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With the weather finally turning nice and more people commuting by bike, I thought it would be a good time to discuss biking through the red lights. I do it occasionally, but under pretty specific circumstances. Some people, God love them, don’t blow through any reds, and some people seem to barely notice that there are conditions (let alone the red itself) that might warrant not going right now.

First off, if you don’t want to ever blow a red, that’s awesome. It can be dangerous. It can mess with pedestrians. Even if it is safe, it’s still illegal. In a city that doesn’t jay walk much, I can understand the urge to sit at those lights. Also, one of my favorite things about riding a bike in the city is the interactions you get with other bicyclists while waiting for the light to change. They’re usually short conversations that don’t get much beyond “where are you going?” but it’s still fun to talk to like minded people for a minute or two, and you’ll miss a lot of it if you go through the light.

That said, I blow red lights occasionally. I also jay walk in much the same way: be safe and don’t be an asshole. So the main question is not when do circumstances warrant it, but when don’t they: Don’t ever go through a red if there’s traffic.* Assume they can’t see you. Even if they can see you, they quite reasonably aren’t expecting you to blow the light when they have the right of way. But even if you can reasonably guess how fast the next car is coming, and that you can make it, don’t blow the light. If traffic is coming in that circumstance, there’s still a good chance that you’ll force them to hit the breaks or slow down by taking their foot off the gas. If they have the right of way, they shouldn’t have to do that. Bicyclists demand that cars share the road; we ought to extend the same kindness to drivers.

Even when there aren’t cars around, you still have an obligation to be safe and not an asshole to pedestrians and other bicyclists. If there’s a reasonable chance you might hit them, just stay put until everyone is clear. If the pedestrian at the curb is looking like she might cross, but you’re not sure, stay put. Hell, get off your bike, so they know you aren’t going until they’re done.

After that, I say go for it.

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Who could have guessed that sending far-right Republican ideologues to Congress would backfire for the people who need government programs like Medicare:

Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-WA) came face to face with this growing movement at a town hall in Vancouver, Washington last night. Dozens of protesters encamped outside the meeting, waving signs like “Save Medicare: Tax the Rich.” When she tried to defend her vote on the GOP budget that would effectively privatize Medicare, “a chorus of boos and catcalls and shouts of ‘liar’ erupted in the auditorium.” The congresswoman was repeatedly called out by what the local press called a “rough crowd.”

It amazes me that there are people out there who voted for Herrera Beutler, but are now surprised that she’s voting to take away Medicare. What the hell did you expect? What part of Republican governance for the past 30 years hasn’t been clear? Modern Republicans don’t think government should provide safety nets to you any more. That means no Medicare, no Social Security. It means if you didn’t make enough money over your life – or if you’re one of those unlucky souls who gets a long-term illness that costs lots of money to treat – you need to look in the mirror and ask yourself why you didn’t have a good enough stock portfolio.

Please join us tonight for an evening of politics under the influence at the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally. We meet at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. Starting time is 8:00 pm, but feel free to join some of us for an earlier dinner.

Not in Seattle? There is an excellent chance you live close to one of the 227 other chapters of Drinking Liberally.

I know…I shouldn’t pick on the pathetic. But I will anyway.

Two weeks ago, after an Elway poll came out with mixed news for Sen. Maria Cantwell, I did a preliminary assessment of Cantwell’s vulnerability to a Republican challenger. I didn’t find the minor weaknesses uncovered by the Elway poll overly concerning. The poll didn’t do head-to-head match-ups for a general election, but it did find 46% would vote to keep Cantwell in office, and 36% would vote to replace her—a result almost identical that at this point in the 2006 election cycle.  

My non-concern also reflected evidence from a much richer series of data from Survey USA’s regular tracking polls. They show Cantwell’s recent approval bouncing erratically from about 40% to 55%, with the most recent one at 49%.

Now Public Policy Polling has released a new poll that sheds more light on Cantwell’s lack of vulnerability. The poll finds her with 50% approval and 36 disapproval:

Cantwell is pretty universally well liked within her own party, at 80/7 with Democrats. She’s also on narrowly positive ground with independents at 44/40 and has a 17% approval rating with Republicans, which is a decent amount of crossover support (we generally found Patty Murray with a single digit approval with GOP voters over the course of last year’s campaign.)

