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Archives for May 2011

Cannabis Freedom March

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A very late notice here, but I’m scheduled to be speaking sometime between noon and 1pm today at the Cannabis Freedom March in Volunteer Park. After the march, I’m supposed to be on a panel in Westlake Park with Alison Holcomb and Douglas Hiatt speaking about cannabis laws. If I’m sitting in between them, I’ll be wearing a full suit of armor to protect myself.

Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza!

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Maddow: John Ensign OUT, Tom Coburn NEXT.

Stephen goes all flaggy on Donald Trump (via Slog).

Sam Seder: Teabaggers willing to trade debt limit for closeting gays.

Young Turks: Gov. Mitch Daniels de-funds Planned Parenthood.

Thom: Wisconsin Wingnuts rush to pass agenda.

Maddow: Republican social issues.

Pap w/Andy Kroll: Who is pushing the G.O.P. anti-labor agenda?

Obama Bin Gotten:

Thom interviews Gov. Jesse Ventura on various conspiracies.

Cenk debunks Rep. Boehner’s bullshit.

RapperGate:

Sam Seder: Conservatives vote their conscience ignorance.

Mike Huckabee “fixes” American History (via TalkingPointsMemo).

Torture Chronicles:

Thom on Florida’s latest War on Democracy.

SCTV: Skype gets Binged.

Newt the Kook:

Sam Seder: Congressional Wingdings back way off on destroying Medicare.

Ed and Pap: Boehner’s debt fight shows GOP’s greed.

Lawrence O’Donnell: The tragedy of Alaska’s Sarah Palin; The ‘Drilla From Wasilla’ is a hopeless ‘disasta’.

Delaware Gov signs civil unions bill into law.

Fracking:

Sam Seder: FCC Comish Baker hired by Comcast/NBCU after voting for Comcast/NBCU merger.

ONN Live: Congress debates new sex-based American dream.

Thom: Pima County Dems move to secede from Arizona.

Immigrants for sale (via OneGoodMove).

White House: West Wing Week.

Maddow: “Big Brother’s” War on Women in South Dakota.

Romney Runs…From His Own Record:

Maddow: Unemployment and how Florida GOP Gov. Rick Scott takes ‘Big Government’ to new heights.

Cenk: C-Street, The Family & Coburn’s Ensign cover-up.

If Atlas Shrugged trailer was honest (h/t Carl Ballard).

The Paul Family Circus:

Young Turks: Megan McCain’s PSA makes Glenn Beck vomit.

Maddow: “Family values” ex-Senator Rick Santorum covered for John Ensign.

Thom: Should the Koch brothers be making hiring decision for university professors?

Last week’s Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza can be found here.

Dear Ed Murray,

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I’m writing you as one of the few honest tunnel supporters who doesn’t seem to hate Seattle. One who opposes the cost overrun provision and has said at public forums that you think it matters and should be repealed. I know the cost overrun provision wasn’t on the agenda for the special session: how to fuck over education and public health slightly less badly than the Republicans tops the list. But now the tunnel will go to Seattle voters, and Seattle voters probably will reject it. This is probably your last chance to keep the tunnel, but the state is going to have to pick up the cost overruns.

I’m asking you to lead the charge to repeal the cost overrun provision and kneecap tunnel opponents like me. Repeal the cost overrun provision and commit the state to paying for a state highway. Repeal the cost overrun provision and take away an argument that resonates with Seattle. Repeal the overrun provision and stem the tide of anti-Seattle nonsense that the legislature keeps pushing.

Now, a repeal of the cost overrun provision won’t be enough to get me to support the tunnel project: it’s a bad project and Surface/Transit/I-5 is a much better option. Hell, the shit rebuild option is a much better option, at least I get to keep my on and off ramps. But repealing that provision would give some certainty to the process and would mean that for once in God knows how long the state isn’t actively trying to fuck Seattle up. It would make it more likely that city voters let the tunnel go through.

