To Honor 4 Years of Driftglass

Who better than Tom Waits?



Nope, I couldn't think of anything better either. Unless it's this one:



Other than, of course, going right there, right now, to leave your best wishes for our friend.

In the reporting what's happening right now with me department. We're 6 shows into our run. We've lost one alto to a busted collarbone (I didn't do it, I got witnesses, alibi, all that shit). I do have a new nickname from the cast though. They call me "Razor." New show tonight with a new alto. Right now I got board feeds and a dvd from the light booth to pour and obsess over.

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Sarah's Pick to the State Senate As Sleazy as the Rest of Her Ethics

By State law the gov. of Alaska must choose a democrat to fill the seat of recently resigned dem state senator Kim Elton. The normal process is that the senior Dems in the legislature prepare a list or names of who they would approve, and the gov. chooses from that list the person that she presumably feels she could work best with.

The state party sent up one name, trying to force the governor's hand. She shunned that name and has instead choses Tim Grussendorf. And here is where the problems begin.

Gov. Sarah Palin has appointed legislative aide Tim Grussendorf to the state Senate seat that opened when Juneau Democrat Kim Elton resigned. It's a controversial pick that Grussendorf's own party says it will try to block.

Palin had to pick a Democrat from Juneau for the seat under state law. But Grussendorf was a registered Republican until just weeks ago, then switched to being a Democrat to qualify for the appointment. Grussendorf now needs a majority vote of the nine Democrats in the state Senate to approve his appointment. Anchorage Daily News

Sarah and Grussendorf see no problem with this and can't imagine why the Alaska Democrats are upset. And so the fight begins.

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NY's 20th District, The Last Chance Today

The special election for the congressional seat for the NY20th is tomorrow, Tuesday 3/31. Our guy is Scott Murphy. Their guy is a real evil, jerk Tedisco. This is a rather conservative area- so Scott is not as left as I like, but he has a good sense of justice and community.

President Obama has endorsed Scott and set out emails to the OFA and DNC lists but we need a bunch of help in this last 24 hours.

If you are in the district, make sure you find your polling place and vote.

If you are not a New Yorker or not in the 20th we still need your help. This race is going to be tight tight tight, it will all be GOTV (get out the vote) so if you have even 10 spare minutes today and tomorrow- use the DCCC's phone banking set up and make some calls. The system is easy to use and with skype etc. you can make calls for free. Give them a hand!

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Ending Childhood Hunger in America

We read more about poverty, hunger and the plight of children around the world than we do in our own country. Even now, when things are getting worse. More families in shelters, more kids homeless, more people on food stamps, this problem needs everyones nickels and dimes just to get through this next year.

The folks at Share our strength do a funding drive to help local shelters and organizations feed hungry kids in America. The event(s) is called "The Great American Bake Sale." It is easy, they give great online and offline tools to make sure that people are successfully empowered to get involve and make a difference. And it is nationally organized but locally effective.

I wrote about it on Budget Artists. You can read more there or go straight to the source and sign up.

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Good News for Appalachia and The Planet

In another huge departure from Bush era legislation, President Obama is stopping the dumping of toxic waste from mining in a rural valley.

Yesterday was a great day for the people of Appalachia and for all of America. In a bold departure from Bush-era energy policy, the Obama administration suspended a coal company's permit to dump debris from its proposed mountaintop mining operation into a West Virginia valley and stream. In addition, the administration promised to carefully review upward of 200 such permits awaiting approval by the US Army Corps of Engineers.- Robert F. Kennedy Jr in the WaPo

Could it be that someone is going to finally try to help this region? Someone in Washington is going to think more about the people and the planet than about the mining companies and the money? fingers are crossed.

