Wow

Teacher protests in Arizona:

LOOK: A stunning image of just how many teachers are marching to the Arizona State Capitol. #RedForEd pic.twitter.com/1KygktI99N

— Matt Rodewald FOX 10 (@Matt_Fox10) April 26, 2018

To quote Aesop, "In union, there is strength."

Abour F%$#ing Time

It looks like unions are finally gaining a toe hold in the computer game industry, which is arguably the most abusive workplace in IT:

A concern-trolling panel at the Game Developers Conference was the catalyst that led workers to start organizing in a way they never have before.

At this point, you already know the facts: Game workers crunch too much. They’re underpaid compared to comparable positions in other industries. They burn out fast and young. We’ve had, for years upon years, stories and statistics proving all of this, decades of anonymous interviews with artists and coders desperate for something to change, from EA Spouse to the Rockstar Spouses, from The Guardian to Kotaku to here at Waypoint.

We are all aware. Awareness alone has changed nothing.

A little over a week ago, a blip came over the feed of a small Facebook chat group dedicated to discussing games and their creation. It was a link to a roundtable announcement at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. On March 21st, Jen MacLean, executive director of the International Game Developers Association (IGDA), was heading up a talk on games industry unionization.

………

But in this case, the panel was clearly skewed toward blunting union sentiment. It was right there in the title. “Union Now? Pros, Cons, and Consequences of Unionization for Game Devs Roundtable.” (My emphasis). Perhaps it was the contradictions layered one on top of another which made the union roundtable too much for some to bear this time. Whatever the spark was, it tindered a flame. 

Read the whole article, but it appears that MacLean, was so snarky that it led to people realizing that the IGDA was a tool of management, and not a reasonable alternative to a labor union.

Here's hoping that the moronic Ayn Rand sensibilities which permeate IT don't sabotage this effort.

I Know Where I am Eating the Next Time that I am in Toronto

I will have a meal at the Antler Kitchen and Bar, if just because the chef and co-owner had such a beautiful way of dealing with protests from the nut-job vegan crowd:

The vegans planned their protest for the middle of the restaurant’s busy dinnertime shift.

The group of animal rights activists were incensed that Antler Kitchen & Bar, a locavore restaurant in Toronto that says it highlights regional ingredients, served foie gras and farmed meat “meant to run in the wild.” So a group of them stood in front last week chanting “you’ve got blood on your hands,” and holding a banner that read MURDER in hot pink lettering.

Then came the counterprotest.

Michael Hunter, a chef and co-owner of the restaurant appeared in its window with a raw deer leg and a sharp knife, when he began to carve up the meat in full view of the protesters, some of whom later said they were disturbed for days, according to news reports.

“I figured, I’ll show them,” Hunter told the Globe and Mail. “I’m going to have my own protest.”

The episode, which was captured on video by one of the protesters, has since drawn wide attention from local news outlets and social media. The event page created by the activists for their protest has since been inundated with comments, many harshly critical of their cause.

It also appears that this may have actually generated some more business for the restaurant in the long run:

Next time I’m in Toronto I’m dining at Antler. https://t.co/ymcOOu6bSk

— Patton Oswalt (@pattonoswalt) March 27, 2018

We Now Have the Numbers for the March for Our Lives March

We have the counts, and it's more than one million people nationwide:

At least a million Americans poured into the streets on Saturday to participate in the hundreds of March for Our Lives events across the nation.

A review by The Hill of official crowd estimates, offered by city administrations and police departments across the country, found nearly a million total protestors across 62 of the nation’s 100 largest cities. More than three dozen cities where marches were held on Saturday did not offer official crowd sizes, though local media outlets reported thousands or tens of thousands of marchers in those cities.Police and city officials counted more than 200,000 marchers at the largest demonstration, on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington. Another 175,000 people took to the streets in Manhattan, according to New York City police.

Officials in Chicago counted 85,000 demonstrators, and the march in Los Angeles brought out another 55,000 people. In Boston, 50,000 people took to the streets, and 30,000 people joined in both Atlanta and Pittsburgh.

