HorsesAss.Org

NWRoots Conference

by Darryl — Thursday, 6/23/11, 10:33 am

This conference should be of interest to anyone contributing (or wanting to contribute) to progressive politics in our region:

The NWroots Conference is the annual gathering of the region’s netroots community and liberal minded political activists – hosted by the NWroots Fellowship with support from the Northwest Progressive Institute. It is an unbeatable opportunity for local writers, readers, activists, elected leaders, and progressive candidates to meet in person and learn from each other – with panels, a candidates’ social, keynote addresses, and workshops.

Feature speakers include Congressman Jay Inslee, Congressman Jim McDermott, Former Canadian Health Minister Ujjal Dosanjh, WSLC President Jeff Johnson, and 4th Congressional District candidate Jay Clough.

Special performance by the Total Experience Gospel Choir.

What: NWroots Conference
Where: Swannies Comedy Undergound, 109 S. Washington Street, Seattle, 98104
When: Saturday, July 9th
Why: Teach, learn, organize, strategize, socialize, network, have fun.

What are you waiting for? Register today!

Rob Sargent
NWroots
(425) 941-3134

Here are some more details about the program:

Jill Richardson is flying in from San Diego to present two sessions on agriculture and public policy. Jill is an author, political activist,
founder of Lavidalocavore.org, and expert on food systems and sustainable farming. Her book, Recipe for America, explains our messed up food system in an understandable way, and offers specific policy recommendation to make it better. In her first session, Jill will talk about the focus of her book and lead a discussion about agriculture policy. In a second session, she will address the worldwide influence of Monsanto on agriculture, followed by a group discussion. Jill was just featured at Netroots Nation in Minneapolis.

In addition to Jill’s sessions, we will have small group presentations/discussions on health care, labor, the media, electronic voting, immigration, the mortgage crisis, and a documentary on Afghanistan followed by a group discussion.

To stir things up, we’ve added Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich to the program. Kucinich will join 4th Congressional District Candidate Jay Clough, Congressman Jim McDermott, and former Canadian Health Minister Ujjal Dosanjh at the afternoon general session. The opening session will be kicked off by Congressman Jay Inslee, followed by University of Washington graduate and “dreamer” Alonso Chehade. Chehade faces possible deportation if the Dream Act fails to pass. Alonso will later lead a session where the group will discuss immigration policy. Labor leader Jeff Johnson will close out the morning session. He will also facilitate a smaller group discussion on the role of labor in politics and the new political strategy. Mr. Johnson is President of the Washington State Labor Council.

In addition to the general session and smaller, breakout sessions, there will be a candidates social, a special musical performance by the Total Experience Gospel Choir, and an after-party at the Central Saloon.

(This is an open thread.)

Big Steps

by Lee — Wednesday, 6/22/11, 6:55 pm

Two big announcements over the past 48 hours regarding the eventual death of marijuana prohibition:

– For the first time ever, a bill to end marijuana prohibition is being introduced in Congress. Barney Frank and Ron Paul are introducing a bill that would allow states to make the drug legal, while only focusing on interstate smuggling. I doubt the drug will go anywhere, but it’s certainly a milestone that shows how quickly things are starting to change.

– Here in Washington, a group called New Approach Washington is launching an effort to pass a marijuana legalization initiative. The group is led by former U.S. Attorney John McKay, Seattle City Attorney Pete Holmes, and travel show host Rick Steves. The initiative represents the opposite strategy from what Sensible Washington has been trying to do with I-1149. While Sensible Washington focused on creating an initiative that puts the federal government in a difficult situation (by removing all state penalties), New Approach Washington focused on creating something that they feel is more certain to win a statewide vote.

As a result, New Approach Washington appears to have the big money necessary to get on the ballot. Their initiative is a different type of initiative, which once it collects the necessary signatures, goes directly to the Legislature first – who can pass it. If they don’t pass it, then it goes to a statewide vote in November 2012.

