Free Talk Live

Writing is hard. Believe us, we know. In movies, it's not always easy to do even the part you think would be a no-brainer: getting the audience to side with the good guys.
After all, in one film we're meant to cheer the vampires -- in the next we're supposed to go for the guy who's setting them on fire. In one movie we're cheering for the rag-tag rebels -- in the next, they're terrorists and we're supposed to cheer when they get beheaded.
Fortunately, Hollywood knows a few tricks to make you like, well, whoever they want you to like...

Short video of the crowd at the annual hashbash cheering the national anthem. The speakers went on to argue that taxes should be paid on cannabis to help the poor; that money spent raiding Oaksterdam should have went to gun suppression; that even though voters have expressed their opinions and the state hasn't listened, there just needs to be more ballot measures and more voting.

At least the crowd booed the cops for arresting peaceful people.

Excerpt from the Campaign for Liberty Regional Conference in Atlanta, GA. As the crowd begins to cheer, Ron Paul states, "We need to take out the CIA!"

There's been a coup - have you heard? It's the CIA coup. The CIA runs everything! They run the military .. and they're every bit as secretive as the Federal Reserve. And yet, think of the harm they have done since they were established at the end of World War II. They are a government unto themselves. They're in businesses, in drug businesses, they take out dictators... We need to take out the CIA!

How would it respond to this weekend's Times Square bomb threat? Well, by extrapolation from its response to the 9/11 attacks and subsequent threats, the policy would be:

- All vans or SUVs headed into Midtown Manhattan would have to stop and have their contents inspected. If any vehicle seemed for any reason to have escaped inspection, Midtown in its entirety would be evacuated;

- A whole new uniformed force -- the Times Square Security Administration, or TsSA - would be formed for this purpose;

About 100 video cameras were handed out to volunteers who committed to record all police encounters they come across.

Peaceful Streets Project organizer Antonio Buehler said he hopes the project and summit will help a culture shift.

"One where the people don't have to live afraid of the police and they don't have to be afraid to stand up for their rights. One where bad cops get run out of their organizations by the good cops, and one where the chain of command and internal affairs and the system doesn't cover up the crimes of these criminal cops," Buehler said.

A photo Journalist describes his experience following the black block as they rampage through the streets of Toronto during the G20 Summit. 20,000 police and security officials and a $1 billion security budget were not enough to stop 75-100 black block anarchists from smashing windows and torching police cars during a 1.5 hour rampage. The Black Block were able to rampage through the street for 24 blocks until they reached the ‘official protest zone’ where they quickly changed clothes dispersed through the crowd of peaceful protesters and then left the site.

Wrapped up against Russia's midwinter in vivid balaclavas, brightly coloured minidresses and not much else, eight members of an all-girl punk group stood on a platform in Red Square and started an impromptu show. "Riot in Russia!" they screamed, before taunting Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and urging Russians to hit the streets in protest. The band, Pussy Riot, has been gaining Internet notoriety after their January 20 gig of sorts, the latest in a string of impromptu performances to protest Putin's candidacy for the presidency.

Eric Dompierre loves sports, especially basketball. Eric never let his Down Syndrome stop him from playing but now he may have to cheer on his team from the bleachers. Its a battle between Eric's family and the Michigan High School Athletic Association with the latter claiming that because he's 19 years old, Eric isn't allowed to play in his senior year of high school.

You know the old saying: "Everyone loves a charade." Well, it seems that the Census Bureau may be playing games.

Last week, one of the millions of workers hired by Census 2010 to parade around the country counting Americans blew the whistle on some statistical tricks.

The worker, Naomi Cohn, told The Post that she was hired and fired a number of times by Census. Each time she was hired back, it seems, Census was able to report the creation of a new job to the Labor Department.