Rattle wrote:

Krick of Evol Intent offers a firsthand account of the events that took place at a party that he was scheduled to play August 20th in Utah. The event was fully licensed, fully legal, and non-violent. Halfway through the party, authorities arrived in full riot gear and ended the event like a full-scale riot (tear gas, attack dogs, and assault rifles).

This link to the video being shot on the stage at the point the show was shutdown appears too be working.

More details about this are desired...

Google news has some coverage. So does Wikinews. Mostly the police seem to be loosing the early PR battle on this one. I imagine the video is the reason why. Also the blogosphere is putting the information in front of a lot of eyes who wouldn't otherwise see it.

For years police in various communities have played the "tear gas and riot gear" approach to shutting raves down, and mostly the press has ignored the rumor mill of drugged out teenagers in favor of the perspectives of the local soccer moms. This time there is proof and alternative media. Its really hard to say that it makes sense to send people into a party dressed like Marines. The tactic is obviously designed to intimidate people. I hope they find the backlash similarly intimidating.

When are the American people going to WAKE UP???? THe war on drugs is nothing but a WAR on the American people. It is a war on OUR KIDS. You don't treat diabetics this way, why do you treat recreational drug users this way? Drugs are a health problem, not a criminal problem. They only become a criminial problem IF YOU MAKE THEM that, and you make them that ONLY to imprison the free that you don't LIKE.

RE: Post RAVE act, post PATRIOT act America | MetaFilter

"For two very good reasons:
The first reason is a practical one.
Suppose you have 5 sacks of grain to share between 8 people, so each would receive 5/8 of a sack of grain in terms of present-day fractions. How are you going to do it simply, without using a calculator? You could try pouring the 5 sacks of grain into 8 heaps and, by carefully comparing them, perhaps by weighing them against each other, balance them so they are all the same! But is there a better way? We will see that using unit fractions makes this easier.
The second reason is that it is much easier to compare fractions using Egyptian fractions than it is by using our present-day notation for fractions! For instance:
Which is bigger: 5/8 or 4/7? You cannot use a calculator.
On this page we see how both of these work in Egyptian fractions."

Ancient Egyptian Fractions - Strange, but better?

If you are not in Georgia, you can find and contribute similiar info for your state at http://www.gasbuddy.com

Looks like the lowest around here is 2.54 at the Kangaroo station on 411. http://www.georgiagasprices.com/index.aspx?s=Y&fuel=A&area=rome&tme_limit=24

Gas prices in Georgia - find the lowest in your area every day

"Civil liberties lawyers have appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court to allow a Wiccan priestess to offer prayers before a public board's meetings.

Cynthia Simpson was turned down in 2002 when she asked the Chesterfield Board of Supervisors to add her name to the list of people who customarily open the board's meetings with a religious invocation. The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sided with the suburban Richmond county.

In their petition, received Tuesday by the court, American Civil Liberties Union lawyers accuse the federal appeals court of trying to "obscure with legal smoke and mirrors" Chesterfield's preference for mainline religions.

"Although Establishment Clause jurisprudence may be beset with conflicting tests, uncertain outcomes and ongoing debate, one principle has never been compromised ... that one religious denomination cannot be officially preferred over another," ACLU lawyers wrote in their 13-page filing.

County officials said they had the right to limit the prayers to Judeo-Christian beliefs and religions based on a single god. Though many variations exist, the Wiccan faith is a generally multi-diety religion with strong focus on earth and seasonal cycles.

"The First Amendment prohibits governments from having an official religion," ACLU Virginia's legal director, Rebecca Glenberg, said in an interview.

Chesterfield County attorney Steven Micas was not immediately available for comment Tuesday.

In 2003, a federal judge ruled the Chesterfield restriction unconstitutional. A three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit in Richmond reversed that decision in April. "

Wiccan prayer dispute heads to US Supreme Court

Wiccan parents MAY teach their children their religion, a court of Appeals ruled in Indiana. It is crazy to me that the court of appeals ever had to hear this case in the first place!

Court limits on parent's faith limited

I've been following the hostilities between Venezuela and the US for several months now. Its been quite rocky lately. However, this is the first I've seen of it from the mainstream media.

Venezuela threatens to stop supplying the US with oil

What started as a sale turned into a mob scene as thousands of people pushed their way through the Richmond International Raceway gates to buy a $50 iBook laptop computer from Henrico County Schools this morning.

Just wait until it's oil, or food, instead of laptops.

I bet at least half of them were eBay sellers.

Mob scene, several hurt in rush for cheap laptops

It is noteworthy that a combination of features as depicted on these morphed photographs is impossible to find in any of living people. A human face can be wrinkless if only it is a digitalized picture. There are no perfect eyebrows, eyes or lips either. One may thus conclude that the woman on this picture is an absolutely unnatural, albeit a beautiful individual. Natural beauty cannot compete with digital perfection: the latter always wins, although it does not exist in reality. The top five of the computer pageant was made of only digital pictures. Furthermore, 79 percent of original male faces and 70 percent of original female faces were described as "not pretty" or even "ugly."

Underestimating their own beauty, humans fall victims to glossy magazine covers

Initially, Cisco and ISS were happy with Lynn presenting his research result. They changed their minds at the last minute. Lynn gave an interview to Wired that talks about some of the details; I am impressed with his integrity in this matter.
 . . .
I can't imagine the discussions inside Cisco that led them to act like thugs. I can't figure out why they decided to attack Michael Lynn, BlackHat, and ISS rather than turn the situation into a public-relations success. I can't believe that they thought they could have censored the information by their actions, or even that it was a good idea.

High praise for Abaddon's integrity, and a well-deserved criticism of Cisco's actions, from the crypto-luminary Bruce Schneier in this month's issue of Crypto-Gram.

Crypto-Gram: Bruce Schneier on the Cisco/ISS Story

Have you ever rifled through your socks drawer to find only three socks. One green, one blue and the other yellow? Where did the other one go? Unfortunately these lonely socks are usually thrown away like a piece of rubbish. :(

We're all too embarrassed to walk into Marks and Spencer and ask for one sock. This is the true motivation behind the site. To reunite socks with their long lost partners.

Such a noble cause

We don't match socks. I buy everyone in this house plain white socks, of all the same brand, and they just go in a basket - they always match and it doesn't matter if one gets a whole or not. I refuse to spend time mating socks.

Reuniting socks