Sophia Palenberg/The Chronicle

In an interview on “CBS this Morning” earlier this week, Gingrich blamed his unpopularity on “the establishment” (whoever they are). According to Gingrich, his opponents often attack him because “they’re part of the establishment…They’ll say and do virtually anything to keep the system alive, and I think they recognize that I’m a genuine outsider…I have none of the establishment ties.”

Apparently, you don’t develop any establishment ties from being in Congress for two decades (four years of which were spent as the Speaker of the House and thus second in the presidential line of succession). Neither does offering consulting services to Freddie Mac—a relationship that lasted eight years and brought $1.6 million to The Gingrich Group. Building what The Washington Post called “an empire of companies and nonprofits that took in about $150 million over the past decade” certainly doesn’t make you an insider, either.

Sarcasm aside, Gingrich’s rhetoric amounts to an establishment candidate getting away with packaging himself as a grassroots, anti-establishment, average-Joe type of guy. Regardless of whether or not one thinks that Gingrich did a good job in Congress and supplied useful advice to Freddie Mac, it is still the case that he is about as “establishment” as they come. Admittedly, the meaning of “anti-establishment” can be—and often is—stretched. But even if you, say, lived on a permanent moon base your whole life, a quick look at the dictionary and Gingrich’s Wikipedia page would make it readily apparent that Newt does not fit the bill.

The anti-establishment rhetoric has proven to be an extremely powerful political tool in the past few years. In 2008, it worked for then-candidate Barack Obama, and even for Sarah Palin (at least for a while). It helped a number of tea party candidates get elected in the 2010 midterm elections. As many tea party candidates discovered, labeling yourself anti-establishment is particularly successful because you can then dismiss negative publicity as an unfair attack engineered by The Establishment.

Gingrich’s move to employ this kind of rhetoric will, in my opinion, ultimately demean the argument’s power. By calling himself “anti-establishment,” Gingrich ironically stretches the definition so far that it becomes meaningless.

Sophia Palenberg/The Chronicle

Copyright protection is taking a huge leap forward.

MegaUpload, a popular file-sharing site that allows visitors to download free movies and television shows, is not deleting its online data just yet. Managers of the Carpathia Hosting and Cogent Communications, two services that hosts MegaUpload’s data, have agreed to preserve MegaUpload’s online material for a minimum of two weeks, beginning on Monday.

The commotion around the site began on January 19^th, when the Department of Justice announced that it has taken action to shut down MegaUpload. Prior to the government order, users were allowed to both upload files onto the site as well as download content from other members. Premium members whose content became popular were paid for their participation. Based primarily in Hong Kong, MegaUpload made a total of $175 million through its advertisements and premium subscription fees over a period of five years. At its peak, the site received more than 50 million visitors daily.

After receiving indictments from a Virginia grand jury however, the company was charged for racketeering conspiracy, conspiracy to commit copyright infringement and the federal authorities have since arrested six other people affiliated with the piracy site, seizing 18 domain names and $500 million in assets. According to the indictment, the operators of MegaUpload caused an estimated $500 dollars in harm to copyright holders. Furthermore, New Zealand police also raided the home of MegaUpload founder Kim DotCom, arresting him on charges of piracy, money laundering and racketeering charges. Authorities also seized a significant amount of Dotcom’s personal assets, which included 108-inch flat screen TVs, 60 servers and 18 luxury cars.

The news of MegaUpload’s fall was met with support from the entertainment industry, whose leaders have faced an opposition in their advocacy for the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA). On the other hand, critics who thought the bills didn’t protect civil liberties conducted a U.S. Internet “blackout.” Participants in the Internet freeze included Wikipedia, Craigslist and Reddit. The protest pressured lawmakers to oppose SOPA and PIPA.

Just as opinions varied over online piracy nationwide, Duke students also offered their share of perspectives.

“I can see why MegaUpload was such a popular site,” said freshman Max Karakul. “I just don’t think it’s necessary, especially for Duke students, since we can readily borrow movies and shows from the libraries on campus.”

Other students showed support for the two week extension before Megaupload’s data are deleted.

“It’s a good thing that the files are being preserved,” said freshman Mark Chee. “It’s one thing to punish the founders of website, but it’s another to punish the members who legally uploaded their files.”

Special to The Chronicle

With the 2012 presidential elections coming up, I think it’s pretty clear whom I want to vote for.

Newt Gingrich.

I mean, the guy wants to build a U.S. colony on the moon, and who doesn’t think that’s just the coolest thing ever?! You don’t have to have wanted to be an astronaut as a kid or dreamed of going to space camp to realize the significance of this proposal.

With a moon colony well established by the end of Gingrich’s second term, the U.S. will have realized its policy to once more return a human to the lunar surface by 2020. If we don’t succeed, we will have failed. We cannot fail to follow through with our policies! If we say we’re going to clean the whole world, well, we’ll just have to give everyone a bottle of Windex and fly them to every corner of the earth!

Like Gingrich, I myself “believe in an America of big ideas and big solutions. I believe if we unleash the American people we will rebuild the American dream.”

For those of you out there who are hindering the rebuilding of the American dream with your doubts, I have this word of advice for you: the Canadian Television Network claims, “Experts say [Gingrich’s] moon base dreams [are] not lunacy”!!!

