10th annual March to Abolish the Death Penalty

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10/24/2009 Austin TX
Hundreds gather at the TX State Capitol to protest the Death Penalty. After so many people have been exhonerated it is unfathomable that this archaic practice still exists within our "justice" system. On Tuesday Oct. 27, 2009 Reginald Blanton will be murdered by the state unless Governor Rick Perry grants him a Stay of Execution. Call Governer Perry and tell him to stop this unconscienable practice today! Before another innocent person is murdered in your name.
Governor Rick Perry (512) 463-2000

Austin Citizens Stand Against Coal!

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10/22/2009 Austin, TX
Austin citizens stand in opposition to the continued use of coal fired power plants in their city.

Station Fire : Time lapse photography of Greenridge burning.

The Station Fire: Angeles National Forest

View Los Angeles County fires north of La Canada Flintridge, Altadena in a larger map
Los Angeles County fires north of La Canada Flintridge, Altadena
6:15 p.m., 8/29/09: Flames are growing closer to Glendale, La Crescenta, La Cañada Flintridge, and Altadena. Evacuations are underway in northern La Crescenta; Glendale neighborhoods north of Santa Carlotta Street; the northern edges of La Cañada Flintridge; northwest Altadena; and the Florecita neighborhood. Flames were pushing toward Big Tujunga Canyon and Mt. Wilson. Zoom out for other fires.

Victor Agosto and Travis Bishop: WAR RESISTERS!

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Today Victor Agosto will start meeting with Fort Hood's Trial Defense Services about his status as an Afghanastan War Resister. Victor has decided that the Afghan and Iraqi wars do not serve the American people, and rather undermine the security of our country. He is refusing all orders that facilitate deployment to Afghanistan. He has decided to stay in the Army while he resists in hopes of encouraging others who may feel the same way from within the ranks, and it has already worked! Travis Bishop is also resisting! Well good on you, gentlemen! We support our troops that RESIST WAR!
To support Victor's legal fees you can donate HERE!

map of H1N1 "swine flu" cases

This map has moved!
Pink markers are suspect
Purple markers are confirmed or probable
Deaths lack a dot in marker
Yellow markers are negative

View H1N1 Swine Flu in a larger map

Governor Rick Perry: Austin Tea Party

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4/15/2009
Austin, TX
Governor Rick Perry soke today at the Austin Tea Party to about 1500 teabaggers. I was able to get in only one question at the end.

A New Way Forward: Protesting the Banking Bailouts

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4/11/2009 Austin, TX
A New Way Forward organized a national day of protest against the banking bailouts and the heavy presence of bank interests in control of our governmental policy.

the good news from G20

the kids are mixing it up at the g20. note the BBC spin against the rights of the protesters. the pictures speak volumes above the announcer.

** for educational purposes only.

SXSW Interactive: Bar Camp

Today was the official second day of South By South West Interactive, and I had the great fortune of attending some of the free workshops surrounding the highly expensive event at Bar Camp. As a luddite, I found this quite an edifying experience.

A lot of the information today was on social media and social networking. I did not take notes on the Facebook class, tho I probably should have, but frankly, I find Facebook and Twitter to be a necessary bore. I suppose I have what is called in the industry “social media fatigue”. The good news is that if you have more money than sense you can sign up for portals like OneSpot (for 150 clams a month after the initial trial period) as a highly personalized feed aggregating system, or TarPipe, to act as a distribution tool to get the word out to many of your sites at once. And, Augmented Reality is totally cool, but completely beyond my personal scope of techdom.

I met four guys, The Innovators Road Trip, who traveled the country to different corporations including Zappos, Maker’s Mark, and Ford Motor Company (to name a few) researching industry innovations. These guys are sweet and cool, and you really ought to check their stuff out. They work a lot using the iPhone and all that jazz to get the word out stat.

Denver Open Media presented on the use of Drupal to create an Open Media Project System. These great folks, whom I had the pleasure of working with during the DNC, are helping to open six new Open Media Stations throughout the US this year! Support ‘em if you can!

