Folsom Prison Blues

Just to give some props where props are due: Discerning early Blottered readers selected a distinctive Most Wanted "Most Wanted," Glen Stewart Godwin. I think it has something to do with him being one of only three people to bust out of Folsom, and is still unaccounted for now decades later. Sure, dude's a murderer, but it's strangely comforting to know that John Law can't catch 'em all.

I hear the train a-comin'; it's rollin' 'round the bend,
And I ain't seen the sunshine since I don't know when,
I'm stuck at Folsom Prison and time keeps draggin' on.
But that train keeps a-rollin' on down to San Antone.

When I was just a baby, my momma told me, "Son,
Always be a good boy; don't ever play with guns."
But I shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die.
When I hear that whistle blowin', I hang my head and cry.

I bet there's rich folk eatin'in a fancy dining car.
They're prob'ly drinkin' coffee and smokin' big cigars,
But I know I had it comin', I know I can't be free,
But those people keep a-movin', and that's what tortures me.

Well if they freed me from this prison, if that railroad train was mine,
I bet I'd move it all a little farther down the line,
Far from Folsom Prison, that's where I want to stay,
And I'd let that lonesome whistle blow my blues away.

And after linking to the tabulature for all the guitar pickin' ghosts of the California penal system out there, I'd like to say thanks for the cigarettes and pruno, but I'm bustin' out of Alcatraz and swimmin' for North Beach. Don't drop the soap, kids.

It's Never Funny When A Cop Goes Bad

APB for Blottered readers :

A man who helped make famous the songs "YMCA" and "In the Navy" is still
scheduled to be featured on the television show "America's Most Wanted,"
after
failing to surrender in a San Mateo County courtroom today, according
to San
Mateo County Chief Deputy District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe.
Victor Willis,
54, the original policeman from the musical group the
Village People, was
scheduled to turn himself in today after a $200,000
warrant for his arrest was
issued on Oct. 20.
Willis's new defense
attorney Dean Johnson indicated
Willis would appear in court today, although
he failed to do so, Wagstaffe
said.

After the recent Dance-Punk-Funk revival (see !!! and The Rapture) and the gradual realization that none of it was actually any good, furious record label heads, angry with the goatee-chinned, Chrislam worshipping A&R reps responsible for the signings of these bands, the bands, and apparently the band's ancestors, have declared a Jihad, which includes the planting of false evidence on the great grandfathers of the movement, the Y.M.C.A.

A nostalgic playthrough of !!!'s debut proves that this time, mindbogglingly, the record label heads were right for once.

'Village People' Cop Still On The Run In San Mateo County (ABC7)

Consumer Fraud: Because those lazy f*ckers aren't happy making $18,000 year at the factory. So ungrateful.

I didn't take Spanish in highschool, but I know enough to know that this headline, "Chili-finger scam duo sentenced to prison", must be some kind of bad attempt at racial humor. I can only imagine how the headline would have read had the *duo* not had Spanish surnames. The AP reports, [1]

A California court sentenced a couple to nine years in prison for planting a fingertip in a bowl of chili to swindle a Wendy's fast-food restaurant. Anna Ayala and her husband, Jaime Plascencia, were sentenced today in San Jose, California, for their role in a plot to extort money from the fast-food chain. Both received near the maximum possible punishment in their cases. The couple must pay about $170,000 in restitution for workers' lost wages. A judge also ordered them to pay nearly $21.8 million to Wendy's International and JEM Management, which owns the restaurant. Both corporations agreed not to collect from the couple, provided they never benefit from the ruse. Denny Lynch, Wendy's senior vice president, asked the judge to send a message that "consumer fraud is a serious crime that demands a severe penalty."

Totally! Get those bastards. While we common folk toil away at our high paying jobs for benevolent American business making upwards of $28,000, a few bad apples refuse to keep their greed in check. In addition to the above *duo*, there are Welfare Queens driving Cadillacs, and Katrina victims were unaware of their good luck landing their new residences in the gleaming Superdome. No wonder the rich wealthy poor in this country have caught the eye of the IRS. It seems these people are constantly on the look-out for ways to improve their lot. So ungrateful.

