An inventory of SFPD's Killdozers

2 years ago
How much military-style equipment does the SFPD really need, and for what?

It's been quite a while since the San Francisco Police Department has had to deal with a highly armed militia or gang of robbers and kidnappers heavily barricaded in a second-floor room and refusing to surrender. I'm not sure it's happened even once in the 40 years I've been a reporter in this city.

But if that were ever to be a problem, the SFPD is ready: The department has a Lenco BearCat with a Patriot 3 Liberator Ramp System. That's a mine-resistant armed vehicle that can carry 12 fully equipped officers and includes an 11-foot battering ram and a special tactical ramp that can lift a cadre of cops up to a second story to mount a massive assault. [...]

Among the other items on the department inventory:

A CTS 4340 OC Liquid Barricade shell that can be fired from what amounts to a mortar; it's designed to penetrate a window or wall and excrete "irritant agents." [...]

A Powder Barricade that does much the same thing.

Flash-bang grenades, which are, the cops say, an explosive device that produces a blinding flash of light and a sudden, loud noise intended to temporarily stun, distract, and disperse people and it is thrown by hand or projected.

A bunch of spy robots:

IRobot FirstLook is a throwable, rugged, and expandable robot that provides immediate situational awareness, performs persistent observation, and investigates dangerous and hazardous material while keeping its operator out of harm's way. [...] The robot climbs small obstacles, overcomes curbs, turns in place and self-rights when flipped over. [...] Recon Robotics Recon Scout ThrowBot: Throwable micro-robot platform that enables operators to obtain instantaneous video and audio reconnaissance within indoor or outdoor environments. [...]

And there are very few, and very vague, restrictions on how they can use it. They can, in essence, use the gear anytime and anyway they want (for example, to "serve a warrant"), and if they use up all the shells and projectiles they can just go buy more.

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Current Music: Emergency Broadcast Network -- Get Down Ver. 2.2 ♬

DNA Lounge: Wherein it's Above DNA's Tenth Anniversary

2 years ago
Happy birthday to our upstairs annex!

We started the process of expanding the compound back in February and March 2011. Construction commenced in February 2012 (yup, a full year of permitting nonsense) and our first show was on October 23, 2012 with Happy Fangs and Books on Fate.

At this point it's hard to believe, or even remember, that DNA Lounge used to only have two rooms, and that not long before that, we were 21+ only, even for live music.

The impetus for creating the Above DNA space was to make it easier for us to do live music, including bands who weren't big enough to fill our much larger main room. Thanks to COVID, there hasn't been a whole lot of live music lately... The situation out there remains dire for touring bands.

A few times recently, we've had bands say to us, "Wow, this was the biggest show of our tour!" and we're thinking... damn. There should have been twice as many people here easy, and we barely broke even on it. Even our post-COVID attendance estimates have often been insufficiently pessimistic.

And in this bleak situation for live music, we also find ourselves again without a full-time talent buyer, which doesn't help. It's always a difficult position to fill, since it's a hard job under the best of circumstances, which the current circumstances most assuredly are not. If you know someone with experience, please send them our way!

Anyway, come see some shows. Tonight in the Main Room we have Just Add Heather, live music, burlesque and baking on stage. In Above DNA tonight, we have a private going-away party for REDACTED. Our next live show in Above DNA is this Sunday, Julien-K, Priest & Miss Trezz.

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Location: 37° 46' 15.63" N, 122° 24' 45.70" W

Oakland police say they won't pursue use of 'dystopian' armed robots

2 years ago
The Oakland Police Department this week reversed course on armed robots and said it would not seek approval to use the remote killing machines after initially exploring the idea over a series of meetings.

The issue first surfaced publicly on Sept. 21 during a routine discussion of militarized equipment, when civilian police commissioners, weighing how to amend Police Department rules governing robot use, learned that the department already had a robot armed with a shotgun -- a device known as a PAN disrupter (the acronym is short for "percussion actuated nonelectric").

It is one of several features made possible by the robot's detachable arms, according to police documents submitted to Oakland City Council. The robot has, for example a rotating claw with a telescoping camera, as well as detachable arms for distributing tear gas from canisters.

"Distributing".

Apropos of nothing, tear gas is banned by the Geneva Convention.

The gun-shaped PAN disrupter can be filled with projectiles including blank shotgun shells, liquid or live ammunition, and used for purposes like bomb detonation or blowing open locked doors.

"Can a live round physically go in, and what happens if a live round goes in?" asked Jennifer Tu, a member of the commission's subcommittee on militarized policing. "A live round can go in absolutely and you'd be getting a shotgun round," replied Lt. Omar Daza-Quiroz. [...]

"After mulling it over and having conversations with command staff, we decided to remove that option and moved forward with total prohibition," Jordan said.

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Current Music: Love Object -- Robot ♬

"Karen" Halloween display removed after a Karen complained to city hall.

2 years ago
Some folks complained that the display was "offensive to certain type of women," and city hall was forced to take it down.

The display featured a scarecrow wearing a "Can I speak to the manager?" t-shirt and a "Karen" nametag.

