The more I read about the shooting last weekend in Everett, the fishier it seems to get. Dustin Willard, 31, was shot to death by three Everett police officers last Saturday night after they claim he pointed a gun at them from his front porch and refused to obey orders to put it down. The police were responding to a call from a neighbor who thought they saw someone breaking into Willard’s house.

Willard was a well-liked individual with no criminal record. Normally, people like that don’t point guns at police officers. Something isn’t right with this case, and hopefully we’ll find out what actually happened.

This past week saw the passage of nearly every drug law reform initiative on ballots across the country. Among the big ones, medical marijuana is now legal in Michigan. Possession of up to an ounce of marijuana has been decriminalized in Massachusetts and replaced with a $100 civil infraction. And Hawaii County, Hawaii residents made marijuana enforcement the lowest priority for the police. All three initiatives were landslides. In fact, the percentages of people voting for the initiatives in Michigan and Massachusetts were higher than the percentages who voted for Obama.

The result was clearly not from a lack of opposition. Drug Czar John Walters even traveled to Michigan in October to beg people not to vote for medical marijuana (which is probably a violation of The Hatch Act of 1939). In Massachusetts, law enforcement officials actively campaigned against the decriminalization measure. Now that the voters have loudly stood up for more sensible drug policy, law enforcement officials are throwing temper tantrums over it. Let’s break down five of the dumbest things said this past week by those who can’t figure out why voters are giving them the finger.

1. Boston Police Patrolmen’s Association representative Jim Carnell

“Few people, if any, who were arrested for simple possession were ever in any real jeopardy of a serious nature, provided they learned from past transgressions.”

The initiative in Massachusetts has law enforcement officials all twisted around. After complaining that the initiative was unnecessary because pot smokers never really had anything bad happen to them, they’re now complaining about how there’s no teeth to the marijuana laws any more. It’s been comical to watch them try to have it both ways.

The major reason why this initiative was needed was because people with an arrest for even minor marijuana possession will have a lifelong criminal record that makes it difficult for them to obtain housing and jobs, even if there wasn’t a conviction. In 2006, nearly 7,000 people were arrested for marijuana possession. Now, the vast majority of those people would only be written a $100 ticket (although there’s an interesting question as to whether police can ask for a person’s ID to be able to write that ticket).

2. Holyoke, MA Police Chief Anthony Scott

“It’s basically telling young people that it’s okay to possess an ounce or less of marijuana, after we have been spending millions of dollars trying to tell kids to say no to drugs, not to drink, and to quit smoking.”

This is totally ridiculous. Alcohol and cigaretters are legal for adults. Does that mean that we have to make alcohol and cigarettes illegal in order to tell kids that they shouldn’t drink or smoke? There’s nothing dangerous about treating marijuana the same way we treat alcohol or cigarettes. In fact, cigarette smoking among young people has been dropping. We didn’t have to make it illegal to accomplish that.

3. Six Michigan Law Enforcement Officials

“How do law enforcement officers respond to marijuana growing operations when the owners claim that they are “caregivers” who must cultivate marijuana for their customers?”

It’s very simple. You should find out if they’re telling the truth, and if they are, let them be.

It never ceases to amaze me that law enforcement officials think that when they bust a marijuana grow operation that they’ve somehow completely eradicated marijuana from their area. They actually believe that they’re some “front line” against marijuana, and that if they didn’t do what they do, all hell would be breaking loose. It’s just another example of the great adage that “a man will never understand something if his paycheck depends on him not understanding it.”

Whenever a grow operation is busted, another one that doesn’t get busted just gets richer. In the end, organized criminals end up controlling the entire trade and getting filthy rich. Not exactly a smart way to protect people in a community, but for reasons that continually amaze me, law enforcement officials will fight tooth and nail to keep doing it this way.

4. Hawaii County, HI Police Chief Lawrence Mahuna

“If you’re pro-drug, or pro-marijuana, you’re automatically pro-terrorist.”

What a moron. I don’t even know what to say.