As Denny Lynch, Wendy's senior vice president, so perceptively pointed out, "consumer fraud is a serious crime that demands a severe penalty."

Thanks Denny, we need more watch dogs like you making sure this issue gets the attention it deserves. Send them all to jail! For eva.

For journalistic balance, I would like to quote a lefty here. You know, like they do on Crossfire. Kevin Danaher of Global Exchange says, [2]

"the FBI reports that in 1995 all burglary and robbery cost the United States about $4 billion. Professor W. Steve Albrecht of Brigham Young University estimates that white-collar fraud (usually committed by lawyers, doctors, accountants and businessmen) costs 50 times as much - about $200 billion per year. And this is just dollar cost; it says nothing about consumers hurt by faulty products, cancer caused by illegal environmental pollution, and the corrupting influence on our society when members of the professional elite make cheating a way of life.

If the three-strikes principle is good for street criminals, shouldn't it also apply to a form of crime that is far more damaging to our society?"

Whatever Kevin, you pinko-commie.

[1]The Bismark Tribune
[2]Corporate Crime: Three Strikes, You're Out

Those Who Be Stealin' Steel

One thing that Blottered contributors freely obsess over is the theft of industrial items, like telephone poles, copper wire, and steel pipes.

Deputies said someone stole about $2,500 worth of steel pipes from Mad River
Steel in New Carlisle on Sunday night. They said the two men then took the steel
pipes to be recycled on Monday.
Workers at Stakers Recycling in Springfield
called deputies, who sealed off the entrance to the recycling center and the two
men were arrested. The men face several charges.

The closing sentence in that story: 'the men face several charges' says all you need to know, about the kinds of people who plan and carry out large industrial theft. This isn't your garden variety stapler filched from the office scenario. My guess is, with the culprit's intent to steal that much steel, 'the men face several charges' refers to attempted larceny of oversized paper clips, extra large boxes of those huge rubberbands, and keyboard trays red-flagged for the handicapped.

Two Arrested In Steel Theft (WHIO TV)

The Reanimators

I personally ache for someone to steal my penis and transplant it on their mouth because I think it would do someone more good than it has done me --- but

Patricia Battisti had thought her back surgery in early 2005 was routine. A letter from her hospital nearly a year later made it clear she was wrong.

Battisti was informed that donated human tissue used in her operation could have been infected with a variety of viruses _ fallout from an alleged scheme to steal body parts.

(...)Authorities believe two men paid off funeral homes so they could harvest bone and skin from the dead without their families' knowledge. Worse, some body parts came from elderly people who died of cancer and possibly from victims of infectious diseases _ a fact disguised by doctored paperwork that indicated they had been younger and healthier.

The Brooklyn district attorney's office has opened a criminal case focusing on scores of funeral homes in the New York City area and hundreds of looted bodies, including that of famed British broadcaster Alistair Cooke. At the same time, the Food and Drug Administration has sought to retrace the path of an untold number of tissue products that were derived from the stolen body parts and sold to medical facilities across the country and parts of Canada.

I know. I'm asking the same question. If medicine from Canada is so cheap why the hell are they importing body parts? I thought a penis in Canada went for two bucks and a pack of cigarettes.

Body part theft scandal expected to spawn widespread litigation (Newsday)

Mama, Say It Ain't So!

Last night, Lebron James' mother was arrested for drunk driving, reckless operation and speeding. This all the while she was most likely cussing out the cops. I guess when you're driving a pimped out Escalade it's hard for the cops not to notice you. Specially if you almost hit their car.

I love *love* the mugshot. Grinning from ear to ear. She can't afford to look bad, ya know.

Lebron saids he doesn't know anything yet and once his mama sobers up, he'll be able to comment.


James' Mother In Trouble With the Law - The Detriot News via Deadspin

Got A Case Of The Googlies

Sometimes when what you want is a really good cult story, you come up empty-handed, and get stuck talking about how Google is refusing to hand over the records of Internet searches
by people like you and me.