Crossposted from FL

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My Apologies For an Extreme Lack of Posting

image taken from official site

I've been way damned busy (which is a good thing)

I've been pulling down my first gig as a musical director for an equity waiver show. My first official act was to hire myself as the guitar slinger. Since taking this gig my time has been full of some of my least favorite things. Like rehearsals. If every musician was as obsessive compulsive about showing up with the charts down as I am rehearsals would last an hour max. In all fairness to the band I've hired, straight from the call board of the union hall (Live better. Work Union.) they showed up with the music down, as written. Most of the band's rehearsal time has been spent identifying the places and times where we can play off the page. I've gotten some great progress, and co-operation from the cast too. There are a few non-singers who I've been working with on ways we can, since we can't make them good singers in the space of a week or two (maybe never), we can make them effective singers. One will most certainly have to act his way through and out of his numbers. It can all be done.

(warning, heavy namebrand endorsments will follow) (i love sunburst finishes, plus, i almost always buy my working gear at scratch and dent, or factory blemish sales, after all, working axes end up in situations where they are going to get nicks and stuff anyway. it also lets me spend a few moments inside my head deriding the "collectors" who buy beautiful guitars to stick under glass and not let anybody ever play)

This is also the first major gig I've been using my Line6 Variax® as the main workhorse of the show. I am in deep gushy geek love with this instrument. For the technogeeks out there here is my setup.



Line6 Spider III 150 This is what's called a "modeling amp" in that by using settings inside the amp's processors I can conjure up sound models of vintage amplifiers, and create new sounds. The amp is hooked up to a PODxt Live which places the amplifier controls right there at my feet. It also provides a USB link to my laptop.

What is so wonderfully fucking glorious about this setup is that back in the stone age of electric guitars I would have to approach a gig like this ready to bring two or three electrics, a couple of acoustics, two amplifiers and a whole tangled array of cords and stomp boxes. Almost all my time between numbers would be spent plugging, unplugging, twisting knobs, putting down and picking up various and sundry axes. With this, I can set my voicings for the amplifiers by song title in the laptop by song name (or for that matter, any file name I choose) and pull them up with a touch of the fingerpad. The guitar can switch seamlessly from sounding like a Les Paul, Stratocaster, Gretsch Chet, Ricky12, Gibson 335, along with a couple of very serviceable acoustic patterns with the flick of a switch and the twist of one knob. Using this guitar alone allows me time to quit fiddling around to produce sound patterns, and concentrate instead on making music.

The genius of the Line6 crew is that they didn't waste time and memory space so that you can make your guitar sound like a string section, pipe organ, accordian, or other things. They made it sound like guitars. They make it sound like great guitars. Adding in the laptop means that I can use software to create my own modelings. I can also switch tunings as easily as I change guitar models. I began to really appreciate this setup when a singer I was backing was doing his version of Pink Floyd's "Comfortably Numb." During his singing I was set up to sound like a Strat playing through a shimmery, etheral reverb heavy Fender Supertwin. When the vocals ended I stomped a couple of foot buttons, flicked one switch, twisted one knob and stuck a slide on my pinky to sound like I was blasting a Les Paul (in G tuning) through a Marshal Stack. I went from artyfarty pretty tones to ballsout in the blink of an eye. I have since added another Variax to my arsenal because slide work requires a different setting on the neck action. They also have an acoustic Variax which will soon come into the stable.

(in the interest of full disclosure I have made a few minor modifications to the stock instrument. Instead of the neck which came with the guitar I am playing a custom Stratocaster neck, it fits my hands, I'm used to it, and my heart is happy when I have an unfinished ebony fingerboard and german silver frets. I replaced the factory machine heads with a set of Silver Schalers and the bridge with a Fender Stock Strat bridge. Oh, yeah, I also have played several promotional gigs in music stores where I play my setup live and get a percentage of the sales. The idea is that budding players will think that equipment alone will allow them to sound like me. I figure they'll learn those harsh lessons anyway so, why not now?)

Age of the geek baby.

Guitar players and other musicians always geek out on their equipment. Players get involved with individual instruments and can obsess for years in the chase for that perfect fit of style and sound.

This frees me up to really work on the music.

We start a 16 show run on Thursday. I'll try and come up for a peekaboo post or two.