In Parkland, Fla., the site of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School school shooting, 20,000 people demonstrated — although many of the students from the school itself were participating in the march in Washington. A hockey team from the high school was participating in a tournament in the Twin Cities, where police estimated 18,000 demonstrators marched.

Good job, youngsters.

More of this.

My Kids Went to Washington, DC Today

Charlie and Natalie took a bus from the CCBC campus to participate in the March for Our Lives protest.

Charlie promised pictures and videos for my blog, and then he left his phone on the bus, so we will be seeing none of his unique multimedia stylings here.

No official numbers yet, but there were hundreds of thousands at Pennsylvania Avenue.

About the Only Super Bowl News That Matter

No one took a knee during the national anthem.

Bummer of a Birthmark, Recep

It appears that even Cypriot Turks, for whom Turkey is a shield against ethnic cleansing by the Greek Cybriots, are taking to the streets against Recep Tayyip Erdoğan:

Thousands of Turkish Cypriots chanting “we want our country back” have taken to the streets of Nicosia despite heavy rain, after calls for a mass demonstration against Ankara’s heavy-handed policies towards the breakaway republic.

Tensions with the Turkish government mounted this week after a mob of hardliners attacked the office of the Turkish Cypriot newspaper Afrika for running a front-page article critical of the country’s military offensive against Kurdish militants in Syria.

Led by the nationalist Grey Wolves, they went on the rampage after the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, criticised the newspaper’s stance as “immoral” and “shameless”.

Beneath the headline “one more occupation from Turkey”, Afrika drew parallels with Ankara’s 1974 military operation in Cyprus when Turkey seized the island’s northern third.

The Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe condemned the attack as an assault on free press and freedom of speech.

Ahead of the protest on Friday, Sener Elcil, a trade unionist, told the Guardian: “The attack was very violent and very humiliating for Turkish Cypriots, who no longer feel secure in their own country.” At least 5,000 people were believed to have taken part.

“In Turkey, all the intellectuals, journalists and writers have been imprisoned. There is no opposition, but in Cyprus there are people who believe in democracy and peace,” he said.

If history is any indication, an overreaction in Cyprus by Turkish troops might very will go pear shaped in a hurry, and if Turkish troops are expelled from Cyprus, that would be the end of Erdoğan.

One can only hope.

We Have Met the Enemy, and He is Us*

Content warning: Not an isolated incident. pic.twitter.com/ttBYDe4xOZ

— Katie Halper (@kthalps) January 22, 2018

Seriously? Brunch?

This is the sort of thing that makes people think you are shallow entitled self-centered narcissistic asshole.

H/t naked capitalism.

^*Pogo the comic strip. Read it.

I Thought That We Shot Redcoats to Stop This

It appears that prosecutors in Washington D.C. were determined to revive the worst aspects of British treason law, which the founding fathers explicitly repudiated in Article III, Section 3, of the United States Constitution. (British treason law included, "

British treason law could involve, among other things, "Some association with rioting."

That whole "Association with Rioting" thing?

Federal prosecutors were attempting to use that against inauguration day protestors, and today, all 6 defendants (over 100 others remain charged) were acquitted of all charges:

The first six people to face trial in Inauguration Day protests that turned destructive in the nation’s capital were acquitted of all charges, a victory not only for the defendants but also for advocates who argued the government overreached in its effort to prosecute more than 200 people arrested as they marched through the city.

Following a nearly four-week trial and two full days of deliberations, a D.C. Superior Court jury delivered not-guilty verdicts Thursday on multiple charges of rioting and destruction of property.

The defendants — including a nurse for cancer patients, a freelance photographer and a college student — joined throngs of protesters who took to the streets Jan. 20 to protest Donald Trump’s election. Prosecutors said the six were among a group that cut a violent swath through 16 blocks of the city, smashing businesses’ windows, tossing newspaper boxes into the street and damaging a limousine. Authorities tallied the damage at more than $100,000.

………

Jennifer Armento, 38, a Philadelphia woman who was among the six, said the verdict “shows the country that the jury was unwilling to do what the government wanted them to do, which was criminalize dissent.”