From what’s been released so far (I haven’t had a chance to read the text of the initiative yet), what they’ve put together is mostly workable, but has some drawbacks. For starters, private growing would become illegal (with an exception for medical growers). There’s no real rationale for this – establishing a personal cultivation limit would be smarter. This is like banning people from brewing their own beer at home.

Second, and more seriously, is their attempt to extend the DUI laws to marijuana. While this may play well politically, the science is not there yet to provide an accurate measurement of impairment. Even worse, people who have very high levels of THC in their system (usually people who use the drug medicinally), don’t become impaired at all when they use it. This was highlighted recently in Colorado when Denver Westword pot critic William Breathes tested nearly three times the 5ng/ml limit while completely sober.

As a result, I wouldn’t be surprised if much of the state’s medical marijuana community refuses to assist in this campaign. But if New Approach Washington is to be believed, they have the numbers to win anyway. And they probably do. Voters are ready to start treating marijuana like alcohol, and this initiative moves us a step closer to having an overly-regulated, somewhat-inefficient mess for providing the sale of marijuana to adults – just like what we have for hard liquor.

Drinking Liberally — Seattle

by Darryl — Wednesday, 6/22/11, 4:28 pm

Please join us tonight for a special Drinking Liberally with Living Liberally co-founder Justin Krebs.

Justin is on his “538 Ways to Live, Work and Play Like a Liberal” book tour. The book is about the little ideas for embracing your progressive values in everyday life, as well as the big ideas of what it means to be a “liberal” in America today.

Bring your copy of the book (or the Weekly Standard cover, for that matter) for Justin to sign. Copies of the book will be available at the event.

We meet at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. Starting time is 8:00 pm, but feel free to earlier for dinner.

Not in Seattle? There is a good chance you live near one of the 229 other chapters of Drinking Liberally.

I quit ’cause y’all are mean to me!

by Darryl — Wednesday, 6/22/11, 11:21 am

No…not me. Don’t be silly.

It’s Sarah Palin.

She has, apparently, quit halfway through her “One Nation” bus tour:

Though Palin and her staff never announced a timeline for the remaining legs of her trip, aides had drafted preliminary itineraries that would have taken her through the Midwest and Southeast at some point this month. But those travel blueprints are now in limbo, RCP has learned, as Palin and her family have reverted to the friendly confines of summertime Alaska, where the skies are currently alight for over 19 hours a day and the Bristol Bay salmon fishing season is nearing its peak.

The early stages of her tour resulted in two huge stories. First, her upstaging Mitt Romney—rude showmanship even by a Republican standard of nastiness. And second, her babbling, twisted rendition of Paul Revere’s midnight ride.

Ouch! She did more damage than good to herself during the early part of the tour because, you know, the “lamestream” media is so mean her and out to get her. And once again Sarah response is a triumph of narcissism over political sensibility. She takes her ball and goes home.

“I quit!”

Open Thread

by Carl Ballard — Wednesday, 6/22/11, 6:29 am

– Doctors still support Obama’s health care reform.

– Today in the GOP not being racist. (h/t)

– Oceans are “at high risk of entering a phase of extinction of marine species unprecedented in human history” (h/t)

– McKenna’s record of reducing government.

– The Dawn space ship is going passed one of the largest objects in the asteroid belt.

Adventures in Commuting

by Lee — Tuesday, 6/21/11, 7:18 pm

I’ve been at my new job for almost two weeks now. Things are going well – it’s always fun to work with smart people on new technology projects, and I’ve been very blessed throughout my career to be in that situation often.

But as always, getting to and from work is its own adventure. I still live out in the Fairwood area and this new job is downtown near the Convention Center. My last job was also a tough commute – to downtown Bellevue – but my early work schedule (6am-3pm) allowed me to avoid the traffic (mostly). For this job, I have little interest in getting into work that early – most people aren’t in by 9 – but I had a plan.