Prolly the coolest presentation that I saw was by this British dude that started RewiredState. These kids realized that the worst web sites out there are frequently run by the government. They decided ply geeks with beer to hack the websites and put up something better. They bought the British equivalent of $250 of beer and recruited about 100 geeks (geeks don’t drink much?) and hacked 30 government websites in 24 hours. A lot of stats, I know, but these kids really rocked the Kasbah, and you can too!

Now here comes the weird part. We were waiting to hear a presentation on live broadcasting, and were in the wrong place or it was canceled, I’m not sure. But what I saw and heard blew my freakin’ mind. These cats at Harvard are doing electron microscopic computer imaging of neuron patterns with the intent of creating the framework for greater capacity Artificial Intelligence. The crux of the so called biscuit is the resolution vs. the volume of data that can be obtained and thereby analyzed. The latest development is Ken Hayworth’s brain slicer, which works a lot like an apple peeler, and can slice cerebral cortex into a ribbon 1 millimeter in width by 20 nanometers thick, enabling the computer to roughly trace every neural connection in the brain. By breaking the brain into a neural map, it becomes a matter of engineering to create Artificial Intelligence that surpasses today’s exponentially. The only inhibitors to the creation of a super Artificial Intelligence are money and time. I wanted to ask the guy how much of his funding comes from the Military Industrial Complex, but as a pacifist, I chickened out.

Winter Soldier: South Central Region

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Feb. 28, 2009 in Austin Texas the Iraq veterans Against the War held the Winter Soldier for the South Central Region. In this clip you get to hear about the war crimes that are committed in YOUR name. So check it out.

You know, as long as there is some asshole that will go enlist to kill people, there will be war. I used to think that, like darwin, these folks would eventually kill each other off, and the world would be a more peaceful place. Now with Barack-the- war-monger in office wanting to expand our military by 17,000 troops in Afghanastan, my theory may be tested. Enlisting is up with the current economic downturn, but really people, wouldn't you and your family be more secure if you learned to garden and grow your own food. Keep the shotgun in the closet for defending your country, and your veggies as the food crisis becomes more apparent.

If the economic squeeze is not enough to produce the desired 17,000 warm bodies to the military, maybe the Rahm style "years of service" will become the draft. I mean, we've already sent the national gaurd. who next? Mail Men?

Anyway, anybody who thinks this new administration is anything but worse than the last as far as our economy, the draft, our overxtended military, etc., I challenge YOU to make your case here in the comments.

Who knows, you might change someones mind...
xoxox
skinnychef

along the border

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keep in mind as you watch this that it is filmed ENTIRELY within the U.S.. we NEVER crossed an international border.

it is a sad state of affairs that we are not allowed free passage within the united states. there are checkpoints in every state as you cross the country that daily violate our constitutional rights with random searches. along the border the department of homeland security has taken to spying on citizens, and downright harassment of populations of color by the border patrol.

the border is a conundrum. division suppresses us all. but if we erase borders and rise up and demand a living wage, are we creating a global government that represents nobody. would it be worse? i mean, we humans are an ugly lot, and prove me wrong, but it seems there will always be those who would subjugate others to their will. no matter how sadistic. in fact the worst of the worst will always scratch their way to the top. isn't that anarchy? really?

we are already there.

Mobile Broadcast News First Micro-Cast

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We held our first Micro-Cast on Sunday the 15th in Slab City.
Micro-Cast is an outdoor screening of our independent media in underserved communities. This first Micro-Cast went off without a hitch! we had about 15 Slabbers in attendance, many of whom have little or no access to the outside world unless they go into town and use the public library.

The library in Niland is really a small store front that is open only on Tuesdays and Thusdays for about 5 hours. And, the edict justcame down that the library will NO LONGER be available to people who want to bring in their lap tops and use the free WIFI there.

This is MANY Slabbers ONLY connection to the world outside of this four mile radius, and the Slabbers are righteously pissed. I was encouraging them to go to city council meetings and such, but the reality is that many of the Slabbers are not really living on the same time space continuum as the rest of the world, and CANNOT utilize the "proper channels", 'cause they can no longer access the internet.

