I double dog dare anyone reading this to go downtown to Danger Room Comics , buy some of Steve Willis's work,  take it to a favorite coffee house/pub/restaurant, and read the comics without cracking up loudly.

I myself failed, I could not read and drink coffee at the same time, without spewing coffee in laughter. Which I did not do, no actual coffee spewing, instead I tucked the comics away for later reading.

Remember, this is a -double dog dare-. Serious stuff.

Rick's post on three new Olympia blogs reminded me that I wanted to update the local blog aggregator at Better South Sound. 

I installed a new Drupal aggregator this afternoon and have just about loaded all of the Olympia area blog feeds into it. There isn't a front page block like the old one, but I was able to put together a new page with everything. The advantage of this new way is that everything is hosted on this site and it aggregates everything into one feed, if you're interested.

I really enjoyed the April Fools Day article you printed on page one of the Sunday Olympian, though it ran a day later than I would have expected it.

"Fallout from ... nuke-free zone" was brilliant parody. I especially liked the notion that local city and county officials could not figure out whether they were involved in nuclear weapons production. Their confusion on whether signing an interlocal agreement is an endorsement of a national political stance was especially funny, given the routine nature of signatures for grants which assure that these city and county offices are drug free workplaces.

Thanks again, Katherine, Jennifer, and Vickie for an offbeat and silly story. If you ever want to cover the nuclear free zone issue with less tongue in cheek, you might want to speak with the folks who live near nuclear production facilities, and ask them how they feel about this issue.

Go here to register for the peace conference titled: "A Conference Cultivating a Just and Enduring Peace for the People of Palestine and Israel."

"Our power, then, has the grave liability of rendering our theories about the world immune from failure. But by becoming deaf to easily discerned warning signs, we may ignore long-term costs that result from our actions and dismiss reverses that should lead to a re-examination of our goals and means."

Wow, is he really questioning the doctrine of "roll in, f$#% it up and deal with it later"?

The article "Imperial overreach is accelerating the global decline of America" discusses how US foreign policy (i.e. imperialism) is isolating the US from the rest of the world and creating opporunity for China to "take over" as world's largest economy with India ramping up behind. No real secret there but i thought the quote from Henry Hyde was revealing to say the least.

The article was written by Martin Jacques, a senior visiting research fellow at the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore.

In short, the exhibition will juxtapose works of art from different eras in an attempt to emphasize the similarities of concept or intent despite the apparent differeces in medium or technique (i.e. Monet next to Jimi Hendrix). In other words, art is art is art unless it is not art.

Here's the roster (BTW, I am totally gonna see this stuff and try to resist my art thief impulses):

“The DoubleTake: From Monet to Lichtenstein

From Justin Vela:

Where was he from?
LA.

Did he come to Seattle all the way from LA for this?
No. He lived in Seattle now.

Did he consider himself a Nazi?
No. He was a skinhead.

Why did he have a swatsika tattoo then?
He earned the tattoo.

He had a swatsika tattoo, but he wasn't a Nazi?
No.

Did he have any kids?
Yes. He had a little girl who was five.

When she grew up would she be allowed to date black people?
Yes. She could date them. She just couldn't fornicate with them.

Was he a racist?
No. He he didn't hate black people. Just niggers. Niggers were people who pissed him off.

So was he a racist?
No. He wasn't. But the counterprotesters were. They were racist against skinheads.

Where did he learn about all this skinhead stuff?
From his brother. He had been hanging out with skinheads since kindergarten.

Where was his brother now?
Iraq.

Cool new blogs are appearing each day. Here are three more that have recently come to my attention:

• Blinded by Science
  Lonely, forlorn, dreadful romantic, clock fixer, collector of coats, tired, prone to fits of glee.
  
• In the Garden with Humblesnail
  The sometimes random thoughts and pictorial journey of a Northwest gardener and her backyard.
  
• Justin Vela
  Justin Vela is an independent journalist currently based in Olympia, Washington. His worked has appeared in The Argus Courier, The Gunnison Times, Day in the Life of Marin, and the University of San Francisco Magazine. He has covered the last five years of the anti-war movement, the 2nd innaguration of President George W. Bush, Hurricane Rita's aftermath, and the homeless movement in San Francisco.
  

The events of April 2nd were coordinated with great success. There was a pro-diversity rally held in Heritage park that went very well and provided people with an upbeat and positive message, while at the same time diffusing the nazi’s convoluted message regarding the death of Rachel Corrie. There was also a faction of individuals and affinity groups that had decided prior to the NSM’s arrival to confront them face-to-face. This group consisted of people young and old who were not willing to sit quietly while the NSM tried once again to use our city as a platform for their hateful message. This is the faction of yesterdays events that I participated in and will be explaining in greater length.