5. The Drug Czar’s new ad campaign

“Hey, not trying to be your mom, but there aren’t many jobs out there for potheads.”

Actually, there a quite a few jobs out there for pot smokers. For one, President. The last time we had a President who’d never smoked pot before was 1992. There’s a video here with the many, many other people who smoke pot and have jobs, including scientists, businessmen, and entertainers. Personally, I know of doctors, lawyers, corporate executives, and people of all walks of life who enjoy smoking pot. The myths about this drug are dying. Hopefully, prohibitionists will figure this out and stop making asses of themselves.

At the end of Thursday night’s Browns-Broncos game, Broncos receiver Brandon Marshall caught the go-ahead touchdown with 1:14 remaining in the game. He appeared to pull something out of his uniform, but Brandon Stokley, his fellow Bronco receiver, ran over to him shaking his head no. I saw this clearly and couldn’t figure out what the hell was going on. After the game, Marshall explained:

After the game, Marshall, who is black, read a statement he wrote about how inspired he was by Obama becoming the first black man elected to the nation’s highest office.

“Barak Obama’s election as the 44th president of the United States is a tremendous symbol of unity,” Marshall said. “I want to create that symbol of unity because Obama inspires me (and) a multicultural society, and I know at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico, Tommie Smith and John Carlos raised that black glove and fist in a silent gesture of black power and liberation.

“Forty years later, I wanted to make my own statement and gesture to represent the progress we made,” Marshall said. “I might get some criticism, but social landmarks are bigger than fines to me, especially two days out of an historic election.”

Stokley had a good reason to do what he did. The NFL flags people for excessive celebrations and a 15-yard penalty on the kickoff might have eventually cost Denver the game. But the NFL missed out on what would have been a very memorable moment for the league. Instead, they reinforced their stereotype as the No Fun League. They do this to avoid controversy, but when you’re always trying to avoid controversy, you end up just being boring. I’m ok with a stupid Terrell Owens touchdown celebration once in a while if it means we get to see one that’s truly inspired.

Last week’s Birds Eye View Contest went unsolved, but something weird did happen with the picture. When I first copied it last week, at intersection of Amethyst St and Raynol St in Los Angeles, there were no homes ready to slide down the hill. I went back there just now, and…homes have been built! Doesn’t Southern California have enough empty houses already? Sorry to everyone who tried solving that one, although I think wes.in.wa was on it. That was way hard.

Here’s this week’s…it’s not impossible. Good luck.

Super Obama World

Outstanding. Sarah Palin did not know that Africa was a continent, not a country…

Also, Radley Balko points out a sadly ironic statistic out of California. While African-Americans celebrated an unprecedented milestone in their centuries-long struggle for equality, African-American voters overwhelmingly voted for Proposition 8 to ban gay marriage.

If you decide to run against in 2012, please have this man help you come up with good ideas again.

I was 7 years old the last time I saw one of my hometown teams win a championship, when Dr. J and the Sixers beat the Lakers to win the 1983 NBA Championship.

Since that very faded memory, I’ve watched Wayne Gretzsky and the Oilers thump the Flyers in 1985 to win the Stanley Cup. I watched from the lounge of my freshman dorm as Joe Carter won the 1993 World Series for Toronto. I watched the Red Wings sweep the Flyers on a barstool in Harvey’s Tavern in Edmonds the first week after I moved to Washington. In 2001, I watched with my Microsoft co-workers (the original Reload crew) as the Lakers beat down the miracle Sixers in 5 games in the NBA Finals. And in February 2005, my fiancee sat next to me as the Eagles fell short against the Patriots in Super Bowl XXXIX.

I know that Seattle hasn’t had a championship over that time either, but there’s a special level of frustration that comes with getting so close so many times and not walking away with the trophy. All of that ended this week, though, and as I was sitting across from my wife at the Northgate Ram watching the Phillies pile onto each other in the middle of Citizen’s Bank Park, I couldn’t believe how easy they made it look. My buddies from back home were telling me that the city was ready to explode, as a Philly sports radio host once described “like a bottle of champagne in a paint shaker.” Well, the cork has finally been popped and it was amazing to finally see that parade down Broad Street in front of the 2 million people who were cramming onto SEPTA trains to make their way down to South Philly, knowing full-well that it could be a long time until that next championship comes around.

