– Despite all its faults, I still dig the Bell Street Park. (PS, even if you don’t care about Bell Street Park specifically, go say hi to Erica)

– Oh man, how come my place of work doesn’t have a bike shop?

– If Birth Control Induces Abortions, Then So Does Voting for Ted Cruz

– I for one am so so very sad that spending a shit ton of money opposing a minimum wage increase means you can’t be elected in one of the most lefty cities in the country.

– The things that go into making clothing for Americans makes me want to go around naked all day.

– Here is the appropriate reaction to #BlackBrunch visiting your brunch location: Listen. Then, continue your brunch, or whatever.

– Shell’s Battle for Seattle

– Take this SDOT survey

– These old photos of Black Seattle are pretty amazing.

– Bill Bryant seems neat.

– Weird

– Cisgender Women Aren’t the Only People Who Seek Abortions, and Activists’ Language Should Reflect That

– Mostly good answers from Inslee’s AMA, but weak sauce on Shell.

– Fiscal impact disclosures seem like a no brainer. No wonder Tim Eyman is opposed.

– James O’Keefe continues to James O’Keefe things up.

– Glad to see Cascade will still do advocacy.

– Well, Governor Inslee’s bracket didn’t last long.

Senator Sharon Brown has a brand-new idea for power generation. Nuclear something something!

In an era when carbon emissions are becoming a major concern and clean energy is a popular cause, Washington is poised to become a center for the development of one of the greenest technologies around. Clean, safe, abundant, all it needs is a bit of encouragement from the state and a willingness to understand that today’s nuclear power is like nothing before.

First off, I’m glad to see some Republican is acknowledging that carbon emissions are a problem. We may disagree on many things, but at least we can agree that humans are causing global warming. Oh? What? She voted with all but one of her GOP colleagues that we aren’t sure if humans cause global warming.

Also, unless you have some uranium lying around, you’re going to have to mine it. And that isn’t exactly a zero emissions proposition.

Yes, nuclear power. We’ve come a long way since the days of tie-dyed T-shirts and no-nukes concerts and the reactor technology of the 1960s and ‘70s. The new generation of reactor design is safer, simpler and potentially cheaper than anything we have seen to date. Export potential is enormous, to a Third World now electrifying with coal. Washington is uniquely suited to become a center for the development, design and export of this small modular nuclear-reactor technology, and we have a small window of opportunity to establish leadership and make this industry our own.

Export potential? I feel like that’s something to explore a bit. But no. Instead we have more discussion of the fashion sense of the 1960’s than of how that would happen.

Anyway, you could get me on board with one minor amendment. I propose we store the waste in her district. Since it’s so clean or whatever, I’m sure she wouldn’t mind. Or maybe just ask the Feds to deal with it and everything will be fine.

I have sponsored a series of bills in the Legislature this year that demonstrate our interest in this most promising industry. Senate Bill 5113 would require the state Department of Commerce to coordinate and advance the siting and manufacturing of small modular reactors. SB 5093 would establish a nuclear-education program in our high schools. SB 5091 would declare nuclear power a form of alternative energy that qualifies under the state‘s voluntary Green Power program. For those concerned about storage of spent nuclear fuel, we have passed a memorial asking the federal government to develop a nuclear-waste repository, once and for all. These measures all cleared the Senate — some with broad bipartisan support.

Oh cool. The Federal Government through Democratic and Republican governments, for decades and decades hasn’t been able to come up with a good solution. But now we’re asking them to develop a repository and so that’s that solved. PS, can the repository be in Richland?

Small modular nuclear reactors are quite a bit different from the big-reactor designs of the ‘70s. Instead of using a single built-in-place reactor core, they utilize a series of interchangeable and replaceable small reactors. A dozen together might be half the size of one of the big reactors of old. These small reactors use a more modern design with fewer moving parts, reducing risk of failure. And when one reactor goes offline for regular maintenance or repair, other modular reactors at the same facility can take its place and keep up the flow of power.

OK, great. We haven’t exactly solved the waste issue yet.

