Reported presence of long-range acoustic device (LRAD) at protests – is Xeni’s BB entry passing on indymedia linkage of an experimental crowd control acoustic weapon at the RNC protests in The City. Much to Xeni’s (and presumably the blogosphere’s) credit, the post then pulls all the available web-published coverage of the LARD (sic fucking hoc, okay?) together, including a publicity pic of the device, and concludes with an indymedia shot of a police truck (gone downtown, probably not to pick up drunks) which appears to show the device ready to go.

Hot damn, now that’s a blog post.

I asked MetaFilter about Project Gutenberg selections. Stavros points out ReadPrint. I hope the thread hangs around long enough to keep growing!

Saw this at BB, and can’t let it pass: Tactics by Police Mute the Protesters, and Their Messages [NYT]:

“The demonstrations, too, have thus far been more restrained than many recent protests elsewhere; five years ago in Seattle, for example, there was widespread arson and window-smashing, none of which has occurred here. Lacking bloody scenes of billy-club-wielding police or billowing clouds of tear gas, the cameras – and the public’s attention – have focused elsewhere.”

(Bold mine.)

Widespread arson?

Well, I suppose so, if ONE DUMPSTER constitutes “widespread.” Here’s an HTML version of the SPD wrap-up report (PDF), in which the word arson occurs once, in conjunction with an arson incident on November 1 at the main GAP store in downtown Seattle, a month before the WTO protests got rolling. I did note anecdotal reporting of “trashcan arsons” as I Googled, but no primary sources, and I sure don’t recall any media coverage of it. I very stongly suspect that the burning dumpster at Pike and Third was the only verifiable incident.

But hey, what to I know? It’s not like I’m being paid to avoid groundless assertions in my writing here (or typos, for that matter).