Lindens Blooming

The Wise Tree

Local Chestnut Tree

Fallen American Elm Tree

70 ft Tree Taken Down

Christmas tree, not holiday tree

Weyerhaeuser tree

Bearded Tree by McLane Creek

Windstorms and trees

Neighborwoods

will_is_okay & trees

Trees and rubber sidewalks

Olympia trees

Log trucks

Update 11/2007 many of the above links no longer work, ongoing collection project now at Tree Lore

Keep in mind both of these stories (and video) are the same "suspect."

Any sociologists want to tackle this?

NBC4: Liquor store robbery:

WACO, Texas -- A Texas store clerk was brutally attacked during a robbery and the whole thing was caught on tape.

A man walked to the counter with a large liquor bottle last Thursday and then hit the woman on the head with it, police said.

NBC4: McDonald's robbery:

GRAND PRAIRIE, Texas -- A violent robbery at a Texas McDonald's restaurant was caught on tape by the store's security camera.

Two men were waiting for their food at the restaurant in suburban Dallas last week when one suddenly attacked the other.

Drew Hendricks wrote (on 08.08.2006 at 23:18 hrs GMT)

Folks, it is over. Practically.

I took a deal, a dirty g-d@%n deal. I signed a paper for the Prosecutor just a couple of hours ago, and now I am officially part of the problem again.

For twelve months, I can't get arrested inside the "secured areas" of the Port of Olympia. I also should not be seen in court for Trespass 2nd Degree either, I would assume. Considering I went 37 years before my first arrest, I think I can manage 12 months. It's not really over until then. If I clear that hurdle, they drop the case from the record (dismiss it) which is odd, since I technically confessed to the offense, in a 'nolo contendre' sense.

Oh, and $43 in court costs.

And a $100 booking fee to the Sheriff's Dept (do I get that back in a year? When they dismiss the case and it drops right off my record? HA!)

And what I had to pay my lawyer. Oh, wait - my community did that. Thanks!

WE WIN! (in a small way, in that we built community, made friends, and gained important experience for the next time! Of course, the war still drags on... we still have not won that. Yet.)

By the way, I got this deal in part because the prosecutor quit - we don't know why-, and another prosecuter found all of our cases suddenly in her lap; so she wanted them gone, and she was willing to drop all the fines (except $200 restitution to the Port from the gate arrestees). More on that, later.

link to original story

Enjoy.

CNN/Money:

It's the single largest commitment to renewable fuels in the history of the auto industry - a good move for the automakers, and for the planet, too.

That's because running cars and trucks on E85, a blend of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline, could turn out to be a cost-effective way to reduce the carbon emissions that cause global warming and curb our dependence on imported oil.

There's just one big problem.

Only about 800 service stations in the United States, out of a total of 168,000, pump E85. There's not a single E85 pump, for example, in all of New England.

It could also decide to sell ethanol in a partnership with Murphy Oil Corp. (Charts), which operates about 946 gas stations in Wal-Mart parking lots, and there's no reason why Wal-Mart couldn't sell E85 - which it calls "America's Fuel" - at the rest of its 3,000 U.S. stores.

"Our goal would be to make E-85 available across the U.S.," Rich Ezell, senior strategy manager of fuel at Wal-Mart, said recently.

One longtime ethanol advocate told me that Wal-Mart - if it agrees to distribute E85 - could be a catalyst to making ethanol a mainstream alternative to gasoline for millions of Americans.

I didn't think about it (but it would make sense) that ethanol would create a stress on the food supply.

I just thought it was ironic that Wal-Mart could be the ones to bring an alternative fuel to the mainstream public.

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