Since this is supposed to be first, and foremost, a political blog, I will pass along another quotation from Jean-Paul Marat. For some reason the writers and thinkers of the French Revolution have been providing me with the most appropriate food for thought. Marat, Danton, Robespierre and the others were on to some shit.

No, liberty is not made for us: we are too ignorant, too vain, too presumptious, too cowardly, too vile, too corrupt too attached to rest and to pleasure, too much slaves to fortune to ever know the true price of liberty. We boast of being free! To show how much we have become slaves, it is enough just to cast a glance on the capital and examine the morals of its inhabitants.

Addendum:

In the Credit Where Credit is due world, this was inspired by a regular feature at Kung Fu Monkey where Michael Alan Nelson writes his "Guitar Fridays." Great work Mike. Anybody who is not familiar with Michael's work can read his web published work Dingo.

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The Budget Artists Now Online

Andy Warhol Dollar Sign 1982

Hi, In addition to this lovely place and my work at Fighting Liberals, I got a new gig with some friends of the GNB family. It is called The Budget Artists. And it is full of great writers and content developers whos passion and drive is to share information on how to live happily, and cheaply in these economically difficult times.

I am writing there as the editor of the food channel. So be sure to wander over and check us out. We are just ramping up but there is already some great content posted. If you have any suggestions that you think would make the site better, or story ideas-- the team is interested in feedback. And I am open to any and all food related ideas that folks would like to see.

Come read us soon.

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Happy Saint Patrick's Day

The beautiful Sinead O'Connor singing a song which almost became the national anthem of Ireland.



Mark Knopfler does "Raglan Road."



The beautiful Cathy Ryan sings "The Back Door."

Last November, Cathy performed at the theatre my brother-in-law manages. He invited me to meet "the celtic singer" who was performing that night, and it turned into old home week. Cathy's group "Cherish The Ladies" toured with a run I did behind the great Tommy Makem and Liam Clancy. They were our opening act. One night, the monitor set up was totally messed up. There was a split second lag behind the music you played and the music you heard. For a group like Cathy's it was a recipe for disaster. She and her girls were newly formed and that night, they simply fell apart. We had been performing together nearly two weeks, but I had been my usual silent self backstage. We hadn't talked much, mainly because I don't talk much. As Cathy told the story, it went something along the lines of

"as we were in the wings dressing down the stage manager Stevie walked by, and said the first words he had said to me since our introductions weeks ago. He walked past me, pulled out his earbuds, put them in my hand and whispered 'Monitors are for pussies. You should know what the right notes feel like.' Then he went out on stage with Tommy and they killed. I have never since complained about monitors."

That told, let me say that I absolutely adore Cathy. She's a peach.




Van Morrison sings "Carrickfergus."

Blessings of the day to all ya'll.

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"Mark by Ben": A Modern Job Search

Mark is Mark Gullet, former VP, Marketing, with the NHL's Tampa Bay Lightning. Ben is his son. Mark was laid off as part of the team's "restructuring" and is looking for work.

(h/t James Mirtle at From The Rink)

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Choosing an Energy Source

(Visualization: Evan Robinson; Data Sources: Ecologist Magazine: The Future of Energy is Renewable,
Energy & the US Economy: A Biophysical Perspective, Renewables in Scotland: Carbon Dioxide)

I was reading The Transition Handbook in preparation for a workshop next weekend, and there's a couple of great charts showing the carbon intensity (grams of CO2 equivalent produced per kilowatt-hour) and EROEI (Energy Returned on Energy Invested) of various energy sources (although oil is prominent by its absence, I added some in later). Those charts are online at The Ecologist magazine. Although I found them interesting and useful, I thought they would be much more useful if they were combined.

The result is above: a scatter chart showing the relationship between EROEI and Carbon Intensity for various forms of energy. Because a high EROEI is good, we would prefer to use energy sources far to the right. Because low Carbon Intensity is good, we would prefer to use energy sources far down on the chart.