First of all, I do get reimbursed for monthly travel expenses, but not enough to cover the monthly rates at nearby garages. So my plan was to put a chunk of money on my Orca card every month and take the bus to and from the South Renton Park & Ride, but also drive in on days when having my car at the end of the day was necessary (like if I needed to go to DL and hang with Darryl and Carl – which might happen tomorrow night). I calculated out how many days a month I’d be able to drive in, pay for daily parking, and still get reimbursed. It was more than enough, about 7-8 times.

The plan was set. The first Monday rolls around and I arrive at the South Renton Park & Ride at about 8:20am. The whole damn lot was full. Not good. So I drive to the light rail station in Tukwila and get one of the last parking spots in the spillover lot at around 8:40am. I ride the light rail in.

So even after that, I’m still thinking I can get in via light rail every day. The ride from my house to the Tukwila light rail stop is a little longer. But I really like being able to read a book or work on my laptop while I commute. So Tuesday morning, I arrive at the light rail station at about 8:35am. No luck. Every spot is taken. I stewed in my car for a few minutes, checked traffic conditions on my phone, and decided to just drive in. I realized at that point that I had two options: either become more of an early bird, or just cough up the few extra bucks a month it would cost me for a monthly parking pass. I chose the latter.

As much as I enjoy being able to ride into work, I just had little interest in having to worry about whether or not there’d be a parking spot at a transit point every day. Car commutes are stressful, but I do like to know with certainty how I’m getting to Point B when I walk out the door. It was a bit of a rude awakening that my transit options weren’t as convenient as I’d hoped they be.

Single Minded

by Carl Ballard — Tuesday, 6/21/11, 4:50 pm

I’m a fan of Publicola, but they’ve fallen into the same trap as much of the rest of the Seattle media on the McGinn and the tunnel. From a piece about Peter Hahn signing the Environmental Impact Statement for the tunnel (I assume by Josh, but it’s the Afternoon Jolt, so it doesn’t have a name attached, and he and Erica do the same thing).

The move could signify that McGinn’s administration has decided to back off (for now, anyway) from its single-minded opposition to the controversial project. The McGinn administration, mindful perhaps of polling that has linked his bad numbers to his nonstop focus on the tunnel, has been notably quiet about the tunnel these days. This even-keeled move will definitely draw applause from McGinn’s establishment opponents who consider him an obstructionist.

First off, you think McGinn’s establishment opponents give a fuck about policy? Nobody gives him credit for being bold on the Youth and Family initiative. Nobody thanks him for filling potholes quickly. Nobody gives him credit for a budget that didn’t cut social services. Despite the fact that he salted the roads during the snow storm like his establishment opponents demanded (and I think it’s bad policy, but it is clearly the position of Seattle insiders) he doesn’t get credit. So, no, I don’t think anyone will care that this time instead of asking for and being given more time by the state DOT that this time his people just signed it when their concerns were met.

But to the main point, McGinn has always been able to walk and chew gum (see the paragraph above, for examples of other things he does, and it doesn’t even get into the things that the establishment is against, but that deserve more coverage). He’s never been single minded about the tunnel. He’s always talked about other things. I’m sorry, but it’s been the media, including Publicola, who who see McGinn only through one highway project instead of through his budget and other policies.

Perhaps that’s why he has to stop talking about it. Because we have media who can’t stop talking about how much they’re over talking about the Viaduct replacement. The rap on him has always been that he’s a 1 issue candidate or a 1 issue mayor. But that’s never been the case. He’s always been able to chew gum and walk at the same time. He just needs an audience that won’t obsess about the gum thing.

Tomorrow: Special Drinking Liberally—Seattle

by Darryl — Tuesday, 6/21/11, 12:45 pm

There will be no Drinking Liberally Seattle this evening. Tomorrow (Wednesday) we have a special Drinking Liberally with Living Liberally co-founder Justin Krebs.

Justin has toured the book to over 65 cities in 35 states and happily won the mockery of the conservative Weekly Standard which featured him in a cover story in July.

Bring your copy of the book (or the Weekly Standard cover, for that matter) for Justin to sign. Copies of the book will be available at the event.

