Starbuck the dog (maybe with some help from his owner BGK) has a good overview of the marriage equality debate shaping up. Go read the whole thing.

While I was there, this particular argument from the anti-side struck me as pretty disingenuous.

While the bill has been amended to provide narrow exemptions for religious organizations that do not choose to be involved in same-sex ceremonies, it contains nothing to provide the same protections for private businesses that refuse service for these ceremonies on the grounds of religious conscience. That invites massive new lawsuits against photographers, bakers and decorators, tuxedo and wedding dress stores, hotels, caterers and others involved in the wedding industry.

I want to be clear here: It should be illegal to discriminate in business in Washington, including in the wedding industry.* Discrimination is wrong, and it doesn’t make sense to carve out this piece from our anti-discrimination laws.

But even if that’s your problem, it seems like this referendum is a pretty poor way of going about solving it. I mean these groups have shown they can gather signatures en masse. If that’s the concern, why not let the marriage equality law pass and get their particular exception to our anti-discrimination laws on the ballot?

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The tone of this piece is a little odd, but you know what, I support the sentiment.

We love it when Seattle tops a best-cities list. Are Seattlites fashionable? Check. Are we bookish? Sure. Are our hotels and apartments infested with bedbugs?

Not really. At least, not like the ones in Philadelphia.

We’re not in the top 15 (if a survey by a pest control company is accurate, it may well not be).

Anyway, they’re pretty aggressive about keeping bedbugs out in my building. We have posters for how to recognize bedbugs and we had a dog come in a while ago to sniff out each apartment. So as of, like February, I’m good on this front.

– Seattle has black jobs and white jobs. If President Obama went down there and applied, he couldn’t get one of those jobs.

– More anti-abortion bullshit coming out of Texas.

– So far The Stranger’s map of free outlets is pretty bare. But it’s a good start.

– Republican members of the Senate think that the path to small business success is paved with the unpaid wages of working women.

– The Up Garden.

– I don’t know about you, but I think Lindy West wrote the greatest opening paragraph in the history of words.

– Let Mitt do the driving.

– How Feudalism works.

The Tacoma News Tribune has an editorial objecting to bonuses for General Services Administration managers. I have nothing in the editorial qua the editorial to object to (OK, it starts off with an unnecessary metaphor implying that GSA managers are the same as dogs, but the thrust of the piece is fine). GSA fucked up and the pressure should stay on on them. This is the sort of public good that we expect newspapers to push, and to push hard.

But I don’t remember the Trib lamenting the managers at big banks getting bonuses. I did a few searches. Maybe I missed something. You can argue private versus public, that we should care more about a government agency like the GSA. But given the big banks central role in society (I’d say I interact with banks a lot more than with the GSA) surely they ought to be held accountable in some way. And of course one main reason they stayed afloat during the crisis and have done well since is the massive amount of freeish money taxpayers are giving them. Surely those bonuses to people who fucked things up are worse use of taxpayer money than bonuses to the GSA.

But fine, maybe that’s not a direct waste of taxpayer money if you buy what the banks are saying. Still there was a scandal about missing money in Iraq a few years ago and it pops up every now and again that kind of makes the GSA story seem teeny tiny itty bitty. The Trib’s Ed Board editorialized against it too. But this is the only one that I could find. After the 3rd inspector general’s report, they finally did one piece on it. It seems like any waste of money by a government agency cranks out similar outrage.

– The social engineering in recruiting and force structure, the endless, pointless missions,the impossible standard set by asking every soldier to be a “hero,” when soldiers know that most heroes are dead or disabled. Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. Which is why it’s no wonder that we see stories like this…

– Another chance for Pierce Transit voters to vote for a sales tax increase to help their system.

– Paid signature gathering, what could go wrong?

– I haven’t had a chance to watch the Revitalizing State and Local Blogging panel at Netroots Nation, but the tweets were interesting.

– Olympia High School‘s response to Westboro Baptist Church. [h/t, and while you’re there, check out the Calvin Johnson walking tour of Olympia]

– I’m the guy in the video. LOL forever.

