Pierce County Sheriff spokesman Ed Troyer said a couple called 911 after returning home Monday evening to find their 26-year-old roommate angry and handling explosives.

When deputies arrived at the house near the intersection of 160th Street and 70th Avenue East, the man ran upstairs with a duffle bag full of explosives and other bomb making materials. Troyer said the man began playing music loudly and deputies backed away from the house.

Within moments of the deputies’ exit around midnight, the top floor of the house exploded.

“He either accidentally or intentionally set the explosion off, which took the whole top floor off of the residence and engulfed the house in flames,” Troyer said.

One of the things about living in the PNW, is that in the winter people get crazy to levels completely inconceivable to the rest of the country.
Because of the omnipresent dark, things can get really grim here by march or so. Things are beginning to get more sane locally, but as this article reveals, a couple of people are still in extreme winter mode — it rained like all bloody hell yesterday.

If you’re alive in a decade, it will be because you’ve figured out how to forage locally.

The death and suffering will be unimaginable. We have come to depend on cheap oil for the delivery of food, water, shelter and medicine. Most of us are incapable of supplying these four key elements of personal survival, so trouble lies ahead when we are forced to develop means of acquiring them that don’t involve a quick trip to Wal-Mart.

Happy thoughts from this article in the Arizona Republic. It’s funny how now that there’s less Bush agenda holding up the idea that Everything is Fine and There is No Crisis, people in the red states are starting to catch up with the rest of the planet as to things being Seriously Not Okay.

I’ve been somewhat gratified and bemused watching Seattle slowly start to adapt to the idea that Massive Change is Coming. The resurgence of backyard poultry, the 100 mile food plan taking off, and other things along those lines all are starting to catch up as it becomes obvious that a great time of transition is starting and that things are not going to be the same. It’s interesting to see that happen.

One of the reasons that I chose to live in Seattle in the first place is that I think it’s going to be more livable in the long term. Certainly, people in Arizona have to realize that life there isn’t sustainable. I don’t know what the world has in store, I know that people are trying to do things like make fast breeder reactors at the same time that they’re working on alternative fuels, but it’s going to be a rough transition.

Certainly, if you live in someplace like Arizona, and you can only get by on an average day by expending tons and tons of energy, there’s going to be nasty times ahead and they’re going to come even sooner for you than for others. Maybe the difference between arizona and here is a matter of degree, but it’s a degree to which i’ve gotten accustomed.