………

From the start, defense attorneys said their clients and most others in the group of about 500 were peacefully protesting, while only a handful peeled off and became violent. They criticized police for failing to identify those people and said officers unfairly herded a group of about 200 and charged them with rioting.

During his closing argument last week, attorney Steven J. McCool, who represented one of the men on trial, appealed to jurors to protect the “rights of free speech.”

………

Prosecutors told jurors there was no evidence the six people on trial were personally involved in the vandalism but argued that they chose to remain with the group, essentially providing cover for those who caused the damage.

In his closing argument, Assistant U.S. Attorney Rizwan Qureshi told jurors the group “tore up your city, putting people in danger.”

He presented the jury with the analogy of a bank robbery, likening the defendants to a getaway driver while comparing those who smashed windows to the robber in the bank.

Seriously, the prosecutor's argument is literally unAmerican.

This prosecution was a contemptible attempt to criminalize legal protest.

Must Watch Video

Nomiki Konst talks about the budget process, and the role of consultants.

Rather shocking is the fact that the DNC Executive Committee had no idea what the budget was.

She notes that nearly a billion dollars went to just 5 consulting firms for what was arguably the worst performance of the DNC, and the Democratic Party, in decades.

If you look at a number of comments, people seem to dismiss the whole budget process as irrelevant to the activities of the party.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

The budget process is all about setting priorities at the most fundamental level, and what Ms. Konst observes is that the first priority of the DNC is to enrich a group of favored, and if the last few years are any indicator, incompetent consultants.

This needs to end:

Requiem for a Hero

I am referring to John Raines, who was part of the team who broke into the Media, PA FBI office and secured documents revealing systematic misdeeds by the bureau. 

He was 84:

One day in May 1971, John C. Raines, a religion professor at Temple University, had just returned to his home in Germantown, Pa., from playing tennis when two F.B.I. agents knocked on the door.

For weeks, hundreds of agents had been combing Philadelphia for the amateur burglars who had embarrassed the F.B.I. by raiding a suburban field office and stealing a thousand files, and then baffled the bureau by evading capture.

The documents were delivered anonymously to journalists and congressmen as proof that the bureau had systematically and illegally infiltrated, intimidated and disrupted protest groups.

………

The burglary, and subsequent lawsuits by NBC and others, prompted a groundbreaking investigation in 1975 by the so-called Church committee, a special Senate panel led by Senator Frank Church of Idaho. The committee revealed details of the F.B.I.’s secret Cointelpro, or counterintelligence, operation, which included illegal sabotage of dissident groups deemed to be subversive.

Dr. Raines died on Sunday in Philadelphia at 84. His wife said the cause was congestive heart failure.

………

Among the files was an F.B.I. order to interview dissidents aggressively. The bureau’s goal, the order said, was to “enhance the paranoia endemic in these circles” and “to get the point across there is an F.B.I. agent behind every mailbox.”

What that proved, Dr. Raines said, was that J. Edgar Hoover, the F.B.I. director, “was not simply into surveillance; Hoover was into taking the voice of dissent away from dissent.”

The cache also included a routine routing slip with the word “Cointelpro.” The burglars overlooked the document, but the Church Committee later exposed the program in detail.

This man was a hero, like Ellsburg and Snowden.

Resurgent Germany, Revolt in Spain, Right Wing Populists Taking Power, What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

I don't think that Catalonian independence would happen if the Madrid had even the vaguest concept of deconfliction strategies.

Unfortunately for Spain, and for Catalonia, Spanish PM Mariano Rajoy has based his entire career on n*****baiting the Catalans and the Basques, so everything is going pear shaped:

The Spanish government has taken control of Catalonia, dissolved its parliament and announced new elections after secessionist Catalan MPs voted to establish an independent republic, pushing the country’s worst political crisis in 40 years to new and dangerous heights.

Speaking on Friday evening, the Spanish prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, said his cabinet had fired the regional president, Carles Puigdemont, and ordered regional elections to be held on 21 December.

Rajoy said the Catalan government had been removed along with the head of the regional police force, the Mossos d’Esquadra. The Catalan government’s international “embassies” are also to be shut down.

………

The actions came hours after Spain’s national unity suffered a decisive blow when Catalan MPs in the 135-seat regional parliament voted for independence by a margin of 70 votes to 10.