Several energy sources were "outliers" -- they didn't fit nicely on the chart as scaled, so they are marked by half cut-off blue dots at the very edge of the plot. Their label includes the actual value, so although the "Tar Sands (465)" dot is at about 260 gCO2e/kwh, the actual value is 465 gCO2e/kwh as indicated by the (465).

For any given application, this chart provides a (roughly) optimal ordering of energy sources. Wherever possible, Tidal Range power is the highest EROEI and the lowest (or very very close to the lowest) Carbon Intensity. Next is a choice between Offshore Wind (if you prefer to reduce Carbon Intensity a bit more in exchange for a bit less EROEI) or Sewage / Landfill Gas. And so on.

You'll notice that the included petroleum and petroleum like fuels (US oil, tar sands, Coal) are very dirty, except for possibly "Clean" Coal, which doesn't really exist yet. And there are alternatives to each of them which have higher EROEIs. But none of them have the physical energy density that these carbon based fuels like oil have.

A simple conclusion is obvious: carbon based fuels should not be used for electrical generation (that's what most of these energy sources are, with the exception of Solar Thermal and the generalized cogeneration of electrical power and heat intrinsic to Sewage / Landfill Gas, Concentrating Solar Power, Solid Biomass, and so on) if any of these other alternatives are available and can supply a significant fraction of the required power.

(This post is cross-posted at my personal blog: Mischievous Ramblings II)

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Court Filing in Geronimo v. Obama

PDF of the Lawsuit Here

Some of those folks are semi-backdoor relatives. You might be able to gather from the document that there was a lot of intermarriage between the different Apaches. It's true, between rounds of fighting, we loved each other. I know you don't understand. It's an Indian thing.

Notice, if you please, the signature of the Plaintiff's Attorney.

That's fucking cred, yo.

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Daily Show: Jim Cramer Interview

Watch this.

No kidding.

It isn't just that Jon Stewart is brilliant and hands Cramer (host of CNBC's Mad Money) his ass. That's nice, but really, who cares... (Warning: NSFW Language throughout interview.)

Watch this because by the end you'll grasp at a deep level how the financial media has not just

• failed to report on the problems in the markets,
• failed to do any investigative reporting, but also
• failed to call "fire" when an inferno was ablaze.

As Jon makes clear and Jim Cramer eventually cops to, CNBC and the rest of the financial "media" helped set the financial markets on fire through their selective, biased, and non-journalistic "reporting" whose primary purpose was to entertain, get ratings, and promote the market (which they themselves and their bosses and organizations were invested in.) Their shows were ENTERTAINMENT, not journalism, having little to (yes, I'll go there) nothing to do with reporting of actual financial news or markets in any journalistic sense.

These so-called financial media were and are part of the fraud which caused the bubble leading to the collapse.

Jon calls them/him out, and Cramer admits it.

An absolute must watch all the way through.

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Jim Cramer Unedited Interview Pt. 1

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things w/ Demetri Martin

Political Humor
Jim Cramer

Jim Cramer Interview, CNBC: Part 1

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Jim Cramer Unedited Interview Pt. 2

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things w/ Demetri Martin

Political Humor
Jim Cramer

Jim Cramer Interview, CNBC: Part 2

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Jim Cramer Unedited Interview Pt. 3

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things w/ Demetri Martin

Political Humor
Jim Cramer

Jim Cramer Interview, CNBC: Part 3

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Quote of the Day

From Marat

Plots and conspiracies are multiplying at an alarming rate. Scarcely a week goes by without another explosion. This is hardly surprising, however. Ever since the foolish People became content with breaking up the conspirators instead of executing them… I am tired of repeating it, but as long as the conspirators remain alive, the conspiracies will not end. By constantly hatching new plots against liberty, they will eventually succeed in destroying it … even today these aristocratic conspirators are working to overthrow the Revolution. They do this by filling the administrative bodies and the courts with their own kind, by hiring reactionaries from the old regime, by enlisting the services of bureaucrats and by corrupting the poor through bribing armies of informers, cutthroats, and bandits… For a long time now, the ministers, and their provincial agents have been attracting to the capital a large number of the destitute, the dregs of the army and the scum from every city in the kingdom.