And yes, I know: Voters rejected a stadium and we got stadiums. Voters rejected a tunnel and we got a much bigger tunnel. But I wouldn’t count on that if you’re a supporter of the tunnel. The difference between those and this vote is that there wasn’t significant opposition to those things among elected officials. The only elected official who really opposed the stadiums, Maggi Fimia, got King County off the hook for cost overruns (at least for Safeco) despite most of the rest of county government supporting it. Imagine what you can expect when McGinn will veto any tunnel provision and has shown an ability to get anything that overrides his veto on the ballot.

Finally, this should give you a reason to confront the people who keep saying that the overrun provision is meaningless (while, oddly, not wanting it repealed). I know you don’t share that view, but it’s pretty common.

While this isn’t what you want to spend your time in the special session on, you’ve been given a time crunch by Judge Laura Gene Middaugh. And, of course, you’ve been given a time crunch by the Seattle voters (myself included) who signed the ballot measure. Please make the best of it.

Love,

Carl Ballard

Open Thread

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– This piece on how Seattle plans on zoning for medical marijuana is interesting, but it’s more Lee’s than my bailiwick. But I would like to complain about the headline: It’s an online publication so headline space isn’t as valuable as for an actual newspaper. So don’t say “medical pot” say “marijuana” or “cannabis.”

– God damn (h/t, trigger warning).

– Seems like we ought to be able to do 520 right.

– Testing as a way to evaluate teachers is very misguided.

– I loved this interview with Felix Hernandez (h/t).

The Amazing World of Tomorrow – Chapter 2 “I Can Fly!”

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Quick summary of our last chapter: It’s 2220, and people you don’t care about exist. Space and Science Center. Nap time.

In chapter 2 Quixby dreams of the time he helped invent a jet pack. Or I’m kind of confused if it’s a jet pack or not. Something about wings and birds and play dough, but I’m getting ahead of myself. We start with Boeing recruiting him out of college, but please note, don’t try to make too much sense out of this:

It was inevitable that the first invitation to employment in its laboratories should be Boeing, the world’s largest and most advanced aircraft producer. Boeing executives already knew about his prowess as a fighter pilot in the Air Force three years before entering M.I.T. They had followed his career and knew that as soon as he graduated, he should be welcomed to the aircraft maker’s domain.

So he’s a fighter pilot. And he’s in the military 3 years. My guess is there was a war, that won’t get mentioned again. I mean Quixby made colonial in those 3 years (I assume). While I’m no expert that seems like a very quick rise unless a lot of people above him died (like the boy generals in the Civil War). And he’s a good enough pilot that Boeing wants him for his solo human flight designing skills?

It was left to Quixby to solve the last remaining problem in the design of the revolutionary flying device. The fuel problem had already been solved by Boeing engineers. After years of experimentation, they came up with a combination of hydrogen and three other chemicals that would power the small but sturdy and dependable booster attached to the flying uniform. One more serious hurdle remained: How to sustain flight for hundreds of miles and rise to ordinary flight levels.

H + Some Chemical + Some Other Chemical + Yet Another Chemical → fuel, or something. I feel perhaps there is too much science in this fiction, but I’ll attempt to go on:

Boeing engineers had solved every problem with personal flight except the bit about people flying significant distances. So they had someone with no engineering experience outside of a classroom but who did help us beat the Krouts in WWIX (maybe?) lend a hand. He solved this problem the way everyone solves problems: birdwatching.

It was Quixby and his own research that solved the problem. After diligent studies of the total wing structure of eagles, he determined that, among other things, the project needed a new type of material to simulate the muscle structure of the eagle. It had to be material that was simultaneously strong as steel and supple as play dough.

I don’t care that the in the 21st century we call the product Play-Doh. Maybe it’s called something more boring in the future. Anyway, Quixby’s contribution to the project is having someone else invent a magical substance and another somebody test it out. Anyway, flying is a great success and Boeing patents it. But Quixby in one sentence convinces them to share their patents with anyone else who wants it. I understand that there’s precedent with friction matches. But I’d be more interested in how corporations decide that profit shouldn’t matter than I am with eagles and magical chemicals.

