Excellent article on how an armed society is not a free society, from the New York Times.

The very power and possibility of free speech and assembly rests on their non-violence. The power of the Occupy Wall Street movement, as well as the Arab Spring protests, stemmed precisely from their non-violent nature. This power was made evident by the ferocity of government response to the Occupy movement. Occupy protestors across the country were increasingly confronted by police in military style garb and affect.

Imagine what this would have looked like had the protestors been armed: in the face of the New York Police Department assault on Zuccotti Park, there might have been armed insurrection in the streets. The non-violent nature of protest in this country ensures that it can occur.

Jesus. Anonymous threatens the Westboro Baptist Church. And by threaten, I mean “Armageddon”. A must-listen.

Oh, I so needed this today.

Surprised and impressed, SEPTA.

I’m not in favor of seizure laws for drug and prostitution cases, which alongside extended jail stays and forced labor amounts to the sort of pauper’s workhouses that were outlawed in the 1600s. But Matt Taibbi makes an excellent point about how all you need to do the skirt drug law prosecution is to get involved in nine-figure deals.

So you might ask, what’s the appropriate financial penalty for a bank in HSBC’s position? Exactly how much money should one extract from a firm that has been shamelessly profiting from business with criminals for years and years? Remember, we’re talking about a company that has admitted to a smorgasbord of serious banking crimes. If you’re the prosecutor, you’ve got this bank by the balls. So how much money should you take?

How about all of it? How about every last dollar the bank has made since it started its illegal activity? How about you dive into every bank account of every single executive involved in this mess and take every last bonus dollar they’ve ever earned? Then take their houses, their cars, the paintings they bought at Sotheby’s auctions, the clothes in their closets, the loose change in the jars on their kitchen counters, every last freaking thing. Take it all and don’t think twice. And then throw them in jail.

Sound harsh? It does, doesn’t it? The only problem is, that’s exactly what the government does just about every day to ordinary people involved in ordinary drug cases.

I’m not sure what the possible legal justification is to claim that all conversations on public transport should be recorded, but apparently that’s no big deal.

Transit authorities in cities across the country are quietly installing microphone-enabled surveillance systems on public buses that would give them the ability to record and store private conversations…. The systems are being installed in San Francisco, Baltimore, and other cities with funding from the Department of Homeland Security.

Not what you’re expecting.

Blow Job by TADAO CERN from Tadao Cern on Vimeo.

Why poker rooms should not have windows:

Via Charlie Stross and jwz, one of the coolest things I’ve seen in a long time.

I don’t agree with the premise that society is built around these principles, but some interesting ideas here, and it certainly some areas of society that I find baffling.

Why Are Americans So Easy to Manipulate?

Alfie Kohn, in Punished by Rewards (1993), documents with copious research how behavior modification works best on dependent, powerless, infantilized, bored, and institutionalized people. And so for authorities who get a buzz from controlling others, this creates a terrifying incentive to construct a society that creates dependent, powerless, infantilized, bored, and institutionalized people.

On the Non-Burden of Debt

Another thing I don’t like about the “future generations” conceptual construct… it presumes that they won’t be benefiting from whatever it is we’re buying with that credit. Easy assumption and likely correct when we’re blowing money on tax cuts and wars in Iraq, but probably incorrect for infrastructure and education.

As impressed as I am by this, I do get the distinct and worrisome impression that the Ohio State band kids are being worked like North Koreans to pull this off.

My kind of place: over 80% of America lives within 20 miles of Starbucks.