From CBC British Columbia - U.S. ready to apologize for vigilante lynching:

Washington state is planning a statement of regret for a 121-year-old injustice -- the hanging of an aboriginal teen by an American lynch mob in the Fraser Valley.

Fourteen-year-old Louie Sam had been accused of murdering a Nooksack, Washington man, and was being held in custody by B.C. police.

About 120 American vigilantes rode north at Sumas Prairie in 1884, seized the teen and hanged him from a tree just north of the international boundary.

It's believed to be Canada's only lynching.

It turns out the kid was innocent. There is also an audio link to an interview with a professor who did the research on the event.

Suspect in Olympia ecoterror case found dead in jail:

PHOENIX - An Arizona bookstore owner charged with eco-sabotage in Washington was found dead in a Flagstaff jail cell early Thursday, authorities said.

William C. Rodgers, 40, of Prescott, Ariz., committed suicide, according to the Coconino County Sheriff's Office. The county medical examiner determined that Rodgers suffocated after placing a plastic bag over his head while he was being held in a one-person cell.

Rodgers was one of six people arrested this month in connection with eco-terrorist attacks in Oregon and Washington in recent years. He was charged in the firebombing of a government wildlife lab outside Olympia, Wash.

Indy Media Report

Statement by his friends

My own comment: I don't understand why there was a plastic bag in his cell.

I honestly don't remember drawing this. This is a page from the comix jam Amused To No End (1986). My fellow cartoonist Brad W. Foster drew the last panel.

Went and saw "Syriana" this afternoon. I enjoyed it a lot. Nothing which really shocked me, though. Just put into pictures what we, as a country, have to do to ensure we can enjoy the lifestyle which we are accustomed to.

It's a zero-sum game, at least in my opinion. In order for the US to have, say, 56, we have to take 56 from the rest of the world. If China is at 40 and want to add another four, they're going to have to get it somewhere. We must ensure that four doesn't come from our 56.

Posted on Thursday, December 22, 2005. From a list of 198 methods of nonviolent protest appended to From Dictatorship to Democracy, a manual by Gene Sharp, a political scientist at the Albert Einstein Institution in Boston. By March 2005, when the government was overthrown, NGOs had distributed 5,000 copies to the citizens of Kyrgyzstan. Originally from Harper's Magazine, May 2005.

• Singing
• Silence
• Rude gestures
• Taunting officials
• Haunting officials
• Symbolic lights
• Symbolic sounds
• Collective disappearance
• Delivering symbolic objects
• Disguised disobedience
• Protest disrobings
• Lysistratic nonaction
• Destruction of own property
• Turning one’s back
• Skywriting and earthwriting
• Nonviolent air raids
• Suspension of sports activities
• Staying at home
• Pilgrimages
• Removal of signs and place marks
• Hiding
• Dumping
• Satyagrahic fast
• Self-exposure to the elements
• Sit-in
• Stand-in
• Ride-in
• Wade-in
• Sick-in

permalink to original

The devil made me do it.

That is my excuse and I'm sticking to it. I know better. Venturing into a shopping mall mere days before Christmas is nearly a suicidal act. But I needed a walk, the Decatur Woods Park giant gophers have banned me from their domain, and I was curious.

As of five minutes ago, there are some parking places available. Take the bus or walk in though if you can. Listen to friendly upbeat music in preparation.

I stepped into the temple of shopping and immediately was reminded of the low rumble of voices I'd hear before mass began in our parish Catholic Church. Not bad, I can handle this. Of course then as I progressed the voices got louder, the knots of people denser, and everything sillier.

More...

The Library had study desk modules grouped into quarters. If viewed from above, the top of the panel separators formed the shape of a swastika. We found this to be a bit unsettling. Click here for a larger image.

Builders fight rules on rainwater runoff

The building industry association said in a statement that the new regulation "foists unreasonable demands and unattainable goals on the backs of hardworking contractors, and was adopted by unelected (Ecology Department) bureaucrats.

People sure sound adversarial, hopefully everyone can figure out how to chill and talk with one another again soon.

Hope everyone is warm and cozy on this shortest day and longest night of the year. Time for hot spiced cider and mulled wine and whatever else we want to lift in toast to the season.

 Winter Solstice via Wikipedia

Be careful what you blog...you might end up in prison. The question here isn't guilt over the crime, but if there is a difference between writing in a personal journal on paper and one online. In order to obtain the one on paper, they would have to have a search warrant - but post it online for everyone to see and you find yourself subject to any laws concerning the content. More than one blogger has been arrested for a posting and more will happen, The question is how do you feel about blog posts being used as evidence?

From today's AP headlines:

An 18-year-old passenger who caused a fatal crash by pulling on the steering wheel pleaded guilty to DUI manslaughter after prosecutors discovered a confession on his online blog.

More on the flip side...