The White House argues that a list of all requests entered into its search
engine over a single week - which could span tens of millions of queries - will
help it build up a profile of internet use it needs to defend an online
pornography law.

It also wants a million randomly selected addresses from the index of
websites that Google searches.
The papers said Google's search record "would
assist the government in its efforts to understand the behavior of current web
users [and] to estimate how often web users encounter harmful-to-minors material
in the course of their searches".
The Bush administration insists it does
not want to tie the search requests to the person or computer that made them but
the subpoena has nevertheless raised serious privacy concerns.
Ashok Ramani,
Google's lawyer, replied in a letter to the White House that the internet giant
- whose corporate motto is "Don't be evil" - would not hand over its
records.


Favorite personal highlight.

Google's lawyer, replied in a letter to the White House that the internet giant
- whose corporate motto is "Don't be evil"
But...apparently the other search engines, Yahoo, AOL, and MSN sold us out to the man.

Earlier today, I asked a Justice Department spokesperson which search
engines other than Google received requests to provide search records. The
answer: Yahoo, AOL, and MSN were also asked to supply search records
information, and all complied. Google did not, and that is why the DoJ asked a
federal judge on Wednesday to order the company to do so.

I guess we know who the evil companies are. Oh, wait, who the fuck uses Yahoo, AOL, or MSN to search for anything on the Internet?

Google refuses White House search request (Guardian)

DoJ search requests: Google said no; Yahoo, AOL, MSN yes. (BoingBoing)

Resumes Of The Next American Idols

American Idol is in its -what- 47th season? All I know is whenever I turn the TV on that shit is on. So anyway, here's the deal.

They sang like angels for their audition on Tuesday's 'American Idol'
premiere, but a pair of Memphis twins may sound more like jailbirds by the time
the show goes live from Hollywood.
Terrell Brittenum, 28, has been in jail
since Jan. 10 on an outstanding warrant for charges related to the illegal
purchase of a car in Rockdale County, Ga., east of Atlanta.
He and his
brother, Derrell, are accused of using another man's identity to buy a 2005
Dodge Magnum in June.

But --- whatever, all my idols are criminals anyway. And if they are going to be arresting any twins, can we get some law enforcers down on Simon Cowell's prickly black T-shirt nip-outs?

'Idol' twins charged with forgery, theft in Georgia car purchase (AccessNorthGa)

Gameplan

It's almost a year ago since 16 year old Mary-Ann Leneghan was murdered, but details are finally being made public of the horrific way in which she was killed.

She and an 18 year old friend were suspected of stealing drugs by a gang of men who came up with a gameplan of revenge that included abduction, torture and rape before killing the two girls.

Most of this was carried out in a hotel room that the six men had booked for that purpose:

Richard Latham QC told the jury that on the night of 6 May last year Mary-Ann and her 18-year-old friend were sitting in a car in the car park of the Wallingford Arms pub in Reading when they were abducted.

He said the two girls were bundled into the boot of a red Nissan Almera and driven to the Abbey guesthouse in Reading where the men booked into a room.

He said: "For the next few hours they were seriously assaulted, they were raped, they were made to smoke heroin and crack cocaine and most seriously of all they were told throughout that they were going to die that night when the men had finished with them."

He told the court the girls were then taken to Prospect Park where a pillow was placed over Mary-Ann's head before she was repeatedly stabbed to death.

He said a pillow was also placed over her friend's head.

The 18 year old was then shot in the head and left for dead. She survived hence the subsequent investigation arrest and trial...

All six are pleading not guilty. The only footage of the trial the BBC showed this evening was of Mary-Ann's father taking a breath of fresh air outside the court after sitting only a few feet away from the men charged with his daughter's murder.

Mary-Ann 'was killed in revenge' - BBC

"I was a fat, bald, broke old man who sits around in a rusted wheelchair"

I love the Internet. I like the ladiez of the Internet, who sport high and tights and fadez, and maybe if my strike-outs continue I'll start hittin' up the chats, though by that point overseas wives should be cheap enough for my slim checkbook. I just hope I don't run into these jokers:

...Mike Marlowe fully admits that he sometimes gave George Gillespie a hard
time in that AOL chatroom.
But never in his wildest imagination did he
expect to be sued in court for what he characterized as
"razzing."

