HorsesAss.Org

– In response to video of a controversial SPD arrest at 23rd and Union was released late last month, the Seattle King County NAACP and the No New Jim Crow Coalition group are holding a rally Saturday against police brutality.

– Seattle has teamed up with Gigabit Squared, a startup that wants to invest $200 million in building gigabit broadband networks in six college towns around the country, to build a gigabit network.

– Lee will probably have more, but it looks like at least initially, the Obama administration won’t go after Washington and Colorado marijuana users.

– In the past year, fuelers, cabin cleaners, and passenger service workers have spoken up publicly and directly to their contractors and airlines about the lack of proper safety equipment and dangerous working conditions at our airport.

– The Global Washington conference looks like it was pretty amazing.

– West Seattle Food Bank.

– I don’t think building a death star is practical.

I wasn’t able to get off work early so I’m just heading down there now. In the mean time enjoy the NPI twitter feed. I’ll update this when I’m there. I’m sure all of the local big wigs have already had their say.

… You can watch it here if you’re inclined.

… OK. I’ve got here, so far every speaker has been opposed. Tribal people and environmentalists. There are two rooms, so I don’t know what’s going on in the other room. I think more or less the same. When I came here, there was someone who took numbers, and there were over two thousand people up the escalator they had directed us to, one of two.

… We had one person supporting the project, but it’s definitely quite heavily opposed. I forgot to mention it in the last update, but The Backbone people were out in force outside with a giant salmon.

… A lot of the people who speak in opposition live near the tracks. I don’t know if that’s a concerted effort, by the people organizing the opposition or if it’s just that those people are the ones most likely to testify.

… You can tell when people are ringers when they can’t pronounce things like the “Hiram M. Chittenden Locks” or “Salish Sea.”

… The young people speaking know that this is their future.

… In the comments Roger wonders if this is all just window dressing. Maybe, but the thing is that you don’t know what will make the difference. The room is quite full, and it looks like the other one is too.

… We’ve had Christians and now a Druid speaking out against the trains.

… The last comment was made. It was quite anti-train.

I’m glad that this story about bus bulbs was written. I’m not sure that OMG drivers Are UPSET!!!!!!!! is the best was to write it. I don’t particularly like being stuck behind a bus when I’m driving, so fine. But maybe this paragraph:

Metro says bus bulbs save five to 10 seconds per stop, and more than 20 seconds in peak traffic. Seconds add up on a bus route, and affect the overall schedule. Next year, a few bulbs will be added on Greenwood Avenue North, but Metro doesn’t plan them on Aurora Avenue North, for the new E Line. Instead, buses will stop in the far right lane, as the Swift buses do on Highway 99 in Snohomish County.

Could be put before what I assume are personal stories about being stuck behind a bus told in the third person about “some motorists.” And I don’t want to be too critical, there is some good information.

Nina Shapiro in the Seattle Weekly writes about Norm Stamper’s regrets about I-502:

“I now question whether Washington state’s initiative needed to be as restrictive as it is,” Stamper says.

One of the restrictions he’s referring to is the initiative’s dui provision, which establishes a so-called “per-se” standard that would result in a conviction for anyone found to have 5 nanograms of active THC (a compound found in marijuana). This provision was the subject of fierce controversy during the campaign, with some activists arguing that pot affects people differently, so it doesn’t make sense to set one standard for impairment. Medical marijuana activists also insisted that the provision would essentially render them unable to drive because of all the THC in their bloodstream from regular use.

One of my biggest concerns about the DUI provision wasn’t even so much the language itself, but the fact that it could serve as a foothold towards a “bi-partisan consensus” that our existing DUI laws aren’t sufficient and that stoned driving is some new and unique challenge that we have to deal with. It isn’t. But with the ONDCP sounding the alarm about it, it’s easier for them to point to drug law reform activists who’ve exaggerated the danger in order to open the door to even worse provisions. Seeing that Stamper (and Rep. Goodman) both recognize the need to fix the DUI provisions is a good sign that we might not slide down that slippery slope.

Shapiro makes another important point about the DUI provisions in I-502:

But here’s the thing: Colorodo’s successful legalization measure, Amendment 64, didn’t have any dui provision at all. It also allows limited home-grows (six plants, to be exact). And yet, Stamper points out, that amendment passed by a “very, very healthy” margin, with 55 percent of voters giving it the thumbs up–almost the exact same as Washington’s more restrictive initiative.

