A few months ago, there was GMO wheat getting into non-GMO crops, and now it looks like alfalfa.

Agriculture officials in Washington state are testing samples of alfalfa after a farmer reported his hay was rejected for export because it tested positive for a genetically modified trait that was not supposed to be in his crop.

If it is confirmed that the alfalfa in question was genetically modified, it could have broad ramifications, said Hector Castro, spokesman at the Washington State Department of Agriculture.

The piece about it in the Weekly (that gets the Hat Tip) makes a link between that and the GMO labeling initiative. That’s fine as far as it goes. This sort of thing might make people want to get non-GMO food, and of course labeling would be the best way to go about that.

But I’m more worried that it has happened twice recently. If the initiative passes or fails, surely the industry could better spend their $9 Million that they spent this week on a political campaign on not fucking this sort of thing up. Because frankly, those ads and mailers and whatever else can’t change the fact that this has happened. Twice in recent months.

– Whatever you were doing, stop doing that because Orcinus is back! You should go read it is what I’m saying. Also coincidentally, I just finished a book last night, and Neiwert’s is the next on the list.

– People who passed stopped school buses on the right are incredibly problematic. I literally can’t even fathom how anyone could think it was even in the same state as OK. Randy Dorn wants cameras on more (I couldn’t tell from the article if it’s all) buses, and says that’s part of the reason why.

– I would have thought similar reasoning would have prevented Syria from using chemical weapons in the first place.

– But I do think that diplomacy can win out.

– Top Ten things Americans need to Know about Syria if they’re going to Threaten to Bomb It

– Relevant to our work on this blog, for instance, 43% of downtown households are car free, and 1 in 3 downtown residents walk to work.

– It simplifies things when we can write-off the thoughts and opinions of other people by assuming they’ve taken the easy way out, that they’re just trying to be popular and liked. It’s oddly affirming to tell ourselves that we’re the ones living counter-culturally, we’re the ones taking all the risks for the truth, we’re the ones getting persecuted for our right and true beliefs.

I’m pro-the initiative process in theory. But man alive does how much money gets thrown at it make me not like it in fact.

Major agribusiness companies and grocery chains appear set on a “Shock and Awe” approach to defeating Initiative 522 on Washington’s November ballot, and have poured nearly $9 million into the cause over the last two days.

The latest big bucks include $3.2 million from Dupont, on top of $171,281 previously given; a $562,000 pledge from Dow Agrisciences and a $500,000 pledge from BASF Plant Science. Montsanto made the biggest investment earlier in the week with a $4.5 million contribution to the No-on-522 campaign.

I mean really, $9 Million in just two days. That attempt to buy having the law what they want is just stunning. Even if you don’t like food labeling, that should be enough to put you into the “sure, why not” camp. I can’t imagine anyone thinking Dow and Monsanto should be able to keep the law as they like it if they have enough money. But we’ll see.

That said, I would be interested in how well the frankenfood industry does here. The last few examples of big industry buying their way to success in the initiative process (Costco’s liquor store privatization, the plastic industry defeating the Seattle bag fee and the junk food industry keeping extra taxes off sugary foods*) don’t bode well. But, I’d suspect that labeling is more popular than taxes and liquor stores. This might be a tougher task than those.

[Read more…]

I meant to note this in an earlier open thread, but over the weekend, some of the state ferries didn’t run for a bit (Seattle Times link).

The Kitsap Sun reports dozens of runs on three routes -Point Defiance-Tahlequah, the north end of Vashon Island, and Port Townsend-Coupeville – were canceled for lack of crew.

Dispatchers ran out of relief and on-call workers who were needed to fill in for regular employees on vacation or medical leave.

This is what happens with years of cuts and cuts and cuts. Service gets cut. Most of the time people are able to make things work but when there are fewer options available, the potential for trouble increases.

Now, I think our Washington State Ferry system is great: I’m glad to have used it and almost certainly will use it again in the future. But I didn’t need any of those particular runs, on that particular day, so by GOP logic, I shouldn’t care about other people inconvenienced. But of course, we’re all a community, so it does harm. And of course the more things like this happen, the more cops and fire get cut from local communities, the more our road and bridge repairs get put off, the more likely any problem is to hit any of us.