There are many exciting technologies being proposed. Planning is under way for a first-of-its-kind modular reactor in Idaho that will begin serving the Utah power market within a decade — most likely at the Idaho National Laboratory, with support from Washington’s Energy Northwest. Technology isn’t the holdup — federal and state permitting procedures must be developed, and there is ramp-up time involved in developing facilities capable of producing the required components.

Look, we’ve literally asked the Federal government to do something about nuclear waste, so now we have to hurry.

Now imagine if those manufacturing facilities were located here. Imagine if the next reactor were located at Hanford – Washington’s own nuclear industrial site, adjacent to the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and the talent base in the Tri-Cities. It could power Hanford’s new glassification plant, where legacy high-level defense waste will be converted to solid-glass form – and that by itself could spare us the need to consume 45,000 gallons of diesel fuel every day.

Hanford: Where nuclear waste was never a problem.

On a national level the states of Oregon, Idaho and Utah are becoming players. Nowhere in that conversation is our state, yet we have the intellectual capital and the resources. It is easy to see the possibilities. Successful companies plan for how to get from point A to point B — Washington should do the same for energy. Nuclear power is poised for a resurgence for economic and environmental reasons, and the question is whether we will seize the opportunity or let it slip away for lack of vision. It is better to lead, instead of looking back 10 years from now saying “woulda, coulda, shoulda.”

Couldawouldashoulda had all that nuclear waste of our very own.

– I say let bikes and motorcycles run reds all the time.

– The first step of Seattle’s minimum wage hike is going into effect.

– Six things to know about Shell’s plan to base its Arctic fleet at the Port of Seattle

– In the real world moms carry their newborns around with them. It’s as natural as it gets. And it was charming.

– You guys, stop what you’re doing. They found Cervantes’ tomb! This is not a drill.

– Am I the only person here excited about Overthinking It’s Eurovision coverage? I am? Cool.

So, it’s St. Pat’s again. Here’s Easter 1916. Maybe read it to your friends instead of getting too drunk and yelling outside my building like you do most years no matter if I have to get up or not.

I have met them at close of day
Coming with vivid faces
From counter or desk among grey
Eighteenth-century houses.
I have passed with a nod of the head
Or polite meaningless words,
Or have lingered awhile and said
Polite meaningless words,
And thought before I had done
Of a mocking tale or a gibe
To please a companion
Around the fire at the club,
Being certain that they and I
But lived where motley is worn:
All changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.

That woman’s days were spent
In ignorant good-will,
Her nights in argument
Until her voice grew shrill.
What voice more sweet than hers
When, young and beautiful,
She rode to harriers?
This man had kept a school
And rode our wingèd horse;
This other his helper and friend
Was coming into his force;
He might have won fame in the end,
So sensitive his nature seemed,
So daring and sweet his thought.
This other man I had dreamed
A drunken, vainglorious lout.
He had done most bitter wrong
To some who are near my heart,
Yet I number him in the song;
He, too, has resigned his part
In the casual comedy;
He, too, has been changed in his turn,
Transformed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.

Hearts with one purpose alone
Through summer and winter seem
Enchanted to a stone
To trouble the living stream.
The horse that comes from the road,
The rider, the birds that range
From cloud to tumbling cloud,
Minute by minute they change;
A shadow of cloud on the stream
Changes minute by minute;
A horse-hoof slides on the brim,
And a horse plashes within it;
The long-legged moor-hens dive,
And hens to moor-cocks call;
Minute by minute they live:
The stone’s in the midst of all.

Too long a sacrifice
Can make a stone of the heart.
O when may it suffice?
That is Heaven’s part, our part
To murmur name upon name,
As a mother names her child
When sleep at last has come
On limbs that had run wild.
What is it but nightfall?
No, no, not night but death;
Was it needless death after all?
For England may keep faith
For all that is done and said.
We know their dream; enough
To know they dreamed and are dead;
And what if excess of love
Bewildered them till they died?
I write it out in a verse—
MacDonagh and MacBride
And Connolly and Pearse
Now and in time to be,
Wherever green is worn,
Are changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.

– Are Seattle Restaurants Closing in “Record Numbers”? (Spoiler: No.)

– Continuing on the theme of Carl Ballard loves it when the New York Times realizes that Seattle exists, here’s a nice run-down of the Royal Dutch Shell lease.

– The Washington Alliance For Gun Responsibility wants you to sign a petition asking the gun lobby to knock off their lawsuit.

– Good for SPD for firing a creepy officer, and being open about why. Boo for some of the reaction to it on Facebook.

– Why #BlackOutDay matters

– The M/V Sally Fox is looking pretty good.

– Remembering Trailblazing Abortion Provider Mildred ‘Millie’ Hanson

– Since the state Senate isn’t sure that humans caused global warming, I’m just going to go ahead and blame it on the bears who want to end their hibernation early.

– One of the purposes of this blog has always been to, as I said, back in 2009, “present a way of life.” I hoped that it would encourage people to think differently and give them a window into a way of doing things they perhaps hadn’t considered. But these days, encouraging people to depend on transit seems naïve, even irresponsible.

– It’s interesting to think of downtown sub-components and hopefully how to better serve them with transit.

– As a former fetus myself, that guy is a jerk.

I was going to write a straight up post about how the Washington State House passed the Equal Pay Opportunity Act. Modeled on what some other states are doing, it would make it easier for employees to compare wages.

“This pay transparency allows employees the opportunity – the very information they need – to identify and challenge practices that lead to discrimination,” she said.

Washington’s working women make about 77 cents for every dollar men make.

In fact, a recent study released by the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce found that the median salary for women in Washington state is $41,300, while the median salary for men is $53,000.

Awesome job House!

That said, I was going to start this post with a similar intro to the minimum wage post. Namely, that it’s a great, and vital, and necessary thing that the Senate is most likely either not going to take up or if it does that it won’t pass, or — best case — water down significantly. And I wonder if we’re getting these sort of things passed in the House (guns excluded) because they have no chance of passing the Senate.

What I mean is, they want to get lefty voters like the writers and many readers of this blog excited. We’re doing everything we can on raising the minimum wage and making sure there’s equal pay for women, and we passed Reproductive Health Act. Yes!

But they can turn around to the business community and let them know well your minimum wage isn’t raised and you don’t have to do anything new for equal pay for women, so don’t worry. They can turn to the insurance industry and let them know they don’t have to pay for abortions or other reproductive care. And I wonder if it would have been tougher to pass these things in the House if Democrats controlled the Senate. I mean women weren’t being paid equally when Democrats controlled both chambers. The Reproductive Parity Act didn’t become law when they had both chambers.

None of this is to say that activists should despair. Contact your legislator. Push your Senator to actually pass these things. Sometimes something will surprise you! Work to elect more and better Democrats. But honestly, I’d like to see some proof that this isn’t just pandering.

– Who says there isn’t bipartisanship in the state Senate? Why just yesterday they passed a usury bill for Moneytree and other payday lenders.

– And speaking of bipartisanship, who knew it wouldn’t work on the national level? Except so many people.

– Look, humans may cause climate change. Or maybe it’s monkeys. Maybe it’s God, did you even think of that??? Maybe those glaciers were just tired of hanging out and are leaving.

– the lie that made me give up

– Immigrant Songs sounds like a great project.

– Partisan Hackery v. Obvious Intent

– I’m glad there will be fewer buses in the bus tunnel, but I will still call it the bus tunnel even if there are none.

– The Protestors Were Right

– Chart of the Day: More large companies are run by men named “John” than by women

– Oregon has a brand-new Secretary of State.

– The Backbone Campaign don’t want oil trains coming through Seattle.

– The Yakima example in this Think Progress piece, Cities Are Quietly Reviving A Jim Crow-Era Trick To Suppress Latino Votes is pretty interesting. [h/t]

– Oh man remember when the elephant ban wasted everyone’s time and just mentioning it was a hilarious joke in Seattle for like 3 years? Turns out that and similar pressure around the country has caused Ringling Brothers to phase out its elephant acts.

– I’m more concerned about the emails than Peter Daou, but in general, what he said about Hillary Clinton’s detractors.

– RIP, Grandma Otter!

