Way back when (2005), Comedy Central's Jon Stewart gave fans a (pale) green light to share show content after it ran on the traditional tube:

Wired: The Daily Show really exemplifies that sort of new model. It's on a cable network, not broadcast. It's among the most popular shows traded online. People download and watch the whole thing, every day. Were you guys aware of that?

Karlin: ... If people want to take the show in various forms, I'd say go. But when you're a part of something successful and meaningful, the rule book says don't try to analyze it too much or dissect it...

Stewart: ... I look at systems like the Internet as a convenience. I look at it as the same as cable or anything else. Everything is geared toward more individualized consumption. Getting it off the Internet is no different than getting it off TV.

Maybe Stewart and Karlin weren't speaking for Viacom at the time. Or maybe muckety-mucks ignored it because Viacom was focused on how to spin off a large chuck of itself as CBS Corp. But the handlers at Viacom had to have known what they said.

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Since 2005, arrests by the US Border Patrol have dropped annually. For 2006, the drop was 8%; for 2007, arrests dropped another 20%. For the first six months of 2008, the drop is 17%. You probably won't read this in US media; I found it in this week's Economist.

Will this deflate the issue of illegal immigration come November?

One of the best lines: "The Department of Homeland Security is budgeting $12 billion in the net fiscal year to guard the frontier against job-seekers (and the odd mythical terrorist walking to his target). If trends continue, we'll arrest about 600,000 this year; that's about $20K per arrest.

See Immigration Fence Delayed, US Immigration As A Percent of Population, Poll: Does immigration have a positive or negative impact on the US?

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In Their Boots, an online video-zine about the lives of soldiers who have returned from Iraq and Afghanistan, is premiering today at 4pm Pacific / 7 pm Eastern. This is the first webcast of a documentary series that will stream, live, each week. Same time, same day, same link.

Producers are soliticiting stories of Iraq and Afghani war vets. The series is underwritten by the Iraq Afghanistan Deployment Impact fund (IADIF) and produced by Brave New Foundation. There is, of course, a blog.

If you are unable to "tune in" live, there will be archives; there is also an RSS feed (Feedburner) as well as a way to subscribe using iTunes or YouTube. Watch a trailer.

See Issue: War In Iraq and Iraq War Results and Statistics.