So, if you are so inclined, i encourage you to call and write the Imperial County Library Staff, and the Imperial County Board of Supervisors and encourage them to support education, and connectivity, by keeping their library open and available to everyone, including use of the internet!

Imperial County Free Library staff at 339-6460

and

Imperial County Board of Supervisors

District 1 Victor Carrillo 760-482-4309 & 760-357-5476

District 2 Jack Terrazas 760-482-4306 & 760-337-1142

District 3 Michael W Kelley 760-355-2042 & 760-482-4308

District 4 Gary Wyatt 760-344-2181 & 760-482-4613

District 5 Wally Leimgruber 760-356-2639 & 760-482-4305

the ahhhhmenities!

after spending the last month in the "slabs", i finally got a real shower last night!
you might say that not having a real shower for a month is gross. and you would be right. but in the slabs there is running water, a la geothermal hot wells, but it ain't that clean. the cleanest you get is showering in the culvert downstream, with volunteer maintained bio-remediation pools with cattails and fish etc to clean the water pretty good. well, it still smells a little funky, and it gives you dreadlocks as you can see in this lovely photo.

but the slabs are really great, and i recommend a trip out there for anyone who can poop in the bushes, or has an RV. there is tons to do, and it is a great place to chill out and get with the natural rhythms of the day, like going to bed when it's dark and cold. we've had alot of time without electricity, heat, water, and all that jazz, and let me tell you, sitting in this cheap hotel is feeling pretty damn luxuriant. but i digress...

the slabs are a decommissioned military base near niland california. at some point in the sixties the tore the base down to the slabs except for a couple of defunct water tanks it is gone. being federal land it falls into a classification where you can camp there indefinitely, and many people do. the chocolate mountain gunnery range forms the nearest border, so there is plenty of bombing, which surprisingly becomes background noise at a certain point. it's a trip on the slabs.

the folks are friendly and highly social. we got invited to join two clubs on our first day out there. i am not a joiner, but i would consider membership. they make some great omelets at the oasis club for 3 bucks, but if they invite you to play scrabble, be prepared to lose. these guys have scrabble pretty much nailed down. we made alot of friends on the slabs, lots of visitors, lots of fun.

but as i sit here in calexico, just walking distance from the border, in this warm hotel room, with all this electricity, so i can even start to think about getting back to work (gotta thaw out the brain) i can see how some people never leave the slabs. you are completely cut off in a way. something insular and warm about shutting out the outside world and getting off grid, even without the actual heat.

more to come as the brain thaws and batteries charge!
xoxox
skinnychef

gopher flats, slab city

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well, happy valentines day everybody! isn't love grand??? hmmmm...

anyway, Flux and i went with jim and rene and had a great time golfing at gopher flats out in slab city. it is a really fun golf course, and this being my first time, i am not sure, but it looked a little dry.

music by airracket

The Tomato Festival

We were in ANOTHER parade yesterday!!!
The Niland Tomato Festival! Apparently Niland used to be some kind of tomato capitol. Who knew.

The 32nd Occasional Doo Dah Parade

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Pasadena, CA
Featuring some of the greats of Doo Dah!
Count Smokula, Roobie, Uncle Fester, the Fabulous Furries, Queen Skittles, the Disco Drill Team, and of course, the REAL queen-- Erica Valentine!
Enjoy!

All the Doo Dah Day!!!

Yesterday was the 32nd occasional Doo Dah Parade in Old Town Pasadena, CA. The Mobile Broadcast News team (me and Flux) was there in force supporting the REAL queen of Doo Dah, Erica Valentine.
Here is a snippet of the live broadcast. I will be editing the footage of the parade and posting it as soon as possible, so in the meantime enjoy the formerly live broadcast on Ustream!

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Malibu Sunset

Last week we had a beautiful vacation in Malibu. We had the Howling Wolf Full Moon Bonfire and were joined by some heavy hitters and old friends...lovely! Here's a beautiful sunset you can share with us. We live broadcast it (and are planning to live broadcast the parade on Sunday, too...)


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