I’ve been asked a few times whether I want my future kids to root for Philly teams. No way. There’s something special about rooting for the hometown team and Philly just won’t be their hometown. Despite what happened with the Sonics, in the decade I’ve lived here, I’ve seen Seattle become a great sports city. I’m excited to take my sons or daughters to Mariners and Sounders games and watch the Seahawks every Sunday, just as my Mets and Giants-fan dad took me to Phillies and Eagles games.

But hell, that’s still a few years off. I’ll be at Sluggers this morning by 10am with my McNabb jersey on and a screwdriver in my hand. If any of you guys find me down there, I’ll buy you a drink (even if you’re wearing a Seahawks jersey). Go Eagles!

Last week’s winners were ibogaine, who first guessed the correct location of Chilliwack, BC, Cody, who posted the link, and Dan Robinson for making horrible puns.

And to answer a question from last week, I’m not getting paid by Microsoft to do this (although I used to work there), I just think it’s cool technology.

Here’s this week’s contest. No credit for just naming the city or town, gotta name the street or post the link to win. Good luck!

This has been quite an election season, one that we’ll be talking about for generations. As we head into the final stretch, here’s a roundup of what’s been on my radar:

– Andrew at the NPI Advocate is helping out Roger Goodman in his 45th Legislative District race. Andrew and I are hardly identical in our political outlooks, but we both recognize the potential that he holds. Roger’s a unique kind of politician with tremendous leadership skills who deserves to hold on to that seat. I’ve hit the phones for him and hope that others are inspired to help out in any way they can.

– Medical marijuana patients in Washington have been split down the middle on the Governor’s race. There are some who think that Christine Gregoire’s interference in the process to identify limits is reason enough to vote for Dino Rossi. And there are others who think that Dino Rossi will likely be worse for patients. About two weeks ago, two individuals tried to issue a press release with the title “Medical Marijuana Leaders Support Rossi.” When pressed who those leaders were, the two gentlemen then gave a list of four names – two of whom did not support Rossi. Steve at Reality Catcher has more about the silliness here.

– I’m still planning to vote for Republican Marcia McCraw in the Lieutenant Governor’s race, but she’s every bit as nutty as Brad Owen. But she gets my vote because her nuttiness doesn’t potentially threaten the freedom and well-being of Washington residents the way Owen’s radical prohibitionist views do – especially considering that either one of these guys is next in line for the Governor’s mansion.

– The increasing level of hostility that’s been seen at Republican Presidential rallies this fall reminded me of something that my old roommate at the University of Michigan experienced back in the election of 1996. She’s African-American and was taking a political science course. As part of her work for the class, she had to do exit polling at a poll location about 20 minutes from Ann Arbor in rural Washtenaw County. She came back to the house in tears at around 6 o’clock, well before the polls closed, after several hours of being called just about anything you could imagine by rednecks and other assorted racists.

I have a bad feeling about what’s about to transpire this Tuesday at polling places across the country. I hope my fears are unwarranted, but if bad things do happen, the burden is on John McCain to be a goddamn maverick again and tell the morons in his party that this kind of nonsense is the real enemy within.

A report by Progressive Future and the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center listed I-1000 as one of the best voter initiatives in the United States this year (you can see their full report in PDF form here). This is good news for several reasons, one of which being that progressive groups are seeing the value of promoting liberty as the road to achieving the goals that progressives want to achieve. If you go through the report, you’ll see that a number of the initiatives were chosen because of an emphasis on limiting government interference with our decisions. That’s how the progressive movement can succeed in this country.

