Also, what do you guys think about filling public office the same way we fill juries? By randomly pulling names from voter registration lists? Remember, some of our best leaders have been accidental. And some of our worst have been longtime government professionals.

Well I was born and raised in this state, albeit mostly in Eastern Washington, but a native I am anyway. My wife is a homegrown Olympian. I can tell you as soon as we retire we will secede from this state.

Not much we like about the Westside of the state. We don't like the weather/climate, all the trees, and we certainly don't like the politics. When we retire we plan to head to where the air is dryer, you can see somewhere besides up (less trees) and the necks are good and red!

Rob W

I will be on my way soon, but too much time invested to move on now.

If you want to work in this State in law enforcement, you work on this side of the mountains. The other side doesn't pay very well.

I don't think I could live anywhere else. I grew up in Olympia, but my family moved away when I was 12. I came back 8 years later, and aside from a 9 month tour in Kitsap County, I haven't left. I get nervous tingly feelings in my legs when I think about the possibility of living anywhere else, even somewhere else in Thurston County. I don't know what it is, I just love it here so much.

Oh yeah, and on Sarah's original governance post. I would go back in time and convince the Oly City Commission in the 60s to take steps to make sure Lacey never happened in the first place. Then I'd come back to the present and have Thurston County form a executive/council form of government, with no more elected coroner. What is that about anyway?

I am favoring dam removal at this point. The lake is beautiful, and I enjoy walking around it. But the water is too gross for swimming, and it is collecting all sorts of detritus around its shores. (The state needs to get that stuff cleaned up - or the city should think about taking action.)

I think it would be sad to lose the lake, but I think that there is more to be gained, both ecologically, ethically, and aesthetically from dam removal. I favor a return to the natural state. What do you think?

Key Bush Intelligence Briefing Kept From Hill Panel

By Murray Waas, special to National Journal
© National Journal Group Inc.
Tuesday, Nov. 22, 2005

Ten days after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, President Bush was told in a highly classified briefing that the U.S. intelligence community had no evidence linking the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein to the attacks and that there was scant credible evidence that Iraq had any significant collaborative ties with Al Qaeda, according to government records and current and former officials with firsthand knowledge of the matter.

The information was provided to Bush on September 21, 2001 during the "President's Daily Brief," a 30- to 45-minute early-morning national security briefing. Information for PDBs has routinely been derived from electronic intercepts, human agents, and reports from foreign intelligence services, as well as more mundane sources such as news reports and public statements by foreign leaders.

One of the more intriguing things that Bush was told during the briefing was that the few credible reports of contacts between Iraq and Al Qaeda involved attempts by Saddam Hussein to monitor the terrorist group. Saddam viewed Al Qaeda as well as other theocratic radical Islamist organizations as a potential threat to his secular regime. At one point, analysts believed, Saddam considered infiltrating the ranks of Al Qaeda with Iraqi nationals or even Iraqi intelligence operatives to learn more about its inner workings, according to records and sources.