...Gillespie, 53, claims that Marlowe and Bob
Charpentier, a 52-year-old
Oregon resident, insulted him and harassed him in
the AOL chatroom called
"Romance — Older Men" to the point where it
inflicted "severe emotional distress
and physical injury that is of a nature
no reasonable man could be expected to
endure
it."

...Charpentier said he first encountered Gillespie more than
five years ago
and at first, the two chatters were friendly. But Charpentier
says he quickly
became disenchanted by what he saw as Gillespie's mean
streak.
Things really
turned ugly four years ago when Charpentier
traveled to Kentucky to meet another
chatroom regular, a woman who was also
a friend of Gillespie's. The blind date
did not go particularly well, and
when Charpentier returned to he discovered
that Gillespie had gone on the
attack.
"He just came in slamming on me,
saying all kinds of derogatory
crap: that I was a fat, bald, broke old man who
sits around in a rusted
wheelchair," said Charpentier, who has a chronic back
injury. "I don't even
own a wheelchair."

That, my friends, is a classic defense. "I don't even own a wheelchair". Sure to go down in the book as a classic-classic-classic retort for the ages.

I actually hope he wins the case, not because he's got any legal right, but just because in a couple decades I don't want people making fun of me, while I try to score those high and tight and fadez sportin' chicks. That's what I'll say: "I don't even own a wheelchair", if those AOL catz want a piece of this liver.

Man sues chatroom pals: I was humiliated beyond what 'no man could endure' (Court Tv)

George Clooney, The FBI, The Mob, Vegas, Horses and Tits, Oh My...

The allure of a big breasted woman proves too much for Mr. Clooney, as The Globe's Paul Bannister reports on January 9th.

"Federal agents looking into Mob racketeering and extortion in Las Vegas made George Clooney an offer he couldn't refuse.

They called in the Ocean's 11 star to ask him about his friendship with a strip club owner they're investigating for links to organized crime.

Also swept up in the Fed's investigation were Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci, who were also questioned".

Wow. This is great. The circle is complete.

The club in question is the infamous Crazy Horse Too, purportedly owned by Rick Rizzolo.

A club that Mayor Goodman of Vegas in 2002 sponsored a custom ordinance for, allowing an expansion, and the employ of teenage dancers. God bless his heart. Mayor Goodman is the former Mob Lawyer, who represented many luminaries of this business, most notably slain mobster Tony (The Ant) Spilotro.

Coincidentally, Spilotro was the character Pesci portrayed in Casino pretty accurately, right down to the beating death in the cornfield via a baseball bat. Remember that scene? That was mad fucked up. Makes me cringe now just thinking about it.

If these names and places sound familiar, you might have seen the Dateline segment on the Crazy Horse Too a few years ago. The one detailing Robert D'Apiece's assault on Henry Kirk, which left him paralyzed. Or more recently, this piece in the Daily News.

This place, and the people who work there, do NOT fuck around.
You walk in to have some beers and capture some good material for your sock, and you walk out, leave in a stretcher because you argued with the bouncer about a phony, trumped up credit card bill.

"In 1985 [Robert D'Apiece] pleaded guilty to battering a Crazy Horse client with a baseball bat. The man suffered brain damage and died several years later."

When we go to the Mardi Gras here in my neck of the woods, they treat us a bit nicer, simply asking us to leave as opposed to breaking our necks, when the dancer told on us for leaving her quarters instead of dollars. Whatever, she's lucky she got those. She had no business being on stage.

Former Las Vegas city councilman Steve Miller says the police in Vegas had responded to the Crazy Horse 737 times in one three year period, often having to do with beatings of clients and charges of false credit card bills. There have yet to be any criminal prosecutions of any involved.
That's funny, they say the Mob left Vegas years ago...

Well no matter. What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.
Party on.