– For serious, don’t text and drive.

– Usually a primary election moves people away from the center (or at least the conventional wisdom of what the center is), and a general moves them toward it. I love that that’s not really the case in the Seattle mayoral election.

– Try treating women like people instead of props, and also try being funny. Hell, I occasionally watch Top Gear because it’s funny despite the fact that the hosts are shitty, lying, conservative jackasses. But if you want to be the next Mythbusters, note that they manage to be funny, progressive, and pretty damned scientifically rigorous for a 30-minute TV show. It’s not impossible.

– It’s surprising to me that local TV news didn’t start in King County until this date in 1951.

– Blastin Blackberries

The Washington State House Republican Caucus is upset that we’re going to get exchanges soon. They’re so upset that they have a whiny press release.

Though many of us have grave concerns and opposition to the passage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), also known as Obamacare, Congress has not repealed it and the U.S. Supreme Court upheld nearly all of it. Washington state is moving forward.

Yes, it is. It’s legal and it’s going forward. And yay, because you know what, it’s somewhat better than the status quo. If the GOP had a better idea, or better than vague platitudes about the market or something something health savings accounts without any specifics, they forgot to mention it in the last few years. Anyway, let’s see what some of the House Republican problems are.

Health care exchange lacks enough choices, variety of plans

Hey, you know what would be another choice that the legislature could add? Yeah. If the GOP wanted more variety, they could get behind adding a government plan along with the corporate and a cooperative plan that already exist in Washington. You know more choice.

The Insurance Commissioner initially denied five of the nine health insurers plans from being sold in The Exchange; however, three of the insurers successfully appealed and the Insurance Commissioner has now approved seven insurance companies to offer 43 plans for individuals in the exchange. At its Sept. 4 meeting, the Exchange Board certified 35 plans. The federal Office of Personnel Management had previously approved the other eight plans which are classified as multi-state plans. There is one additional insurer that could be approved in the near future.

This is the part where they’re complaining that there won’t be any choices.

Meanwhile, just one company, Kaiser Permanente, says it will offer insurance plans for small businesses in the exchange. This is not the competitive marketplace we were promised as Obamacare was being debated in Congress. Washington House Republicans have long believed our state’s health insurance laws and regulatory processes have limited choice and competition. Those challenges are being more exposed as we implement federal health care reform. Read more about these problems in the articles to the right.

This claim feels pretty dubious to me. I work for a small business in Washington, and don’t have Kaiser Permanente, and there’s no discussion of changing plans. So there seems to be more choice than they’re letting on. In any event, a state level public option would certainly go a long way toward providing more choice. In fact, it would double it for small businesses if their dubious claims are to be believed.

An argument for universal coverage

Universal single payer would be pretty awesomesauce. That’s what you’re talking about, right? Right?

Avik Roy, a Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a health care writer at Forbes Magazine, argued that the status quo is no longer working, however. We must reduce the costs our federal government is currently spending on health care.

The status quo isn’t working and we need more than the unfortunately small 43 plans and growing. But not a public option. Hey, let’s quote that guy.

“The U.S. government spends more per capita on health care than the governments in many socialist states. However, the countries that achieve some form of universal coverage at the very lowest cost are not the highly socialist systems but the market-oriented systems, countries like Switzerland and Singapore.”

The Swiss System where they have a mandate stronger than our mandate? This is just trolling, right? I’m being trolled by a press release from the State House GOP? Anyway, that’s the whole section. I agree we need a health care mandate if we’re not going to have universal single payer. The good news is we got one, press release complaining about Obamacare. It’s part of Obamacare. For what it’s worth, I care more about health outcomes than if some asshole is going to call it socialism. There are some vague platitudes about health savings accounts without any discussion of how they would work in the state, but it’s still nice out, so I’m going for a jog.

– In case you’re wondering if there’s still time to register to vote in Washington, congrats! There is.

– I kind of like that the rest of the country doesn’t think all that much of us (also, the maps that the post links to are as interesting as Emmitt says).

– Fox News knows the best thing for poor kids is to starve them.

