Refused to turn over protest footage of Anarchists vandalizing a police car. Prosecutors make a tenuous connection to damage done to property that's partially funded with federal dollars as a means of getting around California law which protects journalists against a compulsion to turn over unpublished material.

This is kinda bullshit and kinda scary for a number of reasons.

• Vandalizing a police car is stupid. It's an egocentric act with null social impact, and it represents the worst-of-the-worst kind of black-bloc type activity. Stop it, kids. Your energy is being wasted.
• However, the prosecutor's contention that any act against local police is a federal crime which superceeds state law is creepy and tenuous. I hope the ACLU's appeal on this matter wins out.
• Finally, the worst is that jerk-ass federal prosecutors and DAs have this ridiculous hard-on for so-called Anarchists and are implementing police-state type actions and procedures in the hopes of locking some of them up. Almost as stupid as vandalizing a police car. You're supposed to be the grown-ups. Fucking act like it.

This is a conflict that doesn't need to escalate. Most importantly, the precident of these gestapo tactics -- that's not hyperbole: giving the State the power to force journalists to turn over their materials severely undermines the freedom of the press -- is very dangerous.

This should be good...

The Tressler has launched not one but two new websites: The Common Sense Rag and Tressler Designs.

He now runs three of his own Drupal sites, which is, uh, three more than I have. Better get cracking.

Glenn Greenwald:

Ultimately, it seems we are painting ourselves into a corner. We continue to block a cease-fire and attach ourselves to the Israeli military effort on every level. But, as even neoconservatives like Lowry are acknowledging, it seems increasingly clear that the Israeli offensive against Hezbollah is not going to produce anything resembling a victory. Neither the U.S. nor Israel can afford to simply have this war peter out without having a credible claim to victory. So what are the realistic options other than escalation?

If there is a significant escalation against Syria or Iran, it must be resisted by the populace here at home. This means politically savvy resistance, because this won't bring about a wholesale collapse of the government, and conducting some proto-revolutionary crap will only alienate people. What needs to happen is for the popular consensus to be foursquare against more war, and for representatives who supports it to loose their jobs come November.

This will cause people to pay attention.

Here's another hint. Politically savvy anti-war activism doesn't revolve around "defending the people of Palestine and Lebanon". While that's a laudable humanitarian cause, protecting the people of Israel is equally worthy, and conspicuous by its absence. This is not the right message. If you don't want this to be Our War too, we need to make the case in terms of costs and benefits to us, to Americans, and the hard sad fact is that the civilians caught in the middle of all this don't figure into that equation other than in a "making more enemies/bolstering terrorist recruiting" sense.

Sitting here in a semi-torpid state, very low energy, only the underlying buzz of caffeine and pre-apocalyptic stress to fight the fatigue. I haven't even been doing anything very important , just getting up early and riding buses, going through the kind of necessary (but not really) meetings that I used to not have the patience for...

Luckily I was idling in RitRo, the official coffee shop of web 2.0, and so there were beautiful people around. And then my old colleague Molly Moon Neitzel came in randomly, so we caught up and I went with her back to the MFA headquarters and hung out, and then went out with a group to a little Progressive mixer under the emerging "Do More Than Vote" (DMTV) banner. Lots of old faces and interesting new projects. Nice evening.

...and now back in the mission, finishing this afternoon's saved-lunch guacamole from the nice little packed mexican join in SoMa's South Park. Listening to a little C-Lo and Modest Mouse and looking outward on the month.

Back in the day my friend Zack had a great idea to make something called PPipes, which aggregates all the progressive spam out there that none of us read. You have power-users come on and tag/sort/rate/sift it all, and you have regular account-holders say what they want to see in their main page, which they can get an RSS feed for as well. Then you win, because everyone comes to you for what's going on, and organizations stop wasting so much time and energy trying to grow their email list with meaningless petitions and instead do more real work to get shit done.

You might even set up crackpipes, which monitors all the email lists from the dark side.

Anyway, it's a grand idea, and I think we're going to do it.

Sitting here in a semi-torpid state, very low energy, only the underlying buzz of caffeine and pre-apocalyptic stress to fight the fatigue. I haven't even been doing anything very important , just getting up early and riding buses, going through the kind of necessary (but not really) meetings that I used to not have the patience for...

Luckily I was idling in RitRo, the official coffee shop of web 2.0, and so there were beautiful people around. And then my old colleague Molly Moon Neitzel came in randomly, so we caught up and I went with her back to the MFA headquarters and hung out, and then went out with a group to a little Progressive mixer under the emerging "Do More Than Vote" (DMTV) banner. Lots of old faces and interesting new projects. Nice evening.

