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Archives for February 2012

Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza!

by Darryl — Friday, 2/17/12, 11:58 pm

Thom: The Citizens United showdown in Montana.

Stephen: The Left’s pro-safety agenda.

Obama in Everett, WA: Promoting American manufacturing and exports:

Thom with some Good, Bad, and Very, Very Ugly.

Newsy: MSNBC and Pat Buchanan part ways.

The Republican War on Women:

  • Alyona: Republicans waging “vajihad”
  • Sam Seder: Sorry…but the data on contraception don’t lie.
  • Jennifer Granholm: Virginia’s “vaginally invasive” law.
  • Stephen: Obama’s Contraceptiageddon.
  • Alyona’s Tool Time Award: Santorum defends buddy’s aspirin RX.
  • Young Turks: Rush was caught with a bucketful of Viagra but still preaches on birth control.
  • Ed and Pap: Republicans hope culture wars will energize base.
  • Sam Seder: The Republican war on women.
  • Olbermann with Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.): We will not be sent back to the dark ages.
  • Jennifer Granholm: Why Dems walked out.
  • Ann Telnaes: No women testifying?!?
  • Sam Seder: GOP Virginia is for “unwanted vaginal penetration.”
  • Young Turks: Sen. Hatch lies about Planned Parenthood.
  • Alyona’s Tool Time Award: Sen. Grassley fights domestic abuse protections.
  • Mark Fiore: The Gospel according to Bishops.
  • Sam Seder: Darrell Issa’s all male contraception “expert” panel.
  • Young Turks: Virginia’s war on women.
  • Jon on the war for women’s baby makers

Thom with John Nichols: Uprising in Wisconsin.

White House: West Wing Week.

Alyona: Three signs you might be a terrorist.

Young Turks: Asian actress from Hoekstra commercial apologizes.

Roy Zimerman: Another “Vote Republican” verse.

Focus on FAUX:

  • Thom: Is FAUX News moving left?
  • Liberal Viewer: FAUX News racist crack comment just a joke?.

Newsy: Colbert Report goes off the air.

Thom: The Good, The Bad, and The Very, Very Ugly.

Right-wing nut case Andrew Breitbart crazies his way to Worst Person in the World.

Jon: What. Congress did something wrong? (Via TalkingPointsMemo.)

Controversial racist Pete Hoekstra alternative advertisement.

Young Turks: Shit Erin Says’ about Iran—We’re not going to let you drive us into another.

Thom with The Good, The Bad, and The Very, Very Ugly.

The G.O.P. Comedy Show:

  • Mitt Romney’s Olympic bailout
  • Jon on MI, Mitt, and Santorum (via TalkingPointsMemo):
  • Lesson for Mitt: Don’t bet against America!
  • Ed and Pap: Republican buyer’s remorse with presidential candidates.
  • Susie Sampson’s Tea Party Support: focus on Santorum.
  • Young Turks: Rick Santorum is the 1%
  • Bill Maher: Romney ad.
  • WTF?!? Santorum backer Friess suggests “aspirin between their knees” as contraception (via TalkingPointsMemo).
  • Young Turks: Romney’s “Son of Detroit” Op-Ed.
  • Thom: Dogs against Romney.
  • NBC: Dogs against Romney.
  • Ann Telnaes: Mitt aims to win the hearts of the GOP.
  • Acutal Audio: Rick Santorum on women in the military.
  • Alyona: Santorum…working class millionaire.
  • The Guardian gives us nine quirkies questions in the GOP debate..
  • Ann Telnaes: Romney and Santorum Rev up for the Republican race.

Again! Right-wing blogger Andrew Breitbart falsifies, exaggerates, and distorts his way to Worst Person in the World.

Thom: When will the Grover Norquist bubble end?

Alyona: The voter fraud myth.

ONN week in review: Obama urges citizens to hide evidence of formerly prosperous lives from nation’s young children.

Roy Zimmerman: And another “Vote Republican” verse.

Jon: The conservative resonse to women soldiers.

Thom: Five Million people wiped off of voter rolls.

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

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Caucus Options

by Carl Ballard — Friday, 2/17/12, 6:43 pm

The Washington caucus is coming up in early March [in the comments N in Seattle points out the GOP caucus is March 3 and the Dems are April 15], and it seems to me that liberals and moderates who want to get involved have a few options:

First, caucus for Obama. You’re not going to decide the nomination, but it’s still worthwhile to show your support.