 If Madrid's response had been a bit more measured, this would not be racing toward disaster.

Catalan Farmers PWn Police

Catalan farmers announced plans to block roads with their tractors at the French border.

Police raced to the border so that they could, as is their wont, break some Catalan heads.

They found no one.

The farmers had decoyed the police and established the blocked further south, effectively marooning the police and national guard. (Google translate link)

Even if I were not inclined to support the Catalans, (Rajoy and his PP party are Franco's heirs, and the King of Spain is, well, the King of Spain, the heir of Ferdinand and Isabella, who I am even less inclined to suppor) I would admire the sheer level of protest craft in this deception.

Well played.

H/T Anti-Fascist News on Facebook, the source of the picture.

Not Again………

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's goons just beat more protesters in the United States again:

Violence erupted at a New York hotel after protesters heckled a speech by Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan with chants of "terrorist".

Mr Erdogan was addressing supporters in Turkish at the Marriott Marquis Hotel in Times Square when he was interrupted by several demonstrators.

"You're a terrorist, get out of my country," one protester shouted before he was punched and dragged away.

Mr Erdogan is in New York for the UN General Assembly.

In footage from the speech on Thursday, protesters are seen being pushed and punched in the head as they are ejected from the venue by suited men.

It is not clear at this stage if they were pro-Erdogan attendees, presidential bodyguards, or guards providing security at the hotel.

It's pretty clear what they were.

We saw this in DC as well. It's his goons.

We need to declare his entire security detail personae non grata, and let some more responsible entity, say for example Blackwater, manage his security.

Clueless Protesters

Some fans in the Monster Seats hung a banner over the wall that said, “Racism Is As American As Baseball.” Security removed them. pic.twitter.com/tVSai9XocY

— Pete Abraham (@PeteAbe) September 14, 2017

Given Boston's history of racism, I'm inclined to think that protesting racism at Fenway Park during a Red Sox game is a good thing.

Boston is NOT a "woke" place, and getting in the face of the town in what is arguably the most Boston place in Boston is a good thing.

That being said, if you do protest, run it by an editor to make sure that your actual words are unambiguous:

Fans draped a sign reading “Racism is as American as baseball” over the Green Monster at Fenway Park during the Red Sox-Athletics game Wednesday night.

Red Sox spokeswoman Zineb Curran replied with the following statement via email when asked about the incident:
“During the 4th inning of tonight’s game, four fans unfurled a banner over the left field wall in violation of the club’s policy prohibiting signs of any kind to be hung or affixed to the ballpark. The individuals involved were escorted out of Fenway Park.”

According to The Boston Globe, the sign was visible for about two minutes and no arrests were made in connection to the incident.

………

One member of the group spoke to CSNNE anonymously Wednesday night, telling the network they expected to be kicked out of Fenway but were surprised by some people’s interpretation that their message wasn’t clear.

“I guess we should have seen that coming, but we also didn’t think of it as an ambiguous message,” the group member said. “It’s kind of telling that it is being interpreted as one.”

When I first heard about this, I thought that it was a group of white supremacists endorsing racism.

For F%$#'s sake, you need to run you slogans by an someone who wasn't involved in drafting the slogan, and maybe a trained copy editor.

To quote a an internet meme, "Get a brain, morans."

Tweet if the Day

a good statue:
a bronze shoe statue built for Iraqi journalist Muntazer al-Zaidi, who threw his shoes at Bush pic.twitter.com/oGg0fuZpR0

— SubMedina (@SubMedina) August 22, 2017

H/t naked capitalism for finding this engaging bit of history.

These days, we have a surfeit of targets for such a protest.

Paging Paul T. Riddell!!!*

It appears that dog lovers of San Francisco have decided to to let their dogs' colons express their distaste for the latest white supremacist theater:

When a group of far-right activists come to San Francisco to hold a rally this Saturday, they will be met by peace activists offering them flowers to wear in their hair.

Also, dog sh%$. Lots and lots of dog sh%$.

Hundreds of San Franciscans plan to prepare Crissy Field, the picturesque beach in the shadow of the Golden Gate Bridge where rightwing protest group Patriot Prayer will gather, with a generous carpeting of excrement.