George Clonney Grilled in Vegas. (The Globe)

The Ambulance Chasers LTD

Young pranksters these days. They don't just steal a haymaker to go joyridin' anymore:

A 17-year-old was arraigned on theft charges and a 16-year-old was turned over
to juvenile authorities Monday after they were caught running from an ambulance
that had been stolen outside a Grand Prairie home.

The ambulance's
crew was inside the home tending to a patient in a non-emergency case, said
Cynthia Wentworth, a spokeswoman for American Medical Response, which owns the
ambulance.
When they came outside early Monday, the ambulance was gone.
Officials used a global positioning device to track the ambulance, which was
spotted about 18 miles away in Grapevine.

As a tax payin' citizen, I'd like to offer an alternative to community service and probation. No doubt these children can still be saved, can still eventually turn the corner on their desire to steal life-saving vehicles. If American Medical Response is game, I'd like to see these imps driving around and performing duties as EMT's for real - the first woman having a seizure who shits herself will be an eye-opener for the scamps, and as the deaths mount up, patients passing into the mysteries at the other end of the tunnel of light - the boys unable to help, reading from Cliff Note medical guides - trying to figure out what to do - the boys will become bitter dissatisfied alcoholics, just trying to make it through a day without scraping a shard of glass along their wrist or telling a perfect stranger that they love them - then, and only then, will these rascals be like us, responsible grown-ups.

Two teens arrested after ambulance stolen (ABC13)

Coppin' It

Respecting a badge can be akin to the surfeit of authority a bully has when he is surrounded by his allies, except in the case of the badge, it is a sign of authority granted to men and women so that they might enforce the complex system of rules and regulations our culture's devised as a means of drawing order from chaos - although one can't easily withdraw from the feeling of pontification to a bully when questioned by a police officer, even when one has done nothing wrong. A relationship that for intents and purposes is like a relationship that finds its genesis in a smoky-lit bar. Are you sure you want to sleep with this person? Will you be sure when the alcohol and stimulants wear off? Is this person really of the gender you find appealing?

Did I really cross the yellow line? Was I really 10mph over the speed limit? I didn't make a traffic signal?

David William Scheid, 47, a former deputy with the Charlotte County Sheriff's Office who was named Zolfo Springs chief in 2005, has been charged with two felony counts of official misconduct; one felony count of grand theft, one felony count of tampering with a witness, one felony count of fabricating physical evidence and one count of petit theft. According to the arresting agency, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, the charges are the result of a month and a half long investigation into allegations of falsification of training records, sale of property held as evidence and the conversion of items seized as evidence for his personal use.

So next time you're buying a stereo from a cop, ask yourself, will I still want this stereo when the alcohol and stimulants wear off? Should I worry that the stereo for sale has an evidence sticker on it and nail polish stains?

Florida Police Chief Arrested (North Country Gazette)

Better late then never

Below are some of the weird crime stories of 2005. Yeah, I know, normally these kinds of roundups are published before the new year, but hey, its not my fault. Dude just wrote 'em this week. As weird as these are, can't wait to see the treats that 2006 is sure to bring.

• As a registered sex offender in California, James Andrew Crawford was required to notify authorities if he adopted a new "domicile" for more than five days. He was arrested in May for noncompliance after he had been camped for two weeks in a theater line waiting for Star Wars: Episode III to open. - North County Times (Escondido, Calif.), May 19

• Daryl Atkins, a Virginia capital-murder inmate who had previously registered an IQ lower than the minimum-70 needed for execution, scored a 76, and a jury then sent him to death row. Legal experts attributed the improvement in IQ to the intellectual stimulation Atkins received from discussing his case with lawyers. - ABC News-AP, Aug. 14

• In an early-morning shootout on June 4 in the Homewood housing complex in Pittsburgh, two undercover officers and a suspect exchanged a total of at least 103 gunshots but never hit anyone. - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, June 5
  

• William Woodard, suspected by police in the Trenton, N.J., area of more than 50 burglaries, was arrested after authorities said they could match him to one of the "signatures" of the crime spree - random splotches of excrement at several crime scenes. (In the course of the arrest, a nervous Woodard failed to control his bowels.) - The Trentonian, March 11
  

