In Goldy’s metacommentary piece yesterday on The Seattle Times’ oppposition to funding Metro, he gave them some well deserved shit for pretending to oppose it because of its regressive nature.

Oh no! It’s a “regressive” tax! This from an editorial board that has opposed every single progressive tax (like, you know, on income or estates) that has come before it. What a bunch of fucking concern trolls.

But I think it’s even worse than that: We’ve known something was coming for a while. The Seattle Times ed board hasn’t exactly been leading the charge for a better system. Dow Constantine has been telegraphing since he got into office that he’d do something if the state didn’t act. And in that time The Seattle Times has neither suggested what that something ought to be nor have they pushed the legislature to act to allow King County to have a better system.

Could you imagine how different the debate would be in the state, if the state’s leading — or at least largest — paper had editorial after editorial pushing the legislature to let King County tax ourselves however we want? If they demanded that even if the GOP didn’t pass a complete transit package, that they at least give us a more progressive option?

– I voted so if someone cuts your bus service, blame someone else.

– Nothing freaks me out like Muslims eating meat butchered in a fashion that affects me in no demonstrative way.

– Whether or not a person chooses to vote, elections happen and someone wins. And then, as in Wisconsin and elsewhere, the winner wins big, and the big winner is a raging ideologue, they tend to stomp hell out of their opponents.

– If you’ve been affected by the landslide, FEMA is asking you to call 1-800-621-FEMA (3362)

– These are some solid new stereotypes about women.

– Right Wing Science Dude.

Another election, another Pam Roach primary — and possibly general election — challenge.

State Sen. Pam Roach, a guardian of the Republican Party’s right flank in Olympia, is getting a challenge from a fellow Republican.

State Rep. Cathy Dahlquist, R-Enumclaw, announced this week that she will run against Roach. Under Washington’s “top two” primary system, the challenge creates the distinct possibility of a November battle between two Republicans in the 31st District of eastern King County and rural-exurban Pierce County.

And at the link, Dahlquist makes good noises about education, including mentioning teacher pay that the GOP often don’t when talking about education. Still, on many issues she’s a pretty standard Republican. She voted against the Reproductive Parity Act and marriage equality. And I couldn’t find any tax increases she supports, so wanting to pay for education is nice, but presumably it means by destroying the rest of the state’s social services. So sure, she’d almost certainly be better than Roach. But that’s a pretty low bar to clear.

– Fort Hood can’t catch a break. Video loads automatically.

– City Hall Starts to Give a Shit About Women’s Pay Equity Again

– I love that Sound Transit has pictures for specific stations, but some of them don’t make a lot of sense (to me). Answer some questions to help them design the pictures for new light rail stations. [h/t]

– Supply and demand is a thing in housing.

– STOPPPPPP YOU’RE HURTING MY FEEEEEELINGS is apparently the new clarion call of the conservative movement. I’m still a little shocked by it.

One of the questions with the Oso disaster that people are asking now is why did we let it happen? We knew that the hill was in danger, and yet people were allowed to live below it. Emmitt tries to tackle that with a bit of a historical perspective. And as is often times the case when he does a historical overview, the early settlers to the area from New England and from the Appalachian region play a large part.

But, the ability to do anything about it stopped where it became obvious that no one wanted to listen to them. The deep sense of individualism that came west with the Appalachians in Cascadia still rules the point of view, especially along the Stillaguamish River.

Sadly, one of the former political leaders on the Appalachian end of the spectrum likely died in the Oso mudslide.

Sure, it is possible to offer enough money to make anyone want to move. But, it isn’t like Snohomish County had magic public funds growing fairy dust. And, when it came to spending that limited public money on someone that really didn’t want to move in the first place. Well, you see where the attention of Snohomish civic leaders can be distracted.

Its easy to point to the available evidence and blame well intentioned people for not doing more. But, it is worth looking back at our origins here and seeing that it isn’t simple.

I don’t know how much we can to do to prevent these sorts of things as long as we’ve decided that the government is going to enforce property rights (something I’m generally for), and it has limited funds. Maybe there isn’t a way. I mean if the state took money out of education, or whatever, to pay to move some people who chose to live in dangerous places (and there must be thousands of dangerous places across the state), or if the county took money away from fire or police protection, people would rightly scream bloody murder.