We meet at our usual spot, the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. Starting time is 8:00 pm.

Drinking Liberally Seattle meets weekly on Tuesday nights except for this week because of Justin’s visit.

Rob McKenna fails math

by Darryl — Monday, 6/20/11, 3:04 pm

Sammamish High School graduate, and Washington state gubernatorial candidate Rob McKenna is looking like a case study of the failure of our schools to teach basic, real world, mathematical skills. (Have at it Cliff Mass!)

The short version: Rob McKenna attempts to do an analysis of Washington state budgets…and ends up soiling himself.

Rob McKenna was pushing some awfully fishy numbers during his campaign kick-off (via Goldy):

Here is some red meat from McKenna’s “triumphant” speech:

I went back and I crunched the numbers for the state budget to figure out where the spending’s been going—what’s been driving it. I looked at one 10-year period: 1998 to 2008. And what I discovered is that, in that 10 year period, every single year the state increased the amount it spent per employee by 5 percent, every year for 10 years.
[…]

In that same 10-year period, the state increased the amount it spent on state worker benefits by 9 percent a year every single year for 10 years.

Goldy calls bullshit:

The fact is that by every rational measure, state government has been shrinking over the past few decades, in per-capita spending, per-capita taxes, per-capita state workers, and most importantly, as a percentage of the economy, with state general fund revenues falling from 6.9 percent of personal income in 1995 all the way down to 4.7 percent today. McKenna may sound smart and informed and trustworthy and all that, but he’s just not being honest with voters.

He digs even deeper into the bullshit here. But, you know, Goldy is just a filthy ~~blogger~~ journalist for a vile, extreme leftist ~~blog~~ newspaper, so what does he know?

Now the AP is on the case. And they can dig a little deeper because, unlike Goldy who is blacklisted by the McKenna campaign, the AP can ask follow-up questions of McKenna.

Their conclusion?

Problem is, a couple of McKenna’s key numbers were wrong, exaggerating the speed of government growth.

McKenna, who currently serves as attorney general, described his statistics in slightly different ways during both an interview with The Associated Press and his campaign speech. After The AP repeatedly questioned the validity of the statistics, his campaign provided details on how he reached his totals. Those written calculations indicated that he was using faulty math.

The crux of the problem is that McKenna doesn’t understand the basic mathematics of compounding growth. On his claim that the state annually “increased the amount it spent per employee by 5 percent “:

McKenna reached his incorrect numbers after seeing a 48 percent growth over the decade. His supporting documents indicate that he took that number and divided by 10 years to reach his conclusion about 5 percent annual growth.

But annual growth can’t be calculated so easily. Because each year’s increase compounds on top of the last, a 5 percent annual growth for 10 years would end up being 63 percent growth for the decade — not 48 percent.

The correct number is 3.6 percent per year, which is pretty much the same as the 3.5 percent average for all of Washington state over the same period.

As to McKenna’s claim that the state annually increased benefits by “9 percent a year…for 10 years”? Nuh-uh. Same error:

To reach his 9 percent number, McKenna relied on the same questionable math he used to calculate the salary figures. The state’s overall spending for worker benefits actually rose an average of 7.1 percent annually during that time.

Average benefit increases per employee were even less, growing by about 5.4 percent each year, with rising health care costs driving up expenses just like in the private sector.

What the AP missed, and what Goldy points out, is that the benefits calculation is the largest component of the “amount [the state] spent per employee” increase McKenna raised first. But it comes off as in addition to the first (erroneously calculated) number.

McKenna’s speech is dishonest in other ways, as both Goldy and the AP points out. He implies a 13 percent per year increase in number of state employees, when the 13 percent actually refers to the increase over a decade. Oopsies!

Dishonesty is bad in a politician even though we have acquired a certain immunity that seem to allow politicians like McKenna to get away with fabrication and distortion.

My beef is with McKenna’s inability to work with the most elementary of budget mathematics. The AP has flat-out busted McKenna for his failure to understand the mathematics of growth—the same math one uses for understanding investment interest, population growth, budget projections, mortgage costs, etc.

