Is LAPC Filtering PFW?

Content filtering is popular with the ruling powers in places like China, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and other geographies where the current regime has a reason to fear and subdue its adult citizens. Content filtering in the workplace is popular with employers who have actual, economic concerns about their workers’ abilities to simultaneously idle on MySpace, bid on Ebay, chat on AIM, play Warcraft, and still work at a productive pace. Content filtering in K-12 schools is popular with parents and administrators because it protects minors from sexually explicit material of a pornographic or obscene nature.

Content filtering at public, CA community colleges ain’t so popular, much less defensible, when the filtered content turns out to be neither obscene, pornographic, inflammatory with an intent to incite unlawful action, or libelous, but merely critical of a filtering institution’s policies, programs, curriculum, and publicly-employed personnel.

If you are unable to reach any Pierce Farm Watch content (all over there in the sidebar) from computers located on the Los Angeles Pierce College campus, or your browser is redirected to a page you did not request, let us know. And we’ll let EFF know.

We’d like you to test from libraries, computer labs, Wi-Fi spots if they exist, and any other networked computer on the Los Angeles Pierce College campus from which you have access to the Internet. Other LACCD campus locations and CSUers can test, too, because the wider you cast the net and the narrower the set of results … well, that says a whole lot about a little.

What you are looking for:
Instances of domain/subdomain failure or redirection:
Examples: You get redirected from www.piercefarmwatch.org to a page you did not request.
You can read other Blogspot or WordPress blogs, but not ours.
You can reach Eurekster, but our swicki is not available.
You can reach Flickr, but our photo sets are unavailable.
You can watch YouTube videos, but our playlists are unavailable.
Social networking sites (del.icio.us, ma.gnolia, and shadows) are available, but our bookmarks are not.

Search Engine cache filtering:
Example: You found us via a search engine, clicked on the Cached link for page results, but were redirected.

Legitimate URL redirection services fail:
Example: tinyurl

Mobile content translation fails:
Example: You are redirected to somewhere other than results you request through Google Mobile Search.

RSS-formatted requests fail:
Example: You can reach Feedburner, but clicking on our feed URL from Feedburner fails.

Language Translation fails:
Example: You know how to do the en-to-en thing to get Google Translate to serve as a proxy, but that fails.

That’s about it for the testbeds, other than the many mega-lists of anon proxies out there which you can find and play with for yourselves. Happy animal-safe-and-sane hunting!

We Got Meme’d

8 True Things is going around and we got tagged by Jennifer over at the AnimalBlawg, so here are our collective eight (PFW gets 3, Manny gets 2, TowerPrincess gets 2, and c0demonkey gets 1). First, a little ruleskeeping:

1. We have to post these rules before we give you the facts.
2. Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
3. People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.
4. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
5. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

* PFW *
1. I detest olives but treat olive oil as a one of the major food groups.
2. I am terrified of lizards. Not snakes, which I think are amazing but would never keep a companion snake, but lizards freak me out. I equate iguanas with Jurassic Park.

3. I love Los Angeles, most anything and everything about it, and don’t even find the massive freeway jams very unpleasant. To me LA says “people are going somewhere; follow them.”

* Manny *
1. Manny is a really good cook. If we post a recipe for something it probably came from him, via his Mom, which he veganized for us. The whole arroz con gandules thing—100% Manny.

2. Manny still isn’t convinced that dairy results in dead calves yet. He’s having a hard time with the cheese and the reality that the commercials for it are actually cartoons. He’ll come around.

* The TowerPrincess *
1. Actually understands most everything Gary Francione says from start to finish without the aid of a cheat sheet.

2. Yes, they’re fake.

* c0demonkey *
1 and only 1. “On vacation” is a euphemism in some cultures. monkey is spending his at Twin Towers. Handle ur bidness next time, b0y.

Who we’re tagging:

1. Animal Place
2. Peaceful Prairie
3. Animal Ethics
4. Animal Law Blog
5. Hackosphere
6. phydeaux3
7. VegBlogs
8. Wayne Pacelle (TTP says it is so not stalking and he actually has bodyguards for that sort of thing anyways.)

Countdown to AR2007

The Big Daddy of conferences is back in our backyard again!! Five full days and evenings of all animal, all the time advocacy, plus a ginormous exhibit hall full of more veg*n vending than your VegNews tote bag can safely lug around.

And we’re missing it … f^$iN%! ARRRGGGHHH s0n$*@bi+(|-|!! TowerPrincess stuck in Albuquerque till the 22nd, Manny in FL for two weeks, and c0demonkey “on vacation” till whenever, so guess who that leaves to hold it down here? What can they possibly do to make up for this?! Haven’t decided yet, but it’s gonna be expensive and last for the same number of days as this monster mega-con we’re missing.

Update: June Trial Date for Wiles Farm Defendants

Wiles Farm owner Ken Wiles (middle), his son Joe Wiles (left), and employee Dusty Stroud (not pictured) have another 2-1/2 months to sort out their collective defense to 10 misdemeanor counts of animal cruelty. A jury trial for the trio is now scheduled to begin on June 19, 2007.

Rep. Mervyn Dymally, a senior member of the CA Legislature, former Lt. Governor, and member of the House Committee on Agriculture, has introduced a bill to amend the Health and Safety Code that would prohibit the keeping of any mammal or bird used for the production of food or fiber in conditions that do not allow “sufficient space for each animal to stand, lie down, get up, move his or her head freely, rest, turn around completely, and extend all limbs and wings without touching any part of the enclosure or other animals.” Thirty-six years of “you can’t make us” on the part of CA industrial animal production interests is about enough, but $1000 a day in fines ain’t nowhere near enough. You’re encouraged to write in support of AB 594.

