Dagmar wrote:
Oppression of the People.

Its probably worth saying that prior to the tear gassing the protestors were being really overdramatic. The police were obviously trying to prevent the rally from moving down that side street. Is it really necessary to call them fascists?

We had protest rallies in San Francisco every day, (you and I even participated in some) and they never turned into the kind of conflict that seems to break out every time the hard core leftists are out in force. To think that police in different cities all over the world are specifically singling out these people for brutal repression but allowing all kinds of other protests of every variety to take place every day without similar issues is tin-foil-hat kind of thinking.

These protestors know that conflicts with the police will raise the profile of their demonstrations and they know that these conflicts reenforce their groupthink that the fascist state and the police are out to get them.

Newsflash: This isn't Egypt. You're not living in an autocratic state.

The fact is that these protestors are jerks. The police are not trying to prevent their voices from being heard, they are trying to manage the crowd and keep some of the streets passable. These protestors have no more right to the streets than other citizens who aren't participating in their struggle or don't agree with their views. It was not necessary or appropriate for the police to tear gas them, but you can be a victim of police brutality and an asshole at the same time.

RE: New York Police Are Shit

The senior New York police officer at the centre of the Occupy Wall Street pepper spray controversy fired the gas at protesters a second time just moments later.

After new video emerged on Wednesday showing the second incident, New York police commissioner Ray Kelly told reporters that the Civilian Complaint Review Board would investigate the officer, deputy inspector Anthony Bologna.

The New York Police Department's own internal affairs bureau also plans to open an investigation, the New York Times reports.

Good thing filming the police is not illegal in NYC.

Occupy Wall Street: inquiries launched as new pepper-spray video emerges

First presented at the Google Efficient Data Centers Summit, hosted at Google headquarters in Mountain View, CA on April 1, 2009.

Google container data center tour - YouTube

The machinery of the night...

Aphex Twin - Jynweythek Ylow - YouTube

About two weeks before my return to Earth, I had a videoconference from the International Space Station with astronaut Scott Kelly who told me about his experience plunging over Niagara Falls in a burning barrel six months before. He was actually describing what his own ride home from the ISS on a Soyuz spacecraft was like. Now that I’ve taken the same trip, I can tell you that it was as advertised, and more.

Fragile Oasis | Plunging Over Niagara Falls In A Burning Barrel. And More.

This whole article about Anonymous is mostly review but there is one line I thought worth underlining:

“Where is the money coming from?”

I've wondered in the past whether things weren't a bit too sophisticated.

They’re watching. And they can bring you down - FT.com

The legal system almost always sides with the original testimony.  To do otherwise would be to suggest that eyewitnesses are prone to error, that they sometimes get confused, that prosecutors and investigators can artificially transform initial confusion into courtroom confidence.  Worse still, recanting witnesses often claim they were bullied into supporting the state’s theory with threat’s and false promises.  Credit that sort of claim and you undermine public confidence in the system.

Maintaining public confidence in the system has always been the bottom line. 

The Devil’s Logic: when innocence doesn’t matter | Friends of Justice

The Davis case does raise legitimate questions. Should authorities have even sought the death penalty in this case? Though undeniably senseless and cruel, the murder of Mark MacPhail was an unplanned act against a single victim. As I have argued elsewhere, such offenses do not rank among the special crimes – mass murders, for example, or terrorism – for which the death penalty should be reserved.

This seems a moderate, reasonable idea.

Troy Davis: guilty as charged - PostPartisan - The Washington Post

On Saturday, the 178th Oktoberfest opened in Munich, Germany, with the traditional tapping of the first keg of beer by Munich's mayor, Christian Ude, shouting "O'zapft is!" ("It's tapped!").nullnull

Beer is living proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.

Oktoberfest 2011 - Alan Taylor - In Focus - The Atlantic

Many Americans seem convinced that their housing market will remain in the doldrums indefinitely. Conversely, the rapid recovery of China’s economy from the global financial crisis has led many to believe that real estate in the Middle Kingdom is a one-way bet. In fact, property is the most cyclical of assets. Housing booms crater, while depressed real estate markets eventually recover. Part One of this paper aims to describe a typical real estate cycle through its various stages. In particular, I try to identify the characteristic features of the cyclical peaks and troughs.

Part Two applies this understanding of the real estate cycle to the world’s two most important property markets, namely those of China and the United States.

Between Errors of Optimism and Pessimism – Observations on the Real Estate Cycle in the United States and China