• A judge gave Vickey Siles of New Haven, Ind., a suspended sentence and probation, ostensibly out of pity at the lousy job she did altering a check from Globe Life and Accident Co. Siles had badly obliterated the "$1.00" amount of the check, written in "$4,000,000.00," and then tried to cash it at a neighborhood check-cashing store. - Fort Wayne News Sentinel, March 19

• Police in Twin Falls, Idaho, confiscated almost $1 billion in counterfeit money (which a man tried to leave as collateral for a loan) in a scheme doomed from the start because all bills were of the nonexistent denomination of $1 million. -Twin Falls News-Times, Oct. 17

News of the Weird: 2005 in Review [United Press Syndicate via Relish]

When The 'Jig' Is Up: A Choose Your Own Adventure

Let's say you have a taste for earrings that run into high prices, a penchant for thieving, you don't know the value right off hand but you've recently stolen earrings from the storage area where items were being kept for a college fundraiser - do you bring them back to the same business that originally donated the earrings, in the original box, the packaging, everything?

Now, what if they tell you it'll take all day to do the appraisal and you leave the earrings with the business, along with your name and phone number. When they call you back to the store, saying the appraisal's finished, and willy-nilly, the police arrive -

Is there a possibility that the jig isn't up; can you talk your way out of this unfortunate series of circumstances? turn to page 23

Or is the 'jig' up? turn to page 31



page 23 "I found these in a dumpster on my way to work," you say. You smile, half-eagerly, wondering if now is the proper time to tell the police offers that you annually give money to the Police Officer's Association of North Dakota. Would that change anything? A heavy-set officer, stub-nosed, arrests you and your last thought as you are conveyed to the station-house, is wondering if you'll be on the news. And if so, is this a sort of fame, or is this, the constitution of small-time infamy; will you be the subject of the stupidest crimes of the year email forward? You've made the wrong choice. The 'Jig' was up. The End.


page 31 Brad Wimmer, the owner of Wimmer's Jewelry, in Fargo North Dakota:

"He knew the jig was up when police came in the store," Wimmer said.

Man Arrested in 'Goofy' Jewelry Theft (Washington Post)

Blurbs From the Exurbs

During my recent trip home for the holidays, I spent most of my time at the family cabin in Silverton, Washington -- population, oh, twelve on a good day. Nestled amongst the Snoqualmie National Forest, crime in Silverton is limited to the occassional DUI, generator theft, property line dispute and disregard for fishing regulations on the South Fork of the Stilliguamish.*

But down the road in Granite Falls and Lake Stevens, it's a different story entirely. Gossip traded over New Year's Eve beers at my neighbor's place involved no less than two overdoses and an inebriated auto death in the last two months. Beset upon the bored youth - victims of white flight, Christian evangelism and Pacific Northwest winters - a long history of pill-popping, unemployed lumbermen and you've got a serious drug problem on your hands.

Luckily, I pulled a few back issues of the boosterish local fishwrap, The Lake Stevens Journal, from the fire bin. While it does include a weekly syndicated sermon column by a Presbyterian theology professor, it also prints a blotter. Sadly, for the sake of the community's image, the names of the suspects and the particular intoxicants that got them into their particular mess are not included. I think it makes it all the darker and more mysterious, like the dense, temperate rainforests which shroud the shoulders of the North Cascade peaks overlooking Monte Cristo.**

Besides the unsolved murder of homeless woman Lori Ruth Emr-Knowles of Bothell on Mt. Pilchuck, a couple of kids caught smoking pot in their cars behind a store on Machias and a couple with a court-ordered injuction caught together in a car on East Lakeshore, the Journal reported the following on September 14th:

Sept. 3, Callow Rd. and Lundeen Parkway. Resisting Arrest. A 27-year-old female was pulled over for speeding. During the stop, it was discovered that the female had outstanding warrants. The female fled on foot and purposely cut herself to avoid going to jail. Aid was called out to the scene to treat the injuries. The female was then booked into jail for her warrants and resisting arrest.

