– Is this process for picking a new police chief going to produce different results than the last one?

– Jeff Merkley is a real hero on unemployment insurance, but it’s godawful that it has to come up at all.

– Oh my am I glad the people who gave us the Iraq war aren’t in power right now.

– I love that building

– In the last open thread, I said that Melissa Harris Perry was right to apologize, and I stand by that. But I also agree that there is a context.

– Holy shit Chris Christie.

– Nine years later he publicly came out of the closet, and has since made it his mission to ensure that lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or questioning (LGBTQ) athletes don’t have to wait until their playing days are over to be themselves.

– Ham proceeds to retcon the early chapters of Genesis, shuffling the chronology a bit and turning parts of Chapter 5 into a flashback preceding Chapter 4 — all in the name of a “literal” reading of the text. But throughout this fast-talking and dealing from the bottom of the text Ham seems to realize that the core problem he’s facing here is the disturbingly Flowers-in-the-Attic scenario necessitated by insisting on a single original family of original humans.

– I don’t mind people taking pictures of everything, but don’t block other people’s view.

I’m not sure where to put the blame for the Gigabit Squared deal falling apart. Murray says it was trouble when he came into office, but I suspect he’ll say that about a lot of things McGinn started did that he doesn’t want to do.

Mayor Ed Murray has declared the city’s deal with startup broadband company Gigabit Squared dead. In fact, the city’s deal with the company may have been doomed before Murray was even elected.

“We understand the Gigabit problems had developed before the election,” Murray told PSBJ reporter Marc Stiles in an interview last week.

Whatever the reason, it’s too bad. I’m a few blocks outside of the coverage area, so it doesn’t hit me personally, at least in the beginning. But regardless, if they can’t provide the service, the need for that high speed relatively cheap Internet is still there. Tech companies and other businesses will have a choice of where to locate, and that will certainly be in the calculus. People will decide where to live, and that will be part of the decision. For people who want to live in the city, it’s a quality of life issue.

Fortunately, Seattle is blessed with a utility in Seattle City Light that is already good at delivering a vital service city wide relatively inexpensively. So it should be easier for us to do this than most places. As such, I was glad to see Mayor Murray say this:

“It’s a utility, in my mind,” Murray said. “The city has done a very good job of providing affordable electric rates because we have a public utility. So I think there are a variety of models, including a hybrid model that might get that affordability.”

When something can and should be done but the private sector can’t or won’t do it, it’s time to consider how else to provide that service. It seems like something Seattle can do as a city.

Bikes passed the counter at the Fremont Bridge 926,025 times last year. It’s quite a bit over 2012 and a testament to Seattle and the region’s commitment to infrastructure for bikes on the government level, and to riding on the individual level.

It’s obviously still a small number compared to the number of cars crossing the bridge, but it is a lot of commutes, day trips, and other outings. Still, because we like round numbers — and goals — I think we can hit 1,000,000 next year.

– I knew that Seattle was GOP territory not that long ago, but seeing that King County went for Reagan is a bit of a surprise.

– What is happening with Don Benton and Ann Rivers (Columbian link)?

– With social media at their disposal, the students are thinking big. They plan to organize, nationwide, a “Z-Day” on Jan. 31 to protest the forced resignation of Eastside vice principal Mark Zmuda after his same-sex marriage last summer.

– Even by The Daily Caller’s low standards, this is pretty stoopid.

– Anyone else going to Reproductive Health and Rights Lobby Day 2014 or any other lobbying efforts in Olympia?

– You have no idea how much I tried to come up with an “it’s Spokane’s fault” joke for the fault line running through it. But no.

– I hate that there was a car crash in LFP but a couple pedestrians on the Burke-Gilman trail are pretty awesome.

– Any thoughts on Cascade’s new logo?

This year’s short session starts January 13. With the state Senate controlled by the GOP even more so than last session, and the House and Governor’s Mansion firmly in the hands of Democrats, I think we’ll see more defense than either side being able to push an agenda. They won’t have to compromise on a budget, so I suspect anything that does get passed will be small and around the edges. Still, they might surprise us. And anyway, there’s no reason to start the session out without a wishlist. Is there anything you’re hoping for or anything you’re hoping gets blocked?

For me, I’m less and less sure that there’s any sort of transportation package that isn’t terrible, but you never know. If I had one thing that in an ideal world I’d have the legislature pass it would be a high earner’s income tax. That won’t happen, doy, but it’s worth saying I’d like it. If they won’t pass that, a local option income tax would be better, although I think localities have the right, because of supreme court decisions made in the 1930’s and political cowardice, they won’t use it without some prompting. Barring that, I’d still like the Reproductive Parity Act but given that when NARAL called me, they weren’t even pushing that, it seems unlikely.

