Archives for February 2009

With rumors that Seattle Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske is heading to D.C. to have his tax returns scrutinized, the podcast panel spends more than a little time on drugs, meandering around topics from the mean streets of Seattle, to the state’s top cash crop, to national enforcement policy.

Nibbling on some local issues, the podcast turns to mayoral runs, and Goldy extracts answers from his panel, including a Seattle City Council-member. One improbable “yes” emerges.

Back on drugs, the panel takes a swim in the latest pool of Reefer Madness. It seems Tony the Tiger has forsaken his munching minions. And A-Rod hits one out of the park with banned substances. Ironically, it takes a “stimulus package” to close out the podcast drug-free.

Goldy was joined by Seattle P-I columnist Joel Connelly, Seattle City Council-member Tim Burgess, Effin’ Unsound’s and Horsesass’s Lee, and founder of Headzup.tv, John Shay.

The show is 40:58, and is available here as an MP3:

[audio:http://www.podcastingliberally.com/podcasts/podcasting_liberally_feb_10_2009.mp3]

[Recorded live at the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally. Special thanks to Confab creators Gavin and Richard for hosting the site.]

To interpret news today, I’ve taken to substituting the word “greedy” for “stupid.” When Wall Street bankers say they acted stupidly on subprime loans, they’re lying to us and themselves. They weren’t stupid then and they aren’t now. What they were and are is greedy.

When a congressman or former statesman says he was stupid to accept a bribe, or not pay his taxes, or hire illegal workers, he’s not stupid. He’s just being greedy.

And when Alex Rodriguez excuses himself for taking steroids because he was “young and stupid,” come on. Alex is no fool. He was angling for the biggest salary in baseball.

Most of all, when a headline or article refers to all these acts as stupidity, they are not practicing honest journalism. They should call it what it is: greed.

Stupidity is an Olympic hero smoking a bong while someone takes his picture. Stupidity is trying to drive in Seattle in the snow (not necessarily because you don’t know how to drive in the snow, but because hardly anyone else does). Stupidity is missing your bus or your recycling day, or driving too fast on Aurora at the speed trap north of the bridge.

But stupidity is not a synonym for greed. With greed, you know what you’re doing. You’re trying to get away with something for the sake of more money.

We all know this, so why make a big deal of it? Because by labeling greed “stupidity,” it excuses conscious deception, fraud and criminal behavior. If you say you were stupid, it’s kind of like, well, you know, it was out of my hands. I didn’t really mean to. It could’ve happened to anyone.

It also deflects the act away from its root cause, the worship of money. The problem with greed is that it destroys our humanity. It turns us into dogs eating dogs, every man for himself, the filthy rich versus the mass of people. Stupidity is not one of the seven deadly sins. Greed and its kissing cousin gluttony are two.

Greed is not good and never was. At least Gordon Gecko called it by its right name.

Most of all: If it’s stupidity, they’re implying they wouldn’t do it all over again. And here they’re lying again. They would do it all over again, in a flash, if they thought they could get away with it. Their motto derives from Dylan: “In Jersey anything’s legal as long as you don’t get caught.” After all, if they do get caught, they can just say they were stupid and the media will back them up.

Anyway, try it the next time you hear or read the word “stupid” from someone apologizing or writing in the news. It’s remarkable how it clarifies your perspective on what’s wrong in America.

From Seattle Weekly:

According to L&I, a glitch in its computer coding resulted in the agency refunding $10 million to $15 million more per year to employers and groups that participate in the so-called Retrospective Rating program for workers’ comp insurance. That is, they were getting a bigger refund on their premiums than their actual injured-worker claims would have justified.

It’s impossible to say, without knowing many more details, how much the BIAW might have benefited from this overpayment. But the builders’ lobby is the biggest participant in the “retro” program and uses the refund money to fund its political machine. The fact that government “incompetence” has, for years now, been helping the BIAW underwrite its war on government is either fitting or ironic, it’s hard to know which.

When I think back to all the distorted attack ads and the hysterical, right wing baloney the BIAW has pumped out over the years, it makes me want to puke. Turns out they had a good thing going, and they didn’t have the good sense to shut up and enjoy it.

Maybe now the Legislature will actually do something about the noxious “retro” program. Like end it.

So if toxic assets aren’t worth anything, who are the private sector people that are going to buy them?*

*Yes, I can be horribly mean and snarky. A lot. But I really don’t know the answer to this, nor, from what I understand, do many smart people who have degrees in business and economics. It’s not meant as an insult, it’s meant as a serious question, because the new administration is taking questions from bloggers and everyone and stuff.

Personally I imagine President Obama would answer this question pretty well, if someone can ask it.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFDcUY6HiAo[/youtube]

Eddie “Clean Head” Vinson. I’m fine, the economy, well, you know. Rough patch. Talk amongst yourselves.

Please join us for an evening of politics under the influence at the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally. Start time is 8:00 pm at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. Or show up earlier for dinner.

For tonight’s activity…we’ll come up with some “fair and balanced” stories for FOX News. Someone needs to take over for the Republicans as they take a break to figure out the new face of the Republican party. (Hint: the one that shows up.)

If you’re not in Seattle, the Drinking Liberally web site has dates and times of a chapter within sleighing distance of you.

