[via email]

Today we are launching an effort to write a grassroots progressive legislative agenda for the 2007 session.

For the next three months you can submit your ideas for laws, discuss ideas submitted by others. Right before our legislators return to Olympia for the first committee meetings after the election (when bill ideas are often first discussed), you can also help decide what ideas will make up the Netroots Agenda.

http://netroots.forwashington.org

Typically legislative agendas are written by advocacy groups with specific aims. This will be the first time anyone has written a broad legislative agenda from the netroots up. What shape the agenda takes and how good it is depends on how many people participate, and not just in submitting ideas. How many people comment on ideas they like (or hate) and how many people end up voting for their favorite ideas come November will determine the quality of the Netroots Agenda.

If you have any suggestions or comments, feel free to email any of us or leave a comment here.

Thank you,

Jesse Nelson
forwashington.org

Lynn Allen
www.evergreenpolitics.com

Chad Lupkes
www.democracyforwashington.com

Noemie Maxwell
www.washblog.com

Emmett O'Connell
olywa.blogspot.com

Come to the Brotherhood for stimulating conversation, cold beer, and hot tunes (courtesy of the Tune Stranglers). See you there.

State of Washington owning machines: Good

Individual citizen: bad

It's like Ticketmaster versus ticket "scalping." Ticketmaster is legal because they pay extortion ("taxes") to the government on transactions.

The Olympian: Commission orders man to give up slots:

That hasn't stopped the Washington State Gambling Commission from sending Legg a cease and desist letter, ordering him to destroy the slots or to sell them out of state in 30 days.

Another disturbing aspect of the story?

"Unfortunately, I made the mistake of leaving my garage door open, and somebody felt like crippling my game room," said Legg, who works at a local manufacturing business.

This is why I am fearful of people who put too much trust into the government. They are the ones with whom the government is counting on to report those who are working against the system.

“Wearing a uniform demands subordination to your superiors and the orders passed down,” he said. “But what if orders given violate morality, ethics and even legality?”

Like lemmings (although as we discussed before, the lemmings got a bad rep from questionable editing), the Good People of Washington State just did as the sign told them.

I think this is actually a bit scary, and stupid. People were so intent on following the instructions given to them by the government that common sense flew out the window (we needed The Olympian to point out "when traffic is moving more slowly, vehicles can be closer because they don't move as far in two seconds.")

This is like the people who actually went out and bought duct tape to prevent chemicals after a biological attack from coming into their home.

'Dots' blamed for I-5 jams

Two years ago, Dee Williams, a toxic-waste inspector, put her 2,000-sq.-ft. bungalow in Portland, Ore., on the market and moved into an 84-sq.-ft. cabin on wheels that she built using salvaged cedar, torn-up jeans for insulation and solar cells for power. Then she hitched her tiny house to a biodiesel truck and drove to Olympia, Wash., where friends agreed to let her park in a grassy corner of their backyard. Although Williams, 43, admits that she misses having room for friends to spend the night, she says, "I love my tiny house."

Living small is hardly a new concept. Henry Thoreau tucked himself into a 150-sq.-ft. house on Walden Pond in the 1840s, and the city of San Francisco built some 5,600 earthquake cottages for survivors of the 1906 temblor. But over the past decade, dozens of architects and builders have begun specializing in tiny-house designs. And home buyers--motivated by the desire to simplify their lives, use fewer resources and save money--are falling in love with the little things. Gregory Johnson, a co-founder of the Small House Society in Iowa City, Iowa, estimates that anywhere from a few hundred to a thousand homes measuring less than 500 sq. ft. and costing less than $100,000 have been built since his group of 40 architects and builders formed in 2002. Says architect Marianne Cusato, a small-home designer who lives in a 300-sq.-ft. apartment in New York City: "It's human nature to gravitate toward something that makes you feel contained."

TIME.com