I've been visiting Washington, DC for the last week. It's great to see where this whole "United States"-business got started.

I counted 11 representatives on the floor while I was at the Capitol building.

Our tax dollars at work.

Today at the peace rally downtown, a woman handed out bright pink flyers that proclaimed "Public Notice - Right now, there is a law on the books that when announced will change your life!". One side of the flyer lists information on something called NESARA, the opposite side contains the Bill of Rights.

NESARA is an "internet based conspiracy theory involving secret laws, white knights, aliens, and September 11.". Members attend most peace and social justice rallies in Olympia and hand out flyers. The Tacoma News Tribune did an expose of this group and their Shelton based founder a few years back.

So before buying into a conspiracy theory, shop around on the net, there are many to choose from, even here in Olympia.

It is early evening as you return to your home. You are sure that all the lights were turned off when you left this morning, but you see the kitchen light is on. You unlock the front door, and can hear some kind of cookery noises from the stove area. Slowly you tiptoe to the warm light of your kitchen, look into the door and see ...

... Nikita Khrushchev in the middle of the room wearing an apron. He is in the process of making donuts. The table is filled with them. Nikita appears to be alive and well, looking much like he did in the early 1960s. Never mind that he is now well over 100 years old. Never mind that he supposedly died in 1971. Here he is, in your kitchen, wearing an apron, making donuts.

He greets you with great fondness, speaking in broken English. He asks if it is okay if he can hide out at your place "for a few days." Nikita promises that he is no threat to our national security. He cannot explain the how and why about his presence in your kitchen. And he can give nothing in return, except conversation and donuts. So can he stay with you for a bit, and would you promise not tell anyone, at least for awhile?

He offers you a donut. It is the best donut you have ever had in your life.

What would you do?

More Twisted Conundra here

So here we go. Do this for a year and you get 250 grand, free and clear. Failure to comply will result in no payment.

A beeper is hooked up to your waist. It is small and unobtrusive. This device has a twofold purpose. First, tiny little sensors are connected to various parts of your body. They are not uncomfortable and cause no damage. But they do let the machine know whether or not you are asleep. This information is transmitted to an office where a group of scientists wearing lab coats and horn-rimmed glasses can tell if you are awake. This brings us to the second function of the beeper.

Every half hour this beeper will emit a polite alert. When this sound is made, you have 60 seconds to obey and do the following-- stand up, raise your elbows straight out on both sides until they are parallel with your shoulders. At this point you will look like you have the stance of a robot in a 1950s B-movie. Now, move your elbows up and down about three or four inches. At the same time rotate your entire body one full circle in a clockwise direction.

It doesn't matter what you are doing before the beeper alerts you. Taking a bath, in the middle of childbirth, testifying before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, whatever. You must stop whatever you are doing, stand up, move your elbows up and down while spinning in one full clockwise circle. You have 60 seconds to obey the beep. The exception, of course, is when you are asleep, thus the reason for the team of scientists reading the monitors hooked up to your body.

Since so many people spend much of their lives behind the wheel of a car, this can be a problem. The conditions would require you to stop the car, get out, and do the thing. This might be impossible in some places. I

You must wear a giant plastic cartoon head at all times whenever you leave your house. The head will look like the delightful Harvey Comics character Richie Rich, frozen in a smiling expression. The head will be large, but small enough to fit through a door. It will probably be too big to fit into a car, so if you need transportation you will have to ride in the back of a truck or van.

If you set foot outside your door without the giant Richie Rich head, you will not get any money. Even if it is just to get the mail or daily newspaper. A team of experts will be watching you.

The view of the outside world from inside the giant Richie Rich head is limited. You would be unable to eat while wearing the giant Richie Rich head. You would, however, attract attention wherever you went. People would say, "Now there's something you don't see every day, someone walking down the street in a giant Richie Rich head!"

So, would you do it?