Now from Jon Stewart:

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Jim Cramer Pt. 2

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things w/ Demetri Martin

Political Humor
Jim Cramer

Res
Ipsa
Loquitur.

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Ricky Gervais and Elmo

Ricky Gervais and Elmo crack each other up.

This is a preliminary peek at an interview scheduled to air in November 2009 for Sesame Street's 40th Anniversary episode.

The producer has lost control of the interview. Instead of talking about charity, they turn to "what NOT to ever" talk about on Sesame Street. Heh.

Enjoy.

H/T Huffington Post.

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Arrrgh! Spider!!!

Two slices of left over pizza in a pizza box.

Photo removed on 6/23/2009
per request of copyright holder under the DMCA
Original photo can (as of this date) be found at Green Nature
The "Giant House Spider." Yes, that is really its name.

Booga-de-booga-de-BOO! *shudders*

Was reaching for the next-to-last pizza when a HUGE SPIDER crawled out from under the mushrooms and waved its legs and big terrible fangs at me...

"Yo, mo-fo... This slice is mine."

Whap! Whap, slap. Bam, bam, ka-boom, thwap.

FUCK! He's fast. "Goddammit, where are you! Aaaaaargh! Die, dammit, die!"

BAM! *looks* SQUEEZE! *looks again* SQUEEEEEEZZZZE! *looks again*

*smiles tightly*

The remains of the spider, several napkins, and two slices of pizza -- all in incy wincy bitsy spider pieces, plus crumpled napkin and destroyed pizza slices, contaminated no doubt with SPIDER EGGS, ewwwww! -- are in a pizza take-out box outside my locked bedroom door.

You betcha.

They're not getting me while I sleep, no sir. Not climbing up onto the ceiling and sliding down spider silk onto my face and then creeping into my mouth or my nose (yes, they can compress themselves that small no problem) or into my ears like that pinching bug in Star Trek II that went in what-his-name's ear and made him a slave. No spider's biting me on my eyeball, or coming down with their thousands of little spider babies alive clinging onto their belly and then they let them loose in my hair while I sleep to crawl down across my face walking over my eyeballs and inside my nose and mouth to eat me from the inside.

On the other hand, I really like tarantulas. They're from Arizona. *waves to Arizona* It's the little household bity spiders like the Brown Recluse, Hobo and Giant Household Spider that creep me out. Yes I know they're good for us and eat insects and do good, yuh-huh. But they still creep me the frack out.

I'm talking about the spiders small enough to climb in bed with you and eat you alive as you sleep. Not that they'll do that to me, see. 'Cause I'm protected with Spider-be-gone and special anti-spider drugs plus specially trained anti-spider sasquatch's with night-vision goggles. It's you who need to worry. 'Cause if they can't get to me, they need to eat something. Or someone.

Sweet dreams.

(I wonder if I took too much of that med that messes with my dreams, earlier. Oh well...)

Update 6/23/2009:
The second photo on the post was removed per the request of the copyright holder, under the DMCA. (Group News Blog ALWAYS carries out its legal obligations under the DMCA -- see instructions in the Contact section.)

In addition, we added a link (valid as of today) back to the original photo at Green Nature.

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*taps fingers*

*sighs*

*waits some more*

I intentionally picked the FIRST appointment after lunch, precisely so
I wouldn't have to wait.

*waits*

Why is it Docs act as if THEIR time matters more than OURS?

Grrrr.

And yes, he's a really, really GOOD doc. Consistently ranked one of
the top one or two eye cutters in Puget Sound. He just doesn't know, err, care,
about being on time! Double-grrrr.

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Wow, They Noticed Us in New York!

