SCOTUSBlog has a snazzy liveblog thing going on that updates quickly and doesn’t require you to repeatedly refresh your browser. C’mon over, it’s less annoying than the tv talking heads.

Update: Tom Goldstein is a funny guy. “Tom Goldstein - The Morgan Stanley opinion holds that FERC was required to apply the Mobile Sierra presumption. There, everyone knows what they came here to find out.”

Heller has been affirmed, and the court says there is indeed an individual right to a firearm. This is pretty big for everyone in the country, not just D.C. - it potentially will impact all kinds of gun regulations, not just overt bans.

Don’t strap on your six-shooter just yet, Marion Barry - there’s a lot of Monday-morning quarterbacking to be done over the actual opinion first.

Update 2: Don’t forget that as official materials come in - i.e., the actual written opinion from the court - they’ll be linked here, on the SCOTUSWiki page for D.C. v Heller.

Update 3: Here’s the opinion. [pdf]

At the close of today’s public session, Chief Justice John Roberts indicated that all the court’s remaining opinions will be issued tomorrow at 10am. That includes District of Columbia v. Heller, which is going to start us off on what will no doubt be a long and loud road towards what new gun regulation will come to be in the District… and likely, everywhere else.

Tom Goldstein wrote on SCOTUSBlog on Monday his speculation that the Heller majority opinion would be written by Justice Scalia, which is probably going to be great news if you’re in favor of an individual right to own a gun versus the more traditional collective militia interpretation. Goldstein points out that Scalia is the only justice who hasn’t penned a majority opinion from the cases in March’s sittings - and this is the last of March’s cases - though of course this assumes (a) Scalia will be on the pro-gun side - probably a fair guess - and (b) that the pro-gun contingent is going to carry this decision, which sure sounded that way from the oral arguments.

That’s divergent from what Mike O’Shea predicted right after oral arguments, when he believed that Justice Roberts or Kennedy would be writing the opinion, though both think there’s going to be an individual right component to the decision.

The reasonable thing to wonder in response to that is, of course, so what? What’s that really mean for people visiting and living in the district? Well, Nina Totenberg’s NPR article here points out that the DC law as it stands doesn’t prohibit residents from keeping what I’d call “long guns” at home for protection, provided that they’re trigger-locked or disassembled, so odds are we’re just going to see that residents will be able to keep pistols as well as rifles at home. Whether they’ll have to continue to be locked is more up in the air. Justice Scalia certainly seemed pretty firmly on the side of self-protection, and DC circuit court ruling said not just that Heller had the right to have the gun at home, but also loaded and unlocked.

I think we can be pretty much certain that at the end of this there’s not going to be any expectation that you’re going to have the right to have a gun out and about with you when you travel through town, visible or not. That might be the next fight Heller and others like him choose to pick, but I’d be overtly astonished if there’s any overt statement on that kind of matter in the decision. The Court likes to give a thumbs up or down to lower court decisions without further narrowing, and the Circuit opinion outright says “Heller does not claim a legal right to carry a handgun outside his home, so we need not consider the more difficult issue whether the District can ban the carrying of handguns in public, or in automobiles.” Or in other words, we’re going to punt and just ignore this sub-issue. Bet on a follow-up case - if this goes as expected and residents are allowed to have guns in their home - over being able to transport them to and fro.

See you at the range.

Guns In Grey, courtesy of barjack

Unlike what mom said about no internet until 30 minutes after you eat, foodies and techies do mix. See tonight’s episode of Jonny’s Partay and chat with some socially minded foodie techie folks. Dig the description by DC’s very own favorite man about town Jonny Goldstein:

We are pleased to host Sean Shadmand and Isaac Mosquera, the founders of familyoven.com on Jonny’s Par-tay on May 28, 2008. Also on the show Andrew “Batterista” Wright, who will challenge us to pick the best butter out of a dairy-licious selection.

FamilyOven.com is a cooking oriented social network with over 500,000 registered users. Jonny has tried recipes off the site and loved the results. We’ll talk with Sean and Isaac about how they got the idea for Family Oven, and how it is working as a business.

