This morning, the tide tables indicated a high tide at 7:45am at about 17 feet. I went downtown to a few locations to observe if any streets went underwater or became innudated.

My first stop was to the West Bay Marina where it was reported about a week ago that a high tide went over the parking lot and was lapping at the marina building. When I got there, a large section of the parking lot just south of the building was underwater. I would guess about 15-20 cars were partially submerged but none too high. Only a few were underwater past the tires. A reporter named Tom (I think) from King 5 was there taking video and a few other boat owners were standing around checking out the high water level. The high tide touched the marina building but was only about 6 inches up or less. Still, it was pretty dramatic to see such a bunch of vehicles partially submerged in Budd Inlet.

Here is my blog post from my person blog about a neat data repository on the web:

Listening to NPR the other day do a story on the dollars being spent by the federal government stimulus led me to recovery.org, which you can drill into by state and county to see where the federal dollars are being spent and on what.

The NPR piece talked about how the company, Onvia, is running a better "recovery dollar tracking" website that the government itself (their is at recovery.gov).

Here are some interesting project on the list for Thurston County - I still haven't figured out if they're actually going to happen or not - help anyone?

1. City of Tumwater - Capitol Boulevard Sidewalk and Bike Lane Project ($158,000 Te)

2. City of Lacey - Lacey Woodland Regional Trail ($6,965 Te)

3. Multiple projects for the Olympia National Forest

Just a note that a large black dog with a white tuff on it's chest with a black collar and no identifying tag is running around the Carlyon neighborhood. I approached it and it barked at me at first but kept trying to approach it with my hand out and staying low and it eventually came up to me and let me look more closely at it's collar. I figured this was the best place to post such a note since it could live just about anywhere and was covering quite a bit of ground.

Howard Rosenfeld

hrstruggle@gmail.com

I was asked to endorse Jamie Moore for Thurston County District Judge and I met her and her family after a Creative Theatre Experience play at Baskin Robbins and she seems nice and all.

However, in all fairness, I need to see what the other ELEVEN candidates are about. So, here are some links with bits of info that I could find about the race - I'll keep adding links as I find them.

This race goes right to the General Election in November - no judge race in the primary!! (the Primary ballot just came to my house).

Olympian Article by Brad Shannon (could this be more worthless?)

Thurston County Auditor Candidate Filing

Voting For Judges.Org info page

Candidates on the ballot for county district judge seat, Olympian by Brad Shannon (more substantial than Shannon article above)

I was browsing through the City of Olympia website today and found that through a program with the Olympia police, while you're on vacation, you can have the Volunteers in Police Services (VIPS) conduct "low-level security checks" of your home while you're away:

 "Vacation Checks Now Available.  The Olympia Police Department Volunteers in Police Services (VIPS) are pleased to offer a vacation check program to the residents of Olympia.  This program allows residents to request that VIPS conduct low-level security security checks of their homes while they are away.  We believe our presence and observation of the residence may deter criminal activity and lead to better over-all safety in our community.

Residents wishing to use this service must appear in person at the Olympia Police Department front office during regular business hours (Mon-Fri/8 AM - 5 PM) and complete an application."

Anyone ever had this done?

Waters gets 6 years for UW firebombing, Seattle PI

"...A key to Wednesday's sentencing hearing in Tacoma was whether actions of Waters, who acted as a lookout and provided logistics support to her ELF compatriots, rose to the level of terrorism.

...Waters' attorney, Neil Fox, sought to scrutinize the government's definition of terrorist. And he asked the court to sentence his client to no more than 18 months behind bars.

"The court should be cognizant of the misuse of the term 'terrorism.' The term clearly has been manipulated by those seeking to advance their own political agendas," Fox said in a filing with the court. "It is the scare word of the day, and the consequences of the expansion of the use of the term to brand defendants can lead to grave injustice."

Fox argued that Waters should not be subjected to the terrorism enhancement, which could add decades to her sentence, because the jury had not found her guilty of conspiring with the other four defendants in the case. Waters "was not part of the broader ELF/ALF conspiracy," Fox said in court filings.

And he claimed his client, who continues to maintain her innocence, had no motivation or intent to intimidate anyone in the alleged arson attack. "There is no evidence that she chose the target or that she even knew about or cared about" the botanical research taking place there.

The government scoffed at that contention, while acknowledging that her actions didn't rise to the level of flying a plane into the side of New York City's World Trade Center.

'Street of Dreams' homes burn

Seattle PI

WOODINVILLE -- Explosive devices were found inside multimillion-dollar show homes that burned in a suburb north of Seattle Monday, fire officials said. Authorities also found a spray-painted sign purportedly left by a radical environmental group at the scene.

Check out the KUOW Flickr photo stream I stumbled upon with pictures of local Olympians and their thoughts about how climate change and rising sea levels will affect the downtown core.

I am pre-empting my usual show format today to celebrate the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Pacifica Radio has produced an excellent show featuring original speeches of Dr. King and of the memorial for him, held in Central Park, New York, immediately after his murder.

Please tune in from 5-6pm today on KAOS for No Talking Heads

The Sunday editorial from the Olympian is the true embodiment of development and conservative interests:

City Council must move in new direction

There was a mandate for nothing as far as I'm concerned. The job of a city commission is to represent the will of it's constituents.

And as history has shown - those constituents that are organized and make things happen are those that are effective. Mike Oakland needs to crawl back under the rock he emerged from.

I for one will miss Laura Ware and TJ Johnson on our city council and hope the council picks a progressive to fill Doug Mah's empty seat. They need a more diverse council - a less diverse council will be the result if someone is picked that the Olympian supports.

Howard Rosenfeld
No Talking Heads, KAOS, 89.3 FM, Sundays, 5pm