HorsesAss.Org

Dominic Holden has a pretty amazing piece about the fact that The Seattle Times is charging its employees to use the Seattle Times online archive.

As a reporter, I frequently have to search our website’s online archives for linking, providing context, or developing backfill on articles. It didn’t seem possible that a newspaper would actually charge its reporters for an essential function of their jobs. That would be like installing payphones on everyone’s desk and pocketing the money.

At first, when I read that last sentence, I thought don’t give them any ideas. Giving Frank Blethen ways to screw his employees over is like giving Frank Blethen a gun and a puppy: nothing good can come out of it, yet Frank Blethen will be full of smiles. But then I thought fuck it, and came up with a list of other ways he can screw his employees:

• Charge reporters for pens and notepads
• Force delivery drivers to pay for routine maintenance on their trucks, or at least to paint them over
• Reclassify all employees as interns, and don’t pay them
• Instead of paying writers per word, charge them per word for proofing and editing
• Force freelancers to buy ad space
• Force columnists to sell ad space
• Give ad space away free to candidates and causes, thus devaluing the pretense of neutrality that the paper strives for
• Make nepotism hires for important jobs

I didn’t know about it until a little while ago, but this seems like a great thing if it might be helpful for you.

Many women have never considered career options such as welding, electricity or carpentry, but these opportunities are available, and even more so as baby boomer workers are nearing retirement. Who WILL keep our lights on, our bridges safe, our water running and our roads paved? These are jobs that cannot be outsourced.

As the oldest women’s trade organization in the Puget Sound, it is WWIT’s job to educate and inspire our youth, as well as steer work-ready women toward these high paying, mentally challenging, and self-empowering careers in the trades.

The other day I was riding the Link Light Rail, and at Columbia City. The doors started to close and then re-opened with the train not going anywhere. Then it happened again. And again. And again. I didn’t see anything wrong, and assumed it was someone holding the door, or something else happening in another car.

But then the person in the seat next next to mine got up, and grabbed a plastic bottle, and said that it had been blocking the way. And with that the doors closed, and the train got on its way. All told, probably less than a minute, but given the way Seattle can be, who knows how long it would have been if he hadn’t done something.

So this post is mostly just thanks to whoever it was who picked it up.

– I’m still opposed to spending money beyond bonding capacity on a stadium, but now I hope some hiccup means Sacramento doesn’t get to keep their team just out of spite.

– “This was a step forward for justice,” Inslee said after the bill signing ceremony. “We can’t return people their lost years, but we can take a step that gives them a measure of respect and dignity.”

– Councilwoman Godden writes a fairly mild piece saying we should work on fixing the fact that Seattle is the worst big city for pay inequality, the comments are unhelpful.

– We’re still pretending Benghazi is some uniquely awful thing.

– I hope the Colbert Busch loss doesn’t mean Democrats write off the deep South.

– The Lake Forest Park farmers market opens on Mother’s Day.

Joel Connelly snarks on McGinn’s anti-violence stuff. But I think it’s good. Mostly on the teach kids not to be violent aspect.

“Weapons to Words” will ask Seattle schoolchildren to come up with a short quotation about gun violence. The best of their quotations, on what a violence-free future means to them, will be inscribed on plaques made from the 760 weapons collected earlier this year in the gun buyback program. Schnitzer Steel is making the plagues. Chihuly Studio is “shaping the aesthetics” in the words of Leslie Jackson Chihuly, its president.

“The plaques will be placed across Seattle so they can leave a lasting legacy,” McGinn said.

Sounds like a good idea. Teach kids to think about what a violence free world would look like. And it’s a nice metaphor to use the returned guns for that. It seems like a win-win. Except that it gives Rush Limbaugh a sad, so he doesn’t win.

When he got back to the office, McGinn found himself a politician doubly blessed. The “Weapons to Words” program was promptly lampooned over the air by that rhinoceros of right-wing talk radio, Rush Limbaugh. Liberal Seattle doesn’t boast many of the followers Limbaugh calls “Ditto Heads.”

If this was a bad idea, the fact that Rush Limbaugh doesn’t like it wouldn’t improve it. But the fact that it’s a decent lesson for children that he’s upset about means that it’s really icing on the cake.

And the fact that Limbaugh is upset about it is probably all you need to about if compromise is possible. Taking guns that people voluntarily turned in, and making them into quotes about not being violent is too much for these fuckers.

Yesterday afternoon, David Jarman of the DailyKos Elections group posted SC-01 special election benchmarks and predictions, presenting background information about the district and asking commenters to make their prognostications about the Sanford-Colbert Busch battle.

I offered my thoughts at 12:36pm, many hours before the polls closed in Charleston and Hilton Head:

sad to say … 54-45-1

Sanford in the majority.

And in the House, he’ll have plenty of free time for hiking.

As of this morning, the unofficial results from the South Carolina Secretary of State read:

Mark Sanford (REP)                     54.04%
Elizabeth Colbert Busch (DEM)       41.86%
Elizabeth Colbert Busch (WFM)        3.35%
Eugene Platt (GRN)                       0.48%
Write-in                                      0.27%

Summing Colbert Busch’s Democratic and Working Families lines — SC, like New York and Oregon, uses fusion voting — we get 45.22% as her total percentage. Rounded to integers, that comes to 54-45-0; had the Green picked up 27 more votes, his total would have rounded up to 1%.