– To protect and serve, I guess.

– Melissa Harris-Perry was right to apologize.

– I grew up as a Southern Baptist, where gays weren’t just sinners — they were a donation strategy.

– The website for the campaign for the $15 minimum wage is up now.

– Congrats to Boeing on the occasion of forgetting that you get what you pay for.

– Are we glad the Seahawks will face the Saints?

Because we need another open thread.

– I Was An NFL Player Until I Was Fired By Two Cowards And A Bigot

– What the fuck, Border Patrol?

– Run Goldy.

– Hey, schools and other public institutions. Handle rape allegations better.

– Many of the people advocating this theory are religious leaders — church people who criticize government for not “allowing” the churches room to care for the poor and the jobless through private charity. Here’s their chance to put their money where their mouth is. Here’s their chance to prove they’ve been speaking truth and not just spouting hateful anti-poor garbage.

– The gun show loophole will almost certainly be on the ballot in November.

– I will have to stop using American idioms.

– OK, I’m going to be back to normal next week. I think it’ll still be Monday-Tuesday-Thursday open threads, but if you’d prefer Monday-Wednesday-Friday threads, let me know and I’ll consider it.

1) Top 1 Top Lists of 2013 of 2013

(Feel free to use this as an open thread; no more of these unless I think of something even stupider.)

The last year end list wasn’t WA/Seattle oriented, like this blog ought to be. So here’s one for that.

In no particular order:

– General

– Primary

(seriously, feel free to use this as an open thread, and yes there’s more of this nonsense to come)

1-E
2-A
3-I, O (Tie)
5-U

(Feel free to use this as an open thread)

I haven’t done an Open Thread in like a week. Rather than collecting links, I’ve been not doing that, but here goes:

– Too big to jail sounds like a facile little slogan but it appears to be completely accurate

– Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) Signups/Applications (h/t to my friend R)

– Cascadian politics and how we vote in a primary around here

– In a few years when gay marriage is just “marriage”, there’s going to be a reckoning.

– The White Center food bank needs volunteers.

– The Life’s Not Fair doctrine

Give Senator Don Benton this: He is an asshole. No, give him this: He was able to get a non-story into the news. Anyway start with his Christmas Eve press release

Senator Don Benton of Vancouver said he wants an audit of Planned Parenthood following accusations of fraudulent Medicaid billing.

Oh gosh. That sounds serious. “Accusations” must be a government office. What it couldn’t be — because it would be embarrassing even to the credibility challenged GOP — is a random group with the fake grassrootsiest name in the history of organizations.

He called for the investigation after a group called The Alliance Defending Freedom accused Planned Parenthood of over-billing Medicaid and the state of Washington at least 50,000 times, costing the state $337 million.

Oh. I’m not including Benton’s link to it here, but he links to the group, who are doing some year end fundraising. He doesn’t link to the “accusation” just to their front page fundraising page.* I just looked around the page, but this ostensible millions of dollars in fraud, this supposed bombshell, this major revelation of fraud, wasn’t easy to find. I’m sure it’s on their website, somewhere, but it wasn’t obvious to me. There is a lot of complaining about the war on Christmas, so there’s that.

So a group nobody has ever heard of makes inflammatory accusations, and they’re repeated by Senator Benton who demands an audit. This is a Senator who is so concerned with the public money that he took a make work job for his off time (Columbian link), so you know he’s serious.

Anyway, the press release ends with a link to what looks like a real news org picking it up. Jesus, your liberal media.

[Read more…]

– The (Catholic High School) kids are all right.

– Linda Thomas’ goodbye to KIRO and Cienna Madrid’s goodbye to Stranger readers.

– I’m glad the city is looking into ways to not discourage marijuana tourism, but I find it a bit odd that it’s coming from the City Attorney’s office.

– Phil Robertson’s America

– Civilization doesn’t have to be a casino.

– At least it doesn’t have fucking video ads.

– I wold totally play about 8 of these, if given the chance.

– Holy shit were bus drivers awesomesauce this morning.

– I imagine my posting will be lighter than usual in the next few weeks, but really, your reading will be lighter, so it all balances out.

We got a dusting of snow Downtown but not too much. And there’s more snow further North and less South.

Snow will is now peaking in the greater Puget Sound area and it will snow heavily for the next two hours or so then lighten and change to rain. Changeover to rain has already occured along the coast (as planned) and that changeover will gradually spread from southwest to northeast. We’re still thinking Seattle changeover to rain around 9 am or so.

Leave extra time to get to work as people might finally realize it’s OK to slow down a bit (and be one of those people if you drive) and public transit is extra crowded. I’m already regretting my decision to go back to work today, but I’m feeling OK, so I guess I should. Here’s a list of school closures/delays.

How is it in your neck of the woods?