I wonder what would happen if people started leaving easily removable/unobtrusive art in the alley behind Le Voyeur and the Clubside Cafe...

Move your mouse pointer over this picture...

I bid all a good night, it was quite fun and entertaining tonight, even educational at times.  However I have to be at work early tomorow and should get some sleep.

This article can be found on the web

lookout by Naomi Klein
Guns Beat Green: The Market Has Spoken

Anyone tired of lousy news from the markets should talk to Douglas Lloyd, director of Venture Business Research, a company that tracks trends in venture capitalism. "I expect investment activity in this sector to remain buoyant," he said recently. His bouncy mood was inspired by the money gushing into private security and defense companies. He added, "I also see this as a more attractive sector, as many do, than clean energy."

Got that? If you are looking for a sure bet in a new growth market, sell solar, buy surveillance; forget wind, buy weapons...

...read more

After Rob suggested an idea for a 'Zine to be handed out at Bread and Roses with information on outdoor survival for the homeless, I commited to creating one for him. I created some content and sent it to him for his approval.

I hope to finish this project by this time next week. Briefly I am going to cover urban and woodland camping, various survival tactics and tips, gear and equipment, improvised shelters and gear, staying dry, staying warm, hygiene, first aid, etc...

As I get a little further along, I will post it here, and invite criticism and suggestions. Anyone who would care to help me can PM me and I'll send what disjointed materiels I have written already. By Tuesday I'll have a fairly coherent looking document (I hope)

Everything original I write will be released under the Creative Commons license...

The Second Amendment, as far as I can find, is the only constitutional guarantee which the state can prohibit an individual from exercising with the endorsement of the judicial.

Even those protesting at the Port of Olympia who feel their various constitutional protections were violated by the state can seek recourse. As has been presented to OlyBlog, the City of Seattle was forced to compensate for the 1999 World Trade Organization rioting in which the federal court system ruled in favor of the private citizen being violated by the state.

Thus, if you feel your constitutional guarantees other than the Second have been violated, a reasonable person can assume they will have the opportunity to present their side to an unbiased judiciary which may find in their favor.

So why is it that the Second Amendment is able to be suspended - with approval from the judicial? A quick scan of Wikipedia (hardly an academic authority but an appropriate source for a quick snippet) reveals the state can suspend the Second Amendment when an individual has been:

1. Involuntarily committed to a mental institution

2. Convicted of a felony

3. Convicted of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence[65][66] or not, since in one jurisdiction the Gun Ban for Individuals Convicted of a Misdemeanor Crime of Domestic Violence law was ruled a violation of the 2nd and 5th Amendments and was ruled unconstitutional for two years though that decision was reversed on appeal and the Supreme Court has not granted certiorari.

I got a great PM from someone I respect that provided support for me, in light of what's going on - the eventual death of my dear friend.  Thanks for the thoughts.

Now, if I didn't share the blessings that are going on, I wouldn't deserve to be a part of this event.

1.  Gary was given two weeks to live and if he makes it past Sunday (which looks very promising right now) he beat the odds that were laid out a week ago Monday.

2.  While he has been at home, his closest friend - a great friend of mine - has been his caretaker.  Rand (the caretaker) told the hospice nurse "The biggest problem Gary has is that he has too damned many friends".  It has been a constant parade of people dropping by and the atmosphere is a party.  Everyone is laughing, telling old stories, carrying on and Gary is right there in the middle of the whole deal.  For a guy that is supposed to be dying, he's doing better than me, some days.

3.  The constant parade has brought together many old friends that had drifted apart, for various reasons.  We grow, we move, we change, but Gary has brought us all together for one (or more) last time.  I just got off the phone with him and another old friend, Manny, talked to me and we all made plans to watch the Hawks on Sunday.

  Many of the old friends used to vacation together at Sun Lakes in our younger years.  Lots of beer, pot, waterskiing and laughs - then limp home and recover so that we could go back to work and plan for the next year.  Each year had a music quote theme.  We still laugh at how we'd run that quote into the ground before the week was out.

We've collectively decided that the ongoing theme from now until the eventual will be a quote from Jimmy Buffett, from "Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes", it goes this way - "If we didn't laugh, we'd just all go insane"

We've had some nice discussion on the blog about how to handle some of the unruly behavior of late, and one of the suggestions was to create a Social Contract that everyone would agree to. I think this is something that we must do as a community, and we should have done long ago. Towards that end, I've created a wiki page (at wetpaint.com) that we can all use to create a new Social Contract. I've started with some language from an existing Social Contract, just to get us off the ground (and because I like it). Anyone can add, delete, change and, hopefully, improve the language. So, have at it, and let's make something that works for OlyBlog.

OlyBlog Social Contract Wiki