So… who’s running in the Hastings Handicap this Sunday?

No, this isn’t the first rant on this subject on HA. Unlike Will, I don’t think this is just a not getting it thing or a lack of basic politeness thing. And it’s not some inherent flaw among the escalator users of Settle. I think its signage.

Namely, most cities have signs on at least their public transit saying to stand on the right. They don’t trust it to chance, or whatever. They don’t think you should just know. Ideally it would go beyond just public transit. It could be for multiple story malls, or for the Convention Center. Basically, anywhere with escalators wide enough that you can pass someone.

Yes, you should know to clear a path for people who want to go. It’s common decency. On a busy time of day, it helps people who need (or want) to rush somewhere. Sometimes it just feels claustrophobic to not be able to get through. But I bet most of the people bunched up just don’t know that there can be a system.

I emailed the King County Metro customer service and asked if there is a rule even if it isn’t posted and if there might be signage at some point in the future since trains will be coming in from East Link and University Link. No response.

I feel like this is the sort of thing that’s about the right size for some HA activism. So I’m going to start bugging public officials. I assume King County is responsible for the Bus Tunnel, and ST for the rest of the off grade escalators along the system? [Late Update, KC responded, and said it was a Sound Transit issue. I’ve emailed them.]

But until then, please stand on the right.

Huh. I spotted this truck on the streets of Redmond late last week.

Please join us tonight for an evening of politics over a pint at the Seattle Chapter of Drinking Liberally.

We meet every Tuesday evening at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. Starting time is 8:00pm. Some people show up earlier than that for Dinner.

Can’t make it to Seattle tonight? Check out one of the other DL meetings over the next week.

Tonight the Tri-Cities chapter also meets. On Wednesday, the Bellingham chapter meets. On Thursday Drinking Liberally Bremerton meets.

With 204 chapters of Living Liberally, including sixteen in Washington state, four in Oregon, and two more in Idaho, chances are excellent there’s a chapter meeting near you.

– Speed Limit 20

– It’s nice that we have a mayor and at least one challenger who are at least willing to talk the talk on addressing the pay gap in Seattle. Not sure if that translates into actual progress.

– The gun is called “The Liberator,” obviously. Because all the privileged people who have access to 3-D printers are super fucking oppressed and shit.

– I’m not sure that a wishy washy factor would be meaningful in any way, and a couple debates is way too small of a sample size. Also, those yes/no lightning rounds are pretty much unhelpful.

– By not testing available DNA evidence using new scientific techniques that were not available at the time of his 1994 trial, Mississippi is choosing to ignore readily available scientific evidence in favor of flawed conclusions based on shaky racially charged testimony, as well as jailhouse informant testimony, which studies have found is particularly susceptible to manipulation.

– Oh hey, the Volunteer Park conservatory is having a plant sale next weekend.

The Seattle City Council yesterday approved the expansion of the Metropolitan Improvement District, the taxing district that funds extra clean-up service and security for a large portion of downtown Seattle, Pioneer Square, the Denny Triangle, and now, Belltown. If you work, live, or otherwise find yourself downtown, you’ve probably encountered folks in yellow jackets cleaning up or otherwise keeping an eye on things. That’s them. What’s new this time is that the taxing district now includes Belltown, the largest of downtown’s area neighborhoods.

Here’s a map:

A fun fact about the MID: they record each instance of “number two” they clean up in the downtown area. This means that someone in their office has a feces-themed map, speckled with dots.

Goldy points out that any push to dismantle Worker’s Comp as part of the budget will be disingenuous.

In other words, Republicans are attempting to impose hardship on workers in order to fix a problem that doesn’t exist. Kinda like Rodney Tom’s campaign to eliminate the GET program, or the Republicans’ broader efforts to end state pension programs that are among the best funded in the nation.

It will be tempting for Democrats to give in to the Republicans’ anti-worker demands in order to craft a compromise budget, but one hopes they have the smarts and the courage to call bullshit on this bullshit when bullshit it is.

Of course that’s true. But fixing the budget was never the GOP goal. Weakening our workers comp system is good enough for them. Putting the state further on the side of employers over employees has always been the goal. It’s the reason for the existence of the modern GOP.

– I’m hardly ever in Tacoma anymore, but when I go there, I always picked up a copy of the Weekly Volcano. Sadly, no more (h/t).

– It’s always a choice to be a bigot.

– There’s a rally opposed to Don Benton’s appointment to Director of Environmental Services: Tuesday May 07 at 6:00 PM at the Public Service Building, 1300 Franklin St. (I couldn’t find a permanent link, but right now it’s the post at the top).

– But the one about how Obama doesn’t have a mandate because he’s too good at politics is something special; it’s so self-refuting it’s almost a Zen riddle.

– Washington is number 1 for biking (h/t).

–Argument from Sociopathic Cost-Benefit Analysis is sociopathic

– Welcome home USS John C. Stennis

Last week’s contest was won by milwhcky. It was in Tupelo, MS (and I believe it’s the Taekwondo business that is now the center of the weird ricin case).

This week’s location is a random spot somewhere on earth, good luck!

Isaiah 34:7
And the unicorns shall come down with them, and the bullocks with the bulls; and their land shall be soaked with blood, and their dust made fat with fatness.

Discuss.