It’s also your only real chance to change the platform. While most of the platform will be whatever Obama wants, there will be a push for a marriage equality plank. It probably won’t be a floor fight or anything like that, but every vote for delegates who support that plank is helpful. In any event, you don’t get to have your say on the final product unless you show up.

The second option is the chaos option. Goldy outlined it here. Vote for Santorum, and hope that it gives him the momentum to eat up Romney resources. The fight will ultimately hurt them.

I’m not convinced that this is a good idea for a few reasons. Primary elections are generally good for the party that has them. They get to test their message, they get to build organizations early. While this year may be different, it doesn’t seem like we need to take that chance with Obama already ahead in the polls. The other reason is I really don’t want Rick Santorum to win Washington. Even if he loses the nomination, every state he wins mainstreams his horrible philosophy. I for one, don’t want to say I helped increase his speaking fees, got him more TV time, or made outright opposition to birth control more mainstream in this country.

So if you’re looking to move the Republican party with your caucus vote, I’d like to recommend a third option: Fred Karger. No, he isn’t going to win. But voting for him sends a much more clear message than voting for Satorum, or even Obama. It says to the GOP enough with demonizing gay people and trying to push women’s rights back to where we’re arguing about birth control.

So I’m probably going to show up for Karger. Who knows? In Seattle, there might be few enough delegates that I can take that message to the next level.

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Today in marriage equality

by Darryl — Friday, 2/17/12, 12:34 pm

We’ve come a long way, baby! Over the past decade, and particularly over the last couple of years, public opinion polls have increasingly found a majority of people in support of marriage equality. But nothing says, “the bigots will lose,” like this:

Dick Cheney is quietly lobbying at least one Maryland state lawmaker to back marriage equality, the Baltimore Sun reported on Thursday. Since leaving the vice president’s office, Cheney has been increasingly vocal in his support for same-sex marriage, but the extent of his engagement on the issue was not previously well known.

The man without a heartbeat finds his heart. Cheney’s change of heart (no pun intended) is, no doubt, about his daughter Mary Cheney.

In New Jersey, a marriage equality bill passed the New Jersey Assembly yesterday, and was sent to Gov. Chris Christie today. Christie has vowed to veto the bill.

Democrats who identified same-sex marriage as their No. 1 priority for the two-year legislative session that began in January have adopted a more long-term view. […]

…[T]hey plan to bide their time in hopes that support for gay marriage — 52 percent for gay marriage, 42 against it, in New Jersey, according to one recent voter poll — will continue to grow.

“We do have two years,” said Reed Gusciora, a Trenton Democrat who sponsored the bill in the Assembly and who is one of two openly gay state lawmakers. “We changed a lot of views in the last couple of weeks. Give us two years and we’re going to change a heck of a lot more.”

Here in Washington state, opponents of our new marriage equality bill have launched a campaign to collect 120,577 valid signatures to get Referendum on the ballot. If they succeed, the law will be put “on hold” so that voters can approve or reject it.

The new referendum drive is not unlike the 2009 signature drive that resulted in R-71, asking voters to approve or reject the state’s domestic partner registration law. The signature drive was successful, and voters ended up supported the “all but marriage” law by a healthy 53% to 47% margin.

There is one big difference between the 2009 signature drive and the current effort: we now know that petitions are public documents. That is, if you sign a petition to put a referendum on the ballot, you cannot hide the fact. The Supreme Court says so.

Just yesterday, a searchable database of those who signed R-71 went live at whosigned.org. You can search by names, streets, cities, zip codes, etc. One justification for the page is to assist in spotting fraud. Did someone sign a petition in your name? Go find out.

The other reason for putting the name on-line is so that you can learn about the bigots in your neighborhood. Got acquaintances who are closet homophobes? Check out whosigned.org.

Want to know who to NOT invite to your next Christmas party? Check out whosigned.org.

I looked up who signed from Redmond. I didn’t sign it. Few of the people in my immediate neighborhood signed. I couldn’t find any friends or acquaintances who signed it. Unsurprisingly, Redmond’s famous bigot, Ken Hutcherson, did sign—as did his wife Patricia and daughter Avery.