NY Times Delcares El Centro to be Ground Zero, the Capital City of the Recession

I guess that it's nice to be noticed. The article makes a couple of minor factual mistakes. We are not in California's "inland" valley. We are in Imperial Valley. The southernmost of the chain of valleys that hold the center of the state. Immediately to the north of us, there is the Coachella valley, then the San Bernardino Mountains, a high desert plateau, then the fabled Steinbeck country of the Central Valley.

We are about a ninety minute drive from Palm Springs, two hours from San Diego, four and a half hours from L.A., one hour from Yuma. . .barring, of course, time consuming encounters with "La Migra." All told though, like many border regions it's more complicated than simple lines and made up regions. In fact, no matter how far you drive, we remain miles from all of you.

One of the biggest impacts that both the "Phony War on Terror" and the nativist cranks like Tom Tancredo have had upon our economy is to simply choke the very life from commerce. Just south there is the city of Mexicali. Three million people who would gladly cross the border to trade, do other business, and even simply visit friends and relatives. The average border crossing takes around two hours. Not good for business. Little trips to Mexicali, often to visit its large and vibrant Chinatown, used to be the stuff of whim. Not anymore.

Rather than continue, or make more oppresive, the "constitution free zone," (4th and 5th amendment rights do not exist at Border Patrol Checkpoints) that is our border region; I suggest that they establish a free access and trade zone, just like they promised to do in NAFTA.

As it stands, Mexico's biggest export to us is drugs and workers. Our biggest export to Mexico is illegal firearms.

That's just sick yo.

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Matt Harvey on Transition Towns

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Crisis of Credit Visualization

The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.

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Friday Open Thread

Friday, thank the Gods.

Been visiting doctors most of the week. More -- lots more -- the next month. Nothing major wrong, as far as they can tell so far. They're trying to make certain that is really the case, and that this one issue isn't a pointer at something serious. So far, so good. Some of the tests, however, hurt.

Kindle 2 is out. Anyone?

I know I'm running late on the Oscar contest results. So sorry. The results will come out this weekend. I already have the book at home, waiting to ship to the winner.

Presidential politics? The economy? Housing market?

Weekend plans? Weather? Anyone get clobbered by the east-coast storm? It's kind of nice out here in Seattle.

Sushi. I've had sushi for lunch and dinner at least three times this week. I love salmon/avocado rolls. And salmon, both raw and seared. We have a little sushi joint near my office which has plates which circle round and round with just two to three pieces on a plate. Each plate is colored and different colors means different prices. This way you rarely have to wait and you don't eat more than you want. And if they don't have what you want, you just ask and they'll make it for you on the spot and put it on the correct colored plate. Two days ago I had 16 plates worth, however five of them were pastries for desert. Heh.

Yes, I know blogging has been a bit slow for a while. We'll start to pick things up again in the weeks to come. We're not going anywhere.

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California Supreme Court Hears Arguments

On Proposition (h)8 Today

The oral arguments will center upon three questions:

Was this a revision of the state constitution rather than an amendment?

An amendment requires only a simple majority to pass into law. A revision, a substantial change in the language and the application of state law, requires a 2/3's majority in the State Assembly and the State Senate before being put on the ballot. The argument of the defense is that there were two definitions of marriage and civil union as being restricted only to "one man and one woman" already embedded in the constitution, so therefore, prop (h)8 was merely a strengthening of those already in place sections. The plaintiffs argue that because this proposition had the effect of removing rights in place to a segment of the population there was no amendment, but rather a drastic revision.

Does the proposition constitute a violation of the state's separation-of-powers doctrine and did it seek to deprive the state judiciary of their legal, and constitutional function of judicial review?

Last May, in the decision which prompted the proposition, the State Supreme Court ruled that the laws defining and restricting the right to marry raised

"constitutional concerns not only under the state constitutional right to marry, but also under the state constitutional equal protection clause."

In this case the defense is asking the court to abrogate constitutional duty and authority to a simple majority.

If Proposition (h)8 is found to be constitutional and is left to stand what is the effect on the more than 18,000 couples who were legally married during the period between the May decision and the victory in the election?