– Goldy’s piece on universal preschool in Seattle is important. I don’t think the dynamic of how the state level would react is quite spot on. I’d think they would spend more time trying to kill it in Seattle/King County than they would implementing it statewide, but hopefully I’m wrong.

– I think there’s a great value in apologizing, but yeah, a lot of them are empty and that can be problematic.

– When is a war not a war?

I don’t put much stock into endorsements in general. God knows people I like have endorsed people I don’t, and people I can’t stand have endorsed people I really like. There are also considerations beyond policy that influence endorsements. So as I say, politicians endorsing one another don’t sway me, and I don’t think they sway very many people.

But when there are endorsements of that kind, I think it can be interesting to see how it plays into the narratives around a campaign. So as Ed Murray nears a quorum of the Seattle City Council endorsing him, I thought it might be worth considering one of the main narratives of the race: namely that Mike McGinn doesn’t play well with others.

Maybe he does, and maybe he doesn’t. But the City Council went out of their way a couple times to poison the well early on. Of course the City Council voting on the Viaduct replacement tunnel less than a month before the election was an attempt to support McGinn’s opponent, and to take things out of the hands of the voters. If they cared about making irenic gestures or whatever, they could have waited until the election was over. They were on track to have an 8-1 majority of pro-tunnel council members, so there was no need to hold the election then. They also repealed the head tax after McGinn won but before he was sworn in. That vote was 8-1, and it might have been 7-2 after O’Brien was sworn in. Again, they could have waited and negotiated with him if they cared about working with him, but with a veto proof majority as a backstop. Maybe a solution would have worked out and maybe it wouldn’t. But they didn’t even try.

Also, not on policy, but I went to several McGinn events after the election but before the transfer of power.* None of the City Council members who complain about how he doesn’t work with them made even a token appearance. If they’d have wanted to work with him in any meaningful way and not just butted heads, just showing up would have gone a long way.

None of this is to say McGinn is easy to work with or that Murray wouldn’t be better at that skill set. But if it was really the problem for Ed Murray that he claims, well, he would probably blame both sides. And, yes, I know that’s not how campaigns work: you go after your opponents, not the people who endorsed you. I just wish someone whose emails his campaign returns would ask him about it the next time he complains about McGinn not working well with others.

[Read more…]

The Puyallup Fair starts today (TNT link). The organizers are insisting on calling it the Washington State Fair in Puyallup, but that’s just being dumb. I mean they have their reasons and bless them for that. But honestly, how many humans had to agree to that change? I bet it was more than one human.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for upending tradition when it’s needed. If calling it The Puyallup Fair was racist or sexist, for example, I’d say tradition be damned, find a new name. But there’s no need to change it, and it was lovely that we called that instead of the State Fair. Every state has a state fair, but only we had The Puyallup Fair. So I’m going to keep calling it that.

Given how curmudgeonly I feel about this in my 30’s, I’m already sorry for people who know me in the future. I also call it the Bus Tunnel even though I probably use it for rail more than buses now, and I call the stadium where the Seahawks play Seahawks Stadium.

Seattle Bike Blog is reporting that Seattle will spend its school zone speeding camera money on school safety improvements.

The city installed a couple cameras last year, and the revenue generated far exceeded expectations (bad and good news). But there are also signs that the cameras themselves are changing behavior. Citations have fallen 16 percent since cameras were installed, and nearly every person who has received one ticket has not received a second.

So generating the money makes streets safer, and investing the money makes streets safer. Perfect.

The end game for the cameras would be zero speeding in school zones. People in Seattle will know that school zone speeding is taken extremely seriously. Of course, this would theoretically dry up the millions the cameras generate for school safety, but that would be a beautiful problem to have.

As long as the money comes from and goes to reducing those violations, it seems like a pretty good thing. I wouldn’t want the city to become dependent on that money for social services or whatever, vital as that is.

– Scientists warn that climate change is causing oceans to warm and expand, triggering sea level rise. New models estimate seas could climb from 18 inches to well over 50 inches by the turn of the century, a level that would inundate downtown Olympia. (h/t)

– Since this is a Northwest blog, I don’t know how much in the open threads to mention other states. But ugh Texas, and ugh Texas.

– The GOP plan on health care seems to be to make as many people suffer as possible in the hope that people blame Obama for their suffering.