Governors don’t really have to understand the Fundamental Theorem of Integral Calculus or the Pythagorean theorem.

But, holy shit, incompetence with the elementary mathematics of budget growth? That makes a Rob McKenna in the Governor’s seat nothing short of a fiscal calamity waiting to happen for Washington state.

Open Thread

by Carl Ballard — Monday, 6/20/11, 7:17 am

No politics, just some great writing:

– A very sad story.

– When my dad and I were hustlers.

– Joe Posnanski on the death, and life, of Clarence Clemons.

– Lindy West’s Guide to Life for the Recent Graduates

– Even if you’ve read Eli Sanders’ Slog pieces about the trial of the South Park rapes and murder, it’s worth reading this whole article (although, damn, it’s a difficult read).

Bird’s Eye View Contest

by Lee — Sunday, 6/19/11, 12:00 pm

Last week’s contest was won by Deathfrogg. It was the mansion from the TV show “Dallas”.

This week’s is a random location somewhere in Washington state, good luck!

Post-Modern Reefer Madness

by Lee — Sunday, 6/19/11, 9:44 am

As we marked the 40th anniversary of Richard Nixon’s jihad against pot this week, I thought about posting in a snippet of a reply I’d gotten from Patty Murray’s office in response to an action alert I’d sent out regarding upcoming medical marijuana legislation. Like every other Senator, Patty Murray opposes the creation of legal and regulated marijuana sales for adults, so her position is not a surprise. But the action alert I sent out was about medical marijuana, so I’m not sure why I got this reply in my inbox:

Like many Americans, I am concerned about the high use of drugs, including marijuana, among our citizens, especially for young people. I believe we must continue to work to reduce drug use. One important aspect of our efforts is to send a consistent message to young people about the use of drugs and alcohol. Therefore, I do not support legalizing or decriminalizing currently illegal drugs, including marijuana.

She could’ve dodged the question entirely, but she didn’t. Kudos to that, but seriously, that’s an idiotic response. What consistent message is being sent to young people by having alcohol legal and marijuana illegal? That makes absolutely no sense. And even worse, this policy results in marijuana being far easier for a young person to obtain than alcohol. Any time someone wonders what message we’d be sending to kids if we legalize marijuana, the appropriate reply should be, “the message is that high school freshmen won’t be able to buy it from the kid sitting next to them in math class any more“. And that’s the appropriate message we should be sending. It’s for adults only, just like alcohol.

But I wasn’t the only person in the state who sent out this action item to our various representatives. Another gentleman from Eastern Washington sent it out and shared with me this spectacular reefer-madness reply from Cathy McMorris-Rodgers (hold on to your hat):

The alleged “medicinal benefits” of marijuana to treat glaucoma and other ailments are assertions that have been examined and debated for decades. Although I support research into alternative medical treatments, studies have shown that marijuana possesses significant addictive chemical properties that have had devastating effects on users. Moreover, a study conducted by the Office of National Drug Control Policy indicates that 374,000 people annually enter an emergency room with a primary marijuana addiction diagnosis.

Holy fuck.

For starters, the medicinal benefits of marijuana have been examined and debated for centuries, not decades. In fact, when marijuana was made illegal in 1937, the American Medical Association protested the action on the basis that marijuana had well-known medicinal properties. And today, the American Medical Association has recommended that the government look into rescheduling marijuana precisely because it’s known to have medicinal benefits. There’s no debate here. Marijuana has medicinal properties. Everyone knows this, pharmaceutical companies are already growing the plant for use in legal drugs like Sativex, and the Department of Health and Human Services has even filed for a patent on “Cannabinoids as antioxidants and neuroprotectants“.