None of this is to take anything away from the rescue efforts or to say that this was what they had coming, of course. As a liberal, I think we’re all in this together; as a human, I have nothing but sympathy. And as someone who lives in the city of Seattle where the next big one is overdue, I know it’s only a matter of time before I or my neighbors need the same sort of help. And nowhere is perfectly safe. Still, the tough decisions about how we minimize the damage from future events haven’t suddenly become as clear as we might like.

– Your April Fools joke isn’t as funny as you think it is.

– Vote Yes on Prop 1

– Fox News is awesome at graph making.

– And it’s not like we won’t know that people signed up.

– It’s sort of precious, isn’t it? Kind of like a 5th grade essay about a little girl’s puppy.

– Anyone doing 30 days of biking?

– Leave it to Darrell Issa to infuriate Democrats with his pointless obsession, while infuriating Republicans for being bad at it.

This Sunday’s New York times had a story about worker owned cooperatives. The main example that they use is in San Francisco, but

If you happen to be looking for your morning coffee near Golden Gate Park and the bright red storefront of the Arizmendi Bakery attracts your attention, congratulations. You have found what the readers of The San Francisco Bay Guardian, a local alt-weekly, deem the city’s best bakery. But it has another, less obvious, distinction. Of the $3.50 you hand over for a latte (plus $2.75 for the signature sourdough croissant), not one penny ends up in the hands of a faraway investor. Nothing goes to anyone who might be tempted to sell out to a larger bakery chain or shutter the business if its quarterly sales lag.

Instead, your money will go more or less directly to its 20-odd bakers, who each make $24 an hour — more than double the national median wage for bakers. On top of that, they get health insurance, paid vacation and a share of the profits. “It’s not luxury, but I can sort of afford living in San Francisco,” says Edhi Rotandi, a baker at Arizmendi. He works four days a week and spends the other days with his 2-year-old son.

Arizmendi and its five sister bakeries in the Bay Area are worker-owned cooperatives, an age-old business model that has lately attracted renewed interest as a possible antidote to some of our most persistent economic ills. Most co-ops in the U.S. are smaller than Arizmendi, with around a dozen employees, but the largest, Cooperative Home Care Associates in the Bronx, has about 2,000. That’s hardly the organizational structure’s upper limit. In fact, Arizmendi was named for a Spanish priest and labor organizer in Basque country, José María Arizmendiarrieta. He founded what eventually became the Mondragon Corporation, now one of the region’s biggest employers, with more than 60,000 members and 14 billion euro in revenue. And it’s still a co-op.

Does anyone know about cooperatives in the Seattle area if people want to support them with their dollars? I was trying to think of any, and I couldn’t. I mean the advantages of capitalism without, you know, creating more capitalists (except their financiers, and I guess customers). If they make a decent coffee with good enough pastries, that’s really all I want out of a coffee shop.

If people know of local worker cooperatives, especially ones that provide good goods and services, please leave a comment.

– It’s the last day to get signed up for health care for the year, so if you haven’t yet, here’s the website for Washington.

– GOP Condemn A Black Woman Over A Tweet: A Timeline

– Not even really sure what a Chinese backed company would mean in that case.

– Congrats to Robert Cruickshank for being the new President of NPI.

– The only one of these proposed Constitutional amendments I’d support is number 5.

– If fantasy baseball was more like this, I could probably get more into it.

So, my friend is holding a fundraiser for the American Red Cross for the Oso victims. If y’all are in Seattle on the 9th, you should probably go. And if you’re not able to go or don’t want to wait until the 9th, you should probably consider donating at the link.

When I was discussing the mayor’s race last year, I said that the thing that most worried me about a second McGinn term was his foot dragging on police reform in his first term. Since Ed Murray has come to office, he has been worse than foot dragging.

When Murray demoted Jim Pugel, that was a worry. When the new interim chief overturned officer discipline, that was trouble. Now Pugel is out, and it’s one more nail in the coffin.

Nobody knows, of course, if this is a direct payback for the union endorsing Murray or if the Mayor’s Office actually believes this is the best way to police the city. Either way, it doesn’t bode well for people having interactions with the police.

I know, I was late to the party with my original post. And then only an update of that post and a link in an open thread when they reversed their policy. Still, I was glad that this former World Vision employee [h/t] was so blunt about what’s wrong with the reversal.

