm not against being turned on to new bands ... it's just the way some bands do it. I prefer the "send me a message and tell me a little about yourself" method. I probably still won't add you, but I appreciate the semi-personal effort.

But just flat-out asking to be my friend, when I've never heard about you? Then, being the good music critic that I am (ha!), I actually have to go to your page, listen to your music and then make a decision. This takes time. I don't even know you, and you're wasting my time. I end up listening to a lot of appalingly bad music. The worst is when the music is just mediocre. It's like, you went to all this effort, and your music's just OK? C'mon. There are too many damn bands out there for you just be kind-of-good.

Now, I should say that I have actually found some pretty interesting artists through this will-you-be-my-friend? technique, but then I get friend requests from bands like this, and it just brings into focus the high-school like desperation that MySpace creates.

No one needs 5,000 friends. Really, you don't.