On Tuesday, I wrote about the House Democrats passing the minimum wage bill, but it probably is going to get jammed up in the Senate. A couple different people at Drinking Liberally that night suggested that I make fun of Rep. Matt Manweller’s arguments against the bill. I couldn’t find a transcript of the whole thing, but I did find this press release where he highlights what he seems to think is his strongest argument.

I’ve also been told, Mr. Speaker, that if we raise the minimum wage, it will actually have a stimulus effect.

Yes. Because minimum wage earners are more likely to spend it than people in higher income brackets. You can make an argument against it or you can go with some bullshit analogies.

As if somehow, if I take five dollars from the member to my left and I hand it to a member of my right, there is magically more dollars on the House floor.

Well, if the person on your left was going to take the money and put it in their pocket, and the person on the right was going to buy lunch with it in the House cafeteria, then by passing the money along there’s 5 dollars worth of lunch and 5 dollars in the House. So there’s more value in the House. Also, the economy is usually more than 2 people and an intermediary.

[laughter]

I don’t know if he or some member of his staff transcribed this or if it’s from somewhere else. But I’m now thinking of some intern being like, “No, there wasn’t really much laughter… No, I don’t really think it needs it… Fine, I’ll add some laughter to the transcript. Also, please stop asking me to marry you when I turn 18.”

That’s amazing! If you believe that, please go home to someplace that has a pool – dump a bucket of water – dump a bucket in one side of the pool and then empty that bucket in the other side of the pool, and tell me how long you had to do that before you realize there was not more water in the pool.

It’s sort of amazing that an economist doesn’t think it’s possible for economies to grow based on government policy. And taken to its logical extreme, any policy (other than deficit spending or reduction, I guess) would follow the same logic. Why worry about tax increases if it’s all just the same pool? Why worry about solving waste since it’s all just water in the same pool? Is that really the best GOP argument against the minimum wage?

Just water that had moved around.

Someone is really happy with his crappy analogy. It would be kind of adorable, except for all the people whose lives will be harmed if he gets his way.

Also, not for nothing, but if your go-to metaphor is about your swimming pool, what are you even doing talking about a minimum wage?

None of these arguments make intellectual sense.

Maybe actually engage the arguments instead of spending all that time making up those rad pool metaphors.

– But at least with these projects, something is being built. What’s being generated by the current iteration of the state legislature, particularly the Republican-controlled State Senate (unofficial motto: “Let’s screw with the libtards in Seattle!”), is far worse.

– The Latest Anti-Choice Strategy: Less Planned Parenthood Bashing, More Insurance Bans

– I don’t want legislators talking about how colored people are committing the crimes because they’re poor to overwhelm the discussion of the actual bill to make racial impact statements.

– I know that since he’s probably recruiting someone to run against the mayor, Wyble isn’t the most unbiased source for talking about his policies. But yeah, maybe don’t do a victory lap on how great policing has become.

– If your different-sex marriage isn’t special or “sacred” or whatthefuckever just because more people are allowed to do it, then that’s not a problem with the law; that’s a problem with your marriage.

– There are some who say that Rand Paul stole his logo from Tinder. Opinions differ – my take is that people go on Tinder wanting to get fucked, but it probably doesn’t happen as often as one thinks. Supporting Rand Paul is something like the opposite of that.

I realize passing the state House is the easiest part of the minimum wage bill’s journey. But hurray :

The Washington state House has voted to raise the state’s minimum wage to $12 an hour.

Representatives voted 51-46 Tuesday afternoon to raise what was already the nation’s highest state hourly minimum wage at $9.47.

The legislation, House Bill 1355, would raise the minimum wage over a four-year period in a series of 50-cent hikes. It goes next to the state Senate for consideration.

Relief for working families all over the state trying to raise a family on or near the minimum wage is a possibility. Nobody is getting rich working the minimum wage, but it’s still better for working families. Of course, now it’s on to the Senate to be watered down or killed outright.

The Bill is currently in the Labor & Commerce committee, chaired by Michael Baumgartner, if you want to contact him, the info is at the link. If you want to contact other members of the committee, you can find them here. If you want to find your legislators, you can find them here. As always, my recommendation is to be polite but firm.