You are driving down a quiet residential street, not really paying attention to the road. You realize moments too late that a car has stopped in front of you and even though you slam on the brakes, your front bumper manages to lightly tap the rear of the other car. Not real hard, but enough to give the other driver a bit of a jolt.

This other car is big. It has evil looking fins. It is a black car with tinted windows. The driver's door opens and as you see the leg step out, you notice that instead of a foot, this car's owner has a cloven hoof. As he approaches you, you just know that this being is not of this earth.

He taps on your window, you roll it down. "Okay," he says in a sweetly menacing way, "This is only a minor infraction, so I shall make your curse a mildly amusing one. For the rest of your life, whenever you laugh, you can sound either like the character of Renfield as played by Dwight Frye in the 1931 classic motion picture Dracula, starring Bela Lugosi, or, the character of the Penguin as played by Burgess Meredith in the hit TV series Batman (1966-1968)."

So as you think about it, you know that whenever you go to a movie, or a restaurant, or a party, whenever you laugh out loud people will stop and stare at you. As Renfield, your laugh would sound something like "Huh-hnnn-hnnn-hnnn-heeeen," with a psychopathic edge. The Penguin sounds like, "Wa-waaaak-waaaak-waaaak-qwak."

"Choose one," he demands. You know that refusing to do so is not an option.

Which one would you pick? Renfield or Penguin

More Twisted Conundra here.

Note here that changes were made to put the kibosh on the use of parking by workers. So, parking isn’t for workers unless they pay? It’s important to nickel and dime the people that work downtown and service the upscale shoppers the current vision seems to be focused on only if you aren’t one of those workers. But also keep in mind that there really aren’t any buses early in the morning or very late at night for workers, or anyone else, especially on the weekends.

Further, there is always the question of where the people currently using the parking, that are being designed out of the target market, will go. Sure, it’s nice to construct this as a new reason to build parking garages. There’s plenty of parking in Olympia, really. There’s parking lots all over the place, but it’s conditions of use that will make downtown more and more unfriendly.

Just how unfriendly to people should a downtown be? If downtown is to be any sort of commons, it must be available to everyone. Progress should be in making downtowns more friendly, not just into a high price commercial luxury zone.

I  especially like the last  paragraph. It reminds me that it will be cheaper to go to the large concrete pad on the Westside that recently kicked out Olive's East and the Thai Garden than it will be to go downtown.

Since Bell doesn't enable comments on his blog, comment here. 

Via Washington State Political Report:

Markos Moulitsas Zúniga (The Daily Kos) and Jerome Armstrong (MyDD)are coming to Seattle on Friday, April 7, and to Olympia on Saturday, April 8, to promote their new book Crashing the Gate. Details pending.

These are the folks who basically invented the idea of community blogging. Get out and show some love.

From Editor & Publisher:

NEW YORK -- While the pending sale of Knight Ridder newspapers to McClatchy promises at least some upheaval for all 32 dailies involved, for three of them it's deja vu all over again. That's because The Olympian of Olympia, Wash.; The Bellingham (Wash.) Herald; and The (Boise) Idaho Statesman, were each sold just six months ago.

In August 2005, the trio were part of Gannett Co. Inc. and were sent to Knight Ridder in the blockbuster sale of the Detroit Free Press and The Detroit News. As part of the swap, Gannett sold the Olympian, Herald, and Statesman to Knight Ridder. With the McClatchy deal expected to be completed by July 1, each of those dailies will have had three different owners in less than a year.

[snip]

John Winn Miller, publisher of the Olympian, called a repeat disruption "a little exhausting ... We have a whole new accounting system and reporting system and that will have to change again," he lamented. "We are a little anxious about it."

[snip]

Back at The Olympian, Political Editor Brad Shannon said the fact that this sale was in the works for a while made it a bit easier to take than the previous change, which was announced without warning. Photo Editor Steve Herppich said the staff is just staying positive with something that is out of their control. "I think we are just rolling with it and hoping for the best," he said. "We are optimistic."