This is probably the thorniest issue raised by the entire proposition. To remove the legal rights from law abiding citizens who were married under the law at the time is, I hope, the bridge too far in the assault on equal rights. It would require expensive and bitter legal wrangling to untie the knots already in place.

*It's only right to mention that I have a dog in this fight. My cousin, my best friend and steadfast ally for our entire lives was able, over the summer, to marry his companion and lover of nearly 20 years. My cousin's marriage and long term commitment to his partner show more "defense of marriage" and more demonstration of enduring and pure love than my four tawdry debacles of drunken cruelty, faithless and indulgent recklessness which all resulted in hurtful, and messy divorces.

A decision is expected within 90 days. The Sacramento Bee reports nearly 18,000 demonstrators are outside the court, representing both sides of the argument.

Be_Devine writes about the legal issues. Much better than I did.

Jerry Brown writing at Kos argues that the entire thing was poorly written, meanly concieved and should be struck down.

dday at Hullaballoo reports that the issue may be decided already. The prediction is that the proposition will be allowed to stand, as will the marriages which took place before it went into effect. A third possibility is that the term "marriage" may be replaced by another term effectively putting the state in charge of civil union and individual faiths in charge of "marriage."

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A Friend Has Died

He Wasn't Famous, He Wasn't Rich

He was a good man the name of Brad Turner, he lived in Arkansas. We met on the web. We had many lively exchanges at the Dark Wraith Forums, Badtux The Snarky Penguin, and we were co-bloggers at Big Brass Blog.

We were also friends. We spent a long time talking on the phone over the last five years. We talked about nothing, and about everything. We planned a few meetings that never happened. We talked about our love of the desert southwest, relishing the places we had in common. We talked about war, politics, health care, sewage treatment, history, and love.

He died broke, in massive debt from medical bills he could have never afforded to pay. That's not the measure of a human being though.

Goodnight my friend, Goszhde A'ago'ashe (blackdog, his nom-de-net). You will be missed, and remembered. Fires will be lit tonight, prayers will be said.

A kind, and gentle warrior has gone home.

Y'atta'alliikesh shanandahhii shicha'an, ninihalli'yah.

(the singing snake loves you, he will always love you)

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Time to Stop Police Violence

Beating up on girls, yeah... you are a tough guy.

SEATTLE (AP) — A King County sheriff's deputy kicks a 15-year-old girl, slams her to the floor of a jail cell, strikes her and pulls her hair in violence captured on videotape.

Prosecutors released the surveillance video Friday in the assault case against Deputy Paul Schene, who is accused of using excessive force on the girl. Schene, 31, pleaded not guilty to fourth-degree assault in Superior Court on Thursday.

Schene was investigated previously for shooting two people — killing one — in the line of duty in 2002 and 2006. Both times his actions were found to be justified, said Ian Goodhew, prosecutor's deputy chief of staff.

This goes way beyond the necessary use of force. Big tough guy, beating up on a 15 year old girl. She was not accused of any violent crime, she was unarmed, she could not have hurt this guy if she wanted to-- How can he possibly be pleading not guilty.

The guy with him... a trainee, so not only is this jerkoff beating up on girls, but he is teaching other cops to do the same.

It is long past time to get the word out to security and law enforcement that the George Bush days of jack booted thugs running our country is over-- time to clean house. These guys are out of control. I think assulting a cop should be a serious crime but Cops betraying the trust of the public-- who pay their salaries by the way-- should result in instant suspension, followed by certain dismissal and serious criminal charges if they are found guilty. We need a no tolerance law for this, now.

update: A little history on this deputy sheriff;

In June 2006, Schene fatally shot a suspect, Pedro Yo, who attacked him during a traffic stop. Yo had run back to his car and disobeyed Schene's orders to stop. Schene said he saw Yo reach for something in the seat, so he fired 11 times after he ran back to his car. An inquest jury found Schene's shooting was justified.- Mike Barber Seatttlepi.com

I wonder if Yo even had a weapon. This guy is a menace. He better lose his badge over this one, before someone gets killed-- again.

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