Paramilitary Police State: their raving not rioting

<p>Just got this from my coworker Aaron Pava, originally posted on [l:http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/8/22/13030/7546|DailyKos] apparently some swat teams from Utah County and Utah state shut down what is being described by promoters as a legal, permited rave on private property. You can judge for yourself the veracity of those claims (I am leaning towards believing them as it would seem foolish to attempt to throw a party of such size and expense without covering yourself with permits)</p> <p>after about 2 hours of partying, swat teams showed up, beat up some people, arrested others, fired tear gas. You can see a whole bunch of it in a video [l:http://homepage.mac.com/apexgrin/FileSharing2.html|here].</p> <p>Why is this important? 2 reasons: 1) militarization of the police (they become more aggressive and more dangerous) and 2) criminalization of a subculture and violation of civil rights and liberties. I am not saying that the drug laws should be disobeyed, in all likelyhood there was drug taking going on at the event, but there is drug taking going on everywhere, in law firms, hospitals, banks, baseball dougouts, the olympics (you get the point). Combine these types of warrantlyess raids with legislation like the [l:http://www.emdef.org/s2633/|R.A.V.E. Act] abd you have a bad combination, paramilitary swat teams amped up on adrenalin walking into parties with guns where people may or may not be on drugs looking to arrest people and then take the promoters to jail for the actions of their patrons,</p> <p>Utah law apprently doesn't allow gatherings of more than 250 people without a permit. do you think that mega churches in utah county regularly have 250 people gathering without a specific...

onNYTurf : Google Map NYC-Subway Hack

<p><a href="http://www.onnyturf.com/subwaymap.php">onNYTurf : Google Map NYC-Subway Hack</a> – <em></em> [<a href="http://del.icio.us/gregoryheller">Gregory Heller's Del.icio.us</a>]</p> <p>It was about time somebody came up with this. Surprising that Google didn't do it first, adding mass transit layers to their googlemaps for major metropolitan...

New york voters don't care for the 4th amendment

<p>[l:http://www.ny1.com/ny1/content/index.jsp?stid=1&aid=52914|A Quinnipiac Poll release yesterday found that "Of the 1,600 registered voters polled, 72 percent say they have no problems with the city's random bag checks of subway and bus passengers."] NY1 covers some of the breakout categories and questions, you can go there for more info. But I would jsut like to comment that the folks who are most likely to be the targets of racial profiling are also some of the least likely to be registered voters. And in a city of 8 million people where over half i think are foreign born, many not citizens thus not able to vote, is it really fair to survey just registered voters when asking about attitudes and opinions on basic freedoms and liberties? </p> <p>I would venture to guess that one of the factors (other than economic hardship/opportunity) that drive immigrants to america and NYC is their search for freedom and liberty.</p> <p>It would be more isntructive to know what all new yorkers think about the bag searches, not just voters with published telephone...

ParaSITE: inflatable housing

<p>THis is linked in my delicious too, but i felt it was worth talking a little bit more about the ParaSITE:<br /> <a href="http://www.gizmag.com/go/4455/" target="blank" title="The paraSITE – an inflatable shelter for the homeless that runs off expelled HVAC air">The paraSITE – an inflatable shelter for the homeless that runs off expelled HVAC air</a></p> <p>This is similar in concept the the enflatable party shelters I used to make with [lk:amoebatechnologies.net|Amoeba Technologies Crew]. Except that the ParaSite provides shelters to thos with none. </p> <p>While the idea of these things popping up in NYC like mushrooms after a rain is a little alarming (as noted in the article) It might be what our culture needs to visualize the homeless. I just came back from San Francisco (Oakland and Berkeley). I was not surprised by the number of homeless i saw in SF. I expected it, but it was alarming non the less. What was more shocking was the parade of homeless and destitute folks trudgin by the internet cafe I worked from in Berkely for 4 hours on Thursday.</p> <p>We have a problem in America. Housing is way too expensive. There is no safety net. While on the airplane I was reading Utne Reader and read a piece by [lk:http://www.monthlyreview.org/nftae1104p5.htm|Michael Yates, "The Road We've Taken" in which he writes about the growing inequality exhibited in the housing market], and the growing phenomena of people, even employed skilled workers, living in long term stay residence motels and hotels: enough money to not be homeless, but not enough to get a rental or to buy. These are poeple trapped in the middle,...

The Death of marketing as we know it

<p>I am currently reading [l:http://www.sethgodin.com/purple/|Purple Cow from Seth Godin.] He makes the case that companies need to market to people like me (innovators, early adopters and sneezers) because only we can successfully market their product to mainstream consumers. If you market to the mainstream, no one wants it and there is too much competition. People are distracted and overwhelmed by commercials, and just don't really pay attention anymore.</p> <p>An interesting development that grows out of this problem is product placement and disguised advertising. Last week at [l:http://www.nten.org/conferences-sf|NTEN Regional SF], I had a conversation at lunch [l:http://www.nten.org/2005-sf-pull|some folks] about just this kind of thing. We all noted that companies like Coke and Pepsi seem to be advertising a bit less, but their products are showing up a bit more prominently in television programs, movies and [l:http://news.agendainc.com/mt-agenda/content/archives/2005/06/schwarzenegger.html|on Governor Schwartzenegger's desk.]</p> <p>I have a few examples just from tonight's consumption of mass media and the internet. I watch this alien abduction program on USA called [l:http://www.the4400.com|the 4400]. There are a few scenes where spotless, brand new cars (like the Ford Mustang and some Cadillac feature as prominently as the characters. </p> <p>During the program there was an ad for [lk:oddsagainst7even.com|oddsagainst7even.com]. It features catchy music from a hot band of the moment, I think Bloc Party. I thought this was a movie advertisement, and it has caught my attention before. This time I went to the website. It is an advertising vehicle for Target, particularly for their back to college type products. Currently there are 5 short films on the site, and they are pretty decent, i would say mildly amusing, good looking...