In totally unrelated geek news, we’re supposed to say something nice about c0demonkey’s efforts of late with regard to the overall look and feel of our various joints:

“Thanks!”

Screechy little twit Greybox’d the Pierce College Farm Property Map so it magically fades in ala beautifulness, and built us a Google Earth flyover of the known animal-holding areas, complete with groovy, red binocular icons. There may be some issues with our Greybox implementation if you’re using Firefox on MacOS (or so said Greybox/Orangoo Labs developer Amir S. when we finally got around to showing it off to him …), so if it doesn’t work for you, let us know. ‘m0nkey can’t really test on MacOS until the new toy arrives. So try the flyover. As far as we can tell, it works just dandy.

Meatout on Tuesday, March 20

Didn’t make it last year? Fell off the wagon recently? Ambien not stopping those screaming meat dreams? FARM can help. Find an event in your area. And we gots recipes.

Vegan Arroz con Gandules (Rice and Pigeon Peas)
This is the easy way. No scouring the specialty stores for dried gandules or trying to make it work with black-eyed peas. Farm Fresh or Vallarta Markets and Goya canned Pigeon Peas to the rescue.

Forget the little achiote bricks (annatto seed seasoning). They’re for dissolving in water and lemon juice and soaking meat. Goya makes a 3–ounce shaker of annatto, too. If you can’t find that, get the small bag of Tucan-brand achiote entero (whole annatto).

Shopping List
1 can pigeon peas
1 small bay leaf
1/8 cup achiote oil
1/2 medium onion, diced
1 minced garlic clove
1/2 bell pepper, diced (green, yellow, or red)
1/2 cubanelle/Italian yellow pepper diced
1/4 teaspoon ground cumin
1/4 cup fresh cilantro, chopped
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper or chili powder
1 cup uncooked long-grain rice
Vegetable broth or stock
1 tablespoon lime juice
1 teaspoon salt

Pre-heat your oven to 350F. We’re baking this dish so no one complains that most of it is bonded to the bottom of the skillet or the rice is still crunchy.

Drain the canned peas and reserve the liquid. Add enough vegetable stock or broth to the liquid to make 2 cups.

Put 1/8 cup of vegetable oil in a small pan and add 1 teaspoon of whole annatto seeds. Heat over low temperature until the oil begins to sizzle, then stir the seeds around in the oil until it has taken on a beautiful reddish-orange color. Drain the seeds out of the oil and put the oil in a large skillet.

Add the diced onion and peppers, garlic, cumin, and cayenne or chili powder to the oil and saute over medium heat until the vegetables are softened. Add the cup of dry rice to the vegetables and stir until the rice is coated with the achiote and vegetable mixture.

Add the liquid from the drained peas + the vegetable stock to the mixture, then add pigeon peas, chopped cilantro, bay leaf, lime juice, and salt. Stir well and remove from heat. Transfer your rice and peas to an oven-safe baking dish and cover tightly with aluminum foil. Bake for 30 minutes at 350F. If the rice is still a little chewy, you can add a splash of vegetable stock and bake for 10–15 more minutes.

Serve with a big, fresh salad and fried plantains with vegan sour cream, there’s nothing better! No Tofutti Sour Supreme for the plantanas (or you just don’t do the partially hydrogenated thing), make your own cow-friendly sour cream with Vegenaise and a dash of lemon juice. We swear it’s better than Tofutti’s.

Vegan Mulligatawny Soup
Chop. Pour. Heat. Done. Impatience is the only way to mess this up.

Shopping List
2 quarts vegetable stock or broth
4 small or 2 medium red potatoes
2 carrots
2 stalks celery
1 small or 1/2 medium eggplant
1/2 medium or 1 very small yellow onion
1 cup frozen or fresh corn kernels
1/3 cup roasted red pepper
1/4 cup tomato sauce
1/4 cup whole pistachios
1/4 cup whole cashews
1/4 cup chopped flat leaf or Italian parsley
3 tablespoon lemon juice
2 tablespoons sugar
1/4 teaspoon curry powder
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 teaspoon dried thyme
1 small bay leaf
1/4 teaspoon marjoram
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

Chop the potatoes, carrots, celery, eggplant, and onion into 1–inch pieces. You can roast the red pepper yourself and slice into 1”x1” pieces, or just use prepared pepper strips from a jar.

Put the vegetable stock, 2 quarts of water, and all the ingredients in a large pot. Bring it to a boil, reduce the heat to low, and let it simmer for about 2 to 2 and 1/2 hours. This soup must reduce by at least 1/3 for the flavors to concentrate. Like we said, impatience is the only failure factor.

Big discs of garlic naan bread and a vegan mango lassi, it’s a meal!

Vegan Coconut Rice Pudding
Raisins or no raisins. That’s the ballot. “Obama!” is not a valid vote for this ballot.

1 cup cooked rice (white, brown, long or medium-grain)
1 and 1/2 cups coconut milk
1/3 cup raisins (or not)
1/4 cup cream of coconut/coconut cream
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
Pinch of nutmeg
Pinch of ginger

Heat everything over low heat until the mixture begins to bubble. Cooking time depends on how thick or loose you like rice pudding. Serve warm, or pour into individual serving dishes, cover and refrigerate until chilled.

That’s it. Meatout, cook, curl up, and watch Fast Food Nation one more time.