I’ve been very critical of New Approach Washington over this point, but I still have a ton of respect for the work they did to get this passed. With the benefit of hindsight, we now know that including the DUI provision was a mistake, but it was an understandable one. Only a fool expects perfection in any voter initiative. And now other states can learn from our experience and win the next battle.

– What the Seattle City Council members are doing with their surplus money from previous campaigns.

– There’s a lot going on at NPI.

– Everybody hates John Boehner.

– Right to Work isn’t a one way fight. It seems like if the GOP want to open that up, there are plenty of states where there are right to work laws that could be repealed.

– Wait. Nick Kristoff wants people who are on disability to join the military? I mean I’m sure there are some people who are on disability who would thrive there, but in general that seems problematic.

– Third Avenue is totally awesome and the Memorandum of Agreement looks like it will keep being awesome.

– If people just worked harder they wouldn’t need entitlements.

I hate that the Catholic Church in Western Washington is emphasizing that it won’t participate in marriage equality. I hate that they aren’t for it and I hate that they feel the need to reemphasize it.

Seattle Archbishop J. Peter Sartain has laid down Roman Catholic church law on same-sex marriages now allowed under Washington civil law: The church will have nothing to do with such “marriages” — apostrophes courtesy of the Archbishop.

I’m glad the law gives them that right. I wouldn’t want the state dictating to churches how to perform their sacraments. But that doesn’t put the churches that aren’t marrying gay folks on the right side of history.

I’m so sick of this shit.

An unidentified gunman, acting alone, fired up to 60 shots before killing himself. The original reports of two dead were confirmed as the only fatalities. One 15-year-old Portland girl was taken by ambulance to OHSU Hospital, where she was in serious condition Tuesday night.

Officials declined to identify the victims.

The gunman died of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound, Lt. James Rhodes, a Clackamas County Sheriff’s Office spokesman, said at a news conference. The gunman, reportedly 22, has been tentatively identified, but police did not release his name.

I don’t know what the answer is to these things, or if there is one.

– I haven’t written about local prospective high-end marijuana entrepreneur Jamen Shively, but in this article he says something interesting:

Shively said that under no circumstances would his company violate federal law.

“Let’s suppose tomorrow that Washington state issued licenses and said, ‘Go ahead, guys, have at it.’ We would say to the state of Washington respectfully, ‘Thanks, but no thanks, because we haven’t heard from the federal government.'”

I doubt the federal government is going to “back off” before the state starts issuing licenses. I tend to think that they’ll be too timid about the political repercussions to do anything at first, but they’ll eventually try some sort of crackdown once people start making real money. If that’s how it plays out, I’m not sure Shively’s move is a smart one. Cornering the high-end market for marijuana won’t be that hard once the market gets going (as we might see delivery services instead of storefronts until the fear of fed intervention dies down). In fact, with the ease in producing a legal product, “high-end” marijuana will likely cost close to what it does today. There will be a number of enterprises out there willing to work quietly and under the radar, and some of those will weather the storm of a fed crackdown.

– Dylan Matthews discusses what the Obama Administration could do from a rescheduling standpoint. Most scenarios discussed involved rescheduling rather than simply removing it as a controlled substance. But removing it entirely probably makes the most sense from a policy standpoint if we feel the proper approach is to treat it like alcohol.

– You’ve probably also seen that Frankie’s in Olympia is the first bar set up to legally allow the consumption of marijuana on its premises. They were able to do this because they fought to gain an exemption from the state’s anti-smoking laws years back. One thing I expect to see is a push for other establishments (bars, arcades, movie theaters) to come up with clever ways to welcome pot smokers (roof seating, outdoor patios, etc) even without resorting to a fight with the state.

Digby points to a horrible thing Ann Coulter said to show that the GOP’s problem with their hatred of the other.

The Republicans have a problem all right, but it isn’t racial demographics. It’s Ann Coulter and all the people who think like her. And I don’t know what they’re going to do about that.

Right. But it isn’t just the cultural elite of the Republican party. It’s the fact that the Coulters, and the Limbaughs and on and on have an audience of people who want to hear the sort of things they’re saying. If they were just shouting into the wind, they wouldn’t have careers.

The Republicans can’t keep their base unless they regularly spout ugly crap.