Forget about unemployment or poverty or education, this is a matter of national security. Do we want the Chinese colonizing the moon before us? Those people are already everywhere! If they make it to space first, we can just forget that we ever had any ambitions. Actually, I’d be impressed if the Chinese decided to drop a few bucks on going to the moon when they have problems of education, poverty, corruption, and environmental crises to deal with within their borders.

Wait, what about when I said to forget about our own unemployment, poverty, and education in this country? Oh, I didn’t mean that. Surprise!

I’m not lying about how my dream job was to work for NASA as an astronaut. I am a space fanatic. Are you going to scold me for not holding fast to my dreams and for being dragged into a system that is keeping America from achieving great things? We can achieve great things.

Right now, creating a moon colony is not one of those.

Gingrich’s idea to create a U.S. moon base is not just crazy, it’s insulting to this country’s citizens who actually live on this planet, live within this country’s borders and pay federal taxes. As a U.S. voter, remember to keep a sense of proportion and priority in making your decision at the polls this year. And, unfortunately this doesn’t always go without saying, actually go vote.

Shayan Asadi/The Chronicle

The 2012 race for North Carolina Governor made national headlines last week when incumbent and Democrat Governor Bev Purdue surprisingly announced she would not run for reelection. The announcement, which came just over a month before the filing period begins on February 13th^, has led to large amounts of speculation over who will run in the Democratic primary, which is held on May 8th, the same day as its Republican counterpart.

On the other hand, the Republican primary seems to be all but decided. Former Charlotte Mayor and 2008 gubernatorial nominee Pat McCrory has a clear advantage over his top challenger, Douglas Schell, who garnered only less than one percent of the vote when he ran for N.C. Governor in 2000 as the Reform Party candidate. McCrory has a clear fundraising and organizational advantage over Schell and he is simply more widely known and liked throughout the state.

On the Democratic side, many are happy to see Perdue go. Although she wasn’t disliked by the party, her poll numbers against McCrory were ominous. In early January, a poll administered by Public Policy Polling (PPP), a widely respected Democratic and national polling institute located in Raleigh, showed McCrory with a comfortable 11 point lead over Perdue. On top of that, 51 percent said that they disapproved of the job Bev Perdue was doing as Governor while only 32 percent approved.

Perdue’s departure opens the door for many candidates and two candidates have declared their candidacy while many other prominent North Carolina Democrats have been rumored to be considering a run. Lieutenant Governor Walter Dalton declared his candidacy last Thursday, the same day Perdue announced she wasn’t running, and State Representative Bill Faison declared his candidacy this past weekend. When considering all of the candidates who are rumored to be considering a run in the Democratic primary, the number of potential nominees hits double digits.

Luckily, PPP released a poll on Monday pitting McCrory against 13 potential Democratic candidates. Unfortunately for Democrats, most of the numbers PPP released mirror the results of their McCrory-Perdue poll that they released earlier in the month.

Just two of the 13 potential candidates are within 10 points of McCrory. Those potential candidates are Sen. Kay Hagen (D-NC) and Erskine Bowles, who is the former President of the University of North Carolina system and former White House Chief of Staff under Bill Clinton. According to the poll, McCrory is enjoying a seven point lead over Hagen and a two point lead over Bowles. Out of luck again, Democrats are going to have to hope that Bowles enters the race because on Monday, Kay Hagen declared that she was not going to run.

Bowles is currently the co-chair of Barack Obama’s National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform along with former Republican Senate Minority Whip Alan Simpson. The Commission, which released their bipartisan report on how to close the deficit in December of 2010, will earn Bowles increased bipartisan support.

The report has been, for the most part, ignored by the Obama administration presumably due to its cuts to entitlement spending and its lack of support from the liberal base. Having said that, Obama might be giving Bowles a call in the near future if he is serious about winning North Carolina in 2012 presidential contest.

In a front page article published in The Chronicle on Feb. 3, 1993, the University Safety Task Force issued a final bus report on a fatal bus accident that occurred during the fall semester. The report, which was delivered by former University President Keith Brodie, affirmed that a “defectively designed rear door” caused the death of a Trinity freshman, who fell from the rear door as the bus turned from Trent Drive onto Erwin Road. In response, the University replaced the rear doors in all of its General Motors Corp. RTS buses, which cost an estimated $16,000 per bus. These efforts came in tandem with Washington D.C, where transit officials were also modifying their fleet of GM-RTS buses. The tragedy also prompted campus officials to increase bus safety. Some recommendations included hiring a full-time transit inspector to monitor buses, training and evaluating current bus drivers and monitoring ridership to patterns on a regular basis.

Andrew Luo/The Chronicle

In another article published on the same date, the Duke Computer Science department began major revisions. In an effort to improve the program’s standing, Jeffrey Vitter, former computer science department chair, proposed plans to change both the graduate and undergraduate programs so that all students, even those interested in liberal arts, would use computer science as a method of problem solving. These proposals, if successful, hoped to increase the overall number of computer science majors. Another major change in the department was the purchase of a new supercomputer called the CM-5 parallel processor. The new computer was purchased to be involved in areas of research and visibility for the department.