Category Archives: news

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Second City, First Line of Defence

Chicago Frankfurt Montreal protests

Chicago Frankfurt Montreal protests

Things have been quiet around the ol’ raincoaster blog lately, mostly because I tried to update Ubuntu like a good little open sourcer and the feculent motherfucker has now stuck my computer in an endless reboot cycle, thanks SO much. Dear Hive Mind: watch your back.

This is because I downloaded Suelette Dreyfus‘s book Underground, isn’t it?

In any case, this is a good time to get back online, even with an outdated, borrowed computer that I can play X’s and O’s on just by writing in the dust of the lid. Because while I was doing nothing much at all but whining at the computer and seeking out home remedies for my (unending) toothache, people in Montreal, Chicago, and Frankfurt were real busy.

Black Bloc Cop

Black Bloc Cop

I think this guy got his uniforms mixed up. He should be a hit at NATO duty, when he wears the Guy Fawkes mask with the dress uniform. Black Bloc Boy is giving him total side-eye.

Cops in Chicago

Cops in Chicago

Chicago el protesto

Chicago el protesto

That caption? Not real Spanish, y’all.

We TOLD you to expect us!

We TOLD you to expect us!

This one is almost certainly British, because David Cameron simply doesn’t register outside of the UK. I can see one Anonymous flag, but can’t make out anything else except much nicer architecture than we have in Vangroover.

And, finally, Anonymous has re-posted its guide to secure browsing. The typos are glaring, but the advice is good, and you do not have to actually understand the instructions to follow the instructions. Like a lot of technical things, it makes more sense the more you use it. I mean, you don’t really know how your car engine works, do you? But you can drive, right?

=== The Ultimate Guide for Anonymous and Secure Internet Usage v1.0.1 ===

Table of Contents:

  1.   Obtaining Tor Browser
  2.   Using and Testing Tor Browser for the first time
  3.   Securing Your Hard Drive
  4.   Setting up TrueCrypt, Encrypted Hidden Volumes
  5.   Testing TrueCrypt Volumes
  6.   Securing your Hard Disk
  7.   Temporarily Securing Your Disk, Shredding Free Space
  8.   Installing VirtualBox
  9.   Installing a Firewall
  10.   Firewall Configuration
  11.   Installing Ubuntu
  12.   Ubuntu Initial Setup
  13.   Installing Guest Additions
  14.   Installing IRC (Optional)
  15.   Installing Torchat (Optional)
  16.   Creating TOR-Only Internet Environment
  17.   General Daily Usage

Since I’m starting from scratch anyway (reminder to self, do not trust Ubuntu One, those are the assholes who fucked up self’s computer in the first place, back up to USB, then give to Cthulhu for safekeeping) and it’s a stat holiday tomorrow in Canuckistan (surprise, American bosses!) I might as well work my way through this list and report back. Although if it works, how will you ever know it’s me? EH? I ask yez.

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TwitPic of the Day: Enter the Dragon

Er, so to speak, you understand. So to speak.

BoJo: Enter the Dragon

BoJo: Enter the Dragon

via Azahar

Now that’s a physical specimen to put the fear of god into Ryan Reynolds, eh? How majestic, how magnificent. How much energy went into getting this body in motion? The mind: it boggleth.

Never change, Boris. Never change.

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Aquatic Dragon Sighted!

Aquatic Dragon off the coast of Victoria

Aquatic Dragon off the coast of Victoria

What a day for nature lovers! Classic Rock radio 101 has reported the sighting of a rare Aquatic Dragon off the coast of Victoria, BC! Praise Cthulhu, we thought they had been hunted to extinction, along with their distant cousins, the Pacific Tree Octopus. This amazing creature, nearly 100m from its savagely curved beak to its tippiest tentacle, once blotted out the skies in its annual migrations from the Arctic plateaus to a still-undiscovered location somewhere in the South Pacific. Such were its numbers, and its fierce fighting ability, that it seemed unthinkable the species could ever be threatened.

That was, of course, before the advent of aircraft. Their soft, boneless bodies proved no match for slashing propellers and insatiable jet intakes, and for a generation or more the skies were greasy with carnage. You think you know how calamari was invented? Let me tell you, it was the act of a hardscrabble wartime population desperate for protein of any kind. When the planes flew overhead, housewives would run into the streets with buckets to catch the crudely hacked pieces of Aquatic Dragon that fell in a slimy torrent from the skies.

