Day: August 3, 2006

This, this, and this is what happens when public records are easily searched for and found on the Internet.

I knew there was a reason so many people were hanging out at Craig’s.

The classified-advertising Web site craigslist has become popular in recent years with young, tech-savvy city dwellers seeking apartments, jobs and for-sale items.

But it’s also being used as an Information Age black market for some Seattle-area marijuana dealers.

“I’m not too concerned about getting caught,” said Eric, a Bellevue man in his early 30s who peddles pot online through craigslist.

Local and federal law enforcement officials said they’re aware dealers like Eric are turning to craigslist and other Web sites to sell pot, but the amounts sold are generally so small they’re not very concerned.

Eric, who spoke on the condition that his last name not be used, says he doesn’t make much of a profit — if any — but sells enough marijuana so he can smoke for free. He sells small amounts — usually an eighth of an ounce, which brings in $30 to $40. Most clients are friends or friends of friends, Eric said.

Righteous! Open commerce on hooch sans the law! And if you wear a tin foil hat and dress like a fairy, you’re like, invisible man.

Party on.

Good Lord.

More than a third of the American public suspects that federal officials assisted in the 9/11 terrorist attacks or took no action to stop them so the United States could go to war in the Middle East, according to a new Scripps Howard/Ohio University poll.

Thirty-six percent of respondents overall said it is “very likely” or “somewhat likely” that federal officials either participated in the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon or took no action to stop them “because they wanted the United States to go to war in the Middle East.”

“One out of three sounds high, but that may very well be right,” said Lee Hamilton, former vice chairman of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (also called the 9/11 Commission). His congressionally appointed investigation concluded that federal officials bungled their attempts to prevent, but did not participate in, the attacks by al-Qaida five years ago.

“A lot of people I’ve encountered believe the U.S. government was involved,” Hamilton said. “Many say the government planned the whole thing,” he said. “Of course, we don’t think the evidence leads that way at all.”

What I want to know is, were these people wearing tin foil hats at the time they answered the phone? And what about the copper in the phone lines?  Doesn’t it interact with the tin foil and basically create a big ol’ antenna that essentially beams a clearer signal to the U.S. Government (and occupants of interplanetary craft) which thereby allows them to put a better tracer on the location of said tin foil hat wearer? 

But if the tin foils were dressed as fairies wearing rubber boots, well then, maybe they were inoculated, virtually transparent and therefore protected from the evil brain wave sucking ray guns used by these sentinels? Yet if the rubber boots were made from a cheap formula, like the kind you might see on the store shelves of that wicked corporate slave driving puppet master Walmart, and the wearer was standing in a spot of pooling water on the kitchen floor in their deluxe double-wide, then maybe, just maybe…

I shudder at the thought.

New day, new vote.

The Senate did an abrupt about-face yesterday, voting overwhelmingly to begin paying for 370 miles of fencing and 500 miles of vehicle barriers on the U.S.-Mexico border, just three weeks after voting against the same spending. 

The amendment’s sponsor said senators were so embarrassed by that July 13 vote that most felt they had to reverse course and vote for it this time — especially after so many were on record in May voting to build the fence in the first place. The amendment, which provides nearly $2 billion for the project, passed 94-3, with 66 senators switching from “no” to “yes” votes since last month.

Did you catch that? 66 Senators switched their vote from “no” to “yes”. Gee, I wonder why!?!?

“I think people wanted to get right,” said Sen. Jeff Sessions, Alabama Republican. “People heard from their constituents after they voted to authorize the fence in May and then voted against funding it a couple of weeks ago.”

Duh.

The fact of the matter is, after the “no fence” vote, the constituent phone rang off the hook. Those who got through left bone chilling messages like, “I won’t be voting for you in November because you are weak on border security, and you’re an idiot too.”

That’s what it takes to get a reaction out of Washington. Too bad we don’t do it more often.