Then Quixby and the Washington Congressional delegation flies from Seattle to DC.

The televised coverage of the seven fliers as they approached the airport in the capital and went in for a smooth landing created a sensation in the United States and in every country in the world. This was no longer the stuff of which science-fiction was made! This was the real thing!

Holy shit, we get it. Science fiction. Is this going to be every chapter?

As soon as the news spread over what had happened, people were calling the Boeing company to ask how much the personal-flight machines cost and how soon they could place an order. Nothing like it had ever been experienced in American or world history. Immediately, political leaders in virtually all the capitals of the world were asking their governments why they hadn’t developed such an extraordinary vehicle.

I like how it’s virtually every capital. In Guzzo’s mind there’s some country, I’m guessing Prussia, that isn’t interested in this but everyone else wants in. And is every other country communist, because otherwise the governments might not be the ones tasked with inventing these things.

Then Guzzo talks about what this did to the economy in pretty much the same manner that he explained it in chapter 1. So we’re out of ideas. Then Jean Marshall wakes Quixby up and tells him to call “General Bennett at the Science Center.” They work for the Space and Science Center, so I feel like Marshall has been through these conversations a lot with a senile George Quixby:

Jean Marshall: General Bennett on the phone.

George Quixby: Who?

Marshall: Our Boss. The commanding general of the Space and Science Center.

Quixby: Right, I work there. Who is this Bennett fellow?

Marshall: He hired you away from Boeing like 30 years ago or whatever.

Quixby: Hey! I used to work for Boeing. Is that where this Bennett person is from?

Marshall: No, please answer the phone. It’s General Bennett of the Science Center.

Quixby: I knew that!

I know I made a lot of assumptions based on what amounts to just shitty writing. But I’m committed for 14 chapters and I think speculating wildly will help speed this thing along. Anyway, end of chapter 2.

Buh-bye presidential primary…

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…it was good getting to know ya.

Washington state will not have a presidential primary for the 2012 election season.

One part of me is sad. I mean…the 2008 primary was when I came out as a Republican—a ardent Mike Huckabee supporter. I really voted for him.

Even without a primary, there will be caucuses. I am not trying stir up troubles or anything, but is there any reason whatsoever for Democrats to show up and caucus? I mean, does anyone really believe there will be a credible challenger to President Obama? (NO, NOT YOU, crazy trollfuckwad…I’m asking the non-crazy readers.)

So…where you can really make a difference for America is to lend a hand to your Republican brethren at our caucuses. Admittedly, most of the Republicans showing interest in the office have some serious monkey on their backs (if not Santorum in their faces). I think we need your wise council. We’d appreciate the assistance.

So, who do you think should win the Republican nomination for President in 2012?

Odds and Ends

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– The latest from Libya.

– Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin is set to sign a bill that licenses and regulates medical marijuana dispensaries, once again illustrating that our own governor lied to us when she said she couldn’t do so because of federal policy.

– A police officer was involved in a two-vehicle accident on Rainier Avenue yesterday, but witnesses dispute the report that SPD released. SPD claims that his sirens were on, but multiple witnesses claim they weren’t on until after the accident occurred. Another witness claims the officer was talking on his cell phone at the time of the crash.

The Illogic of Rand Paul

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This is comical:

Kentucky Republican Senator Rand Paul said during a Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee hearing Wednesday that those who believe in a right to healthcare actually believe in slavery.

…

“Basically, once you imply a belief in a right to someone’s services — do you have a right to plumbing? Do you have a right to water? Do you have right to food? — you’re basically saying you believe in slavery.”

In this country, we have a right to be tried by a jury of our peers. We also have a right to a defense attorney. These are widely accepted rights that no one questions. Yet, to Senator Paul, serving on a jury is slavery, as well as being a public defender.

Sub Areas

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Goldy notes the irony of suburban screw Seattle people who support sub area equity getting screwed by it (while getting a deserved jab at Rob McKenna).