So…folks who sign petitions to put Washington’s marriage equality law on the ballot should know: we will know you signed. You won’t have to make crude fagot jokes for us to know you are a bigot. Your signature on that petition accomplishes the same thing.

We will put your name and address in an open, searchable web page.

We will encourage your friends, neighbors, and acquaintances to learn that you signed.

We WILL express our disappointment in you and our disapproval of your ignorance and bigotry.

And we will (when we can, legally) discriminate against you.

I’m not talking violence…I’m talking about stigmata: loss of reputation, public humiliation, and withdrawal of personal and social support.

You’ve been warned.

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Poll Analysis: New SUSA poll has McKenna Leading Inslee, 49% to 39%

by Darryl — Friday, 2/17/12, 12:55 am

Another poll in Washington state gives us another sign that Washington state will have a Republican Governor come 2013.

Today SurveyUSA released a new poll that covers the gubernatorial race and some presidential match-ups in the state. The poll surveyed 572 registered Washington voters (MOE 4.2%) from 13 Feb. to 16 Feb. The survey used a mix of home phone and cell phone respondents.

First the presidential match-ups:

  • Obama v. Romney: 50% to 39% (+11%)
  • Obama v. Paul: 50% to 37% (+13%)
  • Obama v. Santorum: 51% to 38% (+13%)
  • Obama v. Gingrich: 56% to 34% (+22%)

Man, 22%! Gingrich sure has has some debilitating negatives!

In the gubernatorial race, A.G. Rob McKenna (R) leads Rep. Jay Inslee (D-WA-1) by 49% to 39% (+10).

A Monte Carlo analysis [FAQ] using a million simulated elections finds Inslee winning 34,472 times to McKenna’s 962,998 wins. This suggests that, in an election held now, McKenna would have a 96.5% probability of winning; Inslee, a 3.5% probability. Here is the distribution of electoral votes from the simulated elections:

SUSAFeb2012

The poll result is very similar to an Elway poll taken from 7 Feb. to 9 Feb. If we pool the samples from both of these polls and do the Monte Carlo analysis we find Inslee winning only 10,720 times to McKenna’s 988,657 wins. The evidence suggests that, at this point, McKenna would win with a 98.9% probability:

ElwaySUSAFeb2012

Denial is not an option for Inslee supporters. While there is plenty of time to turn it around, Inslee is definitely the underdog at this point in the race.

The most recent analysis for the Inslee—McKenna race can be found here.

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Mind It, Mind It!

by Carl Ballard — Thursday, 2/16/12, 5:12 pm

Toward the beginning of this ridiculously condescending (even the parts I agree with) piece by The Seattle Times about Obama coming to town, we get this paragraph:

Never mind that Obama’s National Labor Relations Board went after Boeing a few years ago for moving part of its operation to South Carolina, looking stridently anti-business. It all worked out and last fall’s landmark labor agreement was win, win, win for workers, the company and the Northwest.

Of course we should mind it. It was one of the best things to happen because we elected him. The Seattle Times needs to get over this great thing that happened for the region!

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Son of King Dome

by Darryl — Thursday, 2/16/12, 3:12 pm

Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn and King County Executive Dow Constantine held a joint press conference this afternoon to announce…yet another new sports stadium for our region.

This one would draw both an NBA team (Basketball? Yyyyyyyyawn. More green Jell-o commercials? Wait…that’s right. I LOVE Jeremy Lin! I’m a HUGE fan…Always have been. This is GREAT!) and an NHL team (hey…that is cool!).

So…is this another fuck-the-tax-payers-for-wealthy-team-owners deal? Apparently not, at least if Goldy, normally a curmudgeon on such things, is to be believed:

Honestly, objectively, and not just because I’m a hockey fan itching for an NHL franchise, this really does look like a damn good deal for the region and taxpayers. Assuming it actually happens.

Goldy provides an overview of the deal:

Under the terms of the proposal…a private investment group led by Seattle-born Chris Hansen, would put up $290 million toward building a new sports arena just south of Safeco Field, matched by a joint city/county contribution capped at $200 million. The city/county would own the arena, with its debt service paid through a combination of taxes generated by the facility, and rent paid by both the teams and the facility operator. In years where revenue falls short of the debt obligation, the teams and operator would be required to pay additional rent to cover the difference.

The city/county would issue a 30-year bond to finance its portion of the construction costs, and the teams would sign a 30-year lease with a binding non-relocation clause.

If all the pieces come together, we get an arena, NBA and NHL teams, all with zero new public taxes. Sounds like a Lin-Lin deal.

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Open Thread 2/16

by Carl Ballard — Thursday, 2/16/12, 8:01 am

– This so-called birth control battle is about a lot more than contraception…it is about not having to beg, negotiate, or endure a forced public confession to get access to services and medicine denied based on some employer’s morality glitch..

– They should call it PolitiCowersToConservatives.

– Caring Across Generations in Seattle. (h/t)

– God Hates Checkered Whiptail Lizards

– $105 for permission to use one of my images is the average amount that keeps me clothed, fed, and housed enough to continue producing more images.

– And as long as I’m linking to copyright pieces: Authors Have a Moral Right to Profit From Their Works

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Obama leads Romney in Washington state

by Darryl — Wednesday, 2/15/12, 2:01 pm

Elway has released a new poll today of 405 registered Washington state voters interviewed from Feb 7-9. The poll offers several interesting head-to-head match-ups with Obama:

ElwayFeb2012WAObama

Here are the highlights:

  • Obama is +11% against Romney, 49% to 38%
  • Obama is +8% against a generic Republican, 50% to 42%
  • Romney loses about 6% of Republican voters compared to a generic Republican candidate.
  • When Ron Paul is added to the mix, 17% abandon Romney for Paul.

Republicans are having troubles warming up to the Mittster.

Obama has maintained a solid lead over Romney in Washington state. He led by +8 (49% to 41%) in last November’s Survey USA poll. Before that, the October Washington Poll found Obama leading by +9.5% (50.2% to 40.7%):

ObamaRomney15Jan12-15Feb12Washington

Obama will be visiting Washington state on Friday where, among other things, he’ll visit a Boeing manufacturing plant in Everett.

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Poll Analysis: Obama nearly 100% against Romney

by Darryl — Wednesday, 2/15/12, 11:20 am

[Update: An analysis using more recent polls can be found here.]

Obama Romney
100.0% probability of winning 0.0% probability of winning
Mean of 348 electoral votes Mean of 190 electoral votes

A handful of new state head-to-head polls, including two from swing states, have come out since the previous analysis. Obama leads in all five:

start end sample % % %
st poll date date size MOE O R diff
CA SurveyUSA 08-Feb 10-Feb 2088 2.1 60 31 O+29
FL Rasmussen 09-Feb 09-Feb 500 4.5 47 44 O+3
MA WBUR 06-Feb 09-Feb 503 4.4 55 34 O+21
NY Quinnipiac 08-Feb 13-Feb 1233 2.8 52 35 O+17
OH Quinnipiac 07-Feb 12-Feb 1421 2.6 46 44 O+2

California has Obama crushing Romney by +29%. Massachusetts, a state Romney once governed, has Obama up by nearly as much (+21%). New York supports Obama over Romney by +17%.

In Ohio, the new poll gives Obama a slender +2% lead over Romney. Obama has led in all four Ohio polls taken this year. The polling suggests to me that Ohio may not be so much a swing state this year….
ObamaRomney15Jan12-15Feb12Ohio

We now have our first February poll out of Florida. This one gives Obama a thin +3% lead over Romney. Obama leads in the two most recent Florida polls; Romney led in the two January polls before that.

Florida looks more like a swing state than does Ohio, but the recent trend looks favorable for Obama:
ObamaRomney15Jan12-15Feb12Florida

The previous analysis showed President Barack Obama leading Romney by 344 to 194 electoral votes and a probability of winning of 99.8%.

With the new polls included, after 100,000 simulated elections, Obama wins 99,989 times and Romney wins 11 times. If an election was held now, we expect Obama to win with nearly 100% probability. Obama’s average electoral vote total climbed by +4 to 348, whereas Romney’s average is now 190 electoral votes.

Electoral College Map

Alabama Alaska Arizona Arkansas California Colorado Connecticut Delaware Florida Georgia Hawaii Idaho Illinois Indiana Iowa Kansas Kentucky Lousiana Maine Maryland Massachusettes Michigan Minnesota Mississippi Missouri Montana Nebraska Nevada New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico New York North Carolina North Dakota Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Utah Vermont Virginia D.C. Washington West Virginia Wisconsin Wyoming

Electoral College Map

Georgia Alaska Arizona Arkansas California Colorado Delaware Connecticut Florida Mississippi Alabama Hawaii Idaho Illinois Indiana Iowa Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Maine Maryland Massachusetts Michigan Minnesota Missouri Montana Nebraska Nevada New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico New York North Carolina North Dakota Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Utah Vermont Virginia D.C. Washington West Virginia Wisconsin Wyoming

[Read more…]

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Teacher Evals

by Carl Ballard — Wednesday, 2/15/12, 8:00 am

I know I’ve been complimenting the legislature a lot recently. It feels quite strange. But fortunately, the state Democrats are back to being gigantic pissants who’ll fuck over their constituents for no reason.

The senate passed a compromise teacher evaluation bill this afternoon, 46-3. Republicans and moderate Democrats had been pushing a teacher evaluation bill for a couple of sessions now, but liberals had balked, echoing union concerns that it was unfair to teachers, who’ve already seen K-12 funding cut by $2.5 billion during the recession and who have already been working on district-by-district pilot projects to determine evaluation criteria.

…

However, Sen. Ed Murray (D-43, Seattle), with an eye on counting moderate Democratic and Republican votes necessary to pass his budget, resuscitated the bill, triggering negotiations between the reform contingent and the opponents.

Yes, as part of an effort to make deeper cuts to education, Ed Murray has decided to fuck over teachers by imposing an arbitrary evaluation system. This will be more teach to the test instead of quality learning in an effort to punish the teacher’s union.

Rich Wood, spokesman for the teachers’ union, the Washington Education Association, complained that the union was left out of the negotiations and didn’t see the bill until a few hours before the vote. He said: “This new legislation must not derail, short-circuit or otherwise interfere with the evaluation pilot work that is already underway, and educators must be allowed the flexibility to meet the unique needs of students in their local schools.”

You know what, I can’t say it strongly enough: if you don’t give teachers a spot at the table when drafting legislation, you obviously don’t give a shit about education. You obviously want it to fail. That any Democrat would vote for that is a fucking disgrace.

There are ways to have testing that let teachers know what they need to work on, and how they can improve. This is clearly not that.

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Poll analysis: McKenna leads Inslee 45% to 36%

by Darryl — Tuesday, 2/14/12, 6:30 pm

Elway released a new poll today for the Washington state gubernatorial race between A.G. Rob McKenna (R) and Rep. Jay Inslee (D-WA-01). The poll surveyed 405 registered voters (M.O.E. 5%) and was conducted from the 7th to the 9th of February.

The poll found that, out of those 405 voters, McKenna leads Inslee 45% to 36%, with 20% undecided. Of the 328 “decided” voters, 55.5% selected McKenna and 44.5% selected Inslee.

A Monte Carlo analysis of a million simulated elections [FAQ] using the observed percentages gave McKenna 918,606 wins to Inslee’s 75,709 wins. The analysis suggests that, if the election had been held this past week, McKenna would have a 92.4% probability of winning, and Inslee a 7.6% probability of winning.

Here is the distribution of electoral outcomes from the simulated elections:

ElwayFeb2012

This makes the fifth poll in a row that McKenna has led Inslee—his lead can no longer be explained by chance. The previous poll, taken in mid-January, had McKenna leading Inslee 46% to 43% and with a 71.5% probability of beating Inslee. In fact, Inslee last led in a SurveyUSA poll taken last June.

The most recent analysis for the Inslee—McKenna race can be found here.

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Drinking Liberally — Seattle

by Darryl — Tuesday, 2/14/12, 3:50 pm

Just in time for Valentines Day, Gov. Christine Gregoire has signed the marriage equality bill. Help us celebrate on Tuesday. Grab your sweetheart and join us for a celebration of love and equality under the influence at the Seattle Chapter of Drinking liberally.

(Mercifully…there are no Republican debates or primary events to kill the mood….)

Drinking Liberally–Seattle meets every Tuesday at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. Our starting time is 8:00 pm, but some of us show up a little earlier for dinner.


Presidential candidate Valentines day cards.

Roy Zimmerman with a new version of vote Republican:


Can’t make it to Seattle? There are also meetings on Tuesday night of the Tri-Cities, Bellingham, and Vancouver, WA chapters. The Tacoma chapter meets this Thursday. And next Monday there are meetings of the Woodinville the Olympia, the Yakima, and the Shelton chapters.