The Republican who comes closest to Cantwell is an old favorite- Dino Rossi, who trails 53-40. Susan Hutchison and Dave Reichert do next best, both trailing by a 49-35 margin. Clint Didier trails 51-35 and Cathy McMorris Rodgers has the largest deficit at 50-31. Cantwell wins independent voters by 5-12 points in all of the match ups and picks up 8-9% of the Republican vote while only losing 2-5% of the Democratic vote.

Wow…a 17% approval with Republicans!

The head-to-head match-ups suggest that none of the Republican challengers can do any better against Cantwell than Mike McGavick’s dismal 39.9% result in 2006.

The bottom line:

Cantwell’s reasonably popular and the GOP doesn’t have anyone good to run against her.

This pretty much validates my statement from two weeks ago, “given the absence of a strong opponent on the horizon, I am simply unwilling to fret over a single Elway Poll….”

This new poll illuminates the state of the state Republicans: their candidate pool is nothing short of pathetic. There are almost no Republicans with any statewide appeal. Attorney General McKenna is about it, and he’s looking for opportunities elsewhere.

Last year during the I-1068 signature gathering effort (the legalization initiative that fell about 50,000 signatures short of the required amount to make the ballot), I encountered a number of people in the comment threads here and elsewhere who were at a loss as to how they could help. With that in mind, and with my extra free time over the past two months, I’ve helped Sensible Washington put together a new online resource for folks to help get I-1149 on the ballot this year. You can visit the page here or just click the screenshot below.

This page allows you find businesses that have I-1149 petitions on site. It allows you to locate the Sensible Washington coordinator closest to you in order to obtain petitions or turn yours in. And it has a compilation of festivals, sporting events, concerts, and other events between now and July 4th weekend where you can stand with a clipboard and help us get this initiative on the ballot in November. Get involved, and let’s get it done this year in Washington!

I’ve been critical of Gregoire for various things. And Lee has bee a lot more critical than me especially after the misguided veto of the medical marijuana bill. But unlike Lee, I’d have no problem voting for her again (although I hope she doesn’t run, and if she does, I’ll gladly support someone else in a primary). There are real and important ways that she’s better than Rossi would have been. For one thing, she doesn’t seem to hate teachers like The Seattle Times’ Ed Board.

They spend a whole lot of time not engaging with Gregoire’s stated reasons for opposing the measure (in short, we’re in the middle of revising the way we evaluate teachers because how we currently evaluate them doesn’t work). There’s a little dancing around that, but even then it’s pretty minimal.

It would be great to have the 82,000-strong union on the right side but not at a cost that would be borne by students betting their educational futures on the success of reforms. Requiring districts to take performance into account during layoffs represents a significant game changer. Layoffs are disruptive; robbing classrooms of good teachers is even more harmful.

Lynne (or whoever, but it’s Lynne Varner), just because you saw Waiting For Superman doesn’t mean that teachers are wrong. They’re the ones pushing for smaller class sizes and better teacher pay while your ed board keeps demanding tax cut after tax cut that has the effect of larger class sizes and worse pay. Teachers and their unions are the ones pushing for higher quality K-12 education in Washington.

I’d bet if you wanted, it wouldn’t be too tough to get the teachers on board with these sorts of reforms as part of a grand bargain: If you pushed for 25 student maximum classes and teacher pay in the six figures (for example) along with smarter evaluations of this kind, I bet you could get the teachers unions to support it. Instead you insist on something less meaningful (and quite possibly arbitrary). And your ed board insists on the things that have made gutting education inevitable.

Most teachers are good instructional leaders not threatened by accountability. Uncertainty about the shift is outweighed by the fairness and legitimacy promised from new teacher evaluations coming down the legislative pike. Some districts, including Seattle Public Schools, have adopted better evaluations.

The newer evaluations are still untested and in most cases not even through the legislature yet. Let’s impose them!

The only employees left to fear performance-based layoffs are those who aren’t performing. That’s not who the governor should be protecting.

Or teachers who think perhaps the system won’t work as advertised. Maybe, just maybe, teachers think that the same legislature that’s been slashing education budgets doesn’t have the best interests of children we’re trying to educate at heart.

– I know I’m just a filthy hippie blogger or whatever. Sure HA has accused people of fucking pigs. But at least none of us have given an elected official the TMZ treatment. As the kids say, time for a blogger ethics panel.

