A group of over 500 Downtown Eastside (DTES) residents and their supporters gathered at Pigeon Park in Vancouver today at a rally called "No More Empty Talk, No More Empty Lots." A five-storey high banner describing the protest's aims: "Homes Now: Tent to End: Homelessness, gentrification and criminalization of the poverty" was draped over a neighbouring building.

Rally participant Mysa Kaczkowski, a waitress who's lived in the Downtown Eastside for three years, told rabble.ca: "I love my neighbourhood, I love my community and I don't want to see it taken away.

"I have an income, I have a roof over my head and I can barely afford to live here -- how can anyone else?"

Nov. 4 marked the 100-day countdown to the 2010 Winter Olympics.

A host of events were organized in Whistler to mark the historic occasion. The day began with the Spirit Program Breakfast with Doug Lipp, the former head of corporate training at Walt Disney (how appropriate), a citizenship ceremony for new Canadians, and the 100-Days to Go Celebration, complete with countdown cake and the Olympic mascots. Whistler's mayor has cut 20 countdown cakes since the bid was announced in 2003.

Despite the high number of students absent from Whistler schools due to the flu, the Whistler Conference Centre was packed with revelers. The perfect incubator for spreading the Olympic Spirit and the H1N1 virus.