News Roundup for Parent Bloggers, The SOPA edition

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past month or so, you’ve probably read a lot of tweets, blog posts, and Facebook status updates about how we have to “Stop SOPA”…but you may not know what SOPA is.  S.O.P.A. is billed by Congress as “To promote prosperity, creativity, entrepreneurship, and innovation by combating the theft of U.S. property, and for other purposes.”  Sounds great right?  Well, the problem is that the bill will enable government offices and agencies to blacklist certain websites, advertisers, and affiliates from being visible to American citizens. Sounds like some pretty scary stuff doesn’t it?  This week The Times reported that Reddit, the popular bookmarking site, announced it would go black (offline) on January 18^th in protest and many other websites may follow suit.  What effect, if any, remains to be seen; what is certain is that without civilians speaking up to their Congressional leaders, this bill has a good chance of being passed and that could change the internet landscape for all US citizens.

In other news around the web,

• Lots of recalls this week with NPR reporting on the mass over-the-counter recalls, as well as the safety concerns with imported orange juice, so be on the safe side.
• Want to give your kids the leap ahead they’ll need to survive in a changing economic and job landscape?  Teach them to code, says CNN.
• AOL announced this week that they are partnering with Bonnier’s Parenting Group to bring Parenting.com content to AOL readers.
• If one of your resolutions for the new year was to get healthier, the New York Times reports that new studies show that the hormone produced when working out actually works to keep you healthier.
• Microsoft has joined forces with LG to provide coverage for the latest and greatest Microsoft offerings to a wide variety of phones, computers, and tablets running the Android or Chrome OS platforms.
• Think music and film piracy will get you sent to prison? Well, not if it’s your religion in Sweden.  The Church of Kopimism, a ‘church’ set up based on the principal that information is holy, is now protected as a religion in Sweden.
• Are you a music buff like me?  Always posting music videos to your Facebook and Twitter feeds?  Well, now you can play DJ to all of your friends on Facebook!
• In further ‘proof’ that we really may not be the only ones out there, Wired reported this week that at least 100 billion planets make up the Milky Way.

That’s what’s breaking in the news this week, make sure to stop in next week for the latest and greatest from all over the web!

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