And soon, all too soon, it was all over.

WWII had done irreparable damage to the breeding population, and it is believed that nuclear tests in the South Pacific may have destroyed their traditional wintering grounds, leaving them with an unsustainable, nomadic, and doomed few survivors. This latest discovery is heartening in the extreme, for this juvenile specimen attests to the atavistic survival of at least two healthy Aquatic Dragons somewhere off the coast of Vancouver Island. My old alma mater, Miskatonic University, is gathering specialists in marine biology and herpetology to undertake an expedition in search of the creatures.

Hey, what could go wrong?

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Million Hoodie March Vancouver this SUNDAY

That means tomorrow, people. We may not have a million people in Vangroover, but we can make up for the numbers with heart.

2pm, Grandview Park. I bought a Thuggie just for the occasion, and may wear my Guy Fawkes mask as well. After all, his colour is what really targeted Trayvon, and behind a mask you can’t tell what colour we are: we are all, in that sense, Anonymous. It’s tragic that for black and First Nations people this would represent an increase in personal safety while for white people it represents a decrease.

It’s beyond time to raise this issue.

2pm. Grandview Park.


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GPOY Occupy Spring edition

Queen Anonymous

Queen Anonymous

I! AM! The… oh waitaminit. Where’s my goddam hoodie? That’s better. All together now…

I! AM! THE 99%!

HOODIE UP in solidarity with Trayvon Martin and all young people who have been targeted, hurt, or lost their lives as a result of racial profiling.

Trayvon Martin was a 17-year-old African American high school student. He lived with his mother and older brother, and wanted to to study aviation. He was visiting his father in a gated community in Sanford when he was shot by the neighbourhood watch captain, George Zimmerman. Trayvon was wearing a hoodie, on foot and un-armed; he had been to the store during a break in the NBA game to get Skittles and iced tea. Prior to shooting him in the chest, Zimmerman had called the police to report Trayvon’s “suspicious” behavior (walking while black??) and insisted on pursuing him. Police have not arrested Zimmerman because he claims that he killed Trayvon in self-defense, under the protection of Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law. Police also did not contact Trayvon’s family and registered him in the morgue as John Doe, in spite of having his cellphone in their possession when he was pronounced dead.

For full story – http://www.democracynow.org/2012/3/20/walking_while_black_florida_police_resist

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The hoodie is a symbol of how we are NOT subject to the same treatment, how some of us have to expect violence and negligence, not safety or protection, from institutions like the police because of systemic racism. In spite of how common and “trendy” the hoodie is, it retains associations with “danger” and “criminality” when worn by people of colour, especially those who are perceived to be poor/of lower economic class and therefore “not belonging” in particular areas.

Cultural racism means that mainstream society feels entitled both to treat people of color on the basis of racial stereotypes (which erases one’s individual character) AND to have ready access to people of color’s personal/private identities at all times (which makes one’s individual body hyper-visible).

Racial profiling in the form of policing, surveillance and incarceration affects many youth of color in the Lower Mainland from Arab, Muslim, South and/or Southeast Asian communities, and especially Indigenous and Black communities, who are already over-represented, with growing numbers, in Canada’s prison system.

Visit http://icouldbetrayvon.com/

STAND UP AND REMEMBER.
MAKE YOUR STORIES HEARD.
HOODIE UP.

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Links to check out:

Video of parents of Trayvon Martin speaking http://is.gd/unCRaG

Video w/Brian Jones http://is.gd/S6ZKHQ

http://pandagon.net/index.php/site/comments/a-young-black-man-being-late

http://www.urbancusp.com/newspost/the-bullet-next-time-an-open-letter-to-my-unborn-black-son/

http://colorlines.com/archives/2012/03/koritha_mitchell_living_with_lynching.html

http://globalgrind.com/news/michael-skolnik-trayvon-martin-george-zimmerman-race-sanford-florida-photos-pictures

http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/trayvon-martin-news-7552519?src=soc_fcbk

http://racismschool.tumblr.com/post/19758690223/the-million-hoodie-march

http://www.npr.org/2012/03/24/149245834/tragedy-gives-the-hoodie-a-whole-new-meaning&sc=fb&cc=fp

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2012/mar/21/trayvon-martin-shooting-911-call

Dress! Code! In! Force!

Hoodie up!

Hoodie up!