I’m not sure how much value we should put into a no hitter. After all, it’s as much of a win as a 9-10 slug fest or a 3-12 blowout. And with the Mariners it isn’t even a point of pride for the starter. It seems like it’s becoming more common, although maybe that’s just my perception.

Still, having grown up on New York and lived out here in the Seattle area most of my life, it’s very nice indeed that both of my teams have had one this year. It’s especially nice for the Mets since 50 years. But either way it’s a great day in the midst of a long season.

Also (and there was some discussion of this in one of the Mets blogs last week, but I can’t find it), for the love of God, mention the no hitter in your emails and facebook postings. “Are you watching the game?” Doesn’t cut it. I know baseball fans get superstitious about mentioning the no hitter. But the best case is that your friends get to see something great and the worst case is they think you’re magic.

I was surprised at how hard the loss in Wisconsin hit me. I mean, it wasn’t like the Democrats nominated someone other than a corporate shill (just less of one than Walker). I’ve never even been there. Still, the loss. The stripping away of union rights. The fact that money got to dictate the agenda even more than usual. That this somehow became more of a process story rather than a story about Walker until election day when it was a reformation of his agenda.

But still, a win would have turned back something. It would have signaled that enough is enough. That at our best we’re in it together. That corporate money doesn’t trump decency and hard work. I don’t know what to say, except keep working.

Corporate money and obfuscation won the day. And it sucks. But as much as powerful interests want to drown out your voice, you still have a voice. As much as organizing lost to big money this time, there will be a next time. As much as this is a setback, as much as people’s lives are going to be hurt by his policies, it’s not the end. There is no end.

So, I know I only got 1/3 of the way through Lou Guzzo’s book if that (and it’s tiny). But I was walking through Elliott Bay Books the other day and I passed Mitt Romney’s book. Torn between buying it and trying to slog through it here on the one hand or not doing that, I eventually put it down. But if you guys are interested, I might pick it up next time.

– Goldy lays out the costs of an arena to SoDo.

– Europe is working how Europe was designed to work.

– Why was the reaction among liberals to Wisconsin so different from the reaction to North Carolina?

– This investigation is not about wayward US nuns. It is the last gasp for control by a dying breed, wrapped in its own self-importance.

– Charges dropped against 16 occupiers of abandoned Capitol Hill building

– I think there is something to mourn as newspapers switch from paper to online only.

– Checkmate, Pro-Choicers

– I would totally like to read baby names for bad parents.

I like Joel Connelly, but in his coverage this back and forth between the Association of Washington Business and the Inslee campaign, he misses the larger point.

“As you can imagine, accepting $100,000 from a major oil company openly supporting Mr. McKenna leaves the impression that the money is intended for eventual use on behalf of Mr. McKenna against Jay Inslee,” Shimomura wrote to the AWB.

“This raises serious concerns for us, and we imagine it will raise concerns for many viewers and voters as well.” Shimomura urged the Association of Washington Business to “return Tesoro’s contribution.”

One problem: Tesoro and Equilon (Shell) were using the AWB PAC not to support McKenna, but to pass through money to Tim Eyman’s Initiative 1185. Seattlepi.com and Northwest Progressive Institute both posted stories May 11 on the pass-through. Eyman, too, explained the arrangement in a letter to his followers.

Four big oil companies, BP ($100,000), ConocoPhillips ($100,000) Tesoro ($100,000) and Equilon ($50,000) are underwriting the I-1185 signature campaign while Eyman delivers populist sound bites. BP and ConocoPhillips gave directly to the campaign.

Maybe. But I think the larger point is still holy shit, the global warming industry is throwing around how much money, again? The fact that these companies — and they are anti-Inslee companies — freely spend this much money is a huge problem. For huge companies to spend more than what most people make in a year like it’s Monopoly money is a disgrace. I realize Joel covered it before, but for that to be an aside is taking your eye off the ball.

I don’t want to be too cynical about Operation Blade Runner (except the name, insert replicant joke here). I mean obviously, it’s the job of the police to go after street dealers. And I’m certainly one of the people who has complained about the open air drug markets.