In addition to this endorsement, former Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber cleared up another piece of propaganda being spread around by I-1000 opponents:

You may have seen the story of a woman on the Oregon Health Plan that makes the insinuation that services covered under Oregon’s Death with Dignity Act are prioritized over chemotherapy because it costs less for patients to die than to live. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Unfortunately, a poorly worded letter to this individual contributed to that mistaken impression. Since then, the political campaign against I-1000 has made it difficult for the public to get the facts. I would like to set the record straight.

Like most insurers, the OHP covers nearly all chemotherapy prescribed for cancer patients, including the multiple rounds of chemotherapy this patient received. The request for second-line treatment was denied because of the drug’s limited benefit and very high cost.

When the Oregon Health Plan went into effect in 1994, it was backed by principles that remain relevant today, including a process for setting health care priorities that reflects a consensus of social values and considers the good of society as a whole.

As I’ve explained previously, the argument that we must limit our choices out of fear of what could happen within our broken health care system is pure folly. It’s no different than saying that we should outlaw abortion because it could allow for health care providers to cover abortions but not cover the cost of having the child. As Kitzhaber points out, the hysteria whipped by the I-1000 opposition is completely baseless. Patients in Oregon are not at risk of being told that they won’t receive proper health care because of their death with dignity law, and neither will patients in Washington.

I’ve already mentioned that there’s one Republican who I’ll be enthusiastically voting for next week – Lieutenant Governor candidate Marcia McCraw. But even if you don’t care much about drug policy (for which McCraw is the far superior candidate), there’s another reason to vote against incumbent Democrat Brad Owen. He’s the BIAW’s candidate in this race as well. It would be a damn shame if we worked so hard to keep BIAW influence out of the Governor’s office only to see Christine Gregoire find a position in a potential Obama Administration and have the BIAW-backed Lieutenant Governor take over. Please tell your friends to vote for Marcia McCraw so that we don’t end up in that situation.

One thing I’ve noticed this year as I’ve been enjoying my purchase of NFL Sunday Ticket every weekend is that coverage of the NFL has gone in the past few years from being somewhat aware that fantasy football exists to being overwhelmingly about how what’s happening in the game is affecting everyone’s fantasy football match-ups.

As a fantasy football geek, I love it. I’m in two leagues, the younger of which is in its seventh season. But is this radically changing the appeal of the game to some people? To me, baseball was always the sport for stats geeks. Football was the sport where you drank your face off and berated people who were wearing a different colored jersey. Is this changing that? Is football now the domain of stats geeks? Are non-fantasy football geeks turned off by it all?

I’d imagine that going to the games themselves hasn’t changed much. There’s no ticker telling you who’s scoring touchdowns in the other games, no red button on your remote that you can press for instant live stats, and I’m pretty sure people still berate people for wearing a different colored jersey (or in the case of Raiders fans, looking like some combination of Darth Vader and Mad Max). Then, of course, back when I was a Seahawks season ticket holder, I’d often be at my seat during timeouts hoping my phone could connect to the internet to get stats. Sigh…

Last week’s contest was won by wes.in.wa, just barely within the first hour (at 7:57). It was Titusville, Florida. Here’s this week’s contest, good luck!

As much as we’re all appalled and disgusted by what McCain campaign worker Ashley Todd did this week in Pittsburgh, she’s not a criminal. She’s a person who likely has some mental health problems. We really need to get over this notion that everyone who offends us or does something that we find morally reprehensible needs to go to jail. No one was victimized here. No one had any money or property stolen from them. At worst, write her a fine to cover the administrative costs of having the police pursue the case and suggest a good mental health facility for her to check herself into. We’ve got too many goddamn people in jail already in this country.

UPDATE: Richard Pope in the comments provides some excellent perspective:

Isn’t $50,000 bail a little bit excessive for a misdemeanor? If Ashley Todd had really been attacked in the manner that she falsely claimed, I wonder whether the hypothetical attacker would have received anywhere near that amount of bail.

For example, a man “charged with robbery, burglary, giving false identification to law enforcement, loitering and prowling at night, simple assault, making terroristic threats, theft, receiving stolen property and false imprisonment” in Pittsburgh (Allegheny County, Pennsylvania) was only held on $10,000 bail.