Rand Paul came to town recently. He said some nonsense about guns:

It was a terrible morning to glorify guns. At the exact same time that everyone on the internet was horrified by the latest in a seemingly unending string of mass shootings, Paul’s adulation of the 2nd amendment felt awkward and dripping with an unpleasant machismo. ( “If you doubt me on the 2nd Amendment, come into my house unannounced,” Paul warned as the room applauded the thought of Paul shooting another person to death.) Before Paul took the stage, local politician Elizabeth Scott was proudly introduced as a member of the NRA. Meanwhile, on Twitter, people were scrolling past auto-play videos filmed by a man as he murdered two innocent people in cold blood. For a candidate who repeatedly claims to be uniquely in touch with reality, Paul is surprisingly out-of-step with an America that overwhelmingly favors commonsense gun safety laws.

When I talk about gun control with my pro gun friends, I’ll almost always hear someone talk about responsible gun ownership. But this sort of braggadocio is alarmingly common. Oh, give me the chance to kill the fuck out of someone who comes to my house unannounced. That’s not a death penalty offense, but I’m so excited about it I’m going to share this fantasy that to a decent person would be one of the worst days of their life with several hundred supporters.

It’s something decent people aren’t fantasizing about. It isn’t something the sort of people who feel responsible would say. And if people wanted hold him responsible, they could boo instead of applaud.

Now sure, I realize that one candidate from one party who isn’t doing very well in the polls isn’t indicative of the whole of gun owners. But this sort of thing rarely, if ever, gets called out from the people who tell me they’re the responsible sort. Hell, a dickbag can wrap bacon around his gun, get what type of gun it is wrong, and nobody who claims to be all about responsible gun ownership is like “Um, noppers buddy. That’s not how ya’ do it.”

So you know, step the fuck up. Or people like me — that rare breed who do actually want to take your gun away — are going to keep being the ones to call it out.

I decided to hold off on this post mostly due to laziness, but also because writing it while the stock market was going down in the last week or so might seem a bit justifying Obama or whatever. But now today that the Dow went up 619.07 mostly meaningless to me points, the post stands on it’s own. And that is why the fuck were people claiming a week’s worth of bad stock market news was some how reflective of Obama’s handling of the economy, of some sort of shade of capitalism more generally, or of stories about panic!!!!!!! throughout the land?

The truth is that Obama is handling the economy fine, and on the granular level doesn’t have much to do one way or the other with the stock market going down in a given day or week, or week and change. Capitalism will have its ups and downs but it’s here for a long time. And stories about panic!!!!!!!!!!!!!! are pretty boring absent actual panic.

Of course, people’s retirement accounts are often tied up with the market. I know mine are. But I’m not retiring for several decades. So unless you’re planning on retiring this month, these fluctuations will probably be something you’ll be able to ride out. While it was bad for some people, for the majority, it wasn’t anything unless you panic.

Maybe the issue is that the Dow — or the market more generally — is the only snapshot of the economy we have. However flawed it is, it’s something to say what the economy did today. Or this week. Or whatever short amount of time. But maybe we don’t need that. Maybe we don’t have a good measure of the economy in such short bursts because that’s not a good way to think of the economy.

– I’m surprised it took Senator Murray that long to support the Iran deal. Still, good for her for being on the right side of this.

– Yes, 50 women are difficult to disbelieve. But one should be just as difficult to disbelieve, especially when we understand the enormous disincentives that any woman faces in reporting and how many rapes go unreported for just that reason.

– This oil train forum in Olympia looks like it might be interesting.

– But the most disappointing aspect of the new lane is its abrupt end. SDOT and Seattle Public Schools (“SPS”) failed to come to an agreement to extend the bike lane at least to Harrison Street, with direct access to Seattle Center.

– I generally don’t think of myself as being a big fan of 80’s music (not a genre, but whatever), but I’ve been enjoying 80’s day on KEXP so far.

