George Harrison- Any Road

The Buggles- Video Killed the Radio Star

Johnny Cash- Thunderball

No idea why I keep playing them tonight...

Washington won’t become the 40th state to authorize police checkpoints as a way to catch drunk drivers - at least, not this year.

A controversial bill in the Legislature that would have let law officers set up sobriety checkpoints is dying quietly in a committee without ever coming up for a vote.

Rep. Pat Lantz, D-Gig Harbor, House Judiciary Committee chairwoman and the measure’s prime sponsor, said “I simply couldn’t get the votes” from enough of her committee members to advance the bill. Today is the deadline for policy committees to pass bills they hope to get through the Legislature this session.

“I have to say I’m disappointed,” Lantz said. The checkpoint bill, House Bill 2771, was one of only a few known ways that could actually prevent drunk-driving fatalities, she said. “We will never get a chance to prove it now.”

Rep. Brendan Williams, an Olympia Democrat and attorney, conducted an e-mail campaign among his colleagues to point out the legal reasons why road blocks would not be a good idea and why they would not withstand a constitutional challenge...

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My question for Rep. Brendan Williams is: Since when did driving become a "right", and not a privilege?

Is it holding a gun in your fist?

Is it wearing a mask and spray painting a slogan on a bank building?

Is it destroying a police cruiser?

Is it a sense of being, of awareness you can only get through expressing your outrage and despair through violent means?  

That is the message I seem to be getting.  People needing to feel empowered because they have despaired of change, because their nation is failing, the planet is dying, they are an "oppressed class" or whatever.

I say if you must seek empowerment you have failed yourself.

Every person is soveriegn, and from that realization that all power in society flows from you, the individual, that you are the equal to any other, then you are empowered.

Sometimes it seems impossible to effect change, the battle too hard, the mountain too steep, the forces arrayed against you too powerful.  

Wrong.

Life and reality is what you make of it.

It may take a lifetime, but if the end result is worth it, why not?  Got anything better to do with your brief flash of time on this earth?

Those who fight a good fight and still loose are still honored.  Those who never fight because they fear losing are despised.  I argue those who never fight are the true danger.  Those who need artificial courage instilled in them.  Those are the people who listen to whatever Pied Piper comes along playing the right tune.

I decided sometime ago that if things were really as bad as some would have me to believe, that I could not stop the glacial advance of doom.  With that in mind, I decided that I may as well enjoy the ride.  I am ready for what may come may way.  Prosperity and poverty, failure and success, revolution or anarchy.  Come what may, I welcome it, for I am soveriegn and am willing to exercise that power as I see fit.

I do not know what songs were played at the Dead Prez concert.  However I find the following lyrics from one of their songs pretty telling about the group.  Presumably those who listen to Dead Prez are familiar with them and most likely some of them believe in the message contained therein.  Considering some had spraypaint at the concert, makes me wonder if any excuse would have worked for a riot?

I throw a molotov cocktail at the precinct, you know how we think
Organize the hood under I ching banners
Red, black and green instead of gang bandanas
F.b.i. spyin on us through the radio antennas
And them hidden cameras in the streetlight watchin society
With no respect for the peoples right to privacy
Ill take a slug for the cause like huey p.
While all you fake niggaz {*unnngh*} try to copy master p
I want to be free to live, able to have what I need to live
Bring the power back to the street, where the people live
We sick of workin for crumbs and fillin up the prisons
Dyin over money and relyin on religion for help
We do for self like ants in a colony
Organize the wealth into a socialist economy
A way of life based off the common need
And all my comrades is ready, we just spreadin the seed

-Police State

These were taken about a year ago. I was just moving onto the boat full time so the interior shows a transition from boat that had been unused for 10 years, to one that had been slowly been put into some sort of order for a weekender, to liveaboard. If any docent can make this into a mouseover for me, please do so. I need to know how to do that... Libertarian is really bigger than she looks...

You get what you give. What goes around comes around. As the call, so is the echo. All these sayings come from traditional wisdom. That wisdom guides us in how we treat the people in our community. If we look at our own lives history often we can see this is true. Unfortunately the police are determined to seek retribution beyond what is fair. Unless we stop them, rationality and wisdom will be defeated by vengeance and abuse of power.

The Olympian states, “Physically damaging or disabling an emergency vehicle constitutes first-degree malicious mischief, a Class B felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison and a $20,000 fine.”

Historically, challenges to power have been met with fury and retribution in orders of magnitude larger than what could be considered fair and just. One destroyed cop car is not equal to ten years in jail served by people used as scapegoats. The police officers will receive no punishment for beating and dousing the public, yet again, with pepper spray, sending one student to the hospital with bruised ribs. Instead they will receive over time pay, which will continue to increase the costs of the incident.

The police have detectives issuing subpoenas for photos and videos taken of the riot. "We will get it," said Sheriff Dan Kimball.

Finding someone to blame is a priority for the police force. Anyone who was there knows that it is impossible to fairly blame one person or even a small group of people. How many people were shouting ‘fuck the cops’? A hundred. I stood in front of the cop car, I shouted to ‘let him go’. I stood unable to stop the increasing mayhem, provoked by the police. I watched people getting angry as their friends and community members were crying from pain.

Ever had a "night from hell" because the hotel room you stayed in had an ice machine just a few feet down the hall? If you have, then welcome to my world. No, I don't live in a cheep hotel. I'm speaking of the conditions at my home in the Carlyon-North neighborhood. The noise making culprit is a heat pump installed in a code-violating sideyard setback location, conveniently one foot from the property line between my house and my code-violating neighbor.

18 months is a hell of a long time to have a heat pump spewing noise into your home and property, but that's how long it's been. We can't have a family discussion around the dinner table without having to talk over the monotonous machine rumble. Outdoor barbecues are no longer palatable. Reading C. McCarthy (or OMC) in the living room takes a hell of a lot more focus and breathing control than it used to. Then there's the bedroom.

My wife is ready to move. I'm ready for months of counseling. But hey, from City of Olympia's standpoint, that's probably a good thing, stimulating the economy and such. Sorry, couldn't resist one cheap shot.

Is there anybody else out there who put in a noise complaint to the City, then the City respond that noise level was within compliance? If so, they were probably pulling your leg the same way they were pulling mine. How about set backs - anyone challenged something in the set back and had the City respond nonsensically? I'd like to hear from anyone with these types of experience.

Thought I would throw this out for general consumption.  An individual, obviously either impaired through chemical means or mentally disabled walking around with a handful of newspapers stolen from a vending machine (I know how do I know he "stole" them, it doesn't take a major leap to bet he didn't stick money in for every single one) waving them around and trying to hawk them for change.  Shouting incoherrent statements and saying he'll work for pennies, silver dollars, etc...  Actually rather disturbing.  This was near Cafe Vita.  Also present was another disheveled individual who seemed to be his partner who was just loitering in the middle of the sidewalk.

Uncommon behavior I know, but I didn't stop to go into Cafe Vita this morning either...  I like their tea selection too.

Wound up going to Javaflow instead.  I go there a lot anyway, Chris the manager has zero issues with my OC habits so I try to give him a lot of business, plus he has computers there...

Now that I think about it I have seen a few more panhandlers than usual the last couple of days.  Wonder if they drifted in with the concert?