Archive for March, 2009

“The first thing that would make me feel a little bit better towards them if they’d follow the Japanese model and come before the American people and take that deep bow and say I’m sorry, and then either do one of two things — resign, or go commit suicide.” - Sen. Grassley

Why in the world would I agree with a man who suggests people commit suicide?   Well, first I know he is just expressing his outrage and despite the fanatical tone, the outrage is certainly there and it’s not lost on me.  The executives taking those bonii are a bunch of unrepentant jackasses… maybe not the same unrepentant jackasses in the sense that the division of AIG they worked in may not be responsible for the mess they created, but they were for the same unrepentant jackasses who are handing out bonus’ to more unrepentant jackasses.  Ethics be damned!  Not a care in the world but for the bottom line and that line is thier own personal wealth.  That personal wealth, you know, that same personal wealth built upon the same greed that brought us to where we are today.  And they would do it all over again without hesitation.  Don’t you think for a minute they wouldn’t.

AIG and the rest of these failures weren’t after anything but thier own financial benefit.  They went after the fast quarter because they knew there was no slow dollar to be made.   Un-f-ing-repentant jackasses.

Anything else Mr. Grassley says is just more talk from crazyville but in this case, I’d just like to see a little honor amongst the theives.

I once went to a St. Patty’s day party in a very small conservative town in Indiana where I was nearly accosted by a patron who, for some strange reason, brought his own green food coloring turn his beer green.  Unfortunately, for him, the more he drank the less the food coloring mixed in his beer… and more on his face.  Before long he had essentially colored the lower half of his face green and was making a drunken conservative ass out of himself.

Conservatives are always getting it wrong and making a mess of things.

Drinking Liberally in the Tri-Cities is tonight and a special St. Patricks Day celebration is in order.  I’m pretty sure there will be green beer - and plenty of good cheer - so come on down and join us.

Location(s)

Richland, WA

I got turned on to this from Eli Sanders over at Slog and “Made in America” seems like bad ass documentary to me.  Eli’s review was something of a rememberance for me for the very brief experience I had with an LA gang.  Nothing dramatic happened in my experience of course.  In fact, if I was to define my life in LA, it was a mixture of brief luxuries, Hollywood excess, surfer subtleties, horrid violence, questionable moral choices and abject poverty.  Mingling with gang members was only in passing chance.

The girlfriend I had at the time was cousin to a Wilmington (Long Beach area) gang member and for his birthday we very white Orange County/Garden Grove nitwits rented a motorhome and took him and his “friends” to up the Grapevine to Valencia for a day at Magic Mountain amusement park.  For a goofball white kid from Richland Washington, it wasn’t nearly as shocking as I would have expected.  Instead of the hip ass image you might expect, they were just a bunch of (not that they were building playhouses for children) normal 20 somethings.  MM security made them take off their “colors” (it was the 80’s… ok) and they had fun just like anyone else.  But I thought about the conditions and why they were where they were and who they were.  Sanders brought a bit of that to mind…

The story of gang violence in Los Angeles, and around the country, is usually told as a law enforcement problem. Sometimes it’s also told as a contemporary social problem, with a discussion of the role that poverty and drug policy and the penal system play. But I’ve never seen the problem so thoroughly excavated as it is in Made in America, which first sets the Los Angeles gang problem in its historic context, looking at what brought African-Americans to the city in the first place (World War II and the auto-makers, among other things); what confined them to areas like Compton and Watts (racist housing covenants, racists police practices, white fear); and what helped create a leadership vacuum in the community that was filled, in part, by gangs (the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Malcolm X, for starters).

My job at the time took me to Compton alot (I actually met some of the best people there).  Another job I had landed me in Paramount (east LA).  You could see it all around you.  It was in a sense though, the beginning of the explosion and I didn’t witness anything extreme or extrordinary.  But the conditions that created this “war”, the incredible poverty and social inequity were glaring.  But then, I could always go home to Garden Grove and never witnessed the night.

We here on the WA - Dry Side probably won’t get a public screening of this movie but you can buy it here.

Check out the trailer:

Your service is getting nearly useless.  I was promised much better internet speeds.  So much for that promise?  Fix it!

If you were thinking about ordering Clearwire, don’t do it until they get their shit together.

For most folks, it’s easy to take for granted the DNR.  And equally easy for us all to let slip into the grey matter or our minds the totally great and awesome Commissioner of Public Lands, Peter Goldmark.  Fortunately for me, having been a supporter since Peter’s 2006 congressional run, I’m on the cool people’s email list from the Dept. of Natural Resources where I get really cool information via e-mail like BAD BUGS!

The caterpillar life-stage of the Douglas-fir tussock moth eats the needles of fir and spruce tree species. This moth is native to Washington, and population levels run in cycles, dropping for a period of years between major outbreaks. The last outbreak in the state occurred from 2000 to 2002, leaving at its peak in 2000 more than 45,000 acres of defoliated trees.

Outbreaks typically collapse within two to three years due to a buildup of natural enemies such as a virus and parasites. However, during an outbreak, up to 40 percent of the trees in an affected area can be killed. Surviving trees may have top-kill—damage to the uppermost foliage on the trees—or may suffer growth loss, or are weakened and more susceptible to other insects, such as bark beetles.

Now I don’t have any bugs (honest girls!).  But I have a great appreciation for the DNR and Peter Goldmark. Keep the emails coming.

I’ve been reading the Seattle PI as long as I can remember. When I was 6 or so, my brother and I had 2 delivery routes in a then not-so-wonderful Seattle neighborhood near Madrona where we fought off angry dogs and angered subscribers with our superior throwing skills (remember aluminum screen doors? A well thrown Seattle PI never sounded so good). And if I remember right, I think my early driving skills were honed on the way back from a PI distribution center with my mother while hauling bundles in the back of our 72′ Ford station wagon, where at 6 (or so), on my mothers lap I nearly ran us into a ditch.

Tomorrow, after 146 years, the last Seattle PI will be printed and for that I am sad.

While the PI is going online only, it’s still a bitter pill to swallow for me (I should be excited right?).   In a large sense, I understand the failing business model of the printed paper.  The Internets win, economics overtake, and in the midst of that… the thinner, lesser content versions of dead tree news contracts until gone.  I just don’t have to like it.

Embryonic stem cell research is fascinating.  But what becomes of the therapies once available?  It’s a little early to know if we will see television ads from Pfizer on their latest therapy (just imagine that in today’s context of marketing… ick).  Here’s an  interesting and informative Slog post that brings up the commercial aspect that deserves some awareness.

I believe that the donation of blastocysts and the distribution of the subsequent embryonic stem cell lines should be strictly decommercialized. The entire process should be like how we handle organ donation from adults—with oversight, and the prohibition of money changing hands in the process.

Now you too can apologize to Rush Limbaugh!

I wish republican leadership would toss Rush to the curb.  They will have to at some point so why not now?  They need ideas and strategy and Rush embodies neither.  Neither does O’Reilly.  Watching republicans right now is like watching an alcoholic bottom out.  They haven’t bottomed out yet but they will.  Then, and only then, we will see them renew.  And tossing Rush Limbaugh (and Bill O’Reilly, Ann Coulter etc…) to the curb will be the first step to admitting they have a problem.