– Despite agreeing with everything in this cartoon, it seems to me the best reason to oppose treating prisoners poorly isn’t recidivism, but because it’s bad on its own.

It looks like Bertha’s cut cut bits are getting back underground.

Welp, another recovery goal has been met for the broke-down, downtown tunnel boring machine: Bertha’s repaired front end is now reuniting with the rest of its body. Seattle Tunnel Partners (STP), the state’s contractor, started lowering Bertha’s 2,000-ton cutterhead and drive unit into the rescue pit this afternoon—a complex positioning job that will wrap up tomorrow.

Once Bertha’s new facial transplant makes its way into the pit, STP will begin reconnecting all of the machine’s parts and test the monster for two months. These tests consist of a “no load” (read: no soil and water) exam and another exam that will measure how the machine’s cutterhead spins into earth.

It won’t be until November that they finish all the tests, and start it up properly. Now the project is scheduled to finish in early 2018. We’ll see.

Honestly, I was as as opposed to the project as anyone, but we had a vote, and that matters. So as long as the state or the contractor — who whoever that isn’t Seattle really — is paying for it, I wish the project the best. Also, please finish before there’s a major earthquake.

– Maybe we shouldn’t reward Chuck Schumer for being so wrong on Iran by making him the next Democratic leader.

– Seriously, birthright citizenship is the best, and anyone opposing it is the worst. QED.

– The seawall project is over budget.

– The Breitbart people should be ashamed of themselves. Part something in an infinity series.

– And the fact that millions of “pro-life” American Christians have just shown us, yet again, that they prefer this monstrous fantasy to reality — that they cannot tolerate daily life a world that doesn’t include cannibalism and Satanic baby-killers killing babies for Satan.

– Excellent news for SeaTac workers

– RIP Jane Shannon

– How False Narratives of Margaret Sanger Are Being Used to Shame Black Women

– BrechtFest is the best name for an event ever, but no Mother Courage?

– Kitchen Tips

When the legislative session finally ended, Senator Schoesler — the Majority Leader — decided to write about how excellent the session turned out. In light of the legislature being in contempt for how badly they fucked up on education (paraphrasing the recent McCleary ruling), I thought it would be fun (?) to revisit. Enjoy…

This year’s Legislature did not impose a general tax increase. We did end a couple of small tax breaks, which some members of the Democratic majority in the House are calling a major victory, and we raised gas taxes for road construction with our transportation package. But that’s not quite the same thing as imposing $1.5 billion in new and increased taxes to finance the growth of government, remake the state economy to suit liberal urban activists, and set the state up for an income tax in the future.

You could have maybe been on the path to sustain education if not for that. Anyway, I’m sure that knowing that the state officially fucked up education, we can look back on the education part of the post and see how the top GOP person thought about that issue.

Victory number two? We fully funded basic education, passing the best K-12 budget we have seen in the last 30 years. We increased spending by $1.3 billion and we made significant progress in satisfying the state Supreme Court mandate that we do right by our schools.

Um, not so much.

Now, I know the fuckuping on education has come with Democratic governors and with legislatures from both parties. But honestly, this is some pretty awful bragging given how horrible the courts have found it.

– None Dare Call it Classism

– I think we can all agree that after his years of hating unions, being so obviously correct on the tunnel, the ham handed way he tried to push his way into the Senate seat last time, Reuven Carlyle deserves a promotion.

– The mayor of Airway Heights who said racist shit about the Obamas has resigned. Ostensibly because of his health, but come on.

– Straight Outta Compton is bold, invigorating, and reminded me of all the things I do love about rap music. It also reinforces, affirms, and glorifies the systems in place that dehumanize, commodify, and erase Black women.

– Birthright citizenship is one of the greatest things we do as a country. So of course, Republicans are against it.

– #SpeechesMatter

– Any time is the right time to disrupt white supremacy: Thoughts on Westlake, historical legacies and supporting Black women [h/t]

– RIP Julian Bond

– I’m pretty excited about the upcoming Park(ing) Day

– I like Bernie Sanders, and may vote for him, but his fans really need to understand that one presidential candidate isn’t the end all be all to make change.

