Personal Privacy and Security expert, H. Michael Sweeney will speaking at Traditions Cafe, 300 5th Ave SW in Olympia on Sunday, August 19, 2007 at 7:00pm.

He's authored several books:

• The Professional Paranoid: How to Fight Back When Followed, Surveilled, Targeted, or Harassed by Any Agency, Group, or Individual
• MC Realities: Understanding, Detecting, and Defeating Mind Control and Electronic Weapons of Political Control Technology
• The Professional Paranoid's Defensive Field Guide
• Fatal Rebirth Volumes I through 4
• The Infinity Gate trilogy, science fiction featuring part one: In Mindless Time

Mr. Sweeney has numerous lecture appearances, and, has been a guest on radio talk shows such as, A Closer Look, with Michael Corbin; The Jeff Rense Show; Art Bell's Coast to Coast; The Power Hour, with Joyce Riley; Parallel University, with Elana Freeland, and several others.

His website, www.proparanoid.net, has enjoyed nearly four million hits since 1999, with material from the website featured in courseware for various college courses in Journalism, Political Science and Sociology.

This event is sponsored by Free Radio Olympia. Donations will be accepted on a sliding scale of $5-$15. For additional information, call (360)956-9517.

[A nurse from St. Peter (preferring to remain anonymous for obvious reasons) asked me to post the following message:]

By now, many people have become aware of the ongoing negotiations between nurses and the Administration at St. Peter Hospital. What needs to be emphasized regarding the plight of nurses at St. Peter is that, although we do want and deserve fair compensation for the intensely demanding work we do, our primary concern at this point is quality of care.

A few years ago, those high on the Providence corporate hierarchy initiated what they called The Restructure: a grand downsizing scheme implemented gradually through a series of layoffs of Nursing Assistants and other staff who helped RNs provide for patients. CEO Jim Leonard (who, along with other CEO's such as Connie Huber and Scott Bond, has been handsomely rewarded with many hundreds of thousands of dollars for implementing the restructure) publicly announced that St Peter had been well above the national average for staffing levels and that the Administration's goal was to remedy that "problem" by aiming to achieve staffing levels in the 50th percentile.

Consequently, RNs now often take ALONE the same -- or nearly the same -- patient load they managed 4 years ago IN PARTNERSHIP with a Nursing Assistant or an LPN. There now is only a fraction of the staff that was available to the care of patients 4 years ago. And, yes, of course the quality of care has declined as a result!

The administration has tried to spin this profit-driven scheme as an effort to IMPROVE care by increasing the percentage of staff which are licensed RNs. It's an Orwellian argument: We're slashing the number of people available to provide for patient needs, but the quality of care will improve because now a higher percentage of this radically lower number of staff will be licensed professionals.

Coming soon to a theater near you. From Teen Hollywood.com:

The director of a much-anticipated Kurt Cobain documentary is rush-releasing the project so it can be considered for an Oscar.

A.j. Schnack has posted a message online announcing that Kurt Cobain: About A Son will open in New York, Los Angeles and Cobain's native Seattle, Washington in October.

The screenings mean the film, which follows the life of tragic Nirvana frontman Cobain, will be eligible for the Oscar race next year.

If you're on the omjp distribution list, you'll no doubt have heard about an incident that took place early Friday morning. Here's the initial description that was sent out:

They'll tell their own stories soon, but here's the basics. Jeff was downtown, just hanging out, when four police officers started harassing him. They said he "fit the profile" of someone who had broken into some house, somewhere else in town. The officers were very belligerent, trying to intimidate him, but he did eventually leave. Hours later, police showed up at his home. There, they harassed him and Mitch as they sat on their porch. Eventually, Jeff and Mitch were arrested. The police say Jeff threw a punch at an officer. Of course, he did not. They were held several hours, and eventually released. They received minor injuries. They both have an arraignment tomorrow morning at 8:30 at Municipal Court (NOT the County Courthouse where everything else has happened, but instead at City Hall). No word yet on charges.

That's all the facts I know. Keep in mind, they can't necessarily talk about the whole incident, for legal reasons. But since this fits the regular pattern of police harassing and assaulting random people, I'm going to trust my allies.

Love and Justice,
-Wally

There is a more colorful description posted here at the Seattle Indymedia site. One interesting feature of the story, as Phan points out, is that Jeff is well known to the OPD, TCSO, Grays Harbor Police, etc., because of his activist, well, activities. This fact calls into question whether the police are acting in good faith in claiming that he resembled a person of interest in a break-in.

I gather that the initial arraignment was postponed until 8/8 @ 9am. Is any body tracking this? Is there any more information about what took place?

I have to comment on the editorial in today's Olympian, where they have taken a stand that the NFL requiring photographers to wear vests with sponsor logos on them, is a violation of Freedom of the Press. I quote from the editorial:

"The First Amendment of the Constitution says that Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of the press."

 The humor in their stand is that The Olympian has a policy that says their website is their venue and they can allow who they want to post and what they want on it (which is true, by the way).

Why wouldn't this apply to an NFL venue?  Doesn't the NFL have the right to restrict the usage of THEIR venue (aka the venue they or their teams rent, lease or own)?  This is a classic from our Daily.

Sadly, they run for the "freedom" rhetoric when it suits their position and don't exercise the same in terms of others.