UConn SSDP had a really cool (and under-reported) pre-conference to SSDP’s Northeast Regional Conference in April.

Several of “the usual suspects,” including myself, spoke. There’s no doubt, though, that Eric Sterling stole the show. I have seen him speak 10+ times, and he is one of the best and most engaging public speakers I have ever been exposed to. Fortunately my camera was rolling:

I was honored to be invited to speak at a very small panel at the largest and most prestigious gathering of experts in the fields of drugs and drug policy – the drug policy alliance biennial conference. I spoke about the free software movement’s view of cognitive liberty, and why the drug policy reform movement is a natural ally for free and open source software.

….now before you jump on me about the “order of magnitude” comment with encryption – I fully realize that with increasing strength that decryption becomes several orders of magnitude more difficult, but as this was not a technology conference, I didn’t want to belabor the point.

So, I’m definitely not an advocate of government health care (see my last post proposing a republican vision of health care), but I really definitely can’t stand Joe Lieberman. Some activists (and friends of mine) from UConn staged a really sweet sit-in, unto getting arrested and simultaneously singing.

This is one of the best sit-in videos this year.

David Keene, the President of the “American Conservative Union,” got his ass handed to him by John Ziegler on video.

Keene is a BS conservative who sold himself out to Arlen Specter and then tried to solicit Fedex to give him millions to write a positive op-ed.

Ziegler was supposed to be on a panel at the conference where this encounter occured, but got booted after putting the tough questions to Keene.

I’m not by any stretch of the imagination a Ziegler lover, but this video is absolutely sick.

Check it out: