Goldy

Dear SDOT,

Thank you, I guess, for doing whatever it is you’re doing at the corner of Rainier Ave. S. and MLK Jr. Way, but… um… how long does it take to pave 50 feet of roadway? It’s been nearly a month since you shut down the southbound right lane approaching the intersection, creating mile-long backups for much of the day, and with the summer doldrums ending, traffic is only gonna get worse.

Any chance of speeding things up a little bit? Local drivers, bus riders and businesses are just wondering.

Love,

South Seattle

All I’m sayin’ is that you won’t ever see a TPM or HA or even a Seattle PI delivery van involved in any high speed chases.

In writing about the muted local response to the fatwa against Seattle cartoonist Molly Norris, Crosscut writer Pete Jackson asks “Who will speak up for Seattle cartoonist under fatwa threat?”

Um… I did, Pete. What, don’t you read HA? I even posted my own Mohammed cartoon in a show of support:

And just to prove I’m an equal opportunity blasphemer, I also drew a cartoon of Jesus. And myself. And if Jackson really wants to speak up for Norris, he can post his own cartoon too. (As you can see, cartooning doesn’t really require any, you know, talent.)

Instead Jackson embarks on a deep exploration of our “muzzled political climate” by quoting fellow Crosscutter Knute Berger:

The low-grade indifference to Norris could be a pained expression of Northwest culture, the dark side of Seattle Nice (and just look at how the debate over the Ground Zero Mosque dissolved into ad hominems).

“ ’If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all,’ has long been the city’s unofficial motto,” writes Knute Berger in his book Pugetopolis. “It is not a plea for civil discussion, but rather a recipe for no discussion at all.”

In other words, it’s a recipe for the Seattle Times. And sometimes, it seems, Crosscut. Meanwhile, HA’s unofficial motto is: “If you don’t have anything nice to say, welcome to our comment threads!” And while that can sometimes make for awfully nasty discourse, at least folks here are willing to stand up for what they believe, and stand by their convictions.

Back in my 710-KIRO radio days (widely remembered as the glory days of Seattle news/talk), one of my favorite schticks was to have Gen. JC Christian (a.k.a. Jesus’ General) on the show, and then wait for the inevitable barrage of bewildered and often offended callers. The General never broke character, and I always played it straight, but while most of the audience seemed to get the joke, it always amused me how many didn’t.

I was reminded of that this morning while listening to the recording above of a telephone conversation between the General and Prince Shannon of the Right Wing Extreme Militia. Very funny. And kinda terrifying.

Exodus 32:24-29
Moses saw that the people were running wild and that Aaron had let them get out of control and so become a laughingstock to their enemies. So he stood at the entrance to the camp and said, “Whoever is for the LORD, come to me.” And all the Levites rallied to him.

Then he said to them, “This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: ‘Each man strap a sword to his side. Go back and forth through the camp from one end to the other, each killing his brother and friend and neighbor.’ ” The Levites did as Moses commanded, and that day about three thousand of the people died. Then Moses said, “You have been set apart to the LORD today, for you were against your own sons and brothers, and he has blessed you this day.”

Discuss.

If the Transportation Safety Administration is willing to go so far as to irradiate small children, then clearly, anything that can be done must be done, no matter how expensive, inconvenient or even uncomfortable, to eliminate even the remotest possibility of a terrorist threat. It is in this spirit that I draw upon my own inner terrorist to highlight flaws in our current air travel security system, so that TSA can endeavor to make air travel as absolutely risk-free as possible.

TSA Tip #2: Eliminate Duty Free

While regulations prohibit carrying on duty free spirits in excess of 70% alcohol, there is no such limit on perfumes and colognes, some of which exceed 90% alcohol, and are thus highly flammable. Strategically ignited in one or more locations on an airplane, alcohol fueled fires could cause significant damage and/or injury before being extinguished by the flight crew; indeed, igniting one or more flight attendants might be particularly effective. Jagged, broken bottles from duty free liquor purchases might also make effective weapons in fighting off flight crew and passengers as the fires burn.

Such an attack might not necessarily bring down an airplane, but if the goal is to cause terror, bringing down an airplane might not be necessary.

PREVIOUS TSA TIPS:
Eliminate Web Check-in

If anybody holds the patent on being a greedy, self-aggrandizing asshole, they should sue Paul Allen.

Talk amongst yourselves.

The Seattle Times headline reads “1996 UW grad named to oversee Pike Place Market,” which begs the question: what is so headline worthy about the fact that newly named Market executive direct Ben Franz-Knight is a 1996 University of Washington graduate?

Was 1996 a particularly good or bad year for the UW, or is it so surprising that a UW grad would ascend to such a position? Are UW grads rare around here, or do its graduates rarely achieve such a level of success by their mid-30’s?

Or does the Times believe its readers so parochial that this was the only thing on Franz-Knight’s resume that they would find relevant?

Odd.

(And in case you’re wondering, had I written the headline, it probably would have read something like: “Pike Place Market names new executive director.” Simple, to the point, and more actively phrased.)

If, as Washington State Attorney General Rob McKenna complains, payouts for settle lawsuits against the state have grown substantially in recent years, rather than making it harder for citizens to sue the state, perhaps taxpayers might just want to go out and hire themselves a better lawyer?

I’m just sayin’.

At first glance it seems odd that an attorney general so lavishly praised by doe-eyed editorialists for allegedly championing open government would take the lead in removing one of our most powerful tools for assuring government accountability. But when you think about it, it all kinda makes sense.

In a guest column in yesterday’s Seattle Times, Washington State Attorney General Rob McKenna proposes that one way to close our state’s multi-billion dollar budget gap would be to make it harder for citizens to sue the state, but in a single paragraph McKenna not only lays out the crux of his argument, he also lets slip his true motivation:

Washington is in a class by itself — wide open to lawsuits with huge payouts. Suits demanding outrageous sums have become commonplace over the past few decades. Payouts have grown from $241,000 in the 1963-65 budget to more than $100 million during the last — and trial attorneys collect $30 million of that before sending the rest to those who have suffered.

It’s those damn trial attorneys who are bankrupting our government! If we could only get rid of them, and the public employee unions, our budgets would shrink, our taxes would fall, and Washington State would become a veritable paradise! … At least, according to Rob McKenna.

And what do trial attorneys and organized labor have in common? They both predominantly fund Democrats, of course, and in fact together comprise one of the largest chunks of the Democratic funding machine.

In other words, McKenna’s advocacy for shielding state government from citizen lawsuits is largely partisan:

Why are our state laws so much more permissive than every other state’s liability rules? The uncomfortable truth is that personal-injury lawyers are among the wealthiest and most powerful interest groups, and they vigorously oppose attempts to end Washington’s outlier status.

According to the Liability Reform Coalition, political-action committees run by trial attorneys contributed more than $1.4 million in the 2008 statewide election cycle. Trial lawyers chipped in millions more in individual contributions. That helps explain why during nearly every legislative session, legislators vote on bills that would actually increase, not reduce, taxpayers’ liability; 2010 was no exception.

Hear that? A PAC run by trial attorneys spent more than $1.4 million during the 2008 cycle. Heaven forfend!

Um… but… the Building Industry Association of Washington and its associated organizations spent, what… $13 million that year, in the gubernatorial race alone? I don’t hear McKenna complaining about that, and yet year after year the BIAW successfully blocks legislation that would permit homeowners from suing builders for shoddy construction.

(Sigh.)

Despite McKenna’s unsupported claims, Washington is not “in a class by itself,” nor are our state laws “more permissive than every other state’s liability laws.” Yeah, maybe we do pay out “eight times more than Tennessee, five times more than Arizona,” I dunno… but would we really want to be just like Tennessee or Arizona? And while Washington’s government does not claim “sovereign immunity” as McKenna advocates, unlike many other states, Washington does not allow for punitive damages in claims against the state.

Oops. I guess McKenna forgot to share that with his readers.

And his selective citation of facts doesn’t stop there, for McKenna stoops to perhaps the lowest form of political persuasion, the out of context anecdote:

The state is sued even when it follows all the rules. For example, a woman is convicted of forging a $13 check. She’s released after serving her sentence and carefully supervised by the Department of Corrections. But when she causes a fatal car accident, the state is sued and ultimately forced to settle the case for $300,000. While our hearts go out to the family who lost their loved one, the check forger caused the accident. State employees followed proper procedures. Yet lawsuits like these persist.

First of all, that’s just one successful lawsuit out of many, most of which do clearly address acts of negligence or malfeasance on the part of the state. And second of all, McKenna intentionally misrepresents the facts in even this particular case. Yes, the woman in question had merely been convicted of forging a $13 check, but she had a long criminal record including drug charges, missed court appearances and at least four DUI arrests:

Enoch-Jevne had received suspended sentences for four of her DUI convictions. In May of 1999, she was arrested on drug charges in Grant County. A judge revoked a previous sentence and ordered that she be held through December of that year. Instead, city and county officials failed to review court records and released Enoch-Jevne in October.

Upon her early release Enoch-Jevne failed to report to her state corrections officer as required, and even though the state had classified her as a danger to the public, and knew that she was violating the terms of her supervision, it made no effort to arrest her. Two months later, at a time when, by a judge’s order, she should have been locked up at the King County Regional Justice Center, she killed a man in a collision in which, yes, she was once again suspected of being under the influence of alcohol.

Was government negligence partially to blame for this tragedy? Maybe, maybe not. But it’s clearly not the absurdly abusive case that McKenna makes it out to be.

Of course there are abusive lawsuits, and I’m not expert enough to argue that there aren’t reasonable reforms to be made that might shield against the worst of these abuses. But to grant the state blanket immunity against most of these suits as a money-saving gimmick is not only unfair to the legitimate victims, it is unserious and shortsighted. For it is through lawsuits like these that the worst abuses of government mismanagement, malfeasance and negligence are revealed, and ultimately reformed. McKenna can tout his support of sunshine laws all he wants, but the courts have always provided the public its most effective tool in keeping our government accountable to the public.

And that’s what we would lose should McKenna prevail.

Sign the petition.

New York cabbie Ahmed H. Sharif was stabbed in the neck, face and arm last night after passenger Michael Enright asked if he was a Muslim, and Sharif answered “yes.” Yet another example of the cultural insensitivity of Muslims flaunting their religion so close to Ground Zero.

Why couldn’t Sharif let the 9/11 families grieve in peace?

Hot on the heals of my post about the presumed “enthusiasm gap” and it’s apparent lack of substantial impact on voter turnout in last week’s primary, The Stranger’s Eli Sanders has a somewhat different take, noticing the record high statewide turnout compared to the lagging performance of King, Snohomish and Pierce counties:

Which leads to the obvious question: Why did so many eligible voters in the greater Seattle metro area—that is to say, so many liberal voters—sit this primary election out?

Which I suppose seems obvious, except that Eli phrased the question slightly wrong. The real question is not why so many Seattle metro voters sat out “this” primary election, but why they sit out all primary elections?

In fact, this was actually a pretty good showing by King County primary voters, registering our second highest turnout rate over the 12 years for which KC Elections archives results online. And as I’ve previously pointed out, King County always trails the rest of the state in primary turnout, often by substantially larger margins.

So there’s nothing particularly surprising or disappointing about Tuesday’s turnout.

But while our region’s turnout always trails the rest of the state in primary elections, it’s almost alway within a point or two of the statewide average, give or take, when it comes to the November general election.

Speculate all you want about the reasons why, but it has nothing to do with this particular election cycle.

Incumbent U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski trails teabagger challenger Joe Miller by about 2000 votes with 98% of precincts reporting in yesterday’s Alaska Republican senatorial primary, and the finger pointing has begun

One GOP source, who requested anonymity, said some are pointing fingers at Murkowski’s team of advisers who told her not to go negative until late in the campaign.

This is an extraordinarily negative election cycle, and with few exceptions, incumbents and challengers alike should be advised to go extraordinarily negative as early and as often as possible. Let the shit fly. That’s how to win in 2010.