– Good work Jean Godden, and boo for Seattle for taking so long to get maternity (and paternity) leave for city employees.

– The bike signals on 2nd Ave are great, but I’m glad the city is also dealing with garages mid block.

– Despite about a million technical issues, the Washington Health Benefit Exchange has gotten some people covered — at least here at home. Despite low enrollment in rural counties, in King County, 1/4 of residents are covered.

– Given the Seattle Metro Area’s worst in the nation pay gap, it’s particularly galling to see the CEO of Microsoft saying women shouldn’t ask for a raise. He apologized, and we can all decide for ourselves how sincere he was. But I hope it leads to some sort of concrete action because this region most pointedly needs to do better.

– I’m more of a fan of remakes than I think a lot of people, especially people on the Internet. The Ghostbusters with women as the main cast seems awesome.

There was some discussion at Drinking Liberally over how much weight to put into Nate Silver and other people’s predictions for what will happen in the Senate. I tend to think his predictions are pretty good, and Democrats should be worried about losing the Senate, and having some losses in state legislatures. But the good news is that there’s still a month. And things aren’t static. You can still donate or make calls for your favorite candidates. You can still get behind candidates on Facebook or Twitter and talk to your friends. You can still write letters to the editor and comments. You can still call into talk radio.

And of course, you can still vote. Here in Washington we don’t have a US Senate race but we sure have a close legislature. We still have plenty of initiatives. Politics isn’t a spectator sport, and by all means get involved. The great thing about the issue of if the election were held today is that the election won’t be held today. There’s still time to make things better.

Carl’s tech issues continue. Maybe I should upgrade from my Vista laptop at some point?

Abbreviated due to tech issues.

– I’m not sure there’s all that much that the state can do about oil trains, but good on Governor Inslee for doing what he can.

– The problem isn’t that people don’t have enough guns. The problem is that police are too often using the guns they have. That won’t be solved by a bunch of average suburban white people wandering around public spaces with their rifles slung over their backs. Those aren’t the people most likely to be shot by police –whether they’re armed or not. They’re missing the point entirely.

– Washington state is dotted with landslide-prone slopes, and many counties and cities do less than Snohomish County to keep homes away from harm.

– What marijuana shops will open are slowly working themselves out.

– That’s cute and all, but maybe an income tax would be a better way to solve the budget hole than taxing political contributions?

Patty Murray is introducing legislation to provide increased access to and education about emergency contraception.

When women are not given full counseling about — and access to — emergency contraception, a major health decision is taken out of their hands. Every year, over three million pregnancies (one half of all pregnancies in the United States) are unintended. In the 1960s, researchers began testing the effectiveness of concentrated, high doses of oral estrogen to prevent unintended pregnancy. In 1973, putting science and medical evidence first, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved this form of contraception only as an emergency measure. In the time since (and not without significant resistance from critics), the FDA has declared emergency contraception, a.k.a. the morning-after pill, to be safe and effective in preventing unintended pregnancy after unprotected sex, birth control failure, or sexual assault. In addition, the FDA has approved the sale of some forms of this pill to women of all ages — over the counter, without prescription.

However, despite this increased access — and the number of options now available to women — emergency contraceptive use in the United States remains low. In fact, only half of OB/GYNs offer emergency contraception to all of their patients, and one third of reproductive-age women don’t know it exists.

Well, that’s a problem. I mean fortunately this is such a no-brainer that I’m sure it will sail right through our responsive democratic process. Surely, right. Right?

– Not sure what Washington’s rules about selling the Confederate flag in gift shops is, but if we don’t have a rule like this, we should probably adopt one.

– The GOP trouble attracting women to their cause is sure tough to explain. Part infinity.

– Still not a big fan of Amazon, but if they’ll build a woonerf* I’ll be happy for a moment.

– Hey DC Comics: Do better.

– Goldy will probably have a longer post at some time, but Chris Hansen has submitted all the paperwork for the Seattle Arena.

[Read more…]

– Sorry it’s so late. I think even though I knew it was coming I wasn’t prepared for this crappy new bus reality. Should be back to regular soon.

– Whitewashing History

– Hillsboro’s environmental record is really something to strive for.

– Macefield Music Fest!

– It’s a little late for banned books week, but I’m linking to this now because it’s better than never.

– Speaking of books and a little bit late, hey, my friend wrote a book. I haven’t read it yet, so no recommendation one way or the other.

– King County Metro: Prepare For Bus Cuts This Weekend

– Poor Clint Didier can’t even get the murder weapon fetishists on his side (second story).

– What the everloving fuck, Fox News?

– Every 28 hours a black man is killed by the police. This time it’s Cameron Tillman, a 14 year-old freshman gunned down by a sheriff’s deputy in Houma, Louisiana.

– I’m not happy about people with all of the money jumping into campaigns, but at least when it’s environmentalists taking back the State Senate for Democrats, it’s better than if it was only Republicans doing it.

– More of Hillary Clinton’s dastardly childhood letters emerge.