We are also going to have a special bonus feature with Andrew “Batterista” Wright, who besides being a tech entrepreneur, is obsessed with butter. We’ll do a Jonny’s Par-tay Batterista Butter Blind Benchmark.

What: Jonny’s Par-tay, the interactive online TV talk show, with guests Sean Shadmand, Isaac Mosquera, Andrew Wright, and host Jonny Goldstein, with a little Scott Stead magic poured on top.
When: May 28, 9-10PM Eastern
Where: jonnyspartay.com
Interactivity: As always, you are invited to text chat us live. It’s a Par-tay!

Remember - wherever Jonny is, it’s always a par-tay.

I was pretty sure that my good friend and colleague Jonny Goldstein (of Jonny’s Par-Tay) was never going to warm up to a city like Washington, DC. He moved here the same time I did, about two years ago, and I could tell that DC didn’t really have the spark he had come to love about the Big Apple after ten years there.

We met up at the Brickskeller with Andy Carvin one summer evening after the three of us had moved here independently within a month of each other and I sensed, from how Jonny described his DC experiences thus far, that he found the place serviceable but not necessarily interesting beyond the obvious tourist sites. I was excited to have moved somewhere with built-in friends and was a bit sad that Jonny may not be satisfied enough with the area to make it his home.

This is why I was happy to see the serene emotions in his post about five really cool things that happened to him in DC within about 90 minutes:

So, for all my griping, DC sometimes surprises me with little moments like these. And I appreciate that this former swamp has turned into a city that every once in a while even a jaded dude like me can appreciate.

Jonny, I know you won’t be here forever, but I am glad you have warmed up to the place a little. Hopefully when you go back to New York, whenever that may be, you will take positive memories with you, not just the occasional soullessness of the city and the bleak strip malls that pockmark the roads and highways. It’s a different kind of high here, but one definitely worth trying and I am glad you eventually inhaled deeply enough to get it.

To anyone lucky enough to have ended up here, like Jonny and me, I offer you this hope – give this city, in fact, the whole area, a fair chance. You’d be surprised how at home you can feel after just a short stay.

Readers, I would love to know what brought you here, what has kept you here and what do you find here in the DC area that you can’t get anywhere else. Please chime in.

Jonny Goldstein has a great line-up tonight. From his web site:

Join us as we talk art, design, web 2.0, branding, business, and love in the age of the interwebs with Jesse Thomas and Leslie Bradshaw.

Just one glimpse at the collage above by Jesse, and you will realize he does not look at the world the way you and I do. And that’s a good thing.

Jesse, or jessesaves as he is known on twitter, is one of those people who combines artistic talent, curiosity, the web, and entrepreneurial instincts to connect to the world in interesting ways. If you live in DC, you probably have seen his artwork on the Busboys and Poets website, in galleries around town, or on a skateboard. He’s also a part owner and creator of allfacebook.com and socialtimes.com with Nick O’Neill. When he’s not in DC creating, Jesse bounces around the globe looking for design inspiration: for example He will be travelling to China with AIGA on a design expedition in May. To find out more about the phenomenon that is Jesse Thomas, check out this article.

His partner in crime, Leslie Bradshaw rocks in her own right. A former producer for the alway entertaining McLaughlin Group TV show, “She currently She currently balances dual roles as a full time Public Affairs Community Manager for New Media Strategies, as well as the President and Operational Director of JESS3.” And special bonus: Leslie spent some of her formative years in Junction City, just miles from where Jonny grew up.

When: 9PM EST, March 26, 2008

Who: Jesse Thomas and Leslie Bradshaw, Jonny Goldstein, Scott Stead, and you.

What: It’s not just an interactive web TV talk show, it’s a Par-tay.

Where: jonnyspartay.com

Photo: pwning my boss’s office while he is out sick Originally uploaded by jonny goldstein

Brought to us by the one and only Jonny Goldstein. Jonny and fellow DC Media Maker Erik Lang were walking near the White House when they found Roman Legionnaires leading Jesus to be crucified on Capitol Hill. Just like in the Bible. Click here to see the video.