Still, as long as there’s a demand and it’s illegal, I don’t see the problem going away. New people will take over these places or there will be new places where people buy and sell drugs downtown.

– Oh good, I can add sewage overflow to my list of worries.

– Even the sportswriters are acting like Politico.

– Shiny objects.

– I like the idea of the price per parking spot of the Northgate parking garage. [h/t]

– Why do 13% of NRO readers hate America?

– I keep forgetting to post this, but I didn’t realize that dragon flies had a migration.

Free markets are often times the best policy. But so far (and yes, it’s early days) with liquor privatization, prices have gone up. Now if you think that markets are inherently good philosophically in all cases (or in this case) then the prices being up may be fine. And in the long run, maybe they start high but eventually go down or in the long run they won’t go up as much as if the state controlled distribution.

But I think if you’d told people a bottle of Jameson will go up couple bucks, and that’s generally true the initiative would have a lot less support. I mean whenever I was in Costco during the signature gathering and the campaign there were signs saying how much cheaper alcohol was in California. And attributing all of that to market forces over the big bad state government.

But market forces haven’t worked that way, at least not yet. And so while Costco will probably make a profit, the people who supported it at the ballot box may rightly be upset that they didn’t get the result they wanted. It may feel like more freedom to ideologues and people who make a greater profit. But for people who pay more, it’s just paying more.

We were told capitalism would bring down prices, and so far capitalism failed at that. I hope the next time we have a discussion of how to have markets in Washington, the proponents of more market solutions (and I may be one of them) will have the decency to use better logic than trust the market.

– Jamie Kilstein challenges Jonah Goldberg to a fight. [h/t]

– Bain Capital Owns and Controls Clear Chanel

– Thomas Jefferson famously defended religious liberty by saying, “It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are 20 gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.” But what happens when your neighbor says that his 20 gods or God or no God requires him to pick pockets and break legs?

– There are upcoming campaign kickoffs for Rob Holland and Hans Dunshee

– The Westboro Baptist Church is going to be in Olympia.

– It may be that President Obama’s evolution on gay marriage upsets fundamentalists more because they don’t believe in evolution than they don’t want gay people to have rights.

The Seattle Times has an editorial about the Initiative 1053 ruling.

We do not argue that Heller is legally mistaken. The Washington Constitution does not allow an initiative to raise the threshold for passing a law. Nor does it disallow it. Given that the Supreme Court can decide either way, we believe the court should let the people have what they want.

If it doesn’t allow it, it’s kind of the definition of beyond the prevue of the initiative process. And as Goldy notes, the state constitution is clear about what requires more than 2/3 to pass. And it’s not taxes.

But whatever, this is a particularly poor way of putting it but the logic that a majority vote should trump the constitution is pretty pervasive. So in the spirit of goodwill, here’s a list of other potential initiatives we could have that modify what the state constitution does without, I guess, bothering to modify the state constitution. These are all things I’d support in theory, but should be overturned if they passed as an initiative. I’m not sure any of them would pass, but you never know until you try.

– Obviously, a requirement that it takes a 2/3 vote of the legislature to cut social services and education. They’ve been cut to the bone, and beyond. If that passed, maybe we could have a reasonable discussion about tax policy versus spending. Obviously, I support this in a world where there’s a 2/3 requirement to cut taxes, not in the ideal world.

– Severe gun control measures. Sure, the state’s version of the second amendment (article 1, section 24) is stronger than the federal one. I think there are some reasonable gun control measures that can be passed, but would run into that if we go too far. But never mind that if 50% + 1 voters say it’s a good idea, we can outlaw firearms.

– A parliamentary system. Sure, sure, our constitution is pretty clear about us having a bicameral legislature and an executive. But if the people vote for a different system, why go through the hassle of changing the constitution?

– Or we could maybe change how legislators are elected. A lot of democracies have the percent of the vote be the distribution in the legislature. If 50% +1 want it, no need for a pesky, difficult to get constitutional amendment.