Conspiracy Theory

http://www.bellinghamherald.com/news/state/washington/article51107845.html

3200 inmates were released early since a problem was identified in 2002.

"Inslee says two retired federal prosecutors will conduct an independent investigation to figure out why it took so long to discover and fix the problem."

This sounds like corruption to me at the worst case and in the best case Padden (the chairman of the Law and Justice Committee, which has jurisdiction over the prison system) should be removed from office for negligence in their duty.

The departure process for releasing prisoners should be reviewed by a third party and implement a hand-checking system wherein intake, departure, and good times are recalculated.

Such a lack of attention to detail over 12 years sounds like intentional sabotage and corruption. Whoever has access to these systems should be questioned intently. Decades old systems that manage prisoners' lives sounds like a infiltration point ripe for abuse. I would not be surprised if backend to this system is poorly administrated at best and that the techs in charge regularly joke about the appalling security and oversight involved.

Why Inslee is not asking for firings and system review is beyond me. This could easily be swept under the rug.

:]

Creatures of the Light

Go outside just in your backyard tonight, turn out your porch lights. Just relax for a few minutes in the cold. See where your eyes focus and rest on. My bet is your eyes gravitate towards the lights around you in your neighborhood. Now - find a deep and dark corner in your yard and focus on that. Look deep into it and try to identify anything there. A certain part of you feels uneasy when you do this. 

Now while you can just flip on your porch lights or go inside, consider your ancestors even 80 years ago - before industrial electricity. They gravitated to light just as you do now. 

What a blessing it is to be able to summon light to your side - to live in an eternally well-lit world. Consider all your ancestors whose lights went out in the night, whose candles waned, whose campfires died. They had to wait for the light on the horizon or get comfortable with staring into those deep dark corners of the world. 

You are blessed.