"It's hot and they don't have enough power. And they kill fish in northwest so that people in California can go enjoy themselves at a baseball game."

This should hit home. In two years, when some Republican faces off against Cantwell, lets see them explain this away.

Tim Belden, Enron trader: What's going on? It's hot. It's hot and they don't have enough power. And they kill fish in northwest so that people in California can go enjoy themselves at a baseball game.

Rick Shapiro, Enron exec: And then what are we doing, are we exporting some of the 'fish kill power' out of California?

Tim Belden, Enron trader: We are exporting some power from California to the southwest.

In another tape, a trader remarks that "You know what they're doing? They're selling the fish in Oregon to the State of California for $250.because they're shutting off the spill.they're killing thousands of fish."

When Bushies attack... when I read a LTE this morning, it really didn't strike me as that strange. Marker on a bumper sticker. Cute trick, but not symbolic of anything larger, just a pissed off Republican in Thurston County.

Its all in perspective now, though, as a few minutes later I saw this pic from the Portland Tribune (thanks Orcinus).

.

There is a part of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance that I always think back to when I run into people that over-zealously defend a moral/political/religious point:

You will always defend most what you know to to be undefendable.

Its like being stuck in the Alamo, surrounding by all those Mexicans and Santa Anna. Any idiot can see your totally screwed, but instead of giving up, your fight harder than you would have normally. Other times you in Portland and you shove your hand into someone else's face.

One of the best things our government ever did was create the position of U.S. poet laureate, consultant to the Library of Congress in poetry.

The naming of Nebraska's Ted Kooser, I think, is an interesting choice. A red state poet in a presidential election year. No, I'm not that cynical, but I agree with Billy Collins that "The middle section of the country needed greater poetic representation."

Its easy to go to New England, the west coast and even parts of the South and find poets, but naming a Cornhusker the poet laureate takes guts. Only one of Kooser's books is available at Timberland, one of the two published by Copper Canyon press of Port Townsend.

After Years
Today, from a distance, I saw you
walking away, and without a sound
the glittering face of a glacier
slid into the sea. An ancient oak
fell in the Cumberlands, holding only
a handful of leaves, and an old woman
scattering corn to her chickens looked up
for an instant. At the other side
of the galaxy, a star thirty-five times
the size of our own sun exploded
and vanished, leaving a small green spot
on the astronomer's retina
as he stood on the great open dome
of my heart with no one to tell.