Finally

Two wonderful things (both of which should have occurred a long, long time ago) happened yesterday.

The FCC has finally made the decision to put the smackdown on Comcast for their throttling of peer-to-peer networks. This is the statement the FCC sent out to Ars Technica:

This vote reflects the bipartisan support for protecting consumers' access to the free and open Internet. Comcast's blocking is a flagrant violation of the online rights established by the FCC. If adopted, this order would send a strong signal to the marketplace that arbitrarily interfering with users' online choices is not acceptable. Internet service providers do not get to decide the winners and losers online.

Though there is an argument that the long-term effects of this are more far-reaching than the other important development and I care a whole lot about net neutrality, but I have to admit that for emotional impact it has nothing on this:

The American Embassy in Baghdad announced Thursday that it had expanded tenfold its program to help Iraqi employees of the American government here, who faced threats for their work, to obtain visas and ultimately citizenship in the United States.