March 4, 2008

Steven Frasch went to pick his wife up from Chicago’s O’Hare airport last week and she wasn’t there. The problem lies in that she did fly to Chicago and customs video shows that she got off the aircraft as well. So what happened after that?

Received this news headline from the FBI earlier this afternoon and thought I would share it.

03/04/08

Early Monday morning, three luxury show homes in a northeast Seattle suburb were destroyed by fire in an apparent arson and a possible act of domestic terrorism.

Two more houses were targeted, one of which was damaged. Each of the homes–models for a massive luxury development called the “Seattle Street of Dreams” northeast of the city–was vacant. No one was hurt in the blazes.

Our Seattle Joint Terrorism Task Force–one of more than 100 around the country–responded to the scene and launched an investigation in concert with local county fire crews and investigators from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. 

A large banner signed by the eco-terrorist group ELF, or Earth Liberation Front, was left at the scene on a nearby fence. The sign read: “Built Green? Nope Black! McMansions + RCDs r not green ELF.” “RCD” is apparently a reference to rural cluster developments. 

The attack is the first linked to ELF in the Seattle area since January 2006, says Dave Gomez, the FBI Seattle Assistant Special Agent in Charge responsible for counterterrorism. Nationwide, radical environmentalists have threatened lives and caused more than $200 million in damages in recent years, targeting businesses, universities, researchers, and others it believes are harming the environment. Some victims have been attacked by mistake. ELF radicals typically work in autonomous cells, much like many international terrorist operatives. 

If you have any information concerning the fires, please contact the Seattle Joint Terrorism Task Force at (206) 622-0460.

For more information:
– Wanted Domestic Terrorists
– Operation Backfire
– The Case of the Calculating Eco-Terrorist
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According to the AP the feds don’t have any leads in the investigation. Speaking of the video, why the heck is the ATF involved anyway?

The wife was telling me a story last night before I went back to work about one of the guys at the gym where she’s been working out. Yep, that’s right. She’s been working out. I think she’s gotten tired of my mouth and wants to be able to really kick my tail if she needs to…

Anyway, apparently one of the guys that works there, or maybe he just works out there, likes energy drinks. The one that he prefers is packed full of sugar and doesn’t have a lot of the things that make good energy drinks good. I can’t mention the name, but it’s NOT the one I linked to. So she told him, ‘hey, that stuff isn’t good for you, you shouldn’t be drinking it’.

So she goes back in the next day and apparently he is trying to quit drinking that particular brand now. She apologized to him and told him it was none of her business but he said ‘no, I needed to hear it’. The guys has one kidney and has had a heart attack or two, which is one of the reasons he’s trying to stay healthy by working out.

I don’t know about all of that working out stuff yet. I am still struggling with trying to quit smoking. Yesterday was not a particularly good day. Early on it went OK. I bummed a smoke from one of my employees around 11am and that was it until I finished the day. Around three I had to drive to another town and open a safe for one of the district managers. For some reason I was stressed out and angry the entire drive there. I bummed another smoke from one of her waitresses. That makes two for the day, which is what I have been smoking for the last three or four days. While not QUIT completely, two cigarettes is a grand improvement for me.

Anyhow, I had to go back to work last night and do shift change as well as some paperwork. I stopped and bought a pack of smokes. I don’t even have an explanation for it, I just did. I smoked two on the way to work, two after I left at eleven last night, and then I tucked one lone cigarette away in my dashboard ‘just in case’. I threw the pack of smokes in the dumpster though (at work) knowing I had screwed up.

It’s like that old saying about alcoholics. One drink is too many and a thousand never enough. Too true.

I smoked that lone ‘just in case’ cigarette right after I woke up about two and a half hours ago. I am a bit uncomfortable right now but I am not going to go buy any more. I want to be a non-smoker, if only so that I can be a jerk and give smokers a hard time. You know, throw them out of my car and stuff, preferably while moving 🙂

Anyway, I do want to quit and maybe start being healthy. I am starting to think about retirement now as I am closer to it than the other end and there are so many different things I want to do, I would like to be able to enjoy them.

I don’t know how the heck I got from energy drinks and gyms to smoking but it all sort of goes together I suppose.