Archives for February 2009

At Blue Oregon, former Senate candidate Steve Novick makes the case for restoring the education funding slashed by the mindless “centrists” in the Senate, and goes one further:

What are we worried about ­ a Republican filibuster? Bring it on! Let teachers and parents and principals and economists and Governors deluge their Senators with calls begging them to do the right thing! Let these so-called “moderate” Republican Senators (and a few self-styled “moderate” Democrats) explain why hundreds of billions for banks, hundreds of billions for the war in Iraq, are just james dandy, but saving our schools from cuts, rebuilding schools first constructed in the first New Deal, helping college students facing huge increases in tuition ­ oh, no! They’ll cave.

I’d have to agree at this point. The threat of a filibuster has to be tested or the GOP will always obstruct, delay and grandstand. Might as well get it on now while the country’s attention is focused. While delay is not desirable, it might actually save time because I’m hard pressed to believe the House is going to go along with the Senate version.

Let the nation watch, spell-bound, as Senate Republicans try to explain to the American people why they have to save our kids’ futures by letting the economic crisis decimate the public school systems.

My daughter and I are flying to Florida later this week, and I’d love to get my hands on one of those nifty new Amazon Kindles to help pass the time on those long travel days, and perhaps a little more time while sitting by the pool.  But to be honest, I’m not a speedy reader, and I doubt I’ll get through even one book on this trip, let alone the twenty-or-so books I could buy with the money spent on the $359.00 Kindle alone.

Sure, it’s a cool piece of hardware, and the electronic-ink display is literally easy on the eyes—the best display technology I’ve yet seen for reading large amounts of text… you know, short of the printed page.  But the feature I covet most is the ability to wirelessly download one of hundreds of thousands of books, in minutes, from just about anywhere.

That’s the way content should be: totally and completely ubiquitous.  And while the book may yet survive as our last physical medium holdout (despite Jeff Bezos’ best efforts), content consumption in general is inevitably moving online.  No more CDs. No more DVDs or BlueRay.  And in some cities, no more newsprint.  Even radio and television broadcasters’ airwave monopoly will collapse as audio and video consumption increasingly shifts to the Internet.

I know there are a lot of people who worry about finding a business model that can support content creators in this new online world, but me, not so much, especially when there are so many smart, creative folks like Jeff Bezos out there willing to risk failure.  Yeah, sure, in the short term these new technologies are incredibly disruptive, but then, history tells us that new technologies almost always are.  

If we don’t find a viable business model, in the end, I believe, a viable business model will find us. In this, you could say, I almost have faith.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfG_AFPlcr8[/youtube]

(Props to TPM.)

It was nice to see Senators Smoot and Hawley Collins and Nelson on my tee-vee this morning, and then later that 14 kids octuplet lady who is on NBC every day.

Each one of them seems to have the same basic grasp of basic economics, although having 14 kids in the hopes that someone will pay for them is probably going to actually work in the end.

Meanwhile, in the real world, check out the truly frightening chart Barry Ritholtz has showing job losses for all postwar recessions.

I have no idea how to stop the media from stupidly blibbering about 14 babies and tax cuts, nor do I have any idea how to stop the right wing narrative that revolves around how bad it is to fund things like education. Maybe if we made up words, say like “bankuporking,” it would help.

The morons are winning, that much is clear.

We are at a defining moment in our history. God bless the United States of America.

Last week’s contest had two winners. Tommy Thompson was the first to guess the location (Santa Fe, New Mexico). Wes.in.wa was first to post the link. Here’s this week’s, good luck!

FAA to loosen fuel-tank safety rules, benefiting Boeing’s 787 :

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has quietly decided to loosen stringent fuel-tank safety regulations written after the 1996 fuel-tank explosion that destroyed flight TWA 800 off the coast of New York state.

The FAA proposes to relax the safeguards for preventing sparks inside the fuel tank during a lightning strike, standards the agency now calls “impractical” and Boeing says its soon-to-fly 787 Dreamliner cannot meet.

[…] But the move has stirred intense opposition inside the local FAA office from the technical specialists — most of them former Boeing engineers — responsible for certifying new airplane designs.

