Findings suggests that politicians aren't aiming nearly high enough to prevent our certain doom. Apparently it is more important to save their jobs then the planet. It appears to be a value judgment wether we want to survive or make money for a few rich white men. Washington Post article

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The task of cutting greenhouse gas emissions enough to avert a dangerous rise in global temperatures may be far more difficult than previous research suggested, say scientists who have just published studies indicating that it would require the world to cease carbon emissions altogether within a matter of decades.

Their findings, published in separate journals over the past few weeks, suggest that both industrialized and developing nations must wean themselves off fossil fuels by as early as mid-century in order to prevent warming that could change precipitation patterns and dry up sources of water worldwide.

This report says that we are the biggest police state in the world. It also points at systemic racism. Link.

New High In U.S. Prison Numbers
Growth Attributed To More Stringent Sentencing Laws

By N.C. Aizenman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, February 29, 2008; A01

More than one in 100 adults in the United States is in jail or prison, an all-time high that is costing state governments nearly $50 billion a year and the federal government $5 billion more, according to a report released yesterday.

With more than 2.3 million people behind bars, the United States leads the world in both the number and percentage of residents it incarcerates, leaving far-more-populous China a distant second, according to a study by the nonpartisan Pew Center on the States.

Check these out. The other side of the story. More juicy details and possible inconsistencies.

washington state patrol report.pdf

thurston county sheriff report.pdf

olympia police department report.pdf

Docent edit (eoc): hope wildleaf doesn't mind, but I posted them on scribd for easier reading:

These two articles are both in todays Olympian:

Army identifies 2 Fort Lewis soldiers killed in Iraq

http://www.theolympian.com/breakingnews/story/364252.html

Fort Lewis headquarters unit returning to Iraq

http://www.theolympian.com/breakingnews/story/363828.html

(I posted this on an Evergreen listserve first, so it is directed to the Evergreen community primarily. It is a soft cry for solidarity and to focus our attention on productive dialogue to prevent more violence between the students and police. Thanks for the responses to my previous posts, they have been thoughtful, I really like OLYBLOG.)

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Riot is over, we are all friends again. 

(This was something I wrote in December for the Evergreen listserve. It was in response to an e-mail by someone who was harassed by the police after a jay walking ticket. I thought it might give some background and depth to my claim that the riot has historical roots.)

We are all oppressed not criminals. (December 1, 2007)

You get what you give. What goes around comes around. As the call, so is the echo. All these sayings come from traditional wisdom. That wisdom guides us in how we treat the people in our community. If we look at our own lives history often we can see this is true. Unfortunately the police are determined to seek retribution beyond what is fair. Unless we stop them, rationality and wisdom will be defeated by vengeance and abuse of power.

The Olympian states, “Physically damaging or disabling an emergency vehicle constitutes first-degree malicious mischief, a Class B felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison and a $20,000 fine.”

Historically, challenges to power have been met with fury and retribution in orders of magnitude larger than what could be considered fair and just. One destroyed cop car is not equal to ten years in jail served by people used as scapegoats. The police officers will receive no punishment for beating and dousing the public, yet again, with pepper spray, sending one student to the hospital with bruised ribs. Instead they will receive over time pay, which will continue to increase the costs of the incident.

The police have detectives issuing subpoenas for photos and videos taken of the riot. "We will get it," said Sheriff Dan Kimball.

Finding someone to blame is a priority for the police force. Anyone who was there knows that it is impossible to fairly blame one person or even a small group of people. How many people were shouting ‘fuck the cops’? A hundred. I stood in front of the cop car, I shouted to ‘let him go’. I stood unable to stop the increasing mayhem, provoked by the police. I watched people getting angry as their friends and community members were crying from pain.