Of course, that’s not how “sub-area equity” was originally billed. No, McKenna and other backers pushed it as a way to protect the rest of the Sound Transit taxing district from evil/greedy Seattle, which otherwise would have presumably sucked in all their tax dollars to build transit here. How’s that working out for you, Federal Way? Be sure to appropriately thank Mr. McKenna for his head-up-ass transit balkanization policy when he runs for governor in 2012.

Of course that’s true enough. But I was actually a bit surprised. Typically, cities do better than suburban and exurban areas in public transit funding. King County pays Seattle more for Metro than it gets back, for example. Schemes like 40-40-20 and sub area equity tend to hurt Seattle, but typically the more dense an area is, the better suited for public transit. The better suited for public transit, the more public transit there is.

If the cities were a drain on the rest of the state or county, schemes like sub area equity would make a bit of sense. But we only seem to get them on things like transit funding that benefit urban areas. Somehow, we never hear about the need for sub areas to pay for themselves on a whole host of state and county things that Seattle pays the bulk of.

If going back a few decades, the state had sub area equity for road building, we could afford to have that gold plated tunnel I keep hearing about. If we had sub area equity in education, Seattle and other King County school districts wouldn’t have to pass so many bonds. If we had sub area equity in social services, Seattle could move toward ending homelessness for real rather than just talk about it, sometimes. If King county had sub area equity for road building, I doubt very much that we’d have had to close the South Park bridge. If we had sub area equity for police, directing them to trouble spots like Belltown wouldn’t be so difficult a choice for McGinn. If we had sub area equity for sewers, well maybe when I say I’m going to the throne, it wouldn’t be a metaphor.

Of course, there are good reasons not to have sub area equity in those things. Rural King County needs those cops too; I’ve been very grateful for rural King County cops on a number of occasions. The entire state benefits from educating children in areas that don’t pay as much in taxes. I just wish we could see the benefits in the areas where Seattle and other urban areas don’t pay as much as they get back.

Medical Marijuana Bill Updates

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There’s been another flurry of activity with the medical marijuana mess. Here’s some of the latest news:

– A new bill, SB 5955, has been introduced. This bill crafts rules around “nonprofit patient cooperatives”, limiting them to 10 members. It also allows for local jurisdictions to ban them if they so choose.

– The bill requires that each cooperative register with the Secretary of State’s office. This once again illustrates the point that Gregoire’s fear-mongering over state employees being arrested was nonsense. Having state employees do this is no different than anything that was in the original bill. I can only guess at why the governor felt she had to lie in order to force this bill to be written exactly as the police and prosecutors wanted.

– The CDC is outright opposed to the bill, and it’s not likely that the Washington Cannabis Association will support it either. Both organizations are concerned that these patient cooperatives will end up banned in most of the state, and therefore all of these coops will be based in Seattle. There’s no accurate count of how many medical marijuana patients there are in Washington, but many believe that it’s more than 50,000. If that’s the case, at 10 people per coop, this bill would attempt to concentrate that entire distribution network throughout 5,000 private homes. That’s simply assinine.

– On the legal front, Attorney General Rob McKenna’s office replied to Rep. Roger Goodman and 14 other House Representatives hoping to get some clarity on the medical marijuana situation. The response was a dodge, as McKenna essentially refused to provide an opinion at all on the three questions. Goodman released a brief statement today saying:

I am disappointed by Attorney General Rob McKenna’s non response to the questions that I and other lawmakers posed.

Voters approved medical marijuana. People with cancer and other diseases rely on it.

And we deserve honest, candid answers from our state’s attorney general about new legislation and the legitimacy our state’s law with respect to the federal government.

But the answers we got back weren’t answers at all. McKenna delegated a staffer to give us back page after page that said nothing.

McKenna’s refusal to weigh in on this is not very surprising. His longstanding views on medical marijuana only serve to exacerbate his hypocrisy when it comes to the Affordable Care Act, and I wouldn’t expect him to throw any more logs on that fire.