“The effect is going to be the children and those that we serve,” former World Vision financial analyst David Tobias said.

Tobias is disappointed in his former employer, which he says is as financially complex as any major corporation.

On Monday, the Christian nonprofit announced it would open employment to people in same-sex marriages. After an uproar from conservative donors, it reversed the decision just two days later.

“It was challenging for me to accept that my gay friends at work couldn’t be who they were,” Tobias said. “Really breaking their back and putting their heart and soul into World Vision, then being told publicly they weren’t good enough to do it.”

Unfortunately, King 5 felt the need to balance it with people who think World Vision should actively discriminate against gay people, and double unfortunately the person willing to criticize them is a former employee. I suspect that there are a lot of people inside the organization, probably people who were pushing for the policy change in the first place, who agree.

– So, yeah. More on World Vision.

– On year anniversary of devastating DUI, community rallies in call for ‘vision zero’

– Five Reasons Contraceptive Coverage Is Essential

– Glad to see that Oregonians care about climate change. Hopefully that will lead to real action.

– Olympia has ducks

– If you’re interested in the memorial service for Jim Compton, it’s Saturday at Town Hall 10:00 to Noon.

World Vision is a good organization that has had problematic hiring policies. They have a better policy now.

World Vision is decided an Evangelical Christian organization. And, as such, they have strict rules about hiring, requiring employees to be Christian and to adhere to sexual ethics which includes “abstinence outside of marriage, and fidelity within marriage”.

Now World Vision has decided to, well, NOT change the terms of those requirements. They have, however, decided that gay Christians who seek employment with them must follow the same rules as heterosexuals.

Yay. Yay?

Sure, it’s better than discriminating against gay folks (although they’re still discriminating against gay folks who can’t get married). It’s an important milestone that an Evangelical organization with this much clout is letting this happen. The no-sex-outside-of-marriage stuff is still problematic, but a step toward decency — especially for an org that’s generally good — should be celebrated.

Of course, the good that they do is still the most important thing. Since they’re being attacked for taking this small step in the right direction, now might be a good time to give. Fill in some of the gaps if assholes and gatekeepers are threatening to leave.

…Or not. See comments, the haters and the gatekeepers have forced World Vision to reverse their policy. They are still an organization that does good work, but this is too bad.

– Getting ORCA Cards to people who need reduced fares is a bit of a problem, so one more way is good. If Metro is going to have a reduced rate the next time it increases the fare, I hope that they have that figured out.

– “This case is about much more than contraception. It is about the principles of liberty that animate our Constitution.” Indeed! Which is why the IWF’s arguments should be rejected.

– Well, I’m sure if we let McMorris Rodgers get away with using public money for her campaigns (Seattle Times link), she won’t do it again.

– Let people play soccer in a hijab, for goodness sake.

– From Hans in the comments, this certainly helps explain trolls.

As someone who gives the slightest fuck about politics, I get plenty of email from various politicos. I get policy stuff from Patty Murray in the email associated with this blog, I assume since I write open letters to her here. I get political stuff at my personal email since I was a volunteer on her last campaign. I get emails from all sorts of campaigns for policies and politics. Usually lefty but sometimes others.

I just recently got on the national GOP list. And unlike the policy that lefty groups send, they seem to just be trolling. For instance, I got a link from them over the weekend to some shitty bumper stickers. They were anti-ACA bumper stickers with the odd phrasing OBAMA DOESN’T “CARE” OBAMA “COSTS.” Never mind that the law isn’t called Obamacare; That’s just their nickname for it. If they’re unhappy about the name they gave to a thing, why not stop calling it that instead of being angry?

No, whatever. You want to sell dumbass bumper stickers that don’t make a lick of sense, sure GOP. Who am I to stop you? But the subject of the headline was “Tick off the Democrats.” So I realize there are a lot of digressions for this short post, but here’s another one: just say “piss.” When you use the minced oath you just make it sound like you’re a 12 year old trying to get away with swearing in front of your parents. Well, your parents knew what you meant, and so do people reading your emails.

Second, and finally to the point, I’m not ticked off about a bumper sticker. I’m ticked off that the GOP policy is shit. Democrats and liberal groups email me policy, even when they’re going after the GOP. The GOP seem to think the most important thing is pissing people they don’t like off.