I've recently started reading the Columbian editorial page - at least on subjects that hit my google alerts. Here is a great one, on the recent battle between Gregoire and McKenna on the subject of health insurance

Consider also recent legal opinions which give the Seattle Legislative Body the ability to override Executive order AND avoid accountability to the fiscal accountability requirements of the STATE legislative body.

Me thinks Mr. McKenna has a few more things to accomplish as AG regarding the sorry state of health Ms. Gregoire left the profession in, before he asks us for a promotion..

When several villages are united in a single community, perfect and large enough to be nearly or quite self-sufficing, the state comes into existence, originating in the bare needs of life, and continuing in existence for the sake of a good life. And, therefore, if the earlier forms of society are natural, so is the state, for it is the end of them, and the completed nature is the end result of them. For what each thing is when fully developed, we call its nature, whether we are speaking of man, a horse, or a family. Besides, the final cause and end of a thing is the best and to be self-sufficing is the end and the best.

Hence it is evident that the state is a creation of nature, and that man is by nature a political animal.

- Aristotle (384-322 B.C.) The Politics, Book 1

The Sevin Devils Range is the highest point above Hell's Canyon. The loop hike around the range is 30 miles, several shorter hikes are possible in the area - not to be missed is the short trail to the Heaven's Gate lookout.

Access is from a steep dirt road just south of Riggins.

Click through for the complaint, filed in Pierce Superior Court, September 13.

Are you capable of stopping yourself Governor Gregoire? That is, of course, self-governance in the personal, and corporate, sense.

(Click image to see full size)

In the first principle of nature, self preservation, there is nothing which is repugnant to war; indeed all things rather favour it; for the end of war, the preservation of life and limb, and the retention, or acquisition of things useful to life, agrees entirely with that principle.....

Again, Right Reason and the nature of Society .... do not prohibit all force, but that only which is repugnant to Society; that is that which is used to attack the Rights of others.

Hugo Grotius (one generation after Martin Luther), The Law of War and Peace (1625) addressing the subject of lawful relations of the emerging nation states.

The last photo is post hike of my dislocated middle finger. Thankfully it didn't hamper my exit, however, poetically, it might not have been a bad way to go....

I'm using FlickrSlideshow for this entry, Picassa has been great and has a number of commendable features, however when its used to embed a slide show it does some strange things - like taking the viewer to their website in a pop-up that isn't really user friendly for the context.