How Egypt switched off the ‘Net. And how Egyptians — and hacktivists the world over — are routing around the damage. (ADDED: And here’s yet another way — thanks to engineers at Google and Twitter.) “Anonymous: A net gain for liberty.” Dmitry Orlov is interesting and the wording of the headline may be misleading. But why should anyone have to have faith in any human institution? How about confidence, suspicion, contempt, etc. based on performance? “What is a gold standard?” Interesting to see the mainstream financial media finally beginning to address the question without immediately tossing out words like “fringe,”…
13 CommentsCategory: War on Some Drugs
This is the conclusion of my interview with Michael W. Dean and Neema Vedadi, creators of the film Guns and Weed: The Road to Freedom. Part I. Part II. —– We pick up in the midst of Michael’s answer to yesterday’s question about the challenge of finding actors and others to appear onscreen in Guns and Weed. MICHAEL DEAN: We did a lot of things ourselves, to solve problems. There aren’t a lot of good actors in Casper, so Neema and I played multiple parts. I’d thought of asking Boston [T. Party] to play the bad cop, Sergeant Dan Banning.…
5 CommentsThis is the second of a three-part interview with Michael W. Dean and Neema Vedadi, the creators of the new film “Guns and Weed: The Road to Freedom.” Part I is here. CLAIRE WOLFE: How did you two work together on this project? MICHAEL DEAN: It was a great working relationship for many reasons, but mainly because our skill sets overlapped a lot, and also, each guy had the needed skills the other guy didn’t have. Even philosophically: Neema is a lot more well-read than I with libertarian theory, but I taught him the basic truth that if you don’t…
7 CommentsDocumentary filmaker Michael W. Dean and young newscaster/rapper/actor Neema Vedadi have a new film out called “Guns and Weed: The Road to Freedom.” You can view the trailer here. And download the entire film from Freedom Feens (you’ll need a bit torrent client). The film is scheduled to be officially released by a distributor in spring 2011. But you can download with the blessing of the movie’s creative commons license. The online version is NSFW due to language. The spring release will be slightly shorter and cuss-free. In either version, you’ll see some familiar faces, or at least some freedomistas…
19 Comments“The verdict that may shake Russia.” I damn well hope so. The only thing this guy’s guilty of is challenging authority. Hey, this might work — being “too systemically important” to fail. Worth a try, anyhow. A word that’s been crying out to be invented: screwflation. Juries. They’re starting to rebel. (The good news is from Ellendra in a recent comment section.) Hm. In this economy, people are still quitting their jobs with no new work lined up. The article tsk tsks. But it kinda makes sense — considering screwflation and all. What kind of “justice” system sends somebody to…
2 CommentsI missed this yesterday. The Mississippi supreme court has granted Cory Maye a new trial (pdf). This is thanks largely to the heroic journalism of Radley Balko and the skilled representation by Bob Evans and Maye’s other pro bono lawyers. And it’s damned good, if terribly overdue, news. Hope for justice for this very nice young man.
3 CommentsAmazing. A Harvard professor says something sensible. On drugs.
7 CommentsHaving already posted my whoo-hoo news, I’ll keep today’s miscellany short. More on the ringing declaration on the failure of the drug war from those most authoritative medical and public-health sources. Some insights into why such a vital statement is being resoundingly ignored. Still … there’s progress. For the first time, a federal agency is condoning medical cannabis. Well. Kinda, sorta. (Via Freedom’s Phoenix.) Speaking of progress … Over how many years and how many times has somebody announced that encrypting our phone calls would soon be as easy and cheap as encrypting our emails? Maybe it’s finally happening. “Thinking…
6 CommentsVIENNA — Some of the world’s top AIDS experts issued a radical manifesto this week at the 18th International AIDS Conference: They declared the war on drugs a 50-year-old failure and called for it to be abandoned. No one heard. Story here. (NYTimes free registration required; sorry.)
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