– The ACLU sent a letter to Attorney General Holder asking him to clarify that nothing has changed with Obama Administration policy and that states who regulate medical marijuana will be left alone. As this relates to the legislation here in Washington, however, this seems irrelevant. As I mentioned above, Governor Gregoire clearly isn’t all that worried about state employees dealing with medical marijuana. The new bill still has state employees dealing with medical marijuana. And even long before this session, the state Department of Revenue launched a statewide effort to collect taxes from dispensaries. In fact, Ben Livingston mentioned that when this was brought up in a closed-door session among the stakeholders, the folks from the governor’s office were caught off-guard by that fact. They didn’t even seem to know that was happening.

This talking point about state employees being arrested first came up back in February out of the mouth of Christopher Hurst, whose mouth is permanently loaned out to the police and prosecutors of this state. This bullshit about state employees being at risk appears to have been the plan for police and prosecutors to scuttle this thing all along. And sadly, we have a governor who just so happens to be stupid enough to fall for it.

Drinking Liberally — Seattle

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Why show up at Drinking Liberally tonight?

DLBottle
So please join us tonight for an evening of politics under the influence at the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally. We meet at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. Starting time is 8:00 pm, but feel free to join some of us for an earlier dinner.



Not in Seattle? There is an excellent chance you live close to one of the 224 other chapters of Drinking Liberally.

HorsesAss turns seven

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HorsesAss is no longer a toddler…at seven, it has entered its childhood years.

It all started on May 10th, 2004, with a post titled Comedy is easy, politics is hard. (This is one of the rare instances where Goldy ended his title with a full stop.)

Last year, a reporter asked me why I thought so many people were willing to donate time and money to what was obviously a joke initiative. I glibly replied that politics was boring, and that my “horse’s ass” initiative gave people the opportunity to get involved, while having a little fun at the same time.

Washington state politics is particularly boring — oh not just because it’s full of numbers and legalese and the usual wonkish stuff like that — but because we happen to be blessed with some of the most boring politicians in the nation. There’s a reason a lying, thieving, blowhard like Tim Eyman commands so much media attention: he’s an interesting lying, thieving, blowhard.

Goldy goes on to explain how the relaunch of Horsesass.org as a blog was to create a playground for the puckish Goldy, rather than the serious (and somewhat boring) David:

Now I know some might find this split between the politically prankish Goldy and the politically earnest David a little arbitrary… or even weird. So to those upstanding members of the political and media establishment who insist I cannot possibly expect to maintain my credibility as an activist while producing an irreverent and outrageous blog, the Goldy half of me respectfully says: “fuck you.”

Of course, the David half of me effusively apologizes for what the Goldy half just said. There’s absolutely no excuse for that kind of language, and given the opportunity David might attempt to explain to this “haughty, humorless prick” (my words, not his) that he should excuse Goldy as a sort of stage persona, somewhat like Tim Eyman, who publicly portrays himself as a lying, thieving, blowhard, but who in the comfort of his own home, rarely steals anything. David might also privately intimate that Goldy has the emotional maturity of a 13-year-old, and amuses nobody but himself. Or perhaps that he’s insane.

(Or maybe just a tad bit schizophrenic?)

Ahhh…yes. Goldy’s first post and a fuckiferous one at that.

HorsesAss has definitely left its mark on politics, beginning with Goldy’s level-headed and prescient analysis of the Gubernatorial election contest, his investigative post on David Irons’ hands, the post about FEMA cronyism
that exposed the incompetence of the Bush administration and their response to Katrina, the sad story of former Commissioner of Public Lands Doug Sutherland’s well documented sexual harassment of a young DNR employee, and so much more.

Goldy now writes for The Stranger, which is good for Goldy, but maybe not so good for HorsesAss. Speaking for myself…politics and comedy can be damn hard! I know, I know…it shows.

These seven years have produced 9,270 posts, or an average yield of 3.6 posts per day. That’s a lot of bloviating and muckraking!

A defining characteristic of HA has been its comment threads. Early on, HA became a troll magnet, sucking up all of the natsy, stupid, lameass, or just downright crazy wingnut kookballs from the rest of the regional blogosphere (and beyond). Comment threads on other blogs around here were relatively clean as the nutcases got their excretory relief by repeatedly shitting in the HA comment threads.

