Results tagged “freespeech”

Natalie Jones, a sixth-grader in Ramona, California, created a Powerpoint presentation about Harvey Milk's life and activism, for which she received a near-perfect score. The day before the presentation, Jones' principal said that although her project was as good as a high school student's, because of the "sensitive material," she might be unable to show it.

In case you missed The Daily Show last night-- not that any member of the self-respecting Bay Area intelligentsia would dare to admit missing a second of sparkling political satire -- check out Berkeley and its Marine corps nonsense getting last night care of Jon Stewart's clan. It's chock full of funny. (Except the overt and cruel hippie-hating part, which we find not only a played out but a bit dangerous; there's nothing wrong with being a hippie, people.) Be sure to check it out.

Speaking of Boing Boing, they have word that Electronic Frontier Foundation - the "first line of defense" in our right to free speech, privacy, awesome innovation, and consumer rights - is having a birfday party. For those of you unfamiliar with EFF, ahem:

After Supervisor Sandoval introduced a resolution to brand hyperbolic grandpa Michael Savage as a hate speech-spewing loon, it wasn't voted on unanimously yesterday, care of SFsit's favorite coverboy, Ed Jew. (Ah, World Net Daily, where we go to get all of our fair and balanced news, drizzled with a infusion of organic Nazism.) On July 5, after Savage predictably asked that students undergoing a weeklong fast for immigration reform (and, bonus, to slim down...

With the sun out, the temperatures high, one can only think of one thing-- what's going on in the World of the -ist's?

We were browsing the Planned Parenthood Golden Gate website for information about the infamous HPV vaccine. (Yes, we’re too old to even get it. Yes, we’re confused about the whole vaccine and why it’s so expensive. And yes, we’re kind of sad that efforts to offer a vaccine in schools will most likely not happen).

The Electronic Entertainment Expo is so close you can almost taste the LA smog and the tangy sweat of desperation. In honor of that, this week's round-up is all videogame-related news.

For those people feeling down that it's been weeks since the last good rally, cheer up, cause there's going to be a rally tomorrow in front of the Danish embassy. The Free Republic will sponsor tomorrow’s rally. The Free Republic? Yep, the Free Republic. As in one of the largest and most notorious conservative organizations in the land. As in an organization that has on its Web site a whole section titled "Pray for President Bush" and mean it in a completely sincere, non-snarky way. Do conservatives rally? Do they even know how to? Do they do drum circles? Will people hold up signs calling for the execution of Mumia? We thought they were too busy running everything to protest.

The very definition of a 'chilling effect' on free speech is when legislation or enforcement of new laws are so potentially onerous that people and organization self-censor out of fear and potential liability. Today, the users of Tribe.net were one of the first groups on the internet to feel that cool breeze, as Tribe have instituted their new Terms of Use with amendments to the provisions regarding mature public content, and presumably, any content deemed offensive by a Tribe user.

"Seinfeld" has given much to us over the years. It's given us more words and phrases to enter into our language than Billy Shakespeare, it's given us a whole new way of perceiving and quantifying reality, and it's single-handedly killed off the puffy-shirt look. Could you even say that about "Friends?" It also appears to giving us a new holiday--Festivus, of course.

Realtor-slash-blogger Matt Lanning points up a new information site, San Francisco Bay Window, for that rare beast known as a San Francisco homeowner. Hey, it's free to dream, right? Cheesecake Factory employees dreamed of being able to take breaks, and now their dream has come true.

Ah, yes, the City of Berkeley. You might have thought back room dealing and hiding documents and meetings from public review was just a San Francisco thing, but Berkeley has its share of underhanded dealings, too.

Okay, we all know what the internet is best at -- porn, porn, rants and porn. Sure, blogging is nice, but it doesn't really pay all that well. There was certainly a point after the dot-bomb where the only people hiring HTML and Photoshop wizards were porn sites, and yes, we totally took their little nudie-photo color correction tests and sent them our resumes. Hell, we might have even considered acting in a few films -- it was that bad.

Yesterday on Slashdot was a review of local NYT tech correspondent John Markoff's new book, "What The Dormouse Said: How the 60s Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer Industry." Quoting the review:

SFist found Bloggers Without Borders through the Tsunami Help blog. Later we ran into Dinah Sanders, AKA Metagrrrl, who explained the mission behind the site in detail, and we offered to help in any way we could. She arranged a get together with spokesman and techspert Jonas M. Luster over 'puters to chat. The conversation ranged from floating IP's that can be used to route around IP blacklists and protect a blogger's anonymity and location, through the sociology of C.W. Mills, the legendary 1985 documentary Shoah to Warren Ellis classic sci-fi graphic novel series Transmetropolitan.

Everyone out here talks so contentedly about how we live in our little idyllic utopian blue-state liberal/progressive/left-wing bubble -- so it comes as that much more of a shock to learn that a pro-choice doctor who works for Planned Parenthood in Contra Costa county has been targeted by Operation Rescue.