“I just had this image of alt-right people stomping around in the poop,” Tuffy Tuffington said of the epiphany he had while walking Bob and Chuck, his two Patterdale terriers, and trying to think of the best way to respond to rightwing extremists in the wake of Charlottesville. “It seemed like a little bit of civil disobedience where we didn’t have to engage with them face to face.”

Just a word of note:  Don't exclude all those folks who keep Vietnamese Potbellied Pigs.  Pig sh%$ is even worse.


^*He is an author who related what might be the ultimate fecal sabotage tale.

Between the Ages of 7 & 13, I Lived in Charlottesville

What the Dead Kennedy's Said


Goddamn Virginia Nazis!

Nazis, not an exaggeration, see the photo, marched in Charlottesville over the weekend carrying firearms and wearing body armor, and were greeted by counter protesters.

One of the Nazis drove his car into protestors, killing one. (He's been caught and jailed.

There is video of the attack, but I strongly recommend avoiding it.

Trump, who has called this sort of attack terrorism repeatedly in the past, responded with a lame ass "both sides do it" statement, which was quickly followed by widespread condemnation from a chorus of critics, including the New York Times and a startlingly large number of Republicans.

Following this, and the resignation of 3 members of his council of U.S. business leaders, Trump finally issued a grudging condemnation of white supremacists:

President Trump is facing a crossroad in his presidency — a choice between adopting the better-angels tone of a traditional White House or doubling down on the slashing, go-it-alone approach that got him elected in 2016.

On Monday, he tried to walk both paths — and satisfied neither supporters nor critics.

Mr. Trump, bowing to overwhelming pressure that he personally condemn white supremacists who incited bloody weekend demonstrations in Charlottesville, Va., on Monday labeled their views as racist and “evil” after two days of issuing equivocal statements.

“Racism is evil,” said Mr. Trump, delivering a statement from the White House at a hastily arranged appearance meant to halt the growing political threat posed by the unrest. “And those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs, including the K.K.K., neo-Nazis, white supremacists and other hate groups that are repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans.”

When law enforcement needs to pursue what happened as terrorism, and the media needs to describe it as terrorism.

The fact that this term, and those laws, are never applied when white people are involved has contributed to this problem.

Right wing terrorism accounts for more than 3 x the number of attacks from Islamists in the United States, but it's not a priority, because of their ineffable whiteness.

It is white privilege writ large.

Adventures in Inventive Protests

Protesters in Minneapolis have put up street signs warning people that the local police are easily startled:

Joe Morino brought an incredulous friend to see the orange street sign he just spotted in the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood of Minneapolis.

The official-looking metal sign read: “WARNING: TWIN CITIES POLICE EASILY STARTLED.” It featured a graphic silhouette of a police officer, a gun in each raised hand, shooting in both directions.

“There’s a side of truth to the sign,” Morino said after snapping a picture of it. “That tells you there is something wrong with the system.”

The sign, which was still up at 8 p.m. Sunday, was one of at least two seen in the Twin Cities Sunday.

A photo of the same sign, reportedly near the corner of Snelling and University avenues in St. Paul, circulated Sunday on social media. A Facebook post said that sign later was removed.

Each was screwed into upright metal posts in the same fashion as conventional street signs.

The signs reference the killing of Justine Damond just over a week ago by Minneapolis police officer Mohamed Noor. Noor’s partner, Matthew Harrity, told the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension that he heard a loud sound right before Noor fired his gun, hitting Damond.

Do not underestimate the power of mockery.

True

The founder of the Russian punk bank Pussy Riot, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, is saying that liberals are using Putin as a scapegoat to avoid looking at the problems of the Democratic party.

Considering the fact that Putin had her thrown in jail for over a year for their protests of his regime, it is a remarkable statement:

Sirota: Do you believe the American political class and media exaggerate the threat of Putin for its own ends?

Tolokonnikova: Yeah. They're just looking for a scapegoat and, you know, for Trump it's Muslims and Mexican workers. And for liberal media in America it is Putin.

I've been saying this for how long?