Good.  Now, if a 787 blows up in a lightning strike, we know exactly who to sue.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFvrL_nqx2c[/youtube]

The point is not that the situation is exactly the same, because it’s not, but a president can indeed explain stuff if he can form coherent sentences.

I trust Obama will do so, perhaps in a news conference on Monday, and given the situation it’s worthwhile to hear how it can be done.

I’m old enough to remember when there were debates in the US Senate that were considered historic and important, and you could watch the debate without wanting to hurl things through the screen.

Sadly, the junior senator from Louisiana, David Vitter the whoremonger, just got up and babbled on and on about ACORN and how vital it is that no money go them, offering an amendment as such. I’m sure that’s the first thought of American who are losing jobs and houses.

Truly a different planet.

Anyhow, I try not to post “call your senators” very often because you are likely smart enough to decide when you need to call your senators. Like, um, today. And be nice.

At The Plum Line, Greg Sargent takes a whack at explaining the blogger term “The Villagers.” After tracing its roots back to the Lewinsky scandal and a 1998 Sally Quinn article, Sargent delivers a cogent definition of the political mindset of The Villagers:

In political terms, the term “Villagers” denotes a kind of small-minded refusal to think outside an “acceptable” center-right consensus, and a refusal to acknowledge it when a majority of the American people take a view on a particular issue that is not in line with that center-right consensus. Thus, the “Villagers” include, in part, Democratic elected officials and consultants who insist that their party can’t succeed unless they ally their party with that center-right consensus; think-tankers who churn out position papers designed to prop up this elite consensus view; and elite pundits who insist that mainstream liberal views are radically leftist and insist on “bipartisanship” for its own sake, damn the consequences.

This elite consensus, in the view of the bloggers, represents this particular Village’s hidebound small-town values, which must be maintained at all costs to protect this elite’s status and interests.

And of course there is also The Iron Law Of Institutions, as set forth by Jonathan Schwarz in 2005. Consider the two terms and you have a basic understanding of why the Senate may struggle today to reach 60 votes instead of passing the damn stimulus bill 100-0.

It’s better to be in charge of smoking rubble than to not be in charge.

Former Renton hypnotist sentenced for fraud

The imagination runs wild, but alas, the fraud had absolutely nothing to do hypnotism.

Our friends at (u)SP are still in a huff over Huff, disappointed that King County’s newly elected Elections Director does not represent “change” (ie, a partisan Republican), and fantasizing once again about the prospect of overturning an election in court.  (How’d that work out for you last time, Stefan?)

But while the “all Dems are crooks” crowd continues to scoff at her mere plurality, it is interesting to note that Huff keeps edging closer toward an actual majority as the ballots trickle in, her 44% election night lead growing to about 46.3% by Thursday afternoon, an impressive 27-point margin over the runner up. In a six-way race, that’s a landslide.

And that Stefan and friends just can’t seem to accept the results as legitimate?  Well, I think that tells you everything you need to know about their respect for the intelligence and integrity of King County voters.

Following up on my previous post about Pend Oreille County’s efforts to triple the $1.4 million a year in impact fees Seattle City Light pays on the Boundary Dam, I stumbled across some numbers which kinda pound home one of my central theses:  that contrary to the bitching and moaning often heard from the other side of the mountains, big, bad Seattle is not sucking tax dollars from the rest of the state.

At least, not when it comes to transportation dollars.

According to a report from the Washington State Department of Transportation (hat tip: Political Buzz), between 1984 and 2003, the Puget Sound region received 98-cents back for every $1.00 spent in state and federal transportation taxes.  And Pend Oreille County?  They saw an impressive $2.58 return.  That’s a $68 million subsidy over 20 years, or roughly $260 annually per man, woman and child.

Of course, after decades of neglect and a couple of gas tax increases, things have turned around for Puget Sound residents, who are projected to realize a $1.02 return for every buck spent between 2004 and 2015… though Pend Oreille still brings home the bacon, munching on a sizzling $1.88 of transportation spending for every dollar in taxes.  Sweet.

I point this out not to begrudge Pend Oreille’s good fortune, but merely to acknowledge that it exists.  An acknowledgement you won’t get from most Eastern Washington politicians, who would rather play the “Fuck Seattle” game than address their region’s underlying problems.