Part I’ve-lost-count in an infinity part list.

This time he’s spamming out pictures of children with a gun pointed at their heads.

Constantine’s courageous call for the Legislature to repeal I-747 got Eyman’s attention, as did his proposal to send King County voters a levy to fund early childhood and youth services next year. Prompted by Constantine’s speech, Eyman decided to go fishing for media coverage by sending out an attack email with a false, derogatory subject line (“King County Exec Dow Constantine: “Pay higher property taxes or I’m throwing kids with diabetes under the bus”).

Along with his screed, Eyman enclosed a disgusting image of a woman holding a gun to a baby’s head, which he obtained from the Huffington Post.

As with so much of Tim Eyman’s bullshit, you don’t know if it makes more sense to address the substance or to point out the disgusting nature of the stunt. I think in this case, you have to go with the stunt. Holy shit! Kids with guns pointed at their head because you disagree with something the Exec said about you? That’s so awful, I can’t even comprehend it.

Even if the substance of Eyman’s argument somehow made sense — and it never does — that’s still no. Just no. Hell, I have a lower opinion of HuffPo and Tim Eyman because they both thought that picture was appropriate at various times, and I wouldn’t have thought that was possible.

And sure, people fuck up sometimes. If this was an isolated incident, I’d say give him the benefit of the doubt. But it’s long past that point with Eyman.

– Glad to see the Angry Black Lady Chronicles returning.

– As I just showed in the paragraphs above, a couple of rudimentary searches would find the facts in this case. But rather than inform the public, KXLY sensationalizes instead.

– And you thought the end of Obama’s presidency might mean the end of the GOP’s Saul Alinsky Saul the time obsession.

– Rand Paul is not the spokesman for the entire civil liberties community or the anti-war faction of this nation. In fact there are principled Democrats and Independents whom liberals should celebrate on these issues instead — after all, they aren’t going to vote against NSA spying with one breath while cutting Social Security and Medicare the next. They’re not going to demand that the government get out of our lives today and then vote to restrict a woman’s right to control her own reproduction tomorrow. They won’t rail about liberty even as they fight to ensure that gay people don’t have the freedom to marry. You can’t have it all, none of these people are perfect. But you can have everything Rand Paul is offering — and a whole lot more common human decency.

– As important as it is to call out Mars Hill, how churches avoid becoming the next Mars Hill is probably more important going forward.

– Wasteful as it would be, I would dig the hell out of flame decals on Metro.

– I don’t care. I’m still linking to those silly lists of cities when Seattle tops them.

– The Seattle Women’s Commission is looking for new people. If you know someone who would be good, including yourself the info is here. [h/t]

– When I was growing up, I remember wondering why my grandma always insisted on walking and busing to get around, even when others were willing—would, in fact, have preferred—to give her a ride. Now, I am in her shoes: trying to explain that yes, I really do want to take the bus, and no, it’s not (usually) a hardship or an inconvenience; it is part of who I am.

– A Feel Good War

– A 15 cent minimum wage increase is better than nothing, Oregon. Still not great.

– Being the specific type of nerd I am, I’m surprised it took me as long as it did to check out the Pink Elephant’s Graveyard podcast, the K Records podcast. Quite great if you’re into that sort of thing.

Well, good news.

Yesterday Metro announced a series of new savings that will reduce the overall service cut from 550,000 annual service hours to 400,000, or about 11%.

That’s still going to be a tough hit. It also won’t save the cuts coming later this month. But that combined with if Seattle votes yes on Prop 1 in November maybe within Seattle city limits, we’ll still be able to get around OK. And it’s sad that OK in the places we need it most is the best we can hope for, but I guess that’s what happens when the voters reject transit.

In the long run, trying to fill the gap with more and more concessions from transit workers is not going to work. The more you go the less fat there is to cut. These big important things are expensive and we can’t do them on the cheap. If we want good transit, we have to pay for good transit.

– Even when Rand Paul is probably right on policy and making fun of John McCain, he’s still such a problem.

– It was pretty nice out last week, but still no surprise that better biking infrastructure brings out more bikes.

– You cannot defend abusing a child just because you like to cosplay on Sundays and eat yourself into a nacho coma

– We have the power to shape our online experiences, and this is my vote for yours to be beautiful. Have a wonderful day.

– Wait, am I going to have to start reading GQ?

– 70 years is pretty great.

– Random fact that I learned from too much Wikipeding instead of actually writing: Ambrose Bierce’s middle name was Gwinnett.

– On the one hand, you have to admire the audacity of street dealers trying to poach pot shops. On the other hand, I’d think that would be the worst place to sell. Maybe it’s like when there’s a Wendy’s next to a Burger King? Also, don’t threaten people.

– How Not to Manage Parking

– A couple different takes on Danny Westneat not having a car for a little while. You can read the column here, but there isn’t much to add.

– I’m glad that Maria Cantwell is leading the charge to get the Washington NFL team to change their name.

– Waiting periods for abortion really are just calling women uninformed about their own bodies.

– The guide to e-holes