Reports are coming in fast and furious to the Alternative Media Centre about house raids and pre-emptive arrests of key organizers in the G20 resistance. It appears as if the Integrated Security Unit is deploying a pre-planned sweep of known activists.
Police visited two houses in Toronto’s westend early this morning. In one, a warrant was [...]

If I can’t dance with crossdressing Harper I want no part of your revolution.

If there’s one thing the corporate mainstream media love, it’s a good story. And by good story I mean sensational. And by sensational, I mean fear mongering.
We have seen this as a baseline for [...]

I’ve been at the AMC all day – arriving just before the press conference at 10 this morning. You can read my story on the media scrum here. The mainstream media never cease to amaze me with their myopia and single-minded focus on sensationalism. Goddessforbid we talk about some issues. It really does get boring.
Right now, [...]

I am a supporter and user of free software (though I admit I have not migrated entirely). I research and write about the social movement aspect of free software, and its potential as a model for alternative social organization beyond the realm of software development. I am inspired by the future envisioned by free software [...]

Saveournet.ca, a Canadian coalition working to defend our online freedoms, has launched a sweet campaign urging people to wear their hearts on their sleeve and tell the CRTC to keep the internet open, fast and accessible to all Canadians.
Bell and other corporate giants such as Rogers and Shaw currently have free reign to “throttle” service [...]

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications  Commission (CRTC) has finally decided to deal with the prickly subject of internet regulation in Canada. Until recently, Canada’s Internet was an open, neutral network – a level playing field for free speech and innovation. All that is now threatened by a handful of corporations that want to control a [...]

Speaking For Ourselves: Media Democracy Day 2008 is a national day of action dedicated to keeping the corporate media honest and making them accountable. The Vancouver event happens next week at the VPL, 12-6pm. My friend and colleague Steve Anderson is the main organizer for MDD Vancouver, and I have been helping out a bit [...]

Last night I attended a free workshop at Free Geek called “How I stopped worrying and learned to love the command line.” Who wouldn’t want to go, with a title like that?
I love FreeGeek. I’ll just say that upfront. Everything about it invokes the New Society that I dream of, but picture only vaguely in [...]

My first panel of the day was entitled The Intersection of Culture Jamming, Hacking and Hactivism. On this, the last day of the conference, attendance had reached capacity. Literally thousands (I heard estimates of 2,000 and 3,000) of every nerd imaginable: The stereotypical anti-social, disempowered, tech freak expressing his barely concealed rage and marginality through [...]

On Sunday I attended the final day of Last H.O.P.E. It was pretty much the coolest conference I’ve ever attended. The Hackerspace Village was awesome. Welcoming you as you ascended the escalator was the multi-coloured LED dildo sculpture; I turned away instinctively, burning with that ingrained Catholic shame, and only near the end of the [...]