– Nixon is Fixin’

– Another reason why Seattle should fish or cut bait on White Center annexation. I hope they keep both libraries open (h/t Ivan on Facebook).

– Vulnerable User Bill signed!

– Hexapod Haiku! (h/t)

Genesis 2:3
Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.

Discuss.

Last week’s contest was one of the toughest ever. It was won by Luigi Giovanni for his second in a row and by David D for getting the movie reference. It was the Burger King in Poughkeepsie, NY where they filmed the “Liter of Cola” scene in Super Troopers.

Here’s this week’s, it’s a location in Washington state. Good luck!

The comment threads are dominated by just a few people. Some are great, some are trolls. Some are somewhere in between. But there are a lot of people who don’t comment. So, here on a lazy Saturday is a chance for those of you who don’t comment or don’t comment much to say “hi.” Or don’t: who in their right mind would want to interact with some of the commenters. Comments from regulars will be deleted.

A very late notice here, but I’m scheduled to be speaking sometime between noon and 1pm today at the Cannabis Freedom March in Volunteer Park. After the march, I’m supposed to be on a panel in Westlake Park with Alison Holcomb and Douglas Hiatt speaking about cannabis laws. If I’m sitting in between them, I’ll be wearing a full suit of armor to protect myself.

Maddow: John Ensign OUT, Tom Coburn NEXT.

Stephen goes all flaggy on Donald Trump (via Slog).

Sam Seder: Teabaggers willing to trade debt limit for closeting gays.

Young Turks: Gov. Mitch Daniels de-funds Planned Parenthood.

Thom: Wisconsin Wingnuts rush to pass agenda.

Maddow: Republican social issues.

Pap w/Andy Kroll: Who is pushing the G.O.P. anti-labor agenda?

Obama Bin Gotten:

• George W. Bush really didn’t care about Osama bin Laden (via Slog).
• Red State Update: bin Laden is dead & we’re mad as hell.
• Roy Zimmerman: Obama bin Gotten:
• Thom: Should we have held a trial for Osama?
• Ed with Pap (and E.J.): The Republican colicky babies whine again

Thom interviews Gov. Jesse Ventura on various conspiracies.

Cenk debunks Rep. Boehner’s bullshit.

RapperGate:

• Newsy: Conservatives upset over Common invite
• Jon on Rappergate (via Mediaite).
• Cenk: FAUX News reporting on “controversial” rapper debunked by their own reporting (via Crooks and Liars).
• Jon: Bushies come out of their spider holes to take credit for killing bin Laden (via Crooks and Liars).
• Young Turks: Hannity’s hypocrisy.
• Maddow wonders why Bushies dominate talk shows the week of Bin Laden’s death (via Crooks and Liars).

Sam Seder: Conservatives vote their conscience ignorance.

Mike Huckabee “fixes” American History (via TalkingPointsMemo).

Torture Chronicles:

• Mark Fiore: “You’re welcome!”.
• Ed: Bush cabalists flood TV to congratulate selves for torture, war crimes
• Sen. McCain denounces torture (via TalkingPointsMemo).
• Ed with Prof. Turley: Torture isn’t a war crime because it is never effective…it’s a war crime because it is immoral (via Crooks and Liars).
• Ann Telnaes: Rummy going down.
• Liberal Viewer: Dick Cheney and friends lie about torture working.

Thom on Florida’s latest War on Democracy.

SCTV: Skype gets Binged.

Newt the Kook:

• Cenk: Newt enters…
• Newsy: Will Gingrich’s past haunt him?
• Maddow: Newt.
• Stephen: The Newt and The Donald announce further announcements (via Crooks and Liars).
• Young Turks: Why Newt will never be President.
• Tweety: The outrageous statements of Newt the Kook
• Young Turks: Not just Mitt…Newt Gingrich has health care problems, too.

Sam Seder: Congressional Wingdings back way off on destroying Medicare.

Ed and Pap: Boehner’s debt fight shows GOP’s greed.

Lawrence O’Donnell: The tragedy of Alaska’s Sarah Palin; The ‘Drilla From Wasilla’ is a hopeless ‘disasta’.

Delaware Gov signs civil unions bill into law.

Fracking:

• Thom: The French don’t frack!
• Music video: What is Fracking? (Via ProPublica):

Sam Seder: FCC Comish Baker hired by Comcast/NBCU after voting for Comcast/NBCU merger.

ONN Live: Congress debates new sex-based American dream.

