Bicycles, Maps, And Helmets

From Democracy Under Surveillance by Michael Scherer

As I noted yesterday, a document obtained by the Colorado ACLU shows that the Denver Police had requested a widespread effort to gather intelligence on such normal activity as people with "bicycles," "maps," and "helmets," since all three devices could be used by violent protesters. (Recently, a Denver activist who had gathered bricks to do masonry work on her home was interviewed by police on suspicion of gathering projectiles for protests.) The end of the same memo also included this alarming notation: First responders who "discovered the above mentioned" were asked to contact Denver Police and the CIAC, a joint fusion center for information sharing between local authorities and the Department of Homeland Security.

Read more here.

A Wake-Up Call

The revolution will not be televised.

Kucinich Speech - Democratic Convention 8-26-2008:


Here is my favorite part of the Kucinich speech:

Wake up, America. This is not a call for you to take a new direction from right to left. This is call for you to go from down to up.

From Text: U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich Remarks to DNC:

It’s Election Day 2008. We Democrats are giving America a wake-up call. Wake up, America. In 2001, the oil companies, the war contractors and the neo-con artists seized the economy and have added 4 trillion dollars of unproductive spending to the national debt. We now pay four times more for defense, three times more for gasoline and home heating oil and twice what we paid for health care.

Millions of Americans have lost their jobs, their homes, their health care, their pensions. Trillions of dollars for an unnecessary war paid with borrowed money. Tens of billions of dollars in cash and weapons disappeared into thin air, at the cost of the lives of our troops and innocent Iraqis, while all the president’s oilmen are maneuvering to grab Iraq’s oil.

Borrowed money to bomb bridges in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. No money to rebuild bridges in America. Money to start a hot war with Iran. Now we have another cold war with Russia, while the American economy has become a game of Russian roulette.

If there was an Olympics for misleading, mismanaging and misappropriating, this administration would take the gold. World records for violations of national and international laws. They want another four-year term to continue to alienate our allies, spend our children’s inheritance and hollow out our economy.

Read the rest here.

"This marching thing" in Denver

Griff Jenkins of FoxNews in Denver:

How much money does FoxNews pay Griff Jenkins and Jamie Colby to come up with these words of wisdom?

• “This is the recreate 68 crowd” (Yes, they really do exist. How nice it was of Griff and Jamie to give us so much information and background on them. Not!)


• “This marching thing” (Not to be confused with the talking thing, pretending to be a news person.)


• “I don’t know how rowdy this is going to be” (How about reporting the news, not predicting it.)


• “These people say they believe in freedom of speech” (Meaning what, exactly?)


• “Not all of them are Obama fans. That’s perhaps the biggest surprise of all. Obama’s getting not as much love as even Bush.” (It’s no surprise to me, Obama is simply the lesser of two evils. Where is the proof to support such an inane statement that these people dislike Obama more than Bush, because I really doubt that it is true.)


• “But Griff, Puerto Rico and Hawaii as well, what is their concern there?” (Don’t the citizens of Puerto Rico and Hawaii vote?)


• “I guess they don’t believe in freedom of speech” (In response to someone saying: “Fuck corporate media.”)


• “Let’s just work this crowd, and see who else we can talk to” (Work this crowd?)


• “Do you not believe in freedom?” (In response to someone saying: “Stop the torture, stop the war.”)


• “It is out of control” (What? They seemed pretty peaceful and reasonable to me, given who they were talking to.)


• “This group saying that they want to recreate 68” (But Griff Jenkins had previously said: “There are a lot of different groups represented.” Which is it? One group, or many?)


• “Giving them a chance to speak out, to tell what their message is, and they’re not even talking, all they’re doing is screaming and yelling at him” (The message is that FoxNews sucks, lady. Clean out your ears.)

Thanks to onegoodmove, where I first stumbled upon this video.

And thanks to johnny dollar's place for the video.