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

We’ll begin the evening by giving all of our drinks, food and money the conservatives; and we’ll entrust ’em to share equally with us. It’s because, you know…we’re bipartisan. And handing over control to conservatives is just plain common sense bipartisanship! I mean, they’d do the same for us…right?

We meet every Tuesday at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. Starting time is 8:00pm. Some people show up earlier 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 and Vancouver, WA chapters meet. On Wednesday, the Bellingham chapter meets. On Thursday Drinking Liberally Bremerton meets. And next Monday, the Yakima chapter meets.

With 230 chapters of Living Liberally, including fourteen in Washington state, four in Oregon, and three more in Idaho, chances are excellent there’s a chapter that meets near you.

Rodney Tom and Tim Sheldon have decided to caucus with the Republicans even though they’re still claiming to be Democrats. I don’t know what it means to be a Democrat when you caucus with the Republicans and vote for their shitty budgets.

It isn’t a surprise, still with Tom, it’s a little bit of a sting. One of the best pieces on this blog was written in defense of him . And while he was never embraced fully by the party (because a lot of his policies were still shit) he was never primaried in that Democratic leaning district. Obviously, that’s probably going to happen now.

In the piece linked to in the first paragraph, Goldy wonders if there’s any way to salvage a Democratic majority. I guess the only way I can see would be to get one of them a job outside the legislature so they’ll have to resign. There would be a tie until their replacement was picked, and since they ran as Democrats, the Democrats would pick that replacement.

Of course something like that would be rewarding them for being assholes. Still, it’s less awful than the budgets and the hateful legislation we’re likely to see out of the state senate if the GOP is in charge. Inslee has a lot of positions to fill, and maybe there are some lobbying groups that they’ve been good on their issues, but would like to see a Democratic majority.

– Congrats to all of the couples who got married yesterday.

– Bikes galore on the Fremont Bridge.

– War on Catholics.

– Perhaps Michael Dunn would have told those kids to turn down their music, no matter what. But perhaps knowing that he had the ultimate power in his hands to annihilate all of them, gave him a little edge. Very few people, no matter how “responsible,” would be immune to such a feeling.

– I was just goofing on this Christmas card from the Obamas, and apparently it’s part of the war on Christmas.

– Modesty is bullshit

– You’ve clearly done something right as a team when you force the other team to apologize to their fans.

Last week’s contest was won by Geoduck. It was in Dortmund, Germany.

This week’s location is another random one, this time with Google Maps. Good luck!

1 Corinthians 7:2-9
Each man should have his own wife, and each woman should have her own husband because of sexual immorality. The husband should meet his wife’s sexual needs, and the wife should do the same for her husband. The wife doesn’t have authority over her own body, but the husband does. Likewise, the husband doesn’t have authority over his own body, but the wife does. Don’t refuse to meet each other’s needs unless you both agree for a short period of time to devote yourselves to prayer. Then come back together again so that Satan might not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. I’m saying this to give you permission; it’s not a command. I wish all people were like me, but each has a particular gift from God: one has this gift, and another has that one.

I’m telling those who are single and widows that it’s good for them to stay single like me. But if they can’t control themselves, they should get married, because it’s better to marry than to burn with passion.

Discuss.

The 14-year-old son of a friend of ours – a straight-arrow kid who attends a prestigious private school – was out jogging around Green Lake this evening when he was “detained” by SPD for, well, being out jogging. He didn’t have any ID on him (he’s a 14-year-old out jogging, fer crissakes), but at least he knew “how to behave” – yes sir, no sir, etc. His mother had to leave a school function to go get him.

Did I mention his father is black?

This is the sort of incident that doesn’t show up on statistics; and if it happened to this kid, you can bet it happens a lot. Why? Because all the controversy over how SPD treats communities of color, the DoJ report, the consent decree, new monitoring provisions, all of it, has not filtered down to the officer in the field. At all. And that’s the responsibility of SPD leadership and City Hall – starting with Mayor Mike McGinn – officials who have loudly denied any problems with SPD policing and who have fought accountability and reform, tooth and nail, for years. The egregious incidents – the ones that make the papers – may cost the city money, but they’re applauded outside the public eye by a lot of the rank and file as well as by SPD leadership. They set the tone, and this is the sort of thing that results.

Our friend’s son is OK now. But when his mother – who is a bit sheltered about these things but tonight is understandably spitting mad – asked him what he needed to do, he had a succinct answer:

“Be white.”

Ladies and gentlemen, your Seattle Police Department.