That’s what the PI is now reporting:

Seattle police Chief Gil Kerlikowske has been appointed to a law enforcement post within the Obama administration, which would return him to Washington, D.C., after almost a decade as Seattle’s top cop.

A administrator in the Seattle Police Department said Tuesday that Kerlikowske notified commanders that he would be appointed as director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, a cabinet-level post often referenced as the White House “drug czar.”

I’ve been critical of Kerlikowske in the past (specifically about the way SPD has dealt with complaints of police violence), but I’ve never thought of him as an overly aggressive drug warrior. Maybe I’ve never seen that side of him, or maybe the ONDCP will have some more sensible leadership than it has. I’m not sure yet. I’m curious what those who have followed his career more closely than I have think.

I totally agree with the Seattle Times editorial board in arguing that government should “use technology to provide public records cheaply,” but I can’t sign on to their actual arguments.

In fact, our public records statutes can create an incredible burden on public agencies, requiring untold hours at taxpayer expense to fulfill requests that often amount to little more than vindictive fishing expeditions.  (I’ve often been tempted to file a public records request asking for the cumulative cost to taxpayers of Stefan’s many public records requests… but I didn’t want to waste taxpayer money on a lark.)  So when the Times complains about proposed legislation that would raise the maximum copying charge to $0.25/page, or deny requests to people who refuse to pay their outstanding balance, they make it sound like fulfilling a request requires little more effort than feeding some documents into a copier.

Hardly seems right that public agencies would be making such a profit off documents to which citizens are entitled. Though municipal lobbyists suggest the higher fee would offset costs of staff time in fulfilling the request, that is expressly prohibited by the state’s Open Records Act.

Um… so… if the Times recognizes that there are actual “costs of staff time in fulfilling the request,” why would they suggest that public agencies are making a profit?

Of course, they’re not.  The Times is just being the Times.  But at least they attempt to be constructive.

A better idea? Require cities, counties, ports and school districts to better manage their records. Why not make documents available by e-mail or copying them on to a disc — pennies a serving — even less if the requester provides the disc.

Yeah, that would address the cost to the requester of making copies, but it does nothing to address the real cost:  the many staff hours spent gathering documents and fulfilling the request in the first place.  In fact, it takes just as much effort, if not more so, to scan a document to disk as it does to feed it into a copier.

So how about an even better “better idea”?  Since most records are produced on computers, why not just take every electronic document or file that would be open to a public records request, and just automatically place them in a searchable online database?  Every email.  Every Word document.  Every spreadsheet or PowerPoint presentation.  Everything.

Because the vast majority of public records requests would probably be unnecessary if the records were actually, um, public.

UPDATE:
Erica takes umbrage:

Goldy argues that the “many hours of staff time” it takes to fill records requests should be compensated, and argues that every single public record maintained by government agencies should be put in computer files for the public to sift through themselves. The logic is tortured: Government agencies provide a valuable service we should pay them for (sifting through records to fill requests), therefore we should get rid of that service entirely and make people who file records requests find the records they want themselves. Not to mention the fact that most agencies don’t have a surplus of public-disclosure staff; in my experience, most government agencies only employ one public-disclosure officer. Is Goldy really arguing that we should eliminate that position from every government agency?

Um… no.  I’ve reread the post, and I don’t find myself making that argument anywhere.  I didn’t present an either/or.  Rather, I suggested that merely delivering records requests electronically doesn’t save all that much money, and that the real savings would come from putting as much of the public record as we can online, where much of the snooping could be done in a self-service manner.  But I don’t see how one infers from this post that I favor eliminating public-disclosure staff.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rX7-R54-Q8[/youtube]

Fixing up school buildings for the wee kiddies is waste-fraud-abuse-communism-the-end-of-America. Making sure the assholes on Wall Street who did this to us get more money and keep their jobs is virtuous!

After reading Goldy’s post below, I had to check out whether or not the number of people who voted Yes on I-25 in November 2007 outnumbered the total number of votes cast in the special election they voted to have.

Almost…

King County Initiative 25 – 11/07

YES 240998

Director of Elections – 2/09

Ballots Cast: 249086

So, either there were really less than 10,000 people who both voted NO on I-25 and then voted in this election, or there were a large number of people who went to the polls in November 2007 to demand that our elections director be elected, then didn’t even have the motivation to fill out a ballot that was sent to their house and mail it back in.

Hooray for apathy!

I will agree with the whiners over at (u)SP about one thing: the turnout in last week’s special election for Elections Director was absolutely pathetic.  A week into the counting it looks like barely 22% of registered King County voters cast a ballot last Tuesday, compared to almost 84% in November.  To put that in perspective, the 48,001 votes runner-up David Irons Jr. managed to garner would have only amounted to about 5% of the November vote.

Huh.  I guess folks weren’t all that exercised about the performance of the elections office after all, a notion reinforced by the fact that Sherril Huff, the winner, was not only the incumbent, she was the only candidate in the race to speak out against electing the Elections Director in the first place.

It has been suggested to me that with the 2004 gubernatorial race finally over (and this was indeed the final nail in the coffin of that controversy), we can perhaps amend the charter back to appointing the Elections Director before the position goes back on the ballot in 2011.

Well, good luck with that.  Understandably, voters rarely vote for less democracy, no matter how sensible that option might be.