...and now back in the mission, finishing this afternoon's saved-lunch guacamole from the nice little packed mexican join in SoMa's South Park. Listening to a little C-Lo and Modest Mouse and looking outward on the month.

Back in the day my friend Zack had a great idea to make something called PPipes, which aggregates all the progressive spam out there that none of us read. You have power-users come on and tag/sort/rate/sift it all, and you have regular account-holders say what they want to see in their main page, which they can get an RSS feed for as well. Then you win, because everyone comes to you for what's going on, and organizations stop wasting so much time and energy trying to grow their email list with meaningless petitions and instead do more real work to get shit done.

You might even set up crackpipes, which monitors all the email lists from the dark side.

Anyway, it's a grand idea, and I think we're going to do it.

Sitting here in a semi-torpid state, very low energy, only the underlying buzz of caffeine and pre-apocalyptic stress to fight the fatigue. I haven't even been doing anything very important , just getting up early and riding buses, going through the kind of necessary (but not really) meetings that I used to not have the patience for...

Luckily I was idling in RitRo, the official coffee shop of web 2.0, and so there were beautiful people around. And then my old colleague Molly Moon Neitzel came in randomly, so we caught up and I went with her back to the MFA headquarters and hung out, and then went out with a group to a little Progressive mixer under the emerging "Do More Than Vote" (DMTV) banner. Lots of old faces and interesting new projects. Nice evening.

...and now back in the mission, finishing this afternoon's saved-lunch guacamole from the nice little packed mexican join in SoMa's South Park. Listening to a little C-Lo and Modest Mouse and looking outward on the month.

Back in the day my friend Zack had a great idea to make something called PPipes, which aggregates all the progressive spam out there that none of us read. You have power-users come on and tag/sort/rate/sift it all, and you have regular account-holders say what they want to see in their main page, which they can get an RSS feed for as well. Then you win, because everyone comes to you for what's going on, and organizations stop wasting so much time and energy trying to grow their email list with meaningless petitions and instead do more real work to get shit done.

You might even set up crackpipes, which monitors all the email lists from the dark side.

Anyway, it's a grand idea, and I think we're going to do it.

Down in the Bay Area... legitimately "the area" too, since I spent last night in Marin where Kristin (the Girthly companion) has a sweet house-sitting gig. Today is all business and tomorrow I head back.

There's been a rash of political postings here lately. Apologies to those who find that sort of shit boring.

It's been a good week. Fairly productive, though I think I'm likely to make it a worky weekend to get ahead of next week's houseguests. It's been lovely sunny here and in the '70s. Record heat for the rest of CA was good news for the north coast.

Today it's foggy and cold, as it promises to be for a while. Mark and I are going to pour some concrete to solidify the posts for the new section of fence at the house. It goes around the area where we've previously been clearing brush, new land reclaimed from the brambles. He's headed up to Portland this weekend for a family wedding. I plan to lay low and get a little work/rest done.

Yesterday I took my bike down to town and went to the gym. It still takes about 45 minutes, although I was riding on a dinged rear rim, which I had replaced down at the shop. I'm thinking about getting a cheap-ass bike computer to (statistics) help spur myself to ride faster. I also retain my old rear hub, which has nothing wrong with it, and am considering some kind of home-made exercise-mount or perhaps power-transfer device (e.g. a margarita machine). Could be my starter ticket for bike-theater...

The gym is working out well. Kelly is a day-to-day authority figure at the community pool, and they have a very low-end workout room which I can use for free. It's got everything I need though, and it's usually deserted. I get there about twice a week on average, and have been doing other bike rides, yoga, pushups, crunches, etc here at home. It feels good to be getting overall strength back into my body, feeling the slack getting taken up, the finer control, balance, and surity of motion returning. It's good for my mind, too.

Monday I'll probably make my way down to the Bay. Got some business and an airport redezvous. We've also got guests coming down from Portland, and next week Luke and Julia should be visiting, and then we're headed up to Eugene for a friendly wedding thinger. I'm also headed back to NYC for the last weekend in August for another wedding celebration. Lots on tap.

I'm thinking about mothballing this website for the month. The idea would be to take the time off reading and writing to actually work on rebuilding and relaunching, something I've been wanting to do for more than a year now. Perhaps if I use the time I usually spend reading and posting to work on the new thing it might actually get done. As a bonus I could ignore the march to WWIII for a spell; spare myself some anguish. We'll see.

... yeah 1,300lbs of concrete and it turned into a beautiful day. Quesadillas and Fosters all around.

It's official! Record profits for both Exxon/Mobil and Chevron/Texaco. That rounds out the "big five" and everyone's up about 30-35% over last year.

You know what else is up about 30-35%?

Gas prices.

Gee, what a coincidence.

The invisible hand is picking your pocket, America.