Further, the city says the display was not a political statement, nor was it targeted at a specific individual or group, and that they have investigated the issue internally and did not find anyone who participated in the display intended malice.

Moving forward, the city says there will be staff trainings as to why this was "insensitive and offensive to their community."

(Time to bring back the "we're a culture not a costume" memes.)

Previously, previously, previously, previously.

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Whatever happened to Mad Cow Disease?

2 years ago
Remember when that was the lurking neurodegenerative mass-disabling event that was gonna take us all out? Did they fix it, or was that just a trial run of COVID and they just stopped testing for it instead?

Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.

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Current Music: Gang of Four -- Anthrax ♬

The Terrible New Normal

2 years ago
Someone* recently said a thing that stuck with me. Paraphrasing:

If you're saying "I'm not comfortable dining indoors right now", you should accept that you're saying, "I'm never dining indoors again."

Because there is basically no chance that things are going to materially improve any time in the next 2, 3 years, or maybe ever. There comes a time when "I'm just waiting for things to get better" is self-delusion. Because they aren't going to get better. This is the new normal. Forever.

* That someone is a particular celebrity COVID pundit who I think is pretty much a putz, and this was in the midst of one of their interminable, equivocating, minimizing, logorrheic twitter threads, so I'm not bothering to link to it. If you know who I'm talking about, good for you.

Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.

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Current Music: The Regrettes -- Better Now ♬

Public Health Disservice Awards

2 years ago
Hosted by Neoliberal John Snow:

These awards, also known as the "Snowzzies," acknowledge the achievements by individuals and groups in worsening public health in 2022. [...]

ACHIEVEMENT IN PUBLIC HEALTH DISSERVICE BY A GROUP. "The Clown Car Award." This award is intended for a group or organization that has gone above and beyond to provide a disservice to public health in 2022. This can be for any organization, whether or not they work in public health or a related field. [...]

ACHIEVEMENT IN BEING THE CENTER OF THE UNIVERSE. This award is intended for an individual whose disservice to public health in 2022 directly stems from the fact that they presumably do not understand that there are other people in the world whose lives also have value.

Previously, previously, previously, previously.

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Current Music: jwz mixtape ØØ1

jwz mixtapes: 15th Anniversary

2 years ago
15 years ago today, I posted jwz mixtape ØØ1, the first in a series of at-the-time weekly and audio-only 90 minute chunks of music. To commemorate, I have re-enabled all of the old audio-only mixtapes for two weeks.

Scroll down. Farther. Farther. Keep going. No, scroll down really far. There it is.

In the early days, the theme was "music I have been enjoying this week", so it wasn't necessarily new stuff, though I did try to make them flow together well. Occasionally I would do a mixtape with a secret or not-so-secret "what's the connection?" theme, like "songs with Control in the title" or "songs whose titles are 4 character acronyms."

I kept up the nearly-weekly pace for a few years, through mixtape Ø75, running out of steam in early 2009. That's when I switched to the new format of video-only mixtapes, containing only new music. I've managed to keep up the nearly-monthly pace ever since.

Since mixtape 237 isn't full yet, enjoy the ancient history!

Notes:

  1. Track names aren't displaying in the popup audio player because things have atrophied somewhat in the intervening decades. Oh well. Make due. Update: Ok, maybe I've fixed that.

  2. Many of the video-only mixtapes are missing up to 30% of their songs, because they vanished out from under me on YouTube at the fickle whims of the Content Mafia, and keeping track of those shifting sands proved to be far too much work. I tried for a while, but it was hopeless. As Textfiles often says, "YouTube is a video archive in the same sense that a supermarket is a Food Museum."
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Current Music: jwz mixtape ØØ1

Juggling Robot or Not?

2 years ago
I love a good taxonomy, and here's one of juggling aparatuses, machines, automata, and robots.

"Even with five balls, everything is decided in advance" -- from one of PK Dick's erotic cosmologies, probably.

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Not the hero we deserve, but the hero we need

2 years ago

Woman stops eviction by releasing swarm of bees on deputies:

Rorie S. Woods, 55, pleaded not guilty at her arraignment on Oct. 12 in Springfield District Court and was released without bail. Her lawyer did not immediately respond to a voicemail.

The Hampden County Sheriff's Department deputies went to a home in Longmeadow on the morning of Oct. 12 and were met by protesters, according to the official department report.

Woods, who lives in Hadley, soon arrived in an SUV towing a trailer carrying bee hives, the report said. She started "shaking" the hives, broke the cover off one, causing hundreds of bees to swarm out and initially sting one deputy, according to the report.

Woods, who put on a beekeeper's suit to protect herself, was eventually handcuffed but not before several more sheriff's department employees were stung, including three who are allergic to bees, the report said.

When Woods was told that several officers were allergic to bees, she said "Oh, you're allergic? Good," according to the report.

Let me point out that the only people quoted in this article are cops, so this is by definition not journalism, it is a copaganda press release. E.g., no statement from the other eviction protesters.

Therefore, it is safe to assume that the officers who were "allergic to bee stings" are only allergic because those bees were also coated in fentanyl.

However, her booking photo does tell a tale.

I note that the Hampden County Massachusetts Beekeepers Association has not released a statement.


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