Jonny Goldstein’s
heart-shaped pancake

Yep, this is it, folks. If you haven’t bought a gift by now, probably you are scrambling and sweating or else are simply single and glad to not have to scramble and sweat. Don’t forget the meaning of this day, though. The whole idea is to show your love, not to empty your wallet.

Forget the cards, chocolates, flowers, sassy cats, stuffed animals and gift cards to your favorite after-church sex goods store. All that stuff is old hat. If you want to look sincere, you are going to have to be sincere and really put forth effort. Here is my list of Valentine’s Day gifts to capture the heart of that special person in your life.

Top Five Alternative Valentine’s Day Gifts

• Homemade Meal - be a regular Jonny Goldstein and cook your sweetie a nice meal. It comes from the heart, is romantic and is a great way to share something special and homemade in private, rather than going out to show off to other couples.
• Gift Certificate to a Book Store - What better way is there to show your affection than by offering to stimulate your lover’s mind? Better yet, go with him/her to pick out a special book.
• At-Home Poetry Reading - Share the beauty of poetry with your loved one. Just because Rod Stewart couldn’t “quote you no Dickens, Shelley or Keats” doesn’t mean you shouldn’t seek it out and delight in the perfect proportions of poetry.
• Take a Drive - On your way somewhere for the evening? Enjoy the lights of downtown. Heck, even cross the river and see the lights of Georgetown and Foggy Bottom on the river. One of the most majestic river sights, in my opinion, is on the Key Bridge, where you can look over and see the Kennedy Center glimmering on the water and the Washington Monument in the background.
• Just be Together - What better way is there to create romance than simply being together, minds in the present moment? Enjoy each other. Talk and listen. Spend less time doing and more time just being.

What are your plans? How will you show your love today? Or do you observe this holiday at all?

Check out what local Internet video revolutionary Jonny Goldstein has in store for us this week:

This week, we’re proud to Par-tay with whygosolo.com and thedcconcierge.com.

whygosolo.com is an area startup which helps people “use the web to enable the finding of exciting and new things and people but, get OFF the web and go enjoy them.”

Our second guest is The DC Concierge, who runs thedcconierge.com, “a guide to Washington, DC, after the name badge comes off… You ask. I answer.”

What: Jonny’s Par-tay, the live interactive web video talk show
Who: Jonny Goldstein, Scott Stead, with Featured Guests Ann Bernard, CEO of whygosolo.com, and The DC Concierge.
How to watch: Just go to jonnygoldstein.com.
Interactivity: Interact via the live chatroom and if you have a webcam and a blogtv.com account, we can even put you on via video.
When: 9PM EST, Weds, Jan 23

Jonny Goldstein, by Carl Weaver

Tonight, DC media guru Jonny Goldstein interviews Lux Nightmare of boinkology.com and DC’s own Gerry T. of gerryt.com about their video blogs which delve into the complexities of sex in the digital age.

Join us to find out the ins and outs (so to speak) of making media about sex and sexuality with these two provocative yet grounded media makers.

As always, you direct the conversation via live text chat.

When: 9PM Eastern
Where: jonnygoldstein.com

If you have a free account from Operator 11 you may be able to get in on the video discussion as well.

Jonny’s crane style is strong.
Photo by Carl Weaver

Jonny Goldstein, DC’s very own videoblogging guru and all-around good guy, has a weekly talk show at jonnygoldstein.com, in which he discusses technology, politics and social issues. It’s always a good time and he has excellent, insightful guests.

This week on Jonny’s Par-tay are Jay Dedman and Kathryn Velvel Jones. This is sure to be a fun, exciting show, and I recommend you all check it out if you have any interest in online video.

Where to watch: jonnygoldstein.com
When to watch: Weds, 12 Sep, 9PM-10:05 EST
What you need to watch: A computer connected to broadband
Interactivity: Chat questions and comments in the live chatroom during the show. It’s a par-tay, and you’re so invited.