– Back to school, everybody.

– Are 21 stores going to be enough for your marijuana needs, Seattle?

– The Seattle City Council unanimously approved a couple bills to help make bike share a reality in the city.

– I just know we’ll get it right this time.

Lee and Darryl posted on the Federal government’s backing off of our and Colorado’s marijuana laws. It means that at least for a while things can proceed. So it got me thinking, now that the lowest of the low hanging fruit has been plucked, what’s the next step for Washington voters/activists to push for in ending the drug war? If I do the rest of this as a series of questions, it hopefully encourages discussion, and means I don’t have to do any actual research.

In an open thread the other day, I noted the proposal to make it not a felony to have larger quantities of drugs provided there wasn’t an intent to distribute. Is that a good next step? Are there questions about the ways to make sure that the marijuana legalization is implemented in a proper manner that we can best serve as a model for the rest of the country? Is there money in the budget for rehab and other programs that would be better than prison?

Anyway, have at it, in the comments.

Goldy reports on a press conference on the possibility of getting a transit package in a special session.

Both Inslee and Constantine spoke about the importance of including additional tax authority for King County in the package to stave off a projected 17 percent cut in Metro bus service. But it’s not clear that even a November special session can come soon enough to prevent some cutbacks. The transportation package that passed the House—the one Inslee said he was ready to press the “go” button on if the Senate passed it—would give King County the authority to raise up to a 1.5 percent Motor Vehicle Excise Tax (MVET), but only on approval of voters. A special election would take months to mount, and implementation would take months more. But Metro will run through its reservers by the end of June, 2014.

I hope we can get a transit package that gives King County a chance to tax ourselves as we want. I’m not thrilled with tying that to spending money on roads, but fine, whatever. And I hope it actually saves Metro from serious cuts. But if Metro is cut, I hope it’s disproportionately from Rodney Tom’s district. I want people to be in this together, but Rodney Tom has personally made the Senate an unworkable pile of bullshit. So yeah, the cuts should hurt his district more than the rest of us. As long as he has no incentive to be decent, he won’t be.

– I hope you had a lovely Labor Day weekend. As a downtown resident, I spent most of the weekend avoiding the Bumbershoot and PAX crowds.

– I’m glad Obama is asking Congress for permission on Syria, but other than that, it seems problematic.

– Sometimes our trolls will link to some story ostensibly about a White Trayvon Martin. Oliver Willis provides a handy flow chart for them to see if it holds up.

– Dear WSU fans, you have a problem (h/t to Nick on Facebook).

– Still glad that Mike Kreidler is insurance commissioner.

– Under this new proposal, the possession of any drug, when not intended for distribution, would be reduced from a felony charge, to a misdemeanor, reducing the maximum sentence from 5 years, to 90 days. This would explicitly apply to cannabis, given that – despite the possession of 28 grams or less not being a crime (thanks to Initiative 502) – the possession of over 40 grams is an automatic felony, which is something that not many in Washington State understand.

– That Lt. Governor of Texas seems super nice.

This is my second post this week on Syria. There are two problems with me doing that. (1) It’s not Pacific Northwest related, so outside of the scope of what I generally try to write on this blog. (2) It’s not something I have any particular knowledge of. Still, here I am writing it and here you are reading it. I guess the fact that we may momentarily commit ourselves to another Middle East war deserves two posts, even if they’re outside my wheelhouse.

If the case that Syria used Chemical weapons is as strong as Secretary Kerry claims it is, it seems to me there ought to be a diplomatic case or a legal one against the members of the regime that ordered it, not missiles fired from ships. Syria is not a party to the International Criminal Court (and neither is the US), so the best way to punish the regime seems off the table. But I wonder if there might be a way to bring Assad and the generals who carried it out to justice in a country with universal jurisdiction.

It seems to me that something like a case in Canada or Belgium for war crimes could act as a real punishment for the regime without the cost, collateral damage, and blow back that you get from actual acts of war. It would be tricky for the US to do legally, outside of US courts, of course. But so is getting ourselves involved in a war, or at least it ought to be tough to do also.

As I said the other day, I agree with the administration that the use of chemical weapons needs a response. I’m just not sure it needs a military response.