– Was the American Civil War about slavery? Short answer: yes. Long answer: yes.

– I’d say that Singaporean transit is every US lefty urban planner’s dream come true, but that isn’t quite accurate. Their wildest dreams fall far short of the Singaporean reality.

Oh right. I said I was gong to do these.

I’m on vacation for the rest of this week, and am back the middle of next week. I won’t be taking my computer, so I’ll have no idea what’s going on (as opposed to usual when I have no idea what’s going on for other reasons) so I’ll probably be out until the 17th. I will have my phone with me, so I may post the occasional open thread, but not with any sort of Monday-Wednesday-Friday regularity, but they’ll probably be even shorter than this short note. I’ve mentioned this to some of the other posters, so there will still probably be some stuff here.

Anyway, see you in a few weeks.

– Looks like a great panel.

– I just want to point out that women, in general, particularly older women, can’t win on this one. If they don’t go out of their way to at least look presentable they’re called an “old crone” and if they do they’re derided for spending so much time and money to try to look presentable. And none of it prevents the world from being casually vocal about how revolting they look look either way.

– I doubt this will keep Tim Eyman’s bullshit off the ballot. Still, at a certain point, this nonsense is just going to have to stop. It’s tough to change the state constitution for a reason.

– So the fake Planned Parenthood videos are now causing state governments to harass abortion providers that don’t even participate in the tissue donation program.

– And so, I sacrifice thee in the name of the Second Amendment!

Maybe it’s a coincidence or maybe it’s corporate policy that have caused all 3 Seattle area Chick-fil-A stores have failed their health inspections recently. Some people might say that places are going to have bacteria and that’s why we have health inspectors in the first damn place. But my guess is God is punishing them.

God was like, “I sent my only Son to tell you to love your neighbor as yourself, and instead you guys act like a dickbags: Here have some bacteria. Also, Ezell’s is still pretty good.”

I hope that sounds absurd, but there is a version of the fundamental attribution error — call it the fundamentalist attribution error — that certain religious people can subscribe to. They believe that everything that happens that they agree with is God’s doing and everything that they don’t agree with is just stuff that happens.

Chick-fil-A should be less hateful not because God might send them some disease, but because it’s the right thing to do. While their ownership would probably disagree with me, I’d also say it’s the Christian thing to do. And they should also do a better job cleaning up. Because ick.

– On global warming, I would still prefer we have a reasonable state senate, but this will work.

– The deceptively edited anti Planned Parenthood videos might put abortion providers’ lives at risk.

– Chris Christie’s (and probably most Republican candidates) attempt to push against states that have legalized marijuana is pretty unhelpful.

– The Seattle Review of Books looks like it’s going to be pretty great.

– I’m not a dog owner, but it seems like the off leash ares in the city are pretty pathetic. So maybe help Seattle know what would be better.

– Does Meet The Press have any standards for who they’ll have on as a guest? No? Cool.

– Assuming you are not performing in a film or play in which re-creating the late 19th or early 20th Centuries involves the realistic depiction of a minstrel show, it is not complicated to determine whether or not donning blackface is a good idea. For anyone who might be confused I have assembled a handy flowchart.

– Oh hey, Democratic foreign policy is actually decent.

– The news around the Wyatt Cenac interview on WTF reminds me of the issues Lauren Weedman had on the show. No matter what you think of the show itself, these sort of things are a pattern, and not a good one.

– When George W. Bush tried to use his narrow victory in 2004 to claim a mandate to privatize Social Security, it didn’t really take. In large part because it was a terrible idea, but also because he didn’t campaign on it, so the whole mandate thing wasn’t really there. So I can sort of see why Jeb is running on phasing out Medicare now, so maybe he will have a mandate to do it. But it’s still a really terrible idea.