Your analogy is flawed. IRC is nothing like the web. As you said, IRC is a decentralized network. There are connections between the servers. "The web" doesn't exist - it's just a bunch of servers that have no connection to each other. The IRC split just referred to other people starting their own IRC networks. Maybe you meant to compare IRC to DNS, which is a giant network of sorts. I think a DNS split is very unlikely, though. There's little benefit to having a single giant IRC network, but obvious benefit to having a single DNS network, without which the whole Internet basically gets fragmented, from a usability standpoint.

Clearly you don't understand how the Senate works. Bills need support to pass, regarldess of their content. People make deals to support each other's bills. Having friends in your court is crucial if you want to get anything passed. Is this right? Maybe not, but that's how it is, and it's not exactly a secret. For more information, I suggest reading Fight Club Politics, available at your local library.

I think the part he was actually responding to was "Spam is commercial email. This is email about a pending legislative action, and thus Jack Thompson has the right to send it because he has a right to free speech." Spam isn't necessarily commercial, and no he doesn't. The fact that the CAN-SPAM act in particular may not apply doesn't change the widely accepted definition of spam.

I don't think this has been true for years. And the only problems I recall were some hardware vendors not putting out 64-bit drivers, but they seem to be on board now.

What the hell are you talking about?

This goes both ways. No one is forcing Disney to use the "disable skip" feature. HDCP is required by the hardware (at least for Blu-Ray). Who do you think pushes for things like HDCP? The studios. Yes, that includes Disney. The operating systems wouldn't enforce these restrictions if the media companies weren't pushing for them.