To date there are about 479,200 comments, averaging a remarkable 52 comments per post. Clearly, the comment threads have served as a creative or emotional outlet for a great number of people beyond the trolls. As a writer, I do draw inspiration from the comment thread participants. Your thoughtful comments have enlightened me and helped me understand issues better. Though I am reluctant to admit it, I sometimes write for the trolls—usually to induce apoplexy cum froth. And my efforts are frequently rewarded with the intended reaction. So thank you readers, comment thread participants and even you asshole trolls!

The seventh Blogoversary of HorsesAss is a celebration for us all!

The Amazing World of Tomorrow – Chapter 1 What Wonders Lie Ahead?

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I think we can all agree with the maxim, always, always, start with a worn out cliche. But I don’t need to tell that to one of the most respected newspaper editors in Seattle history (true fact, kids, you can look it up). Well done Guzzo:

Colonel George Quixby tapped the buzzer at his desk, and in seconds the door to his office opened to let in his secretary, Jean Marshall. She was a sight for sore eyes — or for any eyes, for that matter, and the colonel smiled, as he always did when she entered. They had been a working team for more years than he could count, and he hoped it would go on for ever — as well it might thanks to the latest experiments at the U.S. Science and Space Center he commanded.

Sight for sore eyes, I’m glad they’ll still use that phrase in the future. More important, can Quixby not count very high? My cousin’s kid impressed us all at a Mother’s Day get together with his ability to count to 100, and he’s 4. The next paragraph says they’re 50 and 74, almost 75. So Quixby can’t count half as high as a 2011 4 year old.

Also, we’re a paragraph in and I’m pretty sure Quixby is Dixy, you know, in the future and a man. The only question now: is Guzzo Jean Marshall? OK, another question: how up its own ass can the first page get?

The advances in human living they’d seen in the previous century and the early 2200s might have read like a science-fiction novel to their American neighbors a century or two earlier.

You’re writing it, dummy.

Anyway then someone from Illinois calls to complain about the fact that the Space and Science Center has the same initials as the Nazi SS. Ignoring the center part, I suppose. He threatens to blow the center up (even though it’s in New Mexico) but don’t worry, they soon find out it wasn’t that the person doesn’t like Nazis, it’s that the Space and Science Center made his wife younger, and she left him. Telephones still exist in 2220, and they can be traced by some random secretary, so that’s awesome. Then Quixby reminisces about the fact that people can live longer and reads that they might be able to live forever. Quixby and Marshall talk about how good it will be to live forever. Jet packs were invented in 2185 because they had just invented hydrogen fuel, so no cars. But don’t worry, the trucking industry still survives, for now:

The colonel paused a moment to draw a deep breath, then continued. “Only the large cargo-carrying vehicles — for example trucks, cargo planes, and cargo ships — survived and, in fact, did very well with the roads and highways all to themselves. Maybe we’ll soon find a way to make them obsolete if our experiments here at the Science Center materialize. Downstairs in the lab our people report their longtime research will soon bear fruit. They are sure they can transmit any solid object molecule by molecule from one site to another — even across oceans. What was once pure science-fiction is now reality.

First off, original ideas for science fiction: Jet packs and transporters. Second, if you’re thinking maybe I took the part where Quixby is most condescending to his secretary, let me assure you that I skipped the part where he calls her (and remember she’s 50) a “good girl.” So, no, explaining that cargo ships carry cargo isn’t as bad as it gets. Third, do planes and ships use roads in the future? Fourth, the most exciting thing that happens in the whole chapter is someone calls in from another state and then someone in that other state talks to him.

Then Quixby takes a nap. End of chapter 1.

[Read more…]

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It may be hard to believe from the vile nature of the threads, but yes, we have a commenting policy. Comments containing libel, copyright violations, spam, blatant sock puppetry, and deliberate off-topic trolling are all strictly prohibited, and may be deleted on an entirely arbitrary, sporadic, and selective basis. And repeat offenders may be banned! This is my blog. Life isn’t fair.