With 232 chapters of Living Liberally, including twelve in Washington state and six more in Oregon, chances are excellent there’s one near you.

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Open Thread 2/14

by Carl Ballard — Tuesday, 2/14/12, 8:03 am

– Who could have predicted that Obama’s birth control compromise wouldn’t placate conservatives?

– A joint press release from Metro, Sound Transit, Community Transit, Pierce Transit and Kitsap Transit on the awful transportation bill.

– Neighborhood greenways

– Conservatives are good at articulating the complete visions of the society they want; we aren’t so great at that.

– Both left Congress under reasonably disgraceful conditions and were soon rewarded with millions of hard-earned dollars by our meritocracy. When you hit the bricks, new whips, money ain’t a thing.

– Happy Anniversary Shaun

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A Banner Day for Decency

by Carl Ballard — Monday, 2/13/12, 10:24 pm

Obviously, the big news is that Gregoire signed the marriage equality bill into law. While we’ve known it was going to happen for some time, it’s still quite amazing. Very recently this seemed like an impossibility, and now it’s a reality. Of course there’s a real possibility that it will come before voters in November, but for now, it’s just wonderful.

Also, even though the bill info isn’t updated in the legislative web page [sorry, I linked to the senate version, here’s the correct link, and it works fine. I remain an idiot], I’m getting a press release from Washington NARAL that:

This evening the Washington House stood up for women’s health and passed the Reproductive Parity Act (HB 2330) by a vote of 52-46. This legislation, sponsored by Rep. Eileen Cody (D-34), requires all health insurance policies that cover maternity care to cover abortion care. NARAL Pro-Choice Washington thanks the representatives who voted to protect women’s access to basic reproductive health care coverage.

And it looks like it’s going to pass the state senate.

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Rick Santorum is in Tacoma

by Carl Ballard — Monday, 2/13/12, 5:19 pm

And I’m not.

So on the one hand, who cares about the inside baseball stuff? But on the other hand, here’s a story about how the Rick Santorum campaign still feels like it’s amateur hour.

On Friday, I heard that Santorum would be in the area, so I went about trying to find a press person. First, to the campaign website. None of the tabs were a press person, and it looked like there were only a few offices, none in Washington. But! There was an 800 number.

So I tried it on Friday night, but it was pretty late. I tried it again Saturday morning, and was on hold for quite a while, before I decided “fuck it, it’s just not that important that I go.” So the end, right? There have been plenty of campaigns and elected officials who don’t get back to me. I also emailed Romney about his campaign appearance, and they also didn’t get back to me. I assume they see Horse’s Ass, and are like “fuck it, it’s just not important that we have him at our event.” That’s really fine. This blog is written by people in our free time and we don’t have time or the staff to follow up on this sort of thing like the professionals.

So, why am I writing this? Well, about 7:00 on Sunday I get a call back from the Santorum campaign (I didn’t leave a voice mail; I was just on hold for a while). I told them I was a blogger here in Seattle, and would very much like to attend Santorum’s rally. They said, I’d have to contact Nathan, their contact in (I think, but I didn’t write it down) Colorado, but that they’d love to have me. So fine, I left him a voice mail yesterday and again this morning. I called several other times and he never picked up. So I wasn’t making a trip to Tacoma if there was no WiFi or no electricity, and thus am heading home.

I know it’s a minor thing, but, don’t tell me I’m going to be able to attend and then not get back to me with any sort of arrangements. And really, nobody could direct me to someone in Washington who might be able to answer questions?

Now, compare that to when I saw Hillary Clinton 4 years ago. A few calls and I’m on the list, no problem. Compare it to Obama who could organize the Key Arena quickly and who had bloggers (although not me, I had to work) attend. Both of those were on almost as short notice as the Santorum campaign.

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Recent HA Brilliance…

  • Wednesday Open Thread Wednesday, 5/7/25
  • Drinking Liberally — Seattle Tuesday, 5/6/25
  • Monday Open Thread Monday, 5/5/25
  • Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza! Friday, 5/2/25
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  • Today’s Open Thread (Or Yesterday’s, or Last Year’s, depending On When You’re Reading This… You Know How Time Works) Wednesday, 4/30/25
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