In the November 23rd issue, while Dr. Dennis Prutow holds forth in his column entitled "The Bread of God" that...

We equate bread and money. "Give me my bread, man." We love money. Money, we think, allevates our present problems and assures our future. The Bible warns, although not harmful in and of itself, "the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil" (1 Timothy 6:10). So it is.

...the Lake Stevens Police were busy responding to 587 incidents in two weeks, including these:

Nov. 2, 12000 block of 20th St., N.E. Fourth-degree assault. A 28-year-old woman was arrested after punching a 39-year-old woman in the face.

Nov. 3, 700 block of E. Lakeshore Dr., Reckless Driving. A 19-year-old was cited after being observed driving at speeds twice the posted limit.

Nov. 10, 3200 block of 113th Ave. NE, Malicious mischief/theft. A car parked across from Highland Elementary was broken into and a handbag stolen.

Nov. 11, 2900 block of 113th Ave. NE, Warrant service. A 16-year-old male student with outstanding warrants was arrested at the high school and taken to the Denney Youth Center.

While I missed a few issues in between, I've only seen one blotter -- a year-end roundup of total calls in Granite Falls and Lake Stevens -- since the November 30th issue. But that edition's article, "Urban expansions to get another hearing," speaks to the complexity of sprawl:

One of the more controversial changes [to the Snohomish County Comprehensive Plan] would add 590 acres just north of Lake Stevens to the Marysville Urban Growth Area. The rural area, situated north of Soper Hill Road, west of SR 9, east of 83rd Ave. NE and south of 64th St. NE, would be rezoned for higher density housing. Thirty acres would be set aside for an urban commercial center. The City of Lake Stevens, the Lake Stevens Fire Department, the Lake Stevens Sewer District and the Lake Stevens School District have all expressed concerns about the proposal. The City of Marysville has argued that the expansion is needed to accomodate growth.

It's been troubling to see the progress of development in a kind of stop-motion, as at best I'm haunting my old stomping-grounds twice a year. Roads that were empty are now choked, foothills recovering from clear-cuts now developed, and good people like my brother are swallowed in the failures of righteous indignation and the recursive horror of xenophobic self-denial. You can't run from yourself; better to accept that you're trouble now than let it catch up with you in a dark corner.

* Just so you know, you can fish catch-and-release year round if you use fly tackle and file down the barbs on your hooks. Frankly, what scares me most is some out-of-town rube who catches a Dolly Varden on a Wal-Mart spincasting rod and is too stupid to know they're both endangered and, like Steelhead, not particularly good eatin'. The same rube can kill and eat as many mangy racoons as he likes, but if he touches that beautiful monster I turned over with a drifted Royal Coachman... That, that deserves rough justice.

** Alternately, you can play the always fun "Guess which psychoactive cocktail they're on!" game. But honestly, these are poor people with starkly narrow horizons, so give 'em a break.

Abramoff Does Not Plead Not-Guilty!

Hey, look, it's 2006. Just when you thought you wouldn't live to see it (trudging through the office with razor at your neck screaming about the lack of periwinkle 'Crocs) you go back to work, kicking the door of your automobile closed (to the clamoring sound of empty beer bottles rolling around the passenger side) and walk into the building making catcalls to various secretarial-looking chicks, sit down at your desk and wonder why there's a bloodstain on your crotch, log on the Internet to look up 'Trekkie-Porn', only to discover Abramoff pled guilty.

Lobbyist Jack Abramoff pleaded guilty Tuesday to federal charges of conspiracy,
tax evasion and mail fraud, clearing the way for him to cooperate in a massive
government investigation of influence peddling involving members of Congress.

What a hoot; pass the vics.

Update 14: Abramoff Pleads Guilty, Will Cooperate (Forbes)

Ain't sayin we got comp but...

The Anger Management blog is pretty damn good. The last five fucking posts have been about Drew Planten, the guy who [allegedly --lawyer] killed a stripper and after his arrest refused to move, eat, or open his eyes. No word on his involvement with Crystal Meth, though that is big in that part of the country (the Midwest, Southwest, and South).