Thom: Pima County Dems move to secede from Arizona.

Immigrants for sale (via OneGoodMove).

White House: West Wing Week.

Maddow: “Big Brother’s” War on Women in South Dakota.

Romney Runs…From His Own Record:

• Mitt Romney runs from his record.
• Lawrence O’Donnell: Governor Deval Patrick on The Mittster.
• Debbie Wasserman Schultz on the Romney pretzel.
• Young Turks: How do you know Mitt is toast? The Wall Street Journal rips him a new asshole.
• Newsy: Romney defends “RomneyCare”

Maddow: Unemployment and how Florida GOP Gov. Rick Scott takes ‘Big Government’ to new heights.

Cenk: C-Street, The Family & Coburn’s Ensign cover-up.

If Atlas Shrugged trailer was honest (h/t Carl Ballard).

The Paul Family Circus:

• Rand Paul’s incredibly twisted logic about slavery (via Crooks and Liars).
• Young Turks: Rand Paul’s bizarre Health Care==Slavery claim.
• The different philosophies of Sens. Rand Paul and Bernie Sanders on health care (via Crooks and Liars).
• Newsy: Rep. Ron Paul makes it official.
• Ron Paul points out that he would not have voted for the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (via TalkingPointsMemo).
• Maddow: Ron Paul thinks businesses should be allowed to put up a ‘NO BLACKS’ sign!

Young Turks: Megan McCain’s PSA makes Glenn Beck vomit.

Maddow: “Family values” ex-Senator Rick Santorum covered for John Ensign.

Thom: Should the Koch brothers be making hiring decision for university professors?

Last week’s Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza can be found here.

I’m writing you as one of the few honest tunnel supporters who doesn’t seem to hate Seattle. One who opposes the cost overrun provision and has said at public forums that you think it matters and should be repealed. I know the cost overrun provision wasn’t on the agenda for the special session: how to fuck over education and public health slightly less badly than the Republicans tops the list. But now the tunnel will go to Seattle voters, and Seattle voters probably will reject it. This is probably your last chance to keep the tunnel, but the state is going to have to pick up the cost overruns.

I’m asking you to lead the charge to repeal the cost overrun provision and kneecap tunnel opponents like me. Repeal the cost overrun provision and commit the state to paying for a state highway. Repeal the cost overrun provision and take away an argument that resonates with Seattle. Repeal the overrun provision and stem the tide of anti-Seattle nonsense that the legislature keeps pushing.

Now, a repeal of the cost overrun provision won’t be enough to get me to support the tunnel project: it’s a bad project and Surface/Transit/I-5 is a much better option. Hell, the shit rebuild option is a much better option, at least I get to keep my on and off ramps. But repealing that provision would give some certainty to the process and would mean that for once in God knows how long the state isn’t actively trying to fuck Seattle up. It would make it more likely that city voters let the tunnel go through.

And yes, I know: Voters rejected a stadium and we got stadiums. Voters rejected a tunnel and we got a much bigger tunnel. But I wouldn’t count on that if you’re a supporter of the tunnel. The difference between those and this vote is that there wasn’t significant opposition to those things among elected officials. The only elected official who really opposed the stadiums, Maggi Fimia, got King County off the hook for cost overruns (at least for Safeco) despite most of the rest of county government supporting it. Imagine what you can expect when McGinn will veto any tunnel provision and has shown an ability to get anything that overrides his veto on the ballot.

Finally, this should give you a reason to confront the people who keep saying that the overrun provision is meaningless (while, oddly, not wanting it repealed). I know you don’t share that view, but it’s pretty common.

While this isn’t what you want to spend your time in the special session on, you’ve been given a time crunch by Judge Laura Gene Middaugh. And, of course, you’ve been given a time crunch by the Seattle voters (myself included) who signed the ballot measure. Please make the best of it.

Love,

Carl Ballard

– This piece on how Seattle plans on zoning for medical marijuana is interesting, but it’s more Lee’s than my bailiwick. But I would like to complain about the headline: It’s an online publication so headline space isn’t as valuable as for an actual newspaper. So don’t say “medical pot” say “marijuana” or “cannabis.”

– God damn (h/t, trigger warning).

– Seems like we ought to be able to do 520 right.

– Testing as a way to evaluate teachers is very misguided.

– I loved this interview with Felix Hernandez (h/t).