Second, marijuana is not chemically addictive. That’s just an outright lie. Even long-term users experience little to no physical effects from cessation of use. It’s certainly psychologically addictive (similar to addictions to video games, gambling, or sex), but calling it chemically addictive is simply a lie. It’s not. And I have no idea what “devastating effects” it’s had on users, but the vast majority of marijuana users in this country lead pretty normal lives. And of course, alcohol – a legal drug sold in grocery stores and gas stations throughout the state – is actually more addictive than marijuana.

But that last statement there from McMorris-Rodgers is just spectacular:

Moreover, a study conducted by the Office of National Drug Control Policy indicates that 374,000 people annually enter an emergency room with a primary marijuana addiction diagnosis.

I nearly laughed out loud when I read this. At first, I assumed she just made the statistic up out of thin air, but then realized that even McMorris-Rodgers isn’t dumb enough to cite the ONDCP for a completely made-up statistic. Instead, it turns out that she just embellished what was already a pretty embellished statistic. Here’s what it says on the ONDCP’s page:

Marijuana is the most commonly used illicit drug in the United States, with nearly 17 million Americans age 12 and older reporting past-month use, and 374,000 people entering an emergency room annually with a primary marijuana problem.

Obviously, the word “addiction” does not appear in the ONDCP headline – for a good reason. They’re not talking about addiction. And when they say “primary marijuana problem”, this is one of the things they’re referencing:

Although DAWN includes only suicide attempts that involve drugs, these attempts are not limited to drug overdoses. If there is drug involvement in a suicide attempt by other means (e.g., if a patient cuts his or her wrists while under the influence of marijuana), the case is included as drug related.

If you look through those statistics even closer, you’ll see that marijuana is far less common than alcohol, pharmaceuticals, and even the far more sparsely used cocaine in those numbers – which makes sense, because you can’t kill yourself by overdosing on pot. The number there should be zero, but the ONDCP doesn’t like that, so they fuck with the numbers to make it seem as if it actually leads to people dying.

But that’s still only a fraction of the 374,000 people who are supposedly showing up at ER’s across the country needing treatment for their pot addictions. Where do the rest come from? It appears they’re in that magic category called “Other” [emphasis mine]:

How are drug abuse cases denoted in DAWN?

…

Each case reported to DAWN is assigned to one of eight case types according to the following hierarchy:

1. Suicide attempt
2. Seeking detox
3. Alcohol only (age < 21) 4. Adverse reaction 5. Overmedication 6. Malicious poisoning 7. Accidental ingestion 8. Other Cases not falling into any of the first seven case types are classified as "Other." Most drug abuse cases are classified as "Other."

So what we likely have here are people coming into the emergency room for various reasons, testing positive for pot and then ending up being tagged that they have a “primary marijuana problem” even though it likely had no influence at all on why they were in the ER. But this sleight of hand gives idiot politicians like McMorris-Rodgers the ability to claim that thousands of Americans are coming into hospitals every day needing to be treated for their pot addictions. Reefer madness lives on.

HA Bible Study

by Goldy — Sunday, 6/19/11, 8:00 am

Leviticus 26:29
And ye shall eat the flesh of your sons, and the flesh of your daughters shall ye eat.

Happy Father’s Day. Discuss.

Third Priority

by Carl Ballard — Saturday, 6/18/11, 4:33 pm

Nothing too egregious about this press release from Senator Joseph Zarelli about the budget forecast being tighter than we’d thought, but this was a bit off.

I would have been more comfortable leaving an even larger amount in reserve, but reaching this new budget agreement required a number of compromises, and the size of the ending fund balance was one. Our side figured the June forecast would be down significantly, just like the March forecast was, which is why we insisted on policy reforms that will save money going forward, and made sure this new budget was the first one since 1997 to spend less than anticipated revenue.

If he was that interested in having a larger reserve, he might have considered raising taxes. Yes, there was a 2/3 requirement, but if the chief Republican budget negotiator in the state senate had decided to push for higher taxes, it would have done a lot. So it seems like the things that made him most comfortable were (a) passing a budget since it was a special session, and all the legislators just wanted to go home already, (b) no tax increases, (c) having a reserve. Although (a) and (b) may not be in that order.