Pop Sonnets is a tumblr that turns pop music into Shakespearean sonnets: above, YMCA ("Oh sweet and noble lad, be not aggrieved!").

From a Washington Post profile of trans servicemen and women:

More than two years after the repeal of the law that barred gay men and lesbians from serving in the military openly, transgender service members can still be dismissed from the force without question, the result of a decades-old policy that dates back to an era when gender nonconformity was widely seen as a mental illness….

[Video Link] By Vi Hart, about today's big physics news. (thanks, Kathleen McGivney!).

Denise Balkisoon, who did a great job covering the Byron Sonne trial writes, "If you're not tired of G20 hacker/accused bomber Byron Sonne yet, the details of his pre-trial are now no longer under publication ban. I'm doing two posts on Open File with details, this is the first. — Read the rest

Yesterday, Byron Sonne was acquitted of all charges against him. Sonne is the Toronto-area security researcher who pointedly demonstrated the inadequacy and incoherence of the heavy-handed, $1.2B security arrangements for the G20 summit in 2010. Denise Balkissoon has done some of the best reporting on the bizarre trial that followed (after Sonne spent nearly a year in jail), and now she's got good commentary on the acquittal:

"Byron Sonne, you're a free man," said one of his lawyers, Joe DiLuca, as Sonne stood outside the courthouse.

Uh-oh. A tweet from Toronto notes that weirdly, there are 4 cop cars outside #hacklabto as they are having a party for #freebyron. HackLabTo is the Kensington Market hackerspace that Byron Sonne (who was acquitted yesterday on all counts related to his emperor-wears-no-clothesery of the Toronto G20 summit in 2010) is affiliated with. — Read the rest

Twitter's #freebyron hashtag is alive with the news that Byron Sonne, the Toronto-area security expert who was incarcerated and treated as a terrorist for pointing out and making fun of the security flaws in the $1.2B security scheme for the Toronto G20 summit, has been found Not Guilty on all counts. — Read the rest

Denise sez, "Update on the trial of Byron Sonne, arrested in Toronto on explosives charges in advance of the G20 in June, 2010. This week, the Crown pulled up information off of Sonne's harddrives, including tweets from Clay Shirky and Oxblood Ruffin, 50-year-old U.S. — Read the rest

Here's a video of the interrogation of Byron Sonne (more on his case here) by Officer Tam Bui. Sonne is a Toronto hacker who was offended by the security theater associated with the Toronto G20, which involved $1.2 billion worth of "security" measures and thousands of illegal arrests and unprovoked beatings. — Read the rest

Denise Balkissoon continues her excellent coverage of the trial of Byron Sonne, the Toronto security researcher who was arrested and prosecuted (persecuted, even) after publishing material about the security theater entailed by the G20's $1.2B, draconian policing plan. As Sonne's trial progresses, the absurdity of the case against him becomes clearer and clearer. — Read the rest

Back in May, I linked to the perverse tale of Byron Sonne, a Toronto hacker and security researcher who was caught up in the G20 dragnet, part of the overall campaign of illegal harassment, arrest and violence against protesters in the city. — Read the rest

The current issue of Toronto Life's cover story is the sad and perverse tale of Byron Sonne, a Toronto security researcher, hackspace stalwart, and anarcho-libertarian who decided to show up the security theatre at play in last year's billion-dollar-plus G20 preparations. — Read the rest

I don't like playing board games. I used to like playing them (Chess, Risk, Scrabble, Monopoly, Tactics II) but for some reason I don't understand, I became bored with them in my early 20s. So I'm surprised that I like playing Carcassonne so much. — Read the rest

The Southern Poverty Law Center, a hate-group watchdog organization based in Alabama, will present documentation to Congress on Friday about the presence of active duty military personnel on the white supremacist social networking site newsaxon.org. On that website, SPLC spotted 40 users who claim to be serving in the military, an apparent violation of Pentagon regulations prohibiting racist extremism in the ranks. — Read the rest

John Ptak, dealer in rare science books says:

This letter, written in 1957 by Colonel Leslie S. Moore of the U.S. Biological Weapons Program at Fort Detrick, Maryland, to a member (whose name I've removed) of the A.S. "(Atmospheric Sciences") division, was basically a get-out-of-hell-free card for its bearer in the case of devastating nuclear attack.

BB reader Paul sez,

A board-gaming colleague of mine created, played, and I beleive subsequently ate, a full gingerbread version of the popular, and oft-expanded tile-laying game "Carcassonne". She has published the details including how long it took and llinks to lots of photos…the little gingerbread "meeples" are the best!

A friend who recently returned from Baghdad brought me an unusual souvenir: a "visual language survival guide" used by coalition soldiers. It's a sort of show-and-tell folding map intended for both soldiers and private contractors working in Iraq — with lots of little pictures you can point to in front of an Iraqi person to say things like "is the improvised explosive device hidden under the dead goat?" — Read the rest

Sgt. Joshua Burnett, a cop in Matthews, North Carolina, choked Aaron Butler, a handcuffed detainee, and had to be pulled off by another officer. The incident was filmed but Matthews city administrators kept the video a secret, spending significant sums of money to block its release in court. — Read the rest

"Dirigo",  the motto of the State of Maine, translates to "I lead". Now, Maine Senators are doing just that. Last fall, U.S. Army Reservist Robert Card murdered 18 people in Central Maine. The Portland Press Herald reports that an autopsy of the mass shooter revealed serious traumatic brain injury, which might be at least partly responsible for his horrifying actions. — Read the rest

Over the last six years, polls have favored Republicans, but in election after election — 2018, 2020, 2022 — the "red waves" crashed as Democrats came out on top. And Lincoln Project co-founder Reed Galen explains why: "Trump is electoral poison." — Read the rest