Jon Stewart went on the internet today and found, to his horror, that he would be forced to “go to the library, like a common masturbator”– Wikipedia was down. Why? The Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA– the bill that proposes to shut down websites that allegedly help facilitate media piracy. Stewart gave his run-down of what SOPA was, how Congress was deliberating it, and, finally, interviewed one of its “victims.”

Today, January 18th, is an important day. It’s the day that a number of huge Internet properties band together in an unprecedented show of unity to defeat a common foe and protect the freedom of information from encroaching political and corporate hoards. It’s also, apparently for some, the day right before that big History test. Yes, as websites like Wikipedia and Reddit shut down for the day to protest SOPA and PIPA, many students are tweeting angrily about their inability to study. Some of those tweets have been collected and, as you imagine, it’s a pretty hilariously awful list.

Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales was a guest on Erin Burnett OutFront Tuesday night, and said that while he’s a believer in protecting copyright, and believes that the system in place — where a copyright holder tells a site to take something down — works best, he’s against “placing all kinds of burdens on community-generated” sites, which burden them with the impossible task of policing everything that their users are doing.

Your worst fears have come true, the internet has come to a screeching halt — sorta. For a whole day, as part of the anti-SOPA protest, there will be no Wikipedia, no Reddit, no WordPress.org, no TwitPic and no BoingBoing. That’s practically the entire World Wide Web, but let’s be honest, Wikipedia is the one you’ll probably miss the most, and you found this article Googling for “alternatives to Wikipedia.”

The New York Times reported late Monday afternoon that Wikipedia plans to go dark – shut down – this Wednesday, just for that day, joining Reddit and other online sites in protest of SOPA, the Stop Online Piracy Act now under consideration by Congress.

Wikipedia, the 6th most trafficked website on the internet will shut down for 24 hours on Wednesday, according to Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales. Wales called the shutdown a “decision of the Wikipedia community,” and will join other sites like Reddit that are also shuttering Wednesday in protest of the Stop Online Piracy Act AKA SOPA. SOPA is legislation that would enable the Justice Department to crack down on copyright infringement on the web, but its opponents think its enforcement would, in effect, destroy the internet.

Congress is set to return later this month, and one of the most hotly contested pieces of legislation it will be facing is the Stop Online Piracy Act. The bill was authored by Republican Lamar Smith, and has received bipartisan support and opposition in the House. There has been a lot of talk about internet- and technology-based companies that support the bill, including GoDaddy (up until recently) and the video game industry.

One of the biggest legislative battles heading into next year is undeniably going to be the Stop Online Piracy Act, a bill backed by Hollywood that takes a rather strong stance on policing the internet for copyrighted material. Hundreds of companies from 3M to American Apparel are throwing their support behind the bill, including the [...]

While the Occupy Wall Street movement continues leaderless and clearly with little working in the PR department, former Democratic Congressman Alan Grayson has taken on part of the burden of explaining and defending the movement in public. Having received a standing ovation on Real Time with Bill Maher Friday night, Grayson appeared on MSNBC tonight with Rachel Maddow, arguing that Occupy Wall Street was the logical conclusion to the stagnating economy.

The pushback against Ron Suskind‘s upcoming (but leaked) book Confidence Men: Wall Street, Washington, and the Education of a President continued today, as Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and White House Press Secretary Jay Carney fielded questions about some of the book’s tales of intrigue. Geithner flatly denied that he disregarded an order from the President, while Carney attacked the book as fundamentally unreliable, and possibly plagiarized from Wikipedia.

This morning, the entire planet was glued to their televisions to watch the testimony of News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch and his son James to the British Parliamentary Committee of Culture, Media and Sport (or, at least, it seems like the entire planet when you follow a ton of media people on Twitter). Everyone knew it was going to be exciting and it was…as long as you consider getting a wide sampling of British and Australian accents “exciting.” And then some guy tried to pie Murdoch in the face only to get punched by the CEO’s wife, Wendi Deng.

Guess which part of the proceedings the Internet is focusing on?

While Sarah Palin has refused to admit that her account of Paul Revere’s famous ride may have been wrong, some Palin fans have taken it upon themselves to make it right. Over the weekend, as the story played out on political talkshows, a mini war was brewing on the battlefields of Wikipedia as people attempted to alter the text on Revere’s Wikipedia page to match Palin’s account while other editors tried to shut them down. George Orwell would be so proud. Or, y’know, horrified.

For a third straight night, Countdown host Keith Olbermann pressed his attack against Scott Brown, whom he first called “racist” and “homophobic,” among other things, then apologized for not attacking harder. Last night, he noted that defenders of Brown had accused him of lying, but offered no refutation. He then laid out the proof of his claims in his new “quick comment” segment and dared someone to disprove him. I’ll give it a shot.

Paul Krugman of the New York Times is calling this economic decade ‘The Big Zero ,’ saying “It was a decade in which nothing good happened.” Paul and I smoke insanely different tobacco. As an entrepreneur that has managed a hedge fund now for 11 plus years through bubbles and crashes, I almost take offense.

This afternoon just before 3 p.m., five people were taken hostage at a post office in Wytheville, Virginia, by a man with explosives strapped to his chest.

Six hours later, they are still there, and it’s a standoff. The identity of the suspect is not yet known, though he claims to be a Marine Corps veteran. He also has weapons: A gun, with shots fired (but no injuries); hand grenades; bombs he claims are inside and outside the building; and 5 pounds of C-4. So far, he has made no demands — other than for pizza.

This week, the New York Times Magazine was dedicated to their newly traditional Year In Ideas thinkpiece. It’s always a fantastic collection of new discoveries, shifts in ways of thinking, and products that we’re likely to hear more about in years to come. It tries, in many ways, to be predictive; to isolate still-germinating concepts [...]

The New York Times Magazine this weekend features a profile about three generations of the comedic Elliott family. But one aspect of the writing of the story seems a bit funny: Chris’s father is Bob Elliott, one half of the legendary radio comedy team Bob and Ray. Bob’s wife’s first husband was Raymond Knight, a [...]

So get this: a woman with two vaginas — that’s right, TWO VAGINAS — that’s right, vaginas, which is a naughty word — is appearing on The Tyra Show today, presumably to talk about the fact that she has two vaginas. Wait, why is this not-actually-all-that-rare condition getting so hyped up?

The New York Times may be in dire, and well-documented, financial straits but it is still the reigning King of Media. Look no further than the latest development over how the Times managed to keep the kidnapping of Times reporter David Rohde‘s off Wikipedia.