Quick summary of our last chapter: It’s 2220, and people you don’t care about exist. Space and Science Center. Nap time.

In chapter 2 Quixby dreams of the time he helped invent a jet pack. Or I’m kind of confused if it’s a jet pack or not. Something about wings and birds and play dough, but I’m getting ahead of myself. We start with Boeing recruiting him out of college, but please note, don’t try to make too much sense out of this:

It was inevitable that the first invitation to employment in its laboratories should be Boeing, the world’s largest and most advanced aircraft producer. Boeing executives already knew about his prowess as a fighter pilot in the Air Force three years before entering M.I.T. They had followed his career and knew that as soon as he graduated, he should be welcomed to the aircraft maker’s domain.

So he’s a fighter pilot. And he’s in the military 3 years. My guess is there was a war, that won’t get mentioned again. I mean Quixby made colonial in those 3 years (I assume). While I’m no expert that seems like a very quick rise unless a lot of people above him died (like the boy generals in the Civil War). And he’s a good enough pilot that Boeing wants him for his solo human flight designing skills?

It was left to Quixby to solve the last remaining problem in the design of the revolutionary flying device. The fuel problem had already been solved by Boeing engineers. After years of experimentation, they came up with a combination of hydrogen and three other chemicals that would power the small but sturdy and dependable booster attached to the flying uniform. One more serious hurdle remained: How to sustain flight for hundreds of miles and rise to ordinary flight levels.

H + Some Chemical + Some Other Chemical + Yet Another Chemical → fuel, or something. I feel perhaps there is too much science in this fiction, but I’ll attempt to go on:

Boeing engineers had solved every problem with personal flight except the bit about people flying significant distances. So they had someone with no engineering experience outside of a classroom but who did help us beat the Krouts in WWIX (maybe?) lend a hand. He solved this problem the way everyone solves problems: birdwatching.

It was Quixby and his own research that solved the problem. After diligent studies of the total wing structure of eagles, he determined that, among other things, the project needed a new type of material to simulate the muscle structure of the eagle. It had to be material that was simultaneously strong as steel and supple as play dough.

I don’t care that the in the 21st century we call the product Play-Doh. Maybe it’s called something more boring in the future. Anyway, Quixby’s contribution to the project is having someone else invent a magical substance and another somebody test it out. Anyway, flying is a great success and Boeing patents it. But Quixby in one sentence convinces them to share their patents with anyone else who wants it. I understand that there’s precedent with friction matches. But I’d be more interested in how corporations decide that profit shouldn’t matter than I am with eagles and magical chemicals.

Then Quixby and the Washington Congressional delegation flies from Seattle to DC.

The televised coverage of the seven fliers as they approached the airport in the capital and went in for a smooth landing created a sensation in the United States and in every country in the world. This was no longer the stuff of which science-fiction was made! This was the real thing!

Holy shit, we get it. Science fiction. Is this going to be every chapter?

As soon as the news spread over what had happened, people were calling the Boeing company to ask how much the personal-flight machines cost and how soon they could place an order. Nothing like it had ever been experienced in American or world history. Immediately, political leaders in virtually all the capitals of the world were asking their governments why they hadn’t developed such an extraordinary vehicle.

I like how it’s virtually every capital. In Guzzo’s mind there’s some country, I’m guessing Prussia, that isn’t interested in this but everyone else wants in. And is every other country communist, because otherwise the governments might not be the ones tasked with inventing these things.

Then Guzzo talks about what this did to the economy in pretty much the same manner that he explained it in chapter 1. So we’re out of ideas. Then Jean Marshall wakes Quixby up and tells him to call “General Bennett at the Science Center.” They work for the Space and Science Center, so I feel like Marshall has been through these conversations a lot with a senile George Quixby:

Jean Marshall: General Bennett on the phone.

George Quixby: Who?

Marshall: Our Boss. The commanding general of the Space and Science Center.

Quixby: Right, I work there. Who is this Bennett fellow?

Marshall: He hired you away from Boeing like 30 years ago or whatever.

Quixby: Hey! I used to work for Boeing. Is that where this Bennett person is from?

Marshall: No, please answer the phone. It’s General Bennett of the Science Center.

Quixby: I knew that!

I know I made a lot of assumptions based on what amounts to just shitty writing. But I’m committed for